EUbusiness (press release), UK
May 10 2005

Under EU pressure, Turkey moves to improve non-Muslim property rights
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The Turkish government has drafted a bill sought by the European
Union to address complaints from non-Muslim religious foundations
over restrictions to their property rights, Deputy Prime Minister
Mehmet Ali Sahin said Tuesday.
“From time to time, there have been complaints from (non-Muslim)
community foundations and EU officials… This bill aims to eradicate
to a great extent those complaints,” Sahin told reporters after a
cabinet meeting.
He said the draft bill would be sent to parliament in several days,
without explaining what specific measures it contained.
The EU, set to open membership talks with Turkey on October 3, has
long pressed Ankara to amend legal provisions restricting the
property rights of non-Muslim religious foundations in the country.
Predominantly Muslim Turkey is home to small communities of
Christians, mainly Orthodox Greeks and Armenians, and Jews, most of
them concentrated in Istanbul.
In an October report on Turkey’s democratization progress, the EU
said that non-Muslim communities “lack legal personality, face
restricted property rights and interference in the management of
their foundations, and are not allowed to train clergy,” even though
their freedom to worship was largely unhampered.
“Their existing properties are permanently at risk of being
confiscated and attempts to recover property by judicial means
encounter numerous obstacles,” the report said.