Cyprus-Forum.com

[stpier]

Treatment of the Turkish/Muslim minority in Greece:

The Turkish minority in Greece is almost entirely Muslim. Treatment of this minority by the government has both ethnic and religious overtones. The government of Greece does recognize the Muslim minority in that country, but "aggressively prosecutes and bans organizations and individuals who seek to call themselves 'Turkish.'" Turks have been in Greece since at least 1363 when the Ottoman army routed the Serb, Bosnian and Hungarian army. They are Greek citizens. In spite of the Treaty of Lausanne which guaranteed the Muslims civil and human rights, they are heavily discriminate against in many ways. 6,7
Under Article 19 of the Citizenship Law, the Greek government "unilaterally and arbitrarily" revoked the citizenship of about 60,000 non-ethnic Greeks. This law was abolished in 1998, but persons persecuted under Article 19 have never been able to appeal for the return of their citizenship. In the past, the Turkish/Muslim community was allowed to elect their own muftis (religious leaders). Since 1990 these have been largely appointed by the government. The government has often held up or denied building permits to repair or expand mosques. Persons who have effected repairs without a permit have been prosecuted.
Schools for the minority are poorly funded. "Ethnic Turks educated in Turkish universities" have not been hired as teachers for many years. The two Turkish language high schools in the country are hopelessly undersized.
"...the ethnic Turkish minority also complain of police surveillance, discrimination in public employment, and restrictions on freedom of expression."The government altered the boundaries of two provinces to prevent representation of the ethnic Turkish minority. Some improvements have been made in recent years. However, the freedoms of the Turkish minority continue to be severely restricted.

[Demonax]

Time to stop Turkey’s terror campaign against Greece’s Muslim population in Thrace:

Turkish Terror Against the Greek Muslims of Thrace

In early July 2013, I traveled to Thrace in northern Greece. This is still the land of the gods. Villages and towns try to make a living out of a natural world of rivers, valleys, wild mountains and the sea.

The Greeks of Thrace are proud of their Hellenic culture. I witness three days of dancing and music in Xanthi, the jewel town of Thrace. For a brief time I thought god Dionysos was leading his festival.

Forty-five dancing groups from all over Greece made up of dozens of young men and women dressed in ancient traditional costumes put up the greatest show on Earth at the center of Xanthi. Live music became dancing, the air became intoxicated with delightful sound and graceful movement one sees in ancient Greek vases. Ancient Greeks came back to life, and I, dreaming and dancing on the spot, lived the pleasure of those precious moments.

But Thrace is also full of pain. The modernizers are catching up. In my nine-hour bus ride from Athens to Xanthi I saw plenty of fertile land growing industrial crops but not food for people. The countryside is largely empty of rural people. The dread that comes over me in rural America was in the back of my mind while viewing the lonely land of Thrace. The similarities spoke to me directly.

In the midst of this agrarian desolation and, even more profoundly, on the harsh realities of Greek economic collapse, the Turks are rising their ugly historical brutality towards Greece. They see the weakness and silence of the Greek state as invitations to mischief. They are emboldened with their ceaseless aggression of coming back to Thrace as conquerors.

The Turks may try to convince the world they are not different than other people. But, down at heart, the Turks are different. They still carry Islam's flag of conquest.

The fifteenth-century Greek historian Michael Doukas described them as gangster-like nomads in search of loot and plunder. The Turks also used Islam as a weapon in their ruthless aggression against non-Muslims. Doukas said the Turks were men of violence bend on enslaving other people for profit. He knew the Turks intimately. He penned his "Byzantine-Turkish History" while the Turks fought ceaseless wars against the Greeks. In 1453, the Turks captured Constantinople and brought the independence of Greece to an end.

One can see this Turkish thirst for plunder unfolding in the Greek Muslim communities of Mt. Rodopi, the frontier between Greece and Bulgaria.

The Greeks of Rodopi date back to ancient Greece. In medieval Greece the Greeks of Rodopi were converted to Christianity. They remained Christians until the seventeenth century when Turkey forced them into Islam.

I visited Myki, one of the Greek Muslim villages of Rodopi. Driving from Xanthi, I was stunned by the beauty and isolation of these Greek mountain villages.

This bucolic view and pleasure is marred by a slow-gathering storm, however.

Many villagers are proud of being Greek. They say, however, that the agents of Turkey terrorize them and those who refuse to connect themselves to Turkey. The pressure is so intense that some women resort to anti-depressant drugs.

This secret war pits one-third of the Rodopi Muslim villagers who say they are Greeks against the two-thirds who claim openly they are Turks.

