Mass protest in Xanthi: Turkish students say "enough" to shift training!
Although the minority community has repeatedly expressed the building problem in the Xanthi Minority Secondary School and High School, the Greek state authorities are in an effort to continue the education in shifts.
It was joyfully announced and shared with the public by the School Council and the Parent-Teacher Association just days before the new academic year that the shift training, which was one of the problems undermining quality education at the Xanthi Minority Secondary School and High School, had come to an end this year.
However, although the Xanthi Turkish Minority community has been demanding the solution of the problem of insufficient building and the end of shift education, the authorities insist on the continuation of shift education this year.
The students of Xanthi Minority Secondary School and High School reacted to this. Thereupon, the members of the School Council, members of the Parent-Teacher Association, representatives of the Muslim Turkish Minority of Western Thrace and parents held a meeting and discussed the issue of shift training at length.
At the meeting, school representatives and community leaders unanimously decided to support the boycott that the students will start on Monday 18 September.
"We are right and we will fight for our rights until the end", "NO to shift training in our school", the students gathered in front of the school in the morning and started to boycott shift training.
The Turkish students, who tried to make their voices heard by the local authorities, were joined by Mustafa Trampa, Mufti of Xanthi; Cigdem Asafoglu, President of the Friendship Equality Peace Party; Sedat Hasan, President of the Komotini Turkish Youth Union; Ahmet Kara, President of the Union of Western Thrace Minority Schools Councillors; Hüseyin Zeybek and Burhan Baran, Minority MPs from Xanthi; President of Xanthi Turkish Union Ozan Ahmetoğlu; President of ÇINAR Association Cengiz Ömer; Mayor of Mustafçova Rıdvan Deli Hüseyin; mayoral candidates Cemil Kabza, Ahmet Kurt; Deputy Secretary of the Regional Assembly of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace İrfan Hacıgene and many candidates for the Regional Assembly, former MP of Xanthi Çetin Mandacı; members of the School Board of Trustees; members of the Parent-Teacher Association are also supporting.
