ABTTF reported the offences against the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace to the OSCE

On 18 March 2010, with regard to the 2009 Hate Crimes Report of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), ABTTF submitted a report on hate crimes and offences directed against the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace, its properties and mosques in Greece in 2009.

Within the framework of the OSCE commitments, the annual report prepared by the ODIHR reviews hate crimes and racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic crimes that are targeted against groups of victims, and in addition crimes against Roma, Muslims, Christians, and against persons belonging to other religious groups. During the report preparation process, ODIHR co-operates with civil society organizations, and includes evaluations about hate crimes reported by civil society organizations into the reports. In this context, ABTTF contributed to the report by reporting hate crimes in 2009 against members of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace and against properties, Wakf lands and mosques belonging to the Turkish Minority.

ABTTF reported the Molotov cocktail attack on the one-way road of Grigoriou Marasli in Komotini, which took place on 29 January 2009. In its report prepared in a chronological order, ABTTF reported in detail the attacks on Abdulhalim Dede (February 2009) and Ibrahim Baltali (November 2009). In addition ABTTF emphasized with regard to the armed attack on the Ramadan drummer of Koyunköy (September 2009), that it was not the attacker, but the drummer put in detention. With regard to hate crimes against properties belonging to the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace, the three attacks on the Mehmet Hilmi Fountain, which took place on different times, were reported separately. Regarding attacks on mosques, the attacks on Okcular, Hürriyet, and on the Sunni neighbourhood mosque were reported in historical order and submitted to the ODIHR.

With regard to the subject matter, Halit Habipoğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), made a statement as follows: “ABTTF regularly attends the OSCE/ODIHR Human Dimension and Implementation meetings and carries, in conjunction with the topic of meeting, problems of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace on the agenda. Again in May 2010, ABTTF will attend the Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting about the promotion of gender balance and will continue to bring issues of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace onto the agenda. Moreover, by contributing in the preparation process of the ODIHR annual hate crimes report, ABTTF has reported hate crimes against the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace that took place in 2009. Thus, we hope that hate crimes against the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace will also be included in the section on Greece of the report, which is expected to be released in November 2010.”