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The EU and Minority Rights in Turkey
SULE TOKTAS
BULENT ARAS
The Turkish state pursues a two-pronged policy toward minori-
ties. First, Turkey follows a pseudo-conciliatory policy in responding to Euro-
pean Union (EU) pressures and demands. Turkey presents an image of a
responsible state in fulfilling the EU criteria, while in fact trying to prevent
any significant change the accession process might encourage in its traditional
minority regime. For example, the Turkish state points out its cooperation with
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), but this
cooperation is mainly motivated by fighting against intolerance and discrimi-
nation toward Muslims. Second, the Turkish state employs restrictive measures
and political maneuvers in minority rights in the domestic scene. The aim of
the Turkish policy is to stay within the boundaries of the Treaty of Lausanne
and prioritize national security considerations over minority issues. However,
Turkeyʼs traditional minority regime falls short even of the requirements of
Lausanne, while bringing the Lausanne legal framework to the fore against
the EU demands and pressures. The Turkish state follows this dual policy of
pseudo-conciliation vis-à-vis EU demands with an understanding that it can han-
dle the whole process through diplomatic negotiation and domestic legal and
political measures. The minority issue we discuss below reflects this attitude.
CONTINUITIES AND BOTTLENECKS IN EU–TURKEY RELATIONS
Turkey–EU relations have not followed a harmonious pattern; on the contrary,
they have consisted of ups and downs—sometimes dominated by mutual shar-
ing of common concerns, and sometimes fluctuating with conjectural events in
SULE TOKTAS is an associate professor of international relations at Kadir Has University. She
has published Immigration to Turkey and various articles on international migration, womenʼs issues,
and ethnic and religious minorities in Turkey. BULENT ARAS is a professor of international rela-
tions at Istanbul Technical University. He has co-authored Syria and Afghanistan: Dilemmas of
Security and Democracy and various articles on Turkish foreign policy and Middle Eastern issues in
leading journals.
Political Science Quarterly Volume 124 Number 4 2009–10 697
domestic and international politics. Modernization in the Turkish context has
always referred to Westernization, and European orientation in Turkish for-
eign policy has been a characteristic principle of policymaking; yet the EU
accession process has proven to be one of a dedicated but troublesome jour-
ney, frequently referred to as “Turkeyʼs long march toward Europe.”
1
The
political conditions of the Copenhagen membership criteria, especially re-
garding the status of human rights and democracy in Turkey, have been the
main obstacles to Turkeyʼs membership. Hence, it was only with a more-liberal
understanding of human rights and democratization that Turkey was able to
receive candidate status in the 1999 Helsinki Council Summit. Since then,
Turkey has adopted several constitutional reform packages that proved satis-
factory for starting accession negotiations with the EU on 3 October 2005,
but the principles governing the negotiations released by the EU Commission
included that “in the case of a serious and persistent breach in Turkey of the
principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental
freedoms and the rule of law on which the Union is founded, the Commission
will, on its own initiative or on the request of one of the Member States, rec-
ommend the suspension of negotiations and propose the conditions for even-
tual resumption.”
2
Despite an expansive reform program undertaken by Turkey in fulfilling
the Copenhagen criteria, there are still some areas challenging the future of the
negotiation process, which are, briefly: the Cyprus issue, the extension of cul-
tural rights and religious freedom to minority groups in practice, the role of the
military in politics, and the stabilization of the economy.
3
All of these four areas
point to the significance of Turkeyʼs need to become further Europeanized in
order to become an EU member state, especially the first three—the Cyprus
conflict, minority issues, and the democratic control of the armed forces—
which additionally pinpoint the bottlenecks (sometimes called the “red lines”)
in Turkish politics, where the most fierce resistance to change occurs in the
Turkish polity.
Turkey has traditionally pursued a “difference”argument in these purely
political issues, emphasizing that Turkey followed routes to the consolidation
of democracy different from those taken by the European Union countries.
For instance, in the area of democratic control of the armed forces, Turkey
emphasized a role for the Turkish military in the modernization and Westerni-
zation of the country that was different from that of its European counter-
1
Bulent Aras and Bulent Gokay, “Turkey after Copenhagen: Walking a Tightrope,”Journal of
Southern Europe and the Balkans 5 (Summer 2003): 147–168.
2
European Commission, “Negotiating Framework For Turkey 2005,”accessed at http://europa.eu.
int/comm/enlargement/docs/pdf/st20002_en05_TR_ framedoc.pdf, 3 October 2005.
3
Ziya Öniş,“Domestic Politics, International Norms and Challenges to the State: Turkey–EU
Relations in the Post-Helsinki Era,”Turkish Studies 4 (2003): 9–34.
698 |POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
parts.
4
By the same token, in the area of minority issues, Turkey argued that
Turkish nation building involved democratic norms and, what is more, that
unification was achieved by the equality principle of citizenship, which resolved
the minority question in the country by placing all inhabitants of Turkey on
the same and equal footing.
5
Turkey traditionally enforced the position that
it did not contain minorities other than the non-Muslim communities—the
Armenians, the Greeks, and the Jews—who were granted the official status
of minorities by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and were included in the uni-
versal legal framework with the same sets of rights and liberties that other
citizens enjoyed. Yet, the equal-citizenship framework has not been found
satisfactory by the EU, because in its regular reports on Turkey since 1998,
the European Commission has focused extensively on the shortcomings in the
protection of minorities and minority rights in Turkey. Despite the constitu-
tional amendments that widened the rights and liberties of the minorities, fol-
lowing which Turkey was found eligible to start accession negotiations, the
issue of minorities has been one of the essential and sound components of
the negotiation agenda.
TURKEYʼSTRADITIONAL MINORITY REGIME
Turkeyʼs minority regime is the result of a dynamic process taking shape
under the foundational legal framework of the Treaty of Lausanne (and,
to a limited extent, the Bulgarian–Turkish Treaty of Friendship) and the
strategies of the Turkish state and society regarding minorities in Turkey.
There emerges a dilemma between the legal framework and the practical sit-
uation, and one witnesses the gap between legal rights and their applicability
in Turkeyʼs minority regime.
The fundamental principles of Turkeyʼs minority regime were set by the
Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. The Treaty was signed by Turkey and Allied
forces France, Britain, Italy, and Greece after the defeat of the Greek forces
in the so-called Turkish Independence War of 1919–1922 and was put under the
guarantee of the League of Nations. Since the Treaty regulates a broad range
of issues between Turkey and other signatory parties, it is seen as the founda-
tion treaty of modern Turkey. With regard to the protection of minorities and
minority rights, Articles 37–45 of the Treaty specifically regulate the status
of minorities in Turkey. Accordingly, only the non-Muslim communities are
4
Frederic Misrahi, “The EU and the Civil Democratic Control of Armed Forces: An Analysis of
Recent Developments in Turkey,”Perspectives: Central European Review of International Relations
22 (2004): 22–42; Ümit Cizre, “Problems of Democratic Governance of Civil-Military Relations in
Turkey and the European Enlargement Zone,”European Journal of Political Research 43 (2004):
107–125.
5
Sule Toktas, “Citizenship and Minorities: A Historical Overview of Turkeyʼs Jewish Minority,”
The Journal of Historical Sociology 18 (2005): 394–429.
MINORITY RIGHTS IN TURKEY |699
recognized as minorities and are granted the right to use their own language,
the right of political and civic equality, the right to establish religious, edu-
cational, and social welfare institutions, and the right to freedom of religion,
travel, and migration.
6
These articles on non-Muslim groups target the protection of their freedom
of religion and provide equality before the law. They put minority citizens on
an equal footing with all other Turkish citizens in terms of rights and liberties.
Therefore, when specifying rights for minority communities, the Treaty indi-
rectly refers to the rights of all inhabitants and pinpoints universal citizenship
rights as well. Indeed, the Treatyʼs conceptualization of citizenship has led
some scholars to conclude that it was actually a human rights document that
would cover all citizens regardless of minority or majority origin.
