Country: Turkey

Group: Greeks

Date Finalized: 4/26/20

Team: Arisha Khan (lead), Kimberly Prete, Alicia Hernandez

            According to sharia Muslim law, adherents to other religions in Turkey have been considered inferior to Muslims in the 1900s (Bulut, 2017). As Christians, Greeks were also heavily taxed. Despite these pressures, the Greeks still maintained one of the biggest ethnicities living in Turkey at the time (Human Rights Watch, 1992). However, since World War I and the Greek-Turkish War in 1919 to 1922, the relationship between Greece and Turkey became more strained, and the Greeks in Turkey started facing intense discrimination (Human Rights Watch, 1992). This included repression of religious freedom and Greek educational institutions (Bulut 2017; Human Rights Watch, 1992).  Between 1941 and 1942, there was an attempt to put all non-Muslims into the military including the mentally-ill and the elderly (Bulut, 2017).  In 1955, anti-Greek riots took place in Istanbul. 4,000 Greek shops were sacked, 38 churches were burned and 35 vandalized. Following the riots, many Greeks were expelled from Turkey through government mandates. Due to the heavy discrimination against the Greeks, their population has dwindled from 110,000 in 1923 to 2,500 in 1991. Greek children are not allowed to study Greek history and Greek language textbooks are old and out of date (Human Rights Watch, 1992). 3 Greek schools belong to the Greek community as of 2016 compared to the 58 that existed in 1926 (Bulut, 2017). The Greeks have faced discrimination and have been expelled from Turkey evident from their dwindling population. I would give the data quality a 3 because of the amount of information about this case.

Sources

  1. Bulut, U. (2017, February 15). Greeks in Turkey on the Verge of Extinction. Clarion Project. https://clarionproject.org/greeks-in-turkey-on-the-verge-of-extinction-this-population-decline-of-gre/
  2. Human Rights Watch (1992). Denying human rights and ethnic identity: The Greeks of Turkey.  https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/TURKEY923.PDF