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Where will Turkey stand on freedom of religion? Feti Demirtas is a 25-year-old citizen of the Republic of Turkey who has served his ninth prison sentence within a period of two years. His “crime”? Feti’s Bible-trained conscience will not allow him to join the military. He explains, “I am a sincere conscientious objector and base my stand in part on Isaiah 2:4, which says not to learn war anymore.” Feti is a member of the Christian congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and his conscience will, on the other hand, allow him to participate in genuine alternative civilian service, if any such legal arrangement existed. He has consistently and respectfully made this clear to the appropriate authorities. But Turkey does not recognize conscientious objection to military service and has no legal provision for alternative service. Applications for exemption as conscientious objectors are simply not processed. Instead, the military courts have told Feti that “Turkey, Belarus, and Azerbaijan are the countries in Europe not acknowledging conscientious objection.”
Feti has endured verbal abuse, slaps in the face, kicks in the head and body, aggressive intimidation, psychiatric evaluations, and repeated arrests and imprisonments. One captain told Feti: “Pray not to be assigned to my military base, since I will make you lead a dog’s life. I will force you to perform military service.” Another told him: “Leave Turkey if you do not want to be in the military.”
Feti is one of 14 young men who are Jehovah’s Witnesses facing this issue. Another, Yunus Erçep, continues to experience ongoing and relentless prosecutions and punishments. Through his 10-year ordeal, Yunus has endured verbal and physical harassment, 11 days in a psychiatric hospital for “religious paranoia,” fines and five months in prison. To date, Yunus has been called up 24 times for military service and has been prosecuted 21 times. Court applications for both Feti and Yunus have been filed with the European Court of Human Rights. These men are not making any type of political statement by their filing with the Court, they have merely exhausted all local remedies and recognize this treatment as a violation of their freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Since 1931, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been present in Turkey. Today, there are some 3,000 members and associates. Although not officially registered as a legal entity, Jehovah’s Witnesses have de facto recognition as a religion in Turkey as a result of open communication with officials as well as various court rulings in their favor. Recent efforts by Jehovah’s Witnesses to obtain legal recognition in the country have met with success by local court decisions. However, the government has appealed the decision and the case is pending with the Supreme Court in Ankara. Turkey is a country at a crossroads. What recognized freedoms will it protect? What will its citizens have a right to expect? Contacts: Jehovah’s Witnesses deserve choice as a legal right says lawyer A leading medical lawyer based at University College Cork says members of the Jehovah’s Witness faith should have the legal right to refuse blood transfusions if they so desire. Dr Deirdre Madden told a meeting of the UCC Medical Society that while it is a controversial issue, the refusal of transfusions is a matter of faith for Witnesses, and deserves to be respected as their choice. There have been a number of cases where court orders were sought to force seriously ill patients to accept a transfusion, and where a parents wishes were overruled, in the case of a child. Deirdre Madden says if a patient has made it clear to doctors that they are not to be given certain treatment, then their wishes should be honoured no matter how sick or incapacitated they become. Richard Parker, a member of the Jehovah`s Witnesses, says that the refusal of transfusions is one of their fundamental beliefs It is not forbidden by their faith but is a matter of choice for the individual, he said He told last night`s meeting that neither the medical profession nor the courts should be entitled to force him or any member of his family to accept a form of treatment which goes against that individual choice. El fin de este systema de cosas…No el fin del mundo sino el de esta humanidad que se complace en lo malo Until two years ago, the Roman Catholic diocese of Palm Beach, Fla., ran audits of its parishes only when they changed pastors. It was a risky, even foolhardy policy when you consider that a parish like St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church, in Delray Beach, hadn’t changed pastors in 40 years. In September 2003, upon the retirement of St. Vincent’s pastor, the Rev. John Skehan, diocesan accountant Denis Hamel dutifully showed up to inspect the books and the procedures for counting Sunday collections. The new pastor, the Rev. Francis Guinan–a close buddy of Skehan’s–told him to beat it. But the new bishop, Gerald Barbarito, eventually ordered Guinan to comply–and by Easter 2005, after parish staff had come forward with what they knew about St. Vincent’s slippery bookkeeping, Hamel was left dumbfounded. “I called the bishop,” says Hamel, now the diocese’s financial administrator, “and I told him we had a tiger by the tail.”
