At least a thousand Muslims worshipped in the mosque of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s presidential palace in Ankara on August 6. They performed a ceremony known as dhikr (“remembrance” in Arabic).

This event was heavily criticized by the country’s many secularists on the social media.

Hundreds of Muslims perform the dhikr ritual at Turkish President Erdogan’s palace on August 6. (Image source: Ferit Yağlı video screenshot)

According to a video of the event, the Islamic cleric Ali Yetkin Sekerci, also known as “Galibi Sheikh Ali Yetkin Sekerci,” had the dhikr filmed. Sekerci often leads dhikr rituals in mosques.

Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara, in January 2015, that the presidential palace (or complex) would be re-named the “Presidential Kulliye” and would contain a mosque, convention center and a national library.

“Kulliye” refers to an Ottoman architectural concept of buildings that surround a mosque and are managed by the mosque.

While the Turkish-language website of the Turkish Presidency refers to the presidential palace as “the Kulliye”, the English website refers to it as “the Complex.”

The Millet Mosque, opened in Erdogan’s kulliye in July 2015, is a huge mosque can hold as many as 3,000 people. During the opening ceremony, Erdogan said: “Wherever there is a dome, a minaret today, we know it is the homeland of Muslims.”

Mucahid Cihad Han, (“Mujahedeen Jihad Khan”) who, while wearing his old-fashioned Islamic turban and cassock, conducts street interviews for the Islamist Ehli Sunnet TV, posted the video on his social media account.

“Dhikrullah in the heart of the Turkish state itself,” he wrote.

The expression “in the heart of the state” gives away the psychology of those who take pride in this ceremony. They appear to think that such public acts of “extreme Islamic devotion” right in the presidential palace are indications of their taking over the state.

This was the first dhikr performance held in a Turkish presidential complex in the history of republican Turkey.

Those who practice a dhikr at Erdogan’s presidential palace know that as the pro-government Muslims, they are the only religious group that could practice a religious ritual at such a high-level state institution. In a country where Islamic azan, or call to prayer, has been recited in Istanbul’s historic Hagia Sofia Church/Museum, now being converted into a mosque, no non-Muslim community would be allowed to practice such an open act of worship in any public setting.

This dhikr show seems to be another “test of patience” by the Islamist government applied on non-Islamists in Turkey, to measure the reactions of non-Islamists and convey an open message to them: Today is the day of dhikr in the heart of the state; get ready for more.

In April, Ismail Kahraman, the speaker of Turkey’s parliament, and an MP of the ruling AKP, said that “Laïcité [secularism] should not be in the new constitution in Turkey.”

The AKP government — through such statements and acts — seems to be warming up the Turkish public to “the future Islamic Republic of Turkey,” so that the people will not be shocked or revolt when they wake up to a completely and officially Islamized Turkey one day.

These were no traditional salah, daily prayers, or other common Islamic acts of worship in which one could humbly participate. What they did convey appears, instead, to be their pride in conquering the Turkish state.

“They do not do this as a sacred form of worship that they believe in,” said Kemal Bulbul, an Alevi author and community leader from Turkey.

“They hold such events to establish hegemony over society, to scare and terrorize people — mainly Alevis, secularists, Christians, and even Muslims who do not agree with their policies. They aim to silence, repress, and standardize the people.

“I have been threatened many times. My Facebook account has been closed three times. Even Facebook is discriminatory and taking sides against us.

“The Alevis especially are under grave threat. Alevis must stand guard in their villages now. After the June 15 attempted coup, some Islamists entered Alevi neighborhoods in convoys in many major cities such as Malatya, Hatay, and Izmir. They harassed, and threatened people. Not a single perpetrator has been arrested. If the government officials value democracy so much, what is stopping them from becoming a truly democratic government? Turkey, is at risk of massacres by the Islamic State. They might happen at any time. The situation is serious. I think there will be a bloodbath in Turkey if required precautions are not urgently taken against the Islamic State. Why are the United States government and the European Union turning a blind eye to what is happening in Turkey?”

Since mid-July, the Turkish government called on the citizens to join the “pro-democracy demonstrations.” Many people, however, took to the streets not to ask for more democracy, but to declare their desire for Islamist supremacy.

On 16 July, for example, another public dhikr performance was held in the Kizilay square in Ankara, just meters away from the Turkish parliament. According to the website Sendika.org, people in the square “recited takbir [‘Allahu akbar’], called for Islamic sharia law and jihad, and performed a dhikr.”

In Turkey — commonly, but falsely, described as a “secular state” — only Muslims (or devout Muslims) have full “religious liberty”, or, to put it more precisely, religious supremacy, which they often use to repress people of other religions or of no religion.

