By Hugh Poulton, "The Balkans, Minorities and Governments in Conflict" (1993), Minority Rights Publication

Assessing the number of Turks and other minorities in Greece is  problematic. The census of 1928 recorded 191,254 Turks while the 1951 census recorded 179,895 Turks of whom virtually all were either Muslim by religion, 92,219, or Orthodox, 86,838. While some live on the Greek islands neighbouring Turkey, most live in Western Thrace. The Pomaks, Muslim Slavs, or a small number of Muslim Greeks, tend to live also in Western Thrace in villages in the southern Rhodope and due to the official reticence to give figures for ethnic minorities, only for religious ones, it is hard to separate them from the Turks; however, the villages near the Bulgarian border in all three provinces of Western Thrace are predominantly Pomak with the exception of some like  Mikron Dereion which have a mixed population of ethnic Turks, Pomaks and  Greek Orthodox, or others which have a sedentary Muslim Gypsy population. Many Pomaks also live in Komotini and Xantini and some also live in Dhidhimotikhon.

Official Greek sources tend to claim that the Turks are Pomaks or Muslim  Greeks while, conversely the Turks claim the Pomaks as Turks. Estimates from the Information Office at the Greek Embassy in London based on the 1981 census figures give a total of 110,000 people belonging to religious minorities of whom some 60,000 are Turkish-speaking Muslims; 30,000 Pomaks; and 20,000 Athingani (descendants of Christian heretics expelled from Asia Minor during Byzantine rule) or Roma Gypsies. However, Turkish Muslim sources from Western Thrace claim a total of 100,000 to 120,000 Turkish-speaking Muslims in Western Thrace and most observers estimate between 100,000 and 120,000 Muslims out of a total population for Western Thrace of some 360,000 recorded in the census of 1971. Of the other minorities there are small populations of Gagauz, Christian Turkish-speaking people, for example around the city of Alexandroupolis, and Sarakatsani, Greek speaking transhumants, especially in the village of Palladion. Fieldwork by F. De Jong in 1979, to whom much of the above is indebted, notes that there are no longer any Circassians in Western Thrace.

Turkey is Greece's traditional enemy, despite being a NATO pact partner, and, similarly to Bulgaria, Greece fears Turkish expansion, especially after the example of Cyprus and huge billboards featuring a bleeding partitioned Cyprus with appropriate captions, were openly displayed in Thrace in 1987. Much of Western Thrace is restricted area due to reasons of national security. These areas are the border areas with Bulgaria where many Turks and Pomaks live and in these militarized areas large portions of land has been expropriated from Pomaks and Turks. The inhabitants of these areas are severely restricted in their freedom of movement to 30kms radius of their residence. Decree 1366/1938 which forbids foreign nationals to buy land near border areas is still operational and it is claimed that this decree is used against ethnic Turks and Pomaks even though they are Greek citizens.

In the exchange of populations following the Greco-Turkish war of 1920-22 some 60,000 Greek refugees from Asia Minor were allowed, in contravention of the Treaty of Lausanne, to settle in Western Thrace, and under steady administrative and economic pressure from the Greek authorities a gradual migration of Muslims to Turkey ensued. This is particularly noticeable in the previously Muslim province of Ebros where the population now is Greek Orthodox. World War II and the civil war saw a rise in the number of such emigres and some 20,000 left for Turkey in the period 1939-51 with emigration continuing to present day.

The deterioration of relations with Turkey over the developing situation in Cyprus saw a corresponding deterioration of the situation of the Turkish minority in Western Thrace with increased pressure to induce emigration. At the same time the Turkish government began to raise the issue of the issue of the minority as a counterpoise to Greek claims for uniting Cyprus with Greece. (Successive Greek governments have tended to see any complaints from Turks in Western Thrace as being orchestrated by Turkey and have also pointed to the unhappy situation of the 100,000 or so Greeks allowed, under the Treaty of Lausanne, to remain in Istanbul. These Greeks have suffered severe harassment and their numbers have declined drastically, as a result, to under 10,000 by 1974, and their position seems serious in extreme).

Under the military dictatorship of 1967-74 the situation worsened. Members of the Turkish minority community boards, elected under provision of Decree 2345/1920, were dismissed and replaced by non- elected people, appointed by government agencies, prepared to act contrary to the interests of the Muslim community. Examples are the appointment, without any qualifications, of a Gypsy Muslim, Ahmet Damatoglu, previously and imam, as Mufti of Dhidhimotikon (Dimotoka) in 1973, and a non-Muslim as chairman of the council for the administration of religious organizations in Xanthi in 1967. In this period Greeks, including many Sarakatsani - a Greek-speaking transhumant people akin to the Vlahs - were given financial inducement to move into Western Thrace to dilute the Muslim Turkish speaking population.

Despite the return of democracy in 1974 the trend continued aided by Greek reaction to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. There has been no return to the former democratic practices as stipulated in Decree 2345/1920 and when the Mufti of Komotini died on 2 July 1985 he was replaced by a government appointee. When the new Mufti resigned almost immediately due to community protests he was replaced six months later by another appointee without consultation. From 1977 all the place names in Komotini were changed from Turkish forms to Greek forms and henceforth it was forbidden to use the old names for official purposes, apparently on pain of fine or even imprisonment. Mention of the Turkish name in parenthesis after the Greek name is also forbidden.

Over a long period there have been growing complaints by Muslims, Turks and Pomaks, that: they, unlike Greek Orthodox Christians, cannot buy real estate, except for a few select people who cooperate with the authorities, neither can they negotiate loans or credits; threat building construction for Turkish houses has been withheld for many years resulting in the Turks being forced to live in backward conditions (easily observable by a casual visitor), neither is permission to build or restore mosques forthcoming; Muslims have been particularly affected by expropriation of land for public use without adequate compensation, and the re-allocation of land in Western Thrace which began in 1967 has resulted in their receiving inferior land in exchange; Muslims are virtually excluded from the state bureaucracy and hindered in business matters by difficulties in obtaining business and driving licenses and even subject to punitive levies; despite constitutional guarantees, Turks who leave Greece, even for a temporary period, have been denied re-entry under Article 19 of  the Greek Nationality Law which states:

"A person who is of foreign origin leaving Greek territories without  the intention of returning may be deprived of Greek citizenship", and obtaining normal five-year passports is difficult for many Turks. This last point is illustrated by a number of cases like the one reported in the Athens newspaper Rizospastis on 19 May 1986 that "two Muslim origin Greek citizens from a village near Komotini were refused re-entry and deported after having visited their son who was studying in Istanbul. Additionally it is alleged that the authorities are attempting to disperse the minority by moving unemployed Turks and Pomaks to other areas, where once registered they are unable to return to Western Thrace, and  are pressured under pain of dismissal to change their names to Greek ones.
 

Education

In the vital field of education the Greek authorities have steadily increased teaching in Greek at the expense of Turkish. From the 1960s onwards religious teachers from the Arab world have progressively been reduced while the employment of teachers from Turkey to Turkish schools in Western Thrace has been stopped. Since 1968 only graduates from a special academy in Thessaloniki [Selanik] can be qualified to teach in Turkish schools. This academy takes much of its intake from Greek secondary schools and, its critics claim, relies on an outdated religious curriculum deliberately to create an incompetent Hellenized education system in Western Thrace isolated from the mainstream of modern Turkish culture. The situation has deteriorated with the authorities introducing an entrance exam for the two Turkish secondary minority schools in Komotini and Xanthi - there are some 300 Turkish primary schools - and a directorate from the government in March 1984 stipulating that graduate examinations from Turkish secondary and high schools have to be in Greek [!]. The implementation of this law in 1985 with, in some cases, merely a few months' notice was extremely hard on the unfortunate students. The result of these measures has been a dramatic decline in secondary school students in Turkish schools from 227 in Xanthi and 305 in Komotini in 1983-4, to 85 and 42, respectively, in 1986-7. Greek history books portray Turks in crude stereotypes and while Turkish pupils are allowed some books from Turkey, there have been inexplicable delays resulting in long outdated textbooks having to be used.

