Religious Freedom, Minority Rights and Turkish Secularism: The Case of the Alevis

The article examines the legal status of religious minorities in Turkey. It also considers which influence foreign constitutional models and the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights exert on Turkish interpretation of secularism. The persistent influence of the Ottoman and Islamic legal traditions will also be addressed. Firstly, the essay provides an overview of three mainstream models of State-religion relationships (the French model of laïcité, the English model and the German cooperative model) in order to assess their impact on religious freedom and minority rights. The analysis will then be focused on the influence of the abovementioned models on Turkish secularism and the approach towards religious diversity. The Muslim Alevi minority has been chosen as case study since the uncertainty about its legal status provides the opportunity to reflect on the category of “religious minority” and the implication of different secularist models and legal traditions on religious freedom in Turkey.