Turkey, Key US Ally, Added to List of Worst Religious Freedom Offenders

Yes, you’ve read that right.  The country that has become “a useful model for new Arab regimes” has now been added to the list of worst religious freedom offenders in the world. Alongside Egypt who now vows to one day kill all Jews, this is a nation that the Obama Administration is now actively arming, a nation that now makes verbal attacks against Israel “a central feature” of its political discourse. Welcome to the “new” face of “moderate Islam” …

By Stoyan Zaimov – “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 – once known as the ‘axis of evil,’ a phrase coined by former U.S. President George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11.

In the last few years, Turkey was present on USCIRF’s watch-list of countries that might be committing religious suppression, but its latest report, released in March and covering the period between April 1, 2011 and Feb. 29, 2012, has placed the Eastern European nation on its list of ‘countries of particular concern’ category for its ‘systematic and egregious limitations’ of religious freedoms.

This now puts Turkey in the same category as the ‘axis of evil’ governments, along with Tajikistan, Myanmar, Egypt, Eritrea, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

The main reason for Turkey’s placement on the list has been cited as the country’s treatment of its Christian minority, which is constantly targeted and discriminated against. Christians are a distinct minority in Turkey – the CIA World Factbook reveals that Muslims make up 99.8 percent of the near-80 million population, while Christians and Jews account for only 0.2 percent.” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey: Muslims Subjecting More Christians to Discrimination and Attacks, Followers of Christ Vilified in Media, Textbooks – “Despite some promising developments, Christians in Turkey continue to suffer attacks from private citizens, discrimination by lower-level government officials and vilification in both school textbooks and news media, according to a study by a Protestant group. In its annual ‘Report on Human Rights Violations,’ released in January, the country’s Association of Protestant Churches notes mixed indicators of improvement but states that there is a ‘root of intolerance’ in Turkish society toward adherents of non-Islamic faiths.” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey: From Churches to Mosques, See What Happens When a Secular State is Taken Over by Islamists – “A story in today’s International Herald Tribune (read here on the New York Times website) provides an interesting insight into exactly what happens when a secular state is taken over by Islamists. The piece concerned the Hagia Sophia of Iznik, an ancient church that brought 40,000 tourists to the town south of Istanbul much to the delight of the locals. Iznik was once known as Nicaea, and it was there the first Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church met at the Hagia Sophia in the year 325. But the Islamist government of Turkey has put a damper on the prosperity of those who profited from the museum by formally converting the building into a mosque.” Read more.