The Hrant Dink Foundation in Istanbul has produced a monumental work on the history and present status of the properties that once belonged to the Armenian charitable foundations in Istanbul, these are properties that were all seized by the Turkish government during the last few decades, The Armenian Weekly informs.

The title of the book 2012 Declaration is a reference to the Turkish state’s 1936 Declaration ordering all minority charitable foundations to list their assets and properties. In 1975, the state arbitrarily legislated that any properties that were obtained by minority charitable foundations after 1936 through donations, inheritance, wills, and gifts, were considered illegal, since they had not been listed in the 1936 Declaration.

The book is not simply a historical document providing an inventory of physical properties, or statistical records and legal statements. It is rather a story of enormous human suffering.