Türkiye
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Hundreds of Turks packing up for Greece
“You’ll see them at your local farmers’ market, coffee shop and playground, and also in the waiting rooms of foreign embassies in Athens. Turkish political refugees – academics, high-ranking civil servants, doctors, engineers and sundry other qualified professionals – are a reality, as it is estimated that between 600 and 1,000 families from Turkey have settled in Athens and Thessaloniki in recent months, following a crackdown by the government of the neighboring country in the wake of the attempted coup in July 2016.
Their ideological backgrounds vary – some support exiled cleric Fetullah Gulen, others are leftists or Kurds – but all are considered enemies of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime.
“Right now, 65,000 civil servants have been imprisoned in Turkey, while 152,000 have been fired,” says Aishe, a former public sector worker whose husband spent months in prison. As soon as he was released, the family of four arranged to be smuggled into Greece.
“We shuttered our house in Ankara and sold all the furniture and equipment so we’d have some cash,” she says. “Most of the people who fled did the same.” The money they managed to get out of the country is fast dwindling, however, laments Aishe. “We have money in the bank but we can’t get at it.”
Once in Greece, Turks with shared ideological backgrounds tend to stay close, forming information and support networks. Many of the doctors and psychologists among them offer their services to their compatriots for free. Their help is critical, as Turks who are in Greece without papers are not eligible for healthcare and many have suffered serious psychological and even physical trauma before arriving here.
The first order of business on arrival is finding shelter. “Airbnb is basically our only option, so we’re constantly on the move,” says Murat, expressing concern about what will happen once the tourist season gets into full swing.
Most Turkish citizens who have fled to Greece are living off their savings, unable to work unless they are granted asylum or a residency permit. A few have enough money to buy property.
And many of the Turks worry that they will never be able to return because, Erdogan is too powerful. They've lost hope that this will change.
These Turks include Cevheri and Tuba Guven, journalists who fled Istanbul last summer with their two young children.
"It's impossible now to criticize in any way the government," says Tuba, a 36-year-old former reporter and producer for Turkish public television. "If you write something on Twitter, you go directly to prison."
At a cafe near Thessaloniki's port, a Greek waiter greets the Guvens by name. They've made friends here. Their children are thriving in public school.
Cevheri, 40, used to run NOKTA ("point" in Turkish), a weekly political news magazine. He's the reason the family fled. He published a cover unflattering to Erdogan and live-tweeted his own arrest.
"There were many charges brought against me," he says. "Starting a civil war. Making terror propaganda. Arming people against the government. And trying to bring down the government. That last charge, that's what I was found guilty of."
He was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Before he could be jailed, the couple paid a Syrian smuggler $17,000 for fake passports and passage across the river marking the land border with Greece.
Tuba says she wept as they crossed. "I kept thinking, 'I have done nothing against my state,' " she says. "OK, I have different ideas, different opinions, but I am not a terrorist. And I have done nothing illegal to my state, to my country, to my people."
Once they arrived on Greek territory, a Turkish taxi driver took them to a Greek police station in the northern city of Orestiada so they could request asylum.
Tuba was worried.
"You know, because of the historical problems, we always think the other is the enemy," she says. "I thought maybe [the Greeks] don't like me because I am Turk. But it's a very false idea. I was living the worst day of my life, completely worst day of my life. They welcomed me."
Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years. The Greeks and Turks fought bloody wars as the empire fell. As recently as 1996, Turkey and Greece almost went to war over Imia (Kardak in Turkish), an uninhabited islet in the Aegean Sea.
Relations improved after Greece helped Turkey recover from a devastating earthquake in 1999 that killed 17,000 people.
Yet problems over issues like territorial borders remain.
"We have daily incidents in the Aegean of Turkey's fighter planes [entering] into Greek airspace," says Thanos Dokos, director of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy in Athens. "Turkey is also disputing the sovereignty of an undefined number of islets and small islands in the Aegean, saying that we need to produce historical proof of ownership."
And though Greece strongly backs Turkey's bid to join the European Union, Dokos says that support is grounded in the idea that a Turkey inside the EU would "have to resolve any territorial differences with its neighbors."
Despite the political problems, he says, "relations between the Greek and Turkish people have always been quite warm."
Hundreds of thousands of Turks vacation in Greece every year. Many head to Thessaloniki to see the pink, three-story house where Turkey's modern founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was born. Thessaloniki Mayor Yiannis Boutaris has aggressively courted Turkish tourists and promised to restore Ottoman landmarks.
Tuba Guven says she's heard of more Turks choosing to cross the Aegean to Greece because of increased police vigilance on the land border. Last month, the bodies of a Turkish family — a mom, dad and three young children — washed up on the island of Lesbos. The father, Huseyin Maden, a 40-year-old physics teacher, had lost his job because of suspected ties to Gulen.
Despite the risks, there is still a "steady flow" of Turks fleeing to Greece. Earlier this year, a boat carrying 32 teachers and civil servants fleeing the purge in Turkey arrived on the Aegean Island of Chios.
Ali, a Rumi scholar, says Greece almost feels like home. He likes walking around Thessaloniki, with its winding streets and the burnt-caramel scent of the milk pudding kazandibi wafting from local patisseries.
"I feel like I'm in a street of Istanbul or Ankara," he says. "I'm comfortable here. Thanks to the people."
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Originally Posted by Blondie
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