Kuneva’s case buried in political and legal manouvres

The Greek government’s effort to hide the closing of Kuneva’s case in plain sight.

In the last week Konstantina Kuneva’s case made it into the headlines.   Kuneva spoke to tv channels and newspapers; the ministry of employment offered her an apartment; the minister of citizens protection (ex-public order) Chrysochoidis said he takes under his personal care the effort to find and arrest the perpetrator(s) of the crime against her. Together with the ministry of economics, he signed an 1 milion euros reward for them (400.000 more than the one for the anarchists “robbers in black”). The effort of the minister of citizens protection is clearly to appear unbiased against any kind of crime, to reverse the mood against him, that with his provocative stance towards Exarcheia he provoked the strike against the police station of Aghia Paraskevi… and of course to “disarm” ideologically anarchists in view of December.

All these at a time when the case’s legal future was decided by judges. The examiner of the case had suggested that it should be archived; the public attorney was against this; the pertinent to resolve the disagreement first degree council of judges decided not to close the case and go on with the examination process. . This was hailed by mainstream press as a progressive sign of the justice system willing to continue the search for truth and justice.

There is a catch to it, however. The case will not officially close, still, everything the attorney suggested that should be done was rejected, apart from the provision that Kuneva may be examined once more.   In other words, the decision does not at all take into account the memorandum by Kuneva’s lawyers on the blatant defficiencies and stubbornly wrong orientation of the police work on the case.

This means that the police will be judicially justified to continue turning away testimonies, as they did hours only after the event, when they turned away people from the nearby area willing to testify, on the pretext that since they did not see the crime itself happening their testimonies were useless!!! And of course, they are not going to look at the direction of Kuneva’s employers, who were palpably directing the research and examination process from behind the scenes.

In other words, the case is in effect closed.

Info and analysis from this week’s issue of KONTΡΑ newspaper.

Both the Pagani 17-year-old refugee abuse case AND Mohammad Kamran’s death case considered “cold cases”.

This a translation of this Nov 11, Avgi article, about this recent case of immigrant abuse in Pagani and the legal developments on Kamran Atif’s death .  Thanks to Efi for her work.

stapsa for clandestinenglish

The assault on the 17-year- old refugee is a “cold case”.

The assault on the 17-year-old refugee Mr. Mohamed Hussein Khantar by police guards in the Pagani refugee camp last October is considered a “cold case”. The same applies for the case of the death of the Pakistani immigrant Mohamed Kamran- who had been allegedly tortured in the police department of Nikea in Athens

According to newspaper Avgi’s sources, during the preliminary investigations conducted with regards to the assault case, Mytilene’s state attorney could not find sufficient evidence leading to possible prosecutions of police guards in the Pagani refugee camp. Thus, the case is considered cold, and all preliminary investigations regarding police officials are going to be archived.

The manner in which the case is concluded, confirms the fears of various bodies and organizations that an abuse case would be covered- up by the police forces. It is claimed that witnesses in the Pagani camp were offered “pink cards” in return for their silence, and were sent to Athens, where it is impossible to be traced.

Moreover, questions arise with regards to the contradictory conclusions after Mr. Khantar’s examination. According to his attending physician’s statement, injuries and traumatic lesions were found on his head, back area and hands; however, the medical examiner concluded that his injuries were older than the day of the alleged police assault.

The police assault has allegedly taken place in the afternoon of October 22nd, in the Pagani refugee camp, just a few hours after Mr. Spyros Vougias, who is the undersecretary of the Ministry of Citizen Protection, visited the camp. After the event was made public, the Ministry of Citizen Protection ordered a preliminary investigation of the case, which was conducted by Mytilene’s state attorney.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has made an announcement, pleading for an in-depth investigation of the case and a subsequent prosecution of the people involved. The Greek political party SYRIZA is planning to bring the topic in parliamentary discussion.

Kamran’s case

With regards to Mohamed Kamran’s case, leaked information from the Ministry of Citizen Protection reveal that toxicology tests show Kamran intoxicated; according to the same leak, the post mortem toxicology investigation found Kamran using alcohol and other substances before his death.

However, Mr. Fragiskos Ragoussis, Kamran family’s attorney stated that there are no official toxicology test results yet, and that in any case his clients are going to ask for a test re-run, since according to the Greek law the family has the right to appoint an external medical examiner during the autopsy.

Testimony from Pagani (and Athens after it)

source: lesvos09.antira.info

“We really didn’t feel like refugees!”

Athens, 25th of October 2009 | Reflections on Lesvos two months after Noborder:

Hello, my name is Milad. I am 17 years old. I was for 23 days imprisoned in Pagani in Mitilini and first I want to define how was the situation inside this prison and how was the behaviour of police and doctors with us.

Some guys were sick for weeks, they were calling for a doctor, but nobody was ready to listen to our voices. There was no treatment for sick persons and the drinking water had a bad smell. If we asked for a doctor, for clean water or anything, mostly nobody was even listening.

They also did not have a good behaviour to the families with the small kids. One day I saw the kids had their ten minutes time to go out. They were playing football and one policeman was beating a small kid, he was about 8 years old, his mother was crying.

Hunger strike in Pagani

Published on 8. November 2009 at lesvos antira 09

We will not eat in a place like here!!

The 30 people in Pagani are angry. Most of them are families with a lot of kids. The people refused the food because of the horrible ambiance. One woman is disgusted about the circumstances inside the “open centre” of Pagani.

Our close are all wet, we have nothing dry to wear. The sheets and beds are used, dirty and hideous. They will not give us fresh sheet our dry clothes. It is ridiculous, they bring us to the hospital to check f we are ll or something but they let us sleep in sheet full of virus and with wet clothes!?

Close down Pagani and every detention centre, now and all about!!!

After Pagani (…?). 20 acres of military estate to be turned into refugee settlement.

This is a translation of this enet article.  Many thanks to Efi for the translation.

Stapsa for clandestