Turkey’s Latest Genocide
Against Christians, Yazidis, and Kurds.
Many in the West heard of the severe atrocities the jihadists of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) committed against the religious minorities of the Fertile Crescent, especially Christians and Yazidis. Several Western governments later classified these atrocities—which included massacres, crucifixion, torture, and sex slavery—as genocides.
Today, however, few are unaware that these same genocidal atrocities have resumed against the very same religious minorities who most suffered at the hands of ISIS in northern Syria—this time by another Muslim force with caliphal aspirations: Turkey, under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Between November 20-25, 2022, Turkey launched 2,500 attacks—air, mortar, drone, artillery, etc.—several miles deep into Syria’s northern border. Governed by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), this also happens to be where most of the formerly persecuted religious minorities, Christians, Yazidis, and Kurds, live.
During late November’s so-called Operation Claw Sword, Turkey killed 48 people, wounded dozens, and destroyed or damaged 2,300 civilian homes and buildings, including a children’s hospital, a health center, an electrical power station, essential oil and gas processing facilities, critical grain towers, and a major bakery.
As Save the Persecuted Christians noted, “Turkey appears focused on depriving the civilian population of food, heat, and water as winter sets in. It even dropped bombs on tent camps housing survivors of its earlier invasions,” as well as helped ISIS terrorists escape prison.
Lethal Turkish attacks have continued, prompting Genocide Watch to issue a Genocide Emergency Alert on December 7, 2022:
These military attacks by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime are part of a wider Turkish policy of annihilation of the Kurdish and Assyrian [Christian] people in northern Syria and Iraq. Turkey has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including bombing, shelling, abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killings. The attacks are part of Turkey’s genocidal policies towards Kurds, Christians, and Ezidis.
Unlike the atrocities committed by ISIS in the same region, however, those now being committed by Turkey have received zero attention by Western “mainstream media”—not least because Turkey is a member of NATO, and therefore, apparently, shielded from criticism.
Fortunately, others are not being silent. In a recent webinar titled, “Is it Genocide? Turkey Targets Syria’s Christians, Yazidis & Kurds,” an expert panel hosted by Save the Persecuted Christians discussed and offered evidence against what they all referred to as Turkey’s “genocidal” actions against Christians, Yazidis, Kurds, and other ethno-religious minorities of north Syria, as well as how the US and international community should respond.
Webinar moderator, Frank Gaffney, executive chairman of the Center for Security Policy, began by placing these developments on Erdoğan, “who fancies himself a new caliph,” and who is committed to resurrecting the Ottoman caliphate and enforcing “sharia, the supremacist doctrine of Islam,” which is “especially oppressive to Christians.”
Most if not all of the panelists agreed on and stressed various points, including that:
Turkey’s stated purpose for its aggression against northern Syria—that is, to create a “safe zone” along its southern border with Syria—is a pretext and excuse for its true motivation: “to remove religious and ethnic minorities,” said Charmaine Hedding, president of the Shai Fund. Erdoğan’s ground forces, she added, include former ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Tahrir al-Shams jihadists who “are committing massive human rights abuses and have an agenda to create a caliphate, and they will eradicate the religious minorities in this area.”
What Turkey is doing in northern Syria is not just a genocide, according to the international community’s legal definition of that word, but the continuation of an old policy. As panelist Gregory Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, flat out asserted, “Turkey is a genocidal society… Turkey has conducted so many genocides in history,” with an apparent animus for one particular group: “Going back many centuries, it [Turkey] has been anti-Christian, and has tried to slaughter as many Christians as possible.”
Hedding agreed: “This genocide is a pattern we see, and it’s certainly nothing new…. What we will see is the end of Christianity and some Yazidis in this area if we allow Turkey to get away with it. There will be a humanitarian crisis.” Hedding added that, “for those who say ‘Not on our watch!’ or ‘Never again!’—here it is, happening again.”
