S
ix people – five men and one woman – who were being questioned by police on Tuesday morning over an attack on a group of migrants living in a home in the industrial suburb of Perama, southwest of Piraeus, were identified by their victims.
According to police reports, the six suspects were among a group of 10 Greeks who attacked the four Egyptian men, aged between 28 and 42 years old, while they were asleep in the their home around 3 a.m.
The attackers used bats and other makeshift weapons to break the windows of the residence and smash two cars and a motorcycle, before attacking the four men and injuring one, the 28-year-old, seriously.
The victims of the attack later identified the six suspects as being among the group that attacked them.
Tag Archive for 'racist attacks'
Page 4 of 5
Saturday afternoon in Kipseli neighbourhood:
Around 60 Neonazi and 20 motor bikes made one of their ritualised “interventions” on the weekly markets of Athens. Migrants crossing their path were attacked and insulted, fascist slogans were shouted… At some point police teams of DIAS (motor bikes) arrived at the place who, according to witnesses, tried to control the papers of some of the Neonazis. The Neonazi and Parliamentarian of the fascist party “Golden Dawn” Panagiotarou as seen in the video, tried to show by whatever means that his party (GD) is “antisystemic” and that it is being “prosecuted” by the Greek police. In the following the parliamentarian started insulting god and the world and destructing a parked car. Nevertheless, he was not arrested as it happens i.e. with other parliamentarians from left wing parties. While Panagiotarou is claiming that his party is antisystemic, it actually seems as if GD unfortunately is very close to the Greek police and vice versa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hd_9GJgVd4g
May 24, 2012
Following recent tensions in Patras caused by the murder of a 30-year-old man last Saturday, 19 May, UNHCR condemns all acts of violence and calls for the respect of the rule of law. It also appeals to all concerned in Patras to maintain calm.
The anger generated by the murder, for which a criminal investigation is on-going, should not lead to a cycle of violence, with civilians taking the law into their own hands. It can also not serve as an excuse to target and victimize migrants and refugees in Patras or in other regions of Greece.
The fact that thousands of migrants and asylum seekers are trapped in Greece creates significant problems that need to be addressed through serious dialogue, through specific and realistic policy proposals and a comprehensive set of measures. UNHCR calls on all political and social stakeholders in Greece to work towards this direction and to unequivocally condemn all acts of violence.
UNHCR also calls for support for the efforts to reform the Greek migration management and asylum system, which, along with other requirements, is necessary to improve the current situation.
During the past few days the murder of a 30-year-old Greek in Patras on Saturday morning (May 19) was assigned in local mainstream media of Patras to “afghan” perpetrators. The increasing discourse on the violent death rose on MAy 20, the day of the burial ceremony. A group of approx. 150 indignant locals but also fascists members of “golden dawn” party started to move in the evening towards the industrial area of Peiraiki Patraiki where currently some sans-papiers live in transit. The fascists among the protestors planned to revenge the death of the 30-year-old some of them holding rods and other truncheons. Indignant locals argued with golden dawn members who wanted to use the tragic death of the 30-year-old for their own purposes. The police forces arrived just in time to prevent the fascists from entering the industrial area. The mob outside the industrial area was shouting: “Foreigners out of Greece!” After a while of struggle between police and fascists, the latter left only to meet again the next day as they announced. Small groups of migrants and refugees spread in the city were chased by fascists. There are yet no news about injuries.
video showing the protest of the indignant locals and the fascist mob
On May 22 the atmosphere in Patras is remains heated. Police forces arrived in the early morning in the industrial area and arrested some sans-papiers in order to transfer them to Athens (about three busses) – as they said in order to protect them. Anyway, for the authorities the incidents of the last days might be seen as an opportunity to empty the buildings from the sans-papiers as they are trying already since some months by daily sweep operations. In the afternoon of May 22 the sans-papiers who had been transferred earlier that day to Athens were all released. During the arrest there was no possibility for the sans-papiers to collect their few personal belongings. Some of their items were allegedly burned by the police forces.
