On 8 September 2008, Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) submitted a written statement to the 9th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. Under the agenda item of follow up and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and programme of action, ABTTF, in its “Right to Education in Native Language: Bilingual Education at Kindergartens“ brought up the demand of the Turkish minority of Western Thrace for the establishment of bilingual kindergartens in Greece. While ABTTF does acknowledge the vital importance of the pre-school education for the next generations of the minority child, it is determined to establish bilingual minority kindergartens in regions where the Turkish minority is densely populated rather than the state kindergartens, in which the education language is Greek.
ABTTF: Bilingual kindergartens are the legal and legitimate right of our minority
The Law 3518/2006 decided to extend compulsory period in education from nine to ten years starting from the school year 2007-2008, and the condition of pupils’ admission in pre-school education was revised and the attendance of those pupils who have completed their 5th age is now obligatory. Since the Law does not bring any regulation about ethnic and cultural differences of the children in Greece, the minority children in Western Thrace at the age of five is compelled to attend the majority kindergartens. However, it is stated in the written statement that the Western Thrace Turkish Minority is granted with the right to education in its native language and autonomy in the management of its educational institutions under the Treaty of Lausanne which was signed between Greece and Turkey in 1923 determining the status and the basic rights of the Minority in general, the Cultural Protocol signed between Turkey and Greece on 20 April 1951 and the Exchange of Notes in 1952 regarding the issue of exchange teachers who would be assigned in Minority Schools, the Protocol of the Turkish-Greek Cultural Commission, signed in 1968 as well as the Bilateral Agreement on Cultural Cooperation in 2000 based on the context of strengthening the political relations between Greece and Turkey on an educational level. The educational cooperation between the two countries is based on an international model of the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) and UNESCO, which replaced the 1951 Cultural Protocol.
ABTTF uttered that the practices of the Greek state in the field of minority education are against the Hague Recommendations Regarding the Educational Rights of National Minorities in 1996. Besides it has been reminded that the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Greece is a part, do protect the rights of the minority, and that Committee on the Rights of the Child in 1998 concluded that “the general principles of non-discrimination (art. 2), the best interests of the child (art. 3) and respect for the views of the child (art. 12), are not being fully integrated into the legislative policies and programmes relevant to children, in particular in relation to children from vulnerable categories such as those belonging to national and ethnic minorities“. Moreover, UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education prohibits discrimination based on several grounds, including language. According to Article 1(2) of the Convention, education refers to all types and levels, including access to education.
ABTTF, asserted in its written statement that the minority education system in Greece should be reconstructed according to the principles of multiculturalism and multilingualism and encouraged the Greek government to provide Muslim Turkish students with sufficient opportunities to learn both the official language of the state and their mother tongue. The most important thing is that ABTTF urged the Greek government to take the necessary steps to guarantee the right to education of the ethnic minorities in the country in order that the minority children have the right to bilingual pre-school education.
The full text of the written statement can be retrieved here.
Please click here to read the full text of the written statement.
Habipoglu: Education is the most important problem of our minority
Expressing his views, Halit Habipoğlu, the President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) said: “ The problem of bilingual minority kindergartens is the most recent problem of our minority in the field of education, but it is not the only one. The minority education in our Western Thrace region is in critical situation. The minority schools are inadequate in number. Besides the quality in minority education is very low and the number of teachers in minority schools has been diminished. The latest example to the situation in the field of minority education is that 24 minority children whose late registration to the 1st Minority School is approved by the principal of the school was not approved by the Supervisor of the minority schools. This is the situation in the field of minority schools, and therefore the priority of ABTTF is the problem of minority education in Western Thrace. That is why we aimed to bring up in the 9th session of the Human Rights Council the problem of bilingual minority kindergartens within the framework of the right to education in native language. ABTTF aims to attract the interest of international society to the Western Thrace Turkish Minority and to give voice to the problems of the Western Thrace Turkish Minority at the international platform. The written statement we submitted to the Human Rights Council will get more voice in the next days. The visit by the UN independent expert on minority issues Gay McDougall to Western Thrace and the talks she made with the minority representatives yielded the results ABTTF desired. The role played by ABTTF in the UN mechanisms and the consequent visit by the UN independent expert on minority issues to Western Thrace makes us more and tenacious in our democratic struggle for the rights of our minority.“