7
Article 45
stipulates that minority rights covered under Articles 37–44 are to be recip-
rocated by Greece and will be granted to the ethnic Turks living in western
Thrace as well. As a result, Greece is under an international obligation to pro-
tect its own minorities.
The Treaty does not mention any specific non-Muslim community. How-
ever, according to Turkeyʼs official position, only Armenians, Greeks, and
Jews are accepted as minorities because they were the three largest Millet
groups in the Ottoman administration system. Other non-Muslim religious
groups, for example, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Nestorians, who were not
included in the Ottoman Millet system, were denied any distinct minority
status. By the same token, the Bahaʼis, the Yezidis, and believers of the Syrian
Orthodox Church, the Catholic United churches (the Chaldean Church and
the Syrian Catholic Church), and the Roman Catholic Church were not in-
cluded in the protectionist framework that emerged from the official interpre-
tation of the Treaty.
8
Since 1923, Turkey has not made any changes to the interpretation and
application of the Treaty, with the exception of the 1925 Bulgarian-Turkish
Treaty of Friendship. It added the Bulgarians (Christians of Turkish origin)
of Istanbul to the range of recognized minorities. A protocol appended to
the Treaty of Friendship stated that Bulgaria would apply all the relevant
regulations (liberties of religion, language, education, etc.) in the Treaty of
Neuilly to Turks living in Bulgaria and, in return, Turkey would apply all mi-
nority regulations in the Treaty of Lausanne to Bulgarians living in Turkey.
However, the recognition of the Bulgariansʼminority status is not significant
6
Jacob C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near & Middle East: A Documentary Record 1914–1956
(Princeton, NJ, London, Toronto, New York: D. Van Mostrand, 1956), 122.
7
Baskın Oran, Türkiyeʼde Azınlıklar: Kavramlar, Lozan, İç Mevzuat, İçtihat ve Uygulama (Minori-
ties in Turkey: Concepts, Regulations, Adaptation and Interpretations) (Istanbul: Tesev Yayınları,
2004), 63.
8
Otmar Oehring, Human Rights in Turkey: Secularism5Religious Freedom? (Aachen, Germany:
Internationales Katholisches Missionswerk e.V. Human Rights Office, 2002), 13.
700 |POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
in practical terms, since there is no significant Bulgarian minority in Turkey.
This lack of change in the minority framework could not prevent the emer-
gence of some active non-Muslim groups in Turkey after 1923. These are
mainly the Protestant free churches and Jehovahʼs Witnesses.
9
In terms of the current population figures, there are no reliable statistics
available. Yet, it is estimated that out of a total of around 72 million people
living in Turkey, there are around 90,500 non-Muslims who fall under the
category of officially recognized minorities.
10
These minorities are composed
of approximately 65,000 Armenian Orthodox Christians, 23,000 Jews, and
fewer than 2,500 Greek Orthodox Christians. Regarding the population fig-
ures of the non-Muslims, those without the status of minority, who are left to
enjoy only the existing universal framework of Turkish citizenship, there are
approximately 10,000 Bahaʼis, an estimated 15,000 Assyrian Orthodox (Syriac)
Christians, 5,000 Yezidis, 3,300 Jehovahʼs Witnesses, 3,000 Protestants, and
small undetermined numbers of Bulgarian, Chaldean, Nestorian, Georgian,
Roman Catholic, and Maronite Christians.
11
The community sources also con-
firm these estimations to a large extent.
12
According to data collected from
community resources, there are 100,000 Christians in Turkey, including Arab
Orthodox (10,000 in Hatay and Içel), Armenian Catholic (2,000 in Istanbul),
Armenian Orthodox (50,000–60,000 in Istanbul), Chaldean (300 in Istanbul),
Greek Orthodox (1,500 in Istanbul), Roman Catholic (15,000 Apostolic Vic-
arate of Istanbul, 1,300 Archdiocese of İzmir, 4,500 Apostolic Vicarate of
Anatolia), Syrian Catholic (1,250 in Istanbul), Syrian Orthodox (10,000 Arch-
diocese of Istanbul and 3,000 Archdiocese of Turcabdin), and other Chris-
tians (10,000–15,000).
13
Turkeyʼs minority regime does not consist only of legal foundations, but
also has political, societal, and cultural dimensions. It is also about real-life
situations of the minorities in Turkey. The established regime and physical
existence of the minorities bring us to the applicability of the measures pro-
tecting minority rights. Indeed, the inclusion of the Greeks, Armenians, and
Jews in the minority category did not provide them with full protection. There
have been incidents from time to time that range from simple security prob-
lems to destruction of minority identity. These incidents create suspicions
about the reality of equality before the law, one of the fundamental principles
of Turkish citizenship. For instance, to be more specific, the “Citizen Speak
Turkish!”campaign of the 1930s severely obstructed minoritiesʼright to use
9
Ibid.
10
United States of America Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, “International Religious Freedom Report: Turkey 2005,”accessed at http://www.state.gov/
g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51586.htm, 8 November 2005.
11
Ibid.
12
Oehring, Human Rights in Turkey,5.
13
Ibid.
MINORITY RIGHTS IN TURKEY |701
their own language, which is secured by Article 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne.
The campaign was originally launched by a group of university students in
Istanbul in 1928 with the aim of popularizing the use of Turkish in the public
sphere. However, it gained wide public and media support, and continued its
influence until the early 1940s. It targeted, among others, the non-Muslims
living in urban areas and, in particular, those who resisted speaking Turkish.
There have been charges against minorities under Article 159 of the Penal
Code, known as the “Insulting Turkishness”clause.
14
Theminorityregime—though it is under international guarantee within
theframeworkoftheTreatyofLausanne—has been violated continuously
by domestic political maneuvers and measures operating within the pretext
of country-specific conditions. The Incident of Reserves led to mass civil rights
violations during the tense years of World War II, as military recruitment in
1941 was subject to segregation. A new special reserve force was formed, com-
posed solely of non-Muslims. These non-Muslim soldiers were disarmed and
were used as free labor in building national parks and roads and collecting gar-
bage instead of doing usual military service.
15
Until the end of World War II,
the military academies set forth “being of the Turkish race”as an eligibility
requirement for admission to the professional military cadres.
16
Another incident that violated the principle of equality was the Law on
Capital Tax (Law No. 4305) issued in 1942, which required non-Muslim
minorities to pay higher taxes. Although the capital tax was a special one-
time tax designed to provide additional resources for the treasury and to dis-
courage a war economy, market speculation, and profiteering, the local tax
commissions set a higher rate for non-Muslims.
17
To pay the tax, most non-
Muslims were forced to sell off their property. The ones who were unable to
pay were sent to labor camps far away from their homes. The capital tax was
in force for two years and was abandoned in 1944. It targeted the perceived
wealth of non-Muslim minorities and aimed to redistribute their capital to the
more-trusted segments of society.
18
This incident has symbolic meaning, since
it exemplifies an organized state violation of minority rights under the pretext
of “specific conditions.”That is, the Turkish state follows a policy of controlling
14
Avn e r L evi, Türkiye Cumhuriyetiʼnde Yahudiler: Hukuki ve Siyasi Durumları(Jews in the
Turkish Republic: Legal and Political Status) (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1998), 66.
15
Rıfat N. Bali, “II. Dünya Savaşı Yıllarında Türkiyeʼde Azınlıklar I –Yirmi Kurʼaİhtiyatlar Olayı
(“Minorities in Turkey During World War II –The Case of the Reserve Troop”),”Tarih ve Toplum
179 (Spring 1998): 4–18.
16
Rıfat N. Bali, Cumhuriyet Yıllarında Türkiye Yahudileri: Bir Türkleştirme Serüveni (Turkish Jews
in the Republican Period: An Adventure of Turkification) (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2000), 410.
17
Faik Ökte, The Tragedy of the Turkish Capital Tax (London, and Dover, NH: Croom Helm,
1987), 24.
