On 26-28 January 2009, Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) represented by Halit Habipoglu, President, and K. Engin Soyyilmaz, Head of International Affairs Department, paid an official visit to the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE). The official visit, which took place during the first part of the 2009 Ordinary Session of the PACE (26-29 January 2009), had a great importance because of the four reports, which will be published in this year and in which the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace and its problems will also be referred to.
During the official visit to PACE, the ABTTF delegation met Silvia Grundmann, Advisor to the Commissioner for Human Rights, Claudia Lam, Lawyer, European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), Mevlüt Cavusoglu, Head of the Turkish Delegation at the PACE, Isild Heurtin, Deputy Secretary of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights and Boriss Cilevics, member of PACE and the Sub-Committee on Rights of Minorities.
The problem of Muftis and “Law on Appointed Imams” brought to the agenda
The first meeting, at which Nikolaos Stavropoulos, Thematic Advisor on Minority Issues and Refugees to the Commissioner was also present, was made with Silvia Grundmann, Advisor to the Commissioner for Human Rights. Habipoglu informed Grundmann and Stavropoulos in details on the “Law on Appointed Imams”, and stated that the law numbered 3536/2007 could not be acceptable for the Turkish Minority in two basic aspects: that the Greek government had passed the concerning law without establishing a dialogue with and without asking the opinion of the minority and secondly, the selection of the imams as public servants by a committee composed five persons who were all Orthodox Christians. During the meeting with Claudia Lam, Lawyer at ECRI Secretariat, Habipoglu informed about the problem of Muftis and said that in Western Thrace, a complicated structure was created and there were those Muftis appointed by the Greek state and those elected by the minority.
During the meeting with Isild Heurtin, who assists Michel Hunault, member of the PACE and rapporteur appointed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, in preparing the report entitled “Freedom of Religion and Other Human Rights for non-Muslim Minorities in Turkey and for the Muslim minority in Thrace (Eastern Greece)”, Habipoğlu provided Heurtin with information on the problem of Muftis. He said that in 1990, despite the presence of two minority MPs in the then Parliament, the Greek government had had pass without consulting the minority a one-sided law, and started to appoint the religious leader of the minority with the justification that the Muftis had judiciary competences.
The problem Article 19
During the meeting with Grundmann and Sitaropoulos, who also attended the visit to Greece on the issues of asylum seekers and minorities in Greece carried out by Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, from 8 to 10 December 2008, Habipoglu stated that under the former Article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Code, about 60 thousand Western Thrace Turks had been deprived of their citizenship, and not only the victimization of those living in Greece, but of all the victims had to be removed. Claudia Lam told the ABTTF delegation that through the assistance of ABTTF, the ECRI delegation had met the minority representatives during its visit to Greece in September 2008, and gathered detailed information on the problems it faced. Furthermore, she said that in the ECRI’s 4th monitoring report on Greece which would be published in September 2009, included Article, 19 all the problems of the minority based on discrimination would be covered, a due diligence regarding the problems would be made and there would be recommendations to Greece. During the official visit to the PACE, the ABTTF delegation also met Boriss Cilevics, member of the PACE, who submitted the motion numbered Doc. 11261, in which the Article 19 and its victims were also referred to.
Habipoglu: PACE is the primary lobbying arena for ABTTF
Concerning the official visit carried out to the PACE, Halit Habipoglu, President of ABTTF stated: “Due to the fact that four reports, in which the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace and its problems will be covered, will be published in this year, the PACE is the primary lobbying arena for ABTTF. At the meetings we carried out during the visit, included the problems with regard to the freedom of peaceful assembly and association, we got the opportunity to report in details about the problems the Turkish minority face, in particular about the problems in the field of education and about the “Law on Appointed Imams”. At the 21st anniversary of the National Resistance Day of January 29 and through its lobbying before PACE, ABTTF will continue its efforts to attract the attention of the international community to the human rights violations in Greece and to create public opinion in order that Greece changes its policy directed to the minority”
