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FUTURE OF TURKISH DEMOCRACY: COMMITTEE: HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS
CQ Congressional Testimony
July 15, 2014 Tuesday
SUBCOMMITTEE: EUROPE, EURASIA, AND EMERGING THREATS
CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
TESTIMONY-BY: DR. ELIZABETH H. PRODROMOU, VISITING ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
AFFILIATION: VISITING ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Statement of Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou Visiting Associate Professor
of Conflict Resolution The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy,
Tufts University
Committee on House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia,
and Emerging Threats
July 15, 2014
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee,
Good afternoon. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. Allow
me to thank you for the invitation to brief you today on the future of
democracy in Turkey. I respectfully request that my written comments,
from which I will draw for this testimony, be submitted into the
Congressional Record.
As a former Commissioner and Vice Chair of the US Commission on
International Religious Freedom and as a current member of the
Secretary of State's Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group, I
am heartened by the Subcommittee's recognition that media freedom,
the rights of religious minorities, and the vitality of civil society,
are crucial issues for the health and quality of democracy in Turkey,
as well as for Turkey's capacity to play a consistent, positive,
and effective role in partnership with the United States and NATO in
confronting serious threats to stability in Europe and Eurasia.
In an effort to respect the time limitations on this hearing and
well aware of the expertise of my fellow panelists, let me offer
some general remarks and, then, specific data points, that focus on
the rights of religious minorities in Turkey. The most constructive
way of thinking about the rights of religious minorities in Turkey,
as part of an overall assessment of democracy in Turkey, is within
the context of international human rights standards established in
foundational documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
amongst others.
International human rights standards unequivocally identified the
right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including
the freedom to change one's religion or belief, as well as freedom,
either alone or within a community, in public and private, to manifest
religious belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
(Paraphrase from the UDHR and ICCPR).
Measured against these international human rights standards, it is
fair to say that there is evidence of some progress in Turkey during
the period since the AKP (Justice and Development Party) was elected
into government. The progress has come largely in two areas: the
first is what I would call discursive improvements, in the form of
a breaking of the long-held taboos in the Turkish government, media,
and civil society, on discussions regarding systematic and egregious
violations in the rights of religious minorities in Turkey (e.g.
discussion of the Armenian Genocide, cleansing of Greek Orthodox
Christians and the suffocation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,
through mechanisms of violence and non- violence); and the second is
what I would call remedial efforts designed to loosen restrictions
on religious freedom for Turkey's religious minority communities,
particularly the rights of the country's tiny Christian minority
communities (they comprise less than 1 percent of Turkey's overall
population).
The progress in these two areas has been widely reported, particularly
when it comes to the 2011 liberalization in the law regulating property
rights (return and compensation) for the country's religious minorities
(return and compensation of vast amounts of property expropriated
and/or transferred by the Turkish state from the Greek, Armenian,
and Syriac Christian communities), and when it comes to permission by
the Turkish state authorities for celebrations at well-known Christian
religious sites, such as the Greek Orthodox Sumela Monastery and the
Armenian Apostolic Monastery of Akhtamar. The invitation to leaders of
the country's religious minority communities (e.g. Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew, Kuryakos Ergun, head of the Syriac Mor Gabriel Monastery)
to address the Turkish Parliament as part of the constitutional reform
process, also suggested the possibility for improving the rights of
religious minorities in Turkey.
However, despite signals, suggestions, and hopes for improvements
in religious freedom conditions for Turkey's religious minority
communities, the facts on the ground reveal a sobering picture of
no substantive change by that, I mean the failure to make legal
and institutional changes necessary to ensure that all of Turkey's
citizens are treated equally before the law and, indeed, worrisome
changes of deterioration in the rights of religious minorities.
Indeed, put simply, if one uses religious freedom for Turkey's minority
communities as a metric for the overall robustness and quality of
democracy in Turkey, there is cause for grave concern.
Three issues illustrate my point:
An Islamization strategy built on the conversation of Christian
Churches into mosques (e.g. St. Sophia in Trabzon and Iznik/Nicaea,
and the declared commitment of the AKP government to convert the
Byzantine Cathedral of Aghia Sophia a UNESCO World Heritage site)
into a mosque, and on the destruction of any physical footprint of
the religious patrimony of Christianity in Turkish-occupied Cyprus.
The continuing interference in the internal governance structures
of Christian and Jewish minorities in Turkey (e.g. imposition of
arbitrary citizenship requirements for election to the Ecumenical
Patriarchate and the Armenian and Syriac Patriarchates).
Prohibitions on religious education and, especially, training of
clergy, which ensures the disappearance of hierarchs and priests and,
therefore, the annihilation of Christian communities which, by their
nature, depend on religious orders. Especially emblematic is the
ongoing closure of the Greek Orthodox Theological School of Halki
(40-plus years closed) on the Island of Heybeliada, a reality that
is purely political and unrelated to legal limitations (e.g. public
statements to this effect last year, by both PM Erdogan and members
of his government).
