Greece's Unwanted Citizens are now Citizens-What about the Chams?

Posted on 04 September 2011 by Apostolos Papapostolou

 

Jews who left Greece during World War II can have their citizenship reinstated after the passage of a new law.
The Greek government on Sept. 2 passed an amendment to a new foreign resident law, which will automatically reinstate Greek citizenship for all Jews that were born in or before 1945.
The number of Greek Jews affected by the amendment is likely no more than 300-350, according to reports.
Their descendants, although eligible, will not receive citizenship automatically. They will have to apply and if they meet the proper criteria will receive their Greek passports and citizenship.
The amendment comes after 65 years of appeals, applications and behind-the-scenes efforts by the Greek Jewish community.
The problem was created during and after WWII. During the war a number of Jews were able to escape to Turkey where the Greek consular officer tried to persuade them to join the Greek Army in Egypt. Those who refused and wanted to reach Palestine were stripped of their citizenship.
Another group of Greek Jews fought with the communist partisans’ organization against the Nazis. After WWII and during the civil war in Greece from 1946-1951, the members were hunted down as communists and either executed, imprisoned or exiled in concentration camps that mirrored the Russian gulags. In order to avoid that fate, many Jews accepted the government’s offer to go to Palestine and be stripped of their citizenship.
During the debate in the Judicial Committee of the Greek parliament, Justice Minister Harry Kastanidis said “it is an honor to Greece [to have these people requesting their citizenship back], an honor that Greece would be obligated to reinstate their citizenship no questions asked.”

The far-right LAOS Party fought against the amendment, saying: “The law will raise many serious issues from other ethnic groups, a thing we of course all deprecate, such as Bulgarians, Muslims, Armenians, Albanians, Skopje, and maybe even Chams (a sub-group of Albanians who originally resided in the coastal region of Epirus in north-western Greece, an area known among Albanians as Chameria.) What will you do then?”
As expected the communist party was also against the amendment, saying that this was one step closer to forming close ties with Israel in order to further the “imperialistic plans regarding the natural gas reserves.”

 http://greece.greekreporter.com/2011/09/04/greek-jews%E2%80%99-citizenship-reinstated/