CHRISTIAN MONASTERY IN TURKEY WINS BACK LAND

Reuters
May 22 2009
UK

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – One of the world’s oldest functioning Christian
monasteries has won a legal battle to have land it had owned for
centuries restored to it, after a Turkish court ruled on Friday it
could not be claimed by the state.

The dispute over the boundaries of Mor Gabriel, a fifth-century Syriac
Orthodox monastery in eastern Turkey, had raised concerns over freedom
of religion and human rights for non-Muslim minorities in Turkey,
a predominantly Muslim country and European Union aspirant.

In a statement, the Syriac Universal Alliance (SUA), a leading Syriac
group based in Sweden, said a Turkish court in Midyat had reversed
an initial decision by the land registry court to grant villages some
110 hectares (272 acres) of monastery land.

But it added another three cases relating to the monastery’s former
land remained open, two of which had been postponed.

The row began when Turkish government land officials redrew the
boundaries around Mor Gabriel and the surrounding villages in 2008
to update a national land registry.

The Syriac Orthodox monks said the new boundaries turned over to
the villages large plots of monastery land and some designated as
public forest.

The case became a rallying cry for Christian church groups across
Europe, and had been postponed several times.

Syriacs are one of the oldest communities in Turkey and still speak
Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ. But they are not officially
designated a minority in Turkey like the Greeks or Armenians, so have
no special protection under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne’s provisions
for non-Muslim minorities.

The ruling AK Party government has said it has expanded the rights
of minorities. But the EU and U.S. President Barack Obama, during
a trip to Turkey in April, have urged Ankara to do more to promote
religious freedom.