14.09.2010: Pakistani workers go on strike after police raid
Today, hundreds of Pakistani immigrants living and working in Skala, Laconia took the decision to go on strike after the pogrom that was unleashed against them earlier.
After returning from their work in collecting oranges, they found the doors of their homes and shelters closed by the owners and their employers and their belongings on the street.
According to a common announcement of Migrant Workers Union, the Movement Working Together Against Racism and the Fascist Threat and the Pakistani Community of Greece, at least 500 Pakistani immigrants have nowhere to stay.
The police pogrom against Pakistani immigrants began immediately after the intervention of the prosecutor, which led to the arrest of an accommodation owner in Skala and then his sentence to 58 years in prison for the inhuman conditions in which he hosted large numbers of immigrants.
Police initially made around 60 arrests of immigrants going from house to house, and then released them after they gave them “notes on administrative deportation”. At the same time, police created a climate of terror to the house owners/employers, sparking the mass expulsion of immigrants from the homes they lived.
The workers, immediately after these facts, gathered in the Square St. Friday where they held an assembly and decided to go on strike to demand their rights. Specifically they demand the ending of the Pakistani immigrants workers pogrom by ensuring human housing, providing decent wages and they requested the government to legalize the immigrants and give asylum to refugees, something that Labour Centre of Athens has also requested.
The Migrant Workers Union supports the decision of Pakistani immigrants to go on strike protesting against the pogroms that now unleashed against them and called the GSEE (General Confederation of Workers) and the Labour Centres to actively support the strike and the fair demands of immigrant workers.
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