18
Çağlar Keyder, Türkiyeʼde Devlet ve Sınıflar (State and Class in Turkey) (Istanbul: İletişim
Yayınları, 1989).
702 |POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
the minority regime and the minorities if they come into conflict with the state
establishmentʼs reservations and preoccupations over minority rights.
This state attitude can be seen in the violation of non-Muslim minoritiesʼ
right to establish religious, educational, and social welfare institutions, which is
granted by Lausanne Articles 40, 41, and 42. Minority schools have experi-
enced restrictions in the appointment of teachers,
19
and they have not received
funds from local or national educational budgets, contrary to their legal rights
to benefit from them.
20
Non-Muslim minorities, despite their legal status, could
not establish new places of worship until 2003. In addition, before 2002, minor-
ity foundations were not allowed to purchase, acquire, or sell any property.
Even the repair of facilities was strictly controlled, if permitted, by the state
authorities. The legal foundation of this prohibition was the 1935 Law on
Religious Foundations No. 2762, which urged all foundations—Muslim and
non-Muslim—to prepare a declaration of properties that they owned at the
time. In 1974, the Court of Cassation ruled that no corporate body consisting
of foreigners would be allowed to obtain immovable property. Non-Muslim
Turkish citizens were put into the category of “foreigner,”and their property
was limited to what they declared on the 1936 listing. Accordingly, properties
purchased or donated after 1936 were considered illegal. State authorities re-
turned these properties to the heirs of those who had first donated them, and
confiscated some properties if no suitable heir was found.
21
A new Law on
Foundations was drafted by the Turkish Grand National Assembly in 2006
and ratified by the Turkish Grand National Assembly and put into effect in
2008. The new draft law does not provide an ultimate solution to the prob-
lems of community property belonging to the non-Muslim foundations, yet
it is more promising than the existing 1935 law. Regarding educational rights
provided in Article 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne, the clergy training institu-
tion of the Armenian Patriarchate was closed in 1970 due to lack of sufficient
numbers of students. The Halki Theological College (the higher education
component of the Halki Seminary) was closed in 1971 due to closure of all
private higher educational institutions (religious or academic, Muslim or non-
Muslim) that year.
22
The state authorities did not want to pursue the minority regime within
the framework of the Treaty of Lausanne. Since the signing of the Treaty do-
mestic legal measures and political moves have simply limited the rights it
19
Bali, Cumhuriyet Yıllarında Türkiye Yahudileri, 34.
20
Oran, Türkiyeʼde Azınlıklar, 56.
21
BaskınOran, Türk Dış Politikası: KurtuluşSavaşından Bugüne Olaylar, Belgeler, Yorumlar
(Turkish Foreign Policy: Events, Documents and Interpretations since the Independence War) (Istanbul:
İletişim Yayınları, 2001), 229.
22
Hidayet Vahapoğlu, Osmanlıʼdan Günümüze Azınlık ve YabancıOkulları(Minority and Foreign
Schools since the Ottoman Empire) (Istanbul: Boğaziçi Yayınları, 1992); Emre Özyılmaz, Heybeliada
Ruhban Okulu (Halki Seminary) (Ankara: Tamga Yayıncılık, Matbaacılık, Eğitim, Danışmanlık Ltd.
Şti., 2000).
MINORITY RIGHTS IN TURKEY |703
granted. As a meaningful example of the underlying state establishmentʼs
treatment of non-Muslim minority rights, among all the rights covered in Ar-
ticles 37–45, only the right to migrate faced minimum violation. Except in
very few cases of prohibitions due to security considerations,
23
all minorities
were able to leave Turkey and settle abroad. The Jews freely emigrated to
Israel in masses after its foundation in 1948, as did Turkish citizens of Greek
origin after the abolition of the Ankara Agreement in 1964 that ended the
settlement rights granted to Greek citizens in Turkey. Although Turkey never
encouraged non-Muslim Turkish citizens to leave the country, when the non-
Muslims wanted to emigrate, no extra barriers were put in front of them.
They were able to use their right to migrate to its full extent.
Although the above incidents show that most of the massive violations
happened in the early years of the Turkish Republic, the tendency for de facto
cases, which are in sharp contrast to a de jure situation, is seen by the absence
of non-Muslims in state or military office, with the exception of a limited num-
ber of teachers and academics in public schools and universities. Indeed, there
are no legal provisions that prohibit non-Muslims from taking part in public
office. The security of the non-Muslim minorities was also threatened by mobs
or groups from time to time.
24
For instance, in the Thrace incidents of 1934,
Jews living in various towns and cities of the Thrace region were attacked
by mobs. The attackers were provoked by the nationalist-racist propaganda
of some writers and journalists, which resulted in the migration of Jews to
Istanbul or to even further destinations like Palestine. In a similar example,
Greeks were the main targets of violence by mobs in the events of 6–7 Sep-
tember 1955. This societal violence was the result of provocations after the
burning of Atatürkʼs house in Salonika, Greece. The events of 6–7 September
created a sense of insecurity among this minority. In the aftermath of the in-
cidents, many Greeks emigrated to Greece, as did the Armenians and Jews to
destinations in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. The decrease
of the non-Muslim minority population due to migration continued in the 1960s
and 1970s with the insecure environment created particularly by the Cyprus
conflict of 1974 and the terror attacks by the Armenian Secret Army for the
Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) against Turkish diplomats on outside mis-
sions. The assassination of Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian intellectual
and a journalist at Agos—the Armenian communityʼs news daily published
in both Turkish and Armenian—on 19 January 2007 in Istanbul by an extreme
23
Erol Haker, Bir Zamanlar Kırklareliʼde Yahudiler Yaşardı:Kırklarelili Adato Ailesiʼnin Öyküsü
(Once Upon a Time There Lived Jews in Kırklareli: The story of Adato Family) (Istanbul: İletişim
Yayınları, 2002); Henri Nahum, İzmir Yahudileri: 19.-20. Yüzyıl (Jews of Izmir: 19. and 20. Centuries)
(Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2000); Avner Levi, “Elza Niyego Olayıve Türk Yahudi İlişkilerine Yeni
Bir Bakış (“The Case of Elza Niyego and a New Approach to Turkish Jewish Relations”), Tarih ve
Toplum 25 (Summer 1996): 23–27.
24
Şule Toktaş,“Perceptions of Anti-Semitism among Turkish Jews,”Turkish Studies 7 (Spring
2006): 203–223.
704 |POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
nationalist civilian youngster is one of the most recent examples illustrating the
insecure social and political environment for the non-Muslims of Turkey. Other
examples include the murder of a Catholic priest in Trabzon (a northern prov-
ince in the Black Sea region) in 2006, the kidnapping of an Assyrian Orthodox
priest in 2007 in Mardin (a historically multicultural and multi-religious prov-
ince in southeast Anatolia), and in the same year, the murder of Protestant
missionaries in Malatya (a province in the East Anatolia region).
In addition to the non-Muslim minorities, Turkey has an Alewite minority,
in contrast to the Sunnite majority of the population. The Turk category usu-
ally incorporated Hanefi-Sunnite definitions of Turkishness, and even the
migratory regime of Turkey reflected such a tendency, as usually those immi-
grants of Hanefi-Sunnite origin from the Balkans and the Caucasus had been
permitted to settle in the country. The sectarian primacy given to Sunnite citi-
zens is also visible in the national education system. Religious instruction
courses at the primary and secondary education levels follow a strictly Sunnite
understanding of morality, a situation frequently criticized by the Alewite
groups and civil organizations. Turkey, from time to time, has been taken to the
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) because of its treatment of Alewite
citizens. These court cases relate mainly to the obligatory nature of religion
courses in the national education curriculum, which the Alewites see as a viola-
tion of the principle of secularism and equal treatment by the state of its citizens.
In a similar vein, some Alewites saw the appearance of religion on identity cards
as a breach of secularism and a tool of discrimination, subsequently suing Turkey
at the ECHR.
