The problems of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace once again on Dolomiten newspaper

Dolomiten newspaper representative Hatto Schmidt, who attended together with the representatives of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), European Association of Daily Newspapers in Minority and Regional Languages (MIDAS), Dan minority in Germany and German minority in Denmark the fact-finding visit to Western Thrace between 19-22 June 2014 organized in partnership by the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association (WTMUGA) and Friendship Equality Peace Party (FEP Party), wrote an article on about his observations on the visit in the Dolomiten newspaper of the German and Ladin minorities in Italy.

Schmidt, who wrote also an article related to the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace before the fact-finding visit, refers as MIDAS and FUEN delegation to Şahin (Echinos) village visit where 20 mothers refused to send their children to state kindergartens that only teaching language is in Greek. He also referred in his article the teachers who does not know a single Turkish word in state kindergartens and teach to students who does not know a single Greek word and the population of this village is consisted of a hundred percent by Turks and these children were not been able to enrolled to minority elementary schools because of not attending to state kindergartens.

He adds that the ethnic identity of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace was not recognized despite the condemnation of Greece by The European Court of Human Rights, it is not allowed the establishment of the associations that bear the name “Turkish” in their names and those who were closed because of this reason their licences never returned. However, the Minority is not allowed to elect its religious leaders so the Minority elected its own muftis as a response for not recognising the state appointed muftis. By drawing attention to the discrimination suffered by the Minority on this issue, he says the government follows the same way by appointing 240 Imams to work in state schools and mosques.

After that, he states that the details of his interview with the Komotini mayor George Petridis and implies the small number of the Minority member employees who work in municipality. “Due to discrimination many Minority members emigrated from Western Thrace, 150 thousand populated Minority’s approximately one-third of it for various reasons emigrated Turkey, Germany and other European countries for work” the article included.

Lastly, Schmidt talk about the lack of signs in Turkish but in Greek in Komotini although significant part of the population in the city centre is consisted of by Turks but he came across rarely to signs in Turkish only in villages in the mountainous regions which their population is consisted of completely by Turks. He also states that the sign of the public library in Şahin (Echinos) village in Xanthi is in both Turkish and Greek and draws attention to the presence of a church at the entrance of the completely Turkish populated village is not anything but a symbol of arbitrariness and provocation.