On Sunday April 29, three people found a horrible death and four were seriously injured during a police operation at the border. The migrants were chased down by the Greek authorities and Frontex when the car they were in got fire. Greek media reported that the local police force for “Illegal Immigration Enforcement” and members of the European agency for the security of external EU borders “FRONTEX” had spotted a car transporting illegal immigrants. The officers followed the car and cut its way in an attempt to stop it for inspection. However the driver of the car tried to overtake the FRONTEX vehicle, lost control with the effect that the car overturned in a nearby field. The car got immediately fire. Two immigrants and the driver were burned and died on the spot, while four others were seriously injured. The tragedy occurred at the Lykofis village near the Evros borders between Greece and Turkey.
Sources:
Kathimerini english edition
Infomobile
On April 29 a 58-year-old Albanian was hit by a car in Menidi Athens. Friends and other people reacted angry on the driver who could escape. He returned back though and shot on the people standing around the place of the “accident”. Another Albanian was shot to death while a Pakistani man was injured. The police is investigating the case. The driver escaped once again.
The government continues with its’ pre-election campaign against migrants and refugees. Publicised sweep operations and a medial discourse on “illegal migrants as hygiene bomb” have built the grounds for a racist agenda. These racist measures and medial games are used as much as the opening of the new detention centre near by Athens to win votes for the elections.
Continue reading ‘Racist discourse and police operations go on in Athens’ centre’
Racist attacks continue by fascist groups and the Greek police. The following two stories belong to the few that reach the public and to the very few that put charges on the perpetrators.
Racist attack
Mokbul Ruamanga, a 42 year old Mathematician from Bangladesh, and his wife were attacked by a group of five fascists in … With his lawyer he displaed charges against the unknown perpetrators in Athens Court.
“It was in the evening of March 24 and we went out with my wife for a walk. A group of five persons reached us. They started threatening and taunting us. They were shouting to us to leave from this country!”
On April 22, the coast guard intercepted migrants who were at distress at sea at Angistri following the information of the local population. The migrants were arrested. They were given food and water.
The Greek coast guard found a sailing boat with 151 migrants near Elafonisos and transferred them on April 20 to a port of Peloponese. The migrants had informed the authorities themselves that they were in danger.
Amerikis Square in Athens in the beginning of 2012. Police beat a migrant even after he has been already hand cuffed!
Only yesterday a 35.year-old Albanian reported the first time about the torture he had been suffering through from Greek police on December 7, 2005 at Ymittou Square in Attica:
“They wrapped me in a black garbage bag that was full of feces from the fear of the torture. They held the gun on my eye. They threatened to kill and beat me. Immediately after they forced me to lame in one leg. And when I could not manage, they beat me again.”
See also on indymedia Athens
See on Zoulga (in Greek)
Older video of Omonia Police Station 2007. Police torturing detainees.
In a recent article the conservative newspaper Kathimerini wrote that the temporary detention cells of police stations have turned to overcrowded prisons. An estimated 700 detainees over capacity are detained per day.
The police uses this fact in order to request for “new solutions”, obviously demanding new prisons as propagated in the past month from the government in it’s discourse of constructing “new hospitality centres”, meaning deportation prisons for the undocumented.
Nevertheless, the fact that the cells of the police and borderguard stations are overcrowded is a sign of a dysfunctional and repressive migration policy and once more mirrors the devastating, inhumane and degrading detention conditions of all detainees in Greece.
kathimerini in Greek
At the same time the motor cycled police team “DIAS” has been enforced in Attika area with another 1.000 officers patrolling now more often and in more districts of Greater Athens.
Kathimerini in Greek
On April 11 60 migrants were deported from Athens to their home countries. among them were one Algerian, two Indians, two from Bangladesh, one Ukrainian, one from Poland, one Serbian and 52 from Pakistan. They were deported based on the grounds of illegal entry to Greece. The Pakistanis were deported with a special charter while all the others were returned on commercial flights.
Accounts from the Inside: The Detention Centres of Evros
new report by Pro Asyl
Obviously, Europe’s main concern is the creation of »walls« in order to hinder or to prevent the access to its territory. Physical walls like the fence, the moat and border controls in Evros but also invisible walls that are constituted by the lack of protection to those in need, rights denials, systematic detention, detention and living conditions violating human dignity, Readmission Agreements and the Dublin II Regulation. The effects of these heightening walls have their most tragic face in the many lost and dead at border. This is why we chose to speak about walls of shame in this report.