ABTTF President: “In our written opinion prepared as ABTTF, we conveyed the issues of our community and the discrimination it is exposed to and demanded that the organisation also focus on minority rights in next year’s reports. Indeed, minority rights are an integral part of human rights’’.
The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) prepared a written opinion on the Greece section of Amnesty International’s 2022/23 report and forwarded it to the organisation. ABTTF reported the issues of the Turkish community in Western Thrace to Amnesty International in connection with the topics mentioned in the Greece section of the report, which examines the situation of human rights in the world.
Indicating that judicial investigations were opened after the demonstrations of Greek citizens, who are part of the community in Greece, in accordance with the right of assembly and peaceful protest, ABTTF explained that the Xanthi Turkish Union (XTU) which had been banned because of the word ‘‘Turkish’’ in its name had organised a march on 10 July 2022 to protest Greece’s failure to execute the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgement in its regard and that 7 months after this march, an investigation was launched against the president of the XTU along with 11 other representatives of the Turkish community in Western Thrace on grounds that pandemic rules were not followed.
ABTTF underlined that the Muftis of Komotini and Xanthi, elected by the Turkish community in Western Thrace, have been subject to prosecution many times for alleged ‘‘usurpation of office’’ and noted that the Elected Mufti of Komotini Ibrahim Şerif, and the Elected Mufti of Xanthi, the late Ahmet Mete, were sentenced to prison.
ABTTF, which also cites hate-motivated attacks and hate speech targeting the Turkish community in Western Thrace in Greece in its written opinion, indicated that in August 2022, a 16-year-old teenager belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace in Xanthi was beaten by a group of about 20 people, insulted as a ‘Nasty Turk', and Xanthi SYRIZA MP Huseyin Zeybek was threatened with death by a viewer who was connected to a live programme on a local TV channel by phone.
“Amnesty International, one of the world’s leading non-governmental organisations in the field of human rights, helps combat human rights violations around the world through detailed research and determined campaigns. In our written opinion prepared as ABTTF, we conveyed the issues of our community and the discrimination it is exposed to and demanded that the organisation also focus on minority rights in next year’s reports. Indeed, minority rights are an integral part of human rights’’, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
