ABTTF’s reaction at UN meeting to new Greek law jeopardising educational autonomy

ABTTF asked for the annulation of the new law prepared without any consultation with the minority at the 28. Session of the UN Human Rights Council

Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) presented a written statement on the re-cent legislation considered to be destroying the educational autonomy of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace at the 28. Session of the UN Human Rights Council held at UN House in Geneva during 2-27 March 2015. Having demanded the annulation of this law prepared without any consultation with the minority, ABTTF asked the Greek government to constitute an official dialogue mechanism with the minority.

ABTTF underlined that although Turkish Minority of Western Thrace enjoyed autonomy on education on the basis of Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1923, this statute has been severely damaged thanks to a series of regulations and implementations in recent years. Having recalled the results of the fact-finding mission to the Western Thrace in 2012 when the Director of Human Rights Without Frontiers Int’l, Will Fautre had found that the Greek Government retained a comprehensive control at all levels of minority schools through the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, ABTTF insisted that the new law passed in the Greek Parliament last November constitutes another intervention in the educational autonomy.

ABTTF informed that Coordination Office for Minority Primary and Secondary Education was abolished and a new institution called Bureau for Minority Education incorporated to the Education Directorate of the East Macedonia-Thrace region was established instead. ABTTF claimed that this kind of administrative amendments are paving the way for the state to enhance its role and control over the minority education instead of overcoming current fundamental problems in education.

While informing about the formation of Minority Programme of Teacher Education within Thrace Dimokritios University in Alexandroupolis, ABTTF explained that it was totally a wrong step to restrict the right to have an education in this programme solely to the minority members who have graduated from pedagogy departments in Greece. It was underlined that minority members who obtained diplomas on relevant departments from Europe or other countries and acquired equivalence for their diplomas should also be provided the same right to have an education in this programme. It was also indicated that a one-year education in this programme was not enough to provide a qualified instruction in Turkish at minority schools. ABTTF proposed opening up Turkish Language and Literature department for those who will be employed in minority schools and will teach based on Turkish curriculum.

The term of ‘Greek Programme’ is used in the legislation text while ‘Minority Programme’ is chosen for Turkish curriculum. ABTTF declared that nonreference to Turkish in the text reflected the same problem where Turkish Minority of Western Thrace was not allowed to identify themselves as Turkish and that the use of ‘Turkish’ is forbidden on association names. ABTTF also advocated that one of the provisions of the new law, which stipulates that minority members can no longer be employed as regards the Greek curriculum in minority schools, was against the equality principle of the constitution.

According to this new law, 2 school advisor positions at both primary and secondary schools of the minority have been created and one school advisor for teachers of religion at both Muslim seminar-ies and state schools has been formed with the law of 4115/2013. ABTTF claimed that this new law was prepared without any consultation with the minority and thus constituted an important blow to minority’s autonomy in religious affairs. ABTTF also indicated that with this new legislation, the state clearly aims at enhancing its control over the minority through religion.

Greek government claims that the law of 4310/2014 was created in response to a series of problems within minority school system while ABTTF criticised the lack of any solutions to the bilingual kindergarten question that had been voiced many times by the minority. While giving further details on bilingual kindergartens problem, ABTTF referred to the statements of former UN Expert on Minorities, Gay McDougall who affirmed that bilingual kindergartens will be a quite effective tool in learning both Greek and Turkish following his visit to Greece in 2008.

ABTTF urged the Greek government to comply with the Lausanne Treaty as well as other interna-tionally binding agreements and therefore take necessary measures to reinforce the minority’s autonomy on education.

You could reach the whole text of ABTTF’s written statement at the 28. Session of UN Human Rights Council via the link: http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/58275.7405936718.html