Turkey's Dictatorship Rising

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

The attempted coup awakened the Islamic beast in Turkey and sent shock waves around the world.  Some have suggested Turkish President Edogan engineered the coup to solidify his power.  Now that that the perpetrators have been caught, and are being tortured, the surge of Islam in Turkey is turning against the Christian population.  

A member of NATO, Turkey is also in the middle of an application to the European Union, promising to help stem the tide of Muslim refugees.  The chaos and rise of Islamism in Turkey leads this writer to believe that the promise is an empty one.

Turkey's 85,000 mosques have sprung into action.  After the death of about 240 from both sides, and 1,400 injuries, hardline Muslim Sunnis have been whipped into a frenzy, and are now targeting Turkey’s Christian community.

Gangs circled one church in Malatya. The Protestant church was surrounded as the Muslims shouted “Allahu akbar.”  They smashed the church's glass frontage.

In the Black Sea city of Trabzon others attacked the Santa Maria church, smashing windows and using hammers to break down its door.

The events of that Saturday night were not new for either city. In 2007, three Christian employees of a publishing house for bibles in Malatya were attacked. After being tortured, their hands and feet were tied and their throats cut by five Muslim assailants.

A year earlier Father Andrea Santoro, a 61-year-old Roman Catholic priest, was murdered in the Santa Maria Church. Father Santoro was shot from behind while kneeling in prayer in the church. Witnesses heard the murderer, aged 16, shouting “Allahu Akbar”.

Turkey, which once boasted two million Christians, has barely 120,000 now, fewer even than Iran.

Turkey has a history of being a secular republic, but the spark of Islamism has been lighted.  Turkey’s 117,000 Sunni imams are working together.

“The reality is that Turkey is neither a democracy nor a secular republic,” said Yuce Kabakci, a pastor in Istanbul. “There is no division between government affairs and religious affairs.”

Some have observed that if it wasn't before, Turkey is becoming fully an Islamic theocracy.

Tax money subsidizes the Diyanet, the department in charge of religious affairs.  The governmental department boasts an £1.1billion annual budget, part of which goes to pay imams’ salaries.

The minister in charge is directly appointed by the president. And it is a sermon written by department chiefs that imams read out on Fridays. One sermon warned that Turks should not befriend Jewish people or Christians because they serve the West.

“There’s no doubt that the government uses the mosques to get its message across to its grassroots supporters,” said Mr Kabakci. “There’s is an atmosphere in Turkey right now that anyone who isn’t Sunni is a threat to the stability of the nation” he added.

“Even the educated classes here don’t associate personally with Jews or Christians. It’s more than suspicion. It’s a case of ‘let’s get rid of anyone who isn’t Sunni’.”

Following the attempted coup, about 50,000 soldiers, academics, journalists and government officials have been detained.  Thousands of Turkish soldiers have been 'RAPED and STARVED' after the failed coup.

Many in Turkey don’t consider joining the European Union worth the price of admission, he said. Nato is viewed as a Western club. Erdogan has threatened to re-introduce the death penalty and has already overturned the ban on women wearing the hijab in Government buildings. 

“Turkey is like Iran in 1975,” said one Iranian in Istanbul. “I’m sure we will see it become an Islamic Republic very soon. “But Erdogan is clever. He will survive.”

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary