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REPORTS SHOW MINORITIES IN TURKEY TAGGED BY 'RACE CODES,' OFFICIAL DOCUMENT REVEALS
Balkans.com Business News
Aug 2 2013
Balkans.com Business News Correspondent - 02.08.2013
An official document penned by the Istanbul Provincial Education
Directorate has surfaced, revealing that Turkey's population
administration system has been recording citizens who have Armenian,
Jewish or Anatolian Greek (Rum) origins with secret "race codes."
The Armenian-Turkish weekly newspaper Agos published as its headline
story on Aug. 1 a report on an official document that openly states
"citizens with Armenian origin are coded with '2.'" The implementation
is reported to have been in place since 1923, the foundation year of
the Turkish Republic.
A Turkish citizen's mother whose origin is Armenian requested to
register her child at an Armenian kindergarden, but the school
responded by asking her to prove she had the "2 code" in order to
check that she had not changed religion, according to the document. In
Turkey, only minority communities' members can register their children
at minority schools, according to the education law.
The document, sent from the Istanbul Provincial Education Directorate
to the Å~^iÅ~_li District National Education office, stated that "since
1923, the secret code of Armenians is '2' on identity registration
certificates," according to the Agos report.
"Since 1923, identity registration certificates have a secret 'race
code,'" the document added.
The family's lawyer, Ä°smail Cem Halavurt, said the struggle to
register children at the Armenian kindergarden was still continuing.
"We are now waiting for an official document saying, 'Yes, your race
code is 2, you can register at an Armenian school,'" Halavurt told
the Agos.
Interior Ministry officials were not available for comment when
approached by the Hurriyet Daily News, and referred reporters to the
Directorate General for Population and Citizenship Affairs, which is
a body working under their own ministry.
An official from the population administration told daily Radikal
that the practice was being conducted "to allow minority groups use
their rights stemming the Lausanne Treaty," signed between Turkey
and Western countries, which led to the establishment of the modern
Turkish Republic.
As part of the practice, Greeks were coded 1, Armenians were coded
2, and Jews were coded 3. Other minorities or groups are not coded,
the official told daily Radikal.
While there was no immediate official response to the report,
opposition parties' lawmakers harshly criticized the alleged document.
"If this is true, it is fatal. It must be examined. I will bring this
onto Parliament's agenda," Sezgin Tanrıkulu, deputy head of the
main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), told the Hurriyet
Daily News.
Altan Tan, a deputy of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), stated
that there had long been such allegations, but they were always denied
by the authorities. Tan urged Interior Minister Muammer Guler to make
a statement on the issue.
"If there is such a thing going on, it is a big disaster. The state
illegally profiling its own citizens based on ethnicity and religion,
and doing this secretly, is a big catastrophe," Tan said.
http://www.balkans.com/open-news.php?uniquenumber=179713
Balkans.com Business News
Aug 2 2013
Balkans.com Business News Correspondent - 02.08.2013
An official document penned by the Istanbul Provincial Education
Directorate has surfaced, revealing that Turkey's population
administration system has been recording citizens who have Armenian,
Jewish or Anatolian Greek (Rum) origins with secret "race codes."
The Armenian-Turkish weekly newspaper Agos published as its headline
story on Aug. 1 a report on an official document that openly states
"citizens with Armenian origin are coded with '2.'" The implementation
is reported to have been in place since 1923, the foundation year of
the Turkish Republic.
A Turkish citizen's mother whose origin is Armenian requested to
register her child at an Armenian kindergarden, but the school
responded by asking her to prove she had the "2 code" in order to
check that she had not changed religion, according to the document. In
Turkey, only minority communities' members can register their children
at minority schools, according to the education law.
The document, sent from the Istanbul Provincial Education Directorate
to the Å~^iÅ~_li District National Education office, stated that "since
1923, the secret code of Armenians is '2' on identity registration
certificates," according to the Agos report.
"Since 1923, identity registration certificates have a secret 'race
code,'" the document added.
The family's lawyer, Ä°smail Cem Halavurt, said the struggle to
register children at the Armenian kindergarden was still continuing.
"We are now waiting for an official document saying, 'Yes, your race
code is 2, you can register at an Armenian school,'" Halavurt told
the Agos.
Interior Ministry officials were not available for comment when
approached by the Hurriyet Daily News, and referred reporters to the
Directorate General for Population and Citizenship Affairs, which is
a body working under their own ministry.
An official from the population administration told daily Radikal
that the practice was being conducted "to allow minority groups use
their rights stemming the Lausanne Treaty," signed between Turkey
and Western countries, which led to the establishment of the modern
Turkish Republic.
As part of the practice, Greeks were coded 1, Armenians were coded
2, and Jews were coded 3. Other minorities or groups are not coded,
the official told daily Radikal.
While there was no immediate official response to the report,
opposition parties' lawmakers harshly criticized the alleged document.
"If this is true, it is fatal. It must be examined. I will bring this
onto Parliament's agenda," Sezgin Tanrıkulu, deputy head of the
main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), told the Hurriyet
Daily News.
Altan Tan, a deputy of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), stated
that there had long been such allegations, but they were always denied
by the authorities. Tan urged Interior Minister Muammer Guler to make
a statement on the issue.
"If there is such a thing going on, it is a big disaster. The state
illegally profiling its own citizens based on ethnicity and religion,
and doing this secretly, is a big catastrophe," Tan said.
http://www.balkans.com/open-news.php?uniquenumber=179713