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TURKEY TO RETURN CONFISCATED PROPERTIES TO NON-MUSLIM MINORITIES
Daren Butler
Reuters
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2011/08/29/turkey-to-return-confiscated-properties-to-non-muslim-minorities/
Aug 29, 2011
The Turkish government is to return properties confiscated from
religious minorities since 1936, in a step seen addressing European
Union concerns about the treatment of minorities in the EU candidate
country. According to a decree published in Turkey's Official Gazette
at the weekend, property taken away from minority religious foundations
under a 1936 declaration will be returned to them.
The decision was announced ahead of a dinner to break the Ramadan fast
that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan attended with representatives of
the Christian and Jewish communities in Istanbul on Sunday evening.
Some of the seized properties were hospitals, schools and cemeteries.
In the case of minority groups' properties that were sold to third
parties, the religious foundations will be paid the market value of
the properties by the Treasury. Turkey confiscated billions of dollars
worth of property belonging to Armenian and Greek foundations when
they fell into disuse. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that
these seizures were illegal.
Most of Turkey's Christians fled in the upheaval of World War One and
the ensuing War of Independence. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians
were massacred and 1.5 million Greeks deported in a population
exchange. There are now around 100,000 Christians of different
denominations and some 25,000 Jews among Turkey's overwhelmingly
Muslim population of 74 million.
There is a dwindling community of around 2,500 Greeks in Istanbul,
capital of the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire until the Ottoman
conquest of 1453. Some 60,000 Armenians and 15,000 Syriac Orthodox also
live in Turkey, along with several other smaller religious minorities.
A treaty with Western powers in 1923 allowed Istanbul's non-Muslim
communities to retain special education and property rights.
Daren Butler
Reuters
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2011/08/29/turkey-to-return-confiscated-properties-to-non-muslim-minorities/
Aug 29, 2011
The Turkish government is to return properties confiscated from
religious minorities since 1936, in a step seen addressing European
Union concerns about the treatment of minorities in the EU candidate
country. According to a decree published in Turkey's Official Gazette
at the weekend, property taken away from minority religious foundations
under a 1936 declaration will be returned to them.
The decision was announced ahead of a dinner to break the Ramadan fast
that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan attended with representatives of
the Christian and Jewish communities in Istanbul on Sunday evening.
Some of the seized properties were hospitals, schools and cemeteries.
In the case of minority groups' properties that were sold to third
parties, the religious foundations will be paid the market value of
the properties by the Treasury. Turkey confiscated billions of dollars
worth of property belonging to Armenian and Greek foundations when
they fell into disuse. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that
these seizures were illegal.
Most of Turkey's Christians fled in the upheaval of World War One and
the ensuing War of Independence. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians
were massacred and 1.5 million Greeks deported in a population
exchange. There are now around 100,000 Christians of different
denominations and some 25,000 Jews among Turkey's overwhelmingly
Muslim population of 74 million.
There is a dwindling community of around 2,500 Greeks in Istanbul,
capital of the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire until the Ottoman
conquest of 1453. Some 60,000 Armenians and 15,000 Syriac Orthodox also
live in Turkey, along with several other smaller religious minorities.
A treaty with Western powers in 1923 allowed Istanbul's non-Muslim
communities to retain special education and property rights.