Christian Retreat - Turkey

December 2010

Diba is a Christian who left Turkey 23 years ago after Muslims killed her brother. Today she returns , hoping she can live there in peace. What she finds is a smaller Christian community still living with fear and uncertainty?

"It was much better here before. We were with thousands. All churches were full. But now our people are gone", says Diba as she pores over her photos of a now disappearing culture. Her face expresses the immeasurable sadness of a vanishing people. Despite her return the future looks bleak for the remaining Assyrian Christians in Turkey. While Turkey claims to be a secular country intolerance still abounds. "What the issue is here, is that there is no real mentality of freedom of religion. There is just one religion here, Islam". says Ria Oomen-Ruijten, a representative of the European Union in Turkey, as she explains the frequent attacks on Christians in Turkey; one man was attacked by a fundamentalist with a knife in broad daylight on a street in Istanbul. It is this culture of intolerance that is driving the remaining Monks from Dor Gabriel, one of the oldest sanctuaries of the Turkish Christian community. Yet Diba is not about to give up. She sees a different future for Christians in Turkey and is willing to fight for it. "Our dream? We will fight for our land. We will stay on our land. That is what we will try".

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• turkey
• christian
• religion
• muslim
• murder
• family
• journeyman
• pictures
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman pictures

[Ekimoglu]

@kyriacos40 You are retarded. Have you even ever been to Turkey? Nobody gets away with killing anyone here, and Turkey is a country with Muslims, not an 'Islamic Country', it is a 'Secular Country'. I've lived in Turkey for years and years, visited churches, been to school with Christians, etc etc etc. Many Muslim Turks even wear crosses because they think its 'cool'. Why are they not attacked if Turks are so vicious against Christians? This is all a pathetic pile of shit.

[kyriacos40]

@MatrixOfDynamism Thats bull shit the laws protect all when it comes to freedom of relgion.In a a country like Turkey a christian can be tormented and even killed and get away with it.There is no laws protecting people of different faiths in Islamic countries.Oh and if you say is true why do many Islamic people come to America?I do not seek out muslims and torment them in my country.This is stupid comment you said

[CrescentisRising]

@TurkiyeCumhurbaskani Prove it.

[CrescentisRising]

@tekmedeninsan Doesn't surprise me at all. You never attacked soldiers instead tried to genocide Turkish civilians. You tried to make Russians, French and English to fight and get you your country. Most of you live in the US and Europe even though there is an Armenian state. You always smile in our faces but backstab us to this day everywhere I ran into your kind. You claim to be Turkish and spread lies instead of standing your ground and speaking your mind. You are definitely no Turk.

[CrescentisRising]

@tekmedeninsan The fact that you say we should compensate them tells me you are not a Muslim Turk as you claim to be because Armenians have been trying to follow Jews in their footsteps of screaming genocide then getting a land and money because they are too cowardly and weak to get it like all the other great nations of the world. This is Armenian policy to lie about history so they can get what is not theirs and what they don't deserve. You are defending a textbook Armenian policy!

[CrescentisRising]

@tekmedeninsan Go learn your history if you are Turkish. These people you wanna apologize from have joined the invading Russian armies during WW1 and massacred local populations. Tashnak Terrorist organizations armed by the French were putting wooden stakes thru people and leaving them on road sides so the Turkish population would run away. After a millenia of living unharmed they rebelled when we were invaded by all these countries. Whats that say about these backstabbers?

[MatrixOfDynamism]

@serpentphoenix do it today. The early you do it the better, you hate filled bigot. So much for the Love you christians are always talking about. All pure talking, no action at all. What pure hypocrites you christians really are SHAME ON YOU. Where is the turn your other cheek, love your enemy part eh?

[MatrixOfDynamism]

@kyriacos40 Islam has been in many lands for 1000+ years and the Jews and Christians exist there still because Islam makes their life and property santified, they are allowed to practice their religion. Muslims have been in Europe, America e.t.c for about 1/2 century and already antiIslamic hate and propaganda has shot through the roof. HAHAHA so much for all the equalities. People Mathew 7:3-5 really fits in here.

[MatrixOfDynamism]

@bugzy1231 you forgot the part of burning people alive (like witches) and enslaving blacks and torcher chambers (for heretics - Jews and Muslims are also in this category) that the Catholic state (not the normal people) have fully utilized in the past and will do in the present and future if possible.

[MatrixOfDynamism]

@IC1101 these people don't care about the "other side" because this is only for propaganda purpose, not for public information. Even when Jews and Christians have lived in muslim lands for 1000+ years and are still present only because of the reason that Islam infact recognized Christians and Jews as Ahle-Kitab and not as heathens/infidels/heretics that are to burnt at stake or beheaded, there is still a huge propaganda showing these middle eastern ahleKitab as being under "Islamic threat".