Vragen over het Mor Gabriel klooster aan 47 ministers van Buitelandse Zaken

Source: P.H. (Pieter) Omtzigt i, published on Wednesday, March 2 2011.

In de Raad van Europa moest Turkije voor eind februari een reactie geven op de resolutie over de minderheden in Turkije. Een van de aanbevelingen ging over het Mor Gabriel klooster. Andere aanbevelingen gingen over het gebruik van het Aramaees in scholen en kerken. Helaas heeft Turkije nog geen enkele reactie gegeven. En overigens ook heel erg weinig gedaan met de aanbevelingen, zove we kunnen zien.

daarom heb ik vandaag vragen gesteld aan de raad van ministers van de raad van Europa. Dat zijn de 47 ministers van Buitenlandse Zaken. Pikant detail is dat Turkije op dit moment voorzitter is van die raad en dus concept antwoorden zal moeten opstellen. Zal het land zelf moeten toegeven dat het onvoldoende doet.

Questions of Pieter Omtzigt (EPP/CD, Netherlands) to the committee of Ministers

In January 2010 the Parliamentary Assembly approved resolution 1704(2010)on “the Freedom of religion and other human rights for non-Muslim minorities in Turkey and for the Muslim minority in Thrace (eastern Greece)”

The last paragraph reads: 20. The Assembly asks the governments of Greece and Turkey to report back on the progress made on each point in paragraphs 16, 18 and 19 of the present resolution by February 2011.

No official reply has been published as of 1 March 2011.

Mr. Omtzigt asks the council of Ministers

  • 1. 
    Did Greece and Turkey send a progress report to the Council of Europe?
  • 2. 
    What does the committee of ministers think of countries, that do not even bother to report back the Council of Europe?
  • 3. 
    Will the committee of ministers at their next meeting ask the non-compliant countries to send the progress reports to the Council of Europe by March 25th and publish them on the web?
  • 4. 
    Will the committee of ministers give an opinion on the progress in the two countries in each of the points in paragraph 16, 18 and 19 in the resolution and send that to the assembly?
  • 5. 
    Will the committee of ministers pay special attention in her answer on “19.6. ensure that the Orthodox Syriac monastery of Mor Gabriel, one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world, founded in 397 ad, is not deprived of its lands, and that it is protected in its entirety”, as Turkish state institutions have pushed trough a number of legal cases against the monastery, whose grounds will now be expropriated. Does the committee agree that this is a serious violation of the resolution 1704?

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