Greece remains invisible in this secret conflict that is writing the future of Thrace. Greece is even funding the teaching of Turkish to the Rodopi children. Some say that Greece even pressures the Rodopi villagers to claim Turkish origins.

I found no one who could explain this contradiction, nay, suicidal course of Greek policy.

Meanwhile, the handsome Greek Muslims of Rodopi go on with their daily lives. Most women and children wear traditional colorful clothing. Men work in their small tobacco fields and shepherd sheep and goats. Women in particular create works of art in their hand-made clothes.

Time has come to avoid the eruption of a Greco-Turkish volcano in the mountains of Thrace. The Greek state needs to be present in Rodopi: stop the Turkification of the Greek Muslim population by expelling the bribing and terrorizing agents of Turkey from Thrace.

Greece can hardly afford, much less promote, her own dismemberment.

Rodopi children need to learn Greek early on so they can study in Greece, thinking Greece as their homeland, which it is. Greece also needs to support the institutionalization of the knowledge of the villagers of Rodopi. That knowledge and tradition would be an asset in the peaceful and prosperous development of Thrace in a prosperous Greece.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evaggelos ... _hp_ref=tw

[stpier]

These people say they are Turks and the south Cypriot claims they are not:

On 23 March 2012, an unidentified person or a group spray painted some figures on the walls of the Xanthi Turkish Union in Xanthi, Greece and wrote “ΕΞΩ ΟΙ ΤΟΥΡΚΟΙ (Turks Out)” on the entrance door. The Board of the Xanthi Turkish Union published a press release and condemned the attack and said, “We strongly condemn this attack, and we want that the vicious person or persons, who want to destroy the peace in the region in a period we have difficult times as country, to be brought before justice.”

On the same day, an identified person or a group wrote “ΤΟΥΡΚΟΣ ΚΑΛΟΣ ΜΟΝΟ ΝΕΚΡΟΣ (The only good Turk is a dead Turk)” on the wall of the Bektashi lodge in Aşağımahalle (Kato Thermes) in Xanthi, Greece.

They wrote “Turks Out” on the door of the Xanthi Turkish Union

The President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) Halit Habipoğlu said, “As the Board of Directors, we strongly condemn the attacks against the Xanthi Turkish Union and the Bektashi lodge. The Turkish Minority of Western Thrace lives in these territories for centuries, and the minority is a part of Greece. We are concerned about the increase in racist attacks at a time that our country is on the verge of bankruptcy. And we want that the responsible persons or the people who threaten the social peace in the region to be identified as soon as possible.”

[Demonax]

Stupider,

Please tell us what has happened to the population of Greek Orthodox Christians in Istanbul since the 1950s?

Then compare it to the numbers of Muslim Greeks of Turkish origin who still choose to live in Greece and whose population has increased over the years...

[stpier]

south Cypriot demon,

Why don't discuss it in another thread? This is about repressed Muslim Turks in your motherland. If you think Greece is not your motherland, then I don't understand why you get upset and you take the offensive everytime Greece is criticized.

[Demonax]

south Cypriot demon,

Why don't discuss it in another thread? This is about repressed Muslim Turks in your motherland. If you think Greece is not your motherland, then I don't understand why you get upset and you take the offensive everytime Greece is criticized.

Yes, stupider. Greece’s Muslim population are so ‘repressed’ that they choose to stay and live in Greece rather than return to their Turkish ‘motherland’.

Meanwhile the Greek Orthodox population of Constantinople have been ruthlessly persecuted so that their numbers have dwindled to a mere couple of thousand.

I'm not surprised you’d rather this inconvenient truth wasn’t mentioned here.

You see, stupider, how a little context puts things in perspective.

[stpier]

south Cypriot demon,

Why don't discuss it in another thread? This is about repressed Muslim Turks in your motherland. If you think Greece is not your motherland, then I don't understand why you get upset and you take the offensive everytime Greece is criticized.

Yes, stupider. Greece’s Muslim population are so ‘repressed’ that they choose to stay and live in Greece rather than return to their Turkish ‘motherland’.

Meanwhile the Greek Orthodox population of Constantinople have been ruthlessly persecuted so that their numbers have dwindled to a mere couple of thousand.

I'm not surprised you’d rather this inconvenient truth wasn’t mentioned here.

You see, stupider, how a little context puts things in perspective.

south Cypriot demon,

Why don't discuss it in another thread? This is about repressed Muslim Turks in your motherland.

[stpier]

ABTTF President Halit Habipoğlu: Following the decision of the Thrace Court of Appeal, in relation to dissolved associations on the grounds of bearing the word “Turk” and/or “Minority” in their titles, we expect Greece to implement the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) decision in due course.

