Greek court acquits Turkish minority’s elected religious official

ANKARA

A Greek court on Wednesday found an elected mufti of the country’s 150,000-strong Muslim Turkish minority not guilty of overstepping his authority by carrying out his duties as a religious official.

Ibrahim Serif, the elected mufti of Komotini (Gumulcine) in northeastern Greece, had been charged by Greek authorities in 2018 with usurping authority after he attended a circumcision ceremony in 2016 and was to stand trial in the northern city of Thessaloniki on Thursday.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Ercan Ahmet, Serif’s lawyer, said that the prosecutor asked the court to acquit the mufti, saying there is insufficient evidence to convict.

Lawyers from the Istanbul, Turkey-based International Jurists Union and 2nd Istanbul Bar Association were also present in the court.

In a statement, they stressed that they are worried that the Turkish Muslim minority are not able to exercise the rights under various bilateral and international treaties, including the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

“Furthermore, Greek doesn’t respect decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in favor of the Turkish Muslim minority,” the statement said, adding that the European Parliament overlooks this illegal state of affairs.

Pointing to Turkey’s constructive approach towards Greece, the statement called on Greek authorities to comply with the treaties and ECHR rulings, and the European Parliament to monitor minority-related developments in the country.

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.

The rights of the Turks of Western Thrace were guaranteed under the Treaty of Lausanne, a pact forged in the aftermath of World War I, but since then the situation has steadily deteriorated.

After a Greek junta came to power in 1967, the Turks of Western Thrace started to face harsher persecution and rights abuses by the Greek state, often in blatant violation of European court rulings.

The Turkish minority in Greece continues to face problems exercising its collective and civil rights and education rights, including Greek authorities banning the word “Turkish” in the names of organizations, shuttering Turkish schools, and trying to block the Turkish community from electing its own muftis.

Elected muftis in Greece

Serif was elected mufti of Komotini in 1990 by the local Muslim Turkish community.

Ahmet Mete, the current mufti of Xanthi (Iskece), and his predecessor Mehmet Emin Aga had been previously convicted by Greek courts for usurping authority.

In Greece's Western Thrace region, muftis have legal jurisdiction to decide on family and inheritance matters in the local Turkish Muslim community.

The issue of mufti elections has been a problem since 1991.

The election of muftis by Muslims in Greece was regulated in the 1913 Treaty of Athens with the Ottoman Empire and was later included in Greek law.

However, Greece annulled this law in 1991 and started appointing muftis itself.

The majority of Muslim Turks in the cities of Komotini and Xanthi do not recognize the appointed muftis and instead elect their own, who are not recognized by the Greek state.