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This article is within the scope of WikiProject Greece, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Greece on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GreeceWikipedia:WikiProject GreeceTemplate:WikiProject GreeceGreek Start This article has been rated as Start-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

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Archive 1 (2006—2007) Archive 2 (2008)

Misplaced Pages should promote freedom in access to information

I would like to protest to many persons here who use Misplaced Pages to show personal views or Greek government policies about the minorities in Greece, which in fact have been strongly criticized by the European Court of Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights as can be seen in the references in the article. In order to encourage freedom of information access Misplaced Pages should allow free exposure to all kind of referenced material, and in particular materials denied with official government policies. After all, the reports presented by official institutions (previously mentioned) protecting minorities and human rights in general are much more valuable than any other personal publications, books and even mainstream, biased, popular sources such as Britannica. It is outrageous to delete (or undo) an edit citing text from a report of the United Nations Human Rights Council published just recently in 2008.

Causantin made a good point by saying: "Why is it that, of all the countries in Europe, only 2 have "minorities" pages (Greece and Poland)? What is even crazier, is that these 2 are the only ones with no sizable minorities to speak of!! Both Poland and Greece have less than 2% minority populations, while in most European countries the percentage is above 5%, and often much more." Indeed, it's a sign that there is something very wrong with minority official policies and public opinion in Greece. If everything was fine there would have probably only been a short list of minorities in Greece with exact count as obtained in an official census. Until then, we should all to try to help truth surface. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ДАБ (talk • contribs) 19:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Irrational emphasis - greatly shorten?

Why is it that, of all the countries in Europe, only 2 have "minorities" pages (Greece and Poland)? What is even crazier, is that these 2 are the only ones with no sizable minorities to speak of!! Both Poland and Greece have less than 2% minority populations, while in most European countries the percentage is above 5%, and often much more. Until the other pages are filled up comparably, I would propose greatly trimming the article to include only real minorities (i.e. minorities whose people accept the minority identity). Causantin (talk) 11:56, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Please take a look at Category:Ethnic groups in Europe by country, which points to category pages for ethnic groups in all European counties (who knew there were Portuguese Luxembourgers? You will find that ethnic groups/minorities in Europe are actually quite well covered. Anyway, even if it were true that this article was more complete than the corresponding articles on other countries, that would not be a reason to "trim" this one, but to improve the others.

A better name for this article would probably be 'Ethnic groups in Greece', but in articles about Greece, it is probably better to avoid the word 'ethnic', since 'national' and 'ethnic' are the same word (εθνικὀς) in Greek. --macrakis (talk) 18:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

4milion arvanites origin 2milion speaks albanian 1milion slaves origin 300000speaks macedonian 100000 turk 1milion vlach origin 200000speaks vlaks 20000speaks albanian chams or 1milion greeks autocton 3milion from anadoll 6milion asimilated greeks and minorities when 3milion didnt speak greek from 300000 in epirus only 50000are pure greeks and 200000didnt speak greek from 2milion in macedonia 300000are pure greeks 1milion from anadoll 3ooooo are asimilated and 400000 are albanians vlach and slavs in central greece from 4milion 2milion are arvanites and 1milion speak today arvanites in thrace 300000people where 150000 muslim, 50000arvanites, 500000bulgares and 50000greeks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shqiptari77 (talk • contribs) 17:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Discrimination of turks

"Turks in Greece suffer from discrimination according to Human Rights Watch. On on 29 January 1990 Komotini events Turks become the target of Greek nationalists." I cant see any pov it verified and some people remove sentence even without looking/checking references.--Abbatai (talk) 08:29, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Wrong Albanian numbers- READ THE SOURCE

The source says the number of Albanian immigrants in Greece is 459,390. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bronxguy (talk • contribs) 19:41, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Lunch for Two (talk) 13:58, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Changes to "Macedonian speaking" and "Pomak" sections.

Users who disagree with the edits made to the former "Slavic-speakers" section, please present your reasons for this belief. All of the changes were well sourced and reflect both POV's (namely people who identify as ethnic Macedonians and people who identify as Greeks Slavophone Greeks). It reflects that although there are people who identify as Greeks, there are others however who identify as Macedonians and the references show the steps which these people have taken to nurture their mother language.

Similarly, the edits to the Pomak section simply reflect the linguistic classification of this speech, and provide information regarding the steps that these people have taken to foster their own culture. Lunch for Two (talk) 06:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Look, you need valid neutral reliable sources. Youtube is not among them. Neither is 'http://www.australianmacedonianweekly.com'. Moreover, you have changed the heading Slavic-speaking to Macedonian-speaking which is plain wrong since the section itself is about other groups as well (apart from the alleged Macedonian-speakers). Not to mention most additions are extremely POVish and sources are used selectively. I asked you to discuss the issues before adding the info that could spark an edit-war. Thanks for the cooperation, really. --Laveol 06:20, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the first part of your comment. (The Youtube source was only used for the Pomak news segment, I dont enough of the Greek script to be able to do full searches for the information, I am hopeful that this can be assisted by some of the Greek speaking users here).

It is clear that the language is Macedonian (this has been established time and time again by linguists, and by self identification of many of the speakers). In recent years the movement to promote the use of this language has been gaining momentum (in Greece), and this should be reflected in the text of the article. Literature (ie books, etc.) will need time (as always), to catch up with recent developments, and at this stage newspaper articles merely describing facts are suitable for sources. It is a fact that Macedonian language newspapers, radio stations, courses for learning the language, Macedonian-speaking mayors, etc. exist. How do you suggest that, apart from newspaper articles, that this information is sourced.

I detached the Pomak minority, given that they are a completely different group and share very little in common with the Macedonian speakers in Florina, Kastoria, etc.Lunch for Two (talk) 06:36, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Third Party here. Lunch for Two asked me to chime in. I'm not sure that I've changed half a dozen Balkan related pages out of my 12,000 edits. :) First of all, the amount of text added and reverted is *very* large and covers a wide variety of topics. Preferably, they should be added back in from least to most controversial with time to consider.

• The section with "further Albanian" is not referenced at all, and "interestingly" IMO, never belongs in[REDACTED] outside a quote
• The section with "Megleno-Romanian speakers" appears to reflect what is in that article, but adding a reference from that article with what is this article would be useful.
• The Pomaks, I don't think the title needs to be changed, "however there have been reports" isn't appropriate and the youtube video doesn't indicate that it has been broadcast. The census piece, OTOH, is probably appropriate.
• For the remainder Macedonia/Slavic speaking, given that the article referenced as Main is "Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia", I think the title prior to Lunch for Two's changes shold stay. My concern is less for the references, which for the ones with the mk seem to simply indicate they exist and more for balance among the various paragraphs. A large amount of what is added appears to already been in Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia, so what is actually in this article should probably be no longer than the text for the Roma or the Turks.
• I think that an additional level of title may be appropriate: Have the Slavic speakers as a title at one level with perhaps an intro paragraph and have the Macedonians and Pomaks as titles at the next level down.Naraht (talk) 15:34, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Fair comments being made. I think another subheading at the same level at the Pomak subheading called "Ethnic Macedonians" is a suitable compromise. Here the information about the ethnic Macedonian minority can be added (which in itself is quite extensive), whilst still retaining information about the speakers who choose to identify as Greeks (which was contained in my original edit)

As for the other sections, I will invest more time in better wording/references. Lunch for Two (talk) 12:42, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

After having a look at the page again, maybe it is more appropriate if "Ethnic Macedonians in Greece" is placed under the heading 'Other minorities', given that they are an ethnic minority (comparable to the turks, armenians and jews) and not merely a cultural-linguistic one (which implies Greek national consciousness). Any comments making such an edit? Lunch for Two (talk) 15:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

No, because most Slavic-speakers in Greek Macedonia identify as Greek. Only a small minority identify as "ethnic Macedonian" (as evidenced by the poor performance of "Rainbow"). Athenean (talk) 15:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

That is your opinion. Here are some facts:

• There exist people in Greece who identify as ethnic Macedonians
• These people are represented by several organisations
• These people have suceeded in electing ethnic Macedonians to public office
• There exist several Macedonian newspapers in Greece
• There are Macedonian language radio programs in Greece
• There have been calls for the introduction of the Macedonian language in schools
• Several Macedonian language courses in several cities have been set up. (All of these above facts were substantiated by links on the version which I edited)

Now Athenean, where do you propose that this minority receives coverage on this page? (All of this evidence strongly reaffirms that as a group, they exist) Lunch for Two (talk) 15:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Most of this people, probably 95% have a Greek selfidentification and speak different Slavic dialects. Please, keep neutraliry. Jingby (talk) 16:49, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, this is an unsubstantiated and clearly biased POV statement, and secondly, it does not nothing to counter the information which has been presented that clearly shows there is a significant population identifying as Macedonians (ethnically).

