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On Monday 3rd August Ismail, one of our Turkish office staff, was taken hostage at knife point for about 20 minutes before being set free through the efforts of a team of policemen.
The attacker feigned interest in Christianity and met with Ismail in a church near our office. As they were leaving he grabbed him from behind and put a knife to his throat as he brought him down to a crowded seafront area. A crowd quickly gathered around as he began shouting that he had caught a missionary and cursed Ismail in front of everyone, claiming he was trying to divide their country. He wrapped Ismail's head in a Turkish flag and made him wave another one while continuing to hold the knife to his throat. It wasn’t long before police (and all sorts of news media) arrived and cordoned off the area. After several minutes of pleading the police persuaded the attacker to let Ismail go.
That evening it was shown as a main news item on most TV channels, and was front-page news on most national newspapers. Since then Ismail has had numerous requests for interviews including live national TV interviews. He gave only one telephone interview with one TV station, and gave a longer interview with a believing journalist that was published on compassdirect.org (see here).
There is video footage of what happened from Milliyet Newspaper here, and here is an English news account of the story.
Please pray for Ismail and all the rest of us in our office. We share a security camera system with the church so the police had to come to our office to collect the video records for evidence. Otherwise, however, we have experienced little direct repercussions, though the church had a steady flow of journalists and camera crews coming and wanting interviews.
Ismail was welcomed back to our office with cheers and applause and he seems to be doing pretty well in spite of everything. He plans to take some time off in these upcoming days, and is receiving counselling from other Turkish believers and church leaders. Over the years Ismail has worked with us he has received many death threats, so in one sense he is used to these sorts of things, though never in such a physical, immediate way.
11-AUG-2009 |
