The UN’s top human rights official has, in an usual move, singled out Greece as a worrisome area.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the Geneva-based council Monday that she is worried about
“violent xenophobic attacks against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in recent months, for example in Greece.”
Racist attacks against immigrants have increased in Greece since the economic crisis flared in 2009, according to pro-immigrant groups which accuse the police of turning a blind eye.
Supporters of neofacist Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) as well as two of the party’s deputies, Giorgos Germenis and Panayiotis Iliopoulos, attacked immigrants’ stalls at a church fate in Rafina, northeast of Athens, late Friday.
Pillay’s assessment of the world is important because it sets the tone for the work of the UN’s 47-nation Human Rights Council whose month-long session opened Monday.