Turkey: Why state interference in the election of Chief Rabbi, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Patriarchs?
By Mine Yildirim and Dr. Otmar Oehring
ICC Note:
Although the Turkish government claims to be committed to religious freedom, the religious rights of both Christians and Jews are still greatly restricted.
8/11/2010 Turkey (Forum 18) – Turkey continues to interfere in the choices made by the Jewish, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic communities of who should lead them, Forum 18 News Service notes. The government makes no attempt to hide this interference, which raises serious questions in relation to its international human rights commitments to allow religious communities to select the leaders of their choice. It also interferes in the appointment of the leadership of the Diyanet (Presidency of Religious Affairs) and running of the Muslim community, the country’s largest religious community. Any resolution in line with Turkey’s international human rights obligations would also have to entail granting legal status to all existing religious communities. Communities of all Turkey’s faiths should be free to structure themselves as they choose. But at present no religious community in Turkey has independent legal status in its own right – which means for example that no religious community can own property. So the Jewish, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic leaders are chosen with government permission as leaders of religious communities which do not exist in law and whose personal positions are not recognised in law.
