18 refugees – among them three children and three women (two of the pregnant) were transferred to the hospital of Samos in order to be hosted there after being released into bad weather conditions. They had spent seven days in a room of the Coast Guard (the police has currently to detention space).
Infomobile
information with, about and for refugees in Greece
On March 14th, 70 refugees started to protest in Drapetsona detention centre of the police station with a hunger strike against the extended detention periods. Two of the detainees had received another extension of their detention period for two months more. They were already nine months in prison at that point. the reason: lack of papers.
Only a few days later detainees who had been on hunger strike in the police station of Nikaia but had been split up and some of them transferred to Drapetsona police station were beaten by inmates on order of the guards. The hunger strike of 12 detainees in Nikaia had started following the beating of a inmate by the police. The detainee got beaten up when he requested to be transferred to a cell that could fit the 12 persons in a way that they would not need to sleep in shifts due to overcrowding.
(Reuters) – Syrian shopkeeper Osama fled the fighting in Aleppo convinced he would be welcomed in Europe. Five months later, he is stuck in near-bankrupt Greece, where money and sympathy are scarce.
Beaten up and robbed by traffickers when they arrived in Athens, Osama, his wife and two children were arrested as illegal immigrants and thrown into detention when they recounted their ordeal to Greek police. Ordered out of Greece but without any place to go, he rues the day he set foot in the country.
“All our hope is now in God. There is a war in Syria and the country has been destroyed,” said the 35-year-old as he sat in a dingy Athens basement apartment with a Syrian flag on the wall.
“In Greece, we have had the most bitter experiences and we cannot go to another country. We have no money, no IDs or passports to travel. We are trapped here.”
Greek authorities say police are obliged to arrest people who enter the country illegally.
Continue reading ‘REUTERS: Fleeing war, Syrians face new misery in Greece’
K.M. (21, Syria) reported to the “Movement United against Racism Athens” being ill-treated by the police guards in Corinth Detention centre on March 10th. In the afternoon around 18 / 19 o’clock during a struggle between guards and refugees when the first did not bring the cigarettes and telephone guards to purchase. The Riot Police started beating the detained refugees until they returned into their cells. there again they were beaten. K.M. was documenting the ill-treatment with his mobile phone. When the Riot Police noticed that they took him to his cell and beat him all over his body. K.M. has a chronicle respiratory problem and found himself lying on the floor with difficulties to breath. His phone was broken. 
efimerida ton sindakton (in greek)
roz karta (in greek)
47 Syrians and 4 Palestinian refugees who had newly arrived in end Fbebruary 2013 in Greece – among them 14 children and two pregnant women – were detained in a container like buiding next to the coast guard for more than six days.
As the local solidarity group for refugees and migrants “Lathra” denounced on February 28, the cage like detention building has only two rooms of 35 square metres in total which doesn’t even fit them to sleep, is lacking beds, chairs, tables. The building is situated on a parking area next to the coast guard. Since Chios has currently no detention centre, this cage is being used the last months for all new arriving refugees.
Only a few days after the publicity around the cage-detention again the coast guard detained 6o refugees in the same place.
Press Release 28.2.13 Lathra (in greek)
Press Release 7.3.13 LAthra
left.gr (in greek)
On February 23, 2013 Riot Police antered Amigdaleza detention centre near by Athens in order to violently stop hunger strike that had begun on February 21. The riot police beat the detainees with clubs. Some detainees reported of broken hands and legs as a consequence of the beatings. The police used tear gas in closed rooms.
The struggling detainees protested against the extended detention periods since many of them are closed up since more than nine months.
By Giorgos Kosmopoulos, Amnesty International’s EU team campaigner and Carmen Dupont, European campaign coordinator on migration.
For many people flying to Greece means sunshine and leisure. Indeed the sun is shining today and the sea is blue and tempting. But for others, the same sea is dark and dangerous.
After arriving in Lesvos, an island right next to Turkey, the first thing we saw on the way from the airport were backpacks and clothes dispersed over a nearby beach. ‘’Irregular migrants landed here this morning,’’ said the taxi driver indifferently.
Last December, 27 people (mostly Afghans) trying to reach Greece drowned close to the shores of Lesvos, after the boat they were in capsized. Only a 16-year-old Afghan boy survived. Our thoughts go back to our visits the previous days to one of Athens’ many detention facilities and to the houses where people fleeing the Syrian conflict are living. Bahrir, Ralya and Alia arrived in Greece in similar circumstances, on some other night.
Continue reading ‘AI: “I want all the world to know about us!”’
On Friday 8th the detainees of Fylakio, near Orestiada, Evros started in the early night hours to protest until the early morning hours. The police reacted with their usual violent repression. Police forces came even from the next town in Didimoticho.
The migrant detainees protested against the extended detention period of 18 months by putting fire on matresses and blocking their cells doors. Eight detainees were arrested. A representative of the police sindicate of Orestiada said: “We demand the symbolic punishment of the arrested so that all detainees stop behaving in this manner.”
Racist violence a real threat to democracy in Greece
Athens, 01/02/2013. “Impunity for the rising number of racist crimes in Greece has to end. The police, prosecutors and courts need to become fully acquainted with and give effect to existing anti-racism legislation, including the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination by which Greece is bound”, stated Nils Muižnieks, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, at the end of his five-day visit to Greece.
Continue reading ‘Greece: Commissioner Muiznieks says racist violence is a real threat to democracy’
An immigrant from Senegal died falling from a height, on the rails of the subway in Thiseio station in central Athens, during an operation of Municipal Police to remove peddlers from tourist area.
A big operation of Municipal Police started on Friday afternoon on the touristic area of Thiseio, in central Athens, to remove immigrants from the streets, who work as peddlers to live. During this operation Cheikh Babacar Ndiaye a 37 years old immigrant from Senegal, was chased and he died falling from a height, on the rails of the subway in Thiseio station.
From the blood seen on the pictures possibly his death resulted from the fall.
Subway metro services were disrupted for at least two hours. First aid assistants removed the body of the immigrant from the rails. Meanwhile his friends gathered at the station, together with other people from Senegal.
Some of them mourned, but when they saw the stretcher with the dead body they began to shout and protest. Some of them they shouted that Police is racists. Riot police arrived immediately and attacked the gathered people, and cleared the area around the station. At the same moment of the attack the dead body of immigrant was moved to an ambulance and left the area, for an unknown and undeclared direction, in spite of the questions made on this.
Source with foto reportage: demotix (in english)