Muslim minority of Greece
Encyclopedia
Minority group
A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...
in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. It numbers 97,604 people or 0.91% of the total population, according to the 1991 census , and 140,000 people or 1.24% of the total population, according to the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
.
The Muslim minority consists of a few ethnicities, the majority of them being Turkish.
For historical reasons, the Turkish minority resides in the Greek region
Regions of Greece
The traditional geographic divisions of Greece were also the official administrative subdivisions of Greece until the 1987 administrative reform )...
of Thrace
Western Thrace
Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
where they make up 28.88% of the population. They form the majority in the Rhodope Prefecture
Rhodope Prefecture
Rhodope is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of East Macedonia and Thrace. Its name is derived from the Rhodope Mountains, which cover the northern part of its territory. Together with the regional units Evros and Xanthi, it forms the geographical region of Western...
(51.77%) and sizable percentages in the Xanthi
Xanthi Prefecture
Xanthi is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the Region of East Macedonia and Thrace. The capital is Xanthi. Together with the regional units Rhodope and Evros, it forms the geographical region of Western Thrace.-Geography:...
(41.19%) and Evros Prefecture
Evros Prefecture
Evros is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of East Macedonia and Thrace. Its name is derived from the river Evros, which appears to have been a Thracian hydronym. Evros is the northernmost regional unit. It borders Turkey to the east, across the river Evros, and it...
s (4.65%).
Nearly 3,000 Turks remain on the island of Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
and 2,000 on the island of Kos
Kos
Kos or Cos is a Greek island in the south Sporades group of the Dodecanese, next to the Gulf of Gökova/Cos. It measures by , and is from the coast of Bodrum, Turkey and the ancient region of Caria. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Kos peripheral unit, which is...
, as the island was part of the Italian Dodecanese when the population exchange between Turkey and Greece happened (and so was not affected by it).
Background
Under the Treaty of LausanneTreaty of Lausanne
The Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland on 24 July 1923, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty of Lausanne was ratified by the Greek government on 11 February 1924, by the Turkish government on 31...
, 1923, Greece and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
conducted a population exchange
Population exchange between Greece and Turkey
The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey was based upon religious identity, and involved the Greek Orthodox citizens of Turkey and the Muslim citizens of Greece...
: all the Greek Orthodox Christians of Turkey would be resettled in Greece apart from the Greeks of Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
(Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
), Imbros
Imbros
Imbros or Imroz, officially referred to as Gökçeada since July 29, 1970 , is an island in the Aegean Sea and the largest island of Turkey, part of Çanakkale Province. It is located at the entrance of Saros Bay and is also the westernmost point of Turkey...
(Gökçeada) and Tenedos
Tenedos
Tenedos or Bozcaada or Bozdja-Ada is a small island in the Aegean Sea, part of the Bozcaada district of Çanakkale province in Turkey. , Tenedos has a population of about 2,354. The main industries are tourism, wine production and fishing...
(Bozcaada), and all Turks of Greece would be resettled in Turkey apart from the Muslims of Greek Thrace.
Megleno-Romanians
The Megleno-Romanians or Meglen Vlachs or Moglenite Vlachs, are a small Eastern Romance people, currently inhabiting seven villages in the Moglena region spanning the Pella and Kilkis prefectures of Central Macedonia, Greece, and one village, Huma, across the border in the Republic of...
and even Greek speakers (see Greek Muslims
Greek Muslims
Greek Muslims, also known as Greek-speaking Muslims, are Muslims of Greek ethnic origin, nowadays found mainly in Turkey, although migrations to Lebanon and Syria have been reported. Historically, Greek Orthodoxy has been associated with being Romios, i.e...
). This was in correspondence with the millet
Millet
The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult...
system of the Ottoman Empire, where religious and national allegiance coincided, and thus Greece and Turkey were considered the parent state of each group respectively.
