President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) Halit Habip Oğlu met with UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Nicolas Levrat, at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland on 26 November 2025.
Habip Oğlu, accompanied by ABTTF International Relations Director Melek Kırmacı, raised the fundamental and current issues of the Turkish community in Western Thrace in Greece and the human rights violations they are subjected to.
Habip Oğlu indicated that, contrary to the educational autonomy guaranteed to the Turkish community in Western Thrace by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, autonomous and private Turkish primary schools in the Western Thrace region are being closed one by one each year by ministerial decisions on the pretext of low number of pupils. He noted that three more Turkish primary schools are to be closed in the 2025-2026 school year, and that the number of Turkish primary schools, which was 188 in 2011, has now fallen to 83.
Furthermore, Habip Oğlu emphasised that Greece denies the ethnic Turkish identity of the Turkish community and that associations bearing the word ‘‘Turkish’’ in the country have been dissolved or not registered, adding that Greece has persistently failed to execute the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) judgments in the Bekir-Ousta and Others group of cases concerning Turkish associations for over 17 years.
Habip Oğlu stated that the ECtHR had once again ruled against Greece for violating Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in its unanimous judgment dated 24 June 2025, in the case titled “Sagir and Others” filed by the Cultural Association of Turkish Women of the Prefecture of Xanthi, which was not registered by the Greek national courts due to the word “Turkish” in its name.
Habip Oğlu stated that MPs, rights defenders and institutions representing the Turkish community in Western Thrace were being targeted in politics and the Greek media and were being subjected to hate speech. He explained that lawsuits were being filed against prominent figures in the Turkish community with the aim of intimidating them with false accusations and revealed some examples of this situation.
