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Judiciary and state behind alienation of non-Muslims
Members of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation introduced a report on Saturday about the obstacles facing ethnic minorities in Turkey, stating that non-Muslim Turks still face anti-democratic practices.
Turkey´s non-Muslim communities have been alienated, and it was done by the state and judiciary, ....
"In the 1930s, it became evident that pushing or directly forcing the few non-Muslims left in Turkey to abandon the country was an explicit state policy," said Kezban Hatemi, the co-author of the report, titled "The Story of an Alien(ation): Real Estate Ownership Problems of Non-Muslim Foundations and Communities in Turkey," which was released on Saturday as part of the democratization program of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV). ....
One example she gave was the Civil Code of 1926 that pruned minority rights granted in the Treaty of Lausanne, which adopted the principle that the status granted to Muslim citizens in terms of religious rights and liberties should also be granted to non-Muslim citizens.
Only a short while after the Treaty of Lausanne, it became obvious that the state did not intend to implement the rights it was supposed to give, she said,...
..The Tuzla Armenian Children’s Camp is one of the most striking and heartbreaking examples of the seizure of properties from the Armenian non-Muslim foundations,she added, pointing out that Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist murdered in 2007, was among the first group of children who built the camp, which he later managed with his wife for many years.
Dilek Kurban, co-author of the report, said that when Turkey became a candidate for European Union membership, it became evident that it was not possible to sustain this state policy toward non-Muslim communities. ....
The report also pointed out that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which came to power in 2002, made several amendments to the Law on Foundations in order to solve the problem. In February 2008, after strong opposition from nationalist elements within Parliament, ....
Part of the investigation has suggested that there may be links between Ergenekon and the self-declared Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate run by the Erenerol family. On behalf of the Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, based in what is now Istanbul since A.D. 356, Hatemi, an attorney, has long been asking the courts to return four churches confiscated by the fake patriarchate in the mid-1920s.
The Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarchate once had 90 churches in Istanbul and on the islands of Gökçeada (Imbros) and Bozcaada (Tenedos), the deeds of which belong to the foundation of each church.
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While non-Muslim foundations win in the European court, Turkey is losing. And the money is paid out of the taxpayers’ pockets. All Turkish citizens should be concerned about this, he said.
Full article:
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=169711
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