Is it not neutral to present the fact these people exist? And that they have manifested ways of expressing their identity (newspapers, radio, schools, organisations, etc.). Let the reader make up their own mind, judging from what these people have done themselves, as to whether or not they exist.

In spite of all of the information presented from intellectuals, and all of the evidence of self-identification by native Macedonian, is there anyone who can present a reason why this minority should not be listed on this page? (The fact that some speakers may have a different ethnic consciousness, is not a restricting reason) Lunch for Two (talk) 09:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Secondly, provide your reliable, nonbiased, scientific sources, not your POV. Thank you. Jingby (talk) 09:34, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:NEWSORG; "Mainstream news reporting is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact". My edit contained only facts which reflected real-life occurances in Northern Greece. Understandably, the limited interest which the English-language media has in regards to minority groups in Greece, is reflected in the lack of many recent English language articles also reflecting the occurances. The occurances may have been picked up in the Greek press, I personally do not know enough Greek to see if this is the case. The Macedonian language newspaper articles, for these purposes are acceptable as sources as per WP:NEWSORG.

Stop reverting edits due to personal POV, and rather assess the actual facts to see if they can be substantiated or not. Which of the instances of Macedonian self-identification did not occur?. Lunch for Two (talk) 10:21, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

• I have divided the section now information can be put about those identifying as Greeks and those who do not. Both POV's are covered. Lunch for Two (talk) 12:50, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The name of this article is Minorities in Greece. Please, create a different article about this 10,000 people and do not manipulate this one, which was neutral before your mass-edits. Thank you. Jingby (talk) 13:18, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Since when does size have anything to do with it? Why will you not accept the edits? Do these people not exist?! Lunch for Two (talk) 13:29, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Because nobody cares about newspapers from the WWII. Jingby (talk) 13:38, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

No, but people might be interested in the 6 Macedonian newspapers published in the last 20 years. Or the radio programs. Or the language classes. Or just self-identification in general.Lunch for Two (talk) 14:36, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, because of that you have created a new article. Congratulations. Jingby (talk) 14:42, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

They might also be interested in the fact that "Rainbow" hasn't run for elections since 2007, but you're probably not too crazy about mentioning that, are you? Athenean (talk) 14:44, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I dont mind having that in the article, so long as the other information regarding their self identification (elected representatives, radio, newspapers, etc.) are also mentioned. Lunch for Two (talk) 02:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

POV-pushing

I have reverted these edits as POV-pushing. First, the very use of language such as "among the problems of the muslim minority" and "another problem" are editorializing in nature, partisan, and unencyclopedic. Second, this so-called "Greek state's discimination" is from a source that's over 20 years old, and the situation has changed considerably since then. Third, mention of every single cemetery desecration is well beyond the scope of the article. This article is intended to provide readers with an overview of the minorities in Greece, not a litany of abuse and complaints. The section on Turks should be no longer or that different from the others. Lastly, the Turks of Western Thrace are listed in the Religious Minorities section together with the Pomaks because that is how they are treated in the Treaty of Lausanne, and therefore the Greek state, and most importantly the literature. I am well aware of the Gökalpian pan-Turkist POV, but it has no place in the article. Athenean (talk) 02:02, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Athanean;