All in all, the above discussion illustrates that Turkeyʼs traditional minority
regime is restrictive in character and, in terms of ensuring that minorities,
whether non-Muslim or non-Sunnite, would benefit from their rights, it falls
short of the legal foundations of the Treaty of Lausanne. The Turkish state
wants to retain control in determining the boundaries of its minority regime
even to the extent of not fulfilling the obligations of the Treaty of Lausanne,
considered the foundation treaty of the modern republic. The Turkish state
developed a habit of manipulating this regime through domestic legal mea-
sures and political maneuvers. It had societal support to limit minority rights,
which carries the state attitude to daily life strategies. Turkeyʼs minority regime
is therefore the result of a dynamic process, which has a legal foundational base
on the one hand, and state preoccupation with controlling minorities, which is
backed by societal strategies, on the other. In the resulting situation, one may
talk of the ongoing conflicting situation between the de jure and de facto habitat
of minority rights in Turkey.
THE EU CHALLENGE TO THE MINORITY REGIME IN TURKEY
The EU has created a multi-dimensional approach to improving minority re-
gimes in candidate countries. The EU defines the protection of minority rights
MINORITY RIGHTS IN TURKEY |705
as a moral condition for membership and ensures that there is a certain stan-
dard in the Union, even if there is no common policy on this issue. At another
level, the Copenhagen criteria, internal treaties, and other mechanisms serve
to improve human rights and democracy, establish the rule of law, and develop
civil initiatives, which in the end create a suitable domestic and international
environment for minority rights. In this vein, there emerges a checks-and-
balances system over national authorities through the EUʼs encouragement
and motivation and domestic demands to maintain a sustainable minority re-
gime. At the third level, the EU preserves a dynamism in seeking the pro-
tection of minority rights under the guidelines of new treaties and provisions
of the OSCE like institutions, in line with more-universal documents and
mechanisms, to provide a better understanding and practice of minority rights
in member states. The EU makes the candidate states a part of this dynamic
process, employing a number of mechanisms during the accession process.
The EU countries demand higher standards from the prospective mem-
bers, while they remain unwilling to meet these standards with regard to their
own minority groups.
25
What makes these criticisms meaningful is that Western
European countries have their own minority problems. In this sense, Germany
does not recognize its Turkish population as constituting a national minority
and claims that they are new in the country and are mainly guest workers.
Luxembourg claims it does not have any minorities. In a similar vein, France
has not signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Mi-
norities and sticks strongly to Republican principles of unity. Slovakia was
criticized for discriminating against the Roma, especially in education and
employment. This discrimination is also present in Italy.
26
EU demands have
been vague and open to interpretation. The lack of a common EU policy, as
well as diverse minority policies in the EU states, create this ambiguity on mi-
nority issues.
27
The EU prefers to create a moral concern for the improvement
of minority rights in the member states, while creating a condition of higher
standards for candidate states by utilizing the mechanisms of the enlargement
process. The idea is to establish a quick improvement in the member states, but
this apparent double standard raises suspicions about the EUʼs handling of
the minority issue with candidate countries, not to mention its strengthening
of Euro-skepticism in these countries.
The European Union seriously challenges the conventional minority re-
gime of Turkey. The Commission, via its annual progress reports on Turkey,
the Council, via its summit decisions, and the Parliament, via oral and written
25
Michael Johns, “‘Do As I Say, Not As I Doʼ: The European Union, Eastern Europe and Minor-
ity Rights,”East European Politics and Societies 17 (Fall 2005): 682–699, at 684.
26
Ibid., 689–695.
27
Peter Vermeersch, “EU Enlargement and Minority Rights Policies in Central Europe: Explain-
ing Policy Shifts in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland,”Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority
Issues in Europe 1 (Winter 2003): 1–32, at 9.
706 |POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
questions addressed in the assembly, emphasize the need for better treatment
of minorities in Turkey and call on Turkey to improve its human as well as
minority rights record. The EU progress reports on Turkey have included calls
for reform on the issues of protection of minorities and minority rights.
28
The
importance of these reports comes from their content, which consists of expec-
tations of Turkey in the accession process and the Commissionʼs monitoring of
Turkeyʼs achievements and progress in this regard. The reports present a com-
parative assessment of Turkeyʼs fulfillment of political criteria in relation to
the previous yearʼs report and also include shortcomings in the area of minor-
ity rights and the protection of minorities.
The Commission released eight reports in the period 1998–2005. At the
outset, the first point is that these reports got longer every year; the assessment
of minorities, cultural rights, and religious freedom occupies more space in the
reports. In the reports released between 1998 and 2002, minority issues did not
dominate, but in the subsequent reports of 2003, 2004, and 2005, we see more-
detailed assessment of these issues. In addition, although the issues related to
recognized minorities (Armenians, Greeks, and Jews), the Assyrians, the
Kurds, and the Alewites have always been addressed in every progress report,
both these issues and these minority groups were diversified in consequent
annual reports. For instance, in the more-recent reports, the issues related to
the non-Muslim minorities that fall outside the scope of the Treaty of Lausanne
(that is the Protestants and the Catholics) and to other minority groups such as
the Bosnians, Arabs, Caucasians, the Roma, the Bahaʼis were included. This
diversification of the minority listing in subsequent reports might be interpreted
as an increasing effort on the EUʼs part to encourage Turkey to reconsider
its minority regime. An alternative interpretation is that the EU is pointing
out Turkeyʼs shortcomings in fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria, which must
be addressed in Turkeyʼs EU membership bid.
The EU employs the same multi-dimensional approach in making the ful-
fillment of minority-related criteria a condition in Turkeyʼs membership pro-
cess. The EU refers to minority issues as an important moral norm, while
referring to a number of internal and international treaties and OSCE provi-
sions when it comes to defining EU expectations of Turkey. Although Turkey
has signed and ratified major and substantial human rights documents, treaties,
and conventions, the reports insist on mentioning that Turkey has not signed
the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. The
Framework Convention has no exact definition of national minority,
29
but it
28
James Hughes and Gwendolyn Sasse, “Monitoring the Monitors: EU Enlargement Condition-
ality and Minority Protection in the CEECs,”Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe
1 (Winter 2000): 1–37, at 3.
29
Kinga Gal, “The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National
Minorities and Its Impact on Central and Eastern Europe,”Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority
Issues in Europe 1 (Winter 2000): 1–17, at 2.
MINORITY RIGHTS IN TURKEY |707
allows states to retain the legal upper hand on minority issues by not compel-
ling the states to fulfill any of the Framework Convention requirements, only
urging them to create conditions for their implementation.
30
EU Ankara rep-
resentative Hans Jörg Kretschmer said in an interview dating 24 November
2005 that “an ordinary person on the street would not know the Convention
[the Framework Convention]. S/he would only know as much as the media and
the politicians explain. No matter whether Turkey has signed or not signed the
Convention, there are basic principles of minority rights. In Europe, there is no
single uniform position regarding the protection of minorities but instead there
are many approaches. However, it is clear from the decisions of the European
Court of Human Rights that there are some criteria.”
31
The EUʼs pressure on
Turkey to sign the Convention has not been successful. Turkey responds with
claims that it is a unitary republic and does not have a minority question.
From the Turkish perspective, there is no need to sign the Convention,
since the Turkish Constitution and the Treaty of Lausanne provide protection
and equal treatment of non-Muslim minorities, which also allegedly satisfies
the Copenhagen criteria. No further international convention is seen as neces-
sary in this regard. The Commission also points to the reservations made to the
United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) regarding the
rights of minorities and to the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social,
and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) regarding the right of education in the mother
tongue. The reports mention that these reservations could prevent further
progress on the protection of the rights of minorities outside the scope of the
Treaty of Lausanne. However, the Commission also recommends that Turkey
cooperate with the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities. Gener-
ally, the OSCE proceedings do not have legally binding status. They mainly
include political commitment. Therefore, OSCE liabilities are not part of in-
ternational law. However, they are important in the sense that they are norm-
establishing and guiding. Turkey ratified the OSCE Helsinki Act in 1992 but
made a declaration that according to the constitutional order of Turkey, the
term minority refers only to that covered in the bilateral and multilateral
treaties to which Turkey is a signatory.
