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Necati Aydin

Islamic link to murder of man who played Jesus Christ on TURK-7 television

By Judi McLeod

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Necati Aydin, who played Jesus on TURK-7 television this Easter, paid for it with his life.

An amateur actor, Aydin, husband and father of two children, was one of three Christians murdered on April 18 in the city of Malatya, Turkey.

Authorities confirm that the three, workers of the Zirve Christian publishing house, had been tied to chairs and tortured for three hours before having their throats slit.

Murder in Malatya Aydin and his Christian colleagues were the victims of international terrorism.

Four young men and a woman have been charged with terrorism offences over their brutal murders.

The Courier-Mail reports that the four men, aged 19 and 20, were captured at the crime scene where a German and two Turkish converts to Christianity were slain last Thursday. They were charged with "setting up a terrorist organization" and murder, prosecutor Mustafa Demirdag told Anatolia news agency.

An 18-year-old woman was charged with aiding a terrorist group, he said.

Authorities identified her as the girlfriend of the alleged leader of the gang, Emre Gunaydin, 19, who remains in hospital with a serious head injury after jumping from the third-floor office of the publishing house to escape arrest.

The alleged terrorists were found at the scene of the crime after a local, suspicious of a locked door, notified police.

Given that a Catholic priest was killed while praying in his church last year and that an ethnic Armenian journalist was slain in January in an atmosphere where violence against non-Muslims is on the rise, Aydin's role as Christ one week before his death, was an act of courage.

The Passion of the Christ, Turkey style, was featured on TURK-7's Easter season programming.

"TURK-7 broadcasts on SAT-7 PARS, which is part of the Christian satellite network created by and for the people of the Middle East and North Africa." (Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST Ministries, April 20, 2007). "We are praying for the families, for the Church, and for the nation of Turkey that God will bring some good out of this terrible tragedy. Aydin, a man who portrayed Jesus on one of our broadcasts, was himself the target of religious hatred simply because he worked so that others would have a chance to understand the story of Christ in Turkish."

TURK-7 is an indigenous Turkish television ministry that broadcasts four hours a day on SAT -7's Farsi and Turkish channel. Christians make up less than one percent of the population of Turkey.

Launched in 1996, SAT-7's programs help equip the churches of a minority Christian community and provide the wider non-Christian audience a better understanding of the beliefs and teachings of Christ. Christians make up approximately four percent of the Middle East, down from about 20 percent in the year 1900. Each week between nine and ten million people watch the channels in Arabic, Farsi and Turkish (Intermedia research, 2004-2005), and those numbers are growing in many countries. In 2005, nearly 40,000 people responded to SAT-7 broadcasts by contacting counseling centers located across the Middle East and Europe. SAT-7 can be viewed via satellite in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and much of Central Asia. Programming can also be watched worldwide at www.SAT7.org.

Meanwhile, the loved ones left behind by Aydin, take solace that one of the last acts their husband and father performed before his brutal murder was the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said she was troubled by an "unacceptable intolerance" in Turkey, a membership candidate.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference also denounced the murders. Its secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said he felt compelled to condemn the "grisly crimes because their perpetrators linked them to Islam".

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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