The EU and Minority Rights in Turkey

The AKP’s Approach toward Non-Muslim Minorities

“…An seen in Figure 1, even though the AKP gained with landslide victory in 2002, 2007, and 2011 general elections (34.3 percent, 46.6 percent, and 49.8 percent), it received 40.87 percent votes (18,867,411 votes) in the June 2015 general election, keeping it from forming a majority government in the parliament. In this election, Turkey's main opposition party, the CHP, received 25 percent of the votes (11,518,139) and the total number of votes received by the major political parties (the CHP, the MHP, and the HDP) was 25,096,634. The votes of major political parties surpassed the votes of the AKP with 6,229,223 votes.…”

“…10 However, despite their rights being enshrined in the Treaty of Lausanne, in practice, non-Muslim minorities' rights were frequently restricted. 11 With the 1935 Law on Foundations, non-Muslim minority foundations lost their autonomy by being placed under the General Directorate of Religious Foundations. 12 The 1935 Law on Foundations also paved the way for the seizure of the properties of non-Muslim minority foundations by the General Directorate of Religious Foundations, Treasury, or National Real Estate.…”

“…15 Furthermore, in 1974, the ruling of the Court of Cassation prevented minority foundations from buying new properties. 16 Under the reform process, accelerated by the acceptance of Turkey as a candidate for European Union (EU) membership in 1999, the coalition government led by Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, took a number of measures in order to improve the rights of non-Muslim minorities. For example, in 2002, under the second EU harmonization package, Article 5 of the Law on Associations which prohibited associations "to protect, develop or expand languages or cultures other than the Turkish language or culture or to claim that there are minorities based on racial, religious, sectarian, cultural or linguistic differences" was annulled.…”

An emotional economy of mundane objects

“…Kurds remained a stateless ethnic, multi-dialectic, multi-sectarian, tribal, and feudal community, amidst a wave of global nationalist movements. With the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, non-Muslim religious minorities, in accordance with the newly signed Lausanne Treaty, were granted rights to establish their own religious, educational, and social welfare institutions (Toktaş and Aras 2009). However, Muslim peoples, including the Kurds, were not officially recognized as minorities and were not granted such rights.…”

The Political Participation of Alevis: A Comparative Analysis of the Turkish Alevi Opening and the German Islam Conference

“…The ruling Turkish elite has systematically asserted that Alevis are principally Muslim even though their Islam is labeled as "heterodox" in order to integrate Alevis into a nation with a Turkish and Sunni-Muslim identity (Dressler 2015, 446). For centuries, the Alevi community's relationship with the state has been marked by distrust and occasional violent conflict because Alevis' search for collective rights has always been perceived as a "threat" to the unity and authority of the state (İçduygu and Soner 2006;Toktaş and Aras 2009).…”