32
The OSCE Chairʼs Personal Repre-
sentative on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims was
a Turkish ambassador from 2000 to 2004.
In general, the experience of the Central and Eastern European Coun-
tries (CEECs) in their entrance into the EU illustrated that the right to non-
discrimination as well as the protection of the cultural, linguistic, and religious
30
Gregory Feldman, “Essential Crises: A Performative Approach to Migrants, Minorities, and the
European Nation-State,”Anthropological Quarterly 78 (2005): 213–246, at 238.
31
Nethaber, accessed at http://www.nethaber.com/?h537359, 24 November 2005.
32
Personal correspondence with Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, letter received by the authors,
17 March 2006.
708 |POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
identity of individuals belonging to minorities were less-problematic issues
during the EUʼs enlargement. In contrast, linguistic rights, and language use
in private and in public settings, in education, media, culture, and official con-
tacts, were the more-problematic issues.
33
A similarity can be seen with Turkeyʼs
accession process. Language rights and the right to an education in oneʼs
mother tongue are the most sensitive issues for Turkey, evidenced by the fact
that Turkey has not been a signatory to the European Charter for Regional
or Minority Languages despite the frequent references made in the Commis-
sionʼs regular reports on Turkey. However, there is a sharp difference between
the EUʼs policy toward the CEECs and its policy toward Turkey. The Eastern
candidates, who did not take into account the EU criticisms on minority issues,
were not sanctioned, but Turkey and Slovakia in 1997 faced serious barriers.
34
In the 1997 Luxembourg Summit, the EU denied Turkey candidacy status, and
for its failure to meet the Copenhagen political criteria, did not invite Slovakia
to begin accession negotiations.
The EU has no control over the minority regimes of member states. In a
similar vein, it does not have a consistent set of norms on minority rights, and
member states have varied approaches and solutions to the question of han-
dling differences and diversity in society. The EUʼs policy on improving minor-
ity rights in candidate states consists of a set of measures in a dynamic process,
and the last enlargement toward the East has clarified the EUʼs stance on mi-
nority issues. This stance can be seen as greatly reflective of other international
organizations and treaties and borrows concepts, norms, and standards mainly
from the Council of Europe and the OSCE. The EU not only uses the treaties
legislated by the Council of Europe (the Framework Convention for the Pro-
tection of National Minorities, the European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages, etc.) and the OSCE (the Helsinki Act), but also benefits from
the data produced by their monitoring mechanisms, such as the European
Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) country reports and the
OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. The annual reports on
Turkey by the EU Commission exemplify the EUʼs attempt to improve mi-
nority rights within the same structural establishment. For example, the Com-
missionʼs regular reports frequently utilize and refer to the data covered in
the ECRI reports on Turkey.
The ECRI has released three reports on Turkey, in 1999, 2001, and 2005.
35
At this point, it becomes clear that the pressure of the EU on Turkey to change
its traditional minority regime set out in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne is part of
a larger international framework. The basic norms, standards, and principles of
33
Gal, “The Council of Europe,”5.
34
Martin Brusis, “The European Union and Interethnic Power-sharing Arrangements in Acces-
sion Countries,”Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe 1 (Winter 2003): 1–22, at 6.
35
For full reports, see the website of ECRI at http://www.coe.int/t/e/human_rights/ecri/1-ecri/
2-Country-by-country_approach.
MINORITY RIGHTS IN TURKEY |709
this framework have been initiated by the Council of Europe and the Organi-
zation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. This policy is in line with
making the candidate state a part of the dynamic process of defining minority
rights in wider processes so that the EU states are also part of them. This wider
framework is aimed not at imposing a specific regime but at keeping the states
in touch with universal norms on minority issues and guiding them to tackle
their own minority issues. However, the candidate states feel more pressure in
comparison to the member states. Turkey is a member of both institutions—
the OSCE and Council of Europe. Therefore, Turkeyʼs need to comply with
international standards results not only from Turkeyʼs EU bid but also from
its membership responsibilities in these international organizations.
The EU keeps repeating its call for reforms in Turkey on the level of the
Accession Partnership adopted by the Council in 2001 and revised in 2003 and
2006. Turkey preferred to respond with its National Program for the Adoption
of the Acquis in 2001, which was revised in 2003. This document set out the
actions to be taken by Turkey in the short term and the medium term to meet
political and economic criteria and to adopt all the EU treaties and conven-
tions and the decisions of the European Court of Justice, all of which compose
the total body of EU law.
36
This document highlights that Turkey, on its road to
conforming with the Copenhagen criteria, must refrain from any change in its
minority regime, as it does not include any wording relevant to minority or
religious freedom. Rather, the discourse and the general spirit of the docu-
ment, in conformity with the founding principles of Turkey, rest on human
rights and individual freedoms rather than on group rights or minority rights.
Regarding the issue of religious freedom, the constitutional provisions were
presented as sufficient for religious freedom. In addition, the Turkish stateʼs
secular character and secularism more generally, as one of the foundation
stones of the Republic, were frequently emphasized throughout the document.
In accordance with the 2001 National Program for the Adoption of the
Acquis, Turkey adopted 34 constitutional amendments on 3 October 2001.
These amendments broadened the scope of rights and liberties, created better
conditions for liberal market forces, and opened the way for the democratic
control of the armed forces. In addition, various human rights bodies were
established in the same year. The reforms continued in 2002 with a reform
package consisting of major constitutional amendments to the 1982 constitu-
tion that covered the lifting of the death penalty, the possibility of radio and
television broadcasting in Kurdish, the widening of freedom of expression, and
greater freedom for non-Muslim religious minorities. The reform package in-
cluded an amendment to the Law on Foundations that allowed non-Muslim
36
The 2003 Turkish National Program for the Adoption of the Acquis, accessed at http://ec.europa.
eu/comm/enlargement/turkey/npaa_2003.htm; the 2001 Turkish National Program for the Adoption of
the Acquis, accessed at http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/turkey/pdf/npaa_full.pdf, 23 March 2006.
710 |POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
community foundations to acquire and dispose of property. However the
Commission noted that these developments did not mean much in terms of
solving a number of persistent problems of non-Muslim minorities. These
problems are complicated bureaucratic procedures regarding the registration
of property, the validity of the 1936 property listing, which leads to even fur-
ther confiscation rather than returning previously confiscated properties, and
the General Directorate of Foundationsʼcontrol and frequent interference
with the administration of these religious foundations. Some of the bureau-
cratic complications related to acquisition, disposition, and registration of the
properties belonging to the non-Muslim foundations were resolved with the
2003 reform package. An amendment to the Law on Public Works replaced
the word mosque with the phrase places of worship. Consequently, opening
new churches, synagogues, or other places of worship for different beliefs in
neighborhoods became legally possible.
The EU demand for the improvement of minority rights aims to widen
the regime beyond the Lausanne framework. Turkeyʼs accession process led to
the improvement of non-Muslim rights in legal terms.
37
However, the Turkish
stateʼs traditional policy of employing political measures to prevent the use of
these rights has again become evident. The EU demands for minority rights
are vague and ambiguous. However, the Commission puts emphasis on minority
issues and utilizes the enlargement process as political leverage to improve
Turkeyʼs minority regime. Turkeyʼs resistance finds its expression in the Na-
tional Program through selective adaptation of the EU Acquis. Minority rights
face the same lack of consistency in the domestic arena through a filtering mech-
anism that makes it practically impossible to use these rights in real-life con-
ditions. Turkeyʼs response to the demands for improving non-Muslim minority
rights does not go beyond, in a sense, a glossing of minority rights on paper.
