Caught between states:

"Editor Abdulhalim Dede is fighting for the rights of the Muslim minority in Thrace against both Greece and Turkey despite the consequences for his family and his work."

Iben de Neergaard, Euroviews September 1996.

Last year, 15-year-old Tugge Dede started secondary school. Like most other teenagers belonging to the Turkish minority in Thrace, she did not choose a school in Greece. She moved to Istanbul to study there. This year she stopped and returned home. Not because she was homesick or could not keep up with her classmates, but because her visa expired and could not be prolonged. She was no longer welcome in Turkey. "It is the policy of Turkey", her father Abdulhalim Dede explains. "If you support their policy, your child can study there. Otherwise not."He himself has been "blacklisted", meaning he is unable to visit Turkey, since 1988.

Impartial and unpopular

Mr Dede is editor of the newspaper Trakyan'nin Sesi (The voice of Thrace) and the radio station Isik FM (Light FM). Both cover minority issues and are situated in a small house in the Turkish neighbourhood of the city of Komotini. In addition to the editor's office, the editorial space is restricted to a room with one single computer and one radio studio. Mr Dede also used to work as a correspondent for several Turkish newspapers, but this stopped when he got blacklisted. Mr Dede is punished because he, and the media he controls, does not choose sides. In his opinion, both Greece and Turkey have made major mistakes in their policy toward the minority he belongs to. He is therefore unpopular with both sides today. They think he writes and talks too much about problems that they would rather he kept quiet.

Visitors not citizens

"The problem with Greece is that it has never decided what to do with the minority," Mr Dede says. "Instead of accepting us as Greek citizens, they have treated us as visitors." To him, the main problems have been "the racial and ethnic policy of the Greeks," shown through Article 19, and the "insufficient education of the minority." This discrimination has "pushed the minority to be more homogeneous and thereby more Turkish."

During the 1980s the minority became aware that international pressure could help."Then the government realised that they could not push the minority out. So they decided to integrate us," he says, and explains that this policy went wrong because it did not fit in with the Turkish policy.

Minority Mafia

"The main Turkish interest is to keep the minority where it is. To put pressure on Greece. If the minority integrates or divides, Turkey can no longer use us. Therefore Turkey has no interest in solving the problems." While he talks, Mr Dede gesticulates and often raises his voice in anger or irritation. He has talked about this before, and knows that his opponents among the minority will do everything to stop him. One way has been to threaten the readers of his newspaper in order to close it down. Before the threats, the circulation of Trakyan'nin Sesi was about 3,000 after a few months it fell to about 700. He says: "The so-called minority leaders are all appointed and paid by Turkey. They are the mafia of the minority, who tell people who to vote for and what to think. Turkey uses them to provoke. And the minority just acts like an animal in this case. The people of the minority do not think for themselves."

Dialogue needed

Even though Mr Dede regards himself an ethnic Turk, he believes the new policy of integrating the minority in the Greek society is good if it is done right. He mentions the educational policy as one example. Six months ago, more qualified Christian teachers started to arrive to teach the children in the Muslim schools better Greek. But these changes are not without risks. "If they do not also strenghten the education in Turkish language and culture, it will not help." In this and other initiatives the big problem, according to Mr Dede, is the complete lack of communication. "Greece must begin a dialogue with the minority, instead of just changing things without asking. Otherwise it's too easy for Turkey to play on the fact that the minority, after years of discrimination, does not trust the Greek government."

Between states

According to Mr Dede, two things have to happen before the problems can be solved. "The Greek government has to have good intentions and start a dialogue with the minority. And the Turkish side has to stop its provocation." But he does not believe that the two countries can or will find a real solution to the minority problem. Not without interference from outside. "For more than 70 years the two governments have used the people from the minority to support their own policies. They have never asked the minority people what they wanted or really tried to make the problems disappear. Just patched up the problems between states."