Our position in Turkey

[Garo]

From : "Mustafa EFE"

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Those who follow international Christian news will know of the recent wave of persecution that has come on the Turkish church as a result of a series of television talk shows in December that featured Christianity. As you can imagine, because of our high profile in Turkish society (with our FM radio station and our advertisements in the nation’s biggest newspapers), we also have been among the recipients of this persecution. Our publishing activity and radio station were often discussed on these television programs.

 

I am usually not the type of person to share openly about our struggles. But others have encouraged us not to hide these things, believing that many more believers worldwide would pray for and/or help us, if they only knew about our situation.

 

As the efforts in Turkey to get into the European Union increase, official and psychological pressure against us and our organization are also increasing. We have experienced this especially from our current government’s administration, and from one of the members of the coalition party--the extreme nationalist party. The constant pressures that started in December, and increased in the last days, and our efforts in response to these, are as follows:

 

I, Mustafa Efe, who for the first time in Turkey started an official Bible and Christian book publishing house and radio station, a New Testament and other books distribution program, along with the Jesus film and other related efforts, I and our organization will do all we can to stop these efforts to close us down.

 

The Radio Station

 

Last November my wife and I were informed by the Office of the Prime Minister of Turkey that we must disassociate ourselves from the radio station, or face having the radio station shut down. We opposed the conduct of the Prime Minister’s Office by opening a case in the High Courts. Because the Prime Minister’s Office knows that my wife and I are among the first Turks to found and administer a Turkish Christian organization, they use this as a pretext for trying to oppose us. The law suit we opened against the Prime Minister’s Office is continuing and according to last week’s hearing we are praying for a result to come out in May.

 

At the radio station, although everything is done according to the law, and although round-the-clock broadcasting has been done without fail since 1993, we were warned last week that the Government Inspection Department is claiming—in violation of the Constitution--that Müjde FM is trying to divide Turkey and its people. This warning has been made by the National Security Court, opening a court case against us as if we were terrorists. On Monday we opened another court case, on this same issue, against the government ministry that controls radio publications.

 

Our broadcasts are constantly under scrutiny, and we are warned for every word that is used. Continually, at least two days a week, there are investigations from the Ministry of Finance, the Tax Department, the Ministry of Labor and the police. Although these investigations happened in the past, they have increased so much in the past four months that we have not been able to do all of the work necessary just to operate the radio station. Soon after these investigations, I or my wife began to be called to the public prosecutor’s office and to the verifier of accounts, to give an explanation or statement. Of course, because we were constantly going to these offices, we were not able to do our normal work.

 

Our radio transmitters are continually being checked with special frequency-gauging instruments. Together with this our radio transmitters have had to have constant lab reports for all sorts of pretexts. Such reports must be given by private technical labs, and every report costs about $750.

 

In order to provide these frequently-asked-for reports about our radio transmissions, our electrical system is constantly being checked, and now even the electric meters’ gauges are starting to have problems. Because these gauges have constantly been adjusted, the monthly electrical bills have suddenly jumped from $2,500 to $4,000.

 

And it goes without saying that our bank accounts and payments are constantly being audited.

 

The Publishing House

 

Ever since the founding of our publishing house several years ago, all of our publications have undergone scrutiny by the police and public prosecutors. For those books which had maps in them, each map had to be taken to the public prosecutor’s office for examination (and of course they wanted us to make separate trips to their office for each map). In fact, legal investigations were started even on books that we had published years earlier, and which were already out of stock. The charge? That we were using the maps in these books to secretly promote terrorist activities!

 

Serious pressure has been aimed at our efforts to distribute, free of charge, New Testaments, booklets, and audio and video cassettes of the Jesus film. Even though these materials are being given away free of charge, the government demands that we give receipts for every item (and then must pay the appropriate tax for the “sale” of these free books). If we fail to include these receipts with each package, they can impose a heavy fine. These tax investigations have increased to such an extent that just recently we were fined about $500 just for hanging our tax certificate on the wall of one office, instead of right at the entrance to the main office.

 

In order to make it easier for people to access our books, we began working with a Korean group in starting a Christian bookstore. The investigations and psychological pressure were so great, however, that the brother working in the bookstore began to get tired, and one day--not realizing that the man who came into the bookstore was a government official--began sharing the gospel with him, and gave him a free New Testament. The government official, taking this to be an illegal sale (because a receipt was not given—even though it was given for free!), charged them with breaking the law, and fined them about $1,300.

 

Those who oppose us are consistently trying to find out which people are doing courses in the division of our publishing house that distributes information to those wanting to learn about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. In addition, in order to trap us, they use young people under the age of 18 to try to join our course, knowing that the giving of any information on religious topics to those under the age of 18, outside the state educational system, is illegal. For example, a couple weeks ago Mustafa Efe was taken into the police station and spent the whole day answering all sorts of questions. The reason? Some time earlier a person had contacted us and started receiving our books. Then later his parents contacted the police, accusing us of giving religious instruction to someone under 18 (though he had never informed us before that he was under 18). According to the police, our company was trying to brainwash the children of Turkey and Christianize them, and they therefore began the process of filing charges against us.

 

We often also distribute free New Testaments and booklets at book fairs. Recently, however, the police have been carefully watching what we are doing, and when they find that we have any connections with a church in Turkey (e.g., a leaflet in a booklet giving the address of a local church), they investigate us as if we were part of some big, secret organization, and try to hinder our activities.

 

Every year we organize an evangelistic tour of various historic sites in Turkey, called the “St. Paul’s March.” Even though this event has been officially sanctioned, it has now been brought under close scrutiny, even to the extent that some parts of the government are thinking that, through this event, we are bringing in terrorists from abroad into Turkey!

 

Much of the confusion stems from the fact that, although according to the Turkish Constitution our activities are allowed, the Turkish Penal Code says we can’t do these things. The Constitution says that if, for example, you are a Christian, you are free to give out information about Christianity and in this area you can do what you want. But the Penal Code says that, although there indeed are these religious freedoms, you only may give such information to those who first ask for it, and they must not be under 18 years of age, and you had better not say anything wrong when sharing with them, or else!

 

On top of all this, we have just learned that the National Security Court has opened a broad-ranging suit against all of our activities—the radio station, the publishing house, and the book distribution department.

 

Because the government is very careful to avoid any pressure from abroad RE: religious freedom, they don’t attack our constitutional rights to religious freedom, but rather claim that we are involved in illegal terrorist activities, or try to create reasons to accuse us of tax evasion.

 

In response to all these satanic attacks, we are trying to stand firm in our faith and trust in our Lord Jesus. As it is written, “Be innocent as doves but wise as serpents.” So we are trying to use, as far as possible, our legal rights in this country, and to continue to witness about Jesus Christ. We want to be honest, however, that these pressures against us have decreased our income, and the fines placed on us for these charges have made it more difficult to pay our bills, such as rent and employee salaries. Add to this the fact that, in order to defend ourselves in court, we have had to hire lawyers, whose fees run up into the thousands of dollars.

 

We are continuing to pray against Satan’s efforts to stop God’s work in Turkey. For we know that no one can stand against the Lord, and no one can stop what God has started. Therefore please join us in praying that, throughout Turkey, people would be filled with the grace of our Lord, and that the light of his testimony would grow with every passing day.

 

With the burden to bring God’s Word to our people, with faith and confidence in our Lord we say:

 

--We shall win the court cases that we have opened and will open against the unjust accusations brought against us by the government. And we shall prove that our activities are not “terrorism” but rather “the good news of peace.”

 

--We shall win the court cases that various government organizations have brought against our radio station and, as our Lord Jesus gives us strength, we shall not allow the broadcasting of the gospel to be halted.

 

--As we win the court cases with those who oppose our New Testament and other book distribution activities, we shall continue until there remains not one of our countrymen who has not heard the good news about Jesus.

 

--We plan to bring together all our various offices into one building so that we can better organize and supervise our activities, in order to protect ourselves from future accusations and legal attacks.

 

By ourselves we could do nothing against such attacks, but thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ and through your prayers and help, we can stand.

 

Having read all this, you can understand how much we would appreciate your prayers and concern as we continue to press on in our ministry here. Hearing that others are praying for us would encourage us greatly in these difficult days.

 

If you know of others who would like to pray for and/or help us, please feel free to share with them.

 

“Pray for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” Eph 6:19-20

 

Mustafa EFE

 

Your brother in His service

[MosJan]

Garo jan es vor terits es gtel ?

[Garo]

We helped him once. Take a look here -

/cgi-bin/forum/ultim...ic;f=4;t=000024

[gamavor]

I have a suggestion Garo. Sell this story to some of the big publishers/reporters/newspapers in the US and then send the money to this guy.