Failure to bring to justice and/or to prosecute and/or convict
perpetrators of violence against members of Turkey's Christian
communities, and the troubling rise of anti-Semitism in Turkey (e.g.
statements by members of the government, in Turkish state and private
media outlets).
Turkish state's use of racial coding system for religious minorities:
Ancestry Codes of Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Syriacs, Others (Roman
Catholics and Protestants) as 1 through 5, by the Ministry of
Education, Ministry of Information, and the Population Directorate.
6. The comprehensive religious cleansing policy perpetrated by
the Turkish Armed Forces, with support from the Turkish Cypriot
authorities, in Turkish-occupied Cyprus. July 20th marks the 40th year
of Turkey's occupation of northern Cyprus, and the systematic cleansing
of any Christian presence in Turkish- occupied Cyprus proceeds
apace. Eg.s: desecration of Greek, Armenian, and Maronite Christian
religious sites, the looting and black-marketeering of religious icons
and art, the arbitrary limitations on rights of worship for the tiny,
surviving community of Greek Orthodox enclaved in the Rizokarpassos
area in the northern part of Cyprus, as well as systematic denial
of requests by the Turkish military and Turkish-Cypriot authorities,
for religious services by Christians seeking to cross the Green Line.
Measured against the symbolic and episodic improvements in the
rights of religious minority communities in Turkey over the past
11-or-so years, there is a broader pattern of continuing policies of
economic/property disenfranchisement of Christian (and, more recently,
Jewish) minorities, state interference in the internal governance and
education of religious communities, institutionalized and informal
racist bias and discrimination against religious minorities, and
continuing religious cleansing of Christians from Turkish-occupied
Cyprus. In a word, religious freedom is a sobering metric of the
democracy deficits in Turkey's institutions of governance and Turkey's
political leadership (both Islamist/AKP and Kemalist/CHP/MHP).
Consequently, I respectfully suggest that this Subcommittee consider
ways to encourage improvements in the legal and institutional
frameworks necessary to ensure that all of Turkey's citizens enjoy
full equality before the law. Freedom of thought, conscience and
religion or belief is inextricably tied to and refracted in media
freedom and a vibrant civil society in Turkey and elsewhere. Likewise,
the strength of Turkey's democracy particularly when it comes to rule
of law and equality before the law for religious minority communities
is inextricably connected to Turkey's will and capacity to cooperate
with the United States and NATO allies in confronting some of the most
pernicious and serious threats (e.g. sectarian and communal violence,
religious terrorism, and authoritarian forms of governance) to the
Eurasian security environment.
Holding Turkey to international standards and to the expectations of
a US partner and NATO ally make immanent strategic and moral sense. I
thank you for your attention.
CQ Congressional Testimony
July 15, 2014 Tuesday
SUBCOMMITTEE: EUROPE, EURASIA, AND EMERGING THREATS
CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
TESTIMONY-BY: DR. ELIZABETH H. PRODROMOU, VISITING ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
AFFILIATION: VISITING ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Statement of Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou Visiting Associate Professor
of Conflict Resolution The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy,
Tufts University
Committee on House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia,
and Emerging Threats
July 15, 2014
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee,
Good afternoon. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. Allow
me to thank you for the invitation to brief you today on the future of
democracy in Turkey. I respectfully request that my written comments,
from which I will draw for this testimony, be submitted into the
Congressional Record.
As a former Commissioner and Vice Chair of the US Commission on
International Religious Freedom and as a current member of the
Secretary of State's Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group, I
am heartened by the Subcommittee's recognition that media freedom,
the rights of religious minorities, and the vitality of civil society,
are crucial issues for the health and quality of democracy in Turkey,
as well as for Turkey's capacity to play a consistent, positive,
and effective role in partnership with the United States and NATO in
confronting serious threats to stability in Europe and Eurasia.
In an effort to respect the time limitations on this hearing and
well aware of the expertise of my fellow panelists, let me offer
some general remarks and, then, specific data points, that focus on
the rights of religious minorities in Turkey. The most constructive
way of thinking about the rights of religious minorities in Turkey,
as part of an overall assessment of democracy in Turkey, is within
the context of international human rights standards established in
foundational documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
amongst others.
International human rights standards unequivocally identified the
right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including
the freedom to change one's religion or belief, as well as freedom,
either alone or within a community, in public and private, to manifest
religious belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
(Paraphrase from the UDHR and ICCPR).
Measured against these international human rights standards, it is
fair to say that there is evidence of some progress in Turkey during
the period since the AKP (Justice and Development Party) was elected
into government. The progress has come largely in two areas: the
first is what I would call discursive improvements, in the form of
a breaking of the long-held taboos in the Turkish government, media,
and civil society, on discussions regarding systematic and egregious
violations in the rights of religious minorities in Turkey (e.g.
discussion of the Armenian Genocide, cleansing of Greek Orthodox
Christians and the suffocation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,
through mechanisms of violence and non- violence); and the second is
what I would call remedial efforts designed to loosen restrictions
on religious freedom for Turkey's religious minority communities,
particularly the rights of the country's tiny Christian minority
communities (they comprise less than 1 percent of Turkey's overall
population).