There are about 20 million Alevis in the country, but their faith, Alevism, and their places of worship, cem houses, are not officially recognized.

It was the founding government of Turkey, under the Republican People’s Party (CHP) that made the repression of Alevis legal and official.

A law enacted in 1925 during the rule of the CHP, which is still in effect in Turkey, bans Alevi religious centers and denies their faith. This law required the closure of the tekkes (dervish lodges), zaviyes (central dervish lodges) and tombs. The law also included the closure of Alevi religious centers.

For more than 90 years, Alevis have requested official recognition and equality, but their requests have not yet been met.

According to 2015 data of the state-funded Directorate for Religious Affairs (Diyanet), however, there are 86,762 mosques in Turkey.

Anatolia had been a Christian-majority territory before the Islamic invasion in 1071. Many Christians were slaughtered during and after the 1453 Ottoman invasion of Constantinople, officially renamed Istanbul by the Republic of Turkey in 1930. Over the centuries, countless churches in Anatolia have been destroyed, left to decay or, used for sacrilegious purposes, such as stables and storehouses.

One of the latest victims is the historic Greek Church in the city of Nigde, in terrible shape, one of the many humiliated churches in Turkey. The archaeologist Erman Ertugrul describes the situation of the church on the website Arkeofili:

“With its locked doors, the church has been left to its fate. The surrounding area has been turned into a garbage dump. It smells of urine and is filled with beer bottles. Graffiti covers the entire interior and exterior of the church. The church was used as a storehouse of the Nigde municipality for many years. After it was emptied, many people wrote their names with spray-paint or carved their names on the walls of the church.”

Christian Cappadocian Greeks were a people native to the region; they had a continuous presence there since antiquity. But between 1913 and 1922, the Greeks of Anatolia were exposed to forced deportation, mass murders, death marches, and other crimes at the hands of Muslim Turks. Their abandoned homes were then plundered or destroyed, alongside those of alongside the Armenians and Assyrians.

In 1923, the remaining Cappadocian Greeks were expelled from Turkey as part of the forcible population exchange between Greece and Turkey; many of their churches were converted to mosques. According to the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, Cappadocian Greek is now an extinct language.

Meanwhile, the Republic of Armenia is reportedly building the world’s largest Yazidi temple, which will also include a conference hall, seminary and museum, all designed as a symbol of resilience for persecuted worshippers, and scheduled to be completed next year.

Why do Turkish authorities not repair collapsing historic churches? Or do these churches remind them of who the indigenous people of Anatolia are — a fact many Turks are unwilling to accept? Why do they not build a giant church, and an Alevi cem house and a Yazidi temple in Ankara, as an act of solidarity with persecuted minorities, as an apology for the suffering Turkey has inflicted on its non-Muslim citizens?

Why does the Turkish government not allow a thousand Christian, Jewish, Yazidi or Alevi citizens of Turkey to carry out prayer services in the presidential palace — just for once? Or invite a group of secularists, atheists and agnostics to hold a seminar and press conference there, and give them a chance to discuss their ideas and concerns with the public? These acts would be meaningful gestures to the non-Muslim citizens of the country and help them feel that they are equal citizens of the country for whom the government cares as well.

But these things will never be. Islamic supremacists do not aim to establish a system where different communities can meaningfully and peacefully coexist. Instead, they aim for political and social domination in which non-Muslims will be second class, “tolerated” citizens — or dhimmis — who will always remain under threat.

While hundreds of Muslims in Turkey are holding dhikr events in public, in an apparent attempt to signal their power and hegemony over other people, Alevis stand guard at their villages for fear of violence by Islamist extremists, while ancient churches collapse and reek of urine.

So much for Turkish “secularism”.

Robert Jones, an expert on Turkey, is currently based in the UK.

Finally, after years of apathy and inaction, Washington is extending a much-needed helping hand to Middle Eastern Christians. U.S. President Donald Trump recently announced that persecuted Christians will be given priority when it comes to applying for refugee status in the United States.

Christians and Yazidis are being exposed to genocide at the hands of ISIS and other Islamist groups, who have engaged in a massive campaign to enslave the remnant non-Muslim minorities and to destroy their cultural heritage.

The scholar Hannibal Travis wrote in 2006:

“Unfortunately, the West has rejected the idea of solidarity with the Christians of the Middle East, prioritizing diplomacy based on oil interests and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, the United States, Britain, and France have largely ignored the persecutions of the Christians of Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and Sudan, while rushing to save the oil-rich Muslim states of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as well as besieged minority Kurds, Bosnians, and Kosovars. To this day, American troops in Iraq reportedly do not always intervene against the persecution of Christians, perhaps not wanting to be seen as ‘siding with the Christians’ and thus provoke retaliation.”

