Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist party, Turkey has gradually moved away from its historic role as a bridge between East and West and has further intensified persecution of Christians, said ICC, the International Christian Concern organization.
In June, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom held hearings on Turkey before Congress, at which prominent analysts spoke. Turkey had long been one of the most moderate Islamic countries with religious minorities. But over the past decades their numbers have dwindled, given the frequent clashes and persecutions.
Prominent academic figure Mustafa Akyol told Congress that the “Justice and Development” party, by bypassing freedom reforms, has become a suspicious and authoritarian party that sees Western influence and imaginary fifth-column conspiracies everywhere.
Lisel Hintz, director of the international relations program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, noted that in today’s Turkey, the mass of Turkish citizens clearly predominates. “To be a good Turk, one must not simply be a Muslim but a Sunni Muslim,” she said.
ICC representatives Colton Grell and Alisa Hayes insisted that secular Turkey is showing a desire to become a Sunni Islamic state. “Although religious persecution is more restrained compared to other Sunni countries, the country is gradually heading toward the East.”
They cited the case of Reverend Andrew Brunson, who also testified before Congress. The Turkish government accused Brunson of espionage and imprisoned him for two years. In any case, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded earlier this year that Brunson was persecuted for being a Christian and a United States citizen.
Brunson is not the only Christian subjected to such pressure. “The Turkish government has accelerated the expulsion of foreigners from Turkey,” the clergyman said during the hearings.
“In recent years, more than 50 evangelical families have been forced to leave the country.”
According to Brunson, all this creates an uneasy situation for Christians in Turkey. He even predicted that “the expulsion of church leaders from the country is a sign of dark times.”
Former Turkish parliamentarian Aykan Erdemir noted that the Turkish government has used the restoration of government-funded Christian churches as a pretext to bring them under control. In addition, Erdogan has proposed that the Hagia Sophia cathedral be converted into a mosque enjoying UNESCO protection.
