fotos by Yanis Lakos
information with, about and for refugees in Greece
Tag Archive for 'repression'
Page 5 of 9
On Sunday (April 29) the first 56 migrants were transfered into the new detention centre in Amigdaleza, Athens. The detention centre consists of 52 containers each built for four detainees. The containers are split into three sections and the area is guarded by the Greek police.
Continue reading ‘First detention centre opened in Amigdaleza, Athens a week before the elections’
In a recent article the conservative newspaper Kathimerini wrote that the temporary detention cells of police stations have turned to overcrowded prisons. An estimated 700 detainees over capacity are detained per day.
The police uses this fact in order to request for “new solutions”, obviously demanding new prisons as propagated in the past month from the government in it’s discourse of constructing “new hospitality centres”, meaning deportation prisons for the undocumented.
Nevertheless, the fact that the cells of the police and borderguard stations are overcrowded is a sign of a dysfunctional and repressive migration policy and once more mirrors the devastating, inhumane and degrading detention conditions of all detainees in Greece.
kathimerini in Greek
At the same time the motor cycled police team “DIAS” has been enforced in Attika area with another 1.000 officers patrolling now more often and in more districts of Greater Athens.
Kathimerini in Greek
Accounts from the Inside: The Detention Centres of Evros
new report by Pro Asyl
Obviously, Europe’s main concern is the creation of »walls« in order to hinder or to prevent the access to its territory. Physical walls like the fence, the moat and border controls in Evros but also invisible walls that are constituted by the lack of protection to those in need, rights denials, systematic detention, detention and living conditions violating human dignity, Readmission Agreements and the Dublin II Regulation. The effects of these heightening walls have their most tragic face in the many lost and dead at border. This is why we chose to speak about walls of shame in this report.
Civil Protection Minister Michalis Chrysohoidis said detention centres for undocumented immigrants will begin to operate before the general election.
Chrysohoidis, who met on Monday, with the heads of immigrant organizations in Greece and IOM, said the first of some 30 centres would open in greater Athens, scrapping earlier plans to start the campaign near the northern city Kozani. The meeting with some representatives of migrant communities, government officials and IOM was organised in order to motivate the migrant communities representatives to spread the idea of voluntary return among their co-nationals and to talk about the governments plans of the new detention centres.
“We have a commitment to start operating these closed-hospitality centres, and we will keep to that commitment,” the minister said. “The first centre will operate before the general election in greater Athens, and it will act as a model to show Greek citizens that these facilities are safe for the public and will operate to high standards of health and hygiene.”
The government has met strong resistance from regional authorities around the country to scrap or delay plans to open detention centres, and switch plans to concentrate on sites near Athens as a priority.
Residents at Menidi, north of the capital, however, are also protesting against a proposed site at nearby Amygdaleza and set up roadblocks in the area last week to try and stop construction work.
Since Thursday and the beginning of the pogrom in the centre of Athens the Greek police has taken 2.000 migrants into custody of which 420 were arrested. In total 234 persons were arrested for being undocumented being issued an administrative deportation.
Another 63 migrant women have been arrested for prostitution.
The fascist medial campaign against migrants will be continued on Sunday with a press conference of the ministers of citizen protection and health. Fear has been already effectively spread among migrant communities through the media showing endless arrests, controls and models of the new detention centres. The public discourse is dominated by the construction of migrants as a threat to the Greek society repeating mainly words such as: “illegal immigrants”, “contagious diseases”, “criminals”, “clean the city centre”, “dangerous” etc. This pre-election campaign is obviously aimed to distract the society from the economical measures that are being imposed by the government and to spread fear among migrants.
The announced “pogrom in Athens” started yesterday with massive police forces in the centre of the capital. More than 200 migrants were arrested near by Omonia Square, from the streets, squares, houses and shops. Police forces invaded more homes also in Kipseli and arrested street vendors near the university buildings in Patission street and elswhere. This massive sweep operation and its promotion in the Greek news as top issue of the pre-election campaigns is the most publicised repression against migrants of the last period. 
The police has aimed to raid approx. 140 buildings where migrants live, because they perceive them as “hygiene bombs” and a “threat to public health”. The police raids will also focus on empty old houses where migrants found provisory shelter.
As the Minister of Citizen Protection said: “This attempt for the
η προσπάθεια που γίνεται για την ελάφρυνση του κέντρου της Αθήνας, για την αποκατάσταση της τάξης, για την προστασία της κοινωνικής ειρήνης στις γειτονιές του κέντρου της Αθήνας, είναι μία ολοκληρωμένη επιχείρηση.
TV News top issue these days is the pre-election propaganda concerning “illegal migration”. See video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB4IpcpBHko
The Minister of Citizen Protection is planning to “clean” the city centre of the Greek capital from the immigrants and “host” them in the new detention centres he has announced to create in all over Greece in the near future.
Today he had a meeting with the Greek Police and announced massive sweep operations starting tomorrow. We already see a massive police presence in public space and daily arrest all over Athens. The question is, how can the police raids we already observe every day become more huge and worse?
A young sans-papiers collapsed when the people were trying to enter the aliens police
While an increase in the numbers of asylum recognition rate are proudly presented refugees have no access to asylum in Greece.
Continue reading ‘No access to asylum in Greece’
Mr. Chrysohoidis, Minister of Citizen Protection, announced today the creation of thirty new type detention centres for immigrants in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense. They are called “reception centres” or “centres of hospitality” in the dominant discourse although they are clearly to become huge prisons.
The minister had a meeting with the governors of 10 Greek prefectures to ask them if they agree to build detention centers in their areas and if they have specific facilities to offer for this purpose. Anyway, as he said, these prisons will be build even without the agreement of the prefectures. Throughout the last days and since the announcement of the creation of such a prison in Kozani the local politicians and the society had protested against these plans.
He also assured that the EU funding for these centers will be 250 million euros for the three following years.
For each detention centre a new independent police department will be created with personnel of 150 new police officers and also 70 private security men for every 250 immigrants detained.
According to the plan, each new detention center will be divided into four sectors with a capacity for 250 detained immigrants, if there are 1,000 immigrants in each of the 30 prisons announced it makes up a total of 30,000!
The new detention centres have become one of the main issues of concern today in Greek news which was dominated by a racist propaganda on “the problem of illegal immigration” constructing immigrants as a threat to security, public health etc.