NEWS RELEASE
Armenian Bar Association
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Los Angeles, CA 90029
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PRESS RELEASE
Armenian Bar Association
Email: [email protected]
Web:
Dear Media Partners and Friends:
The Armenian Bar Association weighed in on an important issue under
consideration now by the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign
Relations. We did so with the letter, attached above, which was
distributed today to the 45 members of the Foreign Relations
Committee. Copied below is the text and background of the pending
legislative bill.
Best to all.
Armen K. Hovannisian
Chairman, Armenian Bar Association
113th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 4347
To require the Secretary of State to provide an annual report to
Congress regarding United States Government efforts to survey and
secure the return, protection, and restoration of stolen, confiscated,
or otherwise unreturned Christian properties in the Republic of Turkey
and in those areas currently occupied by the Turkish military in
northern Cyprus.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. ROYCE (for himself and Mr. ENGEL) introduced the following bill;
which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
________________________________
A BILL
To require the Secretary of State to provide an annual report to
Congress regarding United States Government efforts to survey and
secure the return, protection, and restoration of stolen, confiscated,
or otherwise unreturned Christian properties in the Republic of Turkey
and in those areas currently occupied by the Turkish military in
northern Cyprus.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Turkey Christian Churches Accountability Act’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) United States diplomatic leadership contributes meaningfully and
materially to the protection internationally of religious minorities
and their faith-based practices and places of worship.
(2) The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 states that `It
shall be the policy of the United States to condemn violations of
religious freedom, and to promote, and to assist other governments in
the promotion of, the fundamental right to freedom of religion.’.
(3) The House of Representatives, when it adopted House Resolution 306
on December 13, 2011, called on the Secretary of State, in all
official contacts with Turkish leaders, to urge Turkey to `allow the
rightful church and lay owners of Christian church properties, without
hindrance or restriction, to organize and administer prayer services,
religious education, clerical training, appointments, and succession’,
and to `return to their rightful owners all Christian churches and
other places of worship, monasteries, schools, hospitals, monuments,
relics, holy sites, and other religious properties, including movable
properties, such as artwork, manuscripts, vestments, vessels, and
other artifacts’.
(4) On September 28, 2010, the House of Representatives adopted House
Resolution 1631, calling for the protection of religious sites and
artifacts, as well as for general respect for religious freedom in
Turkish-occupied areas of northern Cyprus.
(5) Christian churches and communities in the Republic of Turkey and
in the occupied areas of Cyprus continue to be prevented from fully
practicing their faith and face serious obstacles to reestablishing
full legal, administrative, and operational control over stolen,
expropriated, confiscated, or otherwise unreturned churches and other
religious properties and sites.
(6) In many cases the rightful Christian church authorities, including
relevant Holy Sees located outside Turkey and Turkish-occupied
territories, are obstructed from safeguarding, repairing, or otherwise
caring for their holy sites upon their ancient homelands, because the
properties have been destroyed, expropriated, converted into mosques,
storage facilities, or museums, or subjected to deliberate neglect.
(7) While the Turkish Government has made efforts in recent years to
address these issues and to return some church properties, much more
must be done to rectify the situation of Christian communities in
these areas, as a vast majority of Christian holy sites continue to be
held by the Turkish Government or by third parties.
(8) On April 24, 2013, Catholicos Karekin II and Catholicos Aram I,
spiritual leaders of the millions of Christian Armenian faithful in
Armenia and the Diaspora, noted that Turkey continued to unjustly
`[retain] confiscated church estates and properties, and religious and
cultural treasures of the Armenian people’, and called on Turkey `[t]o
immediately return the Armenian churches, monasteries, church
properties, and spiritual and cultural treasures, to the Armenian
people as their rightful owner’.
(9) The boundaries of Turkey encompass significant historic Christian
lands, including the biblical lands of Armenia (present-day Anatolia),
home to many of early Christianity’s pivotal events and holy sites,
such as Mount Ararat, the location cited in the Bible as the landing
place of Noah’s Ark.