It was an especially ravenous beast if the allegations are true. Forensic auditors estimate that Skehan and later Guinan misappropriated $8.6 million over 42 years. They allegedly diverted St. Vincent collection money to secret slush-fund accounts while living as hedonistically as Renaissance Popes. The police report says Skehan, 79, gave a “girlfriend” $134,000, made a rare-coins purchase for $275,000 and owned an oceanfront condominium worth $455,000. It says Guinan, 63, whom Barbarito removed as St. Vincent’s pastor in 2005, spent his take on expensive vacations to Las Vegas and the Bahamas; a $220,000 renovation of his parish residence; and payments to his own “paramour,” the bookkeeper of his former parish, whom he gave $47,000 for credit-card bills and her child’s tuition. Both priests were arrested by Delray Beach police last September–after Guinan returned from a South Pacific cruise–and were charged with grand theft. (They pleaded not guilty.) St. Vincent’s may be the worst known case of embezzlement to hit U.S. Catholicism, but Skehan and Guinan are joined by a gallery of other recent alleged klepto-clerics. Last month a Virginia priest was indicted for allegedly embezzling $600,000 from two Catholic churches–in part to help support the woman and three children he had been secretly living with. Last year a Connecticut priest was accused of pilfering up to $1.4 million to pay for his Audi cars, luxury-hotel stays, jewelry for his boyfriend and a Fort Lauderdale condo. And last June another priest was sentenced to five years in prison after the misappropriation of $2 million from the Church of the Holy Cross in Rumson, N.J. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1590435,00.html Internationaler Kongress in Rom,Zeugen Jehovas ,Assemblea Internazionale di Roma ,Testimoni di Geova Tim zoekt in iedere aflevering van Reported uit hoe het zit, wat er aan de hand is én waarom. In deze aflevering praat Tim met drie jonge Jehova’s, want, wat geloven zij nu eigenlijk? Als een echte wannabe-jehova moest hij natuurlijk ook langs de deuren gaan, en dat deed hij. “De dag van jehova is nabij!” Theocratic activities of Project 4 east congregation US State Department Report: Anti-Semitism continued to exist in Greece US State Department’s Greece Country Report says that the anti-semitism continues to exist in Greece. The report further argues that vandalism against Jewish properties continue: The full-text of the related part of the report: “The Jewish community has approximately 5,000 members. Anti-Semitism continued to exist, particularly in the extremist press. The mainstream press and public often did not clearly distinguish between criticism of Israel and comments about Jews. In 2004 the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, the Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League, and GHM criticized the press for carrying anti-Semitic stories and cartoons on several occasions. For example, on August 16, Eleftherotypia, the second largest daily newspaper, published a cartoon depicting an Israeli soldier praying with a rifle that was firing swastikas. Candidates for the political party LAOS, the fifth largest party, have made anti-Semitic statements during the campaign for municipal offices in the Fall. The party’s weekly paper A1 published strongly anti-Semitic articles accusing the Israelis of genocide against the Lebanese people. A July editorial stated that if “the Jews continue this way, they will beat Hitler’s number of victims.” Anti-Semitic references as well as comparisons with the Holocaust were common in the press during the July-August conflict involving Israel and Lebanon, while some major media promoted the image of Israel as the “Nazi-state.” On the other hand, Hezbollah fighters were often seen as “freedom fighters” and “resistance groups.” Vandalism of Jewish monuments decreased, although the Holocaust monument in Thessaloniki was vandalized during an antiwar demonstration in August; the government condemned the vandalism. As of December, police had not found the perpetrators of the 2004 desecration of Holocaust memorials in Komotini in Thrace. Several times throughout the year extreme right-wing groups painted anti-Semitic graffiti along with their symbols and organization names at multiple locations, including the busy Athens?Corinth and Athens-Tripoli highways, and other public structures. In February the prosecutor filed a lawsuit against “Golden Dawn” for defacing public property and painting anti-Semitic graffiti during the course of the last several years. In April the Central Board of the Jewish Communities of Greece continued to protest the Easter tradition of burning a life-size effigy of Judas, sometimes referred to as the “burning of the Jew,” which they maintained propagated hatred and fanaticism against Jews. One Greek Orthodox bishop, a local NGO, and the Wiesenthal Center expressed formal written objections to this tradition. The Jewish Community also protested anti-Semitic passages in the Holy Week liturgy and it reported that it maintained a dialogue with the Orthodox Church about the removal of these passages. Some schoolbooks carried negative references to Roman Catholics, Jewish persons, members of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others. Negotiations continued between the Jewish community of Thessaloniki and the government to find acceptable restitution for the community’s cemetery, expropriated after its destruction during the Holocaust. Aristotle University, a public institution, was built on top of the expropriated cemetery. Jewish community leaders condemned anti-Semitic broadcasts on small private television stations, but authorities did not bring charges against these largely unlicensed operators. The government co-sponsored commemorative events in Athens and Thessaloniki in January for Holocaust Remembrance Day. This was followed two weeks later by the visit of Israel’s President Moshe Katsav, the first official visit of an Israeli head of state. The Ministry of Education distributed materials to schools on the history of the Holocaust to be read in all schools on Holocaust Remembrance Day, and teacher-training seminars on the Holocaust were held.” Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – Greece 2006 http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=43370 Cartoon of Jesus healing a man. Non denominational A brief clip of part of the baptism of 14 candidates |
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