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Turkey: Anti-Christian billboards in central Konya province spark fury

October 28, 2019

Persecution of Christians in Turkey: the calculated disrespect that these billboards demonstrate toward Christians and Jews, and the disregard they show for Turkey’s Christian heritage, is an indication of the pervasive influence of the government’s hostility toward the Christian community in Turkey and the Ecumenical Patriarchate in particular. The producers of these billboards should have heeded the Ecumenical Patriarch’s message of mutual respect and welcomed Christians and Jews; instead, they printed these unfortunate billboards.

The Order reiterates our hope that the international human rights community will direct its attention to the plight of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and of all Christians and other religious minorities in Turkey, and that the Turkish government will heed the repeated calls to grant full religious freedom to its embattled Christian minority.

For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in Turkey, see here.

“Anti-Christian, Jewish billboards in Turkey’s central Konya province spark fury,” Ahval News, October 21, 2019:

Anti-Christian and anti-Jewish posters found hanging on billboards in Turkey’s central conservative province of Konya have sparked public outrage.

The billboards which belong to the Konya’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) municipality contain a verse from the Qur’an calling upon believers to abstain from befriending Christians and Jews.

“…Do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people,’’ the posters say, citing Quranic chapter five, verse 51….