Hate-motivated violence against the Turkish minority of Western Thrace included in the OSCE-ODIHR’s 2014 Hate Crime Reporting

The hate-motivated attacks on the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace in Greece during 2014 were covered by the 2014 Hate Crime Reporting that was released by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE on 16 November 2016 marking the International Day for Tolerance). The OSCE-ODIHR’s annual hate crime report refers to the data submitted by the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) in April 2015.

The OSCE-ODIHR’s 2014 Hate Crime Reporting includes information submitted by 43 participating States, as well as incidents reported by 122 civil society organizations covering a total of 46 countries. In the report, hate incidents and hate crime data are classified according to bias motivation, and namely racism and xenophobia, bias against Roma and Sinti, anti-Semitism, bias against Muslims, bias against Christians and members of other religions, bias against other groups, bias against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and bias against people with disabilities and other groups. It is stated that Greece regularly reports hate crime data to ODIHR and the Greek Ministry of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights, the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the State Security headquarters of the Greek Police collect hate crime data. According to the data reported by Greece, the Greek po-lice recorded 71 hate crimes during 2014, of which 29 were prosecuted, and there were 9 sentences at the end.

ABTTF reported hate incidents occurred in 2014 in Western Thrace

ABTTF had reported to OSCE-ODIHR the hate-motivated attacks on the persons and establishments belonging to the Turkish minority of Western Thrace as well as on the Muslim cemeteries and mosques in Western Thrace during 2014. The attack on a masjid in Alexandroupoli by leaving a pig’s head cut into peaces on 13 April 2014 and the attack by tearing Quran pages and throwing them along with neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party leaflets at the local cemetery of Rhodes on 23 February 2014 have been included in the OSCE-ODIHR’s annual hate crime report.

The OSCE-ODIHR’s 2014 Hate Crime Reporting on Greece is available at:
http://hatecrime.osce.org/greece