Turks in Bulgaria (Flame-War Warning)

At first the way was broad and easy. Then it narrowed, became rugged, and the horses were in lather. At places we dismounted and walked. There were rude paths through the woods, made in times of battle so that the troops might be moved beyond sight of the Turks on the heights. I rode over a knoll where were the Russian headquarters. I climbed a precipice where, with mighty labour, cannon had been perched to sweep the Pass.

All silent now in the drowse of glowing forenoon. The eye wandered beyond the dark, cypress-cloaked ravines. The world was an impressive panorama of tumbled hills. Distance was lost in the haze of heat.

Twenty-eight years ago the echoes were roused with thunderous cannonade. Russians to the north, Turks to the south, met on this mountain road. Terrible struggles took place in the hollows of the hills. Positions were lost and won and then lost again. The Russians, fearless of death, pushed their advantage; and the Turks, heedless of life, held their ground. One battle lasted for seven days. Then a fortnight of breathing time. On came the Turks again; they captured Mount Nicholas, the commanding position in the Pass. But they were mastered by the Russians, and with terrific slaughter fled to the southern ravines. There they waited till winter. The last great fight was in mist and blinding snowstorm. The Turks were outnumbered.

They struggled in desperation. It was useless. All that were left of them, 32,000 men, unconditionally surrendered. The Russians poured down the southern slopes to Shipka village.

There stands a bedizened, gorgeous, Russian-Greek church to commemorate the victory. The massive cupola, surmounted. by a cross, is of burnished gold. You can see the sun glitter on it from twenty miles away. But there is no record of the pillaging, the rapine and drunken orgies of the Rdssian troops when they laid hold of Shipka village.

An old man told me sad stories. "Ah!" said he, "the Turks did wrong things, but never anything so bad as the Russians." "But you are glad," said I, "that the Turk has been driven away, and that Bulgaria is now free?" "Not so very glad," he replied; "when the Turks were here taxes were light, and now they are heavy. Then we had a wider market for our goods; we had all Turkey. Now we are a separate country they try to keep out our goods. Bulgaria is a little country, and other countries tax our things. Perhaps it was best in the old days."

When a Turkish minority ends up with being discriminated (in Greece and in Bulgaria for instance), it is called a "Trojan horse" by some extremists. So ethnic cleansing of Turks in Balkans sounds like an extermination of a wooden horse for you. But you should face the fact that Turkish existance in the Balkans is older than one millenium, and those Turks are as human as other minorities in other countries. I wonder why this sounds too offensive or hard to accept.
 

When a Turkish minority ends up with being discriminated (in Greece and in Bulgaria for instance), it is called a "Trojan horse" by some extremists.

Regarding your experience with your Muslim friend and colleague, id say interesting, but to your veiled point about the "generosity" of the Greek state which even accepts people who cannot divide 1.3/2, I would say a nice attempt, but statistic by international human rights organization paint a very different and a very grim picture. Discrimination and intolerance against Muslims (even those that consider themselves Greek) is rampant and widespread. Very rarely can you see a muslim in high position even in those territories that are predominantly muslim.

Take for an example the case of Gulbez Karahasan and her running for a municipality position and the fierce opposition by facist establishments such as new democracy party and the orthodox church. In Bulgaria this wouldnt even be a problem - turks nowadays are present almost in all levels of the governance, including the ruling coalition.

Now when I come to think about it I am glad I was born in Bulgaria, and not in Greece. In terms of tolerance and respect of minorities at least nowadays Bulgaria is light years ahead of Greece and Turkey, though there are still areas to work on.

The same childish move again. It isn't an issue of which of us have a worse record, it is that you have a horrible one, as horrible as many countries you blame with so called crimes, even though Greece claims to be an ideal EU member today. Maybe things would be much more better if Turkey was accepted into European alliance in 1979, just after Greece which still couldn't justify her acceptence or prove herself deserving such a "favor".

