Written statement by ABTTF to the UN Human Rights Council

The written submitted to the 30th session of the UN Human Rights Council brings the problems being currently faced by the Turkish minority of Western Thrace in Greece in the field of education onto the agenda

The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) submitted a written statement entitled “The Problems of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace in Education” to the 30th regular session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UN) to be held from 14 September to 2 October 2015 in Geneva, Switzerland. ABTTF describes in its written statement in details the current problems the Turkish minority of Western Thrace has been facing in the field of education and brings the need for extra classrooms of the two private minority secondary schools operating in the cities of Komotini and Xanthi and the problem of the bilingual minority kindergartens that is still to be solved onto the agenda.

ABTTF noted the status of the Turkish minority of Western Thrace in Greece was established by the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty which guarantees the educational autonomy of the minority and underlined its right to establish, manage and control at its own expense, any schools and other establishments for instruction and education, with the right to use its own language freely therein. ABTTF stated although they are privately owned by the persons belonging to the Turkish minority, the Greek Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs determines contrary to the guaranteed educational autonomy of the minority how many pupils shall attend the Muzaffer Salihoğlu Minority High School in Xanthi and Celal Bayar Minority High School in Komotini and how they will be enrolled. ABTTF indicated there is an urgent need for new classrooms in these two minority secondary schools as the number of pupils at Celal Bayar Minority High School in Komotini will rise through new enrolments in the school year of 2015-2016 from 780 to 860 and at Muzaffer Salihoğlu Minority High School in Xanthi from 550 to 640, and referred to the statement by the Director of the State Education Department of the East Macedonia and Thrace Region Panagiotis Keramaris from 25 August 2015 that whereas two modular classrooms will be placed in the garden of the Celal Bayar Minority High School in Komotini to accommodate growing pupil numbers, a double-shift schooling will be introduced in Xanthi.

ABTTF also refereed to the problem of the establishment of bilingual kindergartens in Western Thrace and noted the Culture and Education Foundation of Western Thrace Minority (CEFOM) has received till today no response from the Greek local authorities to its application from 2011 for the establishment of a private minority bilingual kindergarten, adding the regarding problem is still pending and all the minority children at the age of five are still obliged to attend public kindergartens also in the school year of 2015-2016.

ABTTF calls in its written statement on the Greek government to comply with the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty and to restore the educational autonomy of the Turkish minority of Western Thrace, and urges it to establish a consultative dialogue mechanism between the competent authorities and the minority and to establish bilingual minority kindergartens in Western Thrace in line with the minority schooling system.

The full text version of the written statement submitted by ABTTF to the 30th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council is available at:
http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/sdpage_e.aspx?b=10&se=168&t=7