Western Thrace Turkish Minority of Greece, which holds Council Presidency of the EU, faces constant discrimination

ABTTF President Halit Habip Oğlu: We urge Greece, a country that praises itself for being the “cradle of democracy”, to approach the problems of our Minority through an official dia-logue mechanism developed on the basis of sincerity, mutual understanding and tolerance.

As of 1 January 2014, Greece has taken over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The six-month period of Presidency to be run by Greece has presented its priorities as growth and jobs cohesion, further integration of EU-Eurozone, migration, borders, mobility and enhanced secu-rity in maritime borders. During the 5th Presidency period Greece will be running within the next six months, the European elections will be held as well.

In Greece, holding the Presidency of the EU, Western Thrace Turkish Minority faces discrimination in every aspect of life though its status and rights were defined by the Lausanne Peace Treaty in 1923. First of all, Greece recognises the Western Thrace Turkish Minority as the “Muslim Minority in Thrace” but not as “Turkish”. After its collective rights to self-identification has been abrogated, the associations established by the Western Thrace Turkish Minority and including the word “Turk” in their titles were closed down and the new ones are denied registry. The three suspended associa-tions Xanthi Turkish Union, Evros Minority Youth Association and Cultural Association of the Turkish Women of Rodopi filed a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The ECtHR verdict in 2008 concluded Greece violates the freedom of association through closure of the three associations of the Minority. Despite the six years elapsed, Greece still does not execute the ECtHR decisions.

Between 1955 and 1998, approximately 60.000 Western Thrace Turks were denaturalised on the ba-sis of Article 19 of the former Greek Nationality Code, which foresees denaturalisation for Greek citizens of “non-Greek ethnic origin” in the case of “leaving Greece with no intention of return”. Currently, there are thousands of Western Thrace Turks residing stateless in Greece or living abroad by being naturalised to the country of new residence after being denaturalised. Greece does not re-store the citizenship of the Western Thrace Turks who were denaturalised on unconstitutional and artificial grounds.

According to the Lausanne Peace Treaty, Western Thrace Turkish Minority is vested autonomy to establish and manage its own educational and religious institutions. Yet, throughout the years past the respective autonomous status of the Minority has been diluted by several state policies. Given the structural problems, the quality of minority education has been reduced to a large extend. The most significant problem regarding the education is the issue on minority kindergartens. The recent education reform in Greece rendered the pre-school education mandatory. However, because there are no kindergartens within the minority education system, the children belonging to the Minority families are obliged to attend the public kindergartens which offer education only in Greek. The re-quests submitted by the Western Thrace Turkish Minority for authorisation to establish bilingual minority kindergartens are however ignored by Greek authorities.

Whilst not recognising the elected religious leaders of the Western Thrace Turkish Minority and in-stead assigning state-appointed Muftis to duty of the Minority, by adoption of a recent regulation Greece gears up appointing 240 Imams to serve as “Qur-an teachers” in mosques and public schools in Western Thrace. The respective regulation, for which the opinion of the Minority was neither consulted nor its reactions were taken into consideration, is decided to be first implemented in public schools. The Minority, being unaware of the next steps of this policy, is still left out of all decision making mechanisms.

Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) President Halit Habip Oğlu said “The Western Thrace Turkish Minority in Greece that will run the EU Presidency in the first half of 2014 is waiting for urgent solution to its problems on several areas. The efforts and endeavours of our Minority, subject to discrimination on several domains of life, do not receive any rewards given the insincere and careless attitude of our country. In its 5th Presidency to the EU, when also the Euro-pean elections will be witnessed, as the Western Thrace Turkish Minority, we urge Greece to restore our rights and freedoms guaranteed by international agreements and to safeguard in accordance with international norms and values the collective rights of the Western Thrace Turkish Minority. It is an unacceptable fact that a country running the EU Presidency follows policies in contrast with the EU norms and values. We call upon Greece, a country that praises itself for being the “cradle of democracy”, to approach the problems of our Minority through an official dialogue mechanism developed on the basis of sincerity, mutual understanding and tolerance. This is how an EU Member State should act.”