Turkey Seizes Six Churches as State Property

Case information
Incident date
Country
Türkiye
Categories
  • Government Restrictions
Attack Against
  • Faith
Societal Sphere
  • Governmental
Religious Freedom / Discrimination
  • Freedom of Association and Assembly
  • Freedom of Religion

In the region of Diyarbakir, the Turkish government seized huge sections of property, including six churches. One of these is a 1,700 year old Syriac Orthodox Church.

The government has said that it expropriated the churches to protect them, but Christian worshippers have had no access to them and the government did not set a timeline to return them to the Christian communities. Source: World Watch Monitor