ABTTF President: “We call on our country Greece to immediately end its anti-democratic and discriminatory policies against our community, and on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, we reiterate our demand for bilingual Turkish and Greek kindergartens with determination.”
21 February is International Mother Language Day… Proclaimed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1999 and celebrated since 2000, International Mother Language Day continues to remind us that linguistic diversity and multilingualism are vital to humanity’s heritage.
In its statement on International Mother Language Day, UNESCO notes that linguistic diversity worldwide is under serious threat as more and more languages disappear every day. UNESCO emphasises that, according to current data, 40 per cent of the world’s population is still deprived of the opportunity to receive education in the language they speak or understand.
“On the 26th anniversary of International Mother Language Day, a day that celebrates linguistic diversity, we, the Turkish community in Western Thrace, are once again faced with a situation where our legitimate demands are being ignored. Education in one’s mother tongue is one of the most fundamental human rights, not open to debate. However, our country, Greece, is acting contrary to its international obligations and democratic values, depriving our children of their right to learn and develop their mother tongue, Turkish, at an early age. Despite constituting the majority of the population in the prefecture of Rodopi and approximately half of the population in the prefecture of Xanthi, the absence of a single Turkish kindergarten, despite hundreds of public kindergartens, is a clear sign of discrimination. Equal opportunities in education must not remain on paper. We call on our country Greece to immediately end its anti-democratic and discriminatory policies against our community, and on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, we reiterate our demand for bilingual Turkish and Greek kindergartens with determination’’, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
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