We learned that Bakoyannis had praised a recent statement made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who voiced a lucid self-critique of his country's mistreatment of its minorities.According to Bakoyannis this attitude was "courageous." She said respect for minorities and the protection of their rights was an important precondition for any country that would like to ‘join the family of Europe.' Greece, she continued, welcomed such statements that hint at a commitment to European values and norms.
Respect for cultural diversity and the rights of minorities is an important European tenet. Not only does it stand as a precondition for joining the European family of values, but as a requirement for remaining in that family with dignity. This requires constant care for that respect as a universal virtue, and demands the boldness to be self-critical.
Now, let us have a look at another recent report, from the Greek press, with the headline, “Athens to appeal EU Thrace ruling”:
“Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said … that Greece would appeal a decision by the European Court of Human Rights allowing two groups in a Muslim-populated region of northern Greece to define themselves as Turkish. ‘After careful consideration, Greece has decided to appeal the ruling,' Bakoyannis told a press conference without elaborating.
“The Strasbourg-based court ruled in March that Greece had violated European provisions on freedom of assembly and association by banning two groups calling themselves the ‘Xanthi Turkish Union' and the ‘Rodopi Cultural Association of Turkish Women.' In an earlier ruling, Greece's Supreme Court had banned the two associations, which it accused of seeking to promote ‘Turkish ideas.' Greece recognizes the existence of a Muslim minority in Thrace but says calling this minority Turkish is inaccurate and a potential threat to democratic stability.”
The issue of recognizing ethnic identities and group rights, as envisioned by the European Union, despite the “shyness” of the Greek press, is a huge headache in Greece. Therefore, it came as no surprise when the Court of First Instance in Xanthi (a town with a mixed population of Greeks and Turks in northern Greece) again refused to abide by the European Court ruling, and rejected the registration request of a union with the word ‘Turk' in its name.
The ruling of the European court was the a result of years-long legal battle. In fact, the union had kept the word “Turkish” until 1983. That year its activities were suspended. Its registration was finally revoked by the Greek authorities in 1986. The decision was based on the argument that there is not a Turkish minority in Greece, but a “Muslim” minority and that “an overall description of the minority as ‘Turkish' could result in propaganda.'” The organization objected to this decision and the issue was finally brought in front of the Greek Supreme Court, which validated the decision of the Greek authorities. In 2005 the case reached the European Court of Human Rights and Greece was ordered to register the union with its original name. The country immediately appealed against the European court's ruling and lost again last June.
The disappointment is high in the EU. The case was brought onto the agenda of the European Parliament, and a visit by Council of Europe officials to Western Thrace, where Greece's Turkish-speaking Muslim minority lives, is likely to direct harsh criticism at Athens.
Eurolang, a Brussels- based independent agency focused on minority issues in Europe, cited a source from Strasbourg as saying, “They [Greek officials] are trying to exhaust us and simply win time, but they don't realize that they have already lost.”
The “Xanthi Turkish Union” case is almost identical to the case of the “Home of Macedonian Culture,” an NGO founded back in 1990 but still not registered by the Greek courts despite the fact that the European court has already ruled twice against Greece.
Similar to the Turkish issue, Greece claims that an organization bearing the name “Macedonian” that tries to protect Macedonian culture and language within Greek territory cannot be registered as, according to Greece, ‘there is no Macedonian community' in the country, as reported by Eurolang.
There is more. The now-abolished Article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Code had allowed the government to revoke the citizenship of non-ethnic Greeks who left the country. According to official statistics, 46,638 Muslims (most of them Turkish) from Western Thrace and the Dodecanese Islands lost their citizenships from 1955 to 1998, when the law was non-retroactively abolished. Human rights sources say over 60,000 members of Greece's Turkish-speaking Muslim minority have been stripped of Greek citizenship. There is no sign of repatriation on the horizon for them. Bakoyannis is right. There are rules that should be respected in order to enter and remain part of the European family. So one would normally expect Bakoyannis, or the Greek prime minister, to also apologize for mistreating Greece's minorities.
I neither know nor care whether Erdoğan would applaud it, but I am sure this “courage” would be welcome by Greek citizens of Turkish and Macedonian origin and by those who were irrevocably left adrift out in the cold without citizenship. Bakoyannis knows, as any other Greek official, that minorities can call themselves by any ethnic name they wish. It should only be respected.
The deliberate neglect of this issue in the Greek media is another act of shame.
