ABTTF meets with the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks

The President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), Halit Habipoğlu, and member of the ABTTF International Affairs Department, Seyhan Sarıca, met on 16 November 2012 with the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, and discussed the problems the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace in Greece has been facing in the fields of self-identification, religion and education.

At the beginning of the meeting attended also by the experts from the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, ABTTF President Habipoğlu stated following the entry of the political party Golden Dawn to the Greek Parliament, the hate-motivated attacks against the Turkish Minority of Western-Trace have increased, and reported the attacks and demonstrations by the party supporters in Western Thrace.

During the meeting, President Habipoğlu pointed out under the former article 19 of the Greek Citi-zenship Code, about 60 thousand Western Thrace Turks have been deprived of their citizenship. Habipoğlu mentioned also the problems in the field of religion, and said the Turkish Minority has not been allowed to elect its own religious leaders, adding although there was an imam who was charged by the community itself, and was serving for three years in the İbrahim Pasha Mosque in Rhodes, the Office of the assigned Mufti in Dimetoka appointed another imam to the same mosque, though it has no legal power to do so.

With regard to the problems in the field of education, Habipoğlu stated 20 children belonging to the Turkish minority have nit been enrolled in the Turkish Minority Primary School in the village of Echinos (Şahin) on the grounds that they did not attend a public kindergarten where the instruction is only in the Greek language, adding the Turkish school principal, who admitted all those children to classes, was dismissed from duty.

Furthermore, Habipoğlu said a delegation consisted of the Co-Chair of the “Intergroup Traditional Minorities, National Communities and Languages” at the European Parliament, François Alfonsi MEP, the President of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), Hans Heinrich Hansen, and the Director of the Human Rights Without Frontiers Int’l., Willy Fautré, paid a visit to Western Thrace from 16 to 20 October 2012, and observed the human and minority rights violations in the re-gion by carrying out an examination of these on the spot, adding a report on the fact-finding visit, which is being prepared by the HRWF Director, Willy Fautré, will be presented at a conference on 28 November 2012 in the European Parliament in Brussels.