ABTTF
EN
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER Bülten İcon
Batı Trakya

Delegation of Western Thrace Turks attended the annual meeting of FUEN Education Working Group

11.12.2020

Delegation of Western Thrace Turks composed of ABTTF and FEP Party representatives expressed the problems in the field of education that the Turkish community in Western Thrace has been facing. 

The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) and the Friendship, Equality and Peace (FEP) Party representing the Turkish community in Western Thrace participated on 10 December 2020 in the annual meeting of the Education Working Group of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) of which they are full members. ABTTF International Affairs Director Melek Kırmacı Arık and FEP Party General Coordinator Fatih Hüseyinoğlu attended the meeting which was held online due to the new type coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. 

At the meeting which started with the welcome speeches of FUEN Vice President and Education Working Group Speaker Daniel Alfreider, Dr. Krisztina Kemény-Gombkötoné from József Eötvös College/Institute for Nationalities and Foreign Languages in Hungary, and FUEN External Consultant Dr. Zora Popova revealed the results of the online survey entitled “Educational Situation of Autochthonous National Minorities in Europe”.

Intervening during the session regarding the country reports with respect to the situation of education national minorities in the countries where they live, FEP Party said the Turkish community in Western Thrace in Greece had its autonomy in the field of education violated by laws issued without consulting the Turkish community. FEP Party further indicated that bilingual minority kindergartens in Turkish and Greek languages are not allowed to be established by Greek authorities and that Turkish primary schools have been closed on economic grounds, noting that children of the Turkish community in Western Thrace are experiencing serious difficulties in accessing distance education due to difficult economic conditions, in addition to the problems experienced nationwide in distance education during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Intervening at the same session, ABTTF explained the issue of secondary and high schools belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace. ABTTF indicated that the Greek government had intervened in the administration of these schools in contradiction with the autonomous status of Turkish secondary and high schools and that in last July with a latest law in that respect, appointed deputy muftis which are not recognised by the Turkish community in Western Thrace were brought to the head of the school councillors’ delegation of the madrassahs. Calling on Greece to restore the educational and religious autonomy guaranteed by the Treaty of Lausanne to the Turkish community in Western Thrace in Greece, ABTTF requested from the Greek authorities to allow the establishment of bilingual minority kindergartens in Western Thrace, where the language of education would be Turkish and Greek within the minority school system.

PHOTO GALLERY