Discrimination of the Muslim Minority

To set the topic the opposing opinions will first be introduced.

In general, the Greek Orthodox participants thought the minority was not discriminated. Some of my interview participants even argued that if the minority claimed they were discriminated it was because they were pushed by bad intentions or a will to destabilise the peaceful environment of Komotini. Others, like Anastasia Tsibiridou, did recognise that there has sometimes been discrimination in a practical sense. Furthermore, some argued discrimination is non-existent today, however, the discriminations’ of the past has lead to an imbalance between the communities in regards to their opportunities and especially in regards to education.

On the contrary, most of the participants from the Muslim minority defended that they were still discriminated in Greece. Indeed, out of the 16 participants from the minority, 81,25% agreed that they have felt discriminated in Komotini. However, in the interviews, none of them stated that they felt directly discriminated in Komotini by Greek Orthodox and rather like Amet Omer, praised how generally people in Komotini were much more respectful than in the rest of Greece. Instead like Umit Halil Ibrah or Ibrahim Mustafa, they defended that the problems didn’t come from the people but from the local and national government’s policies in regards to the minority. Indeed, there are a few issues they brought up that will briefly be mentioned here. All these discriminations directly overlap to some other topics that will be mentioned later. Nonetheless, giving a summary of these can help to set the record straight when it comes to discrimination in Western Thrace.

To start with a few of the Muslim participants like Umit Halil Ibrah and Professor Ali Huseyinoglu specifically mentioned the discrimination of the community’s right to expression of self-identification and freedom of association. Or in the European Court of Human Rights’ words: ‘the right to express one’s views through freedom of association and the notion of personal autonomy underlie the right of everyone to express, in a lawful context, their beliefs about their ethnic identity’ (2011, 12).

In this case the European Court of Human Rights confirmed that the Greek State failed to recognise the minority’s freedom to associate under the title of identification that they wish. Indeed, the government has closed the ‘Xanthi Turkish Union’, ‘Turkish Youth Union’ in Komotini, the ‘Western Thrace Turkish Teachers’ Union’ amongst others, under pretext that these groups have the title ‘Turkish’ in their name. However, the European Court of Justice and the OSCE (Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe) have recognised that these are violations of the minority’s rights and call for the Greek state: ‘To respect and implement its duties emanating from the international instruments in which the freedom of association is safeguarded’, and ‘To recognize and implement the European Court of Human Rights decisions regarding the Xanthi Turkish Union and other minority associations.’ (Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association, 2012, 3).

Not only have the Greek State still failed to allow this basic right to the minority but also violates the European Union’s criteria’s on protection of minority rights. These discriminations are unfortunately still present today and reflect some of the issues faced by the minority in regards to association and self-determination.

The second issue mentioned by the Muslim minority has to do with the community’s religious rights and assignment of their own ‘Mufti’. The mufti’s (see definition in Glossary) status is strongly debated. Under the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, it is recognised that it is the right of the Muslim community to elect their own Mufti without the interference of the Greek State. However, the Greek State in 1990 took away this right from the Muslim community by imposing their chosen mufti on the community. Since then the European Court of Human Rights have also condemned the Greek State’s violation of the Lausanne Treaty terms on several occasions through different reports. (Western Thrace Minority University Graduates Association, 2012, 3). In the current situation according to the interviewees, there are two muftis in Komotini, the official one recognised by the Greek State and the unofficial one elected by the minority. This once again proves a discrimination of the minority’s right to elect their own religious leader.

However, in regards to this topic, although the European Court of Human Rights and the OSCE have recognised this violation it is important to mention the reasons behind the Greek State’s appointment of a representative regardless of the minority’s opinion. The Greek Orthodox participants also pointed out these concerns when questioned on the reasons for a possible divide between the communities. The Orthodox community fears that the mufti selected by the minority might influence their political position in Greece and fear the ‘very conservative’ approach the mufti might have especially in regards to the limitation of the freedom of women of the Muslim community. This will be looked into in more depth in the following sections on Religion and Politics.

Finally, the last discrimination that has been pointed by Stefanos Gravanis, Ibrahim Mustafa and by Professor Ali Huseyinoglu amongst both Christians and Muslims participants is education. Indeed, in the interviews the participants explained that the minority schools face a lot of problems such as the quality of the education and the access to reliable and up to date educative material. The minority schoolteachers wrote letters to the government officials regarding these issues but have received no response and given no alternative solution as to how to deal with this shortage according to Ibrahim Mustwho himself is a teacher. As a result, the students and their education suffers enormously from these problems and end up creating this gap of educational level between the normal Greek schools and the minority ones. This has been expressed in addition by larger entities such as the Human Rights' watch or once again the OSCE that has sent clear and urgent recommendations to the Greek State to improve the current educational system of the minorities. The effect of the bad education on the Muslim minority will be explored further in the part on education of the Minority.

For now, all of these three inequalities have been recognised internationally and on the European level as discriminations and violations of the minorities’ rights. Furthermore, here, the interviews and research showed the inability of the Greek State to resolve these problems even today. Thus, while the Greek Orthodox might debate that there is no inequality it is apparent that there are still some remaining inequalities on the policy level according to the European and International standards and the interview responses reflect this. To conclude, for the Muslim community there is progress to be made in regards to their right of association, religious rights, right to self-identification and education.