1) If writing "among the problems" is "editorializing" you could have rephrased it instead of deleting the information altogether with its source. That would be much more constructive, what you did is damaging the encyclopedia. While I may-will try to do this myself, I do not totally understand what you are criticising. The source itself says muslims of Athens criticized and protested the absense of a mosque. So, why this does not qualify as a minority problem? Anyway, it is easy to find many sources that describe the current situation as a "problem", take for example the BBC: "...though the city authorities, aware of the problem..." (ie, the problem of the lack of an official mosque in Athens)
2) With regard to the "discrimination" paragraph, are you aware that you have also deleted a source published in 2011 and speaking about a 2009 event? (ie, Thrace Court of Appeal's decision about Xanti Turkish Union's appeal) This proves that there is consistency in Greek state's minority policy since 1980's. That means, what that "20 year old" source (Whitman, 1990) writes is still valid. However, it is better to keep it, too, since it mentions the historical root of the current situation. Besides, you have also deleted a 2003 source, too, as part of the same paragraph. You have also deleted another source from 1999, that of UN Refugee Agency's report. All those point to severe problems of this minority, both historical and contemporarly.
3) About "mentioning every single cemetary", I understand your concern about this article being more of a summary so I summarized the recent attacks. However, upon your request, I will make it an even more of a summary. About other minorities, if they, too, are subjected such frequent atrocities, those should be mentioned, too (rather than deleting the information about Turkish minority, we should complete the lacking information for others)
4) I do not think any of us would object that "Turkish" is an ethnic group like "Albanian" and not a religious one. Therefore the Turkish minority in Greece should be classified like Albanian or Armenian minorities, no matter if they are recognized as such in a treaty or not. We in Misplaced Pages are not required to organize our articles according to treaties.
5) The new paragraph you introduced instead of the one you delete contains Alexandris as the single source. However, I can not find the information you wrote in the page you indicate (page 120) of that book. In any case, Alexandris is not a reliable source about minority issues, he is very political and at times gives false information. (eg. in the page you referred, page 120, he says the oldest mosque on Imbros and Tenedos dates from 1965, while this is wrong by order of a few centuries) I suggest you to confirm everything he says from a more reliable source. Please also give more exact page numbers for each information.
Filanca (talk) 21:22, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

There is no Muslim "minority" in Athens, rather the Muslims there are recent immigrants. Hence the "problem" of the mosque in Athens is not a "minority" issue. You are trying to make it one though, and that is fairly obvious. As far as "consistency" and "sever problems of the minority" that is just your own POV and OR. Not interested. Regarding "atrocities", you again need to look up the definition of the word. Cemetery desecrations are not "atrocities", and I don't care how much you summarize it, they are beyond the scope of the article. The mere fact that you keep using the word "atrocities" speaks volumes about your motivation and POV. I've already explained to you why the Turkish minority is listed as a religious minority, if you aren't listening, that's not my problem. Lastly, Alexandris is a very reliable source. The fact that that you think he is "very poltical" says more about your motivation than his. And if you think he is so unreliable, why do you want the page number anyway? The information is all there, it's just a few pages after the Imbros and Tenedos section. I also strongly advise you against canvassing other Turkish users for support, it is a reportable (and blockable) offense. Athenean (talk) 21:51, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

My reply would be:

1) In which way being recent does not make Muslims a minority? And muslims in Athens are not that recent (even when setting aside Ottomans). See for example this source: Greek state considered (but did not build) a mosque in Athens first in 1880. An unofficial mosque was built in 1980. There are an estimated 200,000 muslims living in Athens, 10,000 of those are Greek citizens.

2) Re-adding the paragraph about discrimination since you do not object to that.

3) The minority was subject to frequent attacks in the recent years and that is important -- in one case a mosque was set on fire while 40 people were locked in. I would understand keeping it summarized here but omitting this important situation would be wrong. As for "atrocity", English is not my native language so I may pick up a word that is not appropriate from time to time. I will use "attacks" which sounds like more proper.

4) I understand that you want to classify Turks as a religious minority because of the Treaty of Lausanne which mentions a muslim minority in Greece, not a Turkish one. Again, here in Misplaced Pages we are not bound to organize our articles according to any treaty or government policy. Are Turks an ethnic group? Yes. Are there Turks in Greece? Yes. They have no difference from Albanian or Armenian minority in Greece in terms of being an ethnic minority. We are not in a position to consider all Turkish minority as muslims, there may be atheists or Christians among the Turks. See Ethnologue: Languages of Greece (...) Turkish 128,000 in Greece (1976 WA). Thrace and Aegean regions. Alternate names: Osmanli. Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Southern, Turkish

5) Do you say Alexandris is very reliable even after the example of his giving a faulty date as I indicated above? I am not totally against using him as a source, but given his track record of writing faulty information about Turks, I suggested to confirm what he said from other sources. And since your reference page number to his book is definitely wrong, if you will not correct, I will have to tag it.

