Western Thrace Turkish Minority’s problems on Sorbian Minority newspaper

Cordula Ratajczak who was in the delegation of the European Association of Daily Newspapers in Minority and Regional Languages (MIDAS) with representatives of the Federal Union of European Nationalities(FUEN) and representatives of the Danish minority in Germany and representatives of the German minority in Denmark made a fact-finding visit to Western Thrace which was organized by the partnership with the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe(ABTTF), Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association (WTMUGA) and Friendship, Equality, Peace Party (FEP Party) between 19-22 June wrote an article on 27 June 2014 about the Western Thrace Turkish Minority on Sorbian Minority newspaper Serbske Nowiny in Germany.

Cordula Ratajczak said that she had visited Echinos village of Xanthi on Rodopi Mountains during her discovery visit and stated that Echinos village was a prohibited area and the minority people who live in this region were allowed to go the city until 8 p.m. She indicated that a pregnant woman had died because she was not allowed to go to the town and the Greek Government continued to apply this inhumane practice for almost twenty years after the accession to the European Union.

She wrote that minority children had to go Greek speaking state kindergartens, but two years ago twenty mothers from Echinos village rebelled bravely against this situation. Ratajczak stated that these children were not enrolled to Turkish speaking minority elementary school because of not attending only Greek speaking state kindergartens before. Ratajczak noted that these twenty mothers fought for a half term and finally they got their children enrolled to minority elementary school after filing a petition in which they stated that they could not send their children to state school because their children were ill. She quoted the statement of Reyhan Bekir who is one of those twenty mothers “they force us to speak Greak at home” and noted that the mothers wanted bilingual education on equal terms.

In the European Parliament elections, 97 % of the population of Echinos village voted to FEP Party which is the Western Thrace Turks party, however she noted that the party cannot use the word “Turkish”, because it is prohibited in public areas. Ratajczak reported that FEP Party Chairman Mustafa Ali Cavus said that they had applied to competent authorities for bilingual education but the results failed. According to Ratajczak, despite the autonomy in the fields of education and religion according to the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty, 18 Turkish Minority schools will be closed and she conveyed the interpretation of the ABTTF President Halit Habip Oglu, “Either they want to assimilate us or expel from the country”. Ratacjzak noted that after the closure of the associations which include the word “Turkish” in their names, ABTTF was founded in the city of Witten in Germany in 1988, and noted that President of ABTTF Halit Habip Oglu said, “They can take everything from us but not our identity”. Ratacjzak confirmed that Greece even today accepts only the definition of Muslim Minority that includes other ethnic groups but not Turkish, and this attitude was also obvious at the meeting of the committee with George Petridis the mayor of Komotini. Ratacjzak hopes that the FUEN congress which will be held in Western Thrace next year will bring more rapid moves from Greece in the fields of minority rights.