UPDATE on racist attack in Corinth: Suspect detained

link: noticia desde grecia

TEXT: ANDRÉS MOURENZA // PHOTO: ALESSANDRO PENSO
Finally, on Monday morning (2 days after the incident) the suspect of the racist attack to migrants in Corinth was arrested by the police. Also one of the two hospitalized migrants was able to leave the medical premises and return to the train station, with the other migrants. Nabi is still in hospital, well treated, and although with difficulties, he is recovering as photographers Alessandro Penso and Giorgos Moutafis were able to confirm this Monday after visiting him. Also journalist Antonio Cuesta visited the migrants at the train station this Monday.

Activists from the Antiracist Initiative of Corinth, who were noticed about the incident, visited the authorities and the police on Monday to make them aware of the attack. This also helped clarify what happened with the disappeared migrants. One of them is still missing but according to the group he might just have escaped. The other is at police premises. Some migrants claim that he was “arrested”, tied his hands and body, by the people of the second car involved in the incident (the one that did not hit Nabi) and handed over to the police as a suspect of a theft in the Saturday morning open-air market (if such claim proved to be true it will amount to kidnapping as no civilian citizen has the power to “arrest” another). Police denies that and states that they themselves made the arrest. Note also that the occupants of the second car have not been considered by the police as perpetrators of the crime, neither have they been arrested.
“Anyway, it is clear that this is a racist murderous attack that cannot be treated as an ordinary event. There were previous attacks in the city of Corinth during the summer that remained unsolved. If this time there is no exemplary punishment, it is obvious that the risk of this racist acts will multiply. The citizens of Corinth will be aware of such actions. Because every society is judged by how it treats the weakest amongst them”, said the Initiative in a statement. Municipal authorities of Corinth and the police have promised that they will be more concerned with the safety of the migrants to avoid such incidents.
We, as witnesses, want to thank you all for sharing the posts on this issue, making it quickly a matter of public concern. Maybe, this way, the media and the citizens can help avoid this horrible racist acts to be repeated.
 (As for myself, I will never forget the eyes of them, Abduljalil, Ahmed and the other migrants, asking us “Write what happened, write it. All Europe must know”)

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