Turkey's fight against Islamism

Some days ago 3 Christians were killed after being tortured in the central city of Malatya:

The three victims — a German and two Turkish citizens — were found with their hands and legs bound and their throats slit at the Zirve publishing house in the central city of Malatya.
Police detained four youths, aged 19-20, and also suspect a fifth, who underwent surgery for head injuries sustained apparently in trying to escape by jumping from a window at Zirve, authorities said.
The five suspects had each had been carrying copies of a letter that read "We five are brothers. "We are going to our deaths. We may not return," according to the state-run Anatolia news agency.

[...] In February 2006, a Turkish teenager shot a Catholic priest dead as he prayed in his church, and two other Catholic priests were attacked later that year. A November visit by Pope Benedict XVI was greeted by several nonviolent protests. Earlier this year, a suspected nationalist killed Armenian Christian editor Hrant Dink.

[...] The manner in which the victims were bound suggested the attack could have been the work of a local Islamic militant group, commentators said, and CNN-Turk television reported that police were investigating the possible involvement of Turkish Hezbollah — a Kurdish Islamic organization that aims to form a Muslim state in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast.
Turkish Hezbollah — which has been known to "hog-tie" its victims while torturing them — takes its name from the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, but has no formal links to it. Turkish authorities recently said they were witnessing an increase in the group's activities.

The Middle East Times [h/t The Belmont Club] reported about the torture inflicted on the victims:

"He had scores of knife cuts on his thighs, his testicles, his rectum, and his back," Ugras said. "His fingers were sliced to the bone. "It is obvious that these wounds had been inflicted to torture him," he said.

[...] The abuse lasted for three hours as the five men detained at the crime scene interrogated the three on their missionary activities, they said.

But there is another thing to worry about h/t NoisyRoom.Net:

Even though both Turks who died on Wednesday had abandoned Islam and converted to Christianity, Ugur Yuksel was buried as a Muslim.

More in Kattolikko Pensiero.

The Turkish PM Erdogan considered this "a brutality". But the fact that he have elected his friend Abdullah Gül to substitute him (Erdogan is retiring from active politics) has caused a terrible political storm.

Gül is what MSM call a moderate Muslim. His wife wears the veil -she could not study at University because of that- and his daughter wears a wig instead of hijab, not to show her hair attending the Unversity classes. [In the Atatürk founded state, based on modern secularism, women who wear hijabs are forbidden to attend any official/public gathering/office.

Lots of Turks began demonstrating against the naming of Gül h/t C&R. The Jawa Report has a video in this post.

The Turkish Army, guardian of the secularism, spoke to warn against any movements that would make secularism disappear from Turkey. The Government told the Army that the military chief answers to the Prime Minister...

And the EU "warned Turkish Army over vote":

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said the controversy was a test case for
the military to respect democracy.

So it is true that they are seeing it better an moderate Islamist Turkey than a military held secular Government. I wonder what they would say if any Catholic country would be in the same position...

At the same time,I think they are searching for a reason not to admit Turkey in EU. I mean, if Turkey would be a real stable secularist country with no kind of influence from Islamists, EU would have it really tough not to admit them. But as it is, there are great majorities both in Germany and France -here it would really depends on who wins the Presidential election, as Ségoléne has announced she would support Turkey's admittance into the EU- that do not like Turks in the EU. If a coup happens or Islamist influence grows, it is going to be plainly difficult... to tell them EU admits them... [remember Gül was the one who said that, if Turkey wasn't admitted, the EU would be considered as "a Christian club"?]

More about this at Town Commons who points out that ten years ago, the Army ousted Islamist premier Necmettin Erbakan's government, in which Gul also served, with strong public backing and without tanks on the streets, something which forgets to tell the Economist when writing about Gül. He also comments about this:

I am unsure how to feel about the EU's warning. On one hand, it is comic for being utterly meaningless. There is no military threat behind it, and it is pretty clear that the EU will not forgo a single euro in trade over it. On the other hand, it is rather ironic for being issued in protection of Islamists. If Gates of Vienna's compelling arguments on Islamicization in Europe and its likely course are accurate, this continued EU willingness to do business with and support Islamists may be biting them sooner rather then later.

More about demonstrations against Islamism in Turkey from Gateway Pundit. Jim has posted a lot of photos, like the one on the right.

Newsbusters also wrote about this: How will media Report Massive Turkish Protests Against Islamic-Rooted Government? h/t Custos Fidei.

More about the demonstrations in NYT, Deutsche Welle.

It's curious that International MSM pictures these huge demonstration (1 million according to Turkish TV) as "elite" demonstrations... and that the demonstrations are considering the Islamists as inferior human beings.

Turkish political tensions hit currency ahead of court ruling.

Tulay Tugcu, president of the Constitutional Court, said she hoped for a ruling on Friday's contested first-round vote before the second round is held on Wednesday.
If the court's 11 judges rule in favor of the plaintiff, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), the election will be annulled and early elections will be called in 45 to 90 days.
The CHP based its complaint on a technicality, saying the 550-member parliament should have had a quorum of 367 to open the session for a presidential election -- the number of votes required for a candidate to be elected in the first round.

Other news about Turkey:

• Turkey warned Canada US against using term genocide regarding Armenians. Canadian Prime Minister Harper was warned through diplomatic channels last week that “repeating these claims annually will not help in normalizing Turkey-Armenia relations and will harm Turkish-Canadian bilateral relations as well.” “We hope that the Canadian PM will not repeat this year what he did last year,” a high-level Foreign Ministry official said, the Turkish Daily News reports. [To read more about Armenian genocide, go over to Fausta's blog].
• Turkish Islamists in Germany h/t Jihadi du Jour: Welt am Sonntag: What do you think about the influence of Islam on the western world? Notker Wolf: There are certainly some groups that have set the islamization of Europe as their goal. I think that in itself is a serious thing. In Germany the Turkish association Ditib recently demanded that the «Word on Friday» be broadcast on public television. I only wonder: How can it be that these people demand all rights in Germany for themselves, while at the same time Christians are seriously discriminated in Turkey? Why are we, Christians, not allowed a theological faculty in Turkey? Why are we not allowed to have any church property there? Meanwhile, the mayor of Munich even breaks building regulations to approve a mosque, just to win the votes of the Turks. That is unbelievable! Tolerance is good, but it doesn't mean we should surrender.
• Turkey's stocks, currency tumble on election fears (also on BBC, BBC) : The ISE National 100 index dropped 5.7% to 44,208.58, with Turkcell losing 2%, Finansbank down 1.7% and Alcatel Teletas losing 5.8%. The dollar gained as much as 4%, and climbed 2.7% to 1.3640 lira in morning trading.
  The staunchly secular military, which has led three coups since 1960, is upset that the leading presidential candidate, Abdullah Gul, has an Islamist past. In a statement made Friday evening, the military said it would act to defend secularism.
  Serhan Cevik, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, called the military's statement "harsh" and "unexpected."
  "Even though reasons behind this blunt declaration are open to debate, there is no doubt that even 'post-modern' statements undermine institutional reforms to demilitarize the political landscape and thereby Turkey's accession negotiations with the European Union," Cevik said in a note to clients.

Others blogging about this: Desde el Exilio.