Turkey’s current victims—especially Christians and Yazidis—are, tragically, the descendants of Turkey’s previous victims, which it also “genocided” during the late 19th and early 20th century death marches. As explained by Lauren Homer, president of Law and Liberty Trust, north Syria is precisely where the Ottomans had slaughtered countless Christians over a century ago. Those now being targeted are their descendants. Similarly, Turkey’s goal is “to finish what it started,” said Hedding, and “displace hundreds of thousands of people to recreate the demography of northern Syria and erase two thousand years of history.”
What Turkey is doing to the Christians and other minorities of northern Syria is part of a much larger plan to cleanse all of the descendants of the Ottoman Empire’s former Christian subjects, including those of Armenia and Greece, who both experienced genocides under the Turks and who are, once again, also being targeted by Turkey, as “part of its genocidal policies,” to quote Stanton. “As soon as it was declared that ISIS was defeated,” Homer emphasized, “Turkey began attacking the very people who fought and defeated ISIS,” that is, the Kurds and other religious minorities who formed the AANES.
Turkey’s recent military actions in Arfin were highlighted as emblematic of that nation’s genocidal campaign. There, hundreds of thousands of Christians and Yazidis fled, even as the Turks “were hunting them [Christians and Yazidis] down, going door to door,” said Hedding.
There was a “jihadi fatwa against these people,” said Homer, confirming that “Turkey has the same goals as ISIS which is to turn all of these areas into radicalized Islamist states.” In the end, they destroyed 18 of 19 Yezidi temples; Afrin’s population of Yazidis has now declined by 90 percent since 2014. As for Christians, all of them, about a thousand families, have fled this most recent jihadist advance.
Kino Gabriel, a Christian (Assyrian) and leader of the Syriac Military Council, offered a unique “from the ground” perspective. He stressed that the war on Christians in Syria has taken many forms over the years, and, in the modern era, traces back to the al-Assad dynasty’s implementation of Arabization, which saw Christians go from 25 percent of Syria in 1950 to 12 percent in 2010, with that number only getting smaller following ISIS, and now Turkey, which he reminded viewers is “a big supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and even those most radical factions.”
The panelists all agreed that the best way of moving forward was for the US, which “holds all the cards,” to call on Turkey, its NATO ally, to cease and desist. While Turkey is and can exploit its NATO membership to get away with murder, Stanton explained that the US could easily suspend its membership, which would likely be enough for Turkey to decide its new genocide is not worth it.
For her part, Nadine Maenza, president of International Religious Freedom Secretariat, repeatedly stressed that US support for AANES is essential, as it is the only suitable and democratic bulwark for protecting the religious minorities under its jurisdiction.
This article first appeared on The Stream.
Raymond Ibrahim
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freed
THE HS WAS BUILT BY CHRISTIAN SOVEREIGNS AND DESECRATATED BY THE
CURRENT MUSLIM DICTATOR OF TURKEY
Next “they paraded the [Hagia Sophia’s main] Crucifix in mocking procession through their camp, beating drums before it, crucifying the Christ again with spitting and blasphemies and curses. They placed a Turkish cap . . . upon His head, and jeeringly cried, ‘Behold the god of the Christians!’”
Hagia Sophia: Muslim Forgery vs Documented History
No, the ancient church was not “purchased” by Muslims, nor were its congregants “assured” of fair treatment.
July 17, 2020
Raymond Ibrahim
After all, when was the last time you saw an American academic discuss the Muslim persecution of Christians, or Iran’s treatment of religious minorities, or the inconsistency of Iranian authorities in persecuting Christians while complaining about “Islamophobia”? That’s right: never. That’s not what they do in the Antifa indoctrination factories known as universities these days; they’re too busy recording video messages applauding Iranian propaganda. ROBERT SPENCER
Iran Bemoans ‘Desecration of Islamic Sanctities’ Over Temple Mount and Charlie Hebdo ‘Insults’
When perpetrators play victim.
Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is garnering support at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for its stand against the “desecration of Islamic sanctities” that Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir allegedly committed with his visit to the Temple Mount. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) recently stated: “A visit by a minister from Israel’s government to a site inside Israel is not a change in any status quo arrangement, and it should not be controversial for a Jew to visit the holiest site in Judaism.” But according to Iran, the move was “a violation of international law and an affront to the values and sanctities of the world Muslims,” and other members of the OIC agree. It is manifestly true that the visit was an “affront to Muslims,” but Ben-Gvir did not violate international law. Many Islamic leaders routinely spout propaganda, while their supporters take what they say at face value.
