March 11, 2006 - Intruder Threatens Catholic Priests and Youths in Turkey

Knife-wielding attacker insults priests and curses Christianity.

(Compass) - A Turkish Muslim shouting insults against Christianity pulled a long butcher knife on two priests and a group of teenagers last Saturday evening (March 11) at a Latin Catholic church in Mersin, threatening them and their families.

In a 30-minute standoff in the town on the southern coast of Turkey, Erdal Gurel entered the parish convent of St. Antoine’s Catholic Church while 25 of the church’s young people were rehearsing for an Easter passion play.

“I was in my church office about 7:30 p.m. when I heard someone shouting and looked out in the hall to see what was happening,” Hanri Leylek later told the police in a recorded statement.

Hanri Leylek, a Turkish citizen and brother in the Capuchin order, said he offered to help the stranger. But the man insisted with strong language, “I want to see the fat bearded priest.” Then he started to swear loudly and “talk nonsense,” Leylek said.

Telling the frightened parish youth to go back and lock themselves in their rehearsal room, Leylek tried to talk with Gurel and asked him to go outside. When he began to shout insults and refused to leave, the priest went to a hallway telephone to call the police.

Before the priest finished dialing, the church young people shouted a warning. He turned around to see the intruder approaching him, brandishing a 30-inch butcher knife that had been hidden behind his back.

“He started to threaten me with the knife and curse against Christianity and the church,” Leylek said.

Just then Italian priest Roberto Ferrari entered from the kitchen door. Gurel turned and dashed toward him, waving the knife and declaring in vulgar terms, “You are not a human being! I will violate your mother, your sisters, your children.”

With Gurel distracted, Leylek escaped out the door and ran a few blocks to the closest police station.

Media Misrepresentations

The attacker, meanwhile, broke out the glass in the locked door to the rehearsal room with the knife handle, enabling him to reach inside and open it. When he started chasing them, the teenagers fled into the bathrooms, up to the second floor and even to the roof.

After giving up the chase, Gurel returned down the stairs and started to rummage through the teenagers’ jackets and bags. He had just grabbed someone’s mobile phone when Leylek returned with several policemen five minutes later. Although Gurel argued and resisted police orders for the next 15 minutes, he finally calmed down and surrendered. By then a dozen more police and several journalists had arrived at the church.

Initial brief reports on the incident on local television channels and in regional newspapers over the next two days mentioned the attacker simply as a would-be thief who pulled out a knife when confronted by a priest.

According to a March 15 article in the national daily Milliyet newspaper, the accused suspect is 19 years of age and convicted of four previous robberies. Police had recorded Gurel as born in the town of Batman 22 years ago.

At the same time, the Turkish press and private television channels have fanned a rising level of antagonism against Christianity during the past 18 months. Some government authorities have openly encouraged this barrage of anti-Christian propaganda, claiming that local Christians and foreign missionaries have ulterior political motives to convert Turkey’s 70 million Muslims to Christianity and destroy Islam.

One of the first TV news broadcasts of the Mersin incident emphasized the suspect’s shouted accusations, heard by journalists as he was put into a police car at the scene: “You are having sex here!” A video clip of the teenagers present during the attack implied they were involved in prostitution under the auspices of the church.

Church Responds

To correct these misrepresentations, the leaders of the Mersin parish invited local and national journalists, human rights groups and political party representatives to a press conference on March 14.

After giving the 34 guests a detailed explanation of the incident, Leylek drew particular attention to the Turkish identity of Mersin’s Catholic congregation. “The people you see here, our church community, are all the children of this land,” he said. “These are not a group of foreigners brought in here.”

As full-fledged Turkish citizens, he said, all of them were working consciously for their country’s peace and welfare, as well as their own.

Declaring that violent incidents against Christian churches had multiplied recently, Leylek noted that these attacks were being carried out by strangers – individuals unknown to the church community. Questioning the motive of such attacks, the priest asked, “Are there others behind these attacks? Are their purposes to intimidate the church, to frighten and terrorize those who attend, to divide and separate our church from the rest of the nation?”

After the press conference, a local TV channel called San promptly corrected the misinformation relayed in its previous broadcasts. The next day, the regional Imece newspaper and at least one other daily also printed the entire text of Leylek’s press statement on their front pages.

Previous Break-in

It remains unclear whether Gurel still remains in police custody, as a TV channel reported his release on Monday. But Leylek said that police told him on Wednesday (March 15) that the suspect had been jailed on criminal charges filed by the local prosecutor.

“But today a local journalist was told by the same police office that Gurel has been released!” Leylek said. “So our lawyer is waiting to get official word from the prosecutor’s office on his status.”

In a previous attack at St. Antoine’s last December, an unknown youth broke down two doors of the convent and forced his way in at 4 a.m., demanding to talk with a priest.

Although unarmed, the young man had burned some books in the parish library before priests heard his shouts and came to talk with him. When local officers came to take him to the police station for questioning, he went without resisting, church representatives said.

Otherwise, Leylek said, the church has encountered little opposition from the residents of Mersin. “On the contrary,” he said, “the people of Mersin have supported the churches here. Our church is a part of the city.”

Established 150 years ago, St. Antoine’s currently has a church community of 400 worshipping in the Turkish language.

After the February 5 murder of Catholic priest Andrea Santoro in Trabzon, Leylek said the church in Mersin was flooded with telephone calls “for at least15 days,” as local citizens expressed their grief and support for the Catholic community.