Reply of Human Rights Watch
November 20, 1996
Dear Mr. Karakostas:
Thank you for your recent letter, which was forwarded to me by Kenneth Roth. We recognize
that there are serious human rights concerns in Cyprus, but have been unable to take on these
issues because of a limited number of staff and financial resources. As you can imagine, each
year, we must evaluate the human rights priorities in the Helsinki region and, among the many
serious issues that we might address in any given year, we must choose those that are the most
severe. There are many human rights problems that we are simply unable to monitor. I appreciate
your thoughts regarding the need for work on Cyprus and will certainly keep this in mind as we
plan our work.
We have been discussing the possibility of doing follow up research on the Greeks of Turkey and
on THE TURKS OF GREECE (emphasis mine) in the near future. We will be meeting in the next
weeks to discuss whether these issues should be included in our work plan for 1997. I assure you
that, in any case, we will continue to monitor the human rights developments in both Greece and
Turkey during the next year.
I appreciate your interest in and support for our work and thank you for your comments.
Sincerely,
Holly Cartner
Executive Director
COMMENT: My original letter did not mention Greece or the Muslims of Greece.
