ABTTF communicated the problems of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace at the PACE

The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) paid from 4 to 5 October 2011 an official visit to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). ABTTF President Halit Habipoğlu and ABTTF Director General K. Engin Soyyilmaz discussed the problems of and current issues regarding the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace in Greece with Boriss Cilevičs, Chairperson of the PACE Sub-Committee on Rights of Minorities, Stephanos Stavros, Executive Secretary of the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), Geneviève Mayer, Head of the Department for the Execution of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and Giancarlo Cardinale, Adviser to the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.

No solution yet for the problem of article 19!

During the meeting with the Parliamentarian Boriss Cilevičs, ABTTF President Halit Habipoğlu expressed that while the Greek Minister of the Interior Haris Kastanidis was calling for an investigation on the possibility of restoring the Greek citizenship of about 400 Thessaloniki Jews and their relatives with blood ties, 60,000 Western Thrace Turks, who had been deprived arbitrarily of their citizenship under the former article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Code, came never on the agenda. Furthermore, Habipoğlu pointed out that intolerance against the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace had accelerated in the environment of deep economic crisis in Greece. In response to this, Cilevičs mentioned that a similar situation had been experienced in Latvia three years ago adding that minorities were announced as the “scapegoat” in such hard times.

Problems with regard to the execution of ECtHR judgments continue

During the meeting with the Head of the Department for the Execution of Judgments of the EctHR Geneviève Mayer, President Habipoğlu stated that despite the EctHR judgments against Greece with regard to the Turkish Minority associations of the Xanthi Turkish Union, the Cultural Association of Turkish Women of the Region of Rodopi and the Evros Prefecture Minority Youth Association, these judgments had been unfortunately not executed yet by Greece.