ABTTF participated in the UN Human Rights Council’s 27th Regular Session

The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) participated on 23-24 September 2014 in the 27th Regular Session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council. Funda Reşit and Fatih Hafızmehmet, both members of the ABTTF Internationals Affairs and Lobbying Group, represented the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace at the Session held in Geneva, Switzerland.

The discrimination experienced by the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace in the field of education and bilingual minority kindergartens problem was brought both orally and in writing on the agenda of the UN

ABTTF as an NGO in Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC of the United Nations participated in the meeting addressed by the UN Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein and attended by hundred diplomats, civil society representatives, academics and experts. ABTTF International Affairs and Lobbying Group member Funda Reşit spoke about the discrimination the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace in Greece has been experiencing in the field of education and bilingual minority kindergartens issue under the agenda item 9 entitled “Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance: follow-up to and implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action” during the general debate at the session.

Reşit reminded the Section 3 of the Lausanne Peace Treaty signed between Greece and Turkey in 1923, which defines minority rights enshrined in the said Treaty. Under the Section 3, the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace has an “an equal right to establish manage and control at their own expense, any charitable, religious and social institutions, any schools and other establishments for instruction and education, with the right to use their own language and to exercise their own religion freely therein”. However, Reşit set forth, in accordance with Law 3518/2006, the pre-school education for all children at the age of 5 has been made compulsory in Greece, and since the regarding law does not bring any regulation concerning minority schools belonging to the Turkish Minority, it contradicts with the principle of Minority’s educational autonomy enshrined in the Lausanne Treaty. Reşit concluded his speech by reminding Greece to fulfill promptly her obligations and commitments arising from the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty and relevant international human rights treaties to which she is a party, and said the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace urges the Greek Government to establish bilingual minority kindergartens in Western Thrace in line with the minority schooling system, to give bilingual education in public kindergartens in the region until bilingual minority schools are established, and finally, to allow the Minority to establish private kindergartens where the instruction is both in Turkish and Greek languages.

ABTTF, in addition to its oral statement, submitted a written statement entitled “Discrimination in minority education: The problem of bilingual minority kindergartens in Greece” to the 27th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council. The full text of the said written statement can be accessed at: http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/sdpage_e.aspx?b=10&se=156&t=7