Turkish minorities: We want a constitution that embraces us all

Good luck. A Constitution incorporating or at least favorable toward Sharia provisions requiring second-class status for non-Muslims is much more likely in today's Turkey. "Turkish minorities: We want a constitution that embraces us all," by Alİ Aslan Kılıç in Today's Zaman, April 16 (thanks to AINA):

A parliamentary commission has received the representatives of some minority groups, including Catholics and Romas, to hear their suggestions for the new constitution currently being drafted. The representatives said their biggest problem is a lack of acknowledgment.
With the parliamentary Constitutional Reconciliation Commission, which has been assigned the task of drafting the text of a new constitution for Turkey, hearing from various segments of Turkish society, representatives from Turkey’s Council of Catholic Bishops, the Ülkü Ocakları Education and Culture Foundation -- Ülkü Ocakları is a youth organization of the far-right political front -- the Human Rights Association (İHD) and the Roma Association were received by the commission on Monday so they could make suggestions regarding the new constitution.

Expressing his contentment after the meeting, Monsignor Ruggero Franceschini, the president of the Council of Catholic Bishops, said it was sincere and friendly. Franceschini said they talked about the biggest problems minorities in Turkey face: “All of us expressed our views as to how to resolve the problems of all religious groups. Our biggest problem is the issue of receiving acknowledgment. Other Catholic churches carry out their services with the help of associations; but we, Roman Catholics, cannot even repair our churches. We can’t properly administer our properties. I am an Italian, and I think that historical churches are the richness of all humanity, not only of the people belonging to that church.”

Syriac Catholic church leader Chor Episcopus Yusuf Sağ noted that the fact that they were invited by the commission to contribute to the new constitution’s formation process is proof of how pro-liberty the new constitution will be. He added: “We hope the new constitution will highlight freedoms. We want a constitution that accepts and embraces everyone like a mother. We don’t have expectations different from those of Muslim Turks. As Syriacs that have been living on this land for 4,500 years, we expect to receive the same rights as Muslim Turks.”...

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7 Comments

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sanman | April 19, 2012 7:33 AM | Reply

Pakistani judge upholds conversion of minority women to Islam:

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/pakistani-judge-upholds-womens-conversions-to-islam/

So it's a green light for non-Muslim women to be abducted and converted to Islam.

salah | April 19, 2012 7:52 AM | Reply

"we expect to receive the same rights as Muslim Turks."

You don't "receive" your rights, you TAKE them.
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2010/06/deserve-victory.html

London Jim replied to comment from sanman | April 19, 2012 7:54 AM | Reply

Bang goes another 72 virgins.

exsgtbrown | April 19, 2012 8:15 AM | Reply

"All of us expressed our views as to how to resolve the problems of all religious groups. Our biggest problem is the issue of receiving acknowledgment"

Actually your biggest problem is receiving denial...denial of your rights to pray as you wish, denial of your rights to have your church, denial of your rights to build new churched and to repair or restore old ones, denial of your rights to worship and display your religious icons, denial of your rights to speak out on behalf of your religion.....all this and more...courtesy of Islam...

Cole | April 19, 2012 9:16 AM | Reply

It's a laugh!!

Churches can't be repaired - what does that say!

Even as Turkey tries to join the European Union subjugation of Christians is in its Constitution - just as it is in Egypt and Pakistan.

And with these Christians we are not talking about immigrant rights - these are the indigenous people - subjugated under Islamic laws - even in secular nations.

The supremacy issue was one of the foremost reasons for the killing of the Armenians - as Christians they said - we want equality with Muslims - and the Turkish authority answered in the most horrific way.

An assumed supremacy - over all men!!

Tom Billesley | April 19, 2012 12:50 PM | Reply

...biggest problem is a lack of acknowledgment...
Is this a deluded nostalgia for the Ottoman millet system?

gravenimage | April 24, 2012 10:35 AM | Reply

Turkish minorities: We want a constitution that embraces us all

Good luck.
.....................................

Good luck indeed. If anything, things are likely to become even worse for non-Muslim minorities in fast-Islamizing Turkey.

Expressing his contentment after the meeting, Monsignor Ruggero Franceschini, the president of the Council of Catholic Bishops, said it was sincere and friendly. Franceschini said they talked about the biggest problems minorities in Turkey face: “All of us expressed our views as to how to resolve the problems of all religious groups. Our biggest problem is the issue of receiving acknowledgment. Other Catholic churches carry out their services with the help of associations; but we, Roman Catholics, cannot even repair our churches...
.....................................

The good monsignor may not realize this, but that last is straight out of the 7th-century Pact of Umar:

"We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks' cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims."

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pact-umar.asp

And that is why this issue comes up all over the Muslim world—in such far-flung places as Egypt, and northern Nigeria, and Pakistan, and Indonesia, or—as here—in Turkey, where Christians are not allowed to make repairs to churches.

Syriac Catholic church leader Chor Episcopus Yusuf Sağ noted that the fact that they were invited by the commission to contribute to the new constitution’s formation process is proof of how pro-liberty the new constitution will be...
.....................................

Or maybe not. Turkey can just trot out the new, Shari'ah-infused constitution, and crow that they had 'input' from minority groups, who hence can be assumed to approve of its contents...

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