Then, the so-called liberals in the West — and even Christians — started pushing back against the move.

Indigenous Christians in Iraq and Syria have not only been exposed to genocide at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) and other Islamist groups but also their applications for immigration to Western countries have been put on the back burner by, shamefully but not surprisingly, the UN.

A group of Armenians from Iraq, for example, have fled their homes in Iraq after ISIS came. Instead they have gone to Yozgat, Turkey. The newspaper Agos ran a story about them on 21 December, 2015:

“They live in hard conditions. The UN could not schedule any appointment for immigration application before 2022. They don’t know how they can live in these conditions for 7 years. The only thing they want is to meet with their relatives.”

Yozgat, one of the Anatolian cities where Armenians were exposed to the most horrific murders and exile at the hands of Muslims during the 1915 genocide, is where Armenians find themselves again, this time struggling to survive in the midst of unemployment, poverty, harassment, intolerance, and illness.

Şant Garabedyan, 23, said that no jobs are given to Christians:

“I have been in Yozgat for two months. We are eight people in the same house…. Nobody hires me, because I am a Christian. My wife is Chaldean and doesn’t wear her pectoral cross because she is afraid.”

Alis Şalcıyan said that they left Iraq fearing ISIS.

“We have been here for a year. Back in Baghdad, we felt frightened, when ISIS came to Iraq…. Someone on the street saw my necklace and spat while looking into my eyes. After that, I took it off and kept it at home…. We filed an immigration application with the UN, but they scheduled an appointment for 2022, although they scheduled appointments for the next year for others. We must wait here for seven years.”

Ğazar Setrakyan said that they left Baghdad the night ISIS came to the city: “When ISIS militants came to Baghdad, they wrote ‘house of Christians’ on our door. It was impossible to stay there. We left our home and three shops, and we ran away.”

Lusin Sarkisyan said that her son, who had worked for Americans in Iraq, was targeted by ISIS. “One day, ISIS militants threatened my son saying that they would kill his family if he continues to work with Americans. We had to run away.”

Sarkisyan added that the UN officials scheduled an appointment for an immigration application for 2018. “I do not know what we are going to do until then.”

Even when European states take in Christian refugees, they fail to protect them from the attacks of Muslims in refugee housing facilities.

According to the findings of a survey from the Christian advocacy group Open Doors USA, refugees of Christian and Yazidi descent who fled persecution in places like Syria and Iraq keep facing other religiously motivated attacks in Germany.

Since February 2016, nearly 800 Christians and Yazidi refugees were attacked by others at the relief centers and camps, according to a report entitled, “Lack of protection for religious minorities in Germany” conducted from 15 February to 30 September, 2016.

“When questioned about the nature of the attacks, assault was named most often, followed by death threats, either directed directly at the Christian refugees or their family in Germany or in their home countries.

“44 people indicated that they had been victims of sexual assaults. Other forms of persecution include insults, general threats, and physical attacks that had not been defined as an assault. 11% of those questioned felt intimidated by loud music/prayers.”

Representatives of the NGO Open Doors, along with other NGOs, held a press conference in May 2016 to present an earlier report: “Religiously Motivated Attacks on Christian Refugees in Germany.”

According to the testimony of a male refugee from Iraq, he received death threats after Muslims saw that he was reading the Bible:

“They wanted me to convert back to Islam. The manager of the facility said that he is helpless and cannot protect me. As I feared for my life, I then reported it to a social worker who then wrote a report. The death threats increased. The interpreter tried to trivialize the threats and conceal them from the social welfare department. The department instructed the facility management to make more of an effort to ensure my safety. They were incapable of doing so and therefore I was moved into other accommodation.”

“Muslims said,” a refugee from Iran revealed, “that ‘Islam allows us to spill your blood’, ‘Your breath and your clothes are impure’.”

A female refugee from Iran stated:

“In the beginning they were all good to us. They then realized that I am a Christian. They took the dirty water they used to clean with and emptied it over us from the top floor…. I don’t know what happened after that anymore. […] To this day [17 days later] my statement has still not been recorded.”

Yazidis, who are a persecuted and indigenous religious minority in the Middle East, are also exposed to assaults and discrimination, according to the report.