Thrace Court of Appeal decided in favour on the appeal of Western Thrace Minority South Evros Education and Culture Association and recognised the association, which had previously in 2009, been refused to establishment and registry by Alexandroupolis Court of First Instance.

According local daily Rodop Rüzgarı, upon the Alexandroupolis Court of First Instance’s refusal of the registry of association on grounds that its name recalls a national minority whereas the respective minority is recognised only on religious grounds, the Western Thrace Minority South Evros Educa-tion and Culture Association has taken up the case to Court of Cassation.

Following the trial of the case at the Court of Cassation, it has been returned to Thrace Court of Appeal. With regard to the decision of the Court of Cassation, Thrace Court of Appeal eventually recognized Western Thrace Minority South Evros Education and Culture Association.

Second refusal to Cultural Association of Turkish Women of Rodopi from the Court of Cassation

According to daily, Gündem, the domestic legal process since 2008 with the ECtHR decision on the establishment and recognition of the Cultural Association of Turkish Women of Rodopi has come to an end. Appeal to Court of Cassation in the view of restoring the official status and recognition to Cultural Association of Turkish Women of Rodopi has again been refused.

ABTTF President: Greece should fully implement the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights!

Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) President Halit Habipoğlu stated: “Re-garding the legal struggle carried on by Western Thrace Minority South Evros Education and Culture Association since 2009, the decision of the Thrace Court of Appeal is very positive. We hope that Greek authorities fully implement the decisions of the ECtHR on dissolved associations on the ground of bearing the word “Turk” in their names, Xanthi Turkish Union, Cultural Associa-tion of Turkish Women of Rodopi and Evros Minority Youth Association to the end of lifting obstacles for the respective associations to officially pursue their activities”.

[Tim Drayton]

ABTTF President Halit Habipoğlu: Following the decision of the Thrace Court of Appeal, in relation to dissolved associations on the grounds of bearing the word “Turk” and/or “Minority” in their titles, we expect Greece to implement the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) decision in due course.

Thrace Court of Appeal decided in favour on the appeal of Western Thrace Minority South Evros Education and Culture Association and recognised the association, which had previously in 2009, been refused to establishment and registry by Alexandroupolis Court of First Instance.

According local daily Rodop Rüzgarı, upon the Alexandroupolis Court of First Instance’s refusal of the registry of association on grounds that its name recalls a national minority whereas the respective minority is recognised only on religious grounds, the Western Thrace Minority South Evros Educa-tion and Culture Association has taken up the case to Court of Cassation.

Following the trial of the case at the Court of Cassation, it has been returned to Thrace Court of Appeal. With regard to the decision of the Court of Cassation, Thrace Court of Appeal eventually recognized Western Thrace Minority South Evros Education and Culture Association.

Second refusal to Cultural Association of Turkish Women of Rodopi from the Court of Cassation

According to daily, Gündem, the domestic legal process since 2008 with the ECtHR decision on the establishment and recognition of the Cultural Association of Turkish Women of Rodopi has come to an end. Appeal to Court of Cassation in the view of restoring the official status and recognition to Cultural Association of Turkish Women of Rodopi has again been refused.

ABTTF President: Greece should fully implement the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights!

Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) President Halit Habipoğlu stated: “Re-garding the legal struggle carried on by Western Thrace Minority South Evros Education and Culture Association since 2009, the decision of the Thrace Court of Appeal is very positive. We hope that Greek authorities fully implement the decisions of the ECtHR on dissolved associations on the ground of bearing the word “Turk” in their names, Xanthi Turkish Union, Cultural Associa-tion of Turkish Women of Rodopi and Evros Minority Youth Association to the end of lifting obstacles for the respective associations to officially pursue their activities”.

Just a minute. You objected to me as a foreigner posting news here in the attempt to win international support and solidarity for the protests that started out in Turkey to save Gezi Park and have developed into a wider movement in defence of secularism, democracy and pluralism in Turkey. You told me that you were part of the Gezi movement and you did not want such support. I have respected this and stopped posting this news. Now it is pay back time. If you think that foreigners should not post news about what is going in in Turkey, you, by the same token, should not be posting news here about events in the foreign country of Greece.

[stpier]

I don't think the two are the same thing at all. First of all Cyprus is a Turkish-Greek problem so anyone non-Turkish / non-Greek is an outsider. As an outsider, your objectivity is highly questionable as you are generous to criticize Turkey and there is no mention of Britain's involvement at all. Secondly you claim to show solidarity with secular Turks in an anti-Turkish forum. This is not the right place and I thought you had agreed on waiting for a sign of appreciation from a Gezi Park protestor / progressive person (non south Cypriot). Again I volunteer to share your thoughts of Gezi and CY prob with other Turks and we can see the level of appreciation.