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Christians in Turkish City of Diyarbikir Facing Mass Persecution
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Turkey -- it sometimes slips out of view since it doesn't make the Secretary of State's "Countries of Particular Concern" list for human rights violations. But in the city of Diyarbikir for one, "entire neighborhoods" have disappeared. The Surp Giragos Church has been converted to an army base, the sanctuary desecrated with urine and garbage, the pews burned as firewood. Those are just a few things mentioned in the report "Turkey's Mass Persecution of Christians and Kurds," released Sept. 4 by the Gatestone Institute. Since 2015, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been attacking Kurdish-majority areas in the country, and Christians have been caught in the crossfire, according to the report. In Diyarbikir "virtually the entire town -- and all Christian properties belonging to the indigenous Armenian, Assyrian (Syriac), Chaldean and Protestant communities -- was included in an expropriation plan adopted in March 2016 by the Turkish cabinet." That expropriation plan included the Surp Giragos Church and others. Those ethnic groups haven't been able to worship in their own churches for the past three years, according to the report. "We have been exposed to ethnic and religious discrimination for years," said Ahmet G



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