Summary: The Turkish Protestant community is made up of over 150 small and large fellowships, the majority of which are found in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. The Association of Protestant Churches was officially formed on Jan. 23, 2009. The Association of Protestant Churches continues to act as the Turkish Protestant community’s representative and institution for unity.
Since 2007 the Association of Protestant Church has published these monitoring reports which explain the Protestant community’s situation in Turkey.
The situation in 2018 can be summarized briefly as follows:
- There was a clear reduction in 2018 in hate crimes committed against Protestant Christians that resulted in physical attacks against Protestants and Protestant churches. However there was a significant increase in public hate speech designed to incite the public to hatred of Protestants and in written or verbal hate attacks on Protestants and Protestant churches purely due to their beliefs.
- There was an increase in hate speech directed toward churches and Christians in some national media outlets, in local media and in social media. Even more concerning, there was an increased coupling together of churches and terror organizations in news reports without any evidence of substantiation, and despite declarations to the contrary by churches and church leaders. In particular, some churches, and local and foreign church members became the direct subject of news reports. Despite the passing of the Personal Data Protection Law, photographs, names and activities of churches were published in this context and this created concern for targeted individuals, target churches and their members.
- Problems continued to be faced with regard to requests to establish a place of worship, to continue using a facility for worship, and to use an existing church building.
- During the Christmas and New Year season, there was some apprehension because of billboard and poster notices with hate filled slogans, brochures distributed on the street containing hate language, newspaper articles and television programs which were directed at Christmas and New Year celebrations.
- The trend for gaining legal status for the Protestant community through establishing associations continued in 2017. However, even though the establishment of associations has helped congregations gain legal status, it has not provided a complete solution. In 2018, the pressure on church associations did not prevent churches from worshiping. During this period one church became a religious foundation and the application for another church to become a religious foundation is ongoing.
- There was no movement forward in 2018 in regards to protecting the rights of Christians to train their own religious workers. Some foreign church leaders were deported, were denied entry back into Turkey and/or faced problems with getting their residence permits renewed. A foreign church leader in Izmir was incarcerated for a long period of time on the grounds of being a member of the FETÖ/PDY terror organization.
