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HEADLINE NEWS
A statement from Kosmidou that went beyond her authority
22.07.2026
ABTTF President: “The fact that an education bureaucrat is going beyond education policies to offer assessments on foreign policy, the interpretation of the Treaty of Lausanne, and Türkiye-Greece relations clearly demonstrates that this is a political issue. As we have always said, the real purpose behind the closure of our primary schoo...
The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe issues warning to Greece regarding “return hubs”
21.07.2026
ABTTF President: “The Commissioner’s approach demonstrates that the Council of Europe’s mechanisms are concerned not only with actual violations but also with practices that pose a serious risk to human rights. The full execution of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments in the Bekir-Ousta and Others group of cases i...
The European Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law Report has been published
17.07.2026
The Country Chapter on Greece includes the Bekir-Ousta and Others group of cases regarding the violation of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace’s freedom of association. On 17 July 2026, the European Commission published its 2026 Rule of Law Report, covering the 27 EU Member States as well as potential EU members Albania, Montenegro, No...
Concerns regarding the rule of law in Greece have once again been raised in the European Parliament
15.07.2026
ABTTF President: “It is impossible to effectively protect fundamental rights in an environment where the rule of law is eroding. As the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace, we too have long faced similar structural issues regarding our fundamental rights, such as freedom of association, education, and religious autonomy. It is of great importa...
Greece continues to close Turkish primary schools in Western Thrace one by one
14.07.2026
ABTTF President: “The closure of our schools, one by one each year, is the result of a systematic policy designed to gradually erode our educational autonomy. To deprive a community of its schools is to target not only its educational institutions, but also its memory, its language and its future. This is nothing less than the systematic dism...
News article on the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace on a German-language news portal in Italy
10.07.2026
A news article focusing on the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace was published on the German-language news portal Südtirol Online (stol.it) in Italy on 5 July 2026. In a news feature titled “Yes to the minority? Yes, but only if it is their own,” journalist Hatto Schmidt emphasises that Greece’s reaction lays bare i...
The Greek National Commission for Human Rights published its 2025 Annual Report
08.07.2026
ABTTF President: “While the report fails to address minority rights, the systematic rights violations and discrimination faced by the Turkish community in Western Thrace have unfortunately also been overlooked. In the written opinion regarding the report that we, as ABTTF, will prepare and present to GNCHR, we will detail the de facto erosion...
The systematic violation of the freedom of association of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace was raised at the PACE Plenary
03.07.2026
On 23 June 2026, the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) submitted a letter regarding the Court of Appeals of Thrace's rejection of the appeal filed by the Western Thrace Fenerbahçe Cultural and Sports Association—an organisation previously ordered to be dissolved by the Court of First Instance of Rodopi on grounds...
ABTTF brings the issues of the Western Thrace Turks to the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council
03.07.2026
In a written statement submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, ABTTF highlighted that Greece had failed to implement the previous recommendations of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) ahead of the review in November 2026, and listed Greece’s violations of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace. The...
FUEN’s report titled “Educational Situation of Minorities 2025 and Recent Developments’’ has been published
01.07.2026
The report titled “Educational Situation of Minorities 2025 and Recent Developments’’, prepared by the Education Working Group of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), has been published. Prepared based on information provided by member organisations regarding the educational situation of ten national minorities i...
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