Dropping the Masks

Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) made a declaration on the discussions about Gülbeyaz Karahasan, member of Western Thrace Turkish minority and her nomination as candidate for the chairmanship of Xanthi-Kavala-Drama Extended Prefecture at the elections in October

The nomination of lawyer Gülbeyaz Karahasan; member of Western Thrace Turkish minority, by PASOK as candidate for the chairmanship of Xanthi-Kavala-Drama Extended Prefecture at the elections in October caused a political crisis in Greece. The conservatives and Church are hostile towards the “Muslim” candidate. ABTTF expressed their discomfort with the progress of continuous discussions on the ethnic origin of the candidate.

Minority faces political barriers

Declaration on behalf of Halit Habipoğlu, chairman of ABTTF , emphasized the political barriers that minority faces on national and local levels. They can not be represented by MPs in the parliament due to election barrage of 3% that has been implemented to independent candidates since 1993. At national politics level, election barrage is being used as the passivization tool while at local level, it is in the form of “Plan of Kapodistirias”. According to this plan residential areas where Turkish minority members are densely populated were merged with the residential areas where Greek population is high and the aim is to weaken the voice of our minority members.

Skandalidis admitted: “Extended Prefecture idea was developed to hinder the election possibility of a Muslim governor”

For years, ABTTF tried to express the problems of minority at every national and international platforms. Greek diplomats always claimed that such implementations were not formulated against Turkish minority but instead they covered all the citizens but their masks dropped with the nomination of Gülbeyaz Karahasan as the candidate for chairmanship of Xanthi-Kavala-Drama Extended Prefecture . The rising voice of the members of governing party and the Church have become that irritating when they wanted Gülbeyaz Karahasan to say that “she is a Greek woman” in front of the Greek public. Most interesting part of this demand is that it came from East Macedonia - Thrace MP of New Democracy Government. Skandalis, the creator of Rohodop-Evros and Xanthi-Kavala-Drama Extended Prefecture idea, admitted the fact on the News of Channel Alpha on 8 May 2006 that this Extended Prefecture idea was developed to hinder the election possibility of a Muslim governor.

ABTTF: Discussions and Election Progress are to be considered closely

Commentators of Hronos, regional newspaper published in Greek in Western Thrace , ask “What are we going to do when a key executive complains about our minority policies at Islamic Conference or to International Human Rights Organizations?”

West European countries are proud of their politicians from different ethnic origins but in direct contradiction, they become nightmares for Greece , the cradle of democracy. Is our minority so incapable that no one in this region can have the features of a governor or is Greek democracy still the democracy of “only some people” as it was firstly established?

We strongly believe that this discussion should be very carefully analyzed by the world public while it shows that the masks of politicians, who claim that human rights are not overridden in Greece , are falling. We invite Council of Europe, Commission of Europe, OSCE; United Nations and other democratic powers as well as international human righs organizations to analyze and consider the discussions taking place in Greece and the election process closely. These were the main points that were emphasized by the declaration of ABTTF on behalf of Halit Habipoğlu, chairman of ABTTF .