Hate motivated attacks against the Turkish community in Western Thrace addressed in the OSCE 2016 Hate Crime Report

The hate motivated attacks in 2016 targeted at the Turkish community in Western Thrace, Greece were covered in the 2016 Hate Crime Report released by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

While 41 participating States provided official data to the OSCE 2016 Hate Crime Report, in the report there are information related to hate incidents in 48 countries reported by 125 civil society organizations. It is stated in the report that Greece provides official data on hate crimes regularly to OSCE. It is indicated that in 2016 total of 40 hate crimes were recorded by the Greek police out of which for 6 of them legal proceeding was undertaken by the Office of the Prosecutor and 2 of the legal proceedings resulted in conviction.

The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) provided a written contribution during the preparation phase of OSCE 2016 Hate Crime Report and reported hate motivated attacks targeted at the Turkish community in Western Thrace that took place in 2016. Related to this, the attack informed by ABTTF which Imam Hüseyin Cihan working affiliated to the Office of the Elected Mufti of Xanthi confronted on 28 January 2016 during the visit he made to Mufti Ahmet Mete is directly referred in the repot. As known, the people with masks and gloves who call themselves “Guards of Thrace” forced Imam Cihan to get on a minibus during his visit to Mufti Mete, insulted the mufti and threatened with harming the mufti and his family.

The part related to Greece in OSCE 2016 Hate Crime Report is available at:
http://hatecrime.osce.org/greece