Aug
Turkey has blasted a Greek government decision to shut down 12 more schools serving the country’s Muslim Turkish minority, saying it violates education rights. Under an Education Ministry decree, eight schools in Rhodope and four schools in Xanthi in the country’s Western Thrace will be temporarily suspended, a move that Turkey claims is planned and […]
Jun
The Turkish community in the German state of Hessen expressed anger Thursday over a proposed bill that would leave Turkish lessons out of the school curriculum while offering Polish, Chinese, Portuguese and Arabic as a second language option, saying that the bill harms the ‘emotional ties’ of nearly 400,000 Turks living in Hessen. The Hessen […]
Mar
Police officers in the Netherlands sent racist messages in an internal chat group in response to the murder of a 16-year-old Turkish-origin girl, local media reported on Thursday. In an investigation launched into the racist messages, it was revealed that one of the police officer wrote: “Another Turk less.” The girl, identified by her first […]
Nov
This week four elementary school children were “terrorized” and grilled during more than 11 hours of detention by French police over false allegations of “justifying terrorism,” according to the children’s parents. The police “clearly wanted to terrorize us,” said Servet Yildirim, the father of one of the children. Under a 2014 criminal provision, French prosecutors […]
Sep
Turkish reporters working for Anadolu Agency (AA) who recently traveled to the Greek island of Kastellorizo (Megisti-Meis) to cover recent developments there received threats from an anti-Turkish website that had obtained their passport information from authorities. AA’s Athens Representative Tevfik Durul and photojournalist Ayhan Mehmet flew from the Greek capital to Rhodes and reached the […]
Aug
For decades, the Turkish minority in Greece has faced government-imposed hurdles to exercising its fundamental rights on education, religious affairs, and the recognition of its ethnic identity. Greece’s Western Thrace region – in the country’s northeast, near the Turkish border – is home to a substantial, long-established Muslim Turkish minority numbering around 150,000. Several recent […]
Feb
Investigators are probing an event held by regional parliamentarians from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, at which xenophobic coloring books were allegedly handed out, German media reported on Tuesday. The AfD event took place in Krefeld, 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of Dusseldorf, in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. In response to a tweet, local police said: […]
Feb
Turkish minority communities in Greece have criticized a recent statement by Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos that referred to them as a “Greek Muslim minority,” saying that the statement denies their ethnic identity. The Federation of European Western Thracian Turks said in a statement that the Greek government continues to maintain its policy of denial regarding […]
Feb
The government is planning to introduce compulsory integration courses for Turkish nationals moving to the Netherlands when the new integration legislation comes into effect next year, social affairs minister Wouter Koolmees has told MPs. Turkish nationals have been exempt from the courses since 2011 because the requirement conflicted with EU treaties with Turkey. However, a […]
Jan
France has denied citizenship to Turkish national Murat Büyük, who has been living in the country for over 40 years, on the grounds of sympathy toward the Turkish government headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A viral post on social media Sunday showed a letter, signed by a French official working for the Ministry of […]
