A news article focusing on the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace was published on the German-language news portal Südtirol Online (stol.it) in Italy on 5 July 2026.
In a news feature titled “Yes to the minority? Yes, but only if it is their own,” journalist Hatto Schmidt emphasises that Greece’s reaction lays bare its double standards on minority issues. While Athens hailed Poland’s recent official recognition of its Greek diaspora as a national minority as a “historic step,” it simultaneously refuses to recognise minorities within its own borders—rejoicing in the existence of Greek minorities abroad while denying them at home.
The news article also notes that members of the Greek community—numbering 5–6 thousand and officially recognised by Poland as a national minority—are descendants of those who fled to Poland during the Greek Civil War of 1949–1950.
It is noted that, in accordance with Greece’s official policy—which stipulates that there is only one minority in the country, and that this is not an ethnic or national minority but a Muslim minority as defined in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne—the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace has consistently spoken out against Greece’s ongoing violations of its rights.
The news article, which features comments on the matter by President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) Halit Habip Oğlu quotes him as saying: “Greece’s official state policy aims to eradicate our Minority’s Turkish identity and assimilate it. This is an unprecedented situation amongst EU Member States.”
It is further explained that Greece, which prohibits the use of the word ‘‘Turkish’’ in association names, has dissolved associations bearing the word ‘‘Turkish’’; whilst the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled in various cases that this practice is in contradiction with European law but that Greece has consistantly ignored these judgments. It is also indicated that just a few days ago, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe once again called on Athens to take the necessary steps.
The article also points out that a European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgment exists regarding the Macedonian minority, whose very presence Greece denies. Specifically, it notes that in 1990, a registration application for an association named the ‘House of Macedonian Civilization’’, which was intended to be established in the northern Greek city of Florina, was rejected on grounds that it implied the existence of a Macedonian minority— a minority that does not exist according to Greece’s official state policy. Although the ECtHR ruled in 1998 that this rejection violated the right to freedom of association, Greece has taken absolutely no action since then.
Please click below to access the aforementioned news article:
https://www.stol.it/artikel/politik/ja-zur-minderheit-nur-wenn-es-die-eigene-ist