6) My canvassing: There is no harm at notifying people who we think may be interested to an issue. The only person I mentioned this discussion is (I guess) interested (and, incidentally, he says he is not Turkish).
Filanca (talk) 21:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

In what way does being a Muslim does not make one a minority? You need to look up the definition of the word "minority" if you do not understand how the recent Muslim immigrants are different from a minority. Forget the Ottomans, there haven't been any Muslims in Athens between 1821 and the 1980s. So no, there isn't a Muslim minority in Athens. I also absolutely object to the paragraph about "discrimination". This is arguably the most POV-ish of all your edits. Minorities in Greece are treated relatively well (especially when compared to Turkey), and their rights are guaranteed by the constitution. Greece is moreover an EU member and has to adhere to certain standards regarding treatment of minorities. They receive public education in their own language, are allowed to use that language freely, they have radio stations, newspapers, everything. They can build as many mosques as they want, and have full freedom of religion, property rights, all that. Compare that with how minorities are treated in Turkey. It seems to me you are nit-picking, looking for something to complain about for the sake of POV-pushing. Sure, if you're willing to look hard enough, there is discrimination against minorities even in Sweden. Same with the "attacks". These are relatively minor incidents, particularly when one compares them to attacks on minorities in neighboring countries (e.g. Kosovo, Turkey. Wait, do you consider the Kurds in Turkey to be a minority or do you consider them to be "Mountain Turks"?). The information about the attacks can go in the article on the Turks of Western Thrace (which is why I didn't remove it from there), but not here. It is beyond the scope of the article. I've looked at the other articles about minorities in Europe, and none of them mention "attacks", even though there have been attacks against minorities in all those countries. Regarding the classification of the Turkish minority, as a result of the Treaty of Lausanne, most of the sources on the subject also classify them similarly. That is why we do so here, not because of the Treaty of Lausanne, but because that is how most sources classify them. By the way, I noticed there isn't even an article about minorities in Turkey. Would you be interested in helping me create it? Athenean (talk) 01:42, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Recent immigrants (in Europe, typically the economy-driven post-war immigration after 1945/50) are generally not subsumed under ethnic "minorities", a term which is reserved for autochthonous peoples. This is also the standard view followed throughout WP. So, while the Kurds or Greeks in Turkey are definitely to be described and classified as a minority, recent Muslim immigrants to Greece are not. A different case, though, would be long-term residents of Turkish descent in Greece who were not expelled following the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:53, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Gun Powder Ma. This issue seems controversial, a look at Minority group article will releave definitions of "minority" that has nothing to do to with recentness or birthplace. I was not the editor who wrote about "muslims in Athens" in this article, I only added their problem. Besides, as wrote above, the Greek government considered building a mosque in Athens from 1880s to 1920s -- which proves enough muslims living in the city to consider a mosque before the post-war immigration. In any case, there lives an estimated ten to fifteen thousand muslims of Greek citizenship in Athens today, a figure high enough for need of at least one mosque. Filanca (talk) 11:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

If we were to take the most extensive definition of "minority", as you seem to favour, we would end up in our globalized world with 200+ ethnic minorities alone for each state (the Minorities in New York alone would hold thousands of them). But as none of the WP article series "Minorities in x" do have such a wide scope, so I would argue we should follow their example. If the ambiguity, however, continues to stir discussions, I would prefer to see the article title narrowed down to "Ethnic minorities in Greece" (and unrelated material removed from the article) - this is actually also how most of the other European articles of this series are designated (see template at bottom). Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:20, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not favoring one definition over another, merely indicating that the border between immigrant and minority is blurry and it seems there is a controversy of definition. Unless there is an general agreement among scholars, it would not be correct for Misplaced Pages to favor a certain definition. Filanca (talk) 19:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

An example of considering immigrant groups as minorities, from the Guardian: Ethnic minorities to make up 20% of UK population by 2051.Filanca (talk) 20:00, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

