{"id":1069,"date":"2014-12-02T12:58:15","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T12:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1069"},"modified":"2014-12-04T13:13:34","modified_gmt":"2014-12-04T13:13:34","slug":"echr-turkey-discriminated-cemevis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1069","title":{"rendered":"ECHR: Turkey Discriminated Cemevis"},"content":{"rendered":"

By EROL \u00d6NDERO\u011eLU
\nBIA News Desk<\/em><\/p>\n

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey\u2019s Directorate of Religious Affairs\u2019s rejection of paying electricity bills of a cemevi is a \u201cviolation of right to religion\u201d and \u201cdiscrimination\u201d. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey\u2019s Directorate of Religious Affairs\u2019s (DAR) rejection of paying electricity bills of Yenibosna Cemevi [sacred place for Alevi people] is a \u201cviolation of right to religion\u201d and \u201cdiscrimination\u201d.<\/p>\n

The applicant association, Cumhuriyet\u00e7i Eg\u0306itim Ve K\u00fclt\u00fcr Merkezi Vakf\u0131 (Foundation for Republican Education and Culture, hereafter \u201cthe Foundation\u201d), is a foundation established under Turkish law, which was set up in 1995 and has charitable status.<\/p>\n

In this case, the foundation complaint about the refusal to exempt it from paying its electricity bills, arguing that national legislation provides for such an exemption for places of worship.<\/p>\n

While the ruling was issued today, DAR declined the foundation\u2019s request in August 2006 and a local court rejected their complaint on May 27, 2008.<\/p>\n

ECHR: Discrimination based on faith<\/strong><\/p>\n

ECHR said the following on the verdict: \u201cWhile the applicant foundation didn\u2019t face an objective treatment, it is not plausible either. As the court, we observe a faith-based discrimination regarding the exemptions of electric bills on sacred places.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCemevis are not places of worship\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

In August 2006, submitting that the Foundation was a place of worship for the Alevi community, its director requested exemption from paying electricity bills, since the legislation provides that the 4 electricity bills for places of worship are paid from a fund administered by the Directorate of Religious Affairs (DAR).<\/p>\n

The courts dismissed the Foundation\u2019s claims, basing their decision on the DAR\u2019s opinion that the cemevis are not places of worship but places of assembly in which spiritual ceremonies are held. The total amount of the Yenibosna Centre\u2019s bills comes to 668,012.13 Turkish lira (TRY), or EUR 289,182, under the exchange rate at the relevant time.<\/p>\n

Both discrimination and violation of freedom of religion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Relying on Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) taken together with Article 9 (right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion), ECHR Court Panel including the newly-elected Section President I\u015f\u0131l Karaka\u015f from Turkey found the Turkish state guilty with unanimous vote.<\/p>\n

ECHR, on the other hand, postponed the execution of Article 41 of the Convention regarding making repartitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By EROL \u00d6NDERO\u011eLU BIA News Desk The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey\u2019s Directorate of Religious Affairs\u2019s rejection of paying electricity bills of [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","category-turkey-minority-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1071,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069\/revisions\/1071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}