‘Forgive them’ say wives of Turkish martyrs

The wives of three men – two converts and a German missionary murdered for being Christian on 18 April - immediately issued statements saying they forgave the killers, and insisting they will remain in Malatya with their children.

Reports from the church at Izmir – the biblical Smyrna - a Turkish province 300 miles northeast of Antioch, where believers were first called Christians (Acts 11:26).– indicate the increasing degree of heroism required to stand for the Gospel.

In a message that hit front pages in the largest newspapers in Turkey, Susanne Tilman, wife of the murdered German Bible translator Tilman Geske, 46, said on TV that she did not want revenge. ‘Oh God, forgive them for they know not what they do,’ she said, echoing the words of Christ on Calvary (Luke 23:34).

Her courage prompted a wave of sympathy in a country where revenge is the norm, and prompted one columnist to write: ‘She said in one sentence what a thousand missionaries in a thousand years could never do.’

The courage of the wives is in stark contrast to the behaviour of the five young killers, all under 20, who claimed they acted in the name of their religion.

The two Turkish former Muslims, Necati Aydin, 36, pastor of the local protestant church and Ugur Yuksel, 32, were tied to chairs, and tortured during an ordeal that lasted three hours - before having their throats slit. The third man, Tilman Geske, worked with a well-known international Bible translation group, and was the first to die.

The event was filmed by the assailants on mobile phones.

Reports spoke of police hearing ‘a strange snarling sound’ coming from the room as they tried to break the door down.

Onlookers also spoke of the ringleader Emre Gunaydin – now in hospital after falling from the drainpipe he was attempting to escape by – snarling as he lay on the ground. Demonic possession often takes animal characteristics.

All three martyrs worked for the Zirve publishing house that produces Bibles and knew their assailants, who were young men aged between 19 and 20 and who had been invited to the building for a morning Bible study after attending the Protestant church.

The degree of state collusion in the murders, going back years is disturbing. In April 2001, the National Security Council of Turkey (Milli Guvenlik Kurulu) denounced evangelical Christians as a threat to national security, equal to Al Qaeda and PKK terrorists. Press statements by political leaders, columnists and commentators have since fuelled hatred against missionaries whom they claim bribe young people to change their religion.

Attacks and threats on churches, pastors and Christians have escalated. Bombings, physical attacks, verbal and written abuse have all targeted Christians. Most significant has been the use of media propaganda.

From December 2005, after a long meeting to discuss ‘the Christian threat’, the wife of Former Prime Minister Ecevit, historian Ilber Ortayli, Professor Hasan Unsal, politician Ahmet Tan and writer/propagandist Aytunc Altindal, each in their own profession, began a campaign to bring the public's attention to the so-called threat of Christians who sought to ‘buy their children's souls’. Hidden cameras in churches have taken church service footage and been used sensationally to promote fear and antagonism toward Christianity.

Meanwhile, in the UK, media reaction to the killings has been muted, with little of the detail being published in the press which prefers to regard the horror as an isolated and aberrant incident in a remote and extremist part of Turkey –home town of the Pope’s would-be assassin. This is despite the fact that the killers all belonged to the same tarikat or group of faithful believers, shared the same dormitory and were not thugs, but were preparing for university entrance. Tarikat membership is highly respected in Turkey and public office is difficult without membership.

The missionary church in UK reacted more strongly. Revd Jay Smith, a pacifist and missionary with Ploughshares International, who leads a team of evangelists at Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park, London and teaches at university campuses around the world said: ‘Murder in the name of Islam will continue until the Qur’an is recognized by governments as its cause.

‘The mode of slitting the throat is advocated in the Qur’an for jihadis. It’s not surprising if idealistic young Muslims, searching for meaning, follow their holy book for ideas.’

An identical note found in the pockets of each alleged killer said: ‘We did this for our country. . . We did this for our religion. May this be a lesson for the enemies of religion.’

The method of killing has sinister echoes of Surah 47:4-6 in the Qur’an.

The text states (verse 4 in the more widely respected Yusuf Ali translation): ‘Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers, Smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly…But those who are slain in the way of Allah, He will never let their deeds be lost … And admit them to the Garden which He has announced for them.”

Said Mr Smith: ‘The Malatya killers needed look no further than their own scriptures for justification of these horrific acts – which they are led to believe will bring them honour from God. We in the West need to wake up to the fact that radicalism is inspired by the Qur’an. Jihad is their religion, and these barbaric acts are commended and will continue.’

Turkish Christian leaders of both Armenian and protestant churches regularly face intimidation, negative propaganda and even beatings – yet stay to minister to their flock and provide a witness despite a mass exodus that has seen numbers dwindle to just 100,000 since the last official count for the Lausanne Treaty in 1923. There are said to be just 3,500 evangelical protestants –mostly converts from Islam - in a total population of 71.1million Muslims [source: BBC Online].

So dangerous is the country for mission workers, that they use a code name when referring to it in prayer material.

That a foreign Christian was also killed – he was stabbed 156 times - is causing equal concern to the expatriate community. Tilman Geske was well-known to the close-knit Protestant church in Turkey. Said one of the congregation who cannot be named: ‘Tilman was a quiet man, very musical, one who lived and showed the love of God. He was the first to have his throat slit.’

Turkey seems incapable of offering reassurance that it can protect its minorities, those who work with or even write about them. The murder on 19 January this year of writer Hrant Dink who had been convicted in 2005 of the ‘crime’ of insulting Turkish identity by writing about the Armenian genocide in 1915, and given a suspended prison sentence, casts a dark shadow over a country bidding for EU member status.

Britain is leading calls for Turkey’s EU membership – described at a parliamentary meeting by Egyptian author Bat Ye’or, whose book Eurabia was published in 2005 by Associated University Presses, as a ‘catastrophe’.