Tag Archive for 'repression'

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Immigrants detention camp to be created in Kozani

Published on March 20, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , .

On March 19, the Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrisochoidis announced in the Greek Cabinet that a new immigrants’ detention camp will be created in Kozani (Neapoli).
 The camp will be under the authority of Greek police and will be located in a former military base. The camp’s capacity will be 1,000 inmates.
 It is planned to be ready by the end of April.
This will be the first official detention camp according to the new law of 2011 in Greece. The responsibility for guarding the perimeter of the detention camp will be given to the Greek police, but according to the Greek newspaper Vima Online, a private security company will be contracted for the guarding of the interior.
The local population reacted immediately by protesting against the “transfer of the problem” from the urban centres to other cities.

As the Vice-Minister of Citizen Protection Mr. Oikonomou said about the creation of 14 new detention centres in the very near future:

There will be no other solution to illegal migration than detention centres!

Three other detention centres are planned to be in Thessaloniki and at least two in Attika region. According to Minister of Citizen Protection Mr. Chrisochidis old military camps will be used and also former buildings of the Ministry of Education and other Ministries. The Minister while trying to convince the local population of its benefits said:

The aim is to support the local work force with new jobs. Soon enough the mayors who are now protesting against the construction of detention centres in their cities will be asking us to build also one in their region.

Vima Online (news in Greek)
Epikaira (news in Greek)
Kathimerini (news in english)

Homeless refugees and migrants in Patras are being daily chased down by the police

Published on February 20, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

They come every day in the early morning hours when we are sleeping. They hunt us through the buildings of the fabric. It is dark and there are wholes in the floor, cables and other things lying around. It is very dangerous to run. Some of us have fallen down from upper floors, others fall into the wholes. There are many people hurt. Broken legs and arms and worse. We don’t know where to go for sleeping without fear. There is no place without fear here.

M.A. broke his leg while being chased through the fabric by the police

M.A. from Sudan broke his leg on one of the daily chases by the police. He continues to live in the fabric under highly deplorable conditions and without any medicine. As for all the others there is no other place to go for him. It has become almost impossible to leave Patras towards Italy. In his condition he will not be able to try anymore from Patras. His friends help him to come out of the darkness of his room. Slowly he is moving forward. His leg has become infected. He has pain. But most of all he seems to be hopeless.

Every day I tried. I go to the “stop” (where the trucks stop) for many hours and I come back. Every day. It is very difficult here. Not human. We have no water, no electricity, no food… no nothing. We have to find food in the garbage to survive. I am very tired.

Once the police caught me in port and they threw me into the sea. Just like this! Without any reason. You know how cold it is? It was just to get me sick.

Life here is just about trying to leave and trying to live – not to die. Go to the trucks. Find food. Escape from police. Being beaten by police. Hospital. Prison. Walking back to Patras from the prisons – one day, two days… Deportation from Italy. It is a great misery but we have to try. This Greece is not a place to stay.

The homeless sans-papiers of Patras need support. Food, medication, sleeping-bags, clothes and most of all our solidarity – in practice and not only in words!

“I come to Petrou Ralli police station since 5 months, every day”

Published on February 17, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Every night hundreds of sans-papiers go to Petrou Ralli police station to reserve a place in the long row. They are trying to enter the aliens police in order to apply for asylum. Despite the fact that the Greek government is announcing improvements in the Greek asylum system what we see is that access to asylum is not possible until today.

Press Release of the Group of Lawyers: Lacking access to Petrou Ralli Aliens Police

Under the blanket its a bit warmer, but some are without!

You never know at what time the officers will come to take a few of us inside. sometimes at 24, sometimes at 4am or at 6am. We wait here and try to be of the first. No chance! They only accept 20 persons per day. I don’t even understand on what criteria they chose. We stay out in the cold for nights and days. Without food. Many also without a blanket. You cannot move, if you do that your place will be lost. There is so much fighting about who will get inside to ask for asylum. The police watch us, but they don’t care. I am now since 4 days here. I have only one bottle of water. Thats all! Can you find the same situation in other European countries?

Today I am the first. It is my chance maybe.

No sleep, no food, cold...

Hundreds of people here every day leave behind their traces

Today I have some hope to enter

Is it the same in other countries?

No one care for us

25.000 thousand migrants deported in the last months while the racist pogrom continues

Published on January 21, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Citizen Protection Minister Papoutsis said that 25.000 migrants have been returned either by force or voluntarily within the last months from Greece to their home countries. The last deportation flight took place on thursday of January 19. Among the 56 deported were: 2 Egyptians, 23 Bangladeshi, 29 Chinese, one Pakistani and one Indian. The deportations take place from Athens airport.
Police raids and sweep operations have become harsher and more frequent. According to Papoutsis the Greek police controls daily an average of 400 migrants.
Meanwhile the construction of the anti-migratory “wall of shame” fence in Evros is being proceeded. The construction is planned to be finished in the next 5 months.

While migration policy is harshening, the racist pogrom continues unhindered in the centre of Athens. Daily migrants get beaten, stabbed and insulted in the areas close to Attiki and St. Panteleimon Church without any reaction from the police. Today an African migrant was stabbed nearby Panteleimon Church. The police reacted by asking the stabbed who was lying on the ground bleeding for his papers.

European Court finds a Turkish migrant was tortured by one of the Greek coastguard officers supervising him

Published on January 18, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , .

