Thrace minority ruling draws Rum ban bid
Four days after reports that Greece’s Supreme Court upheld a ban against a Muslim minority association for using the term «Turkish» in its title, a group in Turkey has called on Ankara to make it illegal for groups to call themselves «Greek,» the Athens News Agency said yesterday. The League for the Supremacy of Justice wrote to the Turkish Interior Ministry, the ANA reported from Ankara, arguing that since the Greek court ruled that allowing the use of the term «Turkish» would imply the existence of a minority, the same should should apply in Turkey. They also demanded that organizations be banned from using the term «Rum,» deriving from «Romios» – what Byzantine Greeks called themselves. The Greek decision to ban the Turkish Union of Xanthi, revealed on Thursday but not yet officially announced, was taken on the grounds of national security, reports said.
