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  After the Missionary Massacre: Christian Converts Live In Fear in Intolerant Turkey

After the Missionary Massacre Christian Converts Live In Fear in Intolerant Turkey

By Annette Grossbongardt in Istanbul

Part 3: 'We Are Experiencing a Witch Hunt'

"We are experiencing a witch hunt straight out of the Middle Ages, and the Malatya victims were certainly not the last," complains Ihsan Özbek, the chairman of the Salvation Church, a union of Protestant groups which claims to have 5,000 members throughout Turkey. "We are portrayed as traitors and potential criminals," he says. Tensions are so high that Özbek warns that it has become very dangerous to be called a missionary. "That would be the equivalent of a death sentence these days," he says.

Christians are reporting efforts to file lawsuits against supposed missionaries, even though proselytizing is not officially against the law in Turkey. In fact, the opposite is true. It is against the law in Turkey -- theoretically, at least -- to prevent anyone from practicing or disseminating his faith. But creative approaches are sometimes taken to prosecuting unpopular infidels, says attorney Orhan Cengiz. In Silivri, a town west of Istanbul, two converts are currently on trial for the uniquely Turkish offense of "insulting Turkishness" and for "incitement of religious hatred," both considered crimes under the notorious Article 301 of the country's penal code.

Necati Aydin, a local pastor and one of the publishing company employees murdered in the Malatya killings, had already been arrested once before for distributing Bibles and religious pamphlets. "Villagers claimed that Aydin and his colleagues had insulted Islam," says his attorney. They were charged with distributing "propaganda against religious freedom."

One of the most difficult positions is that of Turkish converts who turn their backs on the "true faith." Sociologist Behnan Konutgan, 54, converted to Christianity while still a student. "While all my fellow students were constantly reading the Koran, I had a Bible sent to me," he recalls. "I read the New Testament with excitement." Konutgan now works as a pastor and is translating the Bible. "Society is our problem, not the laws," he says, describing his own experiences. "The church is perceived as an enemy."

The murdered Christians were members of Malatya's small Protestant community, which included a few foreigners like Tilman Geske and 15 Turks who have converted from Islam to Christianity. The liberal newspaper Radikal estimates that there are about 10,000 converts in Turkey, expressing surprise that they could be seen as a "threat" in a country of 73 million people, 99 percent of whom are Muslim.

But it seems that this is exactly the case. According to an opinion poll, 59 percent of Turks favor taking legal action against missionaries, and more than 40 percent said they would not want Christian Armenians or Greeks as neighbors.

Tilman Geske was buried last Friday in his adopted Turkish home of Malatya. In an interview on Turkish television, his wife Susanne said that he was a "martyr for Jesus" and that she would pray for forgiveness for his killers.

Ugur Yüksel, one of the two Turkish Christian employees murdered with Geske, had already been interred. Unlike Geske, though, he had been given a Muslim burial, admitted a spokesman from the local Protestant community: "His family insisted on it."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan