The Batikent Protestant Church, located in Ankara, is one of the very few Protestant churches which have been legally recognized in Turkey by winning a series of precedent-setting court cases. On June 2, however, two police officers served the pastor with a notice from the local government that the church was to be closed within 3 days because it is meeting in a building that is not approved as a place of worship. This is in spite of the fact that the Batikent Protestant Church won a court case against the Yenimahalle Municipal Government last year that overturned the government’s attempts to shut it down on the basis of zoning code violations. This current notice is forcing the church to fight yet another legal battle over a case it has already won.

On June 4, the founding pastor of the Batikent Protestant Church, Daniel Wickwire had his lawyers open a court case challenging the police notice that they received on n apply for a work permit at the Turkish Consulate in Chicago were mysteriously “lost” in red tape.   A year after he applied in Chicago his wife returned to follow-up on the application and was refused her request for information. Wickwire said, “The consulate officials became very nervous and said that they would lose their jobs if they were to give out this information. They said that if we were Muslims we would not be having this kind of trouble.”

A well-know TV newsperson repeatedly came to his church to do interviews with him with the express purpose of shutting down the church, but was convicted by the courts of trying to incite a riot against the churches in Ankara and was given a 2 year jail sentence. However, this man was somehow able to get out of having to do any jail time.
 
Pastor Wickwire has been involved in over 15 court cases in the last 6 years in order to keep the church doors open.  Wickwire told ICC, “It "mailto://hoc@phclondon.org "

Provided by International Christian Concern