EUROPEAN COURT FINES TURKEY IN GREEK ORTHODOX CASE
By Ayla Jean Yackley

Reuters
March 3 2009
UK

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – The European Court of Human Rights Tuesday ruled
Turkey had violated the property rights of a Greek Orthodox foundation
by seizing its land and ordered the government to pay damages.

Judges said Turkey had breached the European Convention on Human Rights
by barring the foundation from registering its title to a church and
surrounding lands on the Aegean island of Bozcaada, a statement from
the court said.

It is the latest ruling by the Strasbourg-based court against Turkey
for violating the property rights of its ethnic Greek minority. The
European Union, which Turkey seeks to join, has called on the
government to return seized properties to minorities and expand their
religious and cultural freedoms.

The European Court of Human Rights fined Turkey 105,000 euros
($131,880) for damages and expenses after it ruled authorities had
illegally prevented the rightful owner of the Kimisis Teodoku Greek
Orthodox Church from registering its property, the statement said.

The foundation was denied the right to register its title to three
pieces of land and a building on the island after the state land
registry was reorganized in 1991, the statement said.

Turkish courts had ruled against the foundation because it had
missed an initial deadline to re-register its deed and had ordered
the property be turned over to the state Treasury.

The Istanbul-based Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, spiritual leader of 250
million faithful worldwide, has filed more than two dozen cases with
the European Court of Human Rights to recover some of the thousands
of properties it says it has lost.

In September, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in a separate
case that Turkey had violated the property rights of the patriarchate
by seizing a 100-year-old orphanage on an island off of Istanbul and
ordered its return.

It has also ruled that Turkey illegally took control of other
properties in Istanbul owned by Greek foundations.

About 25 mostly elderly ethnic Greeks live on Bozcaada, part
of a community of 2,500 Greeks in Turkey, which is 99 percent
Muslim. Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, is also home to about 15,000
Jews and 60,000 Armenians.