Written statement submitted by the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples (LIDLIP), a non-government organization in special consultative status

The US Secretary – General has received the following written statement which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 19996has received the following written statement which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31.

Under this agenda item, the International League for Rights and Liberation of Peoples (LIDLIP) would like to bring before the Commission on Human Rights the case of the Pontians, living in the historic region of Pontos, from Sinope (Sinop) to Trapezous (Trabzon) now Turkey. Our concern is about the restrictions to their freedom of expression showing their cultural identity formed over thousands of years.

   The presence of the Pontians is traced back in the 8^th century B.C., before the emergence of the Pontian Kingdom in the North Coast of Asia Minor. Indeed, Pontian culture roots are to be found  in their history, notably during the classical era (with philosophers and historians such as Diogenes, Strabon, etc.) of the Hellenistic period and then in the Byzantine epoch.

After the Ottoman conquest in the middle of the 15^th century their living conditions, their unity and communal life as Christian people, were deeply affected by the system of the Ottoman power and administration, based on the distinction between Muslims and non-Mulims. In the 19^th century, due to the Ottoman – Russian wars, the Pontians were subjected to several exoduses. The systematic elimination of the Christian Ponians through mass murder and ethnic cleansing took place in the first quarter of the 20^th century.

   The Pontians who could remain in Pontos had become Muslims or were compelled to islamization, thus escaping destruction and dispersion. It is known that the population exchange according to the Lausanne Treaty (1923) between Greece and Turkey was defined on the basis of religion and not on the basis of the ethnic identity of the population of both sides.

An ancient culture in jeopardy of survival

   Even though the Islamized Pontians of Pontos were for decades deprived of the right to communicate with the Pontians of Greece and of the countries of the ex-Soviet Union, and even though they suffered, for decades, systematic policies of disarticulation of their communities, they continue to insist on their particular Pontian identity. “We are Pontians,”they declare still today. Especially in the last decades this sense of a particular identity is increasing and is being coupled with actions of intellectual and cultural enhancing. However, even careful attempts of the new Pontian intellectuals to express verbally or in writing the history, the cultural identity of this people, are facing harsh measures by the Turkish authorities. During the last years the lives of the Pontian intellectuals who dare to express their views are reliably reported to be threatened, some of them with death. This repression is accompanied by pseudo-scientific attempts to distort the three thousand year-old rich history of this people and of this area. The official   discourse claims that this historic people are of Turkish descent. The Turkish Mass Media   keeps uttering   threats towards the Pontians who claim the right to keep contact with Pontians in Greece. Moreover, Pontian travelers from Greece during their visits ion Pontos, are subjected to strict control and surveillance by the Turkish authorities.

Repressive measures endanger language

   It appears that a sizeable part of the islamized Pontians,especially the communities of Trapezous, Tonia, Ophe, Sourmena(Surmene), Matsouka (Macka) as well as those of the peripheral municipalities of Constantinople (Istanbul) have preserved intact their Pontian language. Thus, in those areas, the language which is known to be closest to the ancient Greek is kept alive. In fact, this language is today illegal in Pontos and in Turkey. Of course there is no school where the Pontians could learn, cultivate and develop their language. The existing schools are Turkish. The young Pontian boys and girls – especially those from the inland – due to the fact that their families cling to their own language and do not know Turkish, have their first contact with this language in the Turkish schools and are forced to learn it with harsh educational methods. It is reported that in the elementary schools there exist a network of young student-informers  in charge of denouncing to their teachers the Pontian pupils speaking between themselves their own language, who are then taken up by their teachers or even the police with brutal methods of persuasion. In the high schools, the task of terrorization is apparently devoted to racist and fascist groups, like “Grey Wolves.” Those educational conditions exclude the Pontian students from the university and higher studies. Students of Pontian descent who try to express their Pontian conscience and culture through periodicals run a risk of being sentenced to jail by the Turkish authorities.

   The Turkish state through policies stemming from its constitutional and legal framework together with its authoritarian structures, eliminates the words Pontos and Pontians, and represses individual and collective attempts of peaceful expression of the thought and conscience of the Pontian identity.