ABTTF At Tenth session of the Working Group on Minorities

The speech made by Cemile Yusuf:


Thank you Mr. Chairman,

My name is Cemile Giousouf, I represent the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe.

According to an opinion poll, provided by the EU( European Union), Greece was rated as the country with the most racist people in Europe. On the basis of this fact the Greek parliament decided to pass a law by the end of this year, which includes a prison sentence up to one year for ethnic or religious discrimination. In Greece almost one million of the 11 million population are not of hellenic origin.

A minority of 150.000 Turks has been living in the Northeast part of Greece for centuries. The legal situation of this minority was guaranteed by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and a number of international Treaties.

Nevertheless there are problems which still needs to be resolved between the minority and the majority of the society. These problems are clearly shown in xenophobia and racism, as well as the disagreement between the Turkish minority and the Government, which impedes the realisation of legal rights.

One of the main problems is the denial of the Turkish identity. According to Article 1.1. of the UN Declaration on Minorities every minority posses the right to identity. Greece continues to object the establishment of civil societies and associations which carry the denomination "Turkish" on their title. For example "The Association of Turkish Women of Rodopi". The case has been appealed at the First Instance Court of Thrace. Also the Macedonian minority in Greece is confronted with similar restrictions: Their application to establish a "Macedonian Centre for Culture" in Florina/Greece, was rejected in 19th December 2003 of Florina court of first instance with one judge.

In this context I would like to point out, that Greece signed the „Framework Convention for Protection of National Minorities" in Strasbourg on 22nd September 1997, but it has not been ratified yet. We recommend the ratification of this convention, otherwise we have to assume, that the Greek government does not want to accept the international norms with reference to the Turkish minority and therefore denies the right of minorities.

With regard to the right to education, which is guaranteed in Article 4.3. of the UN declaration on Minorities, we strongly criticise the fact that minority-schools have been deprived of their autonomy. Complex instructions have been made due to the intervention of the Greek state resulting in a negative influence on the quality of education. As a consequence Turkish children attending minority-schools receive poorer quality education and become marginalized with bad career prospects.

Mr. Chairman, now I would like to comment on the freedom of religion and political rights.

Since 1990 the Greek government does not approve the religious leaders ( called mufti), which are elected by the people. This social injustice had been decided in front of the European Court of Human Rights in favour of the muftis. But despite this judgement, the Greek government continues insisting on appointing muftis itself. This is inconsistent with the Articles 1.1 and 1.2. of the UN declaration on Minorities.

The Turkish minority experiences injustice even on political level:

By introducing a 3 % hurdle for parliamentary elections in 1993 it became impossible to elect a representative of the minority directly. Therefore they are only able to join the parliament through parties. The political freedom of the minority is restricted.

In the period from 1955 to 1998 thousands of Turks were deprived of Greek nationality. This injustice was legitimised on the basis of article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Law. Greek citizens, of Turkish origin, who left Greece without specifying their intention to return, became stateless in a very short period of time.

This article was abolished on the request of the international government in 1998. Nevertheless the former Turkish expatriates are stateless (regardless some exceptions) and therefore are not entitled to any civil rights. They are submitted to social, economical and political isolation.

After presenting these cases of discrimination on the part of the government, I would like to mention the problem of xenophobia within society. Students and parents of the high school in Nea Mehaniona staged angry protests when Odysseas Cenai was chosen to carry the Greek flag during a national ceremony on October 28th in 2003. He was prohibited to carry the Greek flag because of his Albanian origin. The behaviour of the Greek students and parents were condemned as racist and unacceptable by government spokesman Christos Protopapas. This kind of racism does not only exist among the public, but is propogated and realised by means of hate speeches by media and official authorities.

For example the case of a Greek citizen who belongs to the majority in Xanthi, who wanted to sell his piece of land to the citizens Ahmet and Emine Oglu Rusan Selahatin, members of the Turkish minority. In a letter to the minister for agricultural policy, which was published in the newspaper Hronos on November 24th 2003, he complained about the fact, that although both sides (the seller and the buyer) signed the contract, it will not be signed by the appropriate authority. In order to sort out this problem a minority Member of the Greek Parliament needed to take action.

These problems were experienced despite the existence of the course of the Isonomia=(equality before the law) and isopoliteia(=equality of civil rights) of the leading governmental parties, which propagate the equality for all citizens.

We hope, that the parliamentary elections on March 7th will involve positive developments for the Turkish minority and that our concerns will be taken into consideration.


Mr. Chairman,

We would like to ask our government kindly to invite a representative of the Working Group on Minorities to visit Western Thrace in order to form their own opinion about the discrimination of the Turkish minority and furthermore to do their utmost to ensure that the Greek Government acts in compliance with the International Treaties.

Thank you very much.