Turkey: Christians celebrate low-key Christmas after recent attack (Christians fear Islamofascists)

AKI ^ | 2007 Dec 25

[Wiz]

Istanbul, 24 Dec. (AKI) - Turkey's 100,000-strong Christian community was on Monday hoping that Christmas this year would pass uneventfully without further sectarian attacks such as that earlier this month against an Italian Catholic priest - the latest of several in little over a year.

As schools and offices in the overwhelmingly Muslim majority country will be open on Tuesday, 25 December will simply be a day that comes between Eid al-Adha (the Islamic festival of sacrifice) and the New Year celebrations.

Christmas trees decked in glass baubles and Christmas lights have been put up in some streets and shop windows. "These are signs of a blending of Christian and Muslim cultures that have nothing to do with the substance of Christmas," Monsignor Luigi Padovese, apostolic vicar in Turkey, told Adnkronos International (AKI)

The knife attack by a Muslim youth last Sunday against an Italian Catholic priest, Adriano Franchini, in the Turkish port city of Izmir, has undoubtedly marred the festivities for Christians and left many in a sombre mood.

Franchini is out of danger and the Turkish authorities have described the attack as an isolated incident. But many Christians feel threatened, recalling many other incidents, such as the fatal shooting at point-blank range in February last year of another Italian priest, Andrea Santoro, by a teenage youth in the Black Sea port city of Trabzon.

Santoro's successor, French priest Pierre Brunissen, was also stabbed in an attack in Samsun on the Black Sea in February last year.

[The_Media_never_lie]

He described the government's moves to remove the current ban on wearing the Muslim headscarf in state offices and universities as a positive step. "I believe a law of this kind, drafted by moderate Islamists, should on balance be seen in a positive light by Christians," Padovese said.

No such thing.

[Cindy]

Off Topic:

http://truthusa.com/a/index.php?topic=181.0

[Wiz]

I missed those two controversial words.

[Cindy]

Off Topic:

http://www.thememriblog.org/turkey/blog_personal/en/3844.htm

[Cindy]

Off Topic:

WASHINGTON TIMES.com (AP): Istanbul - "POLICE IN ISTANBUL FOIL BOMB-ATTACK PLOT" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Police thwarted a bomb attack in Istanbul yesterday, arresting a 25-year-old man with explosives in his backpack outside a subway station, the city's governor said.") (September 25, 2007)

[ought-six]

Moderate islamists? The words are mutually exclusive, and thus the term is an impossibility. Just like islam itself being moderate is an impossibility.

[LibLieSlayer]

turkey will become the new iran... if it already has not.

LLS

[Savage Beast]

Coming soon to Western Europe...

(And note tagline.)

[prognostigaator]

^^^^^

[SunkenCiv]

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