Reuters AlertNet Lite - Attackers stone Turkish church

Reuters AlertNet Full site

NEWSDESK

Attackers stone Turkish church

28 Jan 2007 15:32:31 GMT
Source: Reuters

ISTANBUL, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Unidentified attackers threw stones at a church in the northern Turkish town of Samsun on Sunday in the latest attack on Christians in predominantly Muslim Turkey, Anatolian news agency said.

Windows were broken but Mehmet Orhan Picakcilar, a priest at the Agape Church, was quoted as saying there were no casualties.

"This does damage to Turkey. This attack depicts Turkey in a bad way before international public opinion," Picakcilar said.

The attack happened hours after a nationalist protester with a handgun made a brief attempt to hijack a commuter ferry in the Dardanelles strait on Saturday.

Passengers said he had been angered by pro-Armenian sentiment in Turkey after the Jan. 19 killing of the Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink, which prompted large pro-Armenian protests.

Growing nationalism among young people from Turkey's Black Sea towns has come under the spotlight since the teenager suspected of killing Dink and his alleged supporters were found to have come from the town of Trabzon.

A Catholic priest was killed in his church in Trabzon last February by a Turkish teenager. The killing was believed to have been part of protests in Islamic countries against cartoons in Danish newspapers that mocked Prophet Mohammad.

Christians in secular Turkey -- Armenians, Greeks, Syriacs, Catholics, some Evangelical denominations and Jehovah's Witnesses -- make up less than one percent of the country's 72 million people.

AlertNet news is provided by

Email this article Send comments

Countries

Small country map
© 2004 Europa Technologies Ltd.

Reset map

• Turkey profile
· View map

MORE >>

Latest news

• Attackers stone Turkish church

• Armed man held after Turkish ferry hijack bid

• Turkey jails gang that plotted to kill Bush-agency

• FEATURE-Murders spark soul-searching in sleepy Black Sea town

• Hunters seek new frontiers in Russia, Mongolia

MORE >>

Last updated:Sun Jan 28 15:33:25 2007