Talk:Turks of Western Thrace

This article is missing extremely important context
The citizenship law was a retaliation to the sickening Istanbul pogrom of 1955. Greek courts outlawing use of the word "Turkish" only started after the illegal 1983 unilateral declaration of independence of the ethnically cleansed occupied territories of Cyprus. There was never a problem with Turkish organizations calling themselves "Turkish" until 1983. I'm not claiming 2 wrongs make a right. I'm saying this context cannot be excluded from a subject like this. HelenOfOz (talk) 11:44, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Talk Page Archive
Archive 1 has been created with a link at right. Archive 2, when needed in the future, should be a new subpage (same as creating an article) titled "Talk:Turks of Western Thrace/Archive 2" and the link added to the template on this page's code. For further information on archiving see How to archive a talk page.Thetruthonly (talk) 18:43, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

repeated attempts to discredit Human Rights Watch reports
Some Greek contributors are systematically adding "dubious" next to the HRW references. HRW, like the Minority Rights Group or its local section Greek Helsinki Monitor are internationally recognized and respected organizations, not some ethnic or nationalist lobby. There are undoubtedly excesses in the data provided by the Turkish organizations, and underestimates in those provided by Greece and Greek organizations. But every data added to the article are sourced. And when they're targetting Muslims, and not only Turks, this is clearly mentioned. However, malignant reverses are still occurring and systematically - in a typical chauvinistic paranoid way (as their Turkish counterparts in the articles over the Armenian Genocide) - casting doubt over the sources without adding other sourced data (from reliable sources) that could allow the non-prejudiced reader to make his/her own opinion. --Pylambert (talk) 21:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I suggest instead of throwing empty accusation to read wp:npa. Also, the dubious sign was added only once, and it's reasonable since this paragraph doesn't make any sense the way he is written, it needs some additional explanation else our readers can't understand what's going on there (some genocide maybe?). Moreover, this revert [], might be considered vandalism.Alexikoua (talk) 22:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * wp:npa is valid only with bona fide contributors, not for people using wikipedia for nationalist motivations, be it here or on the Western Sahara related topics or on the Armenian Genocide related topics, etc. The purpose of several Greek contributors here is obviously (the article over the 2009 elections in Greece is another example) to modify the article in a way to support their nationalist views. Moreover, in this case, when a source is mentioned, the sentence can only be modified according to the content in the source.--Pylambert (talk) 23:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I remind you that I did not removed content with this edit [, I just added some additional explanation, which is essential to understand the meaning of the section.[[User:Alexikoua|Alexikoua]] (talk) 23:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

5.1 Obligations of the Treaty of Lausanne
I have changed this section because before it just seemed to be preaching about the decreasing population of Greeks in Turkey. This article is about Turks in Western Thrace not Greeks in Turkey. Anyway, I have included what this section actually states 'the Obligations of the Treaty of Lausanne'.92.9.179.216 (talk) 19:25, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually most of the section you removed talks about the Turks of Thrace. The Greeks of Turkey are mentioned only once in passing, nor is there any mention of "the decreasing population" or any such thing. Athenean (talk) 19:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The section still was not talking about the obligations of both governments. I think it is more clear now; but we obviously need to improve it.92.9.179.216 (talk) 19:32, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I have put back my contribution because it is very important. You just said 'nor is there any mention of "the decreasing population" or any such thing.' But in the article it states that 'a minority that is nearly eliminated today (70,000 in 1923 to 3,000 in 2000)' and even wrote about the Istanbul pogrom... this article does not even mention anything about the 1990 Komotini events so why should we talk about the Istanbul pogrom? What has this got to do with the Turks of Western Thrace? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.9.179.216 (talk) 19:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I have to agree with the anon. Moreover, one of the sentences says 'Turks in Greece'. This is incorrect, the treaty only included the rights of Turks of Western Thrace. The treaty does not include the rights of Turks of the Dodecanese and indeed not of new immigrants who are ethnic Turks that are immigrants in Greece.Thetruthonly (talk) 19:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Human rights section
I note that the Human rights section, which is basically a litany of complaints, relies on a single source from 1990. That was 20 years ago. There's definitely something odd about using a source from 20 years ago to allege ongoing Human rights violations. For example, this source, from HRW itself, says many things have changed for the better since 1990. This should and will be included in the article. Athenean (talk) 20:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes this to do with the Turks in Western Thrace, but not Greeks in Turkey. We also have to avoid the entire article being about human rights. We need to aim to improve the demographics, language, religion and politics sections as well. I refuse to have this article put into a political dispute.Thetruthonly (talk) 20:12, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Of course this article shouldn't be only about human rights, but the Human Rights section is incredibly important and should be as complete and up-to-date as possible. Athenean (talk) 20:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree, we need to add information about the actual culture of the Turks in Western Thrace and not just mention human rights issues.  Turco  85 ( Talk ) 14:34, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

