Religious Intelligence Ltd, UK
Feb. 22, 2008
Turkey ruling helps Christians and Jews
Friday, 22nd February 2008. 4:01pm
By: George Conger.
TURKEY’S parliament has approved a law permitting Christian and
Jewish foundations to reclaim property seized by the state.
The proposed law will allow religious minorities to redeem a portion
of the £75 billion in property seized by the state in the wake of
political disturbances following the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus,
and meets some of the conditions set by the EU for Turkish membership
in the organization.
The law also will permit Muslim groups to receive financial support
>From overseas groups.
Nationalists denounced the vote as an affront to Turkish sovereignty,
while secularists fear the lifting of the ban on foreign money will
strengthen the growing Islamist movement in Turkey, with activists
now able to draw upon financial support from Saudi Arabia to further
their political ambitions.
The Feb 20 vote passed Parliament by a vote of 242-72 and is expected
to be signed into law by President Abdullah Gül, a political ally of
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-leaning AKP
party.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn applauded the move saying `the
adoption of the new law on foundations is a welcome step forward.’
`This is an important issue for Turkey, and one that all EU
institutions have regularly highlighted as important to ensure
fundamental rights and freedoms for all Turkish citizens,’ he said.
However, Rehn said, "It is implementation that will be the test of
Turkey’s progress in ensuring rights and freedoms."
A similar law was passed by Parliament in November 2006, but was
vetoed by the secularist president Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
An Istanbul think tank, the Turkish Economic and Social Studies
Foundation, (TESEV) noted Turkey’s entry into the EU would likely be
blocked if it did `not ensure the return or indemnification of the
seized assets of non-Muslim foundations.’
However TESEV’s analysis of the bill said it failed to address a host
of problems, including the issue of restitution, especially for a
number of properties that have been re-sold to a third party
following government expropriation. It also entrenches the legal
disabilities of non-Muslims under Turkish law, it concluded.
"The present text of the draft is not acceptable because it violates
the fundamental rights and liberties of non-Muslim citizens which are
guaranteed under the Turkish constitution, the European Convention on
Human Rights and the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne," TESEV stated.
The bill also calls for the government to consider the `the
international principle of reciprocity’ before returning Church
lands, a reference to Turkish demands that the Greek government
liberalize its treatment of its Turkish minority.
A spokesman for the Armenian Patriarchate said that Church was uneasy
with the proposed law. `We are ethnic Armenians, but we are Turkish
citizens, we are not foreigners. So, applying the principle of
reciprocity to us would amount to discrimination,’ he said.
In 1974, the Turkish Supreme Court of Appeals (Yargitay) ruled that
religious foundations cannot acquire property, unless this
possibility is specifically mentioned in the declarations they were
obliged to submit to the government in 1936.
Properties acquired by Christian Churches and Jewish organizations
after 1936, either through purchase or through donation, were
expropriated by the state. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)
in 2007 adjudicated a case brought by an Istanbul Greek Orthodox
school in 1996, whose property—acquired in 1952—had been
nationalized by the state.
The ECHR ruled Turkey’s treatment of its Christian and Jewish
minorities’ property rights Article 1 of Additional Protocol 1 of the
European Convention On Human Rights (protection of property), and
called upon Turkey either to return the property to its legitimate
owners or pay damages. The Turkish government has so far not complied
as it is not bound by rulings of the ECHR.