Turkey’s high-profile criminal case against Protestant
pastor Andrew Brunson has triggered a significant increase in public hate
speech against the nation’s small Protestant community, World Watch Monitor
reports. The case has created what its church leaders last week called a
‘climate of insecurity’ for its congregations and individual members.
According to the Turkish Association of Protestant Churches’
annual human rights report for 2018, the number of attacks designed to incite
hatred of Protestants “purely due to their beliefs” in Turkey’s local, national
and social media outlets had seriously increased during Brunson’s arrest,
jailing and two-year trial.
The report said that the Protestants’ 150 congregations
watched the US pastor’s case closely “with great sadness and concern”,
disturbed by the media’s repeated practice of linking churches and individual
Christians with terror organisations, without providing any substantiating
evidence. Instead, the accusations by secret false witnesses against Brunson
were “reported as if they were true,” and local and national publications
refused to allow the slandered churches and individuals their constitutional
right of reply or correction.
Full report: https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2019/02/pastor-brunson-case-increased-hate-speech-against-turkeys-protestants-report/
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