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’
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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.
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.
Civil Protection Minister Michalis Chrysohoidis said detention centres for undocumented immigrants will begin to operate before the general election.
Chrysohoidis, who met on Monday, with the heads of immigrant organizations in Greece and IOM, said the first of some 30 centres would open in greater Athens, scrapping earlier plans to start the campaign near the northern city Kozani. The meeting with some representatives of migrant communities, government officials and IOM was organised in order to motivate the migrant communities representatives to spread the idea of voluntary return among their co-nationals and to talk about the governments plans of the new detention centres.
“We have a commitment to start operating these closed-hospitality centres, and we will keep to that commitment,” the minister said. “The first centre will operate before the general election in greater Athens, and it will act as a model to show Greek citizens that these facilities are safe for the public and will operate to high standards of health and hygiene.”
The government has met strong resistance from regional authorities around the country to scrap or delay plans to open detention centres, and switch plans to concentrate on sites near Athens as a priority.
Residents at Menidi, north of the capital, however, are also protesting against a proposed site at nearby Amygdaleza and set up roadblocks in the area last week to try and stop construction work.
Watch: “Dublin’s Trap: Another Side of the Greek Crisis” (2012)
by Bryan Carter
More than 90 immigrants were sent back to their home countries on Wednesday, police said.
Some 78 migrants from Pakistan, Iraq, Morocco and Nigeria were repatriated on charter flights while 16 Albanian nationals were transported to the Balkan state that borders northern Greece by bus, police said.
All the repatriated individuals had been arrested on charges of “illegally” entering the country.
Since Thursday and the beginning of the pogrom in the centre of Athens the Greek police has taken 2.000 migrants into custody of which 420 were arrested. In total 234 persons were arrested for being undocumented being issued an administrative deportation.
Another 63 migrant women have been arrested for prostitution.
The fascist medial campaign against migrants will be continued on Sunday with a press conference of the ministers of citizen protection and health. Fear has been already effectively spread among migrant communities through the media showing endless arrests, controls and models of the new detention centres. The public discourse is dominated by the construction of migrants as a threat to the Greek society repeating mainly words such as: “illegal immigrants”, “contagious diseases”, “criminals”, “clean the city centre”, “dangerous” etc. This pre-election campaign is obviously aimed to distract the society from the economical measures that are being imposed by the government and to spread fear among migrants.
82 migrants and refugees were deported on March 28-30 from Athens Airport mainly to Islamabad and Kabul based on the “voluntary return programme” of IOM. Among the returned were: 70 persons from Afghanistan and Pakistan, one from Bangladesh, one from Iraq, four from Algeria, one from India, one from Lybia, two from Morroco, one from Rumania, one from Moldovia. Since there were no capacities to return the Afghanis and the Pakistanis with commercial flights a charter was rented for the deportation.
Sources:
NewsIT (in Greek)
Ethnos (in Greek)
The announced “pogrom in Athens” started yesterday with massive police forces in the centre of the capital. More than 200 migrants were arrested near by Omonia Square, from the streets, squares, houses and shops. Police forces invaded more homes also in Kipseli and arrested street vendors near the university buildings in Patission street and elswhere. This massive sweep operation and its promotion in the Greek news as top issue of the pre-election campaigns is the most publicised repression against migrants of the last period. 
The police has aimed to raid approx. 140 buildings where migrants live, because they perceive them as “hygiene bombs” and a “threat to public health”. The police raids will also focus on empty old houses where migrants found provisory shelter.
As the Minister of Citizen Protection said: “This attempt for the
η προσπάθεια που γίνεται για την ελάφρυνση του κέντρου της Αθήνας, για την αποκατάσταση της τάξης, για την προστασία της κοινωνικής ειρήνης στις γειτονιές του κέντρου της Αθήνας, είναι μία ολοκληρωμένη επιχείρηση.
TV News top issue these days is the pre-election propaganda concerning “illegal migration”. See video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB4IpcpBHko
The Minister of Citizen Protection is planning to “clean” the city centre of the Greek capital from the immigrants and “host” them in the new detention centres he has announced to create in all over Greece in the near future.
Today he had a meeting with the Greek Police and announced massive sweep operations starting tomorrow. We already see a massive police presence in public space and daily arrest all over Athens. The question is, how can the police raids we already observe every day become more huge and worse?