US report blasts Turkey for restricting religious minorities

Turkish police officers stand guard atop the Kariye (Chora) museum, the 11th century church of St. Savior, in Istanbul. (Reuters)
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Updated 14 May 2021
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US report blasts Turkey for restricting religious minorities

  • Non-Muslim religious groups face challenges in operating houses of worship, holding board elections, and exemptions from mandatory religion courses in schools
  • Report adds to concerns raised when Erdogan reconverted the historic Chora Church and famed Hagia Sophia into mosques last summer

ANKARA: A new report released Wednesday follows a trend from the US State Department in criticizing Turkey for restricting the rights of non-Muslim religious groups in the country.

The latest report focused on the challenges non-Muslim religious groups have faced in operating houses of worship, holding board elections for their foundations, and obtaining exemptions from mandatory religion courses in schools, which are in violation of the European Court of Human Rights’ 2013 ruling.

The US also expressed concerns when Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan reconverted the historic Chora Church, one of Istanbul’s most celebrated Byzantine buildings, and the famed Hagia Sophia into mosques last summer.

In 2020, religious minorities had difficulties in obtaining exemptions from mandatory religion classes in schools while the Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary remained closed, the report noted.

“The government continued not to recognize Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I as the leader of the world’s approximately 300 million Orthodox Christians, consistent with the government’s stance that there was no legal obligation for it to do so,” the report said.

According to the report, the US criticized the difficulties that Protestant communities faced in training indigenous Turkish clergy in their congregations as “they relied on foreign volunteers to serve them in leadership capacities.”

However, “they could not operate training facilities in-country,” the report added.

Another annual report for 2021 released last month by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom found that an independent government panel urged Ankara to address longstanding religious freedom issues. It said the religious freedom conditions in Turkey were on a “troubling trajectory.”

The commission, which criticized the vandalism of places of worship in Turkey, also recommended that the US State Department include Turkey on the special watch list for religious freedom violations, and criticized the Turkish government for being “divisive and hostile” against its own religious minorities.

The trial of an Assyrian priest, Sefer Bilecen, who was sentenced to two years in jail on terrorism charges, was also described by the commission as a politically motivated move.

Anna Maria Beylunioglu-Atli, a lecturer at MEF University in Istanbul, said the problems that Turkey’s religious minorities have been facing are directly linked with the authoritarianism trend in the country.

“What the religious minorities experienced over the past year is the inevitable continuation of the general trend of hate speech and discrimination in line with the rising Islamic rhetoric within the society,” she told Arab News.

She added: “Since the foundation of the republic, there was a similar trend in Turkey to restrict the religious freedoms of minorities. But, the recent Islamist rhetoric in the overall politics consolidated it further.”

Such international reports do not have a transformational effect on Turkish domestic politics anymore, Beylunioglu-Atli said.

“What Turkey needs is an indigenous transformation by providing its religious minorities with citizenship rights,” she said. “Otherwise, such reports do not push the rulers to change the living conditions of the minorities in the country.”

US President Joe Biden and his administration have put the fight against all forms of religious discrimination at the center of their agenda. It also reflects the effort of the US State Department in highlighting the status of religious freedom in several countries around the world, including Turkey.

Dr. Mine Yildirim, head of the Freedom of Belief Initiative and Eurasia Civil Society Program at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, said measures taken by the authorities in relation to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had an impact on the religion or belief communities in interesting ways.

“Our observations and interviews indicated that in 2020 some communities felt that when the public authorities took measures related to curfews and lock-downs, the functioning and use of mosques were taken into account whereas the days of worship of other places of worship were not considered,” she told Arab News.

Yildirim said that there have been fewer attacks or vandalism against churches in 2020, mainly due to the fact that churches have been closed, and as such Christians were less visible.

“Some Alevi and Christian religious leaders have observed that the pandemic has also exasperated the inequalities in the context of public funding for religious services which is solely provided for such services provided through the Presidency of Religious Affairs,” she said.

“As they were not being able to come together in their places of worship some communities received fewer donations whereas their costs for rent and utilities and salary of religious leaders continued.”


