FAITH UNDER FIRE
Sedar Dedeoglu, Descendant of Muhammad converts to Christianity
But faces threat to life if forced to return to Turkey
Posted: February 7, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Wolfgang Polzer
© 2007 ASSIST News Service
A Turk who claims to be a descendant of Islam's prophet Muhammad has converted
to Christianity while living in Germany. But Sedar Dedeoglu, of Luedenscheid,
now faces a threat to his life if he's forced to return to Turkey, and is
seeking help from German authorities. Dedeoglu, who is involved in Christian
outreach programs among Muslims, has been receiving death threats from Muslims
unwilling to accept his conversion. His relatives also regard the apostasy as
shameful. If Dedeoglu is returned to his native country, he very likely would be
killed, his lawyer says. Despite this threat, the German Federal Migration
Office and several courts of justice have rejected asylum applications by the
Dedeoglu family. They claim Christians are free to practice their religion in
Turkey. To avoid deportation, Dedeoglu, his wife Husniye and their daughter Isil
now hope at least to be tolerated in Germany as a "case of hardship." According
to their attorney, Oswald Seitter, it is impossible to overlook the
extraordinary danger the Dedeoglu family is facing. For Muslims, he said, it is
undeniable Dedeoglu descends from Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband
Ali. In Dedeoglu's hometown, Elazig, in eastern Turkey they used to be revered
as a holy family. According to Seitter, the apostasy of a family member is
regarded as an insult of the prophet himself. Dedeoglu's case has become so
widely known in Turkey that his life is in real and imminent danger, the lawyer
said. "We should rejoice that a such a person has become a Christian, and we
should avoid any actions which could put his life in additional danger," Seitter
told an evangelical news agency.
|
