Turkey

“The bipartisan US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which grouped Turkey among 15 other nations in its ‘countries of particular concern’ category for its ‘systematic and egregious limitations’ of religious freedoms, has been divided over the decision,” Today’s Zaman reports.

“Turkey, considered a key U.S. ally in the war on terror, has been placed on a U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) list of worst religious offenders, alongside countries such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea,” the Christian Post reports.

“A new monthly Turkish-Syriac journal, “Sabro” (“Hope”), will hit the shelves this week, marking the first time in the history of the Turkish Republic that a Syriac Christian newspaper will enter circulation,” Hürriyet Daily News reports.

“During testimony before two key U.S. House Committees [on Thursday], Secretary Clinton was pressed on a range of concerns to Armenian Americans, including, most prominently, her recent remarks misrepresenting the Armenian Genocide, as well as calls for Turkey’s return of confiscated Christian churches,” News.am reports.

"Court sets a week of court hearings in April for witness testimony," Compass Direct News reports.

"Greek Orthodox patriarch expresses concerns for Christians in Turkey," Compass Direct News reports.

“The Turkish government is not opposed to opening of a seminary to raise Christian clerics provided it is subsumed under the authority of the Higher Education Board (YÖK),” PanArmenian.net reports.

“On Monday, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I and representatives of Turkey's Arameans submitted their proposals to a sub-commission of the inter-party Constitutional Reconciliation Commission. Their utmost concern was equal citizenship rights,” Today’s Zaman reports.

“The spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians said Monday that Turkey's new constitution should grant equal rights to minorities in the country and safeguard religious freedoms,” The Associated Press reports.

“The prosecutions of - among others - a cartoonist, a contributor to a website, and the publisher of a diary have raised concerns about how the complementary human rights of freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief can be exercised in Turkey,” Forum 18 News Service reports.

Textbooks, media vilify followers of Christ; intolerance an ‘urgent problem.’

“A residence for the watchman, a room to bathe the bodies of the dead and a place of worship were pulled down when nobody in charge of the cemetery was around on Thursday. The municipality officials said the place of worship was being built without official permission, and argued that there was nothing illegal about the demolishment,” Today’s Zaman reports.

 Mohabat News reported that Ranjbar said, "Then the employer and several other workers attacked and beat me before spilling hot water all over my body."

"The court delivered such a terrible judgment, in which they went so far as to say that there was no “organization” behind this murder."

“In recent years, Turkey has been shaken by the murders of a number of prominent non-Muslims… [including] three Protestant missionaries [who] were brutally murdered, bound to chairs, tortured and stabbed at the Zirve Publishing House in the eastern province of Malatya before their throats were slit,” Sunday’s Zaman reports.

“The French Senate was scheduled Monday to debate a bill that would make it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered genocide at the hand of Ottoman Turks during World War I,” Monsters and Critics reports.