Greece prohibited an academic studying the Turkish community of Western Thrace from entering the country on Saturday.
The academic, Murat Derin, is writing a book on the Friendship, Equality and Peace Party (DEB), founded by the Western Thracian Turks' leader Dr. Sadık Ahmet. Derin is working at Trakya University and is on the board of management of the Rumelia Balkan Strategic Studies Center.
Elected twice as a lawmaker to the Greek parliament, Sadık Ahmet led campaigns for the rights of Turks living in Western Thrace in the country, after years of persecution by Athens.
Derin told Anadolu Agency (AA) that he wanted to enter Greece for research at the Ipsala-Kipi border gate early Saturday but the Greek border police stopped him.
He added that the police forces told him his entry into the country was prohibited.
“When I asked them ‘What is the problem, why is my entry prohibited?’ they initially said ‘We do not know’ but later added 'You know why?’” Derin said.
“European Union member Greece has subjected me to such a treatment without any criminal investigation,” he said, underlining that such implementations by the Greek authorities will not cause him to give up on his research.
“Today I understood the pains that the Western Thracian Turks have been suffering for centuries as well as those who were stripped of their citizenship and returned at border gates within the scope of the Greek Citizenship Law Article 19,” Derin continued, saying that Greek authorities who treated a Turkish citizen like this could subject Western Thracian Turks to harsher restrictions.
Turkey has long decried Greek violations of the rights of its Muslim and Turkish minorities, from closing down mosques and shutting down schools to not letting Muslim Turks elect their own religious leaders.
Under a 2008 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruling, Western Thracian Turks' right to use the word "Turkish" in the names of associations was guaranteed, but Athens has failed to implement the ruling, effectively banning Turkish identity in the country.
Greece's Western Thrace region is home to a Muslim Turkish community of around 150,000.
In 1983, the nameplate of the Xanthi (Iskeçe) Turkish Union was taken down and the group was completely banned in 1986, on the pretext that the word "Turkish" was in its name.
