Declaration

Declaration of Halit Habipoğlu, Chairman of ABTTF 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 Pre-fecture

Our minority, who constitutes 1.5 % of the total population, has not been able to have the deserved rep-resentation power. Our unforgettable leader, Dr. Sadık Ahmet, whom we supported with all our power during our most miserable days, was that successful as an independent MP to become the voice of our passivized minority. This success disturbed some people who could not accept such a big success from a Western Thrace Turkish minority member and they did their best to impose silence upon his voice.

The first thing they did for the next election was to form a election barrage of 3% and make the inde-pendent MPs face this election barrage as well. This election barrage is still in force and such an election barrage does not exist in any of the democratic countries of the whole world. 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”.

Residential areas where Turkish minority members are densely populated were merged with the residen-tial areas where Greek population is high and the aim is to weaken the voice of our minority members. For years, we tried to express our problems at every national and international platforms. Greek diplomats that we came face to face at international platforms always claimed that such implementations were not formulated against Turkish minority but instead they covered all the citizens.

These lame explanations were valid until Gülbeyaz Karahasan was nominated by PASOK as the candi-date for the chairmanship of Xanthi-Kavala-Drama Extended Prefecture. This last event dropped the mask of Greece. The rising voice of the members of governing party and the Churc 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.

Besides the declaration of Drama MP; who dared ask the questions like;
• What is her attitude towards occupied land of Cyprus?
• What is her attitude towards the re-opening of Heybeliada Clergy School?
• What is her attitude towards the re-opening of holy temples in Istanbul, as an example Ayasofia, for religious exercises?
• What is her attitude towards national liberation celebrations of Drama on national and local levels?
Skandalis, the creator of Rohodop-Evros and Xanthi-Kavala-Drama Extended Prefecture idea, admit-ted 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.

Commentators of Hronos, regional newspaper published in Greek in Western Thrace, admitted the basic reasons why they do not want to let a minority member at key points. They 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? until now, we are known as the cradle of democracy”. Why are the Greek politicians suddenly in state of agitation now although they have always claimed until now that the minorities in Greece are living in very good conditions? Can it be possible that the human rights of the minorities have been and are being overridden in Greece?

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 noone 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 fal-ling. 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 discus-sions taking place in Greece and the election process closely.