Through the Article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Law, Greece denaturalized more than 80 thousand Western Thrace Turks from 1955 until 1998. The unique reason for this unfair act is that these victims were not of Greek race.
Thousands of people who were assumed to have the intention not to return back to country, Greece, deprived of their citizenship by an administrative decision. The ones that were abroad to work or to get education were victims of these implementation as well as the ones who did not leave the country and were still living in Western Thrace.
The law that was in power for 17 years even after 1981 (the year that Greece became EU member) was not retroactively executed in 1998, the year of the abolishment. The unjustment treatment on these people is still going on.
While the victims were not informed about the denaturalization process, they found out the administrative denaturalization in official bodies like consulates, municipality, etc when they wanted to make some administrative transactions. It was too late to commence a suit since the deadlines were mostly up. Under these circumstances, it seems impossible to provide a legal remedy to solve the problem. Thus political dedication seems to be only way to abrogate the impacts of this law.
We aim to call European Council Parliamentary Assembly to duty, which consists of representatives of 46 European countries, for a political solution. We have prepared post card and e - mail messages addressed to President of the European Council Parliamentary Assembly. On the other side, we have initiated a signature campaign relating to topic.
Your click on the below address to send an e - mail would help for the solution of the problem.
http://www.abttf.com/html/index.php?link=email19
We are thankful for your interest and support.
Best Regards...
Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe
