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)
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.
The bodies of 21 migrants were found on a beach on the Aegean island of Lesbos, December 15, 2012, after the sinking of their boat. A young Afghan of 16 years, one of only two survivors indicated that the boat had left the coast of Turkey, had thirty
people aboard, mostly Afghans, when it capsized because of bad weather. Efi Latsoudi, resident and volunteer Mytilene the charity « To Chorio tou Oloi Mazi », which helped the families of the victims in their efforts, discusses the moments of this drama, and the obstacles, and indifferenceof the authorities.
Continue reading ‘Snapshots of a human tragedy that continues, by Efi Latsoudi’
They demand freedom and political asylum. Some of the hunger strikers are more than 15 months in detention!
Strasbourg, 24.01.2013 – Given the mounting tensions over asylum and irregular migration into Greece, Turkey and other Mediterranean countries, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has underlined the need to rethink responsibilities here and deal with what should be recognised as a European problem and not one confined to a single or a few European States.
Greece, the main entry point for irregular migrants into the EU, and Turkey, the main country of transit, which has taken in 150 000 refugees from Syria, will not be able to resolve their difficulties “without greater solidarity and assistance from the EU and other member states of the Council of Europe”, was the view taken by PACE members during a debate held under urgent procedure in Strasbourg today.
Continue reading ‘Mounting tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean over migration and asylum: a European problem’
by Statewatch
Two recent judgments in Italy and Greece have found detainees innocent of the charges that were brought against them by the local authorities following escape from one migration detention centre and rioting in another. Courts ruled that the actions of detained migrants in opposing their detention conditions were legitimate.
Continue reading ‘STATEWATCH: Greece/Italy. Detainees’ rights overrule absconding and rioting charges, courts rule 21.01.2013′