US embassy cable - 04ADANA128

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ADANA 000128 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PHUM, TU, ADANA 
SUBJECT: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ROUND-UP:  SE TURKEY 
 
1.  (U) Summary: Members of the Protestant, Catholic and Muslim 
communities in various cities in southeast Turkey report that 
they are able to worship freely, but that the state continues to 
restrict some aspects of their religious life.  A Diyarbakir 
pastor's acquittal last May on charges of worshiping in an 
"illegal church" did not address the church's equally pressing 
problem, a lack of legal status.  Religious groups attempting to 
gain legal status or regain lost properties continue to face 
incommodious bureaucratic processes.  In Adana, a representative 
of that city's Jewish community, however, says that community's 
biggest problem is its dwindling size in the region due to 
emigration and self-selection, not "government problems."  End 
Summary. 
 
Protestants in Diyarbakir:  no legal status 
------------------------------------------- 
 
2.  (SBU) The pastor of a Protestant church in Diyarbakir told 
poloff in a September 3 meeting that his congregation of 
approximately 60 members was able to worship freely, and was not 
currently experiencing any harassment.  At a May 2004 hearing, 
he said, he had been acquitted of charges that he was operating 
a church in an unauthorized building.  In handing down that 
decision, the judge cited a 1996 European Human Rights Court 
precedent stating that sentencing someone for using a house as a 
place of worship without government permission is a violation of 
Article 9 of the European Human Rights Accord.  (Note:  In an 
August meeting with poloff, a public prosecutor in Diyarbakir 
asserted that the decision is an example of progress in the area 
of religious freedom.) 
 
3.  (SBU) While the pastor welcomed the May decision that 
allowed him to keep using the property for religious instruction 
and worship, he is not completely satisfied as he and his 
worshipers still do not have any legal status as a church.  They 
cannot legally hire any employee (such as a pastor) nor provide 
benefits, for example.  Moreover, they cannot own the property 
in the church's name.  The building they are using as a church 
also serves as the pastor's home.  If he should die, he asks, 
how could he make sure it stays in the hands of his 
congregation?   The church does not receive state assistance for 
electricity and water, as some other faith groups with legal 
status do, nor does it have any space specifically allocated for 
use as a cemetery for the community, he said. 
 
4.  (SBU) According to this pastor, groups wishing to form new 
foundations must have at least one trillion TL (approximately 
USD 665,000) before applying.  (Note: Post has not yet been able 
to confirm this independently.  End Note.)  Only one Protestant 
foundation, he said, the Istanbul-based Bostanci Vakfi, was 
formed prior to the establishment of that requirement.   The 
pastor said that there are approximately 70 churches dealing 
with the same lack of legal status issue, and that 
representatives of Protestant churches have formed a legal 
commission that has been meeting in Izmir on and off for two 
months to determine how to move forward.  At this time they are 
considering their best option to be forming an association 
(dernek).  It would be based in Ankara; there would be a number 
of board members there and the churches would function like a 
federation.  He will keep us posted as they move forward in this 
process. 
 
Catholic community in Mersin 
---------------------------- 
 
5.  (SBU) A Catholic priest in Mersin who has been in Turkey for 
41 years (about 35 of them in Mersin) said that the church was 
trying to form a foundation in order to be able to get title and 
compensation for lost lands.  He said that the church, which is 
located adjacent to the Mersin Security Director's office and 
municipality building, had lost its property (including its 
cemetery) over the last few decades as Mersin grew, because its 
properties were untitled by government decision and located in 
growing urban areas.  The property in Catholic Church use now 
was limited to the church itself, an adjacent house and an 
adjacent additional building.  He said that the church had been 
allowed land in a municipal cemetery when its dedicated cemetery 
was lost and that it is "protected and respected" by 
authorities. 
 
6.  (SBU) He was not optimistic that the foundation would make 
much headway and said that "the Turks do not have a concept of 
reciprocity or give-and-take," stressing that he did not mean 
that pejoratively, just that it was not their custom.  Without 
explicit, detailed agreements to restore individual laws, he 
doubted that many religious institutions, regardless of faith, 
would make progress because of institutional resistance and 
Diyanet suspicion. 
 
