Wayzata World Factbook 1996/The World Factbook - 1996 Edition - Wayzata Technology (3079) (1996).iso/mac/TEXT/HUMANrts/GREECE.TXU

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TITLE:  GREECE HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE:  FEBRUARY 1995




Several denominations report difficulties getting residence
permits for foreign members of their faiths who come to Greece
to perform missionary or charity work.  Although such problems
continued in 1994, these denominations reported overall better
relations with immigration authorities and routine approval of
extensions of tourist visas for these persons for up to
9 months.

Mosques and other Muslim religious institutions operate freely
in western Thrace and in Rhodes, where most Greek citizens of
the Muslim faith reside.  Some Muslims claimed that Greek law
weakens the financial autonomy of the "Wakfs," community funds
used for maintaining mosques, schools, and for charitable
works, by placing the Wakfs under the administration of
appointed "muftis" (Islamic judges and religious leaders) and
their representatives.  Those who object to this system say it
violates the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne.

In accordance with a 1990 presidential decree, the State
appointed the two muftis in Greece, both resident in western
Thrace, based on the recommendations of a committee of local
Muslim scholars, religious authorities, and community leaders.
The Government argued that it must appoint muftis because, in
addition to their religious duties, they perform judicial
functions in many civil and domestic matters, for which the
State pays them.  The Muslim minority remains divided on the
mufti selection issue.  Some Muslims accept the authority of
the appointed muftis; others elect muftis to serve their
communities.

The Government denied entry to two Turkish theologians invited
to Thrace for Ramadan and in July refused to admit a delegation
of six religious leaders from Turkey to enter Greece on the
grounds that they intended to engage in political, not
religious, activities.

     d.   Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
          Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation

The Constitution calls for freedom of movement within and
outside the country, and the right to return.  However, Article
19 of the Citizenship Code distinguishes between Greek citizens
who are ethnic Greeks and those who are not.  Most Article 19
cases involve ethnic Turks from western Thrace, since only the
"Muslim minority" is recognized as having non-Greek ethnicity.
Greek citizens who are not ethnic Greeks may be deprived of
their citizenship if it is determined that they left Greece
with the apparent intention not to return.  However, immigrants
who are ethnic Greeks are normally recognized as Greek citizens
and accorded full rights, despite years or even generations of
absence from Greece.

The Interior Ministry initiates proceedings under Article 19 on
the basis of reports by local authorities in Greece or by Greek
embassies or consulates abroad.  It holds hearings at which the
affected person is neither present nor notified of the hearing.
Those who lose Greek citizenship as a result of such hearings
sometimes learn of this loss only when they seek to reenter
Greece.  According to the Foreign Ministry, 42 persons lost
Greek citizenship under Article 19 in 1994 as of October (down
from 123 in 1993).

Persons who lose their Greek citizenship under Article 19 have
the right of "administrative appeal" to the Interior Ministry
and may also appeal to the Greek Council of State and to the
Council of Europe.  Leaders of the Turkish-origin Greek
community complain that the time and expense involved tends to
discourage such appeals.  Three persons who lost Greek
citizenship in 1993 and three persons who lost citizenship in
1994 have filed administrative appeals which are pending.  Six
decisions on appeals from previous years were taken in 1993:
three denied and three upheld the appeals, according to the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Another section of the Citizenship Code, Article 20, permits
the Government to strip citizenship from those who "commit acts
contrary to the interests of Greece for the benefit of a
foreign state."  While the law as written applies equally to
all Greeks regardless of their ethnic background, according to
activists who support minority causes, it is exercised
principally against those who speak out against government
policy on national issues, including at least three activists
who call themselves Macedonian.

Some Greek citizens, particularly those of Slavic descent,
credibly reported that they were subject to extensive searches
and questioning at the border when traveling between Greece and
the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Greece maintains restricted military zones along its borders,
including along its northern border with Bulgaria, an area
where many Pomaks (Muslims who speak a Bulgarian dialect)
reside.  Since entry into the zone is strictly controlled, even
for local inhabitants, some residents of the area complain that
their freedom of movement is restricted.  Foreign diplomats are
allowed into the zone only under escort and with special
authorization.

Greece frequently offers temporary asylum, though rarely
permanent resettlement, to a growing number of refugees from
Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.  Permanent resettlement in Greece is
not usually available for nonethnic Greek refugees.  There are
3,482 cases of asylum seekers in Greece with apparently
legitimate claims to refugee status that are under review by
the Government in cooperation with the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

In August and September, the Government rounded up and expelled
over 50,000 illegal Albanian migrants from Greece.  There were
credible allegations by Albanians and by international human
rights observers of abuse of some deportees, especially at
border crossings on the Greek-Albanian border.  The roundup
coincided with sharply worsened relations between the
Governments of Greece and Albania, resulting from the trial of
five ethnic Greek leaders in Tirana on treason and weapons
charges.

Ethnic Greek immigrants, including those who came from the
former Soviet Union since 1986 and those rescued from the civil
war in Georgia, normally qualified promptly for citizenship and
special assistance from the Government.  The returnees have
been settled initially on government-owned land in western
Thrace, where government programs to get them to remain have
met with limited success.  Most move to Athens, Thessaloniki,
or other cities where job prospects are better.

Section 3 Respect for Political Rights:  The Right of Citizens
          to Change Their Government

Greece is a multiparty democracy in which the Constitution
calls for full political rights for all citizens and for the
peaceful change of governments and of the Constitution.
However, the Government limits the right of some individuals to
speak publicly and associate freely on the basis of their
self-proclaimed ethnic identity and thus impinges on the
political rights of such persons.  It also combined voting
districts in Thrace, making it impossible for ethnic Turks to
be elected there (see below).  Additionally, Roma
representatives report that local authorities sometimes deprive
Roma of the right to vote by refusing to register them.
Members of the unicameral 300-seat Parliament are elected to
maximum 4-year terms by secret ballot.

The Government headed by Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou of
the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) won in free and fair
elections in October 1993.  Parliament elects the President for
a 5-year term.  Universal suffrage applies to those over age 18
and enforced by fines and administrative penalties.  Opposition
parties function freely and have broad access to the media.

Under a 1990 electoral law, no candidate may be elected whose
party does not receive 3 percent or more of the nationwide
vote.  This law also applies to independent candidates.  As a
result, neither of Greece's former independent Muslim members
of Parliament, both of whom proclaim their Turkish ethnic
identity, was reelected to Parliament in 1993.  In the June
election to the European Parliament, candidates identifying
themselves as Macedonian running under the European-wide
"Rainbow Coalition" banner received 5.5 percent of the vote in
Florina, a heavily Slavophone province in northern Greece, and
a total of over 7,000 votes nationwide.  The Supreme Court
invalidated the list of Rainbow Coalition candidates but then
reversed its decision 2 weeks before the election.  Rainbow
candidates had little time to campaign officially, and were not
allowed to take part in government-sponsored television and
radio programs which included all other candidates.  In
addition, some polling stations did not receive lists needed
for supporters to vote for Rainbow candidates.  One of the same
activists ran without incident for governor of Florina
prefecture in the local elections in October; he won 3.3
percent of the vote.

In October Greece held elections at the local level, including,
for the first time (as a result of a new election law),
elections for governors and prefectural councils.  One month
prior to the elections, Parliament passed legislation combining
electoral districts in Athens and Thrace.  The prefecture of
Rodopi, about half of whose citizens are ethnic Turks or
Pomaks, was united with Evros, which is approximately 5-percent
Muslim.  Xanthi prefecture, which is approximately 40-percent
ethnic Turkish and Pomak, was united with two other prefectures
which had virtually no Muslim population.  Ethnic Turks
complained correctly that the law as it was applied to Thrace
was intended to eliminate any possibility that an ethnic Turk
could be elected governor of either of the prefectures.

In June unknown persons fired shots at Anastassios Boulis, a
Macedonian activist who was a candidate for the European
Parliament.  Boulis charged that, although local police knew
who the perpetrators were, they never investigated.  The
Government claimed a police investigation produced no
corroborating evidence or witnesses.

Although there are no legal restrictions on the participation
of women or minorities in government or politics, women's
representation at the higher levels of political life remain
low.  The head of the Communist Party is a woman.  Women hold
no ministerial positions in the Government and only 3 of 26
deputy ministerial positions.  Eleven of the 300 members of
Parliament are women.  Women are underrepresented in the
leadership of the two largest parties.

Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
          Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
          of Human Rights

The Government allows domestic human rights organizations to
operate but may or may not cooperate with them.  In principle,
it respects the right of foreign diplomats to meet with
officials and other citizens, including critics of official
policy, though it is clear that the security services observe
contacts of human rights monitors, including listening in on
conversations held between those monitors and human rights
investigators and diplomats.  The security services'
surveillance of such meetings is often blatant, and some such
meetings are treated tendentiously in the press.  Monitors view
this activity as a form of intimidation and say that it deters
others from meeting with investigators.

Section 5 Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion,
          Disability, Language, or Social Status

The Constitution provides for equality before the law and the
full protection of individual life, honor, and freedom
irrespective of nationality, race, language, or religious or
political belief.

Violence against homosexuals is not common in Greece.  However,
police occasionally harass gay bar owners and gay men,
including detaining them at police stations overnight and
sometimes physically mistreating them.  Homosexuals discovered
in the military service are dismissed for reasons of "mental
illness," and would-be draftees are exempted from compulsory
military service for the same reason.  Declared homosexuals
exempted from military service for that reason are ineligible
for public sector jobs.

     Women

There are broad constitutional and legal protections for women,
including equal pay for equal work, but the General Secretariat
for Equality of the Sexes (GSES), an independent government
agency, maintains that these laws are not consistently
enforced, and as a consequence women generally receive lower
salaries than men for similar jobs.  A GSES report states that
in 1993 average women's salaries in retail trade were 79.4
percent of those of men in comparable positions.

Although there are still relatively few women in senior
positions, in recent years women have entered traditionally
male-dominated occupations in large numbers.

The incidence of reported physical violence against women is
low; however, the GSES asserts that police tend to discourage
women from pursuing domestic violence charges and instead
undertake reconciliation efforts, though they are neither
qualified for nor charged with this task.  The GSES also claims
that the courts are lenient when dealing with domestic violence
cases; it hopes that attitude will change as more women enter
the judiciary.

As a result of pressure from women's groups, a center for
battered women was established in Athens in 1988, and a
residential facility for battered women and their children
opened in 1993.  These centers provide legal advice,
psychological counseling, information on social services, and
temporary residence for battered women and their children.
They received approximately 250 women in 1994.

The Government lists progress on women's issues as a high
priority and established a new position of Deputy Minister for
Women's Affairs in the Office of the Prime Minister.  This
Office and the GSES coordinate efforts to remove barriers.

     Children

Legislation enacted in 1992 prohibits and provides penalties
for all forms of maltreatment of children perpetrated by
parents or others.  The State provides preventive and treatment
programs for abused children and for children deprived of their
family environment, seeking to ensure that alternative family
care or institutional placement is made available to them.

However, children's rights advocacy groups claim that protection
of high-risk children in state residential care centers is
inadequate and of low quality.  They cite lack of coordination
between welfare services and the courts, inadequate funding of
the welfare system, and poor manning of residential care
centers as systemic weaknesses in child abuse prevention and
treatment efforts.  Societal abuse of children in the form of
prostitution, pornography, and child labor is rare in Greece.

In recent years, Greece has experienced a dramatic rise in the
population of street children, mainly from Albania, who
panhandle or peddle at city intersections on behalf of adult
family members or for organized crime.  Police occasionally
take these children into custody and bring them to state or
charitable institutions which care for wayward children.
Parents can reclaim their children from these institutions, but
risk deportation if they are illegal immigrants.  The number of
Albanian street children has been greatly diminished since the
expulsion of illegal Albanians in August-September 1994.  Roma
children are still in evidence on Athens streets, however.
Few children are available for adoption by childless couples.
As a result, occasional cases of prosecution against the
selling of Greek babies to childless couples are reported.

Usage of public health facilities by Roma is low because of the
low rate of integration of Roma communities within Greek
society and social security systems.  Ninety percent of Roma
are not insured by any of the government social security
systems because they are self-employed or work in off-the-books
jobs that do not make contributions to the social security
system.  The fact that health facilities are not located close
to the camps in which the Roma live also contributes to their
low rate of access.

     National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities

There are communities in Greece which identify themselves as
Turks, Pomaks, Vlachs, Roma, and Macedonians.  Many are fully
integrated into Greek society.  The only minority Greece
formally recognizes is a "Muslim minority," which is referred
to in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.  The Government insists on
the use of this rubric to refer to several different ethnic
communities, most of which adhere to the Muslim faith.  The
Muslim minority is comprised primarily of ethnic Turks or
Turkish speakers in western Thrace, which the Government
estimates at roughly 120,000 persons.  In addition to people of
Turkish origin, it includes Pomaks (Muslims who speak a
language akin to Bulgarian) and Roma.  Many Greek Muslims,
including Pomaks, identify themselves as Turks and say that the
Muslim minority as a whole has a Turkish cultural consciousness.
The use of the word "tourkos" ("Turk") is prohibited in titles
of organizations, though individuals may legally call
themselves "tourkos."  To most Greeks, the word "tourkos"
connotes Turkish identity or loyalties, and many object to its
use by Greek citizens of Turkish origin.  Use of a similar
adjective, "tourkoyennis" (of Turkish descent/affiliation/
ethnicity), however, is allowed (see also Section 2.b.).

