Posted on febrero 19, 2012 in noticias de grecia
TEXT: ANDRÉS MOURENZA // PHOTO: ALESSANDRO PENSO
Nabi, a 20-years old Moroccan, is lying on the ground. He looks dead.
Twenty minutes earlier we were sitting in the recovered-from-garbage chairs and furniture, smoking cigarettes and chatting in one of the abandoned wagons of the old train station of Corinth (Greece). Nabi lives there with about other 50 migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen. Nasir—a polyglot, art lover Afghan interpreter—asks Nabi, another art lover, to draw something. The young Moroccan sketches the boat of the Hellenic Seaways moored just 200 meters down in the bay. They all are waiting the lucky day in which they will be able to catch the ferry; climbing to it, or hidden in the load of the trucks that the boat carries to Italy. And then… go further North in search for a job, a future, a safe and normal life. Crisis-hit Greece has become a nightmare for them. There is not the slightest possibility for work in a country with rocketing unemployment figures. Greeks don’t want them, neither they want to stay in Greece, but they are stuck here because European Union treaties allow third countries to return them to the state where they first entered the EU. And Greece has been the gate to Europe in the last years for 90 % of migrants.
Now, Nabi is lying on the ground.
Everything happened so quickly: a group of 4 or 5 locals drive their two cars to the old train station claiming that a migrant has stolen some money at the open air market this Saturday morning. They hit the first migrant they find, an old man cooking in an improvised fireplace. The locals try to do the same with other migrants, but the cries raise the alarm and more migrants appear from the old wagons with sticks and stones to expel the assailants. The locals go back to their cars, although one stops and punches another migrant in the face, just before getting in his black Renault Megane. The migrants try to stop the black Renault but the driver makes a U-turn knocking down a migrant, a 35-years old Algerian. He stops the car, its back aiming at us, and hits the gas at full speed in reverse gear. I jump on a small wall, as does the photographer Alessandro Penso and some migrants, to avoid being knocked down by the black car. Others run, but Nabi cannot beat the speed of the vehicle and gets hit. His body flies some meters away in front of our astonished eyes. The insane driver hits the gas and escapes leaving Nabi lying on the ground.
We all run to check his health. He has been badly hit, bleeding his face, but he is alive (later we will know that he got some bones broken). The police arrive and later the ambulance, considerably late since there is no ambulance driver working that day in Corinth (because of the austerity measures cuts) and has to come from a neighboring town
The migrants are in anger and despair. Some cry and claim that two of their Algerian friends –one about 50-years old named Ibrahim and the other a 20 years-old named Hassan- have been kidnapped and put into the first car. They call them on their cell phones, but nobody answers.
“This people come every now and then, with truncheons and sticks. If they find someone alone they beat him till he is almost dying,” denounces a 30-years old Tunisian, too afraid to give his name. “We don’t do anything wrong, we even eat from what we find in between the rubbish not to mess with the local people,” says Abduljalil: “We are only waiting here for the good weather to be able to escape from this country.” “Ten days ago –explains Ahmed, an Algerian- they came and fired me with a plastic-bullet gun. They were driving a white four-wheel drive Toyota”. However, these migrants cannot go to the police station.
“If they come to report something, I have to arrest them as they are living here illegally. I am sorry, but that is the law”, excuses himself a police inspectors of Corinth. Even now when a group of journalists –Italian photographer Alessandro Penso, Greek photographer Giorgos Moutafis, Spanish journalist Antonio Cuesta and myself- have witnessed the attack, the police officers try to downplay the incident.
-“You know… the car owner has some psychiatric problems. We have got him before. He has been at the hospital”, says the police inspector.
-“Maybe… but do his friends also have mental problems?”–we ask him.
-“This morning, the migrants robbed some money in the market…”- justifies the inspector.
-“But even if that happened, this does not give them the right to go and try to kill the migrants” –I complain.
-“Yes, that is your opinion”- says the inspector.
-“No, officer, that is not my opinion. That is the law.”
This happened today, February 18th 2012 in Corinth, Greece at about 3.45 p.m.