 4. Two Turkish activists, the late Sadik Ahmet �independent deputy of the Greek Parliament (between June 1989- November 1989 and April 1990-Sptember 1993)- and Ibrahim Serif (subsequently elected mufti of Komotini in 1990) were convicted on 25/1/1990, for �causing and inciting citizens to commit acts of violence upon each other and disturbing the peace through disharmony among them� (Article 192 of the Penal Code). In October 1989, while campaigning for parliament along with Ismail Molla who was subsequently elected deputy and thus had immunity from prosecution, they had distributed leaflets that spoke of �Turks,� �Turkish Muslims,� and the �Turkish Muslim minority of Western Thrace.� They were sentenced to 18 months in prison each, with an almost unprecedented adjoining court decision to deny the possibility of to buy out the sentence or be set free pending appeal. They were thus imprisoned from January to March 1990. On 30/3/1990, the Court of Appeals of Patras upheld the verdict, reduced the sentences to 15 months for Ahmet and 10 months for Serif, convertible into fines: they paid and walked free. On 15/2/1991, the Supreme Court rejected their appeal. The court ruled that, �In this manner the appellants had deliberately attempted to describe as �Turks� the Greek Muslims of Southern Rodopi....moreover, they knew that there was no Turkish minority in Western Thrace....� Ahmet then applied to the European Commission of Human Rights, which declared his case partially admissible in 1994. In April 1995, the commission in its Article 31 report declared that Greece had violated Ahmet�s right of free expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and forwarded the case to the European Court of Human Rights. On November 15, 1996, however, the court dismissed the case because Ahmet had not exhausted domestic legal remedies (i.e. had not argued that his case was a violation of freedom of expression before the Greek courts).
5. In the 17 November 1989 issue of �Guven�, Sadik Ahmet published an article alleging discrimination against and repression of the minority, which he called Turkish. The prosecution engaged against him was held up because of his parliamentary immunity between April 1990 and September 1993. He was indicted for causing and inciting citizens to commit acts of violence upon each other and disturbing the peace through disharmony among them. On 14 April 1994, charges were dropped because they were prescribed by a 1993 amnesty law for crimes perpetrated by the press.
6. On 22 November 1989, Sadik Ahmet distributed a tract alleging discrimination against and repression of the minority which he called Turkish. The prosecution engaged against him was held up because of his parliamentary immunity between April 1990 and September 1993: he was indicted for causing and inciting citizens to commit acts of violence upon each other and disturbing the peace through disharmony among them. On 14 April 1994, charges were dropped because they were prescribed by a 1993 amnesty law for crimes perpetrated by the press.
7. Between 1996-1998, Mr. Rashim Hid, a teacher at a minority primary school, was the object of a punitive transfer decision of the state-appointed secretary general of the region from the city of Xanthi to a mountain region of Rodopi for using the term �Turkish school� in a teachers� meeting; an administrative investigation was launched at the same time. In July 1998, after its conclusion, he was suspended for one year.
8. The �Union of Turkish Teachers of Western Thrace� (founded in 1936) was dissolved in November 1987 after the Supreme Court decision 1729/1987 affirmed the relevant Court of Appeals of Thrace decision 159/1986. The court held that the word "Turkish" referred to citizens of Turkey and could not be used to describe citizens of Greece, and that the use of the word "Turkish" to describe Greek Muslims endangered public order.
9. The �Union of Turkish Youth of Komotini� (founded in 1938) was dissolved in November 1987 after the Supreme Court decision 1730/1987 affirmed the relevant Court of Appeals of Thrace decision 160/1986. Again, the court held that the word "Turkish" referred to citizens of Turkey and could not be used to describe citizens of Greece, and that the use of the word "Turkish" to describe Greek Muslims endangered public order.
10. In June 1997, twelve ethnic Turkish teachers were given a suspended sentence of eight months, pending appeal, because they signed a union document that included the name of the dissolved �Union of Turkish Teachers of Western Thrace.� They had been indicted under Articles 188 (�participating in an association the aims of which are contrary to criminal provisions�) and 192 (�inciting citizens to commit acts of violence upon each other�) of the Greek Penal Code.
11. On 23 April 1999, the Appeals Court of Thrace confirmed a 1986 First Instance Court verdict to dissolve the Turkish Union of Xanthi (founded in 1946) because �it created confusion on (�) the citizenship of its members whether they are Muslims with Greek citizenship or Turks in nationality and citizenship (�) and that a Greek association serves the aims of a foreign state that is the prevalence of Turkish ideals.�
12. Sotiris Bletsas, member of the Society for Aroumanian (Vlach) Culture, was indicted because in 1995 he had allegedly distributed a publication of the European Union�s Bureau for Lesser Used Languages (in which Sotiris Bletsas is the Greek �observer�) which mentioned the minority languages in Greece. The prosecution for dissemination of false information (article 191 of the Penal Code) was triggered by charges pressed by ND deputy Eugene Haitidis and the prosecution�s witnesses include the leadership of the Panhellenic Union of Vlach Associations. The case has not reached the courts yet.

I would say that is better for bg_turk

to read the Treaty of Lausanne july 24 1923.

ismet inonu was the lead negotiator for Turkey and Eleftherios Venizelos was his Greek counterpart. The treaty provided for the independence of the Republic of Turkey but also for the protection of the ethnic Greek minority in Turkey and the religious Muslim minority in Greece. Much of the Greek population of Turkey was exchanged with the Turkish population of Greece. The Greeks of Istanbul, Imbros and Tenedos were excluded (about 400,000 at that time), but so were the Muslim population of Western Thrace (about 25,000 at that time)(today is about 120,000). The republic of Turkey also accepted the loss of Cyprus to the British Empire. The fate of the province of Mosul was left to be determined through the League of Nations.

Since signing the treaty, both Turkey and Greece have claimed that the other has violated its provisions. Greece has seen its ethnic minority population in Turkey diminish from several hundreds of thousands in 1923 to just a couple of thousand today, and claims that this was caused by the systematic enforcement of anti-minority measures.

Nowhere in the Treaty of Lausanne says about Turkish minority.

We are so xenophobic in Hellas thats why they are living peacefully more than 1,000,000 emigrants(Albanians,Bulgarians,Romanians,Egyptians,Syrians,R ussians,Georgians,Pakistans,India,Palestinians,Moldavians,Uk ranians and others)  and the  religious muslim minority in WT from 25,000 became 120,000.

Take for an example the case of Gulbez Karahasan and her running for a municipality position and the fierce opposition by facist establishments such as new democracy party and the orthodox church. In Bulgaria this wouldnt even be a problem - turks nowadays are present almost in all levels of the governance, including the ruling coalition.

About Gulben you can read more here (in Greek)

http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=110,id=32389356,3817 8412

 Greece is by far the most xenophobic^1 theocracy^2 in the Balkans maybe just yielding to Serbia.

1 Which other state in the Balkans doesn't allow muslims to build a mosque in the capital?

2 Which other state in the Balkans mentions Jesus Christ in its constitution?