Total population | |
---|---|
3,000–5,000 (0.006% of population)[1][2][3] (not incl. Muslim Greeks[4][5] or Greek Muslims) | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Istanbul, İzmir, Çanakkale (Gökçeada and Bozcaada) | |
Languages | |
Greek (first language of the majority), Turkish (first language of the minority or second language) | |
Religion | |
Greek Orthodoxy | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Greek Muslims, Pontic Greeks, Antiochian Greeks |
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Greeks |
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History of Greece (Ancient · Byzantine · Ottoman) |
The Greeks in Turkey (Turkish: Rumlar) constitute a small population of Greek and Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians who mostly live in Istanbul, as well as on the two islands of the western entrance to the Dardanelles: Imbros and Tenedos (Turkish: Gökçeada and Bozcaada). Greeks are one of the four ethnic minorities officially recognized in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, together with Jews, Armenians,[6][7][8] and Bulgarians.[9][10][11]
They are the remnants of the estimated 200,000 Greeks who were permitted under the provisions of the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations to remain in Turkey following the 1923 population exchange,[12] which involved the forcible resettlement of approximately 1.5 million Greeks from Anatolia and East Thrace and of half a million Turks from all of Greece except for Western Thrace. After years of persecution (e.g. the Varlık Vergisi and the Istanbul Pogrom), emigration of ethnic Greeks from the Istanbul region greatly accelerated, reducing the Greek minority population from 119,822 before the attack[13] to about 7,000 by 1978.[14] The 2008 figures released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry places the current number of Turkish citizens of Greek descent at the 3,000–4,000 mark.[2] However, according to the Human Rights Watch the Greek population in Turkey is estimated at 2,500 in 2006. The Greek population in Turkey is collapsing as the community is now far too small to sustain itself demographically, due to emigration, much higher death rates than birth rates and continuing discrimination.[15]
Since 1924, the status of the Greek minority in Turkey has been ambiguous. Beginning in the 1940s, the government instituted repressive policies forcing many Greeks to emigrate. Examples are the labour battalions drafted among non-Muslims during World War II, as well as the Fortune Tax (Varlık Vergisi) levied mostly on non-Muslims during the same period. These resulted in financial ruination and death for many Greeks. The exodus was given greater impetus with the Istanbul Pogrom of September 1955 which led to thousands of Greeks fleeing the city, eventually reducing the Greek population to about 7,000 by 1978 and to about 2,500 by 2006. According to the United Nations, this figure was much smaller in 2012 and reached 2,000. As of 2023, according to The Economist, "Turkey's Greeks are on the verge of extinction".[16]
A minority of Muslim Pontic Greek speakers, using a dialect called "Romeyka" or "Ophitic", still live in the area around Of in north-eastern Anatolia.[17][18][19]
Turkey is a nation–state built on remnants of the Ottoman Empire where non-Muslim minorities were guaranteed the right to set up educational institutions; however, since its establishment, it has officially recognised only Armenians, Greeks and Jews as minorities and guaranteed them the right to manage educational institutions as enshrined in the Treaty of Lausanne. [...] Private language teaching courses teach 'traditionally used languages', elective language courses have been introduced in public schools and universities are allowed to teach minority languages.
Turkey signed the Covenant on 15 August 2000 and ratified it on 23 September 2003. However, Turkey put a reservation on Article 27 of the Covenant which limited the scope of the right of ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion or to use their own language. This reservation provides that this right will be implemented and applied in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Turkish Constitution and the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. This implies that Turkey grants educational right in minority languages only to the recognized minorities covered by the Lausanne who are the Armenians, Greeks and the Jews.
The fact that Turkish constitutional law takes an even more restrictive approach to minority rights than required under the Treaty of Lausanne was recognised by the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in its concluding observations on the combined fourth to sixth periodic reports of Turkey. The CERD noted that "the treaty of Lausanne does not explicitly prohibit the recognition of other groups as minorities" and that Turkey should consider recognising the minority status of other groups, such as Kurds. 50 In practice, this means that Turkey grants minority rights to "Greek, Armenian and Jewish minority communities while denying their possible impact for unrecognized minority groups (e.g. Kurds, Alevis, Arabs, Syriacs, Protestants, Roma etc.)".
In Turkey the Orthodox minority who remained in Istanbul, Imvros and Tenedos governed by the same provisions of the treaty of Lausanne was gradually shrunk from more than 200,000 in 1930 to less than 3,000 today.
6-7 Eylül olaylarından önce İstanbul'da 135 bin Rum yaşıyordu. Sonrasında bu sayı 70 bine düştü. 1978'e gelindiğinde bu rakam 7 bindi.