UPDATE: At 10.00 pm of Saturday, we had news about any suspect arrest had been made
Author Archive for momo
Page 41 of 52
Every night hundreds of sans-papiers go to Petrou Ralli police station to reserve a place in the long row. They are trying to enter the aliens police in order to apply for asylum. Despite the fact that the Greek government is announcing improvements in the Greek asylum system what we see is that access to asylum is not possible until today.
Press Release of the Group of Lawyers: Lacking access to Petrou Ralli Aliens Police
Under the blanket its a bit warmer, but some are without!
You never know at what time the officers will come to take a few of us inside. sometimes at 24, sometimes at 4am or at 6am. We wait here and try to be of the first. No chance! They only accept 20 persons per day. I don’t even understand on what criteria they chose. We stay out in the cold for nights and days. Without food. Many also without a blanket. You cannot move, if you do that your place will be lost. There is so much fighting about who will get inside to ask for asylum. The police watch us, but they don’t care. I am now since 4 days here. I have only one bottle of water. Thats all! Can you find the same situation in other European countries?
Today I am the first. It is my chance maybe.
No sleep, no food, cold...
Hundreds of people here every day leave behind their traces
Today I have some hope to enter
Is it the same in other countries?
No one care for us
Message by the union of African nationals (refugees in Ermioni) in Greece…
We, African refugees resident in Ermioni, have the honour to bring to your knowledge the perpetual threat of our security.
We send out this alarming and disgraced message to all national and international organisations defending the cause of refugees and all persons of good will who can defend us from this insecurity and racial segregation, and restore and recognise our international human rights as no one wishes to be a refugee.
Following the economic crisis that has hit Greece, a large number of young refugees live an intolerable life in this village. Depite hard work, we are badly paid, badly housed, have no access to health care, and have no consideration from the Greeks and the authorities in the village because of the colour of our skin. This situation gone even further than we had believed, shooting us at point-blank like wild animals and making us disappear into nature one after the other. We are evoking here two cases among thousands:
1) It was 29 October 2011 at 8am exactly when two youngsters were waiting for their boss on the road in order to get to work. A Greek man found them and asked them to be quiet, brandishing a knife against these youngsters. The latter picked up stones to defend themselves, and the Greek man went home, took a hunting rifle and returned and shot the black youngsters who were seriously wounded and transported to hospital. The police was notified but there was no follow-up, no legal proceedings made against the criminal and no cover or compensation for the victims.
2) In the same zone where the youngsters were shot, this time it is the disappearance of one of our brothers Mamadou Samba Diallo on Saturday 28 January 2012 at his workplace Porto Hidra programme, where he was employed by the boss Inco.
Here is the information gathered by one of the collaborators: the missing person was in his sixth day of work, his friend came to get him for lunch but the victim replied his was not ready. His friend left and returned later to his workplace situated next to the sea. He did not see his friend again. Later, he asked his boss who confirmed having seen him in the sea playing on the floaters and in the water. Maybe he drowned. Three days later, the boss told us that seamen saw some clothes somewhere in the sea. The police, once again informed about this disappearance, has not carried out any investigation to find the missing person.
Excuse us to ask to all organisations and people of good will to help us find our brother as our security is more at threat than ever.
Three young Afghans 20-23 years old died due to suffocation when they were trying to reach a port of exit hidden on a truck. The truck was transporting cottonseed and headed most probably towards Igoumenitsa. The three corpses were found nearby Parga. The Coroner Theodoros Bougiouklakis who made the autopsy. The bodies were then transferred to Ianena University Hospital.
One of the Afghans who had been together with the three inside the truck had informed via telephone on the day of the incident the family of one of them about their tragic death. Relatives then informed the Greek police who was searching for the three but could only find them yesterday since they lacked exact information on the place the corpses were left.
An immigrant died of hypothermia while 14 others were rescued. The 15
migrants were trying to cross river Evros from Turkey to Greece, and
were trapped in an island on the Evros river near Tychero village.
Seven of the survivors are nationals of Eritrea, two are Palestinian
nationals, three are from Algeria, one from Syria and one from
Bangladesh. The dead immigrant was also Palestinian. He was
transferred in critical condition at the Medical Center of Feres,
where he died of hypothermia.
A young 9-year-old girl and her grandfather disappeared on the 29th of January together with nine other migrants while trying to cross the border in Evros. They got lost when they boat turned around and they fell into the very cold waters of the river.
