Minority Rights Group Europe (MRGE), a nongovernmental organization (NGO) based in Hungary, called Greece to recognize the rights of Turkish minority in Western Thrace.

The denial of rights for the Turkish minority in Greece has been a contentious issue for decades. Neither right-wing nor left-wing governments changed the status quo when it comes to restoring their rights and improvement in relations with Turkey also failed to change it.

A report by MRGE published on Wednesday says barriers to rights of minority of about 140,000 people increased further in the recent decades. "To this day, however, Greece does not acknowledge the existence of the Turkish minority in Western Thrace, creating a wide array of human rights issues," a statement by MRGE accompanying the report says.

The report covers issues of recognition, religious autonomy, and education facing Greece’s Turkish minority. "It is estimated that almost half of the population of Western Thrace is ethnically Turkish – but to this day they are denied the right identify themselves as such" says Neil Clarke, the non-governmental organization’s Head of Legal Programs and Brussels Advocacy.

"The community is still officially recognized by Greek authorities as the Muslim minority in Western Thrace. While associations with Pomak and Roma names exist in the region, there is no association having the word "Turkish" in its title. This denial of the right to identity, cannot continue. The situation of the Turkish minority in Greece should be considered one of the most serious violations of the rights of minorities in the European Union," Clarke was quoted on MRGE’s website.

The statement says that the continued non-recognition of the Turkish minority’s collective ethnic identity has many implications, including restricted freedom of religion, lack of access to education in their own language and the rise of hate-motivated attacks by far-right groups against the community. The report outlines the historical and contemporary details of these implications, including Greece’s history of minority education regulation, and its obligations as a member of European Union. It goes on to present findings from first-hand field research, which included consultations and interviews conducted with members of the Turkish minority, religious leaders, representatives of minority schools, teachers’ association, civil society organizations, local experts and mayors.

"Our grandparents died for Greece!" Ozan Ahmetoglu, Chairman of the Xanthi Turkish Union, told MRGE while presenting a list of deceased persons on the wall of the association’s offices. "We wish to work with Greek citizens to improve the situation in all fields, but together, with respect and not up-down approach. It is time."

The report includes MRGE’s recommendations to the government of Greece, divided into three fields: minority protection and recognition issues, freedom of religion and minority education.

"Human rights are rather a floor, not a ceiling, and it is important to emphasize that once state protection has gone beyond the minimum human rights standards, it is discriminatory to eliminate or roll back any rights that are already in place- unless there are exceptional circumstances" underlines the report.

For decades, the minority has faced government-imposed hurdles to exercising its fundamental rights in education, religious affairs and the recognition of its ethnic identity. Several recent developments have cast a harsh spotlight on the problems of Turks in Greece, including a decree restricting the autonomy of the mufti (Muslim clerics), land belonging to a Muslim religious foundation being sold off to a tourism company and the government-ordered closure of five Turkish-minority schools.

The rights of the Turks of Western Thrace were guaranteed under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, a pact forged in the aftermath of World War I, but since then the situation has steadily deteriorated. After a Greek junta came to power in 1967, the Turks of Western Thrace started to face harsher persecution and rights abuses by the Greek state.

Following Turkey's 1974 peace operation in Cyprus to save Turkish Cypriots there, the Greek military junta eventually fell, but the tight restrictions on the Turkish minority persisted and tightened. By the early 1990s, some rights of the Turkish minority were restored but only partially. However, problems regarding collective and civil rights continued and additional suffering emerged.