The way this section is written, even after the moves i made (the last edits were mine), indicates a lack of concreteness as to how the notion of human rights is treated and also a lack of proper source attribution. A violation of a human right cannot be described as a trivial fact, but rather as a legal fact (if it is backed by a proper authority's decision, e.g.: the European Court of Human Rights) or inside the scope of a claim, made by a reliable source (HRW is one) and with a proper attribution (authorship, institution and date if possible) inside the text, for each reader to judge its weight. I guess in the latter case, "human rights" can also cover an ethical dimension on the basis of humanistic values, widespread in the English/Western world at a political, academic or social level, apart from the legal sense. I'm not saying that this material should be removed, but right now the section serves as a general container of issues (well-sourced as plain facts) that their connection to human rights and their abuse is only implied for in an opaque way. For example, the "Citizenship" subsection, is sourced to a HRW report but it's not written as a specific claim of something, and more importantly the source itself does not explicitly state what human right is being violated and in what sense. I have an idea on where it could be based but searching for human rights definitions in legal documents and adding stuff here would be OR synthesis on my part. The easiest way to solve this would be to change the headline to a more general description without altering the content. I'm presenting the problem for now and hope for suggestions, i may figure out a better structuring alternative to a title change when i have more time.--77.49.198.179 (talk) 05:42, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

250.000 Turks in Greece
There are almost 250.000 Turks in Greece but Greece refuse them they are turks. Those people are living under bad circumstances. Greeks are abusing the human rights for these people.

This should be attached to this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maverick16 (talk • contribs) 09:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's that much. There is 150,000 in Western Thrace, 5,000 in the Dodecanese, around 10,000 in Athens, and around 10,000 new Turkish immigrants. So it's a number which is reaching to about 180,000. Turco  85 ( Talk ) 14:30, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

lol maverick16 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.219.38.119 (talk) 12:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

There are no Turks living in Greece. There are Greek christians and Greek muslims and they enjoy equally every right that flows from Greece's constitution. End of story. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.73.44.150 (talk) 17:28, 8 February 2011 (UTC) lol! are you kidding us? what does "there are no Turks living in greece" mean? Which language speaking these people? "Muslimish or Islamish"!?!?! Please wake up! 250 000 Muslim-Turks living in greece and everybody know that! denial,not change the truth!

They speak pomak language, romani, turkish and greek. There are only 60.000 turkish speakers in Thrace the others speak pomak, romani and greek. Can you tell me how many greek muslim( cryptochristians) live in turkey and speak greek today? Um about 1.600.000 Βαγγέλης 5 (talk) 14:25, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Greek translation
Can someone please add the Greek translation for 'Turks of Western Thrace' in the introduction of this article?  Turco  85 ( Talk ) 14:32, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

FRINGE claims
The claim that Turks first settled in Western Thrace in the 2nd century BC is classic WP:FRINGE propaganda. There is no record of Turks living anywhere near that part of the world at that time. Rather, this is typical "since time immemorial" type cruft, promoted for the usual reasons. If the material is re-added, I will take it to WP:FTN. Athenean (talk) 05:56, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This claims are backed by a source from an article by a Turkish economist, not the most reliable of sources. Also the so called Iskit turks appear in only two Google books, both by Turkish authors. It's my suspicion that is the usual Turkish practice of declaring all Turkic peoples (and some which might have been Turkic) as Turks, which is a practice with little support outside Turkey. I think this might be safely dismissed as a source. Kostja (talk) 13:43, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Numbers et al.
1. "By 1923, the population of Western Thrace was 191,699, of whom 129,120 (67%) were Turks and 33,910 (18%) were Greeks; the remaining 28,669 were mostly Bulgarians, along with small numbers of Jews and Armenians.[7] Under a protocol of the same year, the Turks of Western Thrace were exempted from the 1922-1923 exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey and were granted rights within the framework of the Lausanne Treaty. However, since 1923, between 300,000 to 400,000 Turks have left Western Thrace most of which have immigrated to Turkey."