“Of the 10 Yezidi refugees three of them received death threats, two experienced sexual harassment and five suffered other forms of persecution; six reported that these occurrences took place numerous times. In three cases the perpetrators were fellow refugees and in three further cases the security staffs’ relatives were the perpetrators. Five of the victims did not report anything because they deemed it useless.”

Staff members in the refugee facilities are also involved in the discrimination. Nearly a third of the respondents said that most of the discrimination and violence came mostly from refugee-center guards of Muslim descent. According to the report:

“In the case of conflict, a large amount of the Muslim staff show their solidarity towards fellow Muslims, obstruct or trivialize the complaints. Interpreters influence the outcome of the asylum procedures in an unlawful way and sometimes they are even actively involved in the discrimination inside the facilities.”

A Christian from Iran said: “I had a problem and reported it at the Info point again and again. There is someone there that always insults our mothers and sister. He said we are ‘neciz’ [impure].”

“The security service staff are all Arabs and they only help the Arabs,” said a Christian from Eritrea. “Whenever somebody does something wrong in the accommodation, they say: ‘It was the Christians’ even if we had done nothing.”

Only in the rarest cases would the aggrieved actually file a complaint (17% / 129 people) to the police, according to the report.

“If you include the reports and complaints presented to the facility management, then only 28% (213) sought the protection of the German authorities. 54% of those questioned (399) gave specific reasons for not filing any complaints: 48% of them were afraid, especially for fear of repeated attacks or that the situation would even get worse (36%). Other reasons were that there were no safe opportunities to contact or communicate with the police or the respective authorities because of language barriers (14%) and the impression that the report would be pointless anyhow.”

In other European states — including Austria, Switzerland, France, United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Greece — Christian and Yazidi refugees are also exposed to attacks at the hands of refugees of Muslim descent.

The German government is also rejecting applications for asylum of Christian refugees and deporting them unfairly, according to a German pastor.

Dr. Gottfried Martens, a pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin, reported that the German government is rejecting almost all applications for asylum from most of his church’s Iranian and Afghan refugee members, who have waited years in Germany for the government to hear their cases, according to CBN News.

Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Aleppo, Jean-Clément Jeanbart, said in an interview:

“The egoism and the interests slavishly defended by your governments will in the end kill you, as well. Open your eyes. Didn’t you see what happened recently in Paris?”

Apparently, they did not. They still seem to live in denial. According to the U.S. government figures, of the almost 11,000 Syrian refugees admitted to the United States in fiscal 2016, only 56 were Christian.

When one brings up the issue of Western states taking in Muslim migrants from Syria and Iraq without vetting them for jihadist ties, while leaving behind the Christian and Yazidi victims of jihadists, one is accused of being “bigoted” or “racist”. But the real bigotry is abandoning the persecuted and benign Middle Eastern Christians and Yazidis, the main victims of the ongoing genocides in Syria and Iraq.

It is true that Shia Muslims and even some Sunni Muslims — particularly secular, non-observant or moderate ones — are also threatened by the Islamic State. But ISIS and other Islamist organizations are not trying to destroy Islam and Muslims. On the contrary, they aim to further institutionalize Islam and even expand Islamic influence to other lands and establish a Caliphate (Islamic empire) based on Islamic scriptures.

Helping religious minorities in the Muslim world is not just a humanitarian issue, but also a political issue of vital importance to the West. Some people might think that the U.S. or the West should not get engaged in Middle Eastern politics.

But if the West continues turning a blind eye to the Islamic radicalization of the Middle East and North Africa, what does it expect will happen to it?

As long as Islamists keep winning “victories” across nations and as long as Christians and other non-Muslims continue to be exterminated, Islamists will gain more power and courage to expand to Europe and other parts of the world.

Radical Islamic ideology never stops where it takes over. It is a genocidal, imperialistic and colonialist ideology. It aims to murder or subjugate all non-Muslims under its rule. Islamic jihad started in the 7^th century, in the Arabian Peninsula. Then through massacres and social pressure, including the jizya tax and the institution of dhimmitude, it expanded to three continents — Asia, Africa and Europe — and persecuted countless indigenous peoples.

It seems that one of the most effective ways to stop this pattern is to support Christians and other non-Muslims in the Middle East. The West would not only gain a significant ally in the Middle East, but also the political, military, and economic influence of Islamists will be weakened.

Western countries should welcome Christians and Yazidis — the main targets of genocide — to the West immediately, and also consider ways to empower them in their native lands, such as by creating safe havens for them. It is high time that not only the U.S. but all other Western governments finally saw that the Christians in the Middle East are them.

Uzay Bulut, a journalist born and raised a Muslim in Turkey, is currently based in Washington D.C.