Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Turkish President Vetoes Minority Foundations Law

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Turkish President Vetoes Minority Foundations Law

    Armenian Church Turkey
    12/12/06

    TURKISH PRESIDENT VETOES MINORITY FOUNDATIONS LAW
    Key reform bill for non-Muslim religious rights put on hold.
    by Barbara G. Baker

    ISTANBUL, December 12 (Compass Direct News) - Turkish President Ahmet Necdet
    Sezer has blocked a key piece of reform legislation passed last month to
    broaden religious freedoms in Turkey.

    A staunch secularist, Sezer sent the "foundations law" back to Parliament
    for revision on November 29, the same day the European Commission
    recommended suspension of eight chapters of Turkey's negotiation talks to
    enter the European Union (EU).

    His presidential veto puts on hold rising EU demands that Turkey address the
    long-standing grievances of its tiny Christian and Jewish minorities, less
    than 1 percent of the population.

    Designed to enable the country's non-Muslim religious minorities to regain
    their property rights, the controversial bill had been passed on November 9
    after months of fierce debate in the Turkish Parliament.

    In its final amended form, the bill would have permitted minority religious
    foundations to reclaim dozens of valuable properties confiscated by the
    Turkish state over the past 32 years.

    Essentially, the law enabled minority foundations to reclaim their
    confiscated properties from the state within a set 18-month period -
    including even those registered under the names of saints during Ottoman
    times, when they were established by imperial edict without a formal
    charter.

    But it failed to address the sticky issue of restitution, significant for a
    number of properties that have been re-sold to a third party after
    government expropriation. It also ignored certain properties such as
    cemeteries and minority school assets that are not under any foundation.

    In his partial veto, Sezer declared that nine provisions of the law were
    incompatible with the Turkish constitution, the 1923 Lausanne Treaty or
    existing Turkish laws.

    'Reciprocity' Issues
    Even before its passage, the final text of the law had seriously
    disappointed Turkey's minority communities, falling far short of EU
    expectations.

    As head of Turkey's largest Christian community, Armenian Patriarch Mesrob
    II had publicly criticized the bill in its draft form.

    In an open letter to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on October 18, the
    patriarch declared that the bill's non-compliance with the "constitutional
    principle of equality" ensured that it would "bring no solution to this
    long-standing problem."

    "We have no demand other than that of 'equal citizenship,' Mesrob said. "We
    therefore deeply regret the fact that we were treated as foreigners." Such
    an attitude, the patriarch said, could cause Turkey to hold "hostage" its
    own minority citizens.

    The new law also tied religious minority rights to the "international
    principles of 'reciprocity,'" which refers to benefits one nation grants in
    exchange for the same treatment from another nation. The Armenian prelate
    said the misuse of this concept against Turkey's own citizens violated both
    human rights and Article 10 of the Turkish constitution.

    Echoing the patriarch's complaints, Star columnist Eser Karakas wrote on
    November 5, "What they [drafters of the law] forget here is that the people
    they want reciprocity for are our non-Muslim citizens," rather than foreign
    nationals. "Their understanding of reciprocity is absurd," Karakas stated.
    "Reciprocity for them is doing here whatever Greece has done to the Muslim
    minority in western Thrace!"

    Historic Mistrust
    Turkey's restrictions against minority religious properties were forged in
    the early 1970s, during a climate of deep mistrust dominating relations with
    its historic arch-rival, Greece. After a failed coup attempt to unite the
    ethnically mixed island of Cyprus with Greece, a Turkish military operation
    in 1974 left the island divided into a Turkish Cypriot north and Greek
    Cypriot south, as it remains today.

    That same year, Turkey's Court of Cassation ruled that minority religious
    foundations were "foreign" organizations and thus could no longer buy and
    sell property.

    The state then proceeded through lengthy court proceedings to confiscate
    dozens of valuable Greek, Armenian and Jewish properties acquired since
    1936, when the state had required a formal declaration of their immovable
    assets.

    "No matter how one looks at it, this was an unacceptable approach outside
    all international law and an overt violation of the right to property and
    inheritance," Turkish columnist Mehmet Ali Birand wrote on September 27,
    while the parliamentary debate was raging.

    "The proposal being discussed today is nothing but a correction of a
    mistake - more correctly of an unjust deed - made 30 years ago," Birand
    said. "In addition, if we fail to correct this mistake . . . the state will
    have to pay billions of dollars to the European Court of Human Rights."

    But political opposition parties in Parliament demanded amendments to the
    bill, insisting that removing property restrictions on non-Muslim minority
    foundations would boost the minorities' power and influence and thereby
    undermine national unity.

    Leaders of the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP) went so far as to
    join the decades-old litany of Turkish ultranationalists, declaring that the
    new law could lead to the creation of a "mini-Vatican" in Turkey under the
    Greek Orthodox patriarch, Bartholomew.

    Ironically, Pope Benedict XVI's meetings with Bartholomew on his historic
    visit to Turkey in late November further fanned rumors of a plot to set up a
    mini-state at the Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul. President Sezer had
    vetoed the foundations law the day after he formally welcomed the pope to
    Ankara.

    The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government can overturn Sezer's
    veto by approving the original bill a second time in Parliament, forcing the
    head of state to sign it into law. But Sezer has one last trump card - he
    can appeal to the Constitutional Court for a judicial review of the law.

    Sezer has frequently vetoed AKP legislation, including some EU-inspired
    reforms that he believes threaten the secular structure of the state.

    "The president's veto on parts of the bill will hardly be seen as a kind
    gesture toward Europe, or to local Christians," the weekly Economist
    observed on November 30. "If the avowedly Islamist Mr. Erdogan had blocked
    the reform, it would have been interpreted as a sign of Muslim antipathy
    toward Christians. Coming from the president, the gesture speaks of
    lingering xenophobia among Turkey's secular elite."
Working...
X