TURKEYʼSTOOLS OF EUROPEANIZATION OF ITS TRADITIONAL
MINORITY REGIME:ELIMINATION OFDISCRIMINATION,CULTURAL
RIGHTS,AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Turkey pursues its conventional approach to the protection of minorities in
its relations with the EU and does not plan to change the qualitative nature
of these rights, neither expanding on them nor broaching them as a subject
of discussion during negotiations with the EU.
38
Turkey considers the interna-
tional dimension of the issues related to the recognized non-Muslim minorities
a responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This approach aims to sepa-
rate involvement in international conventions and treaties from their domestic
37
Şule Toktaş,“EU Enlargement Conditions and Minority Protection: A Reflection on Turkeyʼs
Non-Muslim Minorities,”East European Quarterly 40 (December 2006): 489–518.
38
Personal correspondence to Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, letter received by the authors,
17 March 2006.
MINORITY RIGHTS IN TURKEY |711
context. However, the EU recommendations point to the need for changes in
the domestic landscape as well. The Turkish stateʼs strategy is to interpret EU
demands in the regular reports on minority rights and protection of minorities
within the broad definition of human rights. This attitude is usually the way
EU member states treat their minority issues but falls short of what the EU
expects from its candidate states. The Turkish state presents its position as that
of a responsible partner in reforming individual rights and freedoms, while
resisting the need to address minority rights as an independent issue. There
seems to be an attempt to satisfy the minimum standards of protection for
minorities within the National Program. As part of fulfilling the Copenhagen
criteria and developing its human rights record, Turkey mainly uses three fields
as spheres of change and reform without changing the overall minority frame-
work: eliminating discrimination, improving cultural rights, and improving
religious freedom.
As part of eliminating discrimination, Turkey did not alter the policy of
specifying the faith of individuals on their national identity cards but allowed
its citizens to leave their faith blank on their identity cards by their own will. In
the past, some of the Yezidis were able to include Yezidi on their identity
cards, but there have recently been cases demonstrating that they cannot write
Yezidi on their identity cards, only an X.
39
Some sanctions have been adopted
against intolerant expressions and acts directed at minority groups by sections
of the media and members of the public. For example, some legal proceedings
have been started against people who had made anti-Semitic statements. The
new criminal code adopted in 2004 included some provisions aimed at fighting
racism, prohibiting genocide and crimes against humanity, and penalizing dis-
crimination based on language, race, color, religion, or sect in employment and
access to services. The Labor Code, which was amended in 2003, targets the
prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of language, race, religion, and
membership in a religious group. The Ministry of Education attempted to
eliminate prejudice against minorities from school textbooks. Religious text-
books have also been redrafted to address the concerns of Christian minorities.
In 2005, the governorsʼoffice, under the Ministry of the Interior, assumed re-
sponsibility for some issues related to non-Muslim minoritiesʼinstitutions,
which had previously been the responsibility of the provincial security direc-
torates. With the initiation of the new laws, the Directorate of Religious Foun-
dations is paying the electricity bills of all places of worship, including those
belonging to minority religious groups. The Directorate was previously paying
only those of the mosques.
With regard to cultural rights, Turkeyʼs Accession Partnership Document
gave priority to enhancing the linguistic and cultural rights of minorities. Turkey
39
Baskın Oran, Türkiye İnsan HaklarıRaporu 2005 (Human Rights Report of Turkey 2005)
(Istanbul: Tesev Yayınları, 2006).
712 |POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
did not grant recognition to the countryʼs Kurds but granted universal cultural
rights so that they benefited from the use of their mother tongue in broadcasting
and in language schools. Consequently, as part of the 2002 major constitutional
amendments, it became legal to broadcast in both minority languages and dia-
lects used traditionally by many Turkish citizens in their daily lives. Although
the official language of education in the schools remained Turkish, special
courses for different languages and dialects were henceforth allowed. With
the EU harmonization laws of 2003, it was possible to open private schools to
teach languages and dialects. However, Turkey prohibits choosing names in-
corporating the letters Q, W, or X, which exist in the Kurdish language but
not in the Turkish alphabet. Signs or letters that are not included in the offi-
cial alphabet cannot be used. Similar alphabet problems are also experienced
by the Assyrians. Turkish associations are allowed to join international orga-
nizations or take part in international activities without a requirement to apply
for prior authorization.
The sphere of cultural rights is mainly related to reform needed to address
the Kurdish question and the rights to be granted to the countryʼs Kurds. With
the reforms that expanded the civic liberties of establishing associations, and
permitted learning Kurdish and using it in broadcasting, Turkey tried to meet
the Copenhagen criteria without totally altering its minority regime. However,
there are various problems in the field and in daily life that limit the use of these
freedoms. There is still the gap between de facto and de jure minority issues.
Kurdish broadcasts are strictly limited in duration—no more than 45 minutes a
day and no more than four hours a week. Furthermore, radio channels that
aim to broadcast in Kurdish face highly bureaucratic complications, and their
applications are usually put on waiting lists for several years. Turkey does not
plan to take further action that may signal an intention to recognize the Kurds
as a minority group. Because the Kurdish question is one of the red lines in
Turkish politics, Turkey has adopted a restrictive approach to cultural rights.
The strongest arguments against the separation of Anatolia relate to the lega-
cies of the Turkish Independence War, and this as a hallmark of Kemalist na-
tionalism. Therefore, any demand for expanding cultural rights to a level that
may provoke the fear of separation is met with suspicion and is rejected, if not
blocked. It is in this context that Turkey, on the one hand, tried to meet the
Copenhagen criteria for the cultural rights of minorities but, on the other hand,
set barriers to further freedoms and rights that may pave the way for broaden-
ing the scope of officially recognized minorities beyond non-Muslim groups.
The prime ministerʼs human rights advisory board released a report on minor-
ities and minority rights at a press conference dating 22 October 2004. The re-
port made the point that the EU was not demanding that Turkey grant various
cultural groups minority status but was rather demanding equal treatment for
all citizens regardless of their cultural differences. The report also criticized
Turkey for not implementing the Treaty of Lausanne to its full extent and for
violating some of its articles. The educational rights of Article 40, for example,
MINORITY RIGHTS IN TURKEY |713
were not granted to Assyrians. The Treaty of Lausanne grants broadcasting
and publication rights to all Turkish citizens regardless of minority status. The
report also referred to ECHR rulings and stated that although the conceptu-
alizations of national security and territorial integrity were understandable to
Westerners, national unity is not easy to comprehend, because, as the ECHR
frequently emphasized in its various cases, the recognition of minorities in a
country is unavoidable. The lack of recognition of non-Muslim minority foun-
dations can be seen in two problematic cases: BalıklıRum Hospital (recog-
nized as an association, although it is a minority foundation) and Surp Hac
Armenian High School (sold to a third party by the Treasury). There is a min-
istry of interior commission on minorities. The Sevres syndrome (the fear of
disintegration) has turned into Sevres paranoia in Turkey. The report was
heavily criticized by Kamu-Sen (a syndicate of civil servants) in front of the
media during the press conference, and the report was torn up. The board,
after this critical press conference, which provoked nationalist reaction among
the public and the media, suspended its activities. The preparers of the report
were taken to court because of the content of the report.
Another sphere of change with respect to the issue of minorities in Turkey–
EU relations is religious freedom. Religious freedom in Turkey will be one of
the most important issues to be covered during Turkeyʼs membership negotia-
tions with the EU. The Commission Spokesman, Amadeu Altafaj Tardi, during
a news briefing, said that “freedom of religion is the highest priority for us and
it would be an essential point in the negotiations.”Likewise, Franco Frattini,
the vice president of the European Commission and EU Commissioner for
Justice, Freedom, and Security, during a speech he made regarding the killing
of the priest Andrea Santoro in Trabzon, said that “freedom of religion will
be a constant issue during Turkeyʼs membership negotiations with the EU.”
