Three Bible publishers killed

2007-04-18 17:55

Daren Butler and Mustafa Yukselbaba

Diyarbakir - Attackers on Wednesday slit the throats of three people in a Turkish publishing house that printed Bibles, the latest attack on minorities in mainly Muslim Turkey, said officials

The victims were found with their hands and feet bound, said governor Halil Ibrahim Dasoz.

He said one of the victims may have been German, but the embassy could not confirm it.

Four people were detained in connection with the attack in the southeastern city of Malatya, said the governor.

The killings come as political tensions rise between the powerful secular elite, including army generals and judges, and the religious minded AK Party government over next month's presidential elections.

Two people were taken to hospital, one with stab wounds and another with a head trauma caused by falling from the building, said Murat Cem Miman, the chief doctor of a local hospital.

A wave of nationalism

Television pictures showed police wrestling one man to the ground and leading several men - apparently in their teens - out of the building in Malatya.

A wave of nationalism has swept the secular but predominantly Muslim country in the past year.

Earlier this year Armenian-Turkish editor Hrant Dink was shot to death by an ultranationalist youth. Dink was also from Malatya.

A historic visit to Turkey by Pope Benedict last year was prefaced by protests in Istanbul and followed a rise in violence against Christian clergy.

For some Turkish nationalists Christian missionaries are seen as enemies of Turkey working to undermine its political and religious institutions.

An official from the publishing house, which also printed other Christian literature, told local television that they had received threats because of its publications.

The government and other officials in Turkey have in the past criticised Christian missionary work while the European Union, which Turkey hopes to join, has called for more freedom for the tiny Christian minority.

Threats against converts

"It's too early to say but the attack appears to be the work of Islamists," said Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based expert on Turkish security matters.

"There are generally a lot of threats against Christians in Turkey, primarily against Turkish converts."

He said the last serious attack against Turkish Christians was most likely in 1997 when the then-active Islamist Vasat movement bombed a Bible bookstand in the southeast, killing one child and injuring dozens.

Early last year an Italian priest was shot dead - also by a youth - in the Black Sea port of Trabzon which coincided with worldwide protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.

- Reuters