7.  (SBU) He noted that the congregation was about 600-strong, 
healthy, had had about 60 converts in recent years and is 
largely self-supporting.  He said that security officials were 
allowing Christians in Mersin to have their religion revised on 
their identity cards as "Christian" vice the automatic "Muslim" 
entry recorded at hospitals, once church baptismal records 
confirmed the Christian's petition for revision.  He said that 
is also occurring elsewhere in the Catholic community in Adana 
(where it is quite small), Iskenderun (the Bishop of Anatolia 's 
seat - others being Bishops of Istanbul and Izmir) and Antakya. 
 
8.  (SBU) The church had had little trouble receiving money from 
abroad, he said, adding that its difficulties were in sending 
funds out, and that the Papal Nuncio in Ankara had assisted them 
on the occasions when this had occurred.  He said these 
financial issues were not major concerns; rather, his problems 
lay in having to rely only on Catholic printed material 
published in Istanbul, since law prevented it from entering from 
outside Turkey, and gaining long-term residency and/or 
citizenship for clergy working in Turkey.  Twice, he said, his 
requests for citizenship had been rejected despite being in 
Turkey 41 years and he had only in 2003 received his first 
5-year residency visa, having until then always received visas 
in one or two-year increments. 
 
Freedom to veil 
--------------- 
 
9.  (SBU) A senior Adana AK party leader asserted to PO in an 
August meeting that "tolerance and freedom" are much of what AK 
is about. "It is so important for us," he claimed.  "There is a 
large Sunni faithful population that feels controlled and 
observed and limited by the State and this is part of what is 
attractive about the possibility of freedom in the EU process," 
he explained.  "Educating our women is important to us, but they 
want, and we want for them, the freedom to study while wearing 
turbans and receiving a modern education," he averred, adding, 
"That is why the Prime Minister's children are in the U.S., as 
are so many other AK Party members' female children.  You care 
about what they are learning, not what they wear.  That is also 
what we want."  [Comment:  Secular Turks disagree with this view 
that the turban-style headscarf is purely a religious symbol; 
secular Turks say Islamists use the headscarf as a political 
symbol.  End comment.] 
 
Adana's Jewish Community 
------------------------ 
 
10.  (SBU) A prominent Adana Jewish leader told PO in August 
that the community's synagogue is safe and afforded protection 
by the government.  Istanbul congregations had urged the 
community to take more physical security since last year, but 
the group in Adana felt that the suggested costly physical 
barriers would raise their profile and draw more attention than 
their defensive contribution might merit.  He said that the 
synagogue had yet to receive free electricity, but also had not 
tried to do so.  It was not an issue to him.  He said that the 
small Jewish community here was concerned about the recent 
criticism of Israel by PM Erdogan and hoped that it would be an 
"isolated incident." 
 
11.  (SBU) He said the biggest issue was the dwindling of the 
small Cukurova Jewish community as youth emigrate to Istanbul or 
abroad.  He mentioned that his nephews and nieces are in 
Belgium, his son in graduate school in Chicago and his is 
daughter married and in Istanbul.  He said that Jewish faith is 
"drying up" in Anatolia and predicted it will not last another 
generation, but attributed this to "self-selection, not 
government problems."  He noted that rabbis infrequently come 
down to Adana from Istanbul or abroad and welcomed any American 
Jewish interaction from the small numbers stationed at Incirlik. 
 
12.  (SBU) Comment:  There is broad room for improvement on 
implementation of religious freedom reforms in Turkey.  With the 
bureaucratic obstacles that are placed in the way of some faith 
groups attempting to obtain legal status, the Turkish state and 
government send a negative message and create de facto 
restrictions on religious freedom.  And despite the acquittal of 
Diyarbakir's Protestant pastor, that a case was opened against 
him to begin with - for holding an unauthorized gathering in an 
"illegal" church - is an affront to religious freedom.  Finally, 
as for societal attitudes, the AKP party official's mention, in 
one breath, of tolerance and the "large Sunni faithful" should 
be considered side by side with the less than tolerant views of 
many in the Sunni community toward Alevis, Shia and other 
religions.  End comment. 
 
 
ALLISON