E/CN.4/1992/52 page 29 According to the information received, Mr. Mehmet Emin Aga was forcibly removed from office and expelled from its premises with the help of the police. He is said to have been ill-treated and to have subsequently suffered a heart attack. It has been reported that Mr. Mehmet Emin Aga was hospitalized and had gone on a hunger strike. According to the sources, some 500 members of the Muslim community staged a peaceful sit-in demonstration on the morning of 23 August 1991 in protest against the appointment of the new Mufti and the violent manner in which Mr. Mehmet Emin Aga had been removed from office. The hundreds of policemen who are said to have been present reportedly hesitated to intervene and protect the demonstrators when 40 to 50 persons carrying stones, sticks and metal bars attacked them and wounded 36 persons. It has also been alleged that ten shops belonging to members of this community were damaged and that assaults on mosques were carried out preventing the Muslim community [from observing] their right to practise their faith." 45. On 30 November 1991, the Permanent Mission of Greece to the United Nations Office at Geneva transmitted the following communication to the Special Rapporteur: "On 22 August 1991, the new Mufti of Xanthi, Mr. Mehmet Emin Sinikoglou, assumed his duties. Consequently, the interim mission of Mr. Mehmet Emin Aga, in charge after the death last year of Mufti Aga Mustafa, was terminated. However, Mr. Aga illegally refused to withdraw from the premises of the Office of the Mufti. He did so, only when health reasons (high blood pressure crisis) obliged him to be hospitalized, upon recommendation of medical doctors. The new Mufti, Mr. Emin Sinikoglou, born in 1939 in the village of Echinos (Xanthi) had studied for six years in the Islamic religious schools of Komotini and Recat. He later attended the High Theological School in the University of Medina, from which he graduated in 1971. Following these studies, he did post-graduate work at the University of Baghdad. Mr. Sinikoglou's selection as Mufti was conducted in implementation of Law 1920/4.2.1991 regarding 'Muslim Religious Ministers'. More specifically, the enlarged Committee consisting of Greek Muslim religious ministers and prominent Greek Muslim citizens had to examine the qualifications of the seven candidates. From among them, and upon the recommendation of the Committee, the Minister of Education and Religious Affairs finally selected one, namely Mr. Emin Sinikoglou, on the basis of his qualifications, personal and formal, to be appointed by presidential decree. The allegations contained in annex I of your letter, according to which a petition protesting this appointment and reportedly signed by all the religious leaders of the Muslim minority and submitted to the Parliament, are totally groundless. In this connection, it should be stressed that it is obviously with the participation of the Muslim element, as described above, that the Hellenic Republic appoints the religious minister of the prefecture, who, apart from religious jurisdiction, disposes of administrative competence towards the religious ministers in his region and judicial jurisdiction on issues of family and inheritance law as well. It is perhaps useful to recall that Greece is a country accepting the exercise of judicial jurisdiction by a Mufti.