The problems of the Western Thrace Turks were referred in the 2007 County Reports on Human Rights Practices of the U.S. Department of State
In the 2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices of the U.S. Department of State, which was released on March 11, 2008, Greece was criticized due to her unjust and unlawful practices against the ethnic minorities living in the country.
In the report, the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ (Greek Orthodoxy) as having the status of the “prevailing” religion, and its reluctance to establish a dialogue with the other religions in the country was emphasized. Moreover, it was stated in the report that non-Orthodox citizens faced career limits in the military, police, fire-fighting forces, and civil service due to their religion.
Although Parliament approved a bill in 2000 allowing construction of the first Islamic cultural centre and mosque in an Athens suburb, it was underlined in the report that construction had not started yet. It was also stated that because there were no official Muslim clerics outside Thrace, Muslims had been forced to travel to Thrace for official weddings and funerals.
In the report, it was referred to the new media law, passed in July 2007, and stated that the law would effectively block minorities from accessing information in their own languages.
It was underlined that many individuals who had defined themselves as members of a “minority” had found it difficult to express their identity freely and maintain their culture. Moreover, it was also stated in the report that use of the terms “Turk” and “Turkish” was prohibited in titles of organizations, although individuals legally might call themselves Turks.
Forced deprivation of citizenship and stateless persons were also referred in the report. According to the report of the Ministry of Interior submitted to the Parliament in 2005, 46,638 Turks in Greece were deprived of their Greek citizenship when they left the country between 1955 and 1998. It was underlined that although the Ministry of Thrace-Western Macedonia had the responsibility to watch the minority rights in the region where the Turkish minority lived, the Foreign Ministry was also concerned in the minority issues.
The Department of Human Rights was also referred in the report, and it was stated that the ombudsman’s office had received complaints in 2007 regarding procedural difficulties in acquiring citizenship, excessive and unjustified delays in processing applications by Turks from Thrace to recover citizenship lost under pre-1998 laws, arbitrary acceptance or denial of asylum seekers’ applications, discrimination against aliens, and police brutality.
Halit Habipoglu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), assessed the 2007 Country Report on Human Rights Practices of the U.S. Department of State on Greece, and stated: “Although we have found the report in general positive, we have unfortunately noticed that the mistakes repeated in the European-centric reports were referred again in the concerning report. In a way, it might be understandable that this report did also have simplification problems like the most other annual reports, but it is unacceptable that our struggle as minority for recognition of our Turkish ethnic identity was somehow ignored in the report and our minority was referred only as Muslim minority”. Habipoglu underlined the necessity of enriching the literature with regard to the Western Thrace Turkish minority in foreign languages in order to eliminate such mistakes observed more often in the last years, and said: “As ABTTF, we have laid the basis for academic works in this field, and through the research paper series we have started, we will accelerate and augment these works”.
Link to the Report 2007
Download the Report 2007
Link to the Report 2005
Download the Report 2005
