28
July 2003
Condemnation
of Greece's Continued Blacklisting of Ethnic Macedonians
The
Macedonian Human Rights Movement
of Canada (MHRMC) condemns Greece's continued blacklisting
of ethnic Macedonian human rights activists and political
refugees. Despite Greece's recent pledge that Macedonian political
refugees will finally be allowed to enter Greece this summer,
after 55 years in exile and in time for their Third World
Reunion, (see www.mhrmc.ca/press/03/detsa_begaltsi.html
for
background information) several instances of Macedonians being
denied entry into Greece have occurred during the past week.
On July 20, 2003, Australian citizen Janko Kalinchev, born
in the village of Ovcharani (Meliti in Greek), and Canadian
citizen Georgi Kizovski, born in Gabresh (Gavros), attempted
to enter Greece from the Republic of Macedonia in order to
visit their birthplaces. However, Greek border officials denied
them entry and refused to give them an explanation, instead
saying that they were denied entry for "other reasons".
(See the border
document given to Canadian citizen Done Rakovsky when
he was refused entry on July 6, 2002)
According to Mr. Kizovski, "The Greek government keeps
a blacklist of people who are active in Macedonian organizations
abroad and who openly declare themselves as Macedonian. We
were obviously returned at the border because of our membership
in the Association of Refugee Children from the Aegean Part
of Macedonia (Detsa Begaltsi) in Australia and Canada."
Another
Australian-Macedonian activist, Sotir Mitrev, was returned
at the border on July 24, 2003. This was the third time that
he has been denied entry into Greece.
"Makedonka", a Macedonian dance group from Canada,
comprised solely of members who were born in Canada, were
also denied entry into Greece last week. This reportedly occurred
because the dance group had the word "Macedonia"
on their jackets and the border officials did not "approve"
of it.
Despite repeated requests by the MHRMC over the past 15 years,
the Canadian government has refused to confront Greece over
its systematic persecution of Canadian citizens. However,
Canada has made similar requests of other countries, including
the United States, when border incidents involving Canadian
citizens occur. (See www.mhrmc.ca/press/02/letter.html
for the MHRMC's letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham,
imploring Canada to investigate the several cases of Canadian-Macedonians
being denied entry into Greece in 2002).
After Greece's "historic" announcement of June 8,
2003, in which exiled Macedonian political refugees were to
be allowed entry into Greece for the first time since the
Greek Civil War, nationalistic elements of Greek society immediately
pressured the Greek government in order to reverse their decision.
They were worried that the political refugees would "incite"
the local Macedonian population into a heigtened sense of
nationalism. The majority of Greek society supports its government's
non-recognition and discrimination of its large Macedonian
minority.
The
Greek government has succumbed to this pressure as it announced
on July 3, 2003 that the political refugees will be allowed
to enter the country from August 10 to October 30, and would
only be allowed to stay for 20 days. The date of the Detsa
Begaltsi's Third World Reunion was well-publicized and was
originally going to take place from July 15-20. The Greek
government's announcement forced the organizers to reschedule
the event to August 10-15, which will cause a large number
of political refugees, particularly from Canada, the United
States, and Australia, to miss the event as they originally
planned to enter Greece before July 10. Furthermore, Greece
has backed down from its promise to seek an immediate solution
to the political refugee issue. Answering a question on the
free visit of "non-ethnic Greek" political refugees
on June 8, 2003, Deputy Foreign Minister, Andreas Loverdos,
stated that "since we have overcome all these problems
of the past and of the civil war... we want to overcome this
vestige too sooner rather than later...during this summer."
Evidently, Greece has chosen its previous path of denying
entry to Macedonians simply because of their ethnicity and
is seeking to impede the reunion in any way possible.
The Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada calls on the
international community to apply pressure on Greece to end
its racial profiling of individuals of Macedonian ethnic background
and to immediately solve the issue of the Macedonian political
refugees. The MHRMC specifically asks that the EU end its
hypocrisy in demanding that new member states respect human
rights standards while ignoring human rights violations within
the EU.
Macedonian
Human Rights Movement of Canada
Press Release, July 26, 2003
Sources: Deutsche Welle, Dnevnik, Vest