Without meat, families in Gaza struggle to celebrate Islam’s Eid Al-Adha holiday

Updated 06 June 2025
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Without meat, families in Gaza struggle to celebrate Islam’s Eid Al-Adha holiday

  • The UN says 96 percent of the livestock and 99 percent of the poultry are dead

MUWASI, Gaza Strip: With the Gaza Strip devastated by war and siege, Palestinians struggled Thursday to celebrate one of the most important Islamic holidays.
To mark Eid Al-Adha – Arabic for the Festival of Sacrifice — Muslims traditionally slaughter a sheep or cow and give away part of the meat to the poor as an act of charity. Then they have a big family meal with sweets. Children get gifts of new clothes.
But no fresh meat has entered Gaza for three months. Israel has blocked shipments of food and other aid to pressure Hamas to release hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. And nearly all the territory’s homegrown sheep, cattle and goats are dead after 20 months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives.
Some of the little livestock left was on sale at a makeshift pen set up in the vast tent camp of Muwasi in the southern part of Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.
But no one could afford to buy. A few people came to look at the sheep and goats, along with a cow and a camel. Some kids laughed watching the animals and called out the prayers connected to the holiday.
“I can’t even buy bread. No meat, no vegetables,” said Abdel Rahman Madi. “The prices are astronomical.”
The Eid commemorates the test of faith of the Prophet Ibrahim – Abraham in the Bible – and his willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of submission to God. The day is usually one of joy for children – and a day when businesses boom a bit as people buy up food and gifts.
But prices for everything have soared amid the blockade, which was only slightly eased two weeks ago. Meat and most fresh fruits and vegetables disappeared from the markets weeks ago.
At a street market in the nearby city of Khan Younis, some stalls had stuffed sheep toys and other holiday knickknacks and old clothes. But most people left without buying any gifts after seeing the prices.
“Before, there was an Eid atmosphere, the children were happy … Now with the blockade, there’s no flour, no clothes, no joy,” said Hala Abu Nqeira, a woman looking through the market. “We just go to find flour for our children. We go out every day looking for flour at a reasonable price, but we find it at unbelievable prices.”
Israel’s campaign against Hamas has almost entirely destroyed Gaza’s ability to feed itself. The UN says 96 percent of the livestock and 99 percent of the poultry are dead. More than 95 percent of Gaza’s prewar cropland is unusable, either too damaged or inaccessible inside Israeli military zones, according to a land survey published this week by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Israel barred all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for more than two months. It eased the blockade two weeks ago to allow a trickle of aid trucks in for the UN to distribute. The trucks have brought in some food items, mainly flour. But the UN says it has struggled to delivery much of the incoming aid because of looting or Israeli military restrictions.
Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people have been driven from their homes, and most have had to move multiple times to escape Israeli offensives.
Rasha Abu Souleyma said she recently slipped back to her home in Rafah — from which her family had fled to take refuge in Khan Younis — to find some possessions she’d left behind.
She came back with some clothes, pink plastic sunglasses and bracelets that she gave to her two daughters as Eid gifts.
“I can’t buy them clothes or anything,” the 38-year-old said. “I used to bring meat in Eid so they would be happy, but now we can’t bring meat, and I can’t even feed the girls with bread.”
Near her, a group of children played on makeshift swings made of knotted and looped ropes.
Karima Nejelli, a displaced woman from Rafah, pointed out that people in Gaza had now marked both Eid Al-Adha and the other main Islamic holiday, Eid Al-Fitr, two times each under the war. “During these four Eids, we as Palestinians did not see any kind of joy, no sacrifice, no cookies, no buying Eid clothes or anything.”
 

 


Media groups urge Israel to allow Gaza access for foreign journalists

Updated 06 June 2025
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Media groups urge Israel to allow Gaza access for foreign journalists

  • An open letter shared by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders called the restrictions “a situation that is without precedent in modern warfare.”

NEW YORK: More than 130 news outlets and press freedom groups called Thursday for Israel to immediately lift a near-total ban on international media entering Gaza, while calling for greater protections for Palestinian journalists in the territory.
Israel has blocked most foreign correspondents from independently accessing Gaza since it began its war there following the unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack by militant group Hamas.
An open letter shared by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders called the restrictions “a situation that is without precedent in modern warfare.”
Signees included AFP’s global news director Phil Chetwynd, The Associated Press executive editor Julie Pace, and the editor of Israeli newspaper Haaretz Aluf Benn.
The letter added that many Palestinian journalists — whom news outlets have relied on to report from inside Gaza — face a litany of threats.
“Local journalists, those best positioned to tell the truth, face displacement and starvation,” it said.
“To date, nearly 200 journalists have been killed by the Israeli military. Many more have been injured and face constant threats to their lives for doing their jobs: bearing witness.
“This is a direct attack on press freedom and the right to information.”
The letter added that it was a “pivotal moment” in Israel’s war — with renewed military actions and efforts to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza.
This, it said, makes it “vital that Israel open Gaza’s borders for international journalists to be able to report freely and that Israel abides by its international obligations to protect journalists as civilians.”
Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a separate statement that Israel must grant journalists access and allow them to work in Gaza “without fear for their lives.”
“When journalists are killed in such unprecedented numbers and independent international media is barred from entering, the world loses its ability to see clearly, to understand fully, and to respond effectively to what is happening,” she said.
Reporters Without Borders head Thibaut Bruttin said the media blockade on Gaza “is enabling the total destruction and erasure of the blockaded territory.”
“This is a methodical attempt to silence the facts, suppress the truth, and isolate the Palestinian press and population,” he said in a statement.
Thursday’s letter was issued the same day the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said three reporters were killed by a strike close to a hospital in Gaza City.
Israel’s military said the strike had targeted “an Islamic Jihad terrorist who was operating in a command and control center” in the yard of the hospital.


