İzmir municipality designates seven cemevis as 'houses of worship' in zoning plans
The İzmir Metropolitan Municipal Council has designated seven cemevi buildings as official places of worship in the zoning plans. The AKP and MHP councillors have voted against the proposal, but as CHP councillors hold the majority in the municipal council, the proposal was accepted.
Duvar English
The city council of the Aegean province of İzmir has designated seven cemevi buildings in the province as “houses of worship” in the zoning plans.
Cemevis are assembly houses at which Turkey's Alevi communities pray. Although the Alevi community is the second largest religious community in Turkey, the country does not recognize cemevis as official houses of worship. Only mosques, churches and synagogues are granted with this legal status.
An İzmir Municipality council meeting headed by Mayor Tunç Soyer on Jan. 13 discussed a proposal to grant the status of “house of worship” to seven cemevis in the districts of Bornova, Aliağa, Çiğli, Konak and Selçuk.
Soyer said that the issue was a matter of “public conscience” and therefore no public authority could object to it.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) group in the municipal council said that recognition of the relevant cemevis as houses of worship in the zoning plans could create some problems in terms of “legal infrastructure” and suggested that the Urbanization Ministry should be consulted.
As the CHP members outnumber the members of the AKP and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in the municipal council, the proposal was accepted by a majority vote. The AKP and MHP councillors (except for MHP member Osman Mert) voted against the proposal. “I think that it [the proposal] should be supported in the public conscience and my own conscience. I support this as someone who has been into a cemevi and felt it there,” Mert said.
Alevis make up an estimated 15-25 percent of Turkey's population, the second main religious group after Sunni Islam. One of the differences between Alevis and Sunnis is their places of worship. Sunnis worship in mosques, whereas Alevis worship in cemevi. Mosques and cemevis are fully separate entities that have little to do with each other.
Despite the fundamental differences in religious practices between the two groups, the government to-date refuses to acknowledge Alevi cemevi as the legitimate place of worship and to grant cemevis the same financial support as mosques. Instead, Turkey claims that cemevi is a cultural entity.