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Letter from ABTTF to international authorities about Greece’s usurpation of the rights and freedoms of the Turkish community in Western Thrace

15.09.2021

ABTTF President: ‘While our motherland Turkey takes positive steps that improve the rights and freedoms of the Greek Orthodox minority regardless of the reciprocity defined by the Treaty of Lausanne, our country Greece ignores the Turkish community in Western Thrace and sees it as a threat to the unity of the country and public order’.

In a letter addressed to the international authorities, the Federation of Western Thrace of Turks in Europe (ABTTF) stated the systematic usurpation of the rights and freedoms of the Turkish community in Western Thrace by Greece. In its letter, ABTTF indicated that the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty granted rights to the Turkish community in Western Thrace in Greece and the Greek Orthodox minority in Turkey on the basis of reciprocity, adding that Turkey has taken positive steps towards the Greek Orthodox minority, especially in recent years, while the rights and freedoms of the Turkish community in Western Thrace in Greece have been taken away for the past years.

In its letter, ABTTF noted the following: 

• While Turkey restores the real estate property belonging to the Greek community, our country which holds the goods and real estate properties belonging to our community, appoints by order of the state the administrative boards of the foundations of the community which have every right of disposition, 

• While the Greek community in Turkey chooses its own religious leaders, our country Greece appoints the Muftis which constitute our religious leaders again by order of the state, 

• While in Turkey, even historical religious buildings outside of Istanbul, Imbros (Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada) are preserved, restored and rites and rituals are allowed on special occasions, historical and religious monuments outside of Western Thrace in Greece are left to their fate or closed under the pretext of restoration or to the destruction of time, 

• In Western Thrace, where the Turkish community lives, permits for reparation are blocked as regards historical or new mosques, and various problems arise in the construction of new ones,

• In Turkey, all places of worship belonging not only to the Greek community but also churches and synagogues of other religious communities are also being restored. In fact, although there are no congregations in that region and while 7,000 Turks live in Thessaloniki in Greece; Hamza Bey, Hortacı Süleyman Efendi, Yeni Cami (New Mosque) and Alaca Imaret Cami (Alara Imaret Mosque) are closed for worship. This is happening not only in Thessaloniki but throughout Greece, 
• While non-Muslim minorities living in Turkey have the right to express their ethnicity collectively as Greek, Armenian, Bulgarian or Jewish and manage the foundations and the goods belonging to their communities in accordance with the Treaty of Lausanne, we are not even allowed to manage the foundations belonging to our community, let alone the collective acceptance of our ethnic Turkish identity in our country Greece.

In its letter, ABTTF asked international authorities to draw attention to the problems of the Turkish community in Western Thrace, which is one of the worst-off groups in the European Union (EU) for minority rights, and to urge Greece to take steps to improve the situation of the Turkish community in Western Thrace. 

‘As a result of the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty, our status and rights and those of the Greek Orthodox minority in our motherland of Turkey were determined and our fate was drawn together. However, while there have been positive developments in our homeland on behalf of the Greek Orthodox minority with whom we share the same fate in recent years, political repression and discriminatory policies against us persist in our country. While our motherland takes positive steps that improve the rights and freedoms of the Greek Orthodox minority regardless of the reciprocity defined by the Treaty of Lausanne, our country Greece ignores the Turkish community in Western Thrace and sees it as a threat to the unity of the country and public order. As ABTTF and as the representative of Western Thrace Turks living in Europe, we believed that these positive steps taken by our motherland could constitute a model for the Turkish community in Western Thrace by having a similar effect in our country, but we found that we were very wrong at this point. Today, we have the opportunity to live a life in our country, where we are left as a minority, neither humanely nor within the framework of the rights we have’, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF). 


 

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