PRESS RELEASE – MARCH 8, 2011

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

DAY 43 of the hunger strike

 

The 50 migrants on the 7^th floor of the Labor Centre have been on a hunger strike for 43 days now. At the moment, all strikers are experiencing the consequences of extreme fasting: They feel dizzy when walking and have difficulty standing up, while 17 of them are being hospitalized at different hospitals in Thessaloniki. According to yesterday’s medical report, “they are suffering liver malfunction, delay in coagulation times due to lack of vitamin C intake, low heart rate with occasional arrhythmia, hypoglycemia and reduced white blood cell count. Their immune system is particularly vulnerable. From now on, their health condition could take an unexpected turn, since it is highly probable that complications will occur. For this reason, the presence of physicians at the Labor Centre in Thessaloniki is constant, and the hunger strikers who need further treatment or hospitalization are immediately sent to the public hospitals on duty.”

Tomorrow at 11am there will be a Press conference at the Labor Centre of Thessaloniki, where the University authorities, the hospital doctors’ union, the public sector workers’ union, the journalists’ union and the barristers’ association will officially present the proposal they signed after their meeting at the Labor Centre on Friday, the 4^th of March.

The arrests of people in solidarity and the threats of deportation will not break the hunger strike! In Athens today, Tuesday, March 8, two students from the solidarity initiative were arrested, when they reacted to hospital staff leaving trays of food in hunger strikers’ rooms. Moreover, since this morning, rumors have been leaking from state sources into the Press that the government will deport the hunger strikers if they do not accept the government’s proposal for a six-month ‘tolerance status’ card. The Solidarity Initiative in Athens released a statement saying: “The struggle did not break despite the hardships and the slander campaigns, so now the government is mobilizing its mechanisms of State violence”.

This morning, members of the solidarity initiative occupied the central offices of the governing Party PASOK in Ioannina, Western Greece, to express their support for the hunger strikers’ demands. Thursday, March 10, day 45 of the hunger strike, is an international day of actions of political disobedience in support of the 300 hunger strikers.

The Open Solidarity Initiative of Thessaloniki invites everyone to the following events and actions:

Tomorrow, at 7:30pm, the Rector of the Aristotle University and Program for the Promotion of Self-Help and the Postgraduate Program on Addiction and Dependency of the Dept of Psychology are co-organizing a discussion and film screening with the participation of a representative of the hunger strikers at the Functions Hall of the University.

On Thursday, March 10, the Solidarity Initiative is calling a meeting outside the General Secretariat of Macedonia and Thrace at 6pm.