Tag Archive for 'repression'

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Criminalisation of activists in Samos / Press Release Group of Samos

Published on November 30, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

MOVEMENT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
SOLIDARITY TO REFUGEES

SAMOS 20/11/2012

Briefing report

In 2010 members of the Movement continued to visit the detention centre of Samos on a weekly basis. Following serious allegations we received by detained refugees and given their inability to address the competent authorities by themselves, we gathered all acquired information and wrote a letter to the Ministry of Citizen Protection requesting to be informed about the manner in which deportations are carried out.
The letter was communicated to other humanitarian organizations as well as the Police Headquarters of Vathi town in Samos. The authorities not only refused to answer our questions concerning the treatment of the detained refugees, but they also forwarded our letter to the prosecutor, asking him to press charges against the member of our movement who had sent the letter in question for alleged defamation and false statements.
Subsequently, the Prosecutor ordered a preliminary examination, in the context of which all Board members of the Movement were asked to testify about this jointly drafted document. Even though the allegations of the Hellenic Police against our Movement were proven unsubstantiated, the judicial authorities nonetheless pressed criminal charges against the specific member of our Movement who had sent the document and ordered her referral for trial on 6/12/2012 on grounds of “false reporting to the authorities”. Continue reading ‘Criminalisation of activists in Samos / Press Release Group of Samos’

Ministry investigates racist violence against migrants by Greek police

Published on November 26, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Internal Affairs is currently investigating a number of charges against law enforcement officers, who allegedly tortured migrants in 2012. The accused officers in many cases seem to be closely co-operating with fascists of Golden Dawn party. The criminal behaviour of the officers includes charges of insult, ill-treatment and theft and even torture. The public prosecutor has ordered to crackdown any relation between the police and golden dawn.

21/10/2012 – Municipal Theatre Pieraeus
According to to the complaint, police officer took her out of detention wards two prisoners, struck them with fists and kicks and put another prisoner to beats them. In response to the reaction of another prisoner to the event, the police officer took him out of the ward as well and bate him with punches in the face, while he was also routinely insulted them with racist expressions.
Continue reading ‘Ministry investigates racist violence against migrants by Greek police’

Announcement about the victims of racist violence

Published on November 12, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Announcement about the victims of racist violence, November 11, 2012
Source: Group of Lawyers for the Rights of Migrants and Refugees Athens

Last weekend was marked by a series of new incidents of racist violence which has by now taken on dramatic dimensions.

In one of these incidents, in the area of Agios Panteleimonas, where racist violence threatens to turn into a pogrom, organised groups indiscriminately attacked migrants, their stores and their houses.

In another incident in Palaio Faliro, an unidentified group stabbed a passerby migrant sending him to hospital.

In the third and most chilling incident, a bakery owner in Salamina, together with his son and two more accomplices, tortured a migrant working in their bakery and abandoned him after chaining him to a tree.

What was the reaction of the State to these incidents?
Continue reading ‘Announcement about the victims of racist violence’

Press Release of the United African Women Organisation

Published on October 3, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Press release of the United African Women Organisation, Greece

We women, involved in United African Women Organization, Greece, express our deep concern, protest and anger for any type of clean – up actions that are in progress in the centre of Athens and other Greek regions.

Manny of us, years ago, have taken the road of exile, had in mind a distant country, Greece, where people honoured and respected the “stranger” as a holy person. Than, we became this “stranger” and during our evening classes, after work, we learned that there is an old god, to assist us in the difficult struggle for survival: the “Xenios Zeus.”

Today we hear that the old god he changed his mind and doesn’t want to protect us anymore.

We have always tried to build bridges between immigrant communities and the Greek society.
To seek what unites us, rather than what divides us and to highlight it.

To struggle with the Greeks, both men and women against poverty, absurdity as a single, dynamic community that claims their lawful rights.

In spite of those who cut the bridges, we want to continue to fight for the natural right of every person to safety, dignity and peaceful coexistence.

Each “sweep” that was preceded, allegedly as a clean-up, (like people are garbage and need to be swept). we women of Africa who live in Greece, want to turn it into a sweep against hate speech, pogroms, violence and fascist beliefs.

