ABTTF President: “After 15 years, Greece is talking about its intention to establish a Committee of Experts to investigate the execution of the judgments in this group of cases and prepare recommendations for the Greek authorities. Don’t get me wrong, no decision has been taken on this issue yet, there is only some intention! Our country has been stalling us and the Committee of Ministers on this issue for so long that it is hard to believe that this step is a real one’’.
At its meeting held in Strasbourg on 5-7 December 2023, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe examined the Bekir-Ousta and Others Group of Cases regarding the violation of the freedom of association by Greece of the Xanthi Turkish Union, the Cultural Association of Turkish Women of the Prefecture of Rodopi and the Evros Prefecture Minority Youth Association belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace.
In the decision announced today (8 December), the Committee of Ministers indicated that although 15 years have passed since the ECtHR judgments and the legislative amendment adopted in 2017, the ECtHR judgments are still not executed. The Committee of Ministers noted that the associations in the Bekir-Ousta group of cases have exhausted the possibilities available to them within the domestic legal system and that the Greek authorities must now take effective general measures to execute the judgments. Moreover, in the decision, the Committee stated that it welcomed the fact that as a result of the meeting between the Secretariat and the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs which took place on 8 November 2023, Greece expressed its intention to establish a Committee of Experts which would serve the purpose of advising the Greek authorities on the next steps to be taken in the Bekir-Ousta group of cases.
The Committee of Ministers underlined Greece’s obligation to fully and effectively execute all ECtHR judgments in accordance with Article 46 § 1 of the Convention on the respondent States and called upon the Greek authorities to provide information to the Committee of the steps it has taken ahead of the examination in June 2024.
President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) Halit Habip Oğlu made the following statement: “7 December 1983, the date when the signboards of the Xanthi Turkish Union were taken down... 40 years after the signboards of our first Turkish association in Western Thrace were taken down, the official legal status of our Xanthi Turkish Union has still not been restored. The Xanthi Turkish Union, which went to the ECtHR after a 22-year internal legal struggle, and our other two associations, which were not allowed to be established, have been waiting for the execution of the judgments of the European court for the past 15 years. Easier said than done, 15 years! After 15 years, Greece is talking about its intention to establish a Committee of Experts to investigate the execution of the judgments in this group of cases and prepare recommendations for the Greek authorities. Don’t get me wrong, no decision has been taken on this issue yet, there is only some intention! Our country has been stalling us and the Committee of Ministers on this issue for so long that it is hard to believe that this step is a real one. We will of course continue to follow the process until the examination in June 2024, and we will not allow this to turn into another process aimed at stalling the Committee. As associations and non-governmental organisations, we will continue to inform the Committee of Ministers’’.
You can access the full text of the decision at here:
https://search.coe.int/cm/pages/result_details.aspx?objectid=0900001680ad83c3
