Vandals damage Protestant church in Turkey

SAMSUN, Turkey — Assailants on Turkey’s Black Sea coast vandalized a Protestant church Jan. 28, days after nationalists from the region murdered a well-known Armenian journalist Jan. 19. Attackers shattered the Agape Protestant Church’s windows and spray-painted its street sign early Sunday morning in the city of Samsun, Pastor Orhan Picaklar reported. Located in a region infamous for producing the killers of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and an Italian Catholic priest in 2006, the congregation has suffered weekly e-mail threats and a dozen stoning attacks during the past two years, but none were as damaging as this recent one, Picaklar said.