Great disrespect to the memory of Dr Sadık Ahmet in Greece: "The tractor took him, he was relieved and so were we"
Turcophobia knows no bounds in Greece. The members of the Turkish Minority are not tolerated even dead, let alone alive. The last example of this happened yesterday in the Greek parliament. The leader of the far-right Spartiates Party insulted the memory of Sadık Ahmet with rude and ugly expressions.
During the discussions on the 2024 budget, Greece's Spartiates leader Vasilis Stigas made a racist outburst against the Turkish minority leader Sadık Ahmet, who died in 1995 in a traffic accident involving a tractor. Stigas, in his scandalous statement, said, "The tractor took him, he and we were relieved", signing another big scandal.
Referring to the tragic incident in 1995 when Ahmet was killed in an accident, Stigas said: "What were the two Muslim MPs of the New Left Party doing at the Turkish Embassy to welcome Erdoğan? Do you, ND, approve of this? What is this, MPs of the Greek Parliament declaring their loyalty to the Turk? What are they, Turks? Have we forgotten what happened with Sadık? The deputy of the Greek state came out and said that he was a Turk, fortunately the tractor swept him (Sadık Ahmet) away, he was relieved and we were relieved." During this scandalous statement, none of the deputies in the plenary did not react.
While the Greek parliament remained unresponsive to the insult of Sadık Ahmet's memory with ugly expressions by Stigas, the leader of the far-right Spartiates Party, the reactions of the Turkish community in Western Thrace are expected to grow like an avalanche.
Sadık Ahmet had lost his life on 25 July 1995 as a result of an accident on the Xanthi-Komotini road. The driver of the car that collided with the tractor was sentenced to 17 months imprisonment by the court.
This statement of Stigas, which crossed the moral boundaries, caused reactions due to the disrespect to the memory of Dr Sadık Ahmet. The lack of reaction of the plenary session of the parliament increased the dimension of the scandal.
Similar experiences in world history show that such dangerous statements crossing the moral line and containing threats can lead to political intolerance and social tensions. According to expert assessments, the Spartiates leader's use of such language could lead to polarisation, anxiety and harsh criticism among various segments of the population.
As a matter of fact, according to some evaluations in the public opinion, the verbal attack on the memory of Dr. Sadık Ahmet is a product of the discomfort caused by the recent normalisation of Turkish-Greek relations among racist groups. Stigas's outburst is also a provocation aimed to drive a wedge between the rapprochement between Turkey and Greece.
