

The Association of Turkish Protestant Churches released its annual report summarising human rights violations and the challenges faced by Christians in 2015. The numerous cases of threats made to pastors and churches by radical Islamists make for disturbing reading. Misleading newspaper reports warning Muslims of Christian missionary activities also surfaced again, and school religious education textbooks continue to portray Christian missionaries as a national threat. Escalated violence between Turkish forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is affecting the small number of Christians who live in the Kurdish South, home to Syrian Christians with roots in the first centuries of Christianity. A 1,700-year-old Syrian Orthodox church in Diyarbakir was damaged in crossfire, and the priest and his family were forced to leave. Media outlets falsely claimed police found PKK weapons in the church. Pastors from across the country travelled to Diyarbakir to meet local government officers, and called on all participants to seek peace.
Crosswinds Prayer Trust was founded in 1994, at Nailsea, near Bristol in the South-west of England by Canon John Simons. Its aim is to mobilise, inform, connect and equip people in Christian Prayer...
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