07/05/2020 Turkey (International Christian Concern) – As Turkey’s national conversation focuses on the conversion of the Hagia Sophia church into a mosque, a Muslim man in Eastern Turkey broke into an Armenian Church and filmed himself reciting the Islamic call to prayer (the Adhan).
The incident occurred on Akhtamar Island in the Armenian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Cross. In addition to filming himself reciting the Adhan, he also posted photos of a sentence he had graffitied which said “raising the Adan in the church’s sanctuary has brought life back to it.”
This incident also occurred after the Ministry of Interior finally responded to a parliamentary question which was posed over a year ago regarding incidents that target Armenians. The question involved asking for data about these incidents, but none of those questions were answered in the response by the Ministry of Interior.
Armenians were viciously targeted by Turkey over a century ago in what is widely recognized as a genocide. At least 1.5 million Armenians were killed or deported. Turkey, however, refuses to acknowledge this history. Armenians continue to be viewed as less than second class citizens and are frequently targeted with hate speech by the authorities.
