(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, FEBRUARY 20 - For the first time ever, the
spiritual leader of Turkey's Greek-Orthodox community had a
meeting today with members of a parliamentary subcommittee to
present appeals that should be taken into account in the new
Constitutions that is being drafted. Patriarch Bartholomew has
pointed out that Greek-Orthodox people in turkey have been
''second-class'' citizens for a long time, but that the
situation is changing.
''For the first time in the history of the republic,'' the
patriarch said while leaving the meeting, quoted by Turkish news
agency Anadolu, ''minority groups in Turkey are receiving
invitations to express their opinion on the drafting of a new
Constitution. Unfortunately these groups have suffered injustice
in Turkey in the past, but now a new Turkey is being formed. We
are confident that our viewpoints will be taken into
consideration. We want a new Constitution that is everybody's
Constitution. We only want our rights as citizens who were born
in this country, fulfil their military duties, pay taxes and
vote in elections. We don't want to be second-class citizens,''
said Bartholomew according to the website of newspaper Zaman.
Turkey is working on a replacement for its Constitution that was
drawn up after the military coup of September 1980. Statements
made by high officials in the past months suggest that the new
Constitution will still be based on the secular State, as wanted
by the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, despite the fact
that the country has a Muslim majority and that its current
Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan is Islamic. Religious minority
groups are being consulted for the new text, like the Orthodox
Church (recognised by the Lausanne Treaty of 1923), Alawite and
Jewish groups, but also social groups like the gay, lesbian and
transgender movement which presented its own requests in the
middle of January in another unprecedented hearing. Thanks to
its Ottoman tradition, Turkey has a legacy of tolerance towards
minority groups. (ANSAmed)
