16th Session of the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues Item 1: Challenges to Inclusion & Equality: Barriers in social and economic participation of minorities Dr. Mehmet Polatel, Minority Rights Academy, Hrant Dink Foundation Thank you, Madam Cochair for giving me the floor. Distinguished participants of the Forum, I am here today representing the Hrant Dink Foundation. Hrant Dink, the founder of the Armenian newspaper Agos, devoted his life to the resolution of the problems of minorities, and he was assassinated in 2007. His assassination, which deeply affected the minorities in Turkey, remained largely unpunished. As underlined by the European Court of Human Rights, there was no effective prosecution and Dink’s right to life was violated. And his murderer was recently released. I want to begin my statement by emphasizing that the right to life and access to justice are crucial for minority rights. Turkey is home to various ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities. However, the state only recognizes Armenians, Greeks, and Jews as official minorities. Even these three groups face numerous challenges concerning the enforcement of minority rights. In this statement, I will specifically focus on the problems encountered by Armenians in Turkey, particularly in terms of social and economic participation. While my talk will center on Armenians, these barriers and recommendations also apply to other non-Muslim groups, such as Greeks, Jews and Syriacs. One major issue that needs to be addressed is related to labor and trade. Minorities in Turkey face significant barriers when it comes to public employment. For instance, it was not until 2022 that the first Armenian, who was also the first non-Muslim, was appointed to an administrative office. Other than this exceptional and delayed appointment, there are currently no non-Muslims holding positions in the Turkish bureaucracy, including the judicial system, which lacks any non-Muslim prosecutors or judges. This situation also extends to security forces like the police and army. 1