In 1922, the Muslim minority left in Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
numbered approximately 86,000 people, and consisted of three ethnic groups: Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
, Pomaks
Pomaks
Pomaks is a term used for a Slavic Muslim population native to some parts of Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. The Pomaks speak Bulgarian as their native language, also referred to in Greece and Turkey as Pomak language, and some are fluent in Turkish,...
(Muslim Slavs who speak Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
) and Muslim Roma
Muslim Roma
Muslim Roma or Muslim Gypsies are Romani people who adopted Islam. Romanies have usually adopted the predominant religion of the host country. Islam among Romanies is historically associated with life of Romanies within the Ottoman Empire...
, each of these groups having its own language and culture. The Greek side claims that all these ethnicities espouse similar national identity, and for this reason, the Treaty defines them as one Muslim minority, rather than three minorities: a Turkish, a Pomak and a Muslim Roma minority. According to the Greek government, ethnic Turks form approximately 50% of the minority, Pomaks 35% and Muslim Roma 15%.
The minority enjoys full equality with the Greek majority, and prohibition against discrimination and freedom of religion
Freedom of religion
Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any...
are provided for in Article 5 and Article 13 of the Greek constitution. In Thrace today there are 3 mufti
Mufti
A mufti is a Sunni Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law . In religious administrative terms, a mufti is roughly equivalent to a deacon to a Sunni population...
s, approximately 270 imam
Imam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
s and approximately 300 mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
s.
Politics
The minority is always represented in the Greek parliament, and is currently represented by PASOKPanhellenic Socialist Movement
The Panhellenic Socialist Movement , known mostly by its acronym PASOK , is one of the two major political parties in Greece. Founded on 3 September 1974 by Andreas Papandreou, in 1981 PASOK became Greece's first social democratic party to win a majority in parliament.The party is a socialist party...
members Çetin Mandacı and Ahmet Hacıosman. During the 2002 local elections, approximately 250 Muslim municipal and prefectural councillors and mayors were elected, and the Vice-Prefect of Rhodope is also a Muslim. The main minority rights activist organization of the Turkish community within the minority is the "Turkish Minority Movement for Human and Minority Rights" (Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: Τούρκικη Μειονοτική Κίνηση για τα Ανθρώπινα και Μειονοτικά Δικαιώματα, Toúrkiki Meionotikí Kínisi yia ta Avthrópina kai Meionotiká Dikaiómata).
Education
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
languages, and there are also two minority secondary schools, one in Xanthi and one in Komotini, where most of the minority is concentrated. In the remote mountainous areas of Xanthi where the Pomak element is dominant, the Greek government has set up Greek language secondary education schools in which religious studies is taught in Turkish and the Koran is taught in Arabic. The Pomak language (which is essentially considered a dialect of Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
), however, is not taught at any level of the education system. The government finances the transportation to and from the schools for students who live in remote areas, and in the academic year 1997-98, approximately 195,000 USD was spent on transportation.
There are two Islamic theological seminaries, one in Komotini
Komotini
Komotini is a city in Thrace, northeastern Greece. It is the capital of the region of East Macedonia and Thrace and of the Rhodope regional unit. It is also the administrative center of the Rhodope-Evros super-prefecture. The city is home to the Democritus University of Thrace, founded in 1973...
, and one in Echinos
Echinos
Echinos is a settlement in the municipality Myki in the Xanthi peripheral unit of Greece . It is 761 kilometers northeast of Athens, 254 kilometers northeast of Thessalonica, and 27 kilometers north northeast of Xanthi. In 1981, the population of Echinos was around 3123 inhabitants...
(a small town in Xanthi Prefecture inhabited almost exclusively by Pomaks), and under Law 2621/1998, the qualification awarded by these institutions has been recognized as equal to that of the Greek Orthodox seminaries in the country.
Finally, 0.5% of places in Greek higher education institutions are reserved for members of the minority.
All the aforementioned institutions are funded by the state.
Grievances
The main minority grievance regards the appointment of muftiMufti
A mufti is a Sunni Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law . In religious administrative terms, a mufti is roughly equivalent to a deacon to a Sunni population...
s. The Greek government started appointing muftis instead of holding elections after the death of Mufti of Komotini in 1985 (which is a failure to implement Law 2345/1920 according to Cultural Survival
Cultural Survival
Cultural Survival is a nonprofit group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA which is dedicated to defending the human rights of indigenous peoples. Their stated mandate is to promote the rights, voices and visions, of indigenous people. For 37 years, Cultural Survival has partnered with...
), although the Greek government maintained that as the practice of state-appointed muftis is widespread (including in Turkey), this practice should be adhered to in Greece, and as the muftis perform certain judicial functions in matters of family and inheritance law, the state ought to appoint them. Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
alleges that this is against Lausanne Treaty which grants the Muslim minority the right to organize and conduct religious affairs free from government interference (although it is unclear whether issues such as inheritance law are religious matters). As such, there are two muftis for each post, one elected by the participating faithful, and one appointed by Presidential Decree. The elected Mufti of Xanthi is Mr Aga and the government recognized one is Mr Sinikoğlu; the elected Mufti of Komotini is Mr Şerif and the government recognized one is Mr Cemali. According to the Greek government, the elections by which Mr Aga and Mr Şerif were appointed were rigged and involved very little participation from the minority. As pretension of (religious) authority is a criminal offence against the lawful muftis under the Greek Penal Code, both elected muftis were prosecuted and on conviction, both were imprisoned and fined. When, however, the case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
, the Greek government was found to have violated the right to religious freedom of Mr Aga and Mr Şerif.
Another controversial issue was Article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Code, which 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 being of Turkish origin) from Thrace and the Dodecanese islands lost their citizenships from 1955 to 1998, until the law was non-retroactively abolished in 1998..
The final grievance is the Greek government's restrictions on the usage of the terms "Turk" and "Turkish" when describing the minority as a whole. A number of organizations, including the "Turkish Union of Xanthi
Turkish Union of Xanthi
The Turkish Union of Xanthi is one of the three most important organizations of the Turkish minority of Western Thrace. Founded in 1927, the organization was outlawed by Greek authorities in 1987 and 1999...
", have been banned for using those terms in their title. In 2008 after a decision of the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
ruled the re-legalization of the association and convicted Greece of violating the freedom of association
Freedom of association
Freedom of association is the individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests....
, however, the Greek authorities refused to re-legalize it.
See also
- Minorities in GreeceMinorities in GreeceIndigenous minorities in Greece are small in size compared to regional standards. The country is largely ethnically homogeneous. This is mainly due to the population exchanges between Greece and neighboring Turkey and Bulgaria , which removed most Muslims and those Christian Slavs who did not...
- Demographics of GreeceDemographics of GreeceThis article is about the demographic features of the population of Greece, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....
- Turks of Western ThraceTurks of Western ThraceTurks of Western Thrace are ethnic Turks who live in Western Thrace, in the north-eastern part of Greece.According to the Greek census of 1991, there were approximately 50,000 Turks in Western Thrace, out of the approximately 98,000 strong Muslim minority of Greece...
- Turks of the DodecaneseTurks of the DodecaneseThe Turks of the Dodecanese form a 5,000-strong community of ethnic Turks inhabiting the Dodecanese islands of Rhodes and Kos who were not affected by the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey since the islands were under the rule of the Kingdom of Italy at the time and who became...
- Provisional Government of Western Thrace
- PomaksPomaksPomaks is a term used for a Slavic Muslim population native to some parts of Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. The Pomaks speak Bulgarian as their native language, also referred to in Greece and Turkey as Pomak language, and some are fluent in Turkish,...
- Treaty of LausanneTreaty of LausanneThe Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland on 24 July 1923, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty of Lausanne was ratified by the Greek government on 11 February 1924, by the Turkish government on 31...
- 1990 Komotini events
External links
Mufti of Komotini Official site (English translation) Mufti of Xanthi Official site- Ramadanoglou case Greece Helsinki Monitor