“Changing the Constitution” to ensure that religious freedom be really recognized in Turkey: that is the hope expressed at the start of 2006 by Otmar Oehring, of the German Catholic group Missio, in commenting on the domestic situation of the Eurasian country that aspires to enter the European Union. But Turkey’s accession is conditional on respect for fundamental liberties. In particular Oehring underlined the need for the Turkish Parliament to approve the new law on the property rights of the religious communities. In Turkey, in fact, only some non-Islamic religious minorities have the right to possess property, through “community foundations”. The new law on the table since 2002 ought to permit non-Islamic religious communities to maintain their existing properties and to recover those expropriated over the last seventy years. But observe the religious minorities “the government’s General Directorate for Foundations has ruled that only 160 foundations are recognized by the State, and these exclude those of the Catholic Church and of the Protestant Churches”. According to Otmar Oehring, “the government has difficulty in recognizing the foundations also because it would have to return the many properties seized from the religious communities since the 1930s, especially the Christian and Jewish ones: places of worship, schools, hospitals and real estate, many of which have been sold off and for which it would have to pay compensation”. The existing Constitution (art. 24) while it recognizes the right to profess and practice a faith, does not guarantee the right to change faith or the right to assemble with other faithful in a community. Nor do the religious communities have the right to organize themselves as they think fit, to possess and manage properties, and to obtain legal recognition. The Turkish Bishops’ Conference has long been making every effort to achieve the legal recognition of “the juridical personality” of the Catholic Church: that would entitle it to have its properties and real estate restored to it and to maintain them. The European Commission, in its Proposal for the recognition of Turkey’s partner status, has specified that Ankara must first recognise full “freedom of religion”, a concept that includes “the adoption of a law” that would remove the obstacles that now penalise “the non-Muslim religious minorities and their associations”.