User:Athenean claimed that this edit should be POV pushing. But I don't understand why User:Athenean felt this edit POV pushing. Maybe he gave wrong link. About the term "Greek state's discimination", I couldn't find such wording. We can use the term "oppression and discrimination by the Greek government". (This question immediately brings to mind the situation of the Turkish Muslim minority of Western Thrace, who continue to be subject to oppression and discrimination by the Greek Government. Turkey seeks only to see this minority enjoy ail its rights emanating from international treaties and live in peace as equal Greek.... About Pomaks, we can mention in 1954 the Greek government relaxed its traditional antipathy towards the use of ethnic labels to refer to ethnic minorities in Western Thrace and upheld the entire Pomak/Turk/Muslim minority as 'Turkish'.", "Greece does not recognise any ethnic or national minorities apart from a religious minority, the "Muslim minority of Thrace". etc. Here is not a Misplaced Pages of the Greek government. And I've never heard the term "Gökalpian pan-Turkist". What does it mean ? Is this a production by Greek chauvinism ? Takabeg (talk) 06:41, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Takabeg, Alexandris uses the term "Gökalpian" in a book on a page (p. 124) used as reference in the article. Filanca (talk) 00:01, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

@Athanean:

1) There are some definitions in Minority group, you may want to look, too. This is an important problem for muslims of Athens, who number hundreds of thousands of people, no matter if you call them community or minority. Mark however, among the muslims in Athens are some ten to fifteen thousand Greek citizens, who are officially accepted by the Greek government as a minority.

2) The reason you give for deleting "discrimination" paragraph is personal opinions. Please do not delete information with proper references, you are damaging the encyclopedia.

3) Attacks to the Turkish minority in Greece are notable, as attested by its sources. Please stop deleting.

4) There can be no doubt that "Turk" is not a religion but an ethnic group. Denying the existance of Turkish minority in Greece and calling them as "the muslim minority" is the official policy of the Greek government and is downright POV in Misplaced Pages. See the Human Right Watch's call to the Greek government: "•Acknowledge the existence of the Turkish minority, as has been done in the past, most recently in the 1950s, and grant ethnic Turks all the civil and political rights enjoyed by other Greek citizens"
Filanca (talk) 13:20, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, first of all, both of you need to start learning to indent your comments. I am not going to respond to Takabeg's personal attacks, except to remind him that Gökalpian Pan-Turkism is a product of Turkish chauvinism. As for Filanca, you are starting to repeat yourself. You have already been told by not just me that recent Muslim immigrants to Athens are not a "minority". You need to accept that. Also, your claim that there are "ten to fifteen thousand Greek citizens, who are officially accepted by the Greek government as a minority." is WP:OR, and even if true, that group has never asked for a mosque in Athens. That this is "an important problem" is also just your opinion and nothing more. I've already explained to you why your edits are POV-pushing, and unlike you, I tire of repeating myself. Your sources for the "frequent attacks" are www.abttf.org, which is definitely not a reliable source, as it is ultra-partisan and moreover fails the criteria for WP:RS, while Hurriyet, which is a reliable source, speaks of a single instance of 10 gravestones being desecrated. How you go from that to "frequent attacks" is a classic example of POV-pushing by misusing sources. As for your sources about "discrimination" they are all either outdated or impossible to verify. And they're not even your sources, they are a cut-and-paste job from another article. The Greek government does acknowledge the existence of a Turkish minority, and this minority enjoys equal civil and political rights enjoyed by other Greek citizens. I have also fixed the page number for Alexandris, so I think that's settled. Athenean (talk) 20:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Athanean;
1) Did you have a look at the Minority group article as I suggested? Take, for example, Feagin's definition of a minority, there is nothing about recentness in his definition. That 15,000 muslim immigrants from Western Thrace live in Athens was referenced: Al Shahi and Lawless's book, you deleted this -- did'nt you notice?
You say "that group (ie, immigrants from Western Thrace) has never asked for a mosque in Athens". Read this interview with members of Greek-Turkish muslims living in Athens: "Because there is no imam to perform the funeral rituals, our deceased have been travelling an 800 km distance to Gümülcine () or to İskeçe () for year... There is no one who would teach our religion to our children. (...) We bought books from Turkey with our own money and we made photocopies, but it is not enough... Nowadays we only listen to the Glorious Qur'an from cassettes, because we do not know how to read it." Some Greek citizen Muslims already have illegal mescits (small mosques) while others can not do that due to high costs involved. See . That this is an important problem is not "according to me": There are enough coverage of reliable sources that indicates it is notable including the BBC and the US Department of State. (included in the sources you deleted from the article)

2) Discrimination paragraph: Misplaced Pages lets use of reliable sources no matter when they were published and the oldest source in that article was published 21 years ago (that of Whitman, 1990). There is another source in this article dated from 1974, no problem. It is important to keep Whitman as a source, since the situation outlined there is valid even today (as attested by other sources). What do you mean that the sources in the article are impossible to verify? Which ones exactly?

