(Kathimerini) Athens on Tuesday rebuffed comments by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu who referred to the Muslim minority in Western Thrace as a “Turkish minority.” “In Greece, which is the historical cradle of democracy but also a modern European democratic state, there […]
(Anadolu) Top Turkish officials on Tuesday slammed Greece’s president for mislabeling the Muslim Turkish minority in a region of Greece bordering Turkey as a “Greek Muslim minority.” “The president of a country said to be the cradle of democracy again called the […]
(Anadolu) Turks living in Europe filed a criminal complaint against a Greek member of the European Parliament for ripping apart a Turkish flag, their union said on Thursday. In a statement, the Union of International Democrats (UID) said it has demanded an […]
(AFP) Police on the Greek island of Lesbos on Monday fired tear gas at hundreds of migrants protesting against tougher new asylum rules, officials said. Brandishing makeshift signs with the word “freedom,” some 2,000 men and women walked out of the overpopulated […]
(AP) Amnesty International on Thursday criticized Greece’s plans to deploy a floating barrier as a way to prevent migrants from reaching the Greek islands from nearby Turkey. The international rights group’s research director for Europe, Massimo Moratti, described the plan as “an […]
(Reuters) Greece wants to install a floating barrier in the Aegean Sea to deter migrants arriving at its islands’ shores through Turkey, government officials said on Thursday. Greece served as the gateway to the European Union for more than one million Syrian […]
(AP) The “anxiety and indignation” of Greek island residents living at the forefront of a migration crisis are justified, Greece’s migration and asylum minister said Thursday, and vowed to address dramatic overcrowding on island camps and the increasing number of new arrivals. […]
(AFP) Thousands of residents on Greek islands hosting large migrant camps kicked off a day of protests on Wednesday, demanding the immediate removal of asylum seekers. The islanders of Lesbos, Samos and Chios staged a general strike, shutting down shops and public […]
(AP) Greece announced plans Wednesday to overhaul its migration management system, replacing overcrowded refugee camps on the islands with smaller detention facilities and moving some 20,000 asylum seekers to the mainland over the next few weeks. Deputy Defense Minister Alkiviadis Stefanis announced […]
(Anadolu) A Daesh/ISIS terrorist who was stranded at the Turkey-Greece border has been extradited to the U.S., the Turkish interior minister said Friday. “Today an American who was stuck between our country and Greece was extradited to the U.S. from Istanbul a […]
(Anadolu) The U.S. citizen terrorist will be repatriated to his home country after [being] in legal and literal limbo along the Turkey-Greece border, the Turkish Interior Ministry said on Thursday. “The necessary legal procedures to send the foreign national terrorist to the […]
(AP) Greek officials Tuesday scrapped plans to criminalize blasphemy as a law-and-order debate intensified between the country’s new conservative government and the left-wing opposition. Justice Minister Costas Tsiaras said the proposal has been removed from draft legislation that’s being debated in Parliament. […]
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(Kathimerini) Turkey’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hami Aksoy has accused Greece of “inhumane practices” against Turkish minorities and of “taking sides” with “hostile circles against Turkey.” Reportedly responding to comments made by Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos on the Armenian Genocide during a recent […]
(National-UAE) A Greek nationalist organisation has sparked outrage after plotting to hold a barbecue with alcohol and pork near a migrant camp. United Macedonians planned an event for this Sunday next to the Diavata camp, near Thessaloniki in northern Greece, in protest […]
(Anadolu) An elected Muslim religious leader in Greece’s Western Thrace region was given 80 days of prison sentence for usurping authority. Ibrahim Serif is the elected mufti of Komotini (Gumulcine) which is one of the three major cities of the Western Thrace […]
(Kathimerini) Greece’s top administrative court on Friday rejected as unfounded an appeal by two Muslim religious leaders from northern Greece against their compulsory retirement last year. The case refers to a law presented by the ministry of education and approved by Parliament […]
(AFP) The situation for migrants in camps on Greek islands is “explosive” and “on the edge of catastrophe,” the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights said Thursday. Greece has once again become the main point of entry for people seeking asylum […]
(Anadolu) Greek sports club AEK Athens penalized their Turkish goalkeeper Yunus Ozmusul on Wednesday for performing a military salute after [the] Turkish national handball team won against Belgium. AEK said on [its] website that Ozmusul, 30, was fined by his club and […]
(Anadolu) A minority rights group on Wednesday called on Greece to recognize the Turkish minority of Western Thrace. The Western Thrace region of Greece is home to a Muslim Turkish minority of around 150,000 people. In a report published Wednesday, the Minority […]
(AFP) At the notoriously overcrowded Greek island camp of Moria, Ezzatolah Soleimani admits he cries often amid despair, scenes of violence and interminable waits for food and basic sanitation. The young Afghan is just 16, one of over 4,000 unaccompanied minors trapped […]
(Reuters) A fire in a severely overcrowded migrant camp in Greece forced hundreds of people into the streets, compounding their plight with more refugees arriving on Greek islands daily in what an aid group called a worsening “nightmare.” Greece sent more police […]
(Deutsche Welle) Greek authorities extradited an Iraqi man to Germany where he now faces charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and human trafficking, German prosecutors said on Friday. German officials identified the suspected “Islamic State” (IS) militant as Taha A.-J., in […]
(AP) Greek authorities were transferring around 570 migrants from an overcrowded camp on the island of Lesbos on Sunday, officials said. A regularly scheduled ferry left Lesbos carrying the migrants, who used to live in the migrant camp of Moria. Authorities say […]
(Deutsche Welle) German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has warned of a larger influx of refugees than that seen in Europe in 2015. He made the statement during an official visit to Greece. Traveling with incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, […]