Netanyahu says Israel has ‘activated’ some Palestinian clans opposed to Hamas

Updated 06 June 2025
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Netanyahu says Israel has ‘activated’ some Palestinian clans opposed to Hamas

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel has “activated” some clans of Palestinians in Gaza that are opposed to Hamas, though it was not immediately clear what role they would play.
His comments on social media were the first public acknowledgment of Israel’s backing of armed Palestinian groups within Gaza, based around powerful clans or extended families.
Such clans often wield some control in corners of Gaza, and some have had clashes or tensions with Hamas in the past. Palestinians and aid workers have accused clans of carrying out criminal attacks and stealing aid from trucks. Several clans have issued public statements rejecting cooperation with the Israelis or denouncing looting.
An Israeli official said that one group that Netanyahu was referring to was the so-called Popular Forces, led by Yasser Abu Shabab, a local clan leader in Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
In recent weeks, the Abu Shabab group announced online that its fighters were helping protect shipments to the new, Israeli-backed food distribution centers run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the Rafah area. But some Palestinians say the group has also been involved in attacking and looting aid convoys.
Netanyahu did not specify what support Israel was giving to the clans, or what specifically their role would be. His announcement came hours after a political opponent criticized him for arming unofficial groups of Palestinians in Gaza.
In a video posted to his X account, Netanyahu said the government made the move on the advice of “security officials,” in order to save lives of Israeli soldiers.
Though it was known in southern Gaza throughout the war, the Abu Shabab group emerged publicly the past month, posting pictures of its armed members, with helmets, flak jackets and automatic weapons. It declared itself a “nationalist force” protecting aid.
The Abu Shabab family renounced Yasser over his connections with the Israeli military in a recent statement, saying he and anyone who joined his group “are no longer linked” to the family.
The group’s media office said in response to emailed questions from the Associated Press that it operates in Israeli military-controlled areas for a “purely humanitarian” reason.
It described its ties with the Israel military as “humanitarian communication to facilitate the introduction of aid and ensure that it is not intercepted.”
“We are not proxies for anyone,” it said. “We have not received any military or logistical support from any foreign party.”
It said it has “secured the surroundings” of GHF centers in Rafah but was not involved in distribution of food.
It rejected accusations that the group had looted aid, calling them “exaggerations” and part of a “smear campaign.” But it also said, “our popular forces led by Yasser Abu Shabab only took the minimum amount of food and water necessary to secure their elements in the field,” without elaborating how, and from whom, they took the aid.
Abu Shabab and around 100 fighters have been active in eastern parts of Rafah and Khan Younis, areas under Israeli military control, according to Nahed Sheheiber, head of the private transportation union in Gaza that provides trucks and drivers for aid groups. He said they used to attack aid trucks driving on a military-designated route leading from the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, the main entry point for aid.
“Our trucks were attacked many times by the Abu Shabab gang and the occupation forces stood idle. They did nothing,” Sheheiber said, referring to the Israeli military,
“The one who has looted aid is now the one who protects aid,” he said sarcastically.
An aid worker in Gaza said humanitarian groups tried last year to negotiate with Abu Shabab and other influential families to end their looting of convoys. Though they agreed, they soon reverted to hijacking trucks, the aid worker said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk the media.
The aid worker said he saw Abu Shabab’s men operating in Israeli-controlled areas near the military-held Morag Corridor in southern Gaza in late May. They were wearing new uniforms and carried what appeared to be new weapons, he said.
Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN humanitarian office OCHA for the occupied Palestinian territory, said Thursday that “criminal gangs operating under the watch of Israeli forces near Kerem Shalom would systematically attack and loot aid convoys. .... These gangs have by far been the biggest cause of aid loss in Gaza.”
The war between Israel and Hamas erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-linked militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.
Israel responded with an offensive that has decimated Gaza, displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million people and caused a humanitarian crisis that has left the territory on the brink of famine.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 54,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than half of them women and children. The ministry, which is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government, does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.
Hamas is still holding 56 hostages. Around a third are believed to be alive, though many fear they are in grave danger the longer the war goes on.


