I worked as a Protestant pastor in Turkey for 21 years. Why is the government playing word games to deny that they threw me out?
Spanish national Carlos Madrigal lived in Turkey for more than three decades. He comments on the government's response to the European Parliament's condemnatory resolution on the expulsion of foreign Christians.
20 FEBRUARY 2026 · 11:21 CET
How do you analyse the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s response to the European Parliament's resolution on the expulsions of foreign Protestant pastors? Well, it’s the response you would expect. Although the Ministry's statement does not say so, the Turkish courts are using a technicality to deny the expulsions.
Because we have not been literally deported. We have had to leave the country because our residence permits were cancelled in such a way that we simply cannot re-enter the country for the rest of our lives. Supposedly, we can return by applying for a special visa. But that visa is never granted... (I already tried).
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And this is not an isolated case of irregularities with a foreigner's residence. Rather, all of these are individuals with valid documentation who, one after another, are being forced to leave the country against their will. This is not a one-off case but a systematic strategy that has been repeated with more than two hundred people. If I bang on my neighbour's wall, I can say that I fell and hit it accidentally. But if I bang on it two hundred times in a row until I make a hole in the wall, will my neighbour believe that I fell 200 times?
They accuse us of being a ‘threat to national security’. The only evidence is a secret file from Turkish intelligence that neither we nor our lawyers can see
No one interferes in the internal management of the country. But Turkey has signed up to the European Court of Human Rights. In other words, it has said to the court with its signature: ‘if we do something wrong, tell us’. And this is what the European Parliament is doing, which would not venture to take such a decision without evidence in hand.
In short, Turkey's response is an exercise in semantics to conceal a systematic strategy: they do not officially ‘deport’ us, but they force us to leave by revoking residence permits without evidence. When this happens in more than two hundred identical cases, it ceases to be an administrative incident and becomes a covert expulsion policy that the European Parliament has correctly identified.
Carlos Madrigal, pastor and theologian in Spain who has served Protestant churches in Turkey for over three decades.
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Published in: Evangelical Focus - European perspectives - I worked as a Protestant pastor in Turkey for 21 years. Why is the government playing word games to deny that they threw me out?