We do not want to be defeated by racism.
We do not want to loose all hope.
We do not want to start again from scratch a fight that should have been finished.

http://www.africanwomen.gr/
africanwοmen@yahoo.com

UN rights chief worried about Greece due to violent xenophobic attacks against migrants

Published on September 10, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , .

The UN’s top human rights official has, in an usual move, singled out Greece as a worrisome area.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the Geneva-based council Monday that she is worried about

“violent xenophobic attacks against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in recent months, for example in Greece.”

Racist attacks against immigrants have increased in Greece since the economic crisis flared in 2009, according to pro-immigrant groups which accuse the police of turning a blind eye.

Supporters of neofacist Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) as well as two of the party’s deputies, Giorgos Germenis and Panayiotis Iliopoulos, attacked immigrants’ stalls at a church fate in Rafina, northeast of Athens, late Friday.

Pillay’s assessment of the world is important because it sets the tone for the work of the UN’s 47-nation Human Rights Council whose month-long session opened Monday.

ekathimerini (in english)

Read a recent comment on the rise of the fascist party Chrissy Avgi (golden dawn) by S.E. Smith in “global comment”

Samos – detained Syrian refugees on hunger strike since yesterday

Published on September 2, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

35 Syrians who are detained since 9 days on the roof of Samos Port authorities began yesterday a hunger strike including the 6 children among them. until today they were not given any access to the asylum procedure in Greece although some of them are even are already recognized as Palestinian refugees in Syria.
At the same time two Afghan families with 4 children where discovered by chance at the police station of Karlovasi.

Read the Press Release of the Solidarity Group of Samos (in Greek)
press release 1
press release 2

Statisticians and magicians

Published on August 19, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Statisticians and magicians
By Dimosthenis Papadatos – Anagnostopoulos
originally published in Greek in: Red Notebook

One out of five. These are the “illegals” that the Police discovered in the first 12 days of the (ongoing) “Zeus Xenios” sweep operation. And what does this ratio reveal to us?

First of all, the obvious: 6.344 persons were arbitrarily arrested, even though they legally reside in Greece and they have never committed any offence.
They were simply arrested because of the color of their skin – and probably on conviction that criminality does not exclusively apply to the “illegal” ones. In the end, those legally residing in the country are still aliens.
Continue reading ‘Statisticians and magicians’

more than 500 fascist attacks against migrants in the last six months!!!!

Published on August 13, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

While the police is operating a huge sweep in Athens and Evros since August 2nd, racist attacks are getting more. Migrants communities speak of more than 500 hate crimes in the last six months and an organised wave of hate crimes in the last days.
Continue reading ‘more than 500 fascist attacks against migrants in the last six months!!!!’

shocking images: the sweep operation in Athens continues on August 9, 2012

Published on August 9, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , .


the images remind of other times….

Greek police released this video of todays sweep operation in the early morning hours at Larissis Railway Station in Athens:

In a press release of August 10 the police summed up that amongst others within the frame of the operation “Xenios Zeus”:

– 6.690 migrants were arrested
– 1.555 were detained because they were lacking legal residence papers
– 52 private houses were searched

and by the economic police:

– 103 shops were controlled
– 23 brothels were controlled, 48 persons were arrested and 22 were ordered administrative deportation
– Another 172 street sex workers were arrested

Massive sweep operation in Athens since August 2, 2012

Published on August 5, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Greek police evict immigrants from Athens

Greek police arresting women and children


Following the operation “Xenos Zeus” Greek police arrested on Saturday 4, August 2012 in Athens 4.900 persons of which 1.130 were brought in for questioning. The police in a press release of the same day claimed that “national survival” was at stake for debt-choked Greece. The aim of the operation was “to send them back to their countries of origin, close the borders and ensure that Athens returns to being a lawful city with a quality of life,” police spokesman Christos Manouras said. 88 of the arrested are planned to be deported on Sunday August 5 in the night from Athens airport. The majority of them are from Pakistan.
Operation Xenios Zeus, ironically named after the name of the king of the ancient Greek gods in his role as protector of guests, mobilised 2,000 police in Athens and another 1,800 on Greece’s eastern border with Turkey. Continue reading ‘Massive sweep operation in Athens since August 2, 2012’