UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) examined the human rights records of Greece

The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) examined the human rights records of Greece during its eleventh session that was held in Geneva from 2 to 13 May 2011. Greece, which was considered on 9 May, was represented by a delegation headed by Ambassador George J. Kaklikis, Permanent Representative of Greece to the UN in Geneva. The national report of Greece was presented by Mrs. Maria Telalian, Head of the Public International Law Legal Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The UPR-Working Group has not released its draft report on Greece yet.

The Turkish minority of Western Thrace in the national report of Greece

In the section entitled “the rights of persons belonging to minorities” of the report, it is stated that Greece officially recognizes as a minority the Muslim minority in Thrace, which consists of three distinct groups, whose members are of Turkish, Pomak and Roma origin, Muslim faith being the common denominator of those groups.

With regard to education, Greece refers to the “Programme for the education of the children of the Muslim minority in Thrace” which has been implemented since 1997 and co-funded by the European Union. Moreover, it is stated that there is a special quota of 0.5% for the admission of Muslim students in higher education and a designated number of places Higher Technological Institutes for Muslim graduates of vocational schools, and 500 €-grant per month is given to Muslim students in higher education every academic year.

Greece states in the report that the (appointed) muftis are selected through fully transparent procedures with the active participation of prominent Muslim personalities of the local community, adding that the integrity and transparency of the process is also important given the judicial authority bestowed on the (appointed) Muftis on certain matters of family and inheritance law and recent laws promoted the appointment of religious faith teachers to the three (appointed) Mufti Offices, as well as access to a state salary. With regard to wakfs (Muslim foundations), as of 2008, wakfs are exempt from paying the major property tax as having been requested by the Muslim minority for a long time.

Greece alleges in the report that in Thrace, a large number of Muslim minority associations and NGOs have been registered by the competent courts and operate unimpeded adding that the Greek Government examines ways and means to execute the three judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemning Greece.

With regard to freedom of expression, Greece states that seven minority radio stations, nine minority newspapers and nine minority magazines operates in an open, vibrant and pluralistic media environment in Thrace, but does not mention the excessive fines imposed on the Turkish minority newspapers Gündem and Millet.

In the report, Greece expresses that candidates belonging to the “Muslim minority in Thrace” have traditionally been elected as members of the Parliament adding that there are currently two MPs who are members of the Muslim minority in Thrace, both elected with the governing party. Moreover, about 240 persons belonging to the minority have been elected or appointed to a wide a range of positions in the region’s local administration.

With regard to the national report of Greece which was considered during the morning session on 9 May, the permanent missions of the States posed questions and made recommendations. The Permanent Mission of Turkey to the United Nations Office at Geneva posed questions about the problems of the Turkish minority of Western Thrace, as well as about the Turkish communities in Rhodes and Kos. The Permanent Mission of Turkey recommended that the necessary steps should be taken to ensure the election of Muftis by the Turkish Muslim Minority and repel the relevant articles of the Law No. 3536/2007 (“appointed imams law”) regarding the appointment of Imams, to which the Minority had severely opposed. Moreover, the Permanent Mission of Turkey recommended that Greece should revise the relevant legislation concerning the Wakfs in consultation with the Minority with a view to enabling the Minority to directly control and to use its own Wakf properties and to put an end to misuse and expropriation of Wakf properties. The other recommendations addressed to Greece by the Permanent Mission of Turkey are to execute the concerning three judgments of the ECHR, to initiate procedures for opening of Turkish-language kindergartens for Minority children in Komotini and Xanthi, to speed up the process of reinstating the citizenships of approximately 60 thousand Greek citizens who were deprived of their Greek citizenship due to the later repelled article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Law as well as of their descendants and to create a mechanism to compensate their losses in terms of ownership rights that occurred as a result of the process and to start a dialogue with the NGOs of the Turkish communities in Rhodes and Kos for the solution of their problems in the field of religious freedom and resume Turkish language-education which has been denied since 1972.

Related to the subject matter, Halit Habipoğlu, President of the Federation of the Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), made the following statement: “The national report submitted by Greece to the UPR Working Group does not fully reflect the truth and includes only the positive points... And the regarding section of the report on the Turkish minority of Western Thrace is completely one-sided and comprises facts which are falsely interpreted within the framework of official state policy. The UPR-Working Group has not released its draft report on Greece yet. As soon as this occurs, as ABTTF, we will prepare a parallel report and submit it to the relevant authorities”.

The documents on Greece within the framework of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) are available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/PAGES/GRSession11.aspx