Batı Trakya Türk Azınlığının önde gelen Sivil Toplum Örgütleri, ABD Dışişleri Bakanlığı tarafından yayımlanan İnsan Hakları Raporuna, Gölge Rapor niteliğinde bir mektup gönderdi. BAKEŞ Genel Müdürü Pervin Hayrullah tarafından basına gönderilen yazıda, şu ifadelere yer veriliyor:
BASIN AÇIKLAMASI
Batı Trakya Türk Azınlığının önde gelen Sivil Toplum Örgütleri ABD Dışişleri Bakanlığı tarafından yayımlanan İnsan Hakları Raporuna, Gölge Rapor niteliğinde bir mektup göndermiştir.
Türk Azınlığın Sivil Toplum Örgütlerinin Başkanları, ABD Dışişleri Bakanlığı tarafından yayımlanan İnsan Hakları Raporunu incelemiş ve özellikle Batı Trakya Türk Azınlığı ile ilgili bölümleri ayrıntılı bir şekilde değerlendirmiştir. Raporda eksik görülen veya hiç yer almamış konuları ve Azınlığımızın görüşlerini bir mektupla ABD Atina Büyükelçiliğine ve Selanik Başkonsolosluğuna iletmişlerdir. Mektup, ABD misyonları yanı sıra ülkemizdeki diğer diplomatik misyonlara, uluslararası kuruluşlara ve Birleşmiş Milletler’in Cenevre’de bulunan Daimi Temsilciliklerine de iletilmiştir.
Sivil Toplum Örgütlerimizin göndermiş olduğu Mektup örneğini kamuoyuyla saygıyla paylaşırız.
Not: Mektup kısaca aşağıdaki hususları içermektedir:
1-Batı Trakya Türk Azınlığının Nüfusu
2-Müftülük Sorunu
3-Vakıflar Sorunu
4-İki Dilli (Türkçe-Yunanca) Anaokulu Meselesi
5-Dernekleşme Özgürlüğünün Kısıtlanması
6-240 İmam Yasası Sorunu ve Büyük Derbent Köyündeki Cunta Benzeri Uygulama
7-Kutsal İbadethanelerimize Yapılan Saldırılar ve Rodos’ta Kutsal Kitabımız Kur’anı Kerim’e Yapılan Hakaret
8-22-23 Kasım 2013 Tarihinde ELİAMEP Ve PEM Yetkilileri Tarafından Gümülcine’de Düzenlenen “90 Yıl Sonra Lozan Antlaşması ve Azınlık Düzenlemeleri” Konulu Konferansta Milli Eğitim ve Din İşleri Bakanlığı, Din İşleri Genel Sekreteri Georgios Kalantzis’in Gazeteci Evren Dede’nin, Resmi Tercüman ve Tercüme İmkanlarının Bulunmasına Rağmen, Türkçe Konuşmasını Engellemesi Konusu
9-Rodos ve İstanköy’de Türk Azınlığın Varlığı Konusu
Pervin Hayrullah
BAKEŞ Genel Müdürü
JOINT LETTER BY LEADING NGO’s OF THE TURKISH MINORITY OF WESTERN THRACE
H.E. David D. Pearce
U .S. Ambassador to the Hellenic Republic
U.S. Embassy in Athens
91 Vas Sophias 101 60 Athens
Komotini, 23 April 2014
Your Excellency,
As the representatives of the leading associations of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace, we would like to extend to Your Excellency our heartfelt appreciation on behalf of the Turkish Minority for the ongoing close interest of the U.S. authorities regarding the human rights violations in our country, Greece.
We have read and examined the U.S. State Department’s recently disseminated “Greece 2013 Human Rights Report”. With your indulgence we take the liberty to express that we were disappointed to see yet again that the report, and particularly its references to the problems in Western Thrace, is more or less a “copy-paste” version of the previous one.
We had shared our detailed views regarding the “Greece 2012 Human Rights Report” with your predecessor, H.E. Daniel Bennett Smith, through our letter dated 7 June 2013. We had also shared our views with Your Excellency on the “Greece 2012 International Religious Freedom Report” through our letter dated 20 December 2013. Furthermore, we got together with U.S. diplomats on various occasions in Komotini, Xanthi and in Thessaloniki in the last couple of months which presented us with the opportunity to inform your staff regarding the realities on the ground here in Western Thrace.
Your Excellency,
The recent report unfortunately fails to reflect the real situation concerning the problems faced by the Turkish Minority in the fields of human and minority rights. It completely ignores the existence of the 6.000 strong Turkish Minority living in the islands of Rhodes and Kos. The problems of our fellow Minority members residing in Thessaloniki were also left out of the scope of the Report.
Reading the report and comparing with the previous one, we were surprised to learn that our population dropped from 150.000 to 120.000 in the relatively short span of a year. This is simply incorrect. That figure reflects the viewpoint of some circles who would like picture us fewer.
