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ANKARA: Turkey's Non-Muslim Groups Want Cabinet's Reaction Amid Cate

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  • ANKARA: Turkey's Non-Muslim Groups Want Cabinet's Reaction Amid Cate

    TURKEY'S NON-MUSLIM GROUPS WANT CABINET'S REACTION AMID CATEGORIZATION SCANDAL

    Today's Zaman, Turkey
    Aug 2 2013

    [By E. Baris Altintas]

    An official response to a query accidentally revealed that the Turkish
    state has been numbering its non-Muslim citizens, but not a single
    government official has made a statement concerning the issue.

    Earlier this week, it became evident from an official response from
    the Education Ministry to a query that non-Muslim minorities in Turkey
    were monitored and filed based on their ethnicity. They were also
    assigned numbers, in a practice that dates back to the establishment
    of the republic.

    According to a report by the Agos daily, since 1923 Armenians, Greeks
    and Jews have been assigned code numbers in official correspondence
    between government institutions. A letter sent by the Istanbul
    Directorate of National Education to its Sisli branch indicates that
    Armenian citizens are given the code number two.

    This confidential categorization by the state is normally kept by
    census bureaus and revealed only when there is an official request
    from another government institution. According to this racial code
    system, Greeks are given the number one and Jews the number three.

    The Interior Ministry on Friday issued a response to Agos' report,
    admitting that the "ancestral codes" have been kept since the Ottoman
    times and said they were periodically relayed to the Education
    Ministry, indicating that these records are being actively used today.

    The ministry defended that the codes were only used for "educational
    purposes," as Turkey's three minority communities -- Jews, Greeks
    and Armenians -- have the right to run their own schools as per the
    Lausanne Treaty of 1923, a right denied to other minority groups such
    as the Syriacs.

    The response to the scandal has been immense, with community leaders
    and intellectuals condemning the number. Despite the outrage,
    however, not a single government member made a statement condemning
    the oppressive numbering system. There were also reports on Friday
    that there were other groups that were filed under numbers. Radikal
    reported on Friday on its website that the Syriacs were numbered four,
    while there was a fifth category for "Other."

    Years of discrimination

    Rober Koptas, an Agos journalist and a member of Turkey's Armenian
    community, said nobody could rule out the possibility that the "codes"
    were used for other purposes than just assigning to the right minority
    schools. He noted: "There is not a single non-Muslim public servant
    in Turkey, or students in military or police academies, which means
    that these codes can be used for other purposes." He said the codes
    are an appalling violation of equality. He also said he wondered if
    there were other codes for individuals who are of different ethnic
    backgrounds such as Kurds, Arabs and the Laz, or for other religious
    communities such as the Alevis? "As people who demand equal citizenship
    but have systematically been discriminated against, we always felt
    that some kind of mechanism was in use, and now, for the first time,
    we have seen it."

    Koptas told Today's Zaman he hoped the painful discovery will also
    spell the end to this atrocious tradition of secretly labeling ethnic
    groups. "We should capture this moment and as journalists investigate
    and find out completely what is behind it and how it worked. It
    is a good thing this document came out, and there are now things
    to be done both on the part of the government and the opposition,
    and hopefully it will serve a cause."

    The journalist said the government's silence is "unacceptable." "We
    expect an end to this, not only on paper but also in practice." He
    also said it now had to be completely revealed how the codes work.

    Laki Vingas, a representative of the Greek Orthodox community and
    head of the Minorities Foundation in Istanbul, like Koptas, said he
    was not surprised: "This is not really surprising. These are things
    we are used to." However, he noted that they certainly did not know
    that they were being number-coded. "Years ago some people would be
    forced to drop out of Greek schools, and that would usually be because
    they would have some Albanian blood, or some Yugoslavian blood or
    something else, despite being members of the Orthodox faith. This
    is not really a surprise for us." In fact, Vingas' revelation about
    people having to leave the minority school system because of ancestral
    backgrounds indicates that other groups than is previously believed
    are being coded.

    Government should act

    But what will be done, will human rights groups, citizens or minority
    group lawyers have to file lawsuits? "I am of the opinion that there is
    nothing left for us as citizens to do, as the state has to guarantee
    equal citizenship. The outrage, the backlash, has been very fast
    here; the public is reacting, and this is an opportunity for us to
    discuss these. I am of the opinion that a rapid result will ensue,"
    Vingas told Today's Zaman.

    Professor Baskin Oran, an academic well known in the area of minority
    research, was quoted in the Radikal daily on Friday as saying:
    "This is the first time I have heard of this practice. This coding
    was created to finish off Turkey's non-Muslim communities."

    The secret categorization of minorities was revealed when a parent
    asked an Armenian kindergarten for a document proving there was no
    legal obstacle to the enrollment there of her child. When the Sisli
    branch of the directorate made enquiries with the census bureau into
    the background of the family, it was seen that religious minorities
    are given specific code numbers.

    The family is currently waiting for a response from the Education
    Ministry stating that they are of Armenian descent. The confusion
    in the system stems from the fact that the mother is an Armenian who
    converted to her family's religion after being registered as a Muslim
    at birth.

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