In the last months police sweep operations take place every day: on the streets and public squares, in the homes of refugees and wherever they stay homeless.
The police invades regularly the private space of people, proceeding to arrests and sometimes beating people or also stealing their properties. 
Today in one more sweep operation, they arrested the 60-70 homeless refugees staying in the old fabric Columbia. Among the homeless are asylum seekers and vulnerable persons such as mentally sick. Instead of providing them with reception conditions according to law and instead of protecting the vulnerable the only answer to this issue by the government remains to arrest them.
information with, about and for refugees in Greece
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Citizen Protection Minister Papoutsis said that 25.000 migrants have been returned either by force or voluntarily within the last months from Greece to their home countries. The last deportation flight took place on thursday of January 19. Among the 56 deported were: 2 Egyptians, 23 Bangladeshi, 29 Chinese, one Pakistani and one Indian. The deportations take place from Athens airport.
Police raids and sweep operations have become harsher and more frequent. According to Papoutsis the Greek police controls daily an average of 400 migrants.
Meanwhile the construction of the anti-migratory “wall of shame” fence in Evros is being proceeded. The construction is planned to be finished in the next 5 months.
While migration policy is harshening, the racist pogrom continues unhindered in the centre of Athens. Daily migrants get beaten, stabbed and insulted in the areas close to Attiki and St. Panteleimon Church without any reaction from the police. Today an African migrant was stabbed nearby Panteleimon Church. The police reacted by asking the stabbed who was lying on the ground bleeding for his papers.
In the Chamber judgment of January 17, 2012, in the case Zontul v. Greece, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The applicant, Necati Zontul, is a Turkish national who was born in 1968 and lives in London (United Kingdom).
On 27 May 2001 he and 164 other migrants boarded a boat in Istanbul which was bound for Italy. On 30 May the vessel was intercepted by Greek coastguards and escorted to the port of Chania (Crete). The migrants were placed in a disused merchant navy training school. According to Mr Zontul, the conditions of detention there were poor and several detainees were deliberately attacked by guards. He alleged that, between 1 and 6 June 2001, several detainees had been taken into a room from which they had emerged with injuries and, in some cases, unable to walk. There had also been reports of mock executions and Russian roulette.
On 5 June 2001 Mr Zontul reported that two coastguard officers had forced him to undress while he was in the bathroom. One of them had threatened him with a truncheon and had then raped him with it. One of the applicant’s fellow detainees had helped him back to the dormitory after the officers had left. In protest at that incident, the detainees had decided to go on hunger strike the following morning. Some of the coastguard officers had then burst into the dining room and gathered the detainees together, before beating them with truncheons and splashing them with water and a product resembling eau de cologne. One of the detainees had been made to “jump like a rabbit”.
The Court reiterated that the rape of a detainee by an official of the State was to be considered as an especially grave and abhorrent form of ill-treatment.
Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the European Court held that Greece was to pay the applicant 50,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 3,500 in respect of costs and expenses.
New report of Infomobile Greece, published in January 2012
LOST AT BORDER reports on the reality of loss and death at the Greek borders. As a close friend of ours said once: “If you are a refugee and you die nobody asks any questions. But for living somewhere, everybody is questioning you!” We want to break the silence and ask: What happened with all these people whose traces got lost?
Accidents and death at border belong unfortunately to the daily experiences of refugees trying to reach a safe haven. The European Border Control Agency FRONTEX in co-operation with national authorities are heightening and thickening the fences and walls around us, controlling and patrolling the borders and externalizing them to European neighbour states such as Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia a.o. 
They have created treaties of co-operation in deportations and huge refugee detention camps at the gates of Europe. Trying to cross a number of borders, among them the ones of Fortress Europe is a huge risk of death! The numbers are shocking: more than 2.000 people died in the Mediterranean Sea only in 2011. Each single person left behind a big gap in the life of relatives and friends.
LOST AT BORDER gives the voice mainly to refugees searching and mourning for their beloved. The report was made by a group of antiracist activists from different countries who have been already involved in the search of migrants who got lost at the border between Greece and Turkey. It can be quite difficult to find information on what has happened when somebody is missing at the border. Apart from the report we want to help and fill this information gap by a new Blog. We want to connect the relatives and friends of border victims to each other and we want to let you know and feel that you are not alone on this journey! We will never forget. We promise to overcome the murderous border regime and to continue our struggle for a welcoming Europe.
download lostatborder report
LOST AT BORDER – Blog
Report and Blog have been published by Infomobile
In 2011 58 persons lost their life on the Greek-Turkish border along the river Evros/Maritsa.
This year starts again with disappearances and loss at border.
Two plastic boats, loaded with sans-papiers immigrants trying to cross Evros river, capsized early today morning. Up to now, rescue teams have discovered 6 immigrants. The rescued immigrants are two Afghans from the one boat (on which 4 more were aboard) and 4 nationals of Bangladesh who, along with two other compatriots tried to cross the river Evros, but without success, as their boat also overturned.
Investigations are continuing to find and rescue the missing immigrants (4 Afghans and 2 Bangladeshi), while the survivors were
transferred first aid to the Health Center for Orestiada.
A kurdish filmmaker from Iran is now the 5th month imprisoned in Evros – currently in Soufli. He has applied for asylum in Greece. With his hunger strike he is protesting against the inhuman detention conditions and he demands his freedom.
23 from Bangladesh
1 from Egypt
4 from Pakistan
1 from Uganda
On January 5, 2012 in the early morning hours the police raided the old redundant textile factory of Peiraiki Patraiki where a group of sans-papiers has found a provisory refuge. 40-50 persons were arrested, clothes and other personal belongings were burned and Red Cards (temporary residence permits for asylum seekers) torn apart.
This letter was written and distributed on January 2, 2012 after another beating of refugees had occurred in Patras by the coast guard. The same day a young Afghan refugee died of suffocation in Patras while he was trying to resist the cold weather with his friends inside a truck were they lit a small fire. His two friends survived and are currently hospitalised.
In the name of god,
Since we were small kids in our home countries there was trouble, but we didn’t understand what this trouble was. Later we grew up and we understood that this trouble is war. The seasons were changing and every day became more difficult. On this way we reached today.
Since then and until today we are thinking about our future and what our destiny will be. When we were in our countries they were telling us lies. They told us in Europe we would find democracy and we would get human rights. But it is different here. To build up our lives we have to cross the borders. In Greece this is very difficult.
Continue reading ‘Letter of the migrants and refugees in Patras’
Τhree Afghani youngsters (between 15-20 years old), who had recently arrived in the port city of Patras, were temporarily sleeping in the cabin of an abandoned truck in the old redundant textile factory of Peiraiki Patraiki. In order to keep warm yesterday during the cold night (Monday, January 2), they lit a fire in a small vessel. There was no window or opening in the room, doors were shut, and the lack of oxygen caused the suffocation to death of one of the boys. The other two were taken to hospital and are in a critical condition.
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fotos of the truck where the three boys were trying to warm up due to the very cold weather:
all fotos from indymedia athens