turkishdailynews.com.tr

[donha]

This has nothing to do with the elections; this is just another typical religiously motivated harassment of Christians.

[quote]
Greece has criticised a decision by authorities in Turkey's largest city Istanbul to cancel a Sunday concert by one of its most famous artists, folk singer George Dalaras.
"The decision...to cancel at the last minute the planned concert of an internationally renowned artist who is particularly popular in Turkey raises doubts," the Greek foreign ministry said in a statement
The Istanbul governor's office said the concert would be cancelled because Dalaras had not submitted the necessary visa documents in time, the Turkish daily Sabah reported.

But the foreign ministry statement said, "What is presented as justification for this decision sounds like a pretext."
Dalaras, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency, was scheduled to perform in the medieval Turkish fortress Rumeli Hisarý during a conference of Orthodox youth organised by the Istanbul-based Patriarchate.

Both Turkish and Greek media said that Dalaras' outspoken criticism of Turkey's Cyprus policy was also a factor in the cancellation.
"In an interview with Greek channel ET1 six months ago, Dalaras said 'If Cyprus cannot be Greek, then I'm not setting foot in Turkey'," the Turkish Daily news reported.

The singer himself said Turkey's July 22 legislative elections had created a sensitive atmosphere in the Turkish capital.
"I did not expect this, we set out with very good intentions...to sing songs about our two peoples," Dalaras told Net state television.
"I imagine that because we are in an election campaign, perhaps certain people were able to aggravate the situation by writing inaccuracies in the press...and the authorities came under pressure (to cancel the concert)."
[/unquote]

Here the link:
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=78453


And see here, this is the proof:

[quote]
Tuesday July 03, 2007
TURKEY: CONVERTS SUBJECTED TO OFFICIAL HARASSMENT

Local district fines Christians for collecting tithes and offerings.

ISTANBUL, July 3 (Compass Direct News) – In a bizarre twist in the criminal prosecution of two Turkish Christians for “insulting Turkish identity,” an administrative district authority in Istanbul has ordered the converts from Islam fined for “illegal collection of funds.”

Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal, on trial for insulting Turkishness under the nation’s notorious Article 301, were summoned to Istanbul’s Beyoglu police headquarters on Sunday morning (July 1) just before church services began at the Taksim Protestant Church, where Tastan is a member.

“Three plainclothes policemen were waiting for me at the church,” Tastan said, “saying I was wanted at the police station.”
With their lawyer out of town, he telephoned Topal, and the two agreed to go along to the police station.
“I thought probably the police were acting on last week’s Interior Ministry decree,” Tastan told Compass, referring to a June 28 directive sent to all the nation’s governors ordering extra security for Turkey’s religious minorities in the wake of rising violence against non-Muslims. “But it turned out to be something entirely different.”

The two Christians were both presented with a separate “penalty” sheet from the security police division linked to the Beyoglu district, ordering each one to pay 600 Turkish lira (US$461) for breaking a civil law.
According to the one-page decisions, the two men were guilty of violating section 29 of civil administrative code 2860, which forbids the collection of money without official permission from local district authorities.
Evidence of the alleged misdemeanor, the forms noted, was in the hands of the gendarme headquarters in Silivri, 45 miles west of Istanbul, site of the two Christians’ trial. The men were shown no documents or alleged evidence of the accusations against them.
“What is this? Just more harassment,” Topal told Compass. Both he and Tastan have been subjected to surveillance and even secret filming by Turkish gendarme and police authorities over the past year.

“This is ridiculous,” the men’s attorney, Haydar Polat, told Compass today. “It has nothing whatever to do with the original case against my clients. Now we will have to open a case against this administrative order within 15 days, and it will take at least a year to get these unsubstantiated charges dropped.”
At a previous hearing in January, leading prosecution attorney Kemal Kerincsiz had accused the congregation of Tastan’s church of breaking Turkish laws by collecting offerings without official permission from local civil authorities.

Former Muslims who converted to Christianity more than a decade ago, Tastan and Topal were arrested for two days last October and then put on trial before the Silivri Criminal Court in late November.
In addition to charges under Article 301’s restrictions on freedom of speech, the two Christians are accused of reviling Islam (Article 216) and secretly compiling files on private citizens for a local Bible course (Article 135).

