3 killed at Bible publisher in Turkey

ISTANBUL, Turkey – Assailants on Wednesday slit the throats of three employees of a publishing house that distributes Bibles, the latest in a series of attacks targeting Turkey’s small Christian minority.

The attack added to concerns in Europe about whether the predominantly Muslim country – which is bidding for EU membership – can protect its religious minorities. It also underlined concerns about rising Turkish nationalism and hostility toward non-Muslims.

The three victims – a German and two Turks – were found with their hands and legs bound and their throats slit at the Zirve publishing house in the city of Malatya.

Police detained four men, ages 19 to 20, and a fifth suspect was hospitalized with serious injuries after jumping out a window to try to escape arrest, authorities said. All five were carrying a letter that read: “We five are brothers. We are going to our deaths,” according to the state-run Anatolia news agency.

The attack is the latest in a string of attacks on Turkey’s Christian community, which accounts for less than 1 percent of the population.

The Zirve publishing house has been the site of protests by nationalists accusing it of proselytizing in this Muslim, but secular, country and Zirve’s general manager said his employees had recently been threatened.

Anatolia said the five suspects were students who lived in the same student residence in Malatya.

The manner in which the victims were bound suggested the attack could have been the work of a local Islamic militant group, commentators said, and CNN-Turk television reported that police were investigating the possible involvement of Turkish Hezbollah – a Kurdish Islamic organization that aims to form a Muslim state in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast.

Of Turkey’s 70 million people, only about 65,000 are Armenian Orthodox Christians, 20,000 are Roman Catholic and 3,500 are Protestants – mostly converts from Islam. Another 2,000 are Greek Orthodox Christians.