Balkans | Defender of the Turkish Muslim minority in Western Thrace in Greece: d. Sadiq Ahmed

The late Dr. Sadiq Ahmed is commemorated on the 28th anniversary of his death.

Ahmed, who was born on January 7, 1947 in Komotini, completed his compulsory 3-year military service as a Greek citizen after studying medicine in Ankara and Thessaloniki.

Ahmed is known for having worked as a doctor in 1978, as well as fighting for the Muslim minority Turks as a “community leader”.

doctor. Sadiq Ahmed became an inspiring leader of the Western Thrace Turkish Muslim minority with years of struggle for their democratic rights.

In an attempt to draw attention to the political pressure exerted by Greece on the Turkish minority in Western Thrace due to the strained Turkish-Greek relations due to the Cyprus problem, Ahmed started a petition in 1985 to raise the voice of the Turks of Western Thrace to the international audience, but he was sentenced to prison for the campaign.

Ahmed closely followed many problems such as Greece not recognizing the minority’s Turkish identity, using the definition of “Muslim minority” instead, and depriving tens of thousands of citizenship using Article 19 of the Citizenship Constitution as a pretext.

Ahmed, who was the first independent deputy elected by Western Thrace votes in the 1989 general elections in Greece, was abolished within a few months.

The Friendship, Equality and Peace Party was founded in 1991

Ahmed was arrested and imprisoned for two months after he used the definition of “Turk” instead of a minority in his speeches. Ahmed, who was elected as a deputy for the second time in the same year, founded the Friendship, Equality and Peace Party, which is the first and only political party representing the Turkish West Thrace minority.

The “election threshold of 3 percent” that came with the change in the Greek electoral system brought with it “the requirement that a candidate receive 3 percent of the vote, not only in his district but also in all of Greece in order to be an independent MP”.

After this practice, 150 thousand West Thracian Turks live in Greece with a population of about 11 million, said Dr. After Sadiq Ahmed, he could not get an independent candidate.

Ahmed died in a “suspicious” traffic accident in the seventy-second year of the Lausanne Peace Agreement.

While today Turkish politicians can enter parliament as candidates from various political parties in the region, the Turks of Western Thrace have a maximum of 4 deputies in the Greek Parliament.

On the other hand, the FEP party continues its political activity in the region, although it does not participate in the general elections.

Ahmed died in a “suspicious” traffic accident on July 24, 1995, at the age of 48, in the 72nd year of the Lausanne Peace Agreement, which protects minority rights in Western Thrace.

Associations with the word “Turkish” in their names are not allowed to operate officially

Although the persecution of the Turks of Western Thrace has gradually decreased since the early 1990s, and there have been significant improvements in the rights of its citizens, Greece continues its policy of denying the “ethnic identity” of the Turks in Western Thrace.

Despite rulings contrary to the European Court of Human Rights, Greece does not officially allow associations with the word “Turkish” in their names.

AA