Turkish hijackers trying to stop papal visit
Hijacking marks a new stage in attempts to stop papal visit to Turkey. Turkish papers today report al-Qaeda's death threats against any Muslim who dares meeting Benedict XVI. Hijacking seems to be over at 8.30 (local time).
Ankara (AsiaNews) A Turkish airliner was hijacked and flown to Brindisi (Italy). The hijackers said they were non violent and simply wanted to give the Pope a message in an apparent protest against him. Turkish TV said that two men took over the plane in protest against the Pontiff's visit to Turkey in late November.
The hijacking ended around 8.30 pm when the men surrendered to Italian police asking for political asylumone of the two even apologised to the passengers. Overall, information about the incident remains confused and contradictory.
During the hijacked flight an Albanian political leader was able to talk to journalists by cellphone. Relying on "anonymous" sources, Turkish news media continued to report that the incident was motivated by anti-papal reasons. However, it would seem that one of the two hijackers was Christian, possibly a convert, who wanted the Pope's help to avoid doing his military service in Turkey where a nationalist wave is generating anti-Christian feelings. Christians are in fact accused of proselytising and of not loving the nation.
Benedict XVI, who was invited by the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople and the Turkish government, is scheduled to visit the country at a time of rising nationalist and fundamentalist tensions fuelled by groups opposed to the visit.
Sources in Turkey told AsiaNews that all Turkish papers have reprinted a message from al-Qaeda which threatens with death any Turkish Muslim who dares come close to the Pope or meet him.
In recent weeks a book was published with a very telling title: Attack against the Pope: Who Will Kill Benedict XVI in Istanbul?
It comes at a time when threats and violent acts against Catholic priests and churches are signs of tensions in a country that is slowly moving away from an affected secularism towards a form of nationalism in which "Turkish" and "Muslim" become one and the same.
Turkish Islamic nationalists have described the papal visit and Turkey's entry into the European Union as "treason against Islam".
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04/10/2006
