MURDER IN ANATOLIA - European Stability Initiative - ESI

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Security Council. 33 Throughout the years, every edition of the NSPD has featured a list of
internal and external enemies of the Turkish state. These have included Armenians and
Greeks, traditional sources of trouble and suspicion; Kurds, seen as a separatist threat since
the beginning of the Republic; leftists and communists, particularly during the Cold War;
and, after the fall of communism, Islamists and religious “reactionaries”. All these internal
enemies were said to be even more dangerous because of their external supporters: the
Turkish Greek citizens found them allegedly in Greece; the Armenians in their diaspora;
Kurds in neighbouring countries; communists in the Soviet Union; and Islamists in Iran. It
was only in the National Security Policy Document‟s most recent revision, which was
adopted in November 2010 and drawn up by the government itself, that most internal
enemies were removed from the list. 34
For decades, Turkey‟s Protestants were not seen as a serious threat by the National Security
Council. Their number is tiny: some 3,000 out of a total population of 72 million people in
Turkey. There are many more Buddhists in Austria (some 10,400 out of a total population of
8 million) than Protestant Christians in Turkey. 35 Nor has Turkey ever been easy terrain for
missionaries. Statistics by Jehova‟s Witnesses give the following numbers of baptisms in
2008: 643 in Greece, more than 3,600 in Germany, more than 6,000 in Ukraine but only 91 in
Turkey. A few dozen missionaries among some 3,000 Protestants did not appear to be a
priority concern for Turkey‟s national security establishment – that is, until 2001.
In 2001, Turkish author Ergun Poyraz published Six Months among the Missionaries
(“Misyonerler Arasinda 6 ay”), an exposé of a web of connections between Turkey‟s alleged
enemies. According to Poyraz, missionaries were a genuine threat to his country, all the more
so since they enjoyed the backing of a dangerous outside power: the European Union. For
Poyraz, the reforms demanded by the EU were in themselves cause for alarm. The first
sentence of Poyraz‟s book is clear: “In this book I take into account the desire of Christian
and Jewish missionaries to get their hands on the lands of our country ... in an unarmed
crusade.” 36 Theirs is a crusade using “books, schools, hospitals, movies, and all sorts of
propaganda methods. A big missionary army has invaded our country.” 37 It is important to
note that in Turkey missionary activity is legal.
Since the 1990s, Poyraz has published books on subjects that reflect the concerns of Turkey‟s
national security establishment. 38 In 1998 his book Refah’s Real Face was used during a trial
33 Until recently the National Security Policy Document was prepared in the office of the chief of the general
staff. See: Ahmet Insel and Ali Baramoglu (editors), Almanac Turkey 2006 – 2008, Security Sector and
Democratic Oversight, Tesev Publications, August 2010, p. 97. Gerassimos Karabelias, “Dictating the Upper
Tide: Civil-Military Relations in the Post-Ozal Decades 1993-2003”, Turkish Studies, Volume 9, Issue 3,
September 2008, p. 460.
34 CNN Turk, “Milli Güvenlik Siyaset Belgesi kabul edildi” (The NSDP was accepted), 22 November 2010,
http://www.cnnturk.com/2010/turkiye/11/22/milli.guvenlik.siyaset.belgesi.kabul.edildi/597105.0/index.html.
Concerning the debate about Armenians in Turkey and the role of the National Security Council in the recent
past in this debate see also: http://www.esiweb.org/index.php?lang=en&id=156&document_ID=108.
35 Census in Austria, religious affiliation,
http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/bevoelkerung/volkszaehlungen_registerzaehlungen/bevoelkerung_nac
h_demographischen_merkmalen/022894.html.
36 Ergun Poyraz, Misyonerler arasinda alti ay: dunden bugune Hiristiyanlik ve Yahudilerin analizi [Six months
among the missionaries], Toplumsal Donusum Yayinlari, Istanbul 2004, p. 11.
37 Ibid, pp. 32 and 37.
38 Other books by him include: Amerika’daki Imam (The Imam in America, November 2009) about Fetullah
Gulen, Tarikat, Siyaset, Ticaret and Cinayet Masonlarla El Ele (August 2009), Musa’nin Mucahiti (July 2007),
~ www.esiweb.org ~