Thousands of Jews visit the site annually. The “status quo” agreement was concluded after the Six-Day War in June 1967 in order to appease Muslims after Israel reconquered the Old City of Jerusalem. Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan formulated it. Under its terms, “the Muslim Waqf, a Jordanian religious trust, would retain control of the Temple Mount. Jews would be allowed to visit the site without restrictions, though they would not be allowed to pray there. Israel would also take responsibility for security, though its forces would stay off the mount.”
According the Mehr News Agency, Itamar Ben Gvir “stormed Al-Aqsa mosque.” But Ben-Gvir did not even enter the mosque. He made a short visit to the Temple Mount compound “during the time Jews are allowed to enter the site.”
Iran has also taken France’s Charlie Hebdo to task for publishing caricatures of the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In Islamic law, any insult to Muhammad or to what is regarded as holy in Islam can bring death to the offender (Abu Dawud Book 38 no 4348). Khamenei is a marja, the highest authority in Twelver Shi’ite Islam. In this case, complaints have now gone to the United Nations, which organized a Security Council “emergency” assembly Thursday, and now Iran is pleading its case to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). According to Iran, the OIC’s Secretary General, Hissein Brahim Taha, agreed about “the defiling of al-Aqsa Mosque by the Zionists,” while Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al Sabah “welcomed Iran’s proposal and initiative that the OIC take action in concert to stop the sacrilegious acts of the Israeli regime that disrupt regional peace and stability.” Pakistan “also voiced concern over the continuation of the Zionist regime’s aggressive policies and condemned its moves to desecrate al-Aqsa Mosque. He added that the silence of world countries toward injustice in Palestine must end.” Yet Pakistan has defined itself by its cruel blasphemy laws which target Christians.
The OIC has no power over any free sovereign country, except what is freely given to it by the leaders of the free countries that choose to appease the organization. The weakest elements of the West have increasingly chosen dhimmitude and subservience to Islamic bullies. The cornerstone of any free society is freedom of expression, which includes the freedom to insult any dogma, religion or religious figure. The freedom of religion also characterizes free societies, but both of these critical values are antithetical to normative Islam, and the exercise of both rights have at times led some Muslims to violence.
So far, despite condemnations of Ben-Gvir, no Western leader has stated that Jews have no right to visit the Temple Mount. They know that Jews have every right to do so, but by accusing Ben-Gvir of being “extreme,” they are unwittingly assuming the role of dhimmis and abetting the complete stripping of the right of Jews to visit the Temple Mount.
With regard to Charlie Hebdo, anyone living in a free society has every right to criticize and insult Islam. But Islam demands submission from the kaffir. Appeasement emboldens Islamic supremacists as they advance their goal of the conquest of every free society. No matter how much Israel appeased these elements in past, jihad attacks never ceased, but only escalated.
Christine Williams
Christine Douglass-Williams is Associate Editor of Frontpage, regular writer for Jihad Watch, a nine-time award-winning journalist, past Canadian government appointee; author of "The Challenge of Modernizing Islam" and "Fired by the Canadian Government for Critizing Islam".
Hagia Sophia: Muslim Forgery vs Documented History
No, the ancient church was not “purchased” by Muslims, nor were its congregants “assured” of fair treatment.
July 17, 2020
Raymond Ibrahim
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Millions of Orthodox and other Christians around the world were either shocked, angered, and/or saddened to learn recently that Turkey has just approved the transformation of the Hagia Sophia museum—which was originally built, and for a millennium functioned, as an Orthodox cathedral—into a mosque.
