Journalist Ibrahim Baltalı was attacked by a group of fanatic Greeks

On 19 November 2009, Ibrahim Baltalı*, owner of the journal Rodop Rüzgârı and the website Burası Batı Trakya, was attacked by a group of fanatic Greeks while he was following the lawsuit filed with the claim that Hara Nikopoulou, Greek teacher serving at the Minority school in the village of Büyük Derbent, had been battered by Osman Kasayka. According to the news of the newspaper Olay, Ibrahim Baltalı, who was attacked at the exit of the court building by a group of fanatic Greeks who were following the suit to support Hara Nikopoulou, unsuccessfully tried to shelter at a place near the court building. Ibrahim Baltalı, who survived through police intervention, was injured as a result of the assaulters’ beat, and brought to the Alexandroupoli Faculty of Medicine for treatment.

With regard to the issue, Halit Habipoglu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), stated that “The assaults on İbrahim Baltalı cannot be accepted. ABTTF strongly condemns the attacks against Ibrahim Baltalı and wishes him to get well soon. In addition, we interpret this attack as an assault upon the freedom of news and media of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace. We call upon the authorities to immediately find the perpetrators and punish them. Moreover, I would like to point out here how ironically is that it was presented in the 2008 Annual Report on hate crimes in the OSCE region which was published by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights that only one hatred based case occurred in Greece had been reported. The real problem related to hate crimes lie within the identification of hate-based crimes and actions, and the failure of reporting these.“

* Photo: Newspaper Birlik