Hate motivated attacks targeted against the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace included in the OSCE-ODIHR’s 2013 Hate Crime Reporting

The hate motivated attacks targeted against the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace in Greece dur-ing 2013, which were reported to the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) by the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) in April 2014, appeared in the OSCE-ODIHR’s 2013 Hate Crime Reporting released in November 2014.

36 participating States and 109 civil society organizations from 45 countries submitted information to the OSCE-ODIHR’s 2013 Hate Crime Reporting. By filling in the online questionnaire devel-oped by the ODIHR for the participating States, Greece reported 109 total hate crimes recorded by police during 2013. According to the information presented by Greece, 9 hate crimes were prose-cuted, but none of them did not led to any criminal sentence.

ABTTF reported to the OSCE the hate crimes which occurred in 2013 in Western Thrace

ABTTF reported to the OSCE the hate motivated attacks targeted against the persons belonging to Turkish Minority of Western Thrace and its establishments, the Muslim cemeteries and mosques in Western Thrace during 2013 and January-April 2014 period. The OSCE-ODIHR’s Hate Crime Re-porting included the hate motivated attack against Cüneyt Serdar belonging to the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace in the city centre of Xanthi on 29 March 2013, the attack against the Komotini Turkish Youth Union on 27 December 2013, the attack against the masjid in Alexandroupoli by leaving a pig’s head cut into peaces on 13 April 2013 and the attack by tearing Quran and throwing neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party leaflets at the local cemetery of Rhodes on 23 February 2013.

To the relevant section of the OSCE-ODIHR’s Hate Crime Reporting regarding Greece can be ac-cessed by clicking the link http://hatecrime.osce.org/greece.