40
The reforms on non-Muslims and non-Sunnite groups needed to fulfill the
Copenhagen criteria generally occur in this sphere. Turkey has not extended
minority recognition to religious groups other than those it already recognizes
but has addressed this problem by enhancing freedom of religion. With the
introduction of constitutional amendments in 2002, foundations run by non-
Muslim minorities were allowed to acquire and dispose of property. With the
amendment to the Law on Foundations, foundations run by non-Muslim mi-
norities were allowed to register property that they actually used if they could
provide satisfactory evidence of ownership. According to Law on Founda-
tions enacted in 1935, the community foundations were initially administered
by the General Directorate of Foundations. On the official website of the
Directorate,
41
it is mentioned that as community foundations, those of Greeks,
Armenians, and Jews are considered. Accordingly, there are 161 community
40
Turkish Daily News, 20 February 2006.
41
The General Directorate of Foundations, information accessed at http://www.vgm.gov.tr/vakiflarhk/
cemaat.asp, 10 November 2005.
714 |POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
foundations and 1 artisanship foundation belonging to non-Muslim communi-
ties, as recognized by the General Directorate of Foundations. However, there
are also foundations of Bulgarians, Georgians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans. The
complex procedures for registration were partially smoothed with additional
decrees in 2003; yet there are still problems with regard to already-confiscated
property. The regulations led to the opening of new places of worship. The
content of mandatory religion courses has been improved to cover faiths other
than Sunni Islam, but there are still criticisms from Alewites, who claim that
mandatory courses are against the principles of secularism. The restrictions
in minority school enrollment for non-Muslim groups have been lifted. Chris-
tian groups are allowed to distribute religious literature, including the Bible,
but there is social intolerance toward conversion or missionary activities. In
October 2004, the religious groups were each allowed to constitute an official
legal entity in the form of an association. This right is the result of legal changes
extending the aims of associations and does not mean recognition of the reli-
gious groups or minorities.
42
Some of the Turkish Council of State decisions also contributed to the
EU-requested reforms. For instance, in 2005, it issued a ruling that should
significantly narrow the opportunity for the Directorate General for Foun-
dations to take over the management of a foundation and thereby effectively
confiscate its property. The Council of State issued a ruling in favor of a radio
station propagating Christianity and established equal treatment for mosques
and Christian churches in regard to free access to water. In addition, although
Cem Houses (the temples of the Alewites) are allowed to be opened legally,
there still face practical problems, some of which arise from pressures exerted
by the Sunnite majority. Although there have been reforms that address the
non-Muslim and non-Sunnite populations of Turkey, the other red line in
Turkish politics, fighting religious fundamentalism, limits any further reform
that may push for expansion of the official definition of minority beyond
Lausanne. Secularism in Turkey is constitutionally protected and means that
there is no religious authority independent of the state. There is a deep fear
that more religious freedom may provoke Islamic fundamentalism. Turkey
denies recognition to religious minority groups, that is, the Alewites or non-
Muslims other than those covered by the Treaty of Lausanne, and restricts
the use of religious freedom. Recognizing one group would necessitate the
recognition of all groups, and such an act would empower Islamists, mainly
of Sunnite origin, within the country.
43
This also explains partially why, apart
from some ad hoc measures, non-Muslim religious communities continue to
experience difficulties connected with legal personality, property rights, the
training, residence rights and work permits of Turkish and non-Turkish clergy,
42
Jubilee Campaign NL, 2005 Report on Religious Freedom in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey:
In-Depth (BK Andjik: Jubilee Campaign NL, 2005), 27.
43
Ibid., 25–26.
MINORITY RIGHTS IN TURKEY |715
schools, and internal management. The reopening of the Halki Seminary is an
issue that illustrates the co-existence of concerns over secularism and unity.
The Turkish government announced in November 2004 that the possible re-
opening of the Halki School of Theology had been indefinitely postponed
because of concerns of the Turkish military and the National Security Council
that the Greek Orthodox minority constitutes a potential security threat to the
territorial integrity of the Turkish state.
44
The Turkish legal system creates structural obstacles to granting rights
to non-Muslim citizens, despite the provisions outlined in the Treaty of
Lausanne. The difficult transition from a multicultural Ottoman Empire to
a Turkish nation-state seems to be an explanation for some of the idiosyncra-
sies regarding the minority issue. The system is jealous in granting rights to
Muslim citizens and chooses to treat non-Muslims within the Turkish citizen-
ship system, which means that they benefit from the same rights other citizens
enjoy. Thus, their rights fall short of what has been granted to them in the
Treaty of Lausanne. For example, according to labor law, the religious clergy
need to have Turkish citizenship, and those who do not can only work with
permission. The nationality criterion, which restricts non-Turkish clergy from
working in Turkey, strongly favors secularism and aims to prevent the import-
ing of foreign Muslim clergy, that is, from the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well
as to block the intrusion of religious fundamentalist groups.
As we discussed in this section, the Turkish state does not seem willing to
extend minority rights beyond the Lausanne regime and has made it clear that
it will handle this issue through improvements in three realms: elimination of
discrimination, cultural rights, and religious freedom. Although non-Muslim
minorities enjoy a number of new rights, this occurred not by addressing the
issue specifically as a minority issue but through changes in a wider framework
of individual rights and freedoms that, to a certain extent, contributes posi-
tively to the daily lives and organizational activities of non-Muslim minorities.
The Turkish style of avoiding involvement in minority issues fits into European
member statesʼattitudes, and one can talk about a Europeanization of the
strategy by which Turkey deals with minority issues. However, this attitude
does not satisfy what the EU demands of candidate states.
Turkeyʼs progress in the accession talks will demonstrate the determina-
tion and capacity of the EU to transform and change minority regimes in can-
didate countries. The assessment of Turkeyʼs performance and that of the
extent of Turkeyʼs fulfillment of the EU minority criteria—though they are still
ambiguous—both at the state and societal levels, are two important issues in
Turkish–EU relations. Our discussion in this article indicates that the non-
44
Elizabeth H. Prodromou, “Turkey Between Secularism and Fundamentalism? The ‘Muslimhood
Model’and the Greek Orthodox Minority,”The Brandywine Review of Faith & International Affairs
1 (Spring 2005): 1–35, at 19.
716 |POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
Muslim minority issue will present problems and setbacks in TurkeyʼsEU
membership process. The negotiations between the EU and Turkey will show
not only Turkeyʼs readiness for EU membership but also the transformation of
its nation-building process. In light of the fact that nation building is an open-
ended process that continuously remains in progress, it is most likely that
on the road to Brussels the Turkish nation-building process will face pressure
to turn and shift. Yet, the road to Brussels is not direct, but passes through
Strasbourg, the headquarters of the Council of Europe.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
The conventional elements of Turkeyʼs minority regime are based on the legal
framework of the Treaty of Lausanne, the stateʼs political maneuverings, and
societal attitudes. Pressure from the EU challenges the official position taken
by Turkey toward the minority regime. The Turkish state is not willing to grant
all rights provided in the Treaty of Lausanne to the recognized non-Muslim
minorities, not to mention to others that were not recognized as minorities,
and prioritizes national security considerations over minority issues. The multi-
cultural and multi-religious characteristics of Turkish society, at least as far as
the non-Muslim minorities are concerned, have already disappeared to a large
extent.
45
The Turkish state employed a number of legal and political measures
to keep the boundaries of the minority regime under control. The EUʼs pres-
sure for the improvement of minority rights did not change this attitude, and
the Turkish state tries to satisfy EU demands under a wider framework of
changes in human rights and individual rights.
The EU does not have a commonly agreed-upon legal or conceptual defi-
nition of what constitutes a national minority or a road map to how minority
rights should be safeguarded. Yet, minority protection is a norm in the EU.
The lack of a common policy toward minority issues does not prevent the EU
from making these issues a moral condition for membership, nor from setting
certain standards for the candidate countries to meet. The EU demands a total
transformation of the domestic landscapes of candidate countries, which in the
end creates a suitable domestic and international environment for minority
rights. The EU prefers to strengthen minority protection as a norm, in confor-
mity with new treaties and international institutions, and to present this under-
standing as a guide for the conferring of minority rights in member states. The
EU makes the candidate states part of this dynamic process, employing a
number of mechanisms in the accession process. Once a country joins the
Union, the EU loses its control over the minority regimes of the member state.