‘Poisoning Youth’
Before the Christians’ third trial hearing on April 18, prosecutor Kerincsiz spoke at length to journalists gathered outside the Silivri courthouse about the case.
Deploring changes in Turkish law that he said “removed missionary work from being a crime” in Turkey, the ultranationalist lawyer called the two Christians part of a “dangerous group.”
“They have a large amount of money from an unknown source,” Kerincsiz was quoted as saying in an April 18 report from Ihlas News Agency.

Claiming they had “poisoned hundreds of youth” over the last two years, the lawyer demanded that the government take action against them. He claimed the defendants lived luxurious lives, using everything from expensive cars and sexual temptations to deceive young people in grade school and high school into converting to Christianity.
In court, however, Kerincsiz has failed to produce any solid evidence of these allegations.

During the hour-long hearing on April 18, a representative from the regional gendarme headquarters that ordered the initial investigation testified, along with one of the teenage boys accusing the converts.
A 17-year-old identified as Oguz Y. took the witness stand for the prosecution, although he admitted under questioning that the defendants had never forced him to change his religion or join in their activities.
At the close of the hearing, the presiding judge warned local police that he would open a contempt case against them if they failed to produce all three of the plaintiffs at the next hearing, set for July 18. The trial will take place in the tense run-up week before Turkey’s snap parliamentary elections on July 22.

Despite a large media contingent on the scene, national coverage of the Silivri trial was muted the following day, after news broke that same afternoon of the brutal murder in Malatya of three Christians.
The two converts from Islam and a German Christian had been tortured for several hours at a Christian publishing house office before the five young attackers slit their throats.

Ankara Warns Court
But two days later, the nationalist Yeni Cag newspaper reported on the Silivri trial with a front-page banner headline, “Missionary Fear,” followed by an inside page headlined, “The trial that scares the [Justice] Ministry.” According to a Justice Ministry communiqué partially reprinted in Yeni Cag’s April 20 edition, the Turkish government warned the Silivri court that news about the case in the international press could cause the European Union to “call us to account.”

The Silivri court was reportedly requested to send copies of the indictment and the complete case file to the Justice Ministry in Ankara.
More than 300 of Turkey’s writers, journalists, historians and other intellectuals have been indicted under Article 301 for defaming “Turkishness,” a concept which remains undefined.
A majority of the country’s influential nationalist factions supporting this law also oppose Turkey’s bid to enter the European Union (EU), warning that Europe wants to force Western values and reforms onto Turkey that are contrary to its Muslim heritage.
The EU has demanded that Turkey either scrap or amend the restrictive law to meet European standards of freedom of speech.
[/unquote]

Here is the link:
http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news&lang=en&length=long&idelement=4927&backpage=archives

A real case for the European human rights court, I should think. They should throw the book at Turkey.
_________________
Have a nice day!
donha

[ada]

this is just another typical religiously motivated harassment of Christians...
???? Is it really?

your typical religiously motivated comment makes me sick. are you paid to act this way or are you seriously ins.ne to come here and write these comments? what is the reason of your biassed and hateful reactions? dont you have anything better to do, for god's sake?

god, I really wonder why a person in the netherlands is so motivated to make comments on a turkish news site. cant he/she find anything else to do?

if you are so eager to protect Chrisitanity, try to protect it in your dirty red streets of Amsterdam and stop poisoning your own people with drugs.

[donha]

[quote]
this is just another typical religiously motivated harassment of Christians...
???? Is it really?
[/unquote]

Yes it is!
And if you don’t wish to see what is blatantly obvious then you are even more religiously biased.

I have lived for some years in the ME and believe me thats where the really religiously biased people are.
I also live in a country that is slowly being swamped by immigrants with an Islamic background. Most do not wish to integrate. Many are quite prepared to accept the welfare benefits while denouncing their benefactors as unbelievers and unclean, publicly.

Most drugs that arrive in the Netherlands come through Turkey. This is well known. A lot of these drugs originate in Islamic controlled countries, this is also well known.

Sorry if this all makes you feel sick but they do say that the truth hurts.
_________________
Have a nice day!
donha