3) About attacks: There is nothing wrong with ABTTF, it is a respectable organisation, being NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, a Member of the Fundamental Rights Platform (FRP) of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and a Member of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN). And there is no reason to doubt the news of Hürriyet. Anyway, it is fairly easy to find other sources about attacks to the Turkish minority in Greece: Read a US Department of State report , or a Greek news agency or the report of an American human rights organization among many. There has been six incidents in 2010 and three in the first months of 2011, I consider that as frequent, but we may indicate the number of incidents instead of saying "frequent" if you'd like.

4) "The Greek government does acknowledge the existence of a Turkish minority" the sources you deleted do not say so. However, if even the Greek government acknowledge them, you should have no problem to move them from being a subsection under "Muslims" to an equal header as other ethnic minorities in Greece. And again, please, stop deleting information with proper sources.

5) About Alexandris: Thanks for fixing the page number. The link still goes to the wrong page.
Filanca (talk) 23:50, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Once again I have to remind you to learn to indent your comments using ":". Now, since you're so insistent on using the[REDACTED] article on Minority group, I will quote the first sentence of that article: A minority is a sociological group that does not make up a politically dominant voting majority of the total population of a given society.. The key word here is "voting", i.e. a minority consists of citizens of a country. Since recent Muslim immigrants are not citizens, they can't vote, therefore they are not a minority, get it? The situation has changed a lot since 1990 (even if you refuse to accept that), and so Whitman is outdated. It's interesting you mention the US Department of State Report. Quoting from the report, I see "The constitution and other laws and policies protect religious freedom and, in practice, the government generally enforced these protections. The government generally respected religious freedom in law and in practice. There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom by the government during the reporting period.", also "The government gives special consideration to Muslim minority students from Thrace for admission to universities and technical institutes, setting aside 0.5 percent of the total number of places for them annually and implementing a program during university entrance exams that accepts lower passing scores.". I also see some mention of egg-throwing and a broken window. Is this what you consider "notable" and important"? Eggs? A broken window? You completely choose to ignore that the Greek government respects the rights of Muslims, and instead focus on eggs and a broken window. As for the "Greek news agency" and "American human rights organization" , they all refer to the same incident as the one mentioned in Hurriyet", i.e. the same incident of cemetery desecration. In other words, you are using three different sources for the same incident and then claiming that there are "frequent attacks". This is ludicrous. ABTTF is a self-published advocacy group, we don't use sources like that here for obvious reasons. If a cemeteray was damaged in a hailstorm, they would claim the Greeks did it. The Greek government provides all kinds of services for the Muslim minority, so of course it accepts the existence of a Muslim minority, if it didn't it wouldn't provide all these services, would it? This is obvious to anyone who does not want to see it. Athenean (talk) 06:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

1) I said above that the definition of a minority is controversial when it comes to immigrants. There are different definitions within the article and muslims in Athens look like fitting Feagin's definition. By the way, the first sentence is speaking of voting majority, not a voting minority. In my opinion, that sentence is meant to mean, if a minority is denied voting rights, like it has been under apartheid regime in South Africa, they would not cease to be a minority. Anyway, Greek-citizen muslims in Athens can vote and they want mosques, too.

2) Discrimination: If the situation have changed since Whitman wrote, we would still report what Whitman wrote in 1990 and also write what has changed since then. However, the other sources you deleted without reason are from 1999 (Human Rights Watch), 2003 (Hirschon), 2009 (Carter, Irani, Volkan), 2011 (ABTTB) and all attest that what Whitman wrote is at least partially still valid today. You are violating Misplaced Pages principles by deleting those sources.

