The Diyarbakir Protestant Church Foundation, set up in 2019 to cater to the Protestant community in a major southeastern city of Turkey, is encountering alleged discrimination from Turkish officials in their quest to secure land for building a new place of worship.
According to The Christian Post, despite the need for a larger space to accommodate over 100 worshippers, the church's applications for land designated for religious use have been persistently denied or disregarded by the authorities, as per ADF International.
Kelsey Zorzi, Director of Advocacy for Global Religious Freedom at ADF International, pointed out the government's bias against the church due to its non-adherence to the state's preferred religion, calling it a "breach of basic human rights and Turkey’s international obligations."
Currently confined to a small space "unfit" for its growing congregation, the foundation is now legally contesting this denial of adequate worship space.
Orhan Kemal Cengiz, ADF International's lead attorney in Turkey, emphasised to the new outlet the significant obstacles Christians face in establishing recognised places of worship due to numerous legal and practical barriers. He said in a statement on the website: "Having a legally recognised worship place in Türkiye has always been a major issue. This problem, in my opinion, causes serious infringements of one of the most fundamental human rights, namely, freedom of religion.
"Unfortunately, Christians face numerous legal and practical barriers when they wish to establish a legally recognised worship place in Türkiye.”
The country, predominantly Muslim with a Christian population around 170,000, has seen at least 185 foreign Protestant ministers deported since 2018 on vague national security grounds.
Recent rulings by Turkey’s Constitutional Court have upheld such expulsions, sparking critical observations regarding their justification and concerns internationally about Turkey's treatment of Christians and its impact on interreligious dialogue.
This includes criticism over converting historical Christian sites into mosques, perceived as an attempt to diminish the Christian heritage in Turkey.