Northern Greece is home to an indeterminate number (estimates
range from under 10,000 to 50,000 or more) of Greek citizens
who are descended from Slavs or Slavophones.  Some still speak
a Slavic dialect, particularly in the Florina district.  A
small number of them consider themselves to be members of a
distinct ethnic group which they identify as Macedonian and
assert their right to minority status.  The Government
continues to harass and intimidate some of these people,
including putting one person on trial for asserting the
existence of a Macedonian minority (see Section 2.a.), denying
their right to association (see Section 2.b.), monitoring
activists' meetings with human rights investigators (see
Section 2.d.), and accusing activists publicly of being agents
of a foreign government.  These activists say that, as a
result, some Greeks who consider themselves Macedonian do not
declare themselves openly for fear of losing their jobs or
other sanctions.

A 1994 report by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki entitled "Denying
Ethnic Identity--the Macedonians of Greece" charged, inter
alia, that an ethnic Macedonian minority with its own language
and culture exists in northern Greece and that the Greek
Government's denial of that minority is in violation of
international human rights laws and agreements.  They also
state that the Greek Government discriminates against this
minority in violation of international law or agreements to
which it is a party.  In responding to these charges, the
Government says that it recognizes, under the Copenhagen CSCE
document, the right of people to identify themselves as members
of ethnic minorities.  However, it states that such self-
identification does not require government recognition of such
a minority or entitle its members to any privileges under CSCE
or other instruments.  As noted , however, the Government
continues to deny the rights of free speech and association to
some who have tried peacefully to assert what they consider to
be their minority rights.

Government officials and Greek courts deny requests by
individuals and groups to identify themselves using the ancient
term Macedonian, since some 2.2 million ethnic (and
linguistically) Greek citizens already use the term to identify
themselves.  The Greek Government does not define the dialect
spoken by some thousands of northern Greeks as Macedonian, and
government officials deny that it is a language at all.  The
officials also noted that Greece regulates the establishment of
all commercial language academies, and questioned whether
advocates of "Macedonian" language schools meet the relevant
requirements.  They added that the Government would not
interfere with the holding of informal language classes within
the Slavophone community.

The Secretariat for Adult Education (a government agency) in
1994 revised upward its estimate of the number of Roma in
Greece to approximately 300,000.  Almost half of the Roma
population is permanently settled, mainly in the Athens area.
The other half is mobile, working mainly as agricultural
workers, peddlers, and musicians throughout the country.
Government policy is to encourage assimilation of Roma.
Poverty, illiteracy, and social prejudice continue to plague
large parts of the Roma population.  The Secretariat for Adult
Education conducted education programs targeting the Roma
population, including the use of mobile schools.  Some 1,200
Roma children attended the mobile school program during the
last school year.

The rate of employment of Muslims in the public sector and in
state-owned industries and corporations is much lower than the
Muslim percentage of the population.  In Xanthi, where Muslims
hold seats on the town council, there are no Muslims among the
approximately 130 regular employees of the prefecture.  Ethnic
Turks and other Muslims in Thrace claim they are hired only for
lower level, part-time work.  The Government says lack of
fluency in written and spoken Greek and the need for university
degrees for high-level positions limits the number of Muslims
eligible for government jobs.

Public offices in Thrace do their business in Greek; the courts
provided interpreters as needed.  In the Komotini district in
Thrace, where many ethnic Turks live, the office of the district
governor ("nomarch") has Turkish-language interpreters
available.

While discriminatory treatment against Muslims regarding
licenses to operate a business, own a tractor, or construct
property diminished greatly in recent years, basic services
provided to Muslim-populated neighborhoods and villages
(electricity, telephones, paved roads) in many cases continue
to lag far behind those provided to non-Muslim neighborhoods.

The Treaty of Lausanne provides that the Muslim minority has
the right to Turkish-language education, with a reciprocal
entitlement for the Greek minority in Istanbul.  Western Thrace
has both Koranic and secular Turkish-language schools.
Government disputes with Turkey over teachers and textbooks
caused these secular schools serious problems in obtaining
sufficient numbers and quality of faculty and teaching
materials.  Over 9,000 Muslim children attended
Turkish-language primary schools.  Around 650 attended
Turkish-language secondary schools, and approximately 1,000
attended Greek-language secondary schools.  Many Muslims
reportedly went to high school in Turkey due to the limited
number of places in the Turkish-language secondary schools,
which are assigned by lottery.  In 1994 no Greek Muslims
succeeded in passing the entrance examinations to attend a
Greek university.