In the afternoon members of the neonazi GD gathered from other Greek cities and marched to the abandoned factory space (Peiraiki Patraiki, opposite the new port). The approx. 350 nazis tried to storm the factory, brandishing crowbars and pelting rocks to the migrants inside the building. During the night eight police officers were injured and five fascists arrested.
21:55 GMT+2 Meanwhile, the situation at the southern front of Patras, by the new port, is escalating in a nazi riot, as allegedly a couple of hundred Golden Dawn supporters try to break through the police lines to reach the abandoned factory building of Peiraiki Patraiki used by undocumented migrants for shelter.
22:00 GMT+2 People attacked Golden Dawn MP Michalis Arvanitis, who was scheduled to speak at a local TV station. The nazi was attacked inside the station building.
22:05 GMT+2 An antifascist gathering has been called for this Thursday, 24/05, at Olgas Square in Patras.
On May 23 the police entered again the industrial area which is a provisory shelter for migrants and refugees, arrested and transferred the last 50-60 to Athens. Meanwhile the municipality is holding an emergency meeting concerning the escalation of violence in the area of the new port and the “problem of illegal migration in the city”. The plan of the local government is to increase police patrols. In a telephone conference with the Minister of Citizen Protection the prefect of Western Greece demanded an increase of the police forces in Patras to face the militias of the neo-nazis but also and mainly to force refugees and migrants out of town.
In the night of May 23 again fascists started attacking the riot police next to the port and the industrial area of Peiraiki Patraiki.
press release of the solidarity movement in patras / May 23, 2012
indymedia athens
call for antifascist meeting May 23, 2012 in Patras (in greek)
red notebook (in greek)
zougla (in greek)
peloponisos news (in greek)
best news (in greek)
the insider (in greek)
in french
the telegraph (in english)
the guardian (in English)
attack tv (in greek)
best news (in greek)
deutsche welle (in farsi)
deutsche welle (in German)
tvxs (in greek)
The three migrants (two Egyptians and one Palestinian) were attacked by Greek citizens who came on motor bikes and were holding rods and chains around 11pm on Tuesday, May 8. While the perpetrators escaped the three victims were transferred to the hospital.
Following the elections and the high percentage of votes the fascist party “Golden Dawn” gained, racist attacks are on the rise again.
May 9: Police and Nazis in joint operation against migrant traders and anarchists in central Athens, in broad daylight
On May 9, 2012, only days after the election day in which 1 in 2 police voted Nazi, the two conducted a joint operation against the migrant street traders around the Athens School of Economics (ASOEE) and the anarchists who joined in their support. Skirmishes of this kind have been taking place for a while now, with riot police attempting to enforce a dogma of ‘zero tolerance’ and a ‘clean Athens’, in a discourse echoing that of the Golden Dawn (the Nazi party) and yet enforced by ‘socialist’ ministers Chrisochoidis (Public Order) and Loverdos (Health).
On Wednesday’s operation the police openly co-operated with members of the Nazi group Golden Dawn. The two have cooperated many times in the past, whether openly or in disguise. In the videos and photos below members of the GD chant ‘Greece belongs to the Greeks’, sway crow-bars and throw stones to the anarchists who chant ‘the tin-cans have yet to rot’, a reference to the execution (even slaying with tin-cans) of members of the Nazi-collaborating Security Battalions by partisans of EAM-ELAS in September 1944, following the battle between them in the town of Meligalas, SW Peloponnese.
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!”
Watch: “Dublin’s Trap: Another Side of the Greek Crisis” (2012)
by Bryan Carter
link: noticia desde grecia
TEXT: ANDRÉS MOURENZA // PHOTO: ALESSANDRO PENSO
Finally, on Monday morning (2 days after the incident) the suspect of the racist attack to migrants in Corinth was arrested by the police. Also one of the two hospitalized migrants was able to leave the medical premises and return to the train station, with the other migrants. Nabi is still in hospital, well treated, and although with difficulties, he is recovering as photographers Alessandro Penso and Giorgos Moutafis were able to confirm this Monday after visiting him. Also journalist Antonio Cuesta visited the migrants at the train station this Monday.