In this regard, the EU institutions view the enlargement process as the last
45
Şule Toktaş,“Turkeyʼs Jews and Their Immigration to Israel,”Middle Eastern Studies 42 (May
2006): 505–519.
MINORITY RIGHTS IN TURKEY |717
chance to settle the minority issue. However, EU pressure on Turkey to im-
prove minority rights goes beyond the EU and integrates the basic norms,
standards, and principles that have been initiated by the Council of Europe
and the OSCE. Turkeyʼs need to comply with international standards is the
result of Turkeyʼs EU process and membership responsibilities in these inter-
national organizations.
In the Turkish context, the solution to minority rights is to handle them
through improvements in three realms: elimination of discrimination, cultural
rights, and religious freedom. However, reforms in these spheres fall short of
the spirit generated in the Treaty of Lausanne. The premises of secularism and
territorial integrity, and the unitary characteristics of the Turkish Republic are
the major reasons behind the resistance to altering the traditional minority
regime. Constitutionally, Turkey is a secular and unitary state. Any demands
for minority rights, no matter how they are made by religious minorities—
Muslim or non-Muslim—or by ethnic groups such as the Kurds, are filtered
by these characteristics of the Turkish State. As a consequence of this filtering,
the EU requirements for accession, primarily fulfilling the Copenhagen crite-
ria, are interpreted by Turkey as the need for improving basic human rights
and liberties and not as measures for specifically addressing minority rights.
The Turkish political and legal systems do not allow for a broad definition
of religious freedom, no matter how such a broad definition would benefit the
countryʼs non-Muslims and non-Sunnites, because of the principle of secular-
ism. The same systems are the essential barriers against any Islamic fundamen-
talism. One may argue that at the state level, Turkey hesitates when responding
to the problems of the non-Muslim minorities, because of a fear that such
rights or a loosening of secularism would empower religious fundamentalists.
In a way, Turkey is caught between secularism and freedom of religion. To
illustrate, Turkey cannot grant its non-Muslim groups the permission to wear
kipah or some other form of religious attire in the public sphere, because it
would encourage Muslim groups to increase their demands for the wearing
of headscarves in public institutions. Another example of this dilemma is the
issue of discrimination on the part of public authorities. Turkey has not ratified
Additional Protocol No. 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights on
the general prohibition of discrimination by public authorities. Although this is
particularly important given that minorities are often subject to de facto dis-
crimination and encounter difficulties in access to administrative and military
positions, the ratification may strengthen the claims of headscarf proponents
who claim that public authorities are discriminating against women who wear
headscarves when not allowing them to occupy public positions. The same
position is seen with personnel who are expelled from the military due to
claims of having been involved in Islamist activities.
At the societal level, we have another picture. According to a Pew Re-
search Center survey conducted in 2005 with 17,776 people in 17 countries,
a 47 percent plurality sees Islamic extremism as a substantial threat in Turkey.
718 |POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY
By extremism, they mean the legal imposition of strict Shariʼah law and the
reason for this extremism is seen as mainly lack of education.
46
Yet, Turkish
society respects religious freedom as well as faiths other than Islam. Accord-
ing to other research conducted in 2005 covering 15 provinces of Turkey, of
1,644 respondents, 89 percent think that freedom of religious belief and faith
should never be limited or abolished, and 81 percent think similarly in regard
to non-Muslim citizensʼright to their own religion and culture. Even more,
79 percent think that “we should not force others to believe and practice as
we do.”Respondents seem to opt more for equality than for freedom when
facing a choice between the two. According to respondents, the political value
that needs to be protected most is equality (41.6 percent), followed by freedom
(37.4 percent). In a similar vein, respondents believe that the right that can
never be abolished or given up is “equality before the law”(50.4 percent),
followed by religious freedom (18.8 percent).
47
The issue of cultural rights with respect to EU requirements is also ad-
dressed within the general understanding of individual rights and freedoms
without any reference to minorities. Here, from a state-centric view, the limi-
tation is the unitary characteristic of the Turkish State. Turkey officially adopts
a restrictive approach to cultural rights. Its legal and political systems are de-
signed to counter any form of ethnic separatism. Pluralism is seen as a poten-
tial cause of conflict and war.
48
Separation of Anatolia is a fear that leads in
Turkey when resisting change in its traditional minority regime and denying
official recognition to any group, be it the Alewites, the Kurds, or the Assyrians.
The principle of equality is prioritized over the principle of difference in the
Kemalist understanding of nation building. All citizens, regardless of ethnic
origin, faith, race, or gender, are included in the universal framework of the
same rights and freedoms. Giving additional rights to minority groups is per-
ceived as disintegrative. The concept of equality, both as rhetoric and as praxis,
is fundamental for Turkish citizenship as well as for the Kemalist vision of
nation building. Societal demands for cultural rights, especially those voiced
by the Kurds, challenge the Kemalist project.
It is in this context that the ban on wearing headscarves in educational
institutions, which is an example of restriction on religious freedom, is actu-
ally a political preference for equality at the cost of freedom. New develop-
ments, as early as 2008, have taken place with regard to the veiling question.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) and the oppositional extreme
Nationalist Action Party together agreed to lift the ban on veiling by female
46
Pew, “Support for Terror Wanes among Muslim Publics: Islamic Extremism—Common Con-
cern for Muslim and Western Publics,”17-nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey, accessed at http://
pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/248.pdf, 14 July 2005.
47
Hakan Yılmaz, Conservatism in Turkey, public opinion research funded by Open Society Insti-
tute and Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, 2006.
48
Jubilee Campaign NL, 2005 Report on Religious Freedom, 25.
MINORITY RIGHTS IN TURKEY |719
students at universities. This also caused controversy as secularist Kemalist
segments of society opposed the reform action. The veiling question is also
illustrative of the tension that the official state ideology—Kemalism—creates
in the larger portions of society.
There has also been an expansion on the minority issue at the civil society
level. The JDP took the initiative in late 2007 to establish a relationship with
Alewite communities. The Party has mainly Sunnite constituents. Alewite
organizations have historically supported the opposition Republican Peopleʼs
Party, which has stronger secularist and Kemalist policy programs. The Alewites
have been strong supporters of Kemalism because they had been targets of
Sunnite extremism and sectarian violence since the times of the Ottoman
Empire and they are of the opinion that secularism is a principle that guar-
antees their identity and safety. The JDPʼs approach to Alewites mainly con-
sists of the inclusion of Alewite representatives in Parliament who would use
their sectarian identities to establish bonds between Alewites and the JDP. In
addition, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan held a dinner for Alewite commu-
nity leaders in early 2008 to celebrate one of the sacred days of Alewite be-
lief. The JDP initiative was met with suspicion among the Alewites. Although
the Alewite minority does not want to be recognized as a minority officially,
it wants its identity to be respected and acknowledged without any official
segregation policy. Therefore, although Alewite communities maintained their
concern over secularism and their distance from the Sunnite-conservative JDP,
such an approach by the JDP created an opportunity for the Alewite commu-
nity to voice their views once again (that is, no state funding for Cem Houses
or ceremonies, lack of official status for Cem Houses as places of worship,
obstacles in establishing new Cem Houses, and denial of state official cadres
to Alevi clergy). However, the attempts by the JDP received unexpected criti-
cism from the General Directorate of Religious Affairs. The Directorate is
one of the oldest institutions in modern Turkey and is representative of the
Turkish version of secularism, which involves state control over religion. The
Directorate is mainly tasked with a Hanefi-Sunni interpretation of Islam and
excludes any issue related to non-Muslims or Alewites. The head of the Direc-
torate, Ali Bardakoğlu, denounced the attempts as politicizing religion and
repeated once again that according to Islamic theology, Cem Houses could
not be seen as counterparts to mosques, inasmuch as these ceremonial houses
are civil and private places.
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