(AP) Greece said Friday it will call on the European Union to impose sanctions on member states that refuse to accept refugees, as senior European officials visited Ankara and Athens to try and stem a surge in migrant arrivals overwhelming Greek islands. […]
(Reuters) Greece’s prime minister accused Turkey on Friday of appearing to “exploit” Europe’s migrant crisis for its own ends and said Ankara could and should control migrant flows to the continent. Greece, the route into the European Union for nearly a million […]
(AFP) EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said Thursday there was an “urgent need” to stop illegal departures from Turkey as Greece struggles to cope with a sharp increase in the refugee arrivals. “Irregular arrivals to Greece increased over the past weeks and […]
(AFP) Greece said Monday it wanted to start sending back thousands of migrants to Turkey, a day after a deadly fire sparked riots at an overcrowded camp on the island of Lesbos. The decision, taken at an emergency cabinet meeting, came as […]
(AP) Migrants protesting at an overcrowded camp on the Greek island of Lesbos set fires and clashed with police Sunday, killing at least one person, authorities said. A burned body was brought to a local hospital and there is information about an […]
(AP) There’s no room left at Europe’s largest refugee camp. New arrivals on the Greek island of Lesbos have to fend for themselves outside its barbed wire perimeter — in a maze of tents, each sprayed with a number in black paint. […]
(AFP) The arrest in Greece of a Lebanese man accused of involvement in a 1985 plane hijacking is a case of mistaken identity, Lebanese officials said on Monday. Greek authorities detained the 65-year-old man last week on the island of Mykonos. They […]
(Anadolu) Parents and students of a Turkish minority school in Greece on Monday protested a move splitting up the school day into two shifts due to inadequate classroom space. Some 2,000 protesters, according to local media, at the Xanthi (Iskece) Muzaffer Salihoglu […]
(Reuters) Greek police have arrested a 65-year-old Lebanese man suspected of involvement in the 1985 hijacking of a Trans World Airlines (TWA) plane in which a U.S. navy diver was killed. A Greek police official said on Saturday the suspect had disembarked […]
(AP) A perpetually overcrowded refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos can’t accommodate any more newly arrived asylum-seekers after the number of people already housed exceeded the camp’s intended capacity by 400%, authorities said Friday. Migrants who made it to Lesbos […]
(CBS) Human smuggling is a big business in Athens and CBS News has found evidence that ISIS members are being moved through Greece to the rest of Europe. In central Athens, an area around Omonia Square is notorious as a center of criminal […]
(Anadolu) Students in a high school of Greece’s Turkish minority prevented the entrance of a Greek-appointed mufti (Muslim cleric) by calling him an “unwanted” person, according to local media. Western Thrace region of Greece is home to a Muslim-Turkish minority numbering around […]
(Reuters) Turkey plans to resettle 1 million refugees in northern Syria and may reopen the route for migrants into Europe if it does not receive adequate international support for the plan, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. Turkey, which hosts 3.6 million […]
(AP) French President Emmanuel Macron and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis agreed to push for more solidarity in the European Union over the migrant crisis. Mitsotakis, who took office [in] July, met with Macron in Paris on Thursday. He said the migrant […]
(Daily Sabah) Greece’s Education Ministry shut down five more schools attended by students from the country’s Turkish minority, drawing criticisms from the minority population. Schools were shut down due to the low number of students according to the ministry. The number of […]
(AP) Police in Thessaloniki have arrested 61 migrants for illegal residence in the country, in a crackdown following a string of violent incidents near the northern Greek city’s main railway station. Officers were patrolling the area and carrying out identity checks Tuesday […]
(Anadolu) Athens does not consult with the ethnic Turkish minority in its northeast on the group’s own affairs, a Greek political party garnering overwhelming support from the minority said on Friday. Greece’s Western Thrace region is home to around 150,000 Muslim Turks. […]
(Kathimerini) Greece on Saturday rejected Turkish accusations that Muslim religious leaders will be under the control of a newly established government body, saying there are no such plans and called for an end to interventions in the country’s domestic affairs. The Greek […]
(Anadolu) Turkey on Friday decried a decision by Greece that local religious leaders, known as muftis, among the Turkish minority living in the Western Thrace would henceforth be appointed by the state instead of being elected by the local people. “Greece violates […]
(Greek Reporter) The leader of the Party of Friendship, Equality and Peace (KIEF), representing part of the Muslim minority of Greece’s Western Thrace region, said on Wednesday that her party is “Turkish.” Cigdem Asafoglu, whose KIEF party swept the prefectures of Xanthi […]
(Greek Reporter) Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke about Greece’s Muslim minority in Thrace during a speech at an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday. Cavusoglu said that the minority in Thrace ”does not benefit from […]
(AP) Greek authorities say dozens of asylum-seekers have turned up at the home address of European border agency employees helping police the border with Turkey. Police say 61 men, women and children who had just crossed illegally from Turkey headed straight for […]
(Reuters) Hungarian authorities detained a Syrian man on Friday accused of taking part in beheadings in Syria as a member of Islamic State, Budapest prosecutors and the European judicial co-operation agency Eurojust said. The 27-year-old man, identified by Hungarian authorities as F. […]
(Kathimerini) Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has criticized Greece of failing to uphold the rights of its Muslim minority in Western Thrace and of forbidding its members to call themselves “Turks.” He was speaking after the 54th meeting of the European Union-Turkey […]
(AFP) Outwardly, Komotini looks like other Greek cities, but there is a major difference: it has nine mosques whereas there are none in Athens. The northeastern city has existed from the second century and was captured by Ottoman-era Turkey in the 14th. […]
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