A/55/280/Add.1 and independent experts gave quite a different slant to their remarks. 59. According to these experts, Turkish policy in the area of religion and belief and the national religious situation are characterized in fact by complexity and paradox. Secularism is proclaimed as the cornerstone of Turkish policy, but it must be noted that this secularism does not involve a strict separation between State and religion. To the contrary, it is a militant secularism whereby the State has completely taken over religious affairs in order to prevent them from having any political influence. With a Department of Religious Affairs that has about 85,000 employees (including imams and hitaps appointed, paid and supervised by the Department) and manages thousands of mosques, pilgrimages and the whole field of religious education, and with the compulsory religious and ethics courses given in primary and secondary schools, the State exercises control and supervision over the majority religion, both for its adherents (99 percent of the population) and for its servants (i.e. religious personnel who have the status of State agents and can be given directives and instructions as needed). Islam has become, in a sense, the State’s business, or to put it more accurately, Islam is so important in Turkey that the State cannot treat it with indifference, and still less with disinterest. Muslim affairs do not lie wholly outside the State sphere. 60. According to these experts, secularism, which is the real State religion, is not based on the principle of neutrality, in the sense that the form of Islam managed by the State and promoted among the population is exclusively that of the Hanafi rite. The State thus imposes a Sunni monopoly on Islam that takes no account of the diversity of Turkey’s Muslim communities, and particularly the Alawis and the various brotherhoods. With respect to the Alawis, their specific religious needs appear to be totally ignored by the authorities. These experts claimed that the Department of Religious affairs includes no Alawi representatives and does nothing to meet their religious needs, but on the contrary seeks to impose on them the Hanafi conception of Islam. Moreover, in some cities, they claim, the local authorities are trying to force the Alawis to worship at the mosques run by the Department of Religious Affairs, rather than in Alawi houses of prayer. The monistic approach of the State to Islam risks arousing suspicion and discrimination among the Sunni majority against Alawis who express their own religious convictions. In some cases, Alawis have even been subject to violent attacks by Sunni extremists: reference was made to such involvement in the deadly fire at a Sivas hotel in 1993 that killed 37 people during an Alawi festival, reflecting a clear failure by the State to fulfil its duty to protect the public. 61. In the end, to judge from the statements of nongovernmental experts, the State would appear to wield control over both secularism and religion. Any understanding of the religious situation in Turkey must also take account of Turkish nationalism, in particular as it is expressed by the Turkization policy, the impact of which is felt by non-Sunni and/or ethnically nonTurkish Muslim communities, and in particular by nonMuslim minorities. Several Turkish experts maintain that Turkish nationalism lies behind the intolerance of Turkish secularism and of society in general, and that this constitutes regression compared to the Ottoman Empire. The experts offered the following information: 62. In its relations with Europe, the Ottoman Empire had to deal with the question of its non-Muslim minorities in the context of European claims to hegemony, often exercised under the pretext of providing protection for these communities. In these circumstances, Turkish society felt itself weakened and under threat and attempted to find scapegoats within its midst, in this case the Christians. According to these experts, the Turkish ethnic component was seen as the only means for creating a new State, in the face of the Ottoman Empire’s disintegration. One component of the nationalism that was expressed at that time was to reject the Christian minorities as a danger. This situation laid the basis, among the elite and within the State, for a kind of paranoia that manifested itself in an anti-minority policy. According to these experts, the Ittihat party sought to create a nationalistic Turkish bourgeoisie but, given the difficulties in doing so, it took advantage of the conditions prevailing during the First World War to eliminate the greater part of the Armenian community (1915) and to confiscate their property and transfer it to a new local elite. Similarly, according to these experts, when it came to the Greeks in the Aegean, the State, acting on the basis of nationalistic ideas, drove out the Greek community by instigating night-time attacks on farms, and popularized its efforts by mobilizing the Muslim religion against the Christians. 13