Cyber threats and physical attacks against people and churches are among the hate crimes suffered by the Protestant Church in Turkey, according to its latest Human Rights Violations report.
Freedom of religion continued to be violated in Turkey during 2015, a report conducted by the Association of Protestant Churches has found.
Approximately 20 church leaders and 15 churches received "threatening messages" in the second half of 2015. The report documented five examples of messages, including one that said: "You perverted pagans, the time for us to shoot you in the neck is near. We swear by Allah cc."
There has been no development in arresting the perpetrators, "despite making known the content of the threats, the telephone numbers, email addresses, Facebook profiles and YouTube links of those making the threats in an official complaint and despite the topic being addressed on September 7 in a press release at the Parliament and a request for action", the report said.
The report also documented accounts of physical attacks directed towards Protestants and church buildings.
On September 10, a man went to Ankara Batikent Bereket Church, "used profanity and other insults and struck the church leader". Despite the man being taken to the police station, he was let go. He later returned to the church and "threatened the church leader in order to shut down the church". Despite being notified again, the police did not come, the report claims, and the pastor was forced to close the church.
The pastor of the Izmir Torbali Baptist Church was "shot at several times with a hunting rifle from the forest while he and his family worked in the field". A sermon at the local mosque containing hate speech broadcast on the loudspeaker, "loud enough for the pastor to hear, led the pastor to believe the shots fired were deliberate". Although he informed the police, they took no action.
There were several other examples of similar abuses documented in the report.
Alongside these attacks and threats, the Protestant church in Turkey continues to face other forms of discrimination.
Despite protestations that it provokes discrimination, the use of the 'religion blank' on identity cards continued in 2015. It is obligatory for Turks to declare a faith, or leave the section blank.
"Declaring your faith increases the risk of facing discrimination in every arena of life," according to the report. Although there is an option to leave the box blank, the problem remains as "those who want to be exempt from mandatory religious instruction do not have the right to leave the religion line blank because they have to prove they are Christian in order for their children to be exempt from religion classes".
The report also says that the Protestant Church has been excluded from official dialogue: "No protestant community or church representative was invited to meetings of invited religious groups organised by the government or by official organisations," despite efforts on their part.
Turkey is a Muslim majority country, with Christians making up around 100,000 of the 80 million-strong population.