In a long speech rationalizing this decision, which he personally spearheaded, Turkish president Erdogan said the following:
The conquest of Istanbul [Constantinople] and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia [Greek for “Holy Wisdom”] into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history. On May 29, 1453, [Ottoman] Sultan Muhammad II entered the city after a long siege and headed directly to the Hagia Sophia. As the Byzantines awaited their fate, fearful and curious, inside the Hagia Sophia, Muhammad entered the Hagia Sophia, giving assurances to the people regarding their lives and freedoms… [He then] recited the first adhan [call to prayer]. Thus he registered his conquest. Then, in a corner of the Hagia Sophia, he performed two prostrations out of gratitude. With this move he demonstrated that he had transformed the Hagia Sophia into a mosque…. The domes and walls of this great place of worship have resonated with prayers and takbirs [shouts of “Allahu Akbar”] for 481 years since then [until becoming a museum in 1934].
Such a pious recounting is only slightly less hagiographical than the position of leading Turkish historians, such as Professor Selim Akdogan. Recently on Al Jazeera he insisted that Sultan Muhammad had actually “purchased” the Hagia Sophia from its conquered Christian worshippers.
Are these rosy renderings accurate? Fortunately, we need not rely on Turkic propaganda; we have primary source documents describing exactly what the Turks and Sultan Muhammad did after conquering Constantinople and its Hagia Sophia in 1453. (All quotes in the following narrative were derived from contemporary sources, mostly eyewitnesses, as documented in chapter 7 of Sword and Scimitar.)
Once inside the city on May 29, 1453, the “enraged Turkish soldiers . . . gave no quarter”:
When they had massacred and there was no longer any resistance, they were intent on pillage and roamed through the town stealing, disrobing, pillaging, killing, raping, taking captive men, women, children, old men, young men, monks, priests, people of all sorts and conditions… There were virgins who awoke from troubled sleep to find those brigands standing over them with bloody hands and faces full of abject fury… [The Turks] dragged them, tore them, forced them, dishonored them, raped them at the cross-roads and made them submit to the most terrible outrages… Tender children were brutally snatched from their mothers’ breasts and girls were pitilessly given up to strange and horrible unions, and a thousand other terrible things happened. . .
Because thousands of citizens had fled to and were holed up in Hagia Sophia, the ancient basilica offered an excellent harvest of slaves, once its doors were axed down. “One Turk would look for the captive who seemed the wealthiest, a second would prefer a pretty face among the nuns. . . . Each rapacious Turk was eager to lead his captive to a safe place, and then return to secure a second and a third prize. . . . Then long chains of captives could be seen leaving the church and its shrines, being herded along like cattle or flocks of sheep.”
The slavers sometimes fought each other to the death over “any well-formed girl,” even as many of the latter “preferred to cast themselves into the wells and drown rather than fall into the hands of the Turks.”
Having taken possession of the Hagia Sophia, one of Christendom’s greatest and oldest churches—nearly a thousand years old at the time of its capture—the invaders “engaged in every kind of vileness within it, making of it a public brothel.” On “its holy altars” they enacted “perversions with our women, virgins, and children,” including “the Grand Duke’s daughter who was quite beautiful.” She was forced to “lie on the great altar of Hagia Sophia with a crucifix under her head and then raped.”
Next “they paraded the [Hagia Sophia’s main] Crucifix in mocking procession through their camp, beating drums before it, crucifying the Christ again with spitting and blasphemies and curses. They placed a Turkish cap . . . upon His head, and jeeringly cried, ‘Behold the god of the Christians!’”
Practically all other churches in the ancient city suffered the same fate. “The crosses which had been placed on the roofs or the walls of churches were torn down and trampled.” The Eucharist was hurled to the ground; holy icons were stripped of gold, “thrown to the ground and kicked.” Bibles were stripped of their gold or silver illuminations before being burned. “Icons were without exception given to the flames.” Patriarchal vestments were placed on the haunches of dogs; priestly garments were placed on horses.
“Everywhere there was misfortune, everyone was touched by pain” when Sultan Muhammad finally made his grand entry into the city. “There were lamentations and weeping in every house, screaming in the crossroads, and sorrow in all churches; the groaning of grown men and the shrieking of women accompanied looting, enslavement, separation, and rape.”