Continue reading ‘UPDATE on racist attack in Corinth: Suspect detained’
Posted on febrero 19, 2012 in noticias de grecia
TEXT: ANDRÉS MOURENZA // PHOTO: ALESSANDRO PENSO
Nabi, a 20-years old Moroccan, is lying on the ground. He looks dead.
Twenty minutes earlier we were sitting in the recovered-from-garbage chairs and furniture, smoking cigarettes and chatting in one of the abandoned wagons of the old train station of Corinth (Greece). Nabi lives there with about other 50 migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen. Nasir—a polyglot, art lover Afghan interpreter—asks Nabi, another art lover, to draw something. The young Moroccan sketches the boat of the Hellenic Seaways moored just 200 meters down in the bay. They all are waiting the lucky day in which they will be able to catch the ferry; climbing to it, or hidden in the load of the trucks that the boat carries to Italy. And then… go further North in search for a job, a future, a safe and normal life. Crisis-hit Greece has become a nightmare for them. There is not the slightest possibility for work in a country with rocketing unemployment figures. Greeks don’t want them, neither they want to stay in Greece, but they are stuck here because European Union treaties allow third countries to return them to the state where they first entered the EU. And Greece has been the gate to Europe in the last years for 90 % of migrants.
Now, Nabi is lying on the ground.
Everything happened so quickly: a group of 4 or 5 locals drive their two cars to the old train station claiming that a migrant has stolen some money at the open air market this Saturday morning. They hit the first migrant they find, an old man cooking in an improvised fireplace. The locals try to do the same with other migrants, but the cries raise the alarm and more migrants appear from the old wagons with sticks and stones to expel the assailants. The locals go back to their cars, although one stops and punches another migrant in the face, just before getting in his black Renault Megane. The migrants try to stop the black Renault but the driver makes a U-turn knocking down a migrant, a 35-years old Algerian. He stops the car, its back aiming at us, and hits the gas at full speed in reverse gear. I jump on a small wall, as does the photographer Alessandro Penso and some migrants, to avoid being knocked down by the black car. Others run, but Nabi cannot beat the speed of the vehicle and gets hit. His body flies some meters away in front of our astonished eyes. The insane driver hits the gas and escapes leaving Nabi lying on the ground.
We all run to check his health. He has been badly hit, bleeding his face, but he is alive (later we will know that he got some bones broken). The police arrive and later the ambulance, considerably late since there is no ambulance driver working that day in Corinth (because of the austerity measures cuts) and has to come from a neighboring town
The migrants are in anger and despair. Some cry and claim that two of their Algerian friends –one about 50-years old named Ibrahim and the other a 20 years-old named Hassan- have been kidnapped and put into the first car. They call them on their cell phones, but nobody answers.
“This people come every now and then, with truncheons and sticks. If they find someone alone they beat him till he is almost dying,” denounces a 30-years old Tunisian, too afraid to give his name. “We don’t do anything wrong, we even eat from what we find in between the rubbish not to mess with the local people,” says Abduljalil: “We are only waiting here for the good weather to be able to escape from this country.” “Ten days ago –explains Ahmed, an Algerian- they came and fired me with a plastic-bullet gun. They were driving a white four-wheel drive Toyota”. However, these migrants cannot go to the police station.
“If they come to report something, I have to arrest them as they are living here illegally. I am sorry, but that is the law”, excuses himself a police inspectors of Corinth. Even now when a group of journalists –Italian photographer Alessandro Penso, Greek photographer Giorgos Moutafis, Spanish journalist Antonio Cuesta and myself- have witnessed the attack, the police officers try to downplay the incident.
-“You know… the car owner has some psychiatric problems. We have got him before. He has been at the hospital”, says the police inspector.
-“Maybe… but do his friends also have mental problems?”–we ask him.
-“This morning, the migrants robbed some money in the market…”- justifies the inspector.
-“But even if that happened, this does not give them the right to go and try to kill the migrants” –I complain.
-“Yes, that is your opinion”- says the inspector.
-“No, officer, that is not my opinion. That is the law.”
This happened today, February 18th 2012 in Corinth, Greece at about 3.45 p.m.
UPDATE: At 10.00 pm of Saturday, we had news about any suspect arrest had been made