The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) submitted its written contribution regarding the 2026 Rule of Law Report to be published by the European Commission.
ABTTF participated in the online consultation process organised by the European Commission on its 2026 Rule of Law Report, which is aimed at civil society organisations, international organisations, academic institutions, public authorities, media and other stakeholders. In its written contribution to the chapter on Greece, ABTTF highlighted the issues faced by the Turkish community in Western Thrace and the human rights violations and discrimination they are subjected to in the country.
ABTTF indicated that Greece denies the existence of the Turkish community in Western Thrace, whose educational and religious autonomy are guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, and its ethnic Turkish identity, noting that Greece does not permit associations with the word ‘‘Turkish’’ in their names, and that Greece has failed to execute the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the Bekir-Ousta and Others group of cases concerning the dissolved Xanthi Turkish Union and the unregistered Cultural Association of Turkish Women of the Prefecture of Rodopi and the Evros Prefecture Minority Youth Association.
ABTTF also reminded that the Cultural Association of Turkish Women of the Prefecture of Xanthi, established in 2010 but not registered by the competent Greek national courts on the same grounds, lodged an application with the ECtHR in 2018. added that in its unanimous judgment on 24 June 2025 in the case of ‘‘Sagir and Others’’, the ECtHR once again ruled that Greece had violated Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) concerning the freedom of assembly and association.
ABTTF pointed out that, contrary to the educational autonomy enjoyed by the Turkish community in Western Thrace, private and autonomous Turkish primary schools in the region are being closed one by one each year by the Greek authorities under the pretext of low number of pupils, and that 3 more Turkish primary schools were closed in the 2025-2026 school year, bringing the number of Turkish primary schools from 188 in 2011 to 83 today.
ABTTF stated that despite all applications from the Turkish community in Western Thrace following the inclusion of kindergarten in compulsory education in Greece in 2006, the state has not permitted the establishment of bilingual Turkish and Greek kindergartens, either within the autonomous Turkish school system or entirely privately owned. ABTTF also noted that the Turkish community’s request for a new building for the Xanthi Turkish Minority Secondary and High School, due to the school’s current building being very old and inadequate, has been ignored by the Greek authorities, and that the school board has been denied access to the school.
Moreover, ABTTF highlighted that Greece has been violating the religious autonomy of the Turkish community in Western Thrace since 1991 by appointing muftis or mufti regents and not recognising the muftis elected by the community itself. Despite all objections from the Turkish community, the ‘‘Law on the Modernisation of the Mufti Offices’’, which was adopted by the Greek Parliament in August 2022, transformed all autonomous mufti offices into ordinary public offices under the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs, and Sports, officially and de facto eliminating the religious autonomy of the Turkish community.
ABTTF emphasised that the Turkish community in Western Thrace is systematically marginalised and subjected to hate speech in the mainstream Greek media, explaining that prominent representatives of the Turkish community are targeted and subjected to baseless and defamatory news reports.
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