The progress in these two areas has been widely reported, particularly
when it comes to the 2011 liberalization in the law regulating property
rights (return and compensation) for the country's religious minorities
(return and compensation of vast amounts of property expropriated
and/or transferred by the Turkish state from the Greek, Armenian,
and Syriac Christian communities), and when it comes to permission by
the Turkish state authorities for celebrations at well-known Christian
religious sites, such as the Greek Orthodox Sumela Monastery and the
Armenian Apostolic Monastery of Akhtamar. The invitation to leaders of
the country's religious minority communities (e.g. Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew, Kuryakos Ergun, head of the Syriac Mor Gabriel Monastery)
to address the Turkish Parliament as part of the constitutional reform
process, also suggested the possibility for improving the rights of
religious minorities in Turkey.
However, despite signals, suggestions, and hopes for improvements
in religious freedom conditions for Turkey's religious minority
communities, the facts on the ground reveal a sobering picture of
no substantive change by that, I mean the failure to make legal
and institutional changes necessary to ensure that all of Turkey's
citizens are treated equally before the law and, indeed, worrisome
changes of deterioration in the rights of religious minorities.
Indeed, put simply, if one uses religious freedom for Turkey's minority
communities as a metric for the overall robustness and quality of
democracy in Turkey, there is cause for grave concern.
Three issues illustrate my point:
An Islamization strategy built on the conversation of Christian
Churches into mosques (e.g. St. Sophia in Trabzon and Iznik/Nicaea,
and the declared commitment of the AKP government to convert the
Byzantine Cathedral of Aghia Sophia a UNESCO World Heritage site)
into a mosque, and on the destruction of any physical footprint of
the religious patrimony of Christianity in Turkish-occupied Cyprus.
The continuing interference in the internal governance structures
of Christian and Jewish minorities in Turkey (e.g. imposition of
arbitrary citizenship requirements for election to the Ecumenical
Patriarchate and the Armenian and Syriac Patriarchates).
Prohibitions on religious education and, especially, training of
clergy, which ensures the disappearance of hierarchs and priests and,
therefore, the annihilation of Christian communities which, by their
nature, depend on religious orders. Especially emblematic is the
ongoing closure of the Greek Orthodox Theological School of Halki
(40-plus years closed) on the Island of Heybeliada, a reality that
is purely political and unrelated to legal limitations (e.g. public
statements to this effect last year, by both PM Erdogan and members
of his government).
Failure to bring to justice and/or to prosecute and/or convict
perpetrators of violence against members of Turkey's Christian
communities, and the troubling rise of anti-Semitism in Turkey (e.g.
statements by members of the government, in Turkish state and private
media outlets).
Turkish state's use of racial coding system for religious minorities:
Ancestry Codes of Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Syriacs, Others (Roman
Catholics and Protestants) as 1 through 5, by the Ministry of
Education, Ministry of Information, and the Population Directorate.
6. The comprehensive religious cleansing policy perpetrated by
the Turkish Armed Forces, with support from the Turkish Cypriot
authorities, in Turkish-occupied Cyprus. July 20th marks the 40th year
of Turkey's occupation of northern Cyprus, and the systematic cleansing
of any Christian presence in Turkish- occupied Cyprus proceeds
apace. Eg.s: desecration of Greek, Armenian, and Maronite Christian
religious sites, the looting and black-marketeering of religious icons
and art, the arbitrary limitations on rights of worship for the tiny,
surviving community of Greek Orthodox enclaved in the Rizokarpassos
area in the northern part of Cyprus, as well as systematic denial
of requests by the Turkish military and Turkish-Cypriot authorities,
for religious services by Christians seeking to cross the Green Line.
Measured against the symbolic and episodic improvements in the
rights of religious minority communities in Turkey over the past
11-or-so years, there is a broader pattern of continuing policies of
economic/property disenfranchisement of Christian (and, more recently,
Jewish) minorities, state interference in the internal governance and
education of religious communities, institutionalized and informal
racist bias and discrimination against religious minorities, and
continuing religious cleansing of Christians from Turkish-occupied
Cyprus. In a word, religious freedom is a sobering metric of the
democracy deficits in Turkey's institutions of governance and Turkey's
political leadership (both Islamist/AKP and Kemalist/CHP/MHP).
Consequently, I respectfully suggest that this Subcommittee consider
ways to encourage improvements in the legal and institutional
frameworks necessary to ensure that all of Turkey's citizens enjoy
full equality before the law. Freedom of thought, conscience and
religion or belief is inextricably tied to and refracted in media
freedom and a vibrant civil society in Turkey and elsewhere. Likewise,
the strength of Turkey's democracy particularly when it comes to rule
of law and equality before the law for religious minority communities
is inextricably connected to Turkey's will and capacity to cooperate
with the United States and NATO allies in confronting some of the most
pernicious and serious threats (e.g. sectarian and communal violence,
religious terrorism, and authoritarian forms of governance) to the
Eurasian security environment.
Holding Turkey to international standards and to the expectations of
a US partner and NATO ally make immanent strategic and moral sense. I
thank you for your attention.