The sultan rode to Hagia Sophia, dismounted, and went in, “marveling at the sight” of the grand basilica. After having it cleansed of its crosses, statues, and icons—Muhammad himself knocked over and trampled on its main altar—he ordered a muezzin to ascend the pulpit and sound “their detestable prayers. Then this son of iniquity, this forerunner of Antichrist, mounted upon the Holy Table to utter forth his own prayers,” thereby “turning the Great Church into a heathen shrine for his god and his Mahomet.”
To cap off his triumph, Muhammad had the “wretched citizens of Constantinople” dragged before his men during evening festivities and “ordered many of them to be hacked to pieces, for the sake of entertainment.” The rest of the city’s population—as many as forty-five thousand—were hauled off in chains to be sold as slaves.
So much for Erdogan’s claim that Sultan Muhammad had given “assurances to the people regarding their lives and freedoms,” or that the Hagia Sophia was fairly “purchased.”
At any rate, this is the history that millions of Turks extol. In the aforementioned words of Erdogan, their president: “The conquest of Istanbul and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history.”
If conquest, mindboggling atrocities and rapes, and the desecration of churches—all committed in the name of jihad—are “the most glorious chapters of Turkish history,” one wonders what Turkey’s future plans for glory look like?
Note: The quotes in the above narrative were taken from and are sourced in the author’s book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.
After all, when was the last time you saw an American academic discuss the Muslim persecution of Christians, or Iran’s treatment of religious minorities, or the inconsistency of Iranian authorities in persecuting Christians while complaining about “Islamophobia”? That’s right: never. That’s not what they do in the Antifa indoctrination factories known as universities these days; they’re too busy recording video messages applauding Iranian propaganda.
Hagia Sophia: Turkish Propaganda vs. Documented History
Millions of Orthodox and other Christians around the world were either shocked, angered, and/or saddened to learn recently that Turkey has just approved of transforming the Hagia Sophia museum — which was originally built, and for a millennium functioned, as an Orthodox cathedral — into a mosque.
In a long speech rationalizing this decision, which he personally spearheaded, Turkish president Erdogan said the following:
The conquest of Istanbul [Constantinople] and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history. On May 29, 1453, [Ottoman] Sultan Muhammad II entered the city after a long siege and headed directly to the Hagia Sophia [Greek for "Holy Wisdom"]. As the Byzantines awaited their fate, fearful and curious, inside the Hagia Sophia, Muhammad entered the Hagia Sophia, giving assurances to the people regarding their lives and freedoms… [He then] recited the first adhan [call to prayer]. Thus he registered his conquest. Then, in a corner of the Hagia Sophia, he performed two prostrations out of gratitude. With this move he demonstrated that he had transformed the Hagia Sophia into a mosque…. The domes and walls of this great place of worship have resonated with prayers and takbirs [shouts of "Allahu Akbar"] for 481 years since then.
Such a pious recounting is only slightly less hagiographical than the position of leading Turkish historians, such as Professor Selim Akdogan. Recently on Al Jazeera he insisted that Sultan Muhammad had actually "purchased" the Hagia Sophia from its conquered Christian worshippers.
Are these rosy renderings accurate? Fortunately, we need not rely on Turkic propaganda; we have primary source documents describing exactly what the Turks and Sultan Muhammad did after conquering Constantinople and its Hagia Sophia in 1453. (All quotes in the following narrative were derived from contemporary sources, mostly eyewitnesses, as documented in chapter 7 of Sword and Scimitar.)
Once inside the city on May 29, 1453, the "enraged Turkish soldiers . . . gave no quarter":
When they had massacred and there was no longer any resistance, they were intent on pillage and roamed through the town stealing, disrobing, pillaging, killing, raping, taking captive men, women, children, old men, young men, monks, priests, people of all sorts and conditions… There were virgins who awoke from troubled sleep to find those brigands standing over them with bloody hands and faces full of abject fury… [The Turks] dragged them, tore them, forced them, dishonored them, raped them at the cross-roads and made them submit to the most terrible outrages… Tender children were brutally snatched from their mothers' breasts and girls were pitilessly given up to strange and horrible unions, and a thousand other terrible things happened. . .
