While the police is operating a huge sweep in Athens and Evros since August 2nd, racist attacks are getting more. Migrants communities speak of more than 500 hate crimes in the last six months and an organised wave of hate crimes in the last days.
The government assumes that these hate crimes are the try of extreme right wing groups to subvert the “organised” (and highly repressive) approach of government to deal with the migration issue in order to keep their political gains as they had in the last two elections due to their xenophobic agenda. Government officials commented that this reaction was foreseeable when the starting sweep operation set out to take away the main agenda of the fascist party GD. While the government warns the extreme right and announces to encounter hate crimes in a very strict manner, migrant communities complain about more than 500 racist attacks in the last six months and an ongoing apathy by the police who is not reacting.
The most recent victim was a young IRaqi refugee who fell victim to his attackers stabbing him close to the place of worship he was visiting in the month of Rhamazan. He had visited the place in the early morning around 4:30 in order to eat before sunrise. The attackers came on four motorbikes in front of the mosq and attacked the young man with knives. He died yesterday due to the severe injuries after the transfer to he hospital.
Migrants communities see a planed series of hate crimes within the last days. Last Thursday at 21:30 15-20 persons attacked another place of worship in Piraeus while there were 20 Pakistanis. ON Saturday night attacked two other mosqs in Reddi and Nikaia, Athens. In Crete in the night of Saturday there was a fight between a group of fascists and migrants from Pakistan that evolved out of provocative comments by the first. The fight ended in the arrest of one Greek who had beaten an Pakistani badly on his head and a Pakistani who was lacking legal papers. Five days ago four unknown persons attacked some Indian migrants in Rethimno, Crete, stabbing them with knives. One week ago a similar incident was registered in Likovrisi. The victim is still hospitalized after the severe injuries inflicted to him.
In the police press release they refer amongst others to a hate crime on June 12 against Egyptian fishermen in Perama, the stabbing of migrants in Neos Kosmos by a group with motorbikes, an attack with metal globs against Pakistani workers in chalikida, the pogrom against migrants in Likovrisi by mid June and some other attacks in Nikaia. In most of the cases the perpetrators were not yet identified and arrested.
by Stelios Verderis in Ta Nea, republished in Preza.Tv. (in greek)
At the same time, the fascist party GD is preparing meetings all over the country in order to “map” the “problems” fascist Greek people have with Roma and Sinti and with migrants. The aim is to then “clean” the areas from the “problematic” population as GD has already done in some areas of Athens such as Agios Panteleimonas and Attiki Square. Fascist attacks might lead to vendetta like situations in the smaller towns of Greece and other severe hate crimes at places of agglomeration i.e. during the feast of Eid by the end of Ramazan.