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A few days ago a letter was circulated around the Internet and I also posted it on this site here. The letter concerned the massacre of three Christians in Turkey. Yesterday I received a phone call telling me that some of the details of the torture these Christians endured was inaccurate. Here is an updated version of this story.
| While it appears they were tortured, the extent of that torture was not as gruesome as the earlier report indicated. All had knife wounds and several throats were slit. This discrepancy about the level of torture can distract us from the broader focus of what God is doing through this story. The message of forgiveness that Susanne Tillman shared with the Turkish media following the death of her husband is defining the way of Jesus for many in Turkey today. The violent face of extremist Islam is being exposed in Turkey at a critical time in that nation’s history. Many around the world are now praying for Turkey. Others are committing themselves to service in that country. What the enemy meant for evil God can use for good. Let’s join our intercession with that of others for the future of Turkey |
| From: Ahmet Guvener, pastor of Diyarbakir Church 30 April 2007 Diyarbakir, Turkey Dear brothers and sisters, I greet you in the peace and love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May the Lord abundantly bless you, your families, your churches, and your work. We know and appreciate very much your heart for us. Brothers and sisters, in the last ten days we have experienced very painful moments, which words cannot begin to express. Our painful experience has shown us that our lives are as the Lord describes: “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” For this reason we have understood one more time how holy and close to the Lord we should live our lives. We have also understood that our society is easily given to emotion and that in such painful moments some people, whether intentionally or not, report certain events inaccurately and we have not prevented this or have not been able to do so. When the Malatya massacre happened we, the brothers from Diyarbakir, besides those already on the scene at the time of the crime, were the first to get there. When we got to Malatya our brother Ugur was still alive, but his condition was critical. Around 5:30 PM Ugur entrusted his spirit to the Lord. Dear brothers and sisters, that painful moment has slowly come into perspective for us so that now we have begun to see some things as we should. For example, it appears that those who murdered or arranged for the murder of these brothers are getting what they hoped for. By means of our reactions we may unwittingly help them. If we do not bring the facts into the light, these people will end up getting what they desired. Brothers Tilmann, Necati, and Ugur were murdered in a bloodthirsty way. This is a fact. But there are also some inaccurate claims about this massacre and one of these is the extent of the torture. According to rumors brother Tilmann was stabbed with a knife 156 times. Brother Ugur had countless knife wounds, it has been said. These rumors, however, are unfounded. At the morgue we wanted to put brother Tilmann’s body, which was in a plastic bag, into the coffin, but the officials and police did not like this. “It is sinful to do it this way, we should wrap the corpse in a shroud,” they said. I accepted this idea and did what was right in their eyes. I asked them for a shroud (white cloth) and the officials moved Tilmann’s body out of the plastic bag, which they placed to the side. I took advantage of this opportunity to examine brother Tilmann’s body as far down as his stomach. I did not see any knife wounds. Only Tilmann’s throat had been slit 8-10 centimeters and there was the stitched autopsy incision down the middle of Tilmann’s chest. Unfortunately there are very different rumors circulating about brothers Tilmann and Necati. It has been said that their noses, lips, and ears were cut. These rumors do not reflect the truth. I telephoned our brother Ed Grudier in Adana because I knew he had seen brother Tilmann’s body. I asked him about the knife wounds on brother Tilmann’s body. Ed said to me, “Brother, I came across three or four knife blows in the chest area. I didn’t see his back. On his face I can’t say there were knife wounds, but scratches, maybe from hitting his face when he fell down.” I knew that Ihsan Ozbek from Ankara had seen bodies. I asked him which bodies he had seen and he said, “I saw the chest area of both Tilmann and Necati. I saw purple [from bruising] on Necati’s lips and chin, but I did not see knife wounds. I looked at brother Tilmann’s chest, but I did not see knife wounds.” These are the statments of those you saw the bodies of these two brothers. It is true that our brothers were knifed and tortured. But it was not to the extent of statements such as “too many wounds to count, beyond description.” Apparently Ed Grudier looked more carefully than brother Ihsan and I did. Ed saw three or four knife wounds in the chest. No one saw brother Ugur’s body because on the night of the same day the murder happened, around midnight, his family took his body for burial. I believe that brother Ugur had knife wounds similar to those of our other two brothers. It has been said that Ugur was stabbed all over his body, including his genitals. I do not believe this. You may ask why I don’t beleive this. I think someone stabbed this much would die on the spot. Ugur would not have been able to remain alive until 5:30 PM if he had been stabbed so much. That nothing abnormal happened to Ugur can be understood [from the fact that] exaggerated statements have been about our other two brothers, too. Therefore we reach the following conclusion: yes, these brothers were tortured, but not to the extent that has been explained. We are sons and daughters of the truth. Unfortunately unfounded news reports and media exaggerations have now gone out all over the world. Our brothers and sisters and people sensitive [to such news] have been misinformed. We do not intend to offend anyone. But whether the true facts are, let us report them without exaggeration. Let people everywhere think about the plain facts. Who started these exaggerated facts [about the Malatya massacre]? We purpose two possibilities: 1) In every situation we see that the media either totally disregards something we say or totally exploits it. We investigated the bloody clothing that was submitted to the public as the underclothing of our brothers. None of this clothing belonged to our brothers. That clothing had been taken off the bodies of people shot to death weeks earlier. But what did the media do? They took this clothing and presented it as freshly removed from the bodies of our brothers. Is there anyone who does not yet know about the exaggerations and sometimes boldfaced lies of the media? Therefore, brothers and sisters, if we do not explain the true facts to you our hearts will not find peace. I have written this report because I have read exaggerated or unfounded facts in news both home and abroad. The true facts are those in this report. Before sending these facts to you, as you will see below, I have requested statements from our brothers Ihsan Ozbek and Ed Grudier. I have had these statments translated from English in order to pass them on to you. May the Lord bless you abundantly. Ahmet Guvener, pastor of Diyarbakir Church |