ABTTF President: “We regularly follow Human Rights Watch’s Greece report, and in the reports, we submit to Human Rights Watch, we convey the issues concerning minority rights not mentioned in these reports, including the problems faced by the Turkish community in Western Thrace. With this report, as always, we have defended the rights and interests of the Turkish community in Western Thrace before international organisations and international NGOs”.
Opposition MPs, led by PASOK – Movement for Change Justice Spokesperson Eyaggelia Liakouli, submitted a parliamentary question to Minister of Justice Floridis and Deputy Prime Minister Marinakis regarding problems in the areas of press freedom and the rule of law in the country.
Referring to the Human Rights Watch 2026 Greece report, the MPs highlighted a worrying decline in the rule of law in Greece, according to the report. In the parliamentary question, the MPs noted that the Human Rights Watch report explained that the rule of law and institutions in the country had been weakened, that there was a lack of accountability, which undermined citizens’ trust in the state, and that the environment in which journalists had to work had deteriorated. The MPs asked how the government would respond to Human Rights Watch’s observations on press freedom and the rule of law in its report on Greece.
“Human Rights Watch’s 2026 Greece report draws particular attention to the serious problems in our country by dedicating a separate heading to issues in the area of the rule of law in this year’s report. We regularly follow Human Rights Watch’s Greece report, and in the reports, we submit to Human Rights Watch, we convey the issues concerning minority rights not mentioned in these reports, including the problems faced by the Turkish community in Western Thrace. In the report we submitted this year, we reported on developments regarding the current general situation in our country in the areas of media freedom and the rule of law, along with hostile attitudes in the media towards the Turkish community in Western Thrace and its representative organisations, as well as the targeting of civil society organisations belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace. In addition, we conveyed the developments relative to the case of the Cultural Association of Turkish Women of the Prefecture of Xanthi, together with the Bekir-Ousta and Others group of cases, to Human Rights Watch regarding the violation of our freedom to form associations. With this report, as always, we have defended the rights and interests of the Turkish community in Western Thrace before international organisations and international NGOs’’, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
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