3) Attacks: The US Department of state report was a reference for attacks against the Turks in Greece. We are not putting (Greek government + Greeks) into a general sort of trial here, so your point is not exactly relevant. There are no absolutes, for example,This US Department of State raport in 2006 says "while the Government generally respected this (practice of religion right, non-Orthodox groups sometimes faced administrative obstacles or encountered legal restrictions on religious practice". In their 2010 report they say "non-Orthodox groups sometimes faced administrative obstacles or encountered legal restrictions" . You are speaking of this interim report for the second half year 2010 (please give relevant links as you refer to documents). It says "in the status of respect for religious freedom by the government", the problems in the previous reporsts still hold. See section about religious freedoms, esp. how muslims in Athens have to travel to Western Thrace for religious ceremonies due to lack of mosques. We have documened use of molotov bombs in attacks against mosques and Turkish societies. Also in the US Department of State July-December 2010 interim report ; far-right group locked 40 people in an unofficial mosque in Athens and set the building on fire in 2 November 2010. In August Pospos muslim cemetary in Komotini was desecrated, tombstones broken. In December a mosque and in a separate instance, a Turkish society were attacked by molotov cocktails. In earlier reports in September 2009, Toxotes mosque was arsoned. In December 2009 Xanti mosque was vandalized with graffiti. In February 2010, a Komotini cemetery was desecrated. These incidents look quite regular. This report speaks of an attack to a muslim cemetery on 8 October 2010 while Hürriyet reports another one that took place on 15 August 2010. Reports of NGO's like ATTB are among acceptable sources in Misplaced Pages, if you have doubts, you may submit it for examination. But, after all, we have verified most of the incidents they mentioned from the US Department of Defence reports, Hürriyet, a human rights organization and a Greek news agency.

4) We are speaking of Greece's denial of a Turkish minority, not a muslim one. I am re-adding this denial and references since you fail to provide any valid reason for deleting it.

Filanca (talk) 10:32, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

1) There is simply no way I am going to accept the recent Muslim immigrants of Athens as a minority. Remember how you were wrong about the use of the word "artocity" because English was not your native language. As you did then, I suggest you accept that may be wrong on this point as well and defer to those whose native language is English (or at least close enough). Now, I am willing to accept a single sentence mentioning how the Greek citizens who are Muslims of Western Thrace (not just Turks, this includes Pomaks and Roma) do not have a mosque in Athens and need to travel to Western Thrace for religious ceremonies, but no more.

2) The situation was even worse in the 1920s. Shall we mention that too? Shall we also mention how the Muslims were absolute masters of the land before 1913? The situation has changed significantly since the 1990s, please accept that.

3) Neither the frequency nor severity of the attacks are sufficient to warrant mention in the article, as I've also explained on the WP:DR page. Eggs? Graffiti? Broken windows? This is minor vandalism, like something teenagers would do. How about the fact that not a single member of the minority has been harmed in all these years? And even if we accept the claim of 6 attacks in 2010 and 3 this year, that is nowhere close to "frequent". Forget it, this is totally WP:UNDUE. This is the point I insist on the most.

4) I can agree to a single sentence (neutrally-worded of course), that the Greek government does not recognize a separate "ethnic Turkish" minority, but rather a single Muslim minority, as stipulated in the Treaty of Lausanne, but no more. Athenean (talk) 19:59, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Jews and Armenians

What is this "other minorities" section? Jews are obviously a religious minority just as Muslims are, and Armenians ought to be considered "linguistic and cultural" minorities like the Roma. Am I wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.176.43.83 (talk) 09:17, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Religious minorities

This dispute resolution request was not resolved but closed - this is probably due to my inability to edit in Misplaced Pages for some time. Meanwhile, I see that the most important part of the dispute, that is, classifying Turks under "religious minorities / muslims" is still remaining in the article. I proposed to place Turks under ethnic minorities. There is no need to make distinction between "linguistic communities" and ethnic minorities, either. Under "religious minorities" there can still be a separate "Muslims" section. Another issue was alluding to the long standing problem of the lack of a mosque in Athens. A sentence like "great majority of Turkic Muslims in Thrace espouse moderate political views and are ready to work and prosper as citizens of the Greek state", even if referenced, constitue a violation of neutral point of view policy of this encyclopedia, probably reflecting that of the source itself. Do you think we may agree on these points here or do we need to speak it on the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard? Filanca (talk) 20:24, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I have anything to add since last time we discussed (see above). Athenean (talk) 07:55, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

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