Another source of discontent was the negligence of the ban on the use of the Turkish language during the conference titled “The Treaty of Lausanne: 90 Years Later-Framing Minority Issues” which was organized by the “Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy” (ELIAMEP) and the “Programme for the Education of Muslim Minority Children in Thrace” in Komotini on 22-23 November 2013, with the participation of official figures. The Turkish Minority journalists had already informed you on that matter through the letter dated 31 January 2014.
Your Excellency,
The fact of the matter is that the problems of the Turkish Minority remain unsolved. We unfortunately fail to see any sign that would give us hope that things might change for the better. The dialogue which the Government had started with our deputies in the Hellenic Parliament for the solution of the Mufti problem is still kept in the freezer.
Our authorities still turn deaf ears to our demands for the opening of Greek-Turkish dual language Minority kindergartens. The need for the upgrading of the existing two and the opening of a third Minority secondary-high schools is completely ignored. In fact, with deliberate tactics our Government spares no effort to push the Minority education towards the edge of a slow but certain demise.
We have been unable to use the right to elect the members of boards that are responsible for administering the “Waqf” properties since the Junta regime. The track records of these appointed board members whose credentials are highly questionable are very poor and this inevitably amounts to a plundering of these properties. Our authorities keep on disregarding the Waqfs’ financial immunity and impose excessive taxes and legal sanctions on their properties. Although Article 7 of the Law No 3554/2007 erased the existing debts of Waqfs’, the fines and income taxes imposed on them remain intact. As a result, the total current debt of Administrative Board of Komotini Waqfs has reached an unsustainable level.
The situation of the Waqfs in the islands of Rhodes and Kos is no different. In those islands many Waqf properties have been turned into storage spaces, shops, cafes and playgrounds. Others have become dilapidated. The taxes and the fines imposed especially on the Private Ahmet Fethi Pahsa Waqf is beyond reason. Speaking of oppressions through financial methods, we also feel obliged to share with Your Excellency that we hear that many members of our fellow kinsmen in Rhodes who somehow express their ethnic identity as Turkish have been subjected to deliberate financial audits which actually aim at intimidating them.
Our courts continue to ignore the relevant verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the shut-down associations bearing the word “Turkish” in their titles.
The plight of tens of thousands of Minority members, who were deprived of their Greek citizenship due to the vigorous and vicious application of the now abolished Article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Code which had a “racist mentality”, still goes on. We would like to present you a copy of a documentary on this subject by Al Jazeera TV, named “Stateless”. Minority member journalists and their institutions still continue to be under constant pressure on all sorts of arbitrary and trivial grounds.
Your Excellency,
Taking this opportunity, we would like to bring to your kind attention a new negative development in the field of religious freedoms. We had informed you about the reaction of the Turkish Minority to the implementation of Law No 4115/2013 which foresaw the appointment of so-called religious teachers to state schools and mosques. Since then, the implementation of this Law did not bode well. To give a concrete example, Authorities have appointed a “religious teacher” to the village mosque in Mega Derio (Evros prefecture). On March 14, 2014, many police officers, some uniformed and some in disguise, deployed themselves in the coffee house of the village just half an hour before the Friday prayers. Under their “protecting eyes” that “religious teacher” walked into the mosque with the apparent intention to lead the service knowing full-well that this would cause a reaction by the community. The established Imam cut his sermon short and initiated the service in order to avoid any unnecessary tension. We later learned that those police officers asked many people coming out of the mosque if that “religious teacher” could perform any “religious duty” inside the mosque. This development has unfortunately reminded us of the Junta regime which ruled Greece in 1967-74. We believe that in modern western democracies the police have no such mission. These interventions do not bode-well for social cohesion and religious freedom.
Though not within the time period covered by the State Department’s Report, we witnessed a provocative assault on a mosque in Alexandroupolis. On 13 April 2014 a decapitated pig’s head was thrown and blood sprayed all-over the entrance of a Mosque in the Avantos neighborhood of Evros. We pity the perpetrators whose mental faculties are obviously hijacked by extreme backwardness that does not belong to our modern times, but we are also concerned by the negative feelings this act has caused in the religious community.
Speaking of religious hatred and intolerance, we also would like to bring to Your Excellency’s attention that in the morning of February 23, 2014, torn pages of our holy Quran were found at the entrance of the “Gani Ahmet” Muslim Turkish Cemetery in Rhodes along with leaflets having nationalist slogans.
We sincerely hope that these above-mentioned incidents will take their rightful places in the upcoming U.S. reports.
Your Excellency,
To give you a first-hand insight on issues our invitation which we extended to Your Excellency through our letter dated 20 December 2013 is an open one. It would be a great honour for us to host you here in Western Thrace. We could also pay a visit to your office to express ourselves at your convenience.
Please accept the assurances of our highest consideration.
C.C. Mr. Robert P. Sanders
U.S. Consul General in Thessaloniki
