ABTTF President: “This latest incident is a new example and continuation of arbitrary and oppressive practices against our community in the field of education. We demand the immediate revocation of the circular of the State Director of Education, which has no legal basis and is used as a tool for arbitrary practices in our schools’’.
The members of the executive boards of the Rodopi Primary Teachers’ Association and the Greek Teachers’ Federation were not allowed to visit the Turkish minority schools in Western Thrace. In the written statement issued by the Rodopi Primary Teachers’ Association, it was indicated that the prevention in question is illegal and has no legal basis and it was emphasised that the association has not encountered such a situation during its visits to minority schools for more than 30 years and that this decision is a unique practice throughout the country.
It was explained in the statement that the delegation, which included members of the executive boards of the Rodopi Primary Teachers’ Association and the Greek Teachers’ Federation, visited the public schools in Western Thrace on 19 February 2025 without any problems, but was prevented from entering the minority schools by the arbitrary, authoritarian and illegal order of the Director of Education.
It was pointed out in the statement that the Director of Education of Rodopi justified this ban by basing it on a special legislation regarding minority schools, but did not specify which legal regulation it was based on and claimed that the visits could only take place with the permission of the Ministry of Education. It was noted that the only information obtained after 24 hours was that the aforementioned practice was based on a local circular of the Director of Education of the Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, and that the relevant circular did not refer to any special legislation and was full of inaccuracies and arbitrary instructions.
“Just last January, the deputy principal of Celal Bayar Turkish Minority Secondary and High School in Komotini asked the chair of the board to leave the school. As a result of unilateral decisions taken and laws enacted over the years in violation of our educational autonomy, the rights and authorisations of the elected board members of our schools have been taken away from us. Now, the teachers’ associations who wanted to visit our primary schools in Western Thrace within the scope of information meetings were not allowed to enter our schools despite the fact that they had no legal basis. This latest incident is a new example and continuation of arbitrary and oppressive practices against our community in the field of education. We demand the immediate revocation of the circular of the State Director of Education, which has no legal basis and is used as a tool for arbitrary practices in our schools”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
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