How do these numbers work? 123.000 - 400.000 = -277.000...I didn't know you could have negative populations...Thus it is obvious that either the 1923 population as cited is wrong or the numbers of Turks that left Thrace is wrong (biased sources?). Whatever the case I suggest that someboby sort this discrepency out. (Yet another number is quoted in the table: 129.000, while later 128.000 people are said to speak Turkish...). Later the inflated numbers are repeated: "Between 300,000 to 400,000 Turks have left Western Thrace since 1923; most of which immigrated to Turkey.[8][9] Western Thrace Turks have also immigrated to Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Austria and Italy. Thus, overall there is an estimated 1 million Turks whose roots are from Western Thrace."

2. "According to the Greek government, in 1991 there were approximately 50,000 Turks, out of the approximately 98,000 Muslim minority of Greece[1] but the Turkish community has traditionally been estimated to number between 120,000 and 130,000." Please explain what a "traditional" estimate is? Are these estimates preserved in folk songs? Please change to something more reasonable like "other sources give...".

3. "The Greek government refers to the Turkish community as part of the Greek Muslims or Hellenic Muslims, and does not recognise a separate Turkish minority in Western Thrace" A clarification may be needed at this point: the Greek government uses the terminology that was adopted in the agreements that were signed between the two counties in the '20ies. Its insistence is (also) due to the fact that not all the Moslems living in Greek Thrace can/want to be defined as Turks (speaking slavic dialects, defining themselves as Pomaks etc).

4. "Article 37 through 45 of the Lausanne Treaty set forth the obligations of the Greek and Turkish governments to protect the Turkish and Greek minorities in their territories. Each country agreed to provide the following"...and yet... "The Lausanne Treaty defined the rights of the Muslim communities in Western Thrace, on the basis of religion, not ethnicity". Throughout the article there is a systematic confusion of the terms "Muslim" and "Turk", which are by no stretch of the imagnation identical.

5. "These Turkish children had been sheltered, baptised and adopted, and then used as field laborers. When the adopting families had to emigrate to America, they listed these children as family members, although most of these Turkish children still remembered their ethnic origin." The source given for a whole series of allegations is insufficient. How many children are we talking about? How do we know that they were "used as field laborers"? Where did this happen? How many migrated? etc.

I will not edit the article as it is obvious that it will taken as an aggressive act by some fellow Wikipedians. However I think that the above comments (which represent but a portion) make it blatantly obvious that the article requires a radical revision. (Getas75 (talk) 13:08, 25 September 2011 (UTC)).

the phrase " before being expelled following the Turkish invasion " needs to be changed
This policy was introduced immediately after the illegal "declaration of independence" of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983 on lands that once had an 82% Greek majority before being expelled following the Turkish invasion in 1974.