A three year old boy and two men survived the accident and informed the Greek authorities about the loss of the others in the boat.
Following a police operation aimed at finding the missing persons seven were found, among them the parents of the three-year-old boy. Two persons are still missing. The little girl and her grandfather.
Yesterday night a truck transporting 48 Afghan refugees had an accident near Astakos. Five of the passengers died, 25 got injured. The truck had been stolen some days before. The driver could escape.
news in greek
more news in greek
Since Friday about 100 refugees are caught up on a boat in the north-west of Pilos. It was heading towards Italy when one of the refugees called the Greek authorities for help. Negotiations among the captain of the boat and the authorities still go on.
Article from the New York Times by EVA COSSE
Published: January 26, 2012
When I tell people in Athens, my hometown, that I am doing research on racist violence in Greece, I am met with disbelief. There’s no problem, they say, and even if things sometimes happen it’s a temporary blip linked to the economic crisis.
The Greek government seems to share their view. It recorded only two hate crimes in the whole country in 2009 and one in 2008. More recent figures are not available.
I experienced the reality firsthand a week ago. I was interviewing Razia, an Afghan single mother, in the small apartment she shares with her three children in Aghios Panteleimonas square in Athens about the numerous attacks on her home since she moved in a year and a half earlier. Other Afghan migrants were visiting her the day I was there.
Suddenly masked thugs, who had been gathering outside, threw heavy objects at the front door, cracking the thick glass. During the few minutes the attack lasted, I could see the silhouettes of the attackers. People panicked and backed away from the windows, as the apartment is on the ground floor of the building, while Razia gathered up her scared children.
When the police came, they told Razia that she would have to come to the station to file an official complaint. She did. But even though the police station is less than 300 meters from her home, the apartment was attacked again on the following two nights. On the second night, someone sprayed cooking gas inside the apartment through the cracks of the broken window and tried unsuccessfully to set it alight.
“They wanted to burn us alive,” Razia told me later. “The windows and the door were broken.” She added that “we recognized” the man who did it. “He lives in a building next to this place and he always has a dog with him.”
She said that she identified one of the attackers to the officers who responded to her call, but that the police took no action. That same night she and her children moved out.
Greek residents in the neighborhood confirmed accounts from migrants that a group of vigilantes wearing hoods and masks gather nightly in Aghios Panteleimonas square at around 9 o’clock. Everyone knows who they are.
The family’s terrifying experience is part of wider epidemic of such violence in the Greek capital. Migrants and asylum seekers whom I and my colleagues from Human Rights Watch interviewed spoke of virtual no-go areas in Athens after dark because of the risk of attacks by vigilante groups. An association of Afghans in Greece provides newly arrived Afghan migrants with a map marked in red for areas to avoid.
The Pakistani Community of Greece, an association of immigrants, documented attacks on 60 Pakistani men in the first three months of 2011. Far-right extremists rampaged through immigrant neighborhoods in May, leaving at least 25 people hospitalized for stab wounds or severe beatings.
In September, a 24-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan was assaulted in Athens. Three of his attackers are set to stand trial, in the first such prosecution in Greece in years.
While Razia and her children are safe for the moment, the attacks in the area around her former apartment have continued. Two Afghan men were attacked in the same area by a group of about 15 people and had to seek hospital treatment. Thugs have also attacked the Internet café next door to Razia’s apartment that is owned by an asylum seeker from Afghanistan. One time, someone sprayed “Foreigners Out” in big blue letters on the café shutters while another time, the glass storefront was smashed.
Since everyone in the neighborhood seems to know about this group, why is it that the police officers at the station 300 meters away don’t prevent the attacks or catch the attackers? In part the answer lies with ordinary Greeks. The people responsible for the violence depend on the “passive participation” of those who tolerate it. In part the answer lies with the government, which needs to acknowledge Greece’s problem with racist violence openly and make combating it a political priority.
In short, the police and prosecutors have to do more than simply take reports. The attackers will back off only in the face of rapid police response, diligent investigations and successful prosecutions of attackers. Razia and her children deserve nothing less.
Eva Cosse works for the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. Continue reading ‘Greece’s Epidemic of Racist Attacks’