Greece should work off its complexes

Witten –08.11.2005

“Greece should work off its complexes”

When the photos of the Muslims, who had to perform their ritual prayer at religious feast in stadium corridors in Athens due to places of worship lack, were published in the press, “Greece should work off its complexes by opening worship places” says Halit Habipoğlu, chairman of (ABTTF).

Greece resists not to open the places of worship, mosques, in Athens in spite of all international pressures. 200.000 Muslims live in Athens, 15.000 of them are Turks and still there is not a place of worship where the Muslims can perform their ritual prayer. In this sense, Greece is the only country that does not have a mosque in its capital city in EU – 15. The Church is the most important player that is aganist the mosque project which was a hot debate before Olimpic Games. The Church has principal privileges stemming from its historical role in the formation of Greece nationalism. Also Greece is an semi – theocratic state and this contribes the power of the Church as well. None of the political parties including Socialist – Communist parties have been able to discuss the privileged position of the Church.
The only conflict between the Church and the politics was about the elimination of the religious classification on the national identitiy cards few years ago. The Church has a determining role in politics and this was its first defeat. It still resists aganist the mosque project in Athens.

Islam Center project was a hot debate before and during Olimpic Games but the Church pressed for an contra decision to be made with a last minute move and it was decided that the building was to be constructed 40 km out of the city. The project was then suspended due to two reasons; Muslims found this decision humiliating and also the strong resistance of the ones, who thought that a mosque near to Athens airport would give the image of an Islam country, affected the suspension process.

The ones who suffer most from this ambiguity are the Muslims while they are to perform the worship at unhealthy locations. The situation of the ones who would like to perform their feast ritual prayer collectively at Ramazan Feast clarifies the seriousness of the problem. About 5000 Muslims had to take shelter in a stadium corridor while it was raining heavily.

“This is a very clear form of religion freedom violation” says Halit Habipoğlu, chairman of (ABTTF) “The difficulties that the Muslims had to live to perform their feast ritual prayer collectively are opprobrium for my country, Greece. Putting obstacles in religious activities because of complexes and prejudices is unapprehensible. Greece should not ignore the difficulties of the Muslims” emphasizes. Habipoğlu. Besides the mosque project that has not been able to applied until now, there are work of arts that are from Ottoman Empire time and these are either not in use or been used as museum. Habipoğlu continues as “These work of arts should be opened for worship. In Greece all the affairs that are related with Muslims are under the control of the Church. To be able to get permission from the metropolital; the minaret of the mosques built in Western Thrace must not be taller than campanile. We demand our rights, warranted by international treaties, to be able to select our müfti, we demand Greece to approve the authorization of the müfti and the authoritized müfti will be responsible for the affairs related with Muslims. We demand these requests to be satisfied to be able to survive as a minority in a semi – theocratic country”.