Religious liberty is not a gift from the state; it is an unalienable right bestowed by our Creator and recognized by just governments. Where government forgets this—where it treats the free exercise of faith as a privilege to be rationed—human dignity erodes and freedom recedes. The recent report from Turkey’s Association of Protestant Churches (APC) is a sobering reminder: when officials fail to protect the conscience of believers, and when culture normalizes hostility toward them, both the person and the polity suffer. Indeed, the Christian Post recently republished an informative article about Christian people in Turkey experiencing government oppression and persecution (originally published at Christian Daily International ).
What the Record Shows
The APC’s 2024 Human Rights Violation Report documents a pattern that should concern any free society: shootings targeting church buildings; armed intimidation and vandalism; worship services interrupted by security forces for ID checks; threats and harassment amplified on social media; and administrative pressure designed to shutter church ministries or deny them a place to gather. In one instance, police reportedly failed to collect bullet casings or even file a report after shots were fired at a church—a paradigmatic failure of the State’s duty to protect.
Other incidents include: an armed attack on a Salvation Church association facility in Çekmeköy; an attempted forced entry and damage to a church’s signage in Bahçelievler; insults and threats outside İzmir Karşıyaka Salvation Church; and interference with a worship service by security forces mid-service. The report further notes employment retaliation against a Christian teacher and pressure campaigns to close a church association office in Lüleburgaz.
The same report chronicles the use of immigration “restriction codes” (notably N-82 and G-87) to exclude or remove foreign Christian workers—often long-term residents with families—leaving congregations without recognized clergy. Although governments have authority over their borders, employing such tools to burden one faith community qua faith is discriminatory and chills collective religious life. The APC counts well over a hundred entry-ban cases since 2019, with severe knock-on harms to family unity and church leadership.
These findings align with public reporting that Turkey’s Constitutional Court, in June 2024, upheld expulsions of nine foreign Christians under the N-82 code (six judges dissented), and with legal descriptions of how the N-82/G-87 codes operate in practice as de-facto bans. (Christian Daily International has likewise highlighted the surge in hate crimes and hostility documented by the APC report.)
The Rule of Law: Turkey’s Binding Duties
Turkey’s own Constitution protects “freedom of religion and conscience,” including worship and the right not to be compelled to disclose one’s beliefs. That promise is not merely aspirational; it is legally operative and should inform the conduct of every official.
Internationally, Turkey is bound by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified in 2003. Article 18 protects freedom of thought, conscience, and religion—for individuals and communities; in private and in public; in worship, observance, practice, and teaching. The UN Human Rights Committee’s General Comment 22 emphasizes that coercion impairing the freedom to adopt or change a religion is impermissible and that limitations on manifesting religion must be lawful, necessary, and narrowly tailored to protect a limited set of interests (public safety, order, health, morals, or the rights and freedoms of others). Administrative measures that stigmatize Christians, impede clergy, or pressure churches from meeting run afoul of these standards.
Turkey is also a party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Article 9’s protection of religious freedom is foundational in the Court’s jurisprudence. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has made clear that sharing one’s faith (including proselytism) is protected; general restrictions or punitive measures lack proportionality and violate the Convention. It has also required states to act with neutrality and impartiality toward minority faiths and not to condition their communal life on discriminatory hurdles.
Two strands of that case law are especially relevant:
- Proselytism and witness: In Kokkinakis v. Greece, the Court held that convicting a believer for peaceful proselytism violated Article 9. Laws or practices that treat evangelism as suspect, or that empower officials to halt religious invitation or literature distribution absent concrete harm, do not survive scrutiny.
- Equal treatment and recognition: In İzzettin Doğan and Others v. Turkey, the Grand Chamber condemned discriminatory failure to recognize a minority community’s religious life, underscoring the State’s duty of neutrality and equal respect in the collective dimension of religion. Administrative acts that deny lawful meeting spaces, legal personality, or access to benefits extended to others risk the same violation.
The ECtHR has also criticized Turkey’s past religious identification practices (Sinan Işık v. Turkey) and addressed the interplay between secularism and religious freedom—secularism may not be a pretext for suppressing minority religions. In short: the State has positive obligations to protect believers from violence and to investigate hate crimes diligently, not to reward perpetrators with impunity.
Beyond the ECHR and ICCPR, OSCE/ODIHR guidance warns against registration regimes or legal personality barriers that effectively disable minority religious communities from organizing, renting space, or inviting the public to worship—concerns directly mirrored in the APC report’s accounts of denied permissions and building access problems.
Applying the Standards to the Facts
Measured against these binding norms, several categories of conduct are problematic:
Failure to prevent and to investigate violence
Police inaction after shootings at church property and tolerance of intimidation fails the State’s duty to safeguard life and religious assembly; such omissions embolden further attacks.
Administrative harassment of worship and witness
Interrupting worship services for ID sweeps, denying benign brochure distribution, or blocking holiday invitations absent specific, lawful, necessary reasons is incompatible with Article 9 (ECHR) and Article 18 (ICCPR). Peaceful evangelism is presumptively protected.
Discriminatory closure/denial of legal personality and venues
Campaigns to shut down church association offices and landlord refusals (coupled with official obstacles) impair the collective dimension of religion. The State must not leverage bureaucratic levers to suppress a faith community’s lawful existence.
Use of N-82/G-87 codes against Christians as Christians
When entry bans and removals are triggered by ordinary, peaceful religious activity—attending conferences, leading worship—the measure ceases to be a neutral immigration control and becomes a religion-based penalty. That implicates ICCPR Articles 18 and 26, and ECHR Article 14 in conjunction with Article 9.
A principled path forward exists…
For Turkish authorities:
- Publicly reaffirm and enforce Article 24 protections; investigate hate crimes swiftly; and discipline officials who ignore violence against churches.
- End religion-based use of N-82/G-87 restrictions; provide clear, reviewable criteria with individualized evidence and due process; and remedy family-unity harms already inflicted.
- Ensure worship services are not disrupted absent concrete, lawful necessity; permit faith communities to invite the public to worship and distribute literature consistent with peaceful order.
- Remove discriminatory barriers to legal personality and venues; align practice with OSCE/ODIHR guidelines so minority fellowships can rent, own, and open small chapels on equal terms.
- Implement ECtHR jurisprudence in full—embracing state neutrality toward all faiths and protecting the right to teach, practice, and share one’s beliefs.
For international partners and civil society:
- Monitor and document cases; support strategic litigation in Strasbourg and Geneva; and offer training to local officials on international standards protecting religion or belief.
For the Christian community:
- Continue bearing faithful witness with courage and love; document abuses carefully; pursue lawful remedies; and stand with families affected by entry-ban decisions—especially where children and long-settled workers are displaced.
A government does not honor its secular commitments by suppressing minority faiths; it honors them by protecting every person’s God-given freedom to believe, to worship, and to speak—without fear. Turkey’s constitutional and treaty obligations already point the way. It should choose the path of principled neutrality, robust protection, and equal dignity for its Protestant neighbors.
Sources: APC 2024 Report (selected pages); Christian Post; Christian Daily International coverage – ChristianDaily.com; Constitutional Court decision reports (N-82); ICCPR & General Comment 22; ECHR Article 9 and ECtHR case law (Kokkinakis; İzzettin Doğan); 21 Wilberforce; OSCE; ADF International
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