GetReligion
Friday, April 11, 2025

Turkey

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Role of religion in clashes between the Islamic State and Turkey?

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Day after day, the news keeps flooding into major media about the victories of the Islamic State and the long-range implications of this movement for the Middle East and surrounding regions. Like I said the other day, it's frustrating to try to keep track of it all.

But the coverage does seem to be improving, especially if your goal is to find clues as to the role religion is playing in this historic drama. Here at GetReligion, we continue to be interested in mainstream-news coverage of several fronts, especially the impact of ISIS rule on religious minorities, including Christians, and the violence that is rising between warring Islamic camps.

On that second issue, The Washington Post foreign desk just turned its attention to strife on the Turkish border in a solid news feature that ran under the headline, "In Turkey, a late crackdown on Islamist fighters."

Note the word "late" in that headline.


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Got news? Did Erdogan lead prayers in Hagia Sophia or not?

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Eastern Orthodox Christians who follow events in the ancient homelands of the Eastern church have had May 29th marked on their calendars for several weeks now. Why is that? Because of the following news, or potential news (this particular story is care of a mainstream news site in Finland). Note the time element at the end of this passage:

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government plans to turn Istanbul’s Hagia Sofia Basilica into a mosque in the afternoon and evening and a museum in the morning.

The historical monument, which draws millions of tourists every year, will have the Byzantine frescoes covering its walls cast into shadow by “dark light” so as to avoid offending Islam. The government would thus like to turn what is today seen as a symbol of Christianity back into a place of worship for Muslims, as it was after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.


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WSJ: Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah, come light the 'Menurkey'

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To purists, Hanukkah, sometimes rendered Chanukah, is the red-headed stepchild of Jewish holy days: it’s not a liturgical event, per se, but it’s also, to borrow a phrase, “not chopped liver, either.”


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Hurrah: CNN names some of the ghosts in Gezi Park

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The coverage of events in Turkey roll on and on and the mainstream press continues to treat this as a simple clash between the moderate Islamic stance (whatever that means) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a hip, young, urban secular vision of at Turkey looking toward Europe and the future.


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Secular and religious symbols lost in many Turkey reports

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I have been reading the mainstream coverage of the events unfolding in Turkey from the get go, in large part because of my interest — after two visits to Istanbul — in the nation’s complex blend of European secularism (think France) and a variety of approaches to Islam. In the midst of all that, religious minorities have not fared well at all, including the tiny remnant of Eastern Orthodox believers who huddle in what was once the New Rome.


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Hey CNN: Ghosts in the ties that bind Cyprus and Russia

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So I’m sitting in a restaurant eating my lunch and, up on the wall, the large-screen television is tuned to CNN, where a lengthy report is unfolding about a European Union plan attempt to raise the corporate tax rates on Cyprus, a land in which wealthy Russians have funneled billions into tax shelters.


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