JUDICIARY AND STATE BEHIND ALIENATION OF NON-MUSLIMS
Today’s Zaman
March 16 2009
Turkey
Turkey’s non-Muslim communities have been alienated, and it was done
by the state and judiciary, said the writers of a new report revealing
the facts behind the real estate ownership problems of non-Muslim
foundations dating from the Ottoman period.
"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). Speaking
at a panel discussion convened to make the report public, Hatemi was
referring to various restrictions and conditions imposed through a
series of laws, acts and practices.
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, citing other discriminatory laws and
practices including the most detrimental one, the 1936 Declaration,
in which non-Muslim foundations were given the status of "affiliated"
foundations and placed under the guardianship of the Directorate
General for Foundations (VGM), which "played a crucial role in
implementing repressive policies" imposed on non-Muslim foundations.
"More than 30 [pieces of fixed property] of the Armenian community
were seized, on the unlawful basis that they were acquired after
1936. 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. Kurban started filing lawsuits with the European Court of
Human Rights after exhausting avenues within the Turkish legal system.
"It was no longer easy for the bureaucracy to take over the assets of
non-Muslim foundations, and the government was expected to take legal
action to return or pay indemnity for seized assets," Kurban said.
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, a new
law was enacted that endowed non-Muslim foundations with new rights,
such as the acquiring and disposing of assets and registering assets
in their possession. Even though the law falls short of returning
all assets that were seized and paying indemnity for assets that
have been transferred to third parties, the main opposition parties
objected to the law, appealing it to the Constitutional Court.
"It is important to look at which properties these are and to whom
they belong," Kurban said in apparent reference to a historical
building owned by non-Muslims that now belongs to the Workers’ Party
(Ä°P), whose leader was arrested last year for suspected membership
in Ergenekon, a clandestine terrorist organization nested within
state organs and charged with plotting to overthrow the government.
"I was fighting against a group for 15 years without knowing who
they really were. Thank God they are all in prison," Hatemi said,
again referring to the detention of some suspects for alleged links
to Ergenekon.
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 Ä°stanbul 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 Ä°stanbul
and on the islands of Gökceada (Imbros) and Bozcaada (Tenedos),
the deeds of which belong to the foundation of each church.
TESEV’s report indicated that as of November 2008, 24 foundations of
the Jewish community were included among the seized foundations, and
as of November 2007, 30 real estate parcels of the Armenian community
were seized. Two pieces of fixed property of the Catholic community,
a church and a building, were also seized.
Mahcupyan: Taxpayers should be concerned
Opening the panel discussion, TESEV’s democratization program director
Etyen Mahcupyan said since domestic avenues have been exhausted,
non-Muslim foundations moved their legal battle to Strasbourg. The
first ruling was made in a case filed by the Fener Greek High School
Foundation of the Greek Orthodox Community and the European Court of
Human Rights found Turkey in violation. In 2007, the court ordered
Turkey to return the seized property to the foundation or to pay
almost 900,000 euros. Other cases followed because of the non-Muslim
foundations’ successes.
"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.