(10) These ancient territories were for thousands of years home to a
large, indigenous Christian population, but, because of years of
repressive Turkish Government policies, historic atrocities, and
brutal persecution, today Christians constitute less than one percent
of Turkey’s population.
(11) As a result of the Turkish Government’s invasion of the northern
area of the Republic of Cyprus on July 20, 1974, and the Turkish
military’s continued illegal and discriminatory occupation of portions
of this sovereign state, the future and very existence of Greek
Cypriot, Maronite, and Armenian communities are now in grave jeopardy.
(12) Under the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus, freedom of
worship has been severely restricted, access to religious sites
blocked, religious sites systematically destroyed, and a large number
of religious and archaeological objects illegally confiscated or
stolen.
(13) The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom,
in its 2012 annual report, criticized `the Turkish government’s
systematic and egregious limitations on the freedom of religion’, and
warned that `[l]ongstanding policies continue to threaten the
survivability and viability of minority religious communities in
Turkey’.
(14) Christian minorities in Turkey continue to face discrimination,
prohibitions on the training and succession of clergy, and violent
attacks, which have at times resulted in lenient sentencing, including
the reduced sentence for the murderer of the Catholic Church’s head
bishop in Turkey, Luigi Padovese, in June 2010, or delayed justice,
including the unresolved torture and murder, in April 2007, of three
employees of a Protestant Bible publishing house in Malatya, Turkey.
(15) The Government of Turkey, in contravention of its international
legal obligations, refuses to recognize the 2,000-year-old Sacred See
of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s international status, has confiscated
the large majority of the assets and properties of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate, Greek cultural and educational foundations, maintains
that candidates for the position of Ecumenical Patriarch must be
Turkish citizens, and continues to refuse to reopen the Theological
School at Halki, thus impeding training and succession for the Greek
Orthodox clergy in Turkey.
(16) The Government of Turkey, in contravention of its international
legal obligations, continues to place substantial restrictions and
other limitations upon the Armenian Patriarchate’s right to train and
educate clergy and select and install successors without government
interference.
(17) Religious freedom is an essential cornerstone of democracy that
promotes respect for individual liberty, which contributes to greater
stability, and is therefore a priority value for the United States to
promote in its engagement with other countries.
SEC. 3. REPORT REQUIREMENTS.
(a) In General- Not later than 180 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act and annually thereafter until 2021, the
Secretary of State shall submit to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of
the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of
the Senate a report on the status and return of stolen, confiscated,
or otherwise unreturned Christian churches, places of worship, and
other properties in or from the Republic of Turkey and in the areas of
northern Cyprus occupied by the Turkish military that shall contain
the following:
(1) A comprehensive listing of all the Christian churches, places of
worship, and other properties, such as monasteries, schools,
hospitals, monuments, relics, holy sites, and other religious
properties, including movable properties, such as artwork,
manuscripts, vestments, vessels, and other artifacts, in or from
Turkey and in the territories of the Republic of Cyprus under military
occupation by Turkey that are claimed as stolen, confiscated, or
otherwise wrongfully removed from the ownership of their rightful
Christian church owners.
(2) Description of all engagement over the previous year on this issue
by officials of the Department of State with representatives of the
Republic of Turkey regarding the return to their rightful owners of
all Christian churches, places of worship, and other properties, such
as monasteries, schools, hospitals, monuments, relics, holy sites, and
other religious properties, including movable properties, such as
artwork, manuscripts, vestments, vessels, and other artifacts, both
those located within Turkey’s borders and those under control of
Turkish military forces in the occupied northern areas of Cyprus.
(b) Inclusion in Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and
International Religious Freedom Report- The information required under
subsection (a) shall be summarized in the annual Country Reports on
Human Rights Practices and International Religious Freedom Reports.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