Because thousands of citizens had fled to and were holed up in Hagia Sophia, the ancient basilica offered an excellent harvest of slaves — once its doors were axed down. "One Turk would look for the captive who seemed the wealthiest, a second would prefer a pretty face among the nuns. . . . Each rapacious Turk was eager to lead his captive to a safe place, and then return to secure a second and a third prize. . . . Then long chains of captives could be seen leaving the church and its shrines, being herded along like cattle or flocks of sheep."
The slavers sometimes fought each other to the death over "any well-formed girl," even as many of the latter "preferred to cast themselves into the wells and drown rather than fall into the hands of the Turks."
Having taken possession of the Hagia Sophia, one of Christendom's greatest and oldest basilicas — nearly a thousand years old at the time of its capture — the invaders "engaged in every kind of vileness within it, making of it a public brothel." On "its holy altars" they enacted "perversions with our women, virgins, and children," including "the Grand Duke's daughter who was quite beautiful." She was forced to "lie on the great altar of Hagia Sophia with a crucifix under her head and then raped."
Next "they paraded the [Hagia Sophia's main] Crucifix in mocking procession through their camp, beating drums before it, crucifying the Christ again with spitting and blasphemies and curses. They placed a Turkish cap . . . upon His head, and jeeringly cried, 'Behold the god of the Christians!'"
Many other churches in the ancient city suffered the same fate. "The crosses which had been placed on the roofs or the walls of churches were torn down and trampled." The Eucharist was hurled to the ground; holy icons were stripped of gold, "thrown to the ground and kicked." Bibles were stripped of their gold or silver illuminations before being burned. "Icons were without exception given to the flames." Patriarchal vestments were placed on the haunches of dogs; priestly garments were placed on horses.
"Everywhere there was misfortune, everyone was touched by pain" when Sultan Muhammad II finally made his grand entry into the city. "There were lamentations and weeping in every house, screaming in the crossroads, and sorrow in all churches; the groaning of grown men and the shrieking of women accompanied looting, enslavement, separation, and rape."
The sultan rode to Hagia Sophia, dismounted, and went in, "marveling at the sight" of the grand basilica. After having it cleansed of its crosses, statues, and icons — Muhammad himself knocked over and trampled on its main altar — he ordered a muezzin to ascend the pulpit and sound "their detestable prayers. Then this son of iniquity, this forerunner of Antichrist, mounted upon the Holy Table to utter forth his own prayers," thereby "turning the Great Church into a heathen shrine for his god and his Mahomet."
To cap off his triumph, Muhammad had the "wretched citizens of Constantinople" dragged before his men during evening festivities and "ordered many of them to be hacked to pieces, for the sake of entertainment." The rest of the city's population — as many as forty-five thousand — were hauled off in chains to be sold as slaves.
So much for Erdogan's claim that Sultan Muhammad had given "assurances to the people regarding their lives and freedoms," or that the Hagia Sophia was fairly "purchased."
At any rate, this is the history that millions of Turks extol. In the aforementioned words of Erdogan, their president: "The conquest of Istanbul and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history."
If conquest, mindboggling atrocities, and the desecration of churches — all committed in the name of jihad — are "the most glorious chapters of Turkish history," one wonder what Turkey's future plans for glory look like?
The quotes in the above narrative were taken from and are sourced in the author's book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
Turkey: Erdogan Throws Mass Concert to Mark Four Years Since Failed Coup
ADEM ALTAN/AFP via Getty Images
15 Jul 202030
5:46
Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan marked four years since he overcame a military coup attempt with a concert at his lavish presidential complex on Wednesday and thousands of planned events nationwide.
Turkish military leaders announced the end of Erdogan’s reign in the late hours of July 15, 2016, taking over the streets of Ankara and Istanbul and announcing they had acted to restore secularist rule in the country. Erdogan responded by urging his supporters to take the streets and fight their own military — a call enough people answered to subdue the uprising. Erdogan officials confirmed over 200 deaths and thousands of injuries in the incident.
Erdogan’s government blames Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, who resides in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, for organizing the coup. Gülen has repeatedly denied any involvement and Turkish officials have failed to put together enough evidence to convince the United States of his involvement, preventing his extradition. A statement from coup organizers on the night of July 15 suggests they were not members of Gülen’s “Hizmet” movement, but secularist soldiers dissatisfied with Erdogan’s Islamist impositions on the country.