Ethnic Turks found it difficult to obtain permission to bring
in teachers from Turkey or to hire Turkish-speaking teachers
locally, particularly for the secular Turkish-language middle
schools in Xanthi and Komotini.  Under a 1952 educational
protocol, Greece and Turkey may annually exchange 35 teachers
on a reciprocal basis.  Each group serves in Istanbul and
western Thrace, respectively, but in recent years the Greek
side limited the exchanges to 16 teachers per country due to
the dwindling needs of the small and aging Greek population in
Turkey.  According to the Government, during the 1993-94 school
year, Greece and Turkey did not exchange any teachers due to an
ongoing dispute over reductions of Greek instruction for Greek
students in Turkey, and the nonissuance of diplomas to some
Greek students there.  The teacher exchange was, however,
effected during the 1994-95 school year; 16 teachers were
exchanged by each country on November 1, 1994.

During the January 1994 visit of a group of Turkish
parliamentarians to western Thrace, a group of Christian
extremists hurled stones at the bus in which the delegation was
traveling.  There were no injuries, and no arrests were made.

     Religious Minorities

Several religious denominations, including the Roman Catholic
Church, reported difficulties in dealing with Greek authorities
on a variety of administrative matters.  Privileges and legal
prerogatives granted the Greek Orthodox Church were not
routinely extended to other recognized religions.  Rather, the
non-Orthodox must make separate and lengthy applications to
government authorities on such matters as arranging
appointments to meet with Ministry of Education and Religion
officials and gaining permission to move places of worship to
larger quarters.

Leaders of various non-Orthodox religious groups assert that
their members face discrimination in reaching the senior ranks
in government service; furthermore, it appears that only those
of the Orthodox faith can become officers in the Greek
military.  They allege that to avoid this restriction some
members of their faiths resort to declaring themselves
Orthodox.  Senior government officials, when questioned about
such allegations of discrimination, deny that it exists and
point out certain persons not of the Orthodox faith who have
successful careers in government service.  There appear to be
no statistics to support either side.

Teachers who are Jehovah's Witnesses have faced difficulties in
gaining or keeping employment in recent years in public or
private schools.  As a result of such difficulties, six
Jehovah's Witnesses have appeals on employment discrimination
pending with the Council of State, some dating back as far as
1989.

Greek law requires that Greek citizens declare their religion
on their bilingual identity cards that, if and when issued,
would allow Greeks to travel freely within the EU instead of
using passports.  The law has caused particular concern among
the Catholic and Jewish religious communities in Greece and
abroad and has drawn strong criticism from the European
Parliament.  The Government declined in 1994 to act either to
change the law mandating the declaration of religion on the
cards or to issue the new EU cards.  Instead, the old Greek
identity cards, which normally list religion but which allow
the bearer the option not to do so, are still being issued.

Leaders of the Jewish community in Greece have lobbied the
Government for several years to change five anti-Semitic
references in Greek public school textbooks.  In 1994 the
Ministry of Education deleted two of the five passages.

The Government allowed Turkish Prime Minister Ciller's
counselor Mustafa Kahramanyol to visit Thrace in early June,
but denied a visa to the Turkish Director General of Religious
Affairs, who wanted to visit a few weeks later.

     People with Disabilities

Legislation mandates the hiring of disabled persons in public
and private enterprises employing more than 50 persons.
However, the law is poorly enforced, particularly in the
private sector.  The law states that disabled persons should
comprise 3 percent of staff in private enterprises.  In the
civil service, 5 percent of administrative staff and 80 percent
of telephone operator positions are reserved for disabled
persons.  Persons with disabilities have been appointed to
important positions in the civil service, including secretary
general of the Ministry of Welfare.

The Construction Code mandates physical access for disabled
persons to private and public buildings, but again the law is
poorly enforced.  In the past 2 years, ramps and special curbs
for the disabled have been constructed on Athens streets and at
public buildings, and sound signals have been installed at some
city street crossings.  In 1993 the Government started
replacing old city buses with new ones with stairs specially
designed for the disabled; the accessible buses numbered 500 in
1994.  The new Athens subway lines under construction will
provide full access for the disabled.