Mum, three kids die in Turkiye tower block fire

Updated 06 June 2025
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Mum, three kids die in Turkiye tower block fire

  • Diyarbakir Governor Murat Zorluoglu said the fire began around 6:30 p.m. (1530 GMT) on the eve of Turkiye’s Eid Al-Adha celebrations

DIYARBAKIR, Turkiye: A mother and three children died Thursday when a fire broke out in a 13-story apartment block in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkiye’s Kurdish-majority southeast, local officials said.
Diyarbakir Governor Murat Zorluoglu said the fire began around 6:30 p.m. (1530 GMT) on the eve of Turkiye’s Eid Al-Adha celebrations.
He said “more than 30 people” were evacuated from the tower block, 17 of whom were taken to hospital after being affected by the “very intense smoke.”
Four of them had died — three children and a mother, he said, without specifying if all of them were her children.
But Mehmet Galip Ensarioglu, a local MP from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said they were “all from the same family.”
Footage from the scene showed rescuers evacuating people from the building by basket cranes as fierce flames raged from the roof.
By the end of the evening, only 10 people were left in hospital, “nine in good condition, and one in moderate condition,” Zorluoglu said.
“If there is any negligence, those responsible will be held accountable,” he added.
By nightfall, the fire had been brought under control and rescue teams had confirmed there was no one left inside, he said.
 

 


Syria ‘will give UN inspectors immediate access to suspected former nuclear sites’

Updated 05 June 2025
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Syria ‘will give UN inspectors immediate access to suspected former nuclear sites’

  • Grossi describes new govt as ‘committed to opening up to international cooperation’

DAMASCUS: Syria’s new government has agreed to give inspectors from the UN’s nuclear watchdog access to suspected former nuclear sites immediately, the agency’s head said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, spoke in an interview in Damascus, where he met with President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and other officials.

He also said Al-Sharaa expressed an interest in pursuing nuclear energy for Syria in the future, adding, “Why not?”

The agency’s aim is “to bring total clarity over certain activities that took place in the past that were, in the judgment of the agency, probably related to nuclear weapons,” Grossi said. 

He described the new government as “committed to opening up to the world, to international cooperation” and said he is hopeful of finishing the inspection process within months.

An IAEA team in 2024 visited some sites of interest while former President Bashar Assad was still in power. 

Since the fall of Assad in December, the IAEA has been seeking to restore access to sites associated with Syria’s nuclear program.

Syria under Assad is believed to have operated an extensive clandestine nuclear program, which included an undeclared nuclear reactor built by North Korea in eastern Deir Ezzor province.

The IAEA described the reactor as being “not configured to produce electricity” — raising the concern that Damascus sought a nuclear weapon there by producing weapons-grade plutonium.

The reactor site only became public knowledge after Israel, the Middle East’s only nuclear power, launched airstrikes in 2007, destroying the facility. Syria later leveled the site and never responded fully to the IAEA’s questions.

Grossi said inspectors plan to return to the reactor in Deir Ezzor and three other related sites. 

Other sites under IAEA safeguards include a miniature neutron source reactor in Damascus and a facility in Homs that can process yellow-cake uranium.

“We are trying to narrow down the focus to those or that one that could be of a real interest,” he said.

While there are no indications that there have been releases of radiation from the sites, he said, the watchdog is concerned that “enriched uranium can be lying somewhere and could be reused, could be smuggled, could be trafficked.”

He said Al-Sharaa had shown a “very positive disposition to talk to us and to allow us to carry out the activities we need to.”

Apart from resuming inspections, Grossi said the IAEA is prepared to transfer equipment for nuclear medicine and to help rebuild the radiotherapy, nuclear medicine, and oncology infrastructure in a health system severely weakened by nearly 14 years of civil war.

“And the president has expressed to me he’s interested in exploring, in the future, nuclear energy as well,” Grossi said.

Grossi said Syria would most likely be looking into small modular reactors, which are cheaper and easier to deploy than traditional large ones.

Regarding the ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran for a deal over Tehran’s nuclear program, Grossi said he has been in “constant contact” with the parties.

“They are negotiating; it’s not us, but it is obvious that the IAEA will have to be the guarantor of whichever agreement they come to,” he said.