In the Chamber judgment of January 17, 2012, in the case Zontul v. Greece, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The applicant, Necati Zontul, is a Turkish national who was born in 1968 and lives in London (United Kingdom).
On 27 May 2001 he and 164 other migrants boarded a boat in Istanbul which was bound for Italy. On 30 May the vessel was intercepted by Greek coastguards and escorted to the port of Chania (Crete). The migrants were placed in a disused merchant navy training school. According to Mr Zontul, the conditions of detention there were poor and several detainees were deliberately attacked by guards. He alleged that, between 1 and 6 June 2001, several detainees had been taken into a room from which they had emerged with injuries and, in some cases, unable to walk. There had also been reports of mock executions and Russian roulette.

On 5 June 2001 Mr Zontul reported that two coastguard officers had forced him to undress while he was in the bathroom. One of them had threatened him with a truncheon and had then raped him with it. One of the applicant’s fellow detainees had helped him back to the dormitory after the officers had left. In protest at that incident, the detainees had decided to go on hunger strike the following morning. Some of the coastguard officers had then burst into the dining room and gathered the detainees together, before beating them with truncheons and splashing them with water and a product resembling eau de cologne. One of the detainees had been made to “jump like a rabbit”.

The Court reiterated that the rape of a detainee by an official of the State was to be considered as an especially grave and abhorrent form of ill-treatment.

Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the European Court held that Greece was to pay the applicant 50,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 3,500 in respect of costs and expenses.

see: clandestina

Municipality police beats up migrant street vendor in Athens

Published on December 26, 2011 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

A citizen of Athens reported today (December 26) in the internet of an incident of police violence in the centre of Athens, when a municipality officer beat up a migrant street vendor.

The citizen reported the sudden appearance of a couple of municipality officers wearing helmets and hiding their faces nearby Syndagma square. Some of them were carrying black plastic bags, others were running. One of them tried with the help of a police officer to arrest a migrant street vendor. The street vendor resisted and suddenly one municipality officer wearing a helmet started punching the vendor in his stomach. On his grey helmet was written “Molon Lave” (a famous phrase from King Leonidas of Sparta, meaning: “come and take them” – a phrase that fascists like to quote). Both citizens who became a witness of the police repression and the vendor were shouting.
Police and municipality police were hunting down migrant street vendors in the centre during all of the day.

watch the short video

Vice-President of Afghan Community attacked by racists in Athens

Published on December 25, 2011 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , .

On the night of December 23, 2011 Safar Haydary, vice-president of the Afghan Community (Noor) in Greece and another three Afghans were attacked by a group of 15 members of the extreme right group Golden Dawn. They had been near by St. Panteleimon Church, an area where many refugees and migrants live and where racist attacks have become the sad picture of daily life. Mr. Haydary was severely injured. For one more time the police while being close to the incident did not do anything.

The vice-president of the Afghan Community Noor after the beating


news in Farsi

Afghan Minor severely injured in Patras

Published on December 21, 2011 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

In the early morning of December 20, 2011 the police stormed the building of a former fabric where a couple of Afghans have set up their provisory shelter. Most of them are underage. In this atmosphere of panic one of the minors while trying to escape the police raid fell of the second floor of the building. He was severely injured.
The other Afghan sans-papiers later told to the Solidarity Movement for Migrants and Refugees of Patras, that the police saw the young boy falling but did not call an ambulance or react in any other supportive manner.
One of the Afghans called the ambulance. The hospital denied to send an ambulance in the beginning. In a second call he told the hospital that the boy was severely injured and might have even died. Then an ambulance came and brought him to St. Andreas Hospital of Patras.
Later in the evening the Solidarity group visited the boy in the hospital and talked to the doctors. The boy had been operated in order to remove blood from the inner of his head. The boy was in intensive care and in coma being held alive with machines.
Nobody knows if things would have been better if he would have been transferred sooner to the hospital. Anyway, both police who did not help while witnessing the accident, and the hospital who only reacted in a second stance are unacceptable. Lets hope that the young Afghan will pay with his life.

Press Release of the Solidarity Group of Patras
Salata TV (news in greek)

The Trial about the torture of Afghan refugees by police officers from St. Panteleimonas ended

Published on December 20, 2011 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

Press Release
Athens, 20/12/2011

The trial of the police officers from St. Panteleimonas about the case of torture ended

Today the Mixed Jury Criminal Court of Athens, which hears felonies in the first degree, sentenced two policemen (one of them already left the police force), for the sensational torture case of Afghan refugees by officers of the St. Panteleimon police station (in December 2004) to 5 years and 5 years plus 5 months respectively. The trial had started on 21.10.2011 and ended on December 20, 2011.

Continue reading ‘The Trial about the torture of Afghan refugees by police officers from St. Panteleimonas ended’

Greek Health Minister demands deportation of AIDS infected migrant women!

Published on December 17, 2011 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

HIV infected migrant women should be deported, said Andreas Loverdos the Greek Health Minister in a conference about the public health.

“The infection goes from the illegal migrant women to the Greek client, into the Greek family.”

Mr. Loverdos, Greek Minister of Health

According to Health Minister Andreas Loverdos, drug addiction and illegal prostitution, especially when combined with illegal migration, were the main culprits for the rise in the rate of HIV infection.

From about 620 brothels and “studios” only seven are legal and from around 20.000 brothels workers only 1.200 are registered according to the Minister. As he continued, the Ministry of Health has handed information about the illegal prostitution to the Citizen Protection Ministry for the reasons of protecting the “public health”. His speech ended: “The infected women should leave Greece!”

see: in Greek on altherthess