On June 15, 2012 PRO ASYL together with the Greek Council for Refugees published a report on the systematic ill-treatment of refugees and migrants by law enforcement officers in Patras.
information with, about and for refugees in Greece
Tag Archive for 'repression'
Page 4 of 9
At around 7 AM GMT+2 on Saturday, May 26th, a large police contingent surrounded the building complex of the former Chatzikosta Hospital, located on central Papandreou Avenue in the city of Ioannina. This complex, apart from being a temporary home for migrants and refugees, is also were the Antiviosi squat is located.
Continue reading ‘Ioannina, Greece: “Cleansing” operation against migrants’
220 undocumented migrants are detained currently in the first of the planned 30 new detention centres. The Ministry of Citizen Protection is planning to continue the construction after the elections and to move on with the creation of the second new type detention centre also in Attica and the third in Deskati, Grevenon.
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)
Hospital doctors announce decision to ignore the Ministry of Health directive and to continue treating undocumented migrants
Prior to the May 6th elections, the minister of health, Loverdos, announced undocumented migrants were to no longer receive any treatment in public hospitals in Greece. In response, hospital doctors issued, through their union body, the following statement
Doctors:
“We will treat undocumented migrants. No to Loverdos’ credentials to the [Nazis of the] Golden Dawn!”
Continue reading ‘Greek doctors refuse to stop treating undocumented migrants’
In Greece, serving police force members vote in specially assigned polling stations (regardless of their area of residence), together with the local population of those stations. Last Sunday in Athens, 5.000 serving police voted in 11 such specially assigned polling stations. In these precise stations, the Nazis of the Golden Dawn received between 19% and 24% of the total vote. The police who voted there serve in all agencies including DIAS, the undercover police force and others. Only a few meters down the road, in neighbouring stations, the percentage of Golden Dawn dropped to approximately 12-14%. Given that there are approximately 550-700 people voting at each of these stations, and also given that 20-30% of them are police, it can be calculate, with considerable certainty, that the percentage of police who voted for Golden Dawn ranges between 45% and 59%.
Human Rights of Immigrants and Sex Workers in Greece
MAY 9, 2012
To: Anand Grover
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health
OHCHR – Palais Wilson
United Nations Office at Geneva
CH-1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
Dear Mr. Grover:
We are writing to call your attention to two issues of urgent and serious concern in Greece: (1) the administrative detention and compulsory medical testing of immigrants and asylum seekers based on health status and (2) the arrest, criminal prosecution and compulsory HIV testing of sex workers.
Continue reading ‘Joint Letter to UN Special Rapporteur on Health’
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.
Athens, April 30, 2012
Serious violation of human rights and medical confidentiality through the disclosure of data and photographs of an HIV positive female prostitute by the Greek Police.
In an unprecedented stigma action, the competent authorities of Greece publicized, through a press release by the Greek Police, the full details, photographs and medical record’s information of a 22 year old prostitute, from Russia.
The unprecedented racist initiative of the Greek authorities sparked a number of articles in the press and media reports naming and shaming the woman, publishing her personal data, stigmatising her, as well as every person wholives with HIV. This action is damaging the image of our country, after which it ceases to be a modern, well-governed and humane state.
Continue reading ‘Serious violation of human rights and medical confidentiality by the Greek Police’
On May 3, 2012 around 18:30 a police patrol walking along the pedestrian in Fokionos Negri in Kipseli, Athens headed towards a group of three migrants sitting and talking on the square. The officers asked the migrants to follow them into a calm side street where they beat the up. They never asked to control their papers.
One Palestinian migrant was hurt so badly that he fainted. One of his friends could escape; the other is not severely injured. The Palestinian 19-year-old was transferred to a hospital at 20. As eye witnesses reported the officers had been directed by a well-known member of the far right party golden dawn to the migrants.