During his two-day go to to a area of Greece with a big ethnic Turkish inhabitants, the premier ignored and tried to whitewash the longstanding issues of the Turkish minority there, stated a celebration based by the minority.
In his speech in Gumulcine, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis did not concretely tackle any of the issues of the Turkish minority in Greece’s Western Thrace area, the Friendship, Equality and Peace Party (DEB) stated in a press release on Saturday.
The DEB, a celebration fashionable with the Turkish minority group, stated Mitsotakis averted the information and as an alternative painted a false rosy image of the state of affairs of the Turkish minority.
It shouldn’t be acceptable for him to attempt to mislead each the minority and the world public, it added.
The Turkish Muslim minority of Western Thrace has no issues dwelling in concord beneath the Greek and European flags, the get together stated.
“The minority has problems with not being rewarded for the great patience they have shown, ignorance of all its problems, and not being addressed. We, like the prime minister, invite Europeans to closely see the persecution in our region,” it added.
HISTORY OF DISCRIMINATION, REPRESSION
Greece’s Western Thrace region-in the nation’s northeast, close to the Turkish border-is residence to a considerable, long-established Muslim Turkish minority numbering round 150,000.
The rights of the Turks of Western Thrace have been assured beneath the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, however since then the state of affairs has steadily deteriorated.
After a Greek junta got here to energy in 1967, the Turks of Western Thrace began to face harsher persecution and rights abuses by the Greek state, typically in blatant violation of European court docket rulings.
The Turkish minority in Greece continues to face issues exercising its collective and civil rights and schooling rights, together with Greek authorities banning the phrase “Turkish” within the names of associations, shuttering Turkish colleges, and making an attempt to dam the Turkish group from electing its muftis.
In addition to violating longstanding treaties, these insurance policies are additionally typically in blatant violation of European Court of Human Rights rulings.
