There were some initiatives directed towards the annulment of these two resolutions that can be considered as a scandal in the world history of law and an unacceptable contradiction in respect of the international law. These initiatives shall be continued urgently. It is obvious that the bilateral and multilateral arrangements that guarantee the rights and the status of the Turkish minority do not absolutely comply with the aforesaid resolutions. Referring the case in respect of the national laws, these resolutions were annulled. Despite this annulment, the comedy is revealed clearly taking into consideration the circulars numbered 1043 and A.202 pertaining to the General Governor of Thrace, F. Fessopoulos that emphasised his sensitivity in the application of the Law on the Minority Schools and Education (known as the Law of Field Marshal Papagos) numbered 3065/1954 that took its place in the history of the Greek laws. The relevant law stipulates the modification of the terms of Muslim/Islam with the right terms of Turk/Turkish in the signs of the minority schools. However, his circulars ordered for the immediate modification of a few school signs that stayed in their former forms. For a long time, the Greek authorities have hindered the execution of the right of education that the Turkish children in the Western Thrace should have had as a human and citizenship right as well as a minority right. Similarly, the right of Turkish parents to send their children to the institutions (schools) that provide education was also prevented from the execution and the fulfilment of the aforesaid rights.
The Greek authorities realised their first intervention in the economic field in the year of 1972. Upon the amendment of some articles pertaining to the aforesaid Law on the Minority Schools and Education numbered 3065/1954, they regulated an arrangement for the utilisation of the term of M/kon instead of the terms of Turk/Turkish. This term of M/kon was the abbreviation of the words of minority and Muslim, its definite meaning cannot be known. Similarly, they issued a Law upon the Minority Schools and the Settlement of Problems related with SÖPA Education and Supervision Board numbered 695/1977. Upon this law, it was provided that the graduates from Salonika Private Pedagogy Academy founded with unpleasant desires about the minorities shall have precedence in their appointment to the minority schools.
Within this context and in addition to the massacre of teachers in 1960s, it was prohibited that the teachers of Turkish citizens and the Turkish teachers of Greek citizens that graduated from the teachers schools in Turkey would not be appointed as teachers in Greece. As a consequence, the Turkish patients started to send their children to Turkey in order to take primary education, which was considered as a model in Turkish schools in Elmalı and Karaçanlar. This situation has expanded and still goes on. No doubt that most of these patients wish that their children would settle in Turkey. This situation obliges them to immigrate or to settle in Turkey through illegitimate ways. Within this framework, it should not be neglected that SÖPA graduates have an inclination towards the rejection of the propaganda-oriented service of education with lots of profit that would be transferred to them.
As it is known, there was a boycott movement against the Turkish reading books written by Greeks oriented towards the inculcation of love for the Greek history and flag and the formation of Greek national sense in the Turkish children under the slogan of the late Dr. Sadık Ahmet stating that Greek cannot Teach Turkish to Turks. Numerous SÖPA graduates participated in this boycott movement. While the compulsory education in Greece is applied in 9 years on the basis of 6 plus 3, this compulsory education is limited with 6 years (primary school) for the Turkish children of minority. The principal lack in the minority schools that is needed most is the insufficiency of the Turkish books in respect of their contents and numbers. This lack has reached to the highest level in two minority secondary schools (İskeçe Minority Coeducation High School and Gümülcine Celal Bayar High School). The modifications that were directed towards taking examinations of the Turkish courses in Greek language and meeting the requirements of the students through lots and examinations led these two educational institutions to the point of closure.
Today, the number of the students who attend these schools creates optimism. But it should be kept in mind that the present problems could bring forward the closures of these schools. It should be added that excluding 40-50 students, 600-800 Turkish students from the Western Thrace that enter into the university entrance exams in Turkey have graduated from the high schools in Turkey, not the Western Thrace.
Apart from these examples, the problems that the Western Thrace Turks face range from the tansgression of lands and fields, the restriction of the freedom of travelling and extend to the events of terror and attack. These issues are so wide and complicated that they each can separately be researched. On the verge of the 21st Century, it is obvious that Greece was not properly displayed in the public opinion of the world in respect of the violations of human rights of Greece alleging that it was the cradle of the democracy but actually was the puppet of periodical Russian colonisation and sometimes the Western imperial residues. In relation with these issues, we commemorate with grace Dr. Sadık Ahmet, our great Pan-Turkist and our friend of case and struggle who devoted his life to the case of human rights pertaining to the Western Thrace Turks and died as a martyr on the date of 24th July 1995, the anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne and the transition to democracy in Greece.
The End
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