PROTOCOL.
The law granting foreigners the right of holding real estate does not interfere with the immunities specified by the treaties, and which will continue to protect the person and the movable property of foreigners who may become owners of real estate.
As the exercise of this right of possessing real property may induce foreigners to establish themselves in larger numbers in the Ottoman Empire, the Imperial Government thinks it proper to anticipate and to prevent the difficulties to which the application of this law may give rise in certain localities. Such is the object of the arrangements which follow:
The domicile of any person residing upon the Ottoman soil being inviolable, and as no one can enter it without the consent of the owner, except by virtue of orders emanating from competent authority and with the assistance of the magistrate or functionary invested with the necessary powers, the residence of foreigners is inviolable on the same principle, in conformity with the treaties, and the agents of the public force can not enter it without the assistance of the consul or of the delegate of the consul of the power on which the foreigner depends.
By residence we understand the house of inhabitation and its dependencies; that is to say, the outhouses, courts, gardens, and neighboring inclosures, to the exclusion of all other parts of the property.
In the localities distant by less than nine hours' journey from the consular residence, the agents of the public force can not enter the residence of a foreigner without the assistance of a consul, as was before said.
On his part the consul is bound to give his immediate assistance to the local authority so as not to let six hours elapse between the moment which he may be informed and the moment of his departure or the departure of his delegate, so that the action of the authorities may never be suspended more than twenty-four hours.
In the localities distant by nine hours or more than nine hours of travel from the residence of the consular agent, the agents of the public force may, on the request of the local authority, and with the assistance of three members of the council of the elders of the commune, enter into the residence of a foreigner without being assisted by the consular agent, but only in case of urgency and for the search and the proof of the crime of murder, of attempt at murder, of incendiarism, of armed robbery either with infraction or by night in an inhabited house, of armed rebellion, and of the fabrication of counterfeit money; and this entry may be made whether the crime was committed by a foreigner or by an Ottoman subject, and whether it took place in the residence of a foreigner or not in his residence, or in any other place.
These regulations are not applicable but to the parts of the real estate which constitute the residence, as it has been heretofore defined.
Beyond the residence the action of the police shall be exercised freely and without reserve; but in case a person charged with crime or offense should be arrested, and the accused shall be a foreigner, the immunities attached to his person shall be observed in respect to him.