Human Rights Watch: Turkish Minority Rights Violated in Greece
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Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 13:36:30 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Human Rights Watch: Turkish Minority Rights Violated in Greece
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Greek Helsinki Monitor <[email protected]>
Human Rights Watch Report on Turkish Minority Rights
Violations in Greece
Turkish Minority Rights Violated in Greece
A copy of the Human Rights Watch Report is available on our website
at:
<http://www.hrw.org/reports99/greece> or by calling +12122161845.
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Turkish Minority Rights Violated in Greece
(JANUARY 8, 1999) Ethnic Turks in Greece face continued serious
discrimination in the enjoyment of language, religious, and
educational rights, according to a report released today by Human
Rights Watch. The report, which updates 1990 and 1992 studies, notes
significant progress in recent years but calls for continued
improvements in the rights enjoyed by approximately 100,000 ethnic
Turks in Greece.
Greece has enacted a number of discriminatory measures to force ethnic
Turks to migrate to Turkey or to disrupt community life and weaken its
cultural basis. The most egregious example was Article 19 of the
Citizenship Law, which, until it was abolished in 1998, allowed the
state to strip approximately 60,000 nonethnic Greeks of their
citizenship between 1955 and 1998. Human Rights Watch welcomed
abolition of the law last year, but noted that it did not apply
retroactively, so tens of thousands of ethnic Turks remain wrongfully
deprived of their Greek citizenship.
A 1990 law granted the state wideranging powers in appointing the
mufti, the Turkish community's religious leader who also serves as an
Islamic judge in civil matters. In defiance of the law, the Turkish
community has continued to elect its religious leaders, who have been
prosecuted and imprisoned by Greek authorities. In addition, the
repair of mosques is sometimes blocked by state authorities, and those
involved in the repair are prosecuted.
Human rights violations in the education field affect the largest
number of individuals and have done the most to foster economic
underdevelopment among the Turkish minority. Turkish children attend
schools that are overcrowded and poorly funded compared to those
attended by ethnic Greeks. And the two Turkish language high schools
in Western Thracecan provide only a fraction of the needed places,
resulting in a disproportionate drop out rate.
In addition, Human Rights Watch has received credible complaints from
members of the ethnic Turkish minority, alleging police surveillance,
discrimination in public employment, and restrictions on freedom of
expression. Representatives of Human Rights Watch and the Greek
Helsinki Monitor were trailed by police operatives in Thrace while
conducting research for the report.
For further information, contact:
Holly Cartner in New York, 12122161277
Lotte Leicht in Brussels, 3227322009
_______________________________________
Greek Helsinki Monitor & Minority Rights Group - Greece
P.O. Box 51393
GR-14510 Kifisia
Greece
Tel. +30-1-620.01.20
Fax +30-1-807.57.67
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.greekhelsinki.gr
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