Tense moments between the TV Frans 3 team and people in the village of Ilıca(Thermes)

On 28 September 2010, there were tense moments in the village of Ilıca (Thermes) in Xanthi, Greece when the French public television TV Frans 3 with the President of “Xanthi Pomac Association” İmam Ahmet filmed Ilıca Minority School and Ilıca Mosque without prior information or permission. The daily newspaper of the Turkish minority of Western Thrace Birlik, wrote that the four-person-team of TV Frans 3 including the Athens representative was accompanied by a bureaucrat from the Greek Ministry of Culture and the President of “Xanthi Pomac Association” İmam Ahmet. People, who witnessed the tense moments in Ilıca village, claimed that this was a provocation that the TV Frans 3 team had been shooting a film without prior information or permission about “the Pomacs” in the Ilıca Minority School and Ilıca Mosque which belonged to the Turkish minority of Western Thrace.

The tense moments in the Ilıca village ended with that the TV Frans 3 team deleted the film they had shot and signed a commitment letter when the Ilıca Community District Mayor Hasan Nazır, Ilıca Minority School’s Council President and Ilıca religious man Yüksel İmam realized that they had been shooting a film without prior information or permission, which was in clear violation of the relevant law.

It is forbidden to take film in schools without prior permission!

Halit Habipoğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), made the following speech on the subject matter: “It is hard to believe that a film in the village of Ilıca was shot without prior information or permission while a bureaucrat from the Greek Ministry of Culture and President of “Xanthi Pomac Association” İmam Ahmet accompanied to the French television team. The fact that the President of the “Xanthi Pomac Association” İmam Ahmet accompanied to the French television team and the comments of the bureaucrat from the Greek Ministry of Culture indicates that a film was shot about the “Pomacs” there. Although the Turkish minority of Western Thrace is officially recognized by the Greek State on the ground of its religious background, that is Muslim, the Lausanne Population Exchange Document signed between Turkey and Greece envisages that the minority is Turkish. However, Greece often raises that the Turkish minority of Western Thrace, which Greece uses the expression the Muslim Thrace minority instead, is comprised of three different ethnic groups, namely Turkish, Roman and Pomac. And, Greece claims that the Turkish element within the minority puts pressure on the other groups, namely “the Pomacs” and “the Romans”. However, Greece, which claims that every element of the minority has the right to self-identification, does not grant this right to the Turks, while it explicitly gives support to “the Pomacs” and “the Romans”. The clearest evident to that situation is seen in the field of freedom of association. We believe that this leads to insincerity which makes us think that there are some hidden purposes beyond that. That is why the inhabitants of the Ilıca village reacted to the situation, just like the inhabitants of the Şahin village did a few years ago. Therefore, we too, react to what happened in the Ilıca village”.