[86] In January 1907 a secret agreement was signed between Ismail Kemal, a prominent leader of the then Albanian national movement, and the Greek government which concerned the possibility of an alliance against the Ottoman Empire.

They were Jakup Veseli from Margariti, Kristo Meksi and Aristidh Ruci from Ioannina, Rexhep Demi from Filiates, Veli Gërra from Igoumenitsa, and Azis Tahir Ajdonati from Paramythia.

Also though unknown in numbers, the proportion of Muslim Albanians over a prolonged period increased within this area, due to official Ottoman resettlement policy regarding geo-strategic interests and concerns.

[104] Nonetheless, most of the Lab and Cham beys formed irregular armed groups that fought against the Greek units, burning a number of villages in the regions of Paramythia, Fanari and Filiates.

[108] After the end of the Balkan Wars, Greek authorities suspected that a local anti-Greek movement was possible, supported by the Provisional Government of Albania and Italy, and decided to disarm the population.

[109] In the December 1915 legislative elections, due to the general boycott declared by the party of Eleftherios Venizelos, two of the three deputies of Preveza electoral periphery were Muslim Chams: Ali Dino and Musli Emin Ramiz.

Additionally, a new tax system which targeted large estates of Muslim landowners was employed and massive grain expropriation was used again Cham properties to support Greek war effort.

In doing so, the Greek state insisted on the Muslim Chams migration to Turkey by both handing down ultimatums and utilizing harassment tactics that were undertaken by local paramilitary groups to pursue that aim.

According to the contemporary Greek political historian Athanasios Pallis, only 1,700 were exempted and the League of Nations estimated that 2,993 Muslim Chams were forced to leave for Turkey, even after their compulsory exchange was prohibited, by declaring themselves as Turks rather than Albanians.

[23] As a result of this policy, a number of petitions were addressed to the Ministry of Agriculture or to the officials of the Refugee Settlement Commission from Muslims of Albanian origin in Paramythia, Dragoumi, Filiates, and other parts of the region, but no answer was given.

[146] His priority in establishing good relations with Albania was soon materialized by four agreements between the two governments, among others addressing the confiscation of Cham properties before 1926, when Greek refugees from Asia Minor were settled in the region.

[147] Nevertheless, following pressure from the League of Nations and as a result of the agreements signed during Pangalos' regime, Greece officially announced the establishment of four bilingual primary schools in Filiates, Igoumenitsa, Paramythia and Sagiada.

[157] During this time though, there were ongoing efforts by Greek authorities to prompt the dislocation of the Muslim Cham population by means of hard-line policies and migration to Turkey, while discouraging or even forbidding it to Albania.

[165] During 28 October – 14 November while the Italian army made a short advance and briefly took brief control of part of Thesprotia, bands of Cham Albanians raided several villages and burned a number of towns, including Paramythia and Filiates.

[185] After the defeat of Greece, the establishment of the Italian occupation authorities in Epirus was completed up until middle May 1941[186] and the following month the first armed units consisting of Cham Albanians were active in the region.

[195] On 30 September, the Swiss representative of the International Red Cross, Hans-Jakob Bickel, while visiting the area, concluded that Cham bands are completely out of control, terryfing and committing atrocities against the unarmed Greek population.

[21][115] During the summer of 1944, the head of the local resistance organization, Napoleon Zervas, asked the Cham Albanians to join EDES in its fight against the left-wing ELAS, but their response was negative.

[115] According to British reports, the Cham collaborationist bands managed to flee to Albania with all of their equipment, together with half million stolen cattle as well as 3,000 horses, leaving only the elderly members of the community behind.

[202] Having limited support in Epirus due to the right-wing EDES dominance in the area and in preparation of taking up the country's control after the German withdrawal from Greece, turned to the Chams for conscription.

[210] At the end of 1945, numerous Cham Albanians were imprisoned by the authorities of the People's Republic of Albania, while they were branded as "war criminals", "collaborators of the occupation forces" and "murderers of the Greeks".

[2] In 1994, Albania passed a law that declared 27 June, the anniversary of the Paramythia massacre of 1944, as the Day of Greek Chauvinist Genocide Against the Albanians of Chameria and built a memorial at the town of Konispol.

The participants designated themselves as Greek citizens of Albanian ethnicity and expressed the desire for "a peaceful return to their homeland and to the graves of their forefathers"[2] In March 2004, the Institute of Cham Studies (ICS) was established with a board of 7 members.

[121] The number of Muslim Chams remaining in the area after World War II included also people who converted to Orthodoxy and were assimilated into the local population in order to preserve their properties and themselves.

[2] It was raised officially only during a visit to Athens of former Albanian Prime Minister Ilir Meta at the end of 1999, during his meeting with his Greek counterpart, Kostas Simitis, but it received a negative response.

[63] In an attempt to give a solution, in 1992 Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis proposed a trade-off in relation to their properties, only for the cases where their owners had certifiably not been convicted or participated in crimes against their fellow Greek citizens.

[2] In September 2016 the Enlargement Commissioner of the European Union Johannes Hahn mentioned the Cham issue as an "existing one" between Albania and Greece, alongside other matters that the two countries needed to resolve.

[245] One particularly disingenuous endeavor by the organization leaders has been to create unhistorical links in the public mind by presenting the ancient Greek King Pyrrhus of Epirus (4th–3rd century BC) as an Albanian hero, thus revealing the extreme and irredentist aims of the association.

Institute of Cham Studies seeks "to create a wide contacts network with analog research centers in Albania and abroad (Balkan, Europe and Northern America) and participating in mutual activities.

[63] Chams living today in Albania are overwhelmingly Muslim, but it is difficult to estimate their current religious affiliation: the former Communist regime had proclaimed the country "the only atheistic state in the world", and even after its fall, the majority of the population self-declared agnostic, or irreligious.

The most common men's outfit for Muslims and orthodox was the kilt known as fustanella, embroidered with silver thread, the doublet, short shirt with wide sleeves, the fez, the leather clogs with red topknots and white knee socks.