Erdogan has since branded July 15 “Democracy and National Unity Day” and organized annual events to honor the “martyrs” that ensured his rule would go on, perpetuating itself through elections opposition leaders have denounced as fraudulent. The 3,000 events Ankara has planned nationwide this year will defy social distancing guidelines aimed at preventing the continued spread of the Chinese coronavirus, fueling a pandemic that has infected nearly 215,000 people in Turkey at press time. The nation has documented 5,402 deaths.
The Islamist Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak, which vocally supporters Erdogan, applauded the government’s “special concert” featuring “a piece by world-famous Turkish pianist Fahir Atakoglu composed to honor the national struggle on the night of July 15 four years ago.” The piece performed reportedly consisted of “chapters” detailing the events of the failed coup.
Erdogan himself partook in a ceremony earlier Wednesday to lay flowers at a monument to those killed fighting to keep him in power during the failed coup attempt.
“Sometimes, a single hero changes the fate of the whole nation. On July 15, millions of heroes emerged from all corners of our country and left a mark on the nation’s future,” Erdoğan said in remarks Wednesday following the flower laying ceremony. “If they had been strong enough, you can be sure that they would not have hesitated to kill notably the country’s president and prime minister and all other elected executives.”
#15Temmuz, bu topraklarda asırlar boyunca verdiğimiz varlık-yokluk mücadeleleri zincirinin en son halkasıdır, #MilletinZaferi'dir. pic.twitter.com/hlsf6K6o3b
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RTErdogan) July 15, 2020
Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin issued a more combative statement Wednesday against the West, accusing Europe and America in an interview of not sufficiently opposing the coup.
“We were disappointed, and it was hard for us to understand that some countries in Europe and other places instead of taking measures against the terrorists themselves were criticizing the [Turkish] government for taking measures against FETO [Gülenist] terrorists,” Kalin alleged, complaining that foreign governments have rejected many Turkish extradition requests. “To this day, four years after the coup, unfortunately, some key allies in NATO and Europe including the U.S. continue to fail to understand the gravity of what happened and why we had to take measures.”
“FETO terrorists in Western countries still continue to present themselves as a peaceful religious charity and educational institution … It is no excuse to say that they [FETO] aren’t breaking any laws in our country,” Kalin added. “You wouldn’t allow al-Qaeda or Daesh sympathizers or operatives or terrorists just because they give the appearance that they aren’t breaking the law in your country.”
Turkish officials reiterated this week that they are seeking over 300 extradition requests all around the world for alleged Gülenists who participated in the failed coup, including 156 people in America.
American officials have repeatedly noted that Turkey has failed to offer evidence linking these individuals, including Gülen, to the coup. In 2017, reports surfaced that Interpol had locked Turkish officials out of its system for demanding tens of thousands of frivolous “red notices,” or requests for the arrest of, alleged Gülenists. Interpol later denied the reports.
Turkish officials rapidly detained, imprisoned, fired from public jobs, and otherwise penalized over 100,000 people — many judges, teachers, and other public servants — in the aftermath of the coup for alleged support of Gülen. On Wednesday, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar claimed that Turkey had “neutralized,” a term Ankara uses to mean killed or arrested, over 17,000 alleged “terrorists.”
The organizers of the coup have never publicly allied themselves with Gülen. At the time of the incident, people claiming to represent the new government of Turkey called themselves the “Turkish Peace Council” and issued a statement asserting they would “reinstate constitutional order.”
“Turkish Armed Forces have completely taken over the administration of the country to reinstate constitutional order, human rights and freedoms, the rule of law and general security that was damaged. All international agreements are still valid,” the statement read. “We hope that all of our good relationships with all countries will continue.”
Hours later, Erdogan would appear on Facetime from an undisclosed location disputing the claim that the armed forces had won the battle and urging supporters to fight back.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.
Iran Jails Christians, Then Holds Ceremony for Book on U.S. 'Islamophobia'
The mullahs know their American Leftist friends will neither notice nor care about the hypocrisy.
