ABTTF President: “Unfortunately, the U.S. Greece Human Rights Report gives less and less coverage to the issues of our community each year, which damages the credibility and reliability of the U.S. report. As every year, we have clearly expressed this criticism in the report we prepared as a response to the US Greece 2022 Human Rights Report. Indeed, we know that minority rights are equal to human rights’’.
The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) prepared a report parallel to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, known as the Human Rights Report- on Greece published annually by the Department of State of the United States of America, and submitted it to the U.S. authorities.
In its report, ABTTF indicated that Greece is one of the countries with the worst record of minority rights in Europe and criticized the fact, although there has been no improvement with respect to the situation of the Turkish community in Western Thrace and the Turkish community in Rhodes, Kos and the Dodecanese Islands and the Turkish community in Greece as a whole, the issues pertaining to the communities are almost absent from the U.S. report.
Underscoring that minority rights are equal to human rights, ABTTF reported the issues and current developments of the Turkish community that were not included in the U.S. report and revealed detailed information with respect to the issues faced by the Turkish community in Western Thrace in the field of human and minority rights.
Indicating that a reference was made to the 29 June decision of the Court of Cassation as regards the Xanthi Turkish Union, it nonetheless criticised the fact that the Court of Cassation rejected the applications lodged by the other two associations that are part of the group of cases, namely the Cultural Association of Turkish Women of the Prefecture of Rodopi and the Evros Prefecture Minority Youth Association. Stating that the ECtHR judgments have not been executed for the past 15 years in the Bekir-Ousta and Others group of cases, which the European Court of Human Rights concluded that Greece violated the freedom of association, ABTTF criticised the very superficial coverage of this important issue in the report. In addition, within the scope of recent developments, ABTTF provided detailed information as regards the lawsuit filed for the revocation of the registration of the ‘‘Western Thrace Fenerbahçe Association’’, which was registered on 11 October 2022.
Regarding the issues faced by the Turkish community in Western Thrace in the field of education, ABTTF criticised the U.S. report’s failure to mention any issues pertaining to minority education. Highlighting that the educational autonomy granted to the Turkish community has been undermined by various regulations and practices over the years, ABTTF reported in detail the lack of bilingual kindergartens in education, the structural issues in Turkish primary schools and the closure of primary schools, the lack of secondary schools, the status of religious schools in Western Thrace and the interventions in the functioning of religious schools.
Regarding discrimination and hate attacks, ABTTF noted that hate speech and hate-based attacks targeting the Turkish community in Western Thrace were not included in the U.S. report, that the “Turkish” identity of the Turkish community in Western Thrace is rejected in Greece and that there is a systematic structural discrimination against the Turkish community in politics and media in the country. stated. Noting that Turks and Macedonians living in the country are not recognised, but Romani, Pomak and Armenians as other ethnic groups can establish associations under their own names, ABTTF indicated that Turks are perceived as a threat to public order and are reflected in this way in the media. Recollecting the hate speech attacks in 2022 in its report, ABTTF reported in detail as regards the attack in which a Turkish youth was insulted with slurs such as ‘‘Nasty Turk’’ and beaten in Xanthi in August, and further reminded the accusation of being a ‘‘Turkish spy’’ and the subsequent death threat to which Xanthi Deputy Hüseyin Zeybek was subjected to in a live television broadcast
President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) Halit Habip Oğlu made the following statement: ‘‘Unfortunately, the U.S. Greece Human Rights Report gives less and less coverage to the problems of our community each year, which damages the credibility and reliability of the U.S. report. As every year, we have clearly expressed this criticism in the report we prepared as a response to the U.S. Greece 2022 Human Rights Report. Indeed, we know that minority rights are equal to human rights. It is therefore unacceptable that the U.S. report makes little or no reference to the Turkish community in Western Thrace and other national minorities in Greece. Again, we did what had to do, and we detailed the issues of our community in the topics that were not included in the U.S. report or were expressed incompletely. As the Turkish community in Western Thrace, we listed our demands from Greece, and we asked the U.S. authorities to meet with the representatives of our community in our region during the preparation of the report and to listen to our issues and reflect the current situation in the region in the U.S. report’’.