I don't remember the numbers exactly, but around 150,000 Greek Cypriots were terrorized and chased away during the Turkish invasion. The word expelled is not good enough either. Diplomats get expelled. Misbehaving students get expelled. This sentence needs to be improved. HelenOfOz (talk) 09:43, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
 * "Lands that once had 82% Greek majority". Good example of national POV. A bit exaggerated though. And not in the correct article. Is Western Thrace in Cyprus? (BTW another example of calling the Greek Cypriots as they should be in fact, Greeks, but not in WP; as this is not a forum.) The sentence should be improved, clearing the Greek national POV from it... --E4024 (talk) 10:09, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
 * E4024, is it a fact or an opinion that the occupied territories "once had 82% Greek majority" ? Many years ago it wasn't a problem for the Turks of Western Thrace to call themselves Turks. The Greek policy of referring to them as "Greek Muslims" is relatively recent. When I read the article and "Greek Muslims" was mentioned, it didn't give the date when the Greek government started this policy. So I edited the article to add the date. All policies have a commencement date, don't they ? So what is wrong with adding the date ? And all policies have some reasons behind them, don't they ? So what is wrong with adding the reason ? It is directly related to the Greek policy and that's why it belongs in the article. If the Greek policy was not mentioned then there was no need for my edit. Once again, you don't want the reader to know the whole truth. By the way, I was told just recently by a friend that the Greek government had "some sort of 'Greek Muslim' policy" before 1983. He's not sure though. So now you have a chance to prove me wrong. Start Googling. HelenOfOz (talk) 11:16, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Hyperbole. The dubious usage of Michael Stephen as a source
''According to an article dated 1999 by Michael Stephen LL M, of the Inner Temple Barrister, and former Member of the British Parliament, the said Greek laws were "clearly based on racial discrimination"[31]. Stephen also stresses the fact that Greece, by then, had not yet signed the 1959 UN Convention on Statelessness, Article 9 of which provides that "a Contracting State may not deprive any person or group of persons of their nationality on racial, ethnic, religious or political grounds" [32]. In Stephen's opinion, "the cancellation of a person’s citizenship, together with all his rights as a citizen, including his property rights and social security, is about the most serious invasion of human rights short of murder as it is possible to imagine. It is surprising that such a fundamental departure from the accepted norms of civilised behaviour should have lasted so long in Greece, a member of the European Union, which claims to be a democratic state governed by the rule of law"[33].''

Michael Stephen was a politician for 1 term but is a lawyer by training and a known supporter of the illegal TRNC. He is a mouthpiece for Turkish interests. Find an opinion from a respectable human rights organization. HelenOfOz (talk) 07:16, 16 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Indeed, this is ridiculous. Even if he were a politician and less partisan, that doesn't make him a reliable source.  The criteria for what constitutes a reliable source are discussed in detail in WP:RS.  Politicians do not automatically qualify, in fact they usually don't.  Is Recep Tayyip Erdogan a reliable source?  Should we start filling wikipedia with RTE quotes?  I think not. Athenean (talk) 07:32, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
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Ask for opinions
Hello. I am asking opinions of users in the talk page of Minorities of Greece for whether to include the problems of the muslim minority living in Athens or not. Your comments are welcome. Filanca (talk) 20:15, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Recent edits
I have reverted some of the edits made by IP188.73 today, referring the issues to further discussion here on talk page: --T*U (talk) 08:57, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Removing the HRW source (Whitman 1990) while keeping the sourced info does not make sense. Please explain why the source is not reliable.
 * I cannot see that the image is POV. This is an article about the Turks of Western Thrace (as part of the Muslim minority), so why not have a picture of some of them?
 * I have removed the cn tag, since the fact is sourced (in Aarbakke 2000).
 * I agree that the addition about the term "Greek Muslims" should not be connected to the HRC source, since it is not mentioned there. I have disconnected it from the source, removed the POV word "confusingly" and the (confusing) link to the article "Greek Muslims" and done some minor copy edit.

Muslim minority
Please can you follow the Greece and not Turkey propaganda and dome paranoiac greek muslims who under the control of turkish consulate. And if dont want to follow Greece please follow and read again the Lozan. There are greek muslims and greek orthodox in thrace. In addition, only some members of Muslim minority speak turkish( about 60.000 ) there are pamak and speakers. You should delete this article. Βαγγέλης 5 (talk) 14:30, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

There are no Greek muslims in Western Thrace. They are Greek Citizens, not Greeks. "Greek"and "Greek Citizen" are different terms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.44.70.251 02:27, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

How would you know?? are you from there? As a member of the minority i would appreciate if we were not used for your political games!-Most of us identify as greek muslims and or greek turks. Greece is our fatherland and our ancestors where greeks that converted mixed with other muslims. We have Turkish names and speak turkish as a 2nd language but we are greeks.
 * Sure, that's the reason Greece imprisoning people like Sadik Achmet because he called himself a Turk. Beshogur (talk) 14:16, 27 December 2021 (UTC)