ECLJ meets with Prime Minister's Office of Turkey regarding legal impossibility of Protestants to register Houses of Worship

May 02, 2006

(Ankara, Turkey)-ECLJ recently met with Saban Disli, Deputy Chairman of Turkey’s governing AK Parti in charge of International Relations to discuss the growing concerns of many Europeans over the lack of religious freedoms in Turkey for Protestants. Figures from the Religious Affairs Directorate of Turkey estimate that 99% of Turks identify themselves as Muslim. Although much has changed with the entrance of Turkey into ascension talks with the European Union, deep prejudices continue to exist against Protestant Christian groups.

Only recently has a circular letter to administrative agencies instructing them how to deny zoning applications for Christian churches been repealed. However, the legal impossibility of registering a Protestant house of worship as a church still exists. Many Protestant groups have taken the only available route left to them which is the formation of a religious association. Only very recently has this become a viable option. Before this, churches were routinely harassed by police and shut down. Minority Christians are becoming more hopeful as the number of accepted religious associations increase. To this day however, more applications have been denied than Protestant churches established since the beginning of secular Turkey.

ECLJ received from Mr. Disli his guarantee that he, along with several other cabinet members from the governing party, would look into any application still pending in the courts and administrative agencies which ECLJ brought to them and get an official response. ECLJ will work with interested MEPs in this endeavor in bringing minority religious freedoms rights to Turkish Protestant Christians.

ECLJ is currently co-counsel on two cases before the European Court of Human Rights dealing with religious freedoms in Turkey and the legal impossibility to register houses of worship.