Unidentified attackers threw stones at a church in the northern Turkish town of Samsun on Sunday in the latest attack on Christians in predominantly Muslim Turkey, Anatolian news agency said.
Windows were broken but Mehmet Orhan Picakcilar, a priest at the Agape Church, was quoted as saying there were no casualties. “This does damage to Turkey. This attack depicts Turkey in a bad way before international public opinion,” Picakcilar said. The attack happened hours after a nationalist protester with a handgun made a brief attempt to hijack a commuter ferry in the Dardanelles strait on Saturday.
Passengers said he had been angered by pro-Armenian sentiment in Turkey after the January 19 killing of the Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink, which prompted large pro-Armenian protests. |