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.
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.”
ATHENS / GENEVA (31 January 2013) – At the end of its 11-day visit to Greece, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention noted that the time has come for an improvement of conditions of detention and for the effective implementation of recent positive legislative developments, including in the area of migration and asylum.
“In most detention facilities visited by the Working Group, the conditions fall far below international human rights standards, including in terms of severe overcrowding,” stressed Vladimir Tochilovsky, member of the Working Group.
A migrant detainee in Parenesti, Drama tried to commit suicide with a razor in the night of Friday, 25th. The other detainees complained in a heated atmosphere against the detention conditions. Soon police forces were called to “control” the escalating situation.
Today, the single-judge formation of the Criminal Court of First Instance of Igoumenitsa in northwestern Greece (Μονομελές Πλημμελειοδικείο Ηγουμενίτσας) has returned a remarkable decision (Nr 682/2012) in a prosecution brought against a number of immigrants awaiting expulsion who escaped a local detention centre. The decision was taken in November 2012 for the case of almost 15 migrants who had escaped from Igoumenitsa prison only one month earlier (September 30th). As the judge ruled: “You escaped from humiliation and this is why you are free now!” Many of the in Greece detained migrants try to escape the up to 18 months reaching administrative detention but are caught sooner or later then finding themselves charged with “escape” and other criminal categories, that might put them behind the bars for even longer periods.
The facts of the case are as follows: On the night of 30 September to 1 October 2012, fifteen immigrants detained in Thesprotia Police Headquarters (for having illegally entered Greece) wrestled the guards who had entered their cell to remove the garbage and escaped. They were later apprehended and charged with escape under the Greek Criminal Code (Article 173 para 1).
Continue reading ‘“Not guilty”, found the Court of Igoumenitsa in the case of migrants who were charged “escape from prison’”’
In a recent visit a committee of Syriza party, a residents initiative and other solidarity groups from Thessaloniki (including parliamentarians, lawyers, doctors and member of the movement “deport racism” and of the “network for the documentation of racist violence”) visited the police station of Vatipaidi following the repeated citicism of the local residents initiative concerning detention conditions for migrants. 
The aim was to control the situation, to discuss with the authorities, to provide legal information to detainees and to check wether there are medical needs. The result: The committee was informed that there were 14 suicide attempts within only three months registered within the two small detention cells!
The authorities confirmed the inacceptable detention conditions and allowed entrance to the committee. The committee reached the following findings:
– 38 detained migrants in 2 cells
– detention reaches 6 or 12 months following orders (ΑΕΑ 6634/1-326796 of 23-8-2012) of the Aliens Directorate
– overcrowdedness leads to easy transfer of contagious diseases such as scabies
– no access to outside areas
– food consists only of uncooked dry meals
– not enough clothing and blankets in very cold cells
– no hygiene insanitary infrastructure
– 14 suicide attempts within 3 months!
Newly arriving migrants are detained on Samos island in the inadequate cells of the coast guard, among them women, children, elderly, sick etc. they are locked up in 30m2 and fed with the rest of the food from a retirement home once in 24 hours as well as the donations of some officers and solidarity people of the island.
Plans for the re-opening of the former detention centre have been postponed for the next year and after January 2013.
Meanwhile, Syriza parliamentarians sent a letter of inquiry to the Ministry demanding answers on the questions of detention conditions, reception and the new detention centre.
Cramped, without warm clothes, no hot water, no heating, in appalling hygiene conditions, malnourished, without barely access to medicines, in a legal situation uncertain and subject to harassment and occasional beatings.
They are the conditions in which Greece maintains several thousand immigrants and undocumented refugees, in the so-called”detention for foreigners”, which are so degrading to inmates of one of them, of Corinth, ironically call it with the same name of the notorious us base: Guantanamo.
“They kept us locked up like animals. We don’t have rights”, complains Ali Hasan, an Afghan fleeing from their country and who remains detained for two months along with 800 others in the center of Corinth, a former military barracks.
Samos 07.12.12 – Movement for the Human rights – Solidarity to Refugees
PRESS RELEASE
Following the visit of members of the Movement in the coast guard facilities where 41 persons – among them eight newly arrived women and seven children mainly coming from Syria – are hold, and where we were asked to offer our support with clothing and hygiene articles, we noticed the following:
In this informal detention place of the Samos coast guards’ special forces men, women and children are closed up together with three penal detainees and one unaccompanied minor who is waiting since long time to be transferred into a special reception centre for minors.
The detention place is absolutely unsuitable and the detention conditions are miserable. There are no matresses, blankets, hygiene articles and there is only one toilette. The newly arrived Syrian refugees came wet and exhausted without being offered dry clothes or food.
The treatment by the authorities and the abolute lack of protection that the Greek government is encountering them with are reminding of darker periods when the informal detention centre of Kapnokoptiriou was still in function – a warehouse of souls.
The coast guard – the responsible ones for the detention – told us that they had requested support from all local authroities without receiving any responds.
SILENCE IS COMPLICITY
LETS NOT LOSE OUR HUMANITY DUE TO CRISIS
On December 1st migrants detained in Amigdaleza detention center started a protest against the detention conditions and demanding their freedom. It is not the first time and will not be the last time of protests in Amigdaleza and other detention centers.
In The night of that Saturday, the detainees gathered in the yard pulling the fence and shouting slogans for freedom.
The protest was encountered with Riot police who “convinced” the protestors to return silently into their cells.
Continue reading ‘Revolt in Amigdaleza detention center’