July 15, 2020
Robert Spencer
“War is deceit,” according to a statement attributed to Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran were taking notes. After stepping up the persecution of Christians and even carrying out raids and arrests against them, Iranian authorities paused long enough to unveil, with great fanfare, a “scholarly” book about “Islamophobia” in the United States. Yes, that’s the real problem – and the American establishment media will nod along in agreement.
Evangelical Focus reported Tuesday that agents of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) “arrested at least twelve Christians, in a coordinated operation that took place in three different cities. The first arrest took place on 30 June, in Tehran, when ten intelligence agents raided the home of a Christian convert where there were around 30 Christians gathered.”
The agents recorded that raid, but at a certain point they turned off their cameras and began abusing the Christians, who were finally handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken away in a van with blacked-out windows. They were taken to their homes, where the IRGC agents searched for Christian material and beat some of them, along with some of their family members, including some who had not converted to Christianity.
Evangelical Focus noted: “It is believed that, in both raids, the agents were helped by an informant, who had infiltrated the group of Christians within the past few months and gained their trust.”
All this followed a report in late June that seven other converts to Christianity had been sentenced to prison or other punishments, including exile, fines, and work restrictions, for the crime of exercising their freedom of conscience. According to Article18.com, “they were each convicted of the same charge – ‘propaganda against the state’ – under Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, which provides for up to a year in prison for anyone found guilty of engaging in ‘any type of propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran or in support of opposition groups and associations.’”
Mansour Borji of the human rights advocacy group Article18 stated: “Condemning these people to prison because of their possession of Bibles and Christian symbols is a clear demonstration that Iran’s Foreign Minister and others aren’t telling the truth when they say that ‘no-one is put in prison in Iran simply because of their beliefs.’ These people have done nothing that could be construed as ‘propaganda against the state’ or ‘acting against national security’, but nevertheless they have been treated so unjustly.”
Meanwhile, the International Quran News Agency reported that “a book on political Islamophobia in the US was unveiled in a ceremony in Tehran on Monday,” that is, the day before the raids and arrest of twelve Christians.
The book in question is entitled Political Islamophobia at American Institutes: Battling the Power of Islamic Resistance, and is the masterwork of University of Tehran Professor Hakimeh Saghaye-Biriya. The Islamic Human Rights Commission not in Tehran, but in London, has published the book.
According to the International Quran News Agency, “it analyses the role of US think tanks in institutionalizing and fueling Islamophobia in the US government’s domestic and foreign policies.” During the ceremony at the International Quran News Agency in Tehran, Saghaye-Biriya “described Islamophobia as a branch of racism in the West. She said at a time when protests against racism have spread globally, there is a good opportunity to make a bridge between Islamic resistance and anti-racism movements in the world.”
During the ceremony, a video message from Wayne State University’s Saeed Khan was played; it “hailed the book for providing a good analysis of the role of political think thanks in US policy making and understanding the roots of Islamophobia in the country.”
Back in the real world, “Islamophobia” is a propaganda neologism designed to intimidate people into thinking it wrong to oppose jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women.
Meanwhile, this book, and the accompanying ceremony, reveals the insidious nature of the entire “Islamophobia” enterprise. The Iranian endorsement and propagation of this term, with the participation of Wayne State University’s Saeed Khan, recalls another Iranian initiative in academic propaganda: Carl Ernst, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill pseudo-academic whose work on Islam is so whitewashed, so fawningly apologetic, so complete in its denial of the jihad doctrine and Sharia oppression, that he was given an award in 2008 by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the genocide-minded anti-Semite who was at that time President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ernst happily flew to Tehran to accept. The incident was emblematic of how much American academia has degenerated.
After all, when was the last time you saw an American academic discuss the Muslim persecution of Christians, or Iran’s treatment of religious minorities, or the inconsistency of Iranian authorities in persecuting Christians while complaining about “Islamophobia”? That’s right: never. That’s not what they do in the Antifa indoctrination factories known as universities these days; they’re too busy recording video messages applauding Iranian propaganda.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
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