Turkey: After half a century Istanbul has Greek radio

Turkey: After half a century Istanbul has Greek radio

Silent since 1955 pogrom, now online

(ANSAmed) – ANKARA, MAY 17 – After half a century of silence, which started with the pogrom of 1955, the historic radio station of the Greek community returns to old Constantinople: ”Iho Tis Polis”, the ‘Voice of the City” has recommenced broadcasts over recent days, in Greek, from the heart of today’s Turkish metropolis of 15 million souls.

As the newspaper Hurriyet reports, the radio station is transmitting only via internet for the present, due to shortage of funds, on the site . But the re-founder, Andrea Rombopulos, wants to gather enough funds together to purchase a frequency and get back on the airwaves.

The project has already met with success. In Istanbul there remain only around 2,500 ‘romeis’, as the Greek descendants of the ancient Byzantines are called by the Turks. One century ago, before the persecutions during the first decades of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s 1923 republic, there were around 300,000. The pogrom of September 1955, started by rumours of an attack on Ataturk’s birthplace in Thessalonki, led to 16 deaths in the Greek community. Listeners to the radio online already number 5,000. Polis radio (for the Greeks, ancient Constantinople remains ‘the Polis’, the city par excellence), broadcasts mainly Greek music interleaved with news, interviews and studio guests.

(ANSAmed).