June 10, 1998
Dear Mr. Karakostas,
Thank you very much for your letter and inquiry. We appreciate your correspondence and encourage
you to continue forwarding any information on human rights abuses you may have.
Human Rights Watch regularly monitors the human rights conditions of minorities in many countries
including ethnic Greeks living in Turkey. Omission of any group, including the Greek minority, from
Human Rights Watch World Report chapter on Turkey should not be viewed as a lack of interest
in monitoring that group, but only as a space constraint for that specific a publication.
Unfortunately, Human Rights Watch does not have a breakdown of the resources used to monitor
minority rights in any given country. We try to devote as much research time as possible to
examining conditions in as many countries as we can and try to be as comprehensive as possible.
As we are a non-profit organization and subsist on contributions alone, this is an often herculean
task given our limited funding, resources, and staff.
Human Rights Watch strives for the highest level of accuracy and impartiality in our reports and will
continue to gather information on the status of minorities in Turkey. We appreciate your interest and
hope you will continue to share your concerns with us in the future.
Sincerely,
Christopher Panico,
Researcher
COMMENT: Mr. Panico like others later at Human Rights Watch never addressed my question
as to how much in time and resources are spent covering minorities in Greece. The following
excerpt from a 1999 Human Rights Watch publication on "The Turks of Western Thrace" had
both the names of Holly Cartner and Christopher Panico. They were not short of resources to
go to Greece and cover the Muslims. And despite assurance of both these individuals, there
has been nothing published on the Greeks of Turkey all these years later.
