http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...violence_N.htm
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) — Assailants killed three people Wednesday at a publishing house that distributed Bibles, in the latest attack apparently targeting Turkey's tiny Christian minority.
The three victims were found with their throats slit and their hands and legs bound, Malatya Gov. Ibrahim Dasoz said. One was found still alive, and was taken to the hospital but later died, he said, adding that one victim may have been German.
None of the victims' nationalities could immediately be confirmed.
A fourth man who jumped from a window to escape was hospitalized with injuries, officials said. Dr. Murat Cem Miman told CNN-Turk television that the man was undergoing surgery for head trauma.
Police detained four suspects, and were investigating whether the man who jumped from the window could have been one of the attackers, Dasoz said. Police were expected to release information about the attack later Wednesday.
The Zirve publishing house, in the city of Malatya, has been the site of previous protests by nationalists accusing it of proselytizing in this 99-percent Muslim but secular country, Dogan news agency reported.
Zirve's general manager told CNN-Turk that his employees had recently been threatened. "We know that they have been receiving some threats," Hamza Ozant said, but could not say who the threats came from.
Video footage broadcast on the private NTV news channel showed police tackling one man outside the publishing house, and rescue workers loading another man in a neck brace onto a stretcher.
Attacks have become more common against members of Turkey's tiny Christian community, which comprises less than 1% of the population, and concerns have grown that nationalism and hostility toward non-Muslims are rising.
In February 2006, a Turkish teenager shot a Catholic priest dead as he prayed in his church, and two other Catholic priests were attacked later that year. A November visit by Pope Benedict XVI was greeted by several non-violent protestsEarlier this year, a suspected nationalist killed Armenian Christian editor Hrant Dink.
Malatya, known as a hotbed of nationalists, is also known as the hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981.
Constantinople — modern-day Istanbul — was the Christian Byzantine capital for more than 1,000 years until it fell to Muslim forces in 1453 and became the seat of the Muslim Ottoman Empire.
Of Turkey's 70 million people today, only about 65,000 are Armenian Orthodox Christians, 20,000 are Roman Catholic and 3,500 are Protestant — mostly converts from Islam. Another 2,000 are Greek Orthodox Christians.
Bible publishers killed in Turkey
