The Turkish Minority in Greece (Western Thrace)

DESTROYING ETHNIC IDENTITYDESTROYING ETHNIC IDENTITY:

THE TURKS OF GREECE

 

August 1990

 

A Helsinki Watch Report

 

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch

485 Fifth Avenue 1522 K Street, NW, #910

New York, NY 10017 Washington, DC 20005

Tel. (212) 972-8400 Tel. (202) 371-6592

Fax (212) 972-0905 Fax (202) 371-0124

 

Table of Contents

Preface.................................................................................................................................................... i

Introduction.........................................................................................................................................1

The Greek Government's Obligations

Under International Law............................................................................................5

Treaty of Lausanne .......................................................................................................5

1968 Protocol...................................................................................................................6

European Convention for the Protection of Human

Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ................................................6

Helsinki Final Act ...........................................................................................................6

1989 Concluding Act of Vienna Follow-up Meeting

to the Conference on Security and Cooperation

in Europe...........................................................................................................7

The Greek Constitution.................................................................................................................9

Greek Violations of the Human Rights 

of the Turkish Minority.................................................................................................................11

Deprivation of Citizenship.......................................................................................11

Freedom of Movement: Passport Seizures...................................................13

Freedom of Movement in Restricted Areas.................................................14

Denial of Ethnic Identity ..........................................................................................14

Cases Against Dr. Sadik Ahmet and

Mr. Ismail Serif ........................................................................................... 17

Degrading Treatment ..............................................................................................22

Freedom of Expression............................................................................................23

Religious Freedom....................................................................................................26

Mosques........................................................................................................26

Selection of Muftis..................................................................................28

Control of the Wakfs (Pious Foundations)................................29

Political Freedom.......................................................................................................29

Equal Rights...................................................................................................................30

International and National Guarantees.....................................30

Land and Houses......................................................................................32

Expropriation of Land.............................................................................35

Business and Professional Life.......................................................36

Licenses.........................................................................................................37

Civil Service Jobs......................................................................................37

Credit ..............................................................................................................39

Schools..........................................................................................................39

Schoolbooks................................................................................................41

Recommendations ......................................................................................................................43

Appendices.......................................................................................................................................45

Acknowledgments

This report is based largely on information gathered by Lois Whitman, Deputy

Director of Helsinki Watch, during a fact-finding mission to Western Thrace in May

1990. It was written by Lois Whitman.

 

 

 

Preface

Between 120,000 and 130,000 ethnic Turks live in Western Thrace, in the

northeastern part of Greece. Members of the Turkish minority speak Turkish as

well as Greek, send their children to schools in which they are taught in both

Turkish and Greek, and are proud of their Turkish origins and resentful of Greek

efforts to deny their ethnic identity. The Greek government refers to them as

"Greek Moslems," or "Hellenic Moslems," and flatly denies the existence of a

Turkish minority in Western Thrace.

Ethnic Turks emphasized to a Helsinki Watch fact-finding mission that

went to Western Thrace in May 1990 that they are loyal Greek citizens and that

there is no separatist movement in Western Thrace. "We don't want to go to

Turkey," a Moslem lawyer said. "We just want the invisible Berlin Wall to come

down; we want to have our origins recognized and our human rights protected."

The policy of the Greek government with regard to the Turkish minority

seems to be, as described by the Minority Rights Group, a "deliberate policy of

  

discrimination with a long-term aim of assimilation."1 The findings of the Helsinki

Watch mission certainly confirm this analysis. The many abuses of human rights

documented in this report reveal a pattern of denying the Turkish minority the

rights granted to other Greek citizens; the pattern includes outright deprivation of

citizenship; denials of the right to buy land or houses, to set up businesses or to

rebuild or repair Turkish schools; restrictions on freedom of expression,

movement and religion; and degrading treatment of ethnic Turks by government

officials.

The Turkish minority reports that for many years the Greek government

has been trying to reduce the number of ethnic Turks in Western Thrace. This has

been done by techniques ranging from deprivation of citizenship to "encouraging"

emigration to Turkey, to efforts to assimilate the Turkish minority. A Greek policy

that began in 1985, for example, made it easier for Greek Turks who are willing to

leave Western Thrace to establish themselves in other parts of Greece. It is

possible for ethnic Turks to buy land and houses, and to find employment in

Athens, on Crete, in Kavala, or in other places in Greece, so long as they are willing

to take along their families, to give up residence in Western Thrace and to vote in

the new areas. The Turkish minority reported to Helsinki Watch, however, that

those who leave cannot get civil service jobs if they identify themselves as Turks

1 Minority Rights Group, Minorities in the Balkans, Report No. 82, October 1989, page 33.

ii

or as Moslems, and, of course, that there are no Turkish schools for their children.

Sadik Ahmet, a surgeon who is now a member of Parliament, pointed out that "for

the rich it's easy to move, but for the poor, impossible."

In any case, the pull of identification with Western Thrace is strong. "This

is my fatherland," Dr. Ahmet told Helsinki Watch. "I was born here, I want to stay

here. I want to spend my life in Western Thrace. It's the home of my family, my

friends, my village, my grandparents. I don't want to leave."

* * *

This is Helsinki Watch's first report on human rights in Greece. Although

we have been following for some time the plight of the Turkish minority in Western

Thrace, the fact-finding mission on which this report is based was in response to

18-month prison sentences that were handed down to two ethnic Turkish political

candidates for Parliament, Dr. Sadik Ahmet and Mr. Ismail Serif, in January 1990,

for the crime of using the word "Turkish" to describe the Turkish minority in

Western Thrace. The Court held that this act violated the Greek Penal Code by

"openly or indirectly inciting citizens to violence or creating rifts among the

population at the expense of social peace."

This flagrant denial of the ethnic identity of the Turkish minority in

Western Thrace was not an isolated event. The Greek High Court in 1988 had in

fact upheld a 1986 decision by the Court of Appeals in Western Thrace in which

the Union of Turkish Associations of Western Thrace was ordered closed because

it was called "Turkish." The word "Turkish," the court held, could refer only to

citizens of Turkey, and its use to describe Greek Moslems was held to endanger

public order.

Further research suggested a pattern whereby the Greek government

has been denying to the Turkish minority many rights accorded to other Greek

citizens, and curtailing their free expression and political freedom. This pattern in

a Western democracy like Greece is of great concern to Helsinki Watch. This

report describes some of the policies and practices that seriously restrict the

human rights of the Turkish minority in Western Thrace.

Greek officials were cooperative and helpful during the Helsinki Watch

mission to Western Thrace. The Nomarks (governors) of both Xanthi and Komotini,

Constantine Thanopolous and Dionysus Karahalios, gave interviews on short

notice. Mr. Evangelos Damianakis, the Greek official responsible for Western

Thrace, was extremely generous with his time.

This report could not have been written without the help of the Turkish

minority in Western Thrace. Special thanks go to Dr. Sadik Ahmet, Ahmet Faikoglu,