The authorities have also prohibited the use of the adjective "Turkish" in titles denoting associations etc. and the Turkish Teachers Association in Western Thrace was closed by order of Komotini court on 20 March 1986, a decision upheld by the Athens High Court on 28 July 1987.
 
 

Protest

In August 1986, Dr. Sadik Ahmet, a doctor of philosophy from Western Thrace, was arrested along with a collaborator and held for a few days. They were later tried in Thessaloniki [Selanik] and Sadik Ahmet was sentenced to two and a half years' while his co-defendant, Ibrahim Serif, a teacher of theology, received 15 months' imprisonment on charges of spreading false information and falsifying some five or six signatures after they had sent a petition containing around 13,000 signatures to the UN and the Council of Europe alleging a policy of assimilation and forced emigration by the Greek authorities and detailing many of the complaints already listed. Both were released pending appeal which was due to be held in December 1988 but was postponed, apparently due to pressure by human rights groups like Amnesty International.

On 18 June 1989 Sadik Ahmet stood for Parliament as an independent Turkish candidate and was elected with some 32% of the vote, illustrating the support for him among the Turkish population. Sadik Ahmet and Ibrahim Serif were tried again on January 1990 by Rodope Court of Petty Sessions and sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment and three years deprivation of civil rights. The charges related to an election communication they, along with Ismail Molla Rodoplu, distributed prior to the general elections in November 1989. Ahmet's candidacy in this election was disqualified on a technicality, but Rodoplu was elected and so immune from prosecution. In this manifesto they called on Turks to vote for them as independent Muslim candidates standing on a list they called 'Trust'. They stated that the main Greek political parties 'spread an atmosphere of terror in the towns and villages' in order to intimidate the minority and gain their votes. Ahmet and Serif were charged with Article 163 of the penal code ('spreading false information') due to this claim of 'Terror', and Article 192 (which penalizes those 'provoking or inciting citizens to acts of violence amongst themselves or to mutual discord and disrupting the public peace') for claiming the existence of a 'Turkish' minority in Greece. This latter charge was made because of the
violent clashes which had occurred. They were acquitted of the first charge but found guilty of the second.

On 29 January, further violent incidents occurred between ethnic Turks and Orthodox Greeks in Komotini in which 19 people were reportedly injured and Muslim property damaged. A Greek reportedly died following a fight with a Muslim in Komotini hospital. The verdicts against Ahmet and Serif was upheld on appeal on 30 March but their sentences were reduced to 15 months' and 10 months' imprisonment, respectively. They were both given the option of paying a fine instead of serving their sentences - Ahmet, 1000 drachmae per day of sentence, and Serif, 400 drachmae. This amounted to a total of 540,000 drachmae (about $4000). They both paid and were released.

On 8 April Dr. Ahmet was elected to parliament on the 'Trust' list and although he had been deprived of his civil rights for three years, a court in Komotini ruled he could stand in the elections. He still faces charges under Article 192 similar to those above relating to a declaration he made to the Turkish language newspaper Guven on 17 November 1989, and a leaflet of 22 November 1989 and in January there were reports that the Greek authorities were planning moves to remove his parliamentary immunity from prosecution.

Dr. Sadik Ahmet is now well established as the leader of the ethnic Turks in Western Thrace and the Greek authorities who persecute him have only served to reinforce his position. There have been reports that the Turkish government of Turgut Ozal viewed the pre-eminence of Ahmet and the worsening relations between ethnic Turks and Greeks in Western Thrace with some alarm and even contemplated a deal with Mitsotakis to remove Ahmet from the political scene.

The situation appears to be becoming more serious with increased polarization of the communities in Western Thrace and while some of the complaints, like the alleged policy of resettling unemployed Turks in other areas being a deliberate policy of assimilation, may be exaggerated, the facts add up to an apparent deliberate policy of discrimination with a long-term aim of assimilation akin to that carried out against the Macedonians by successive Greek governments. Against this escalating policy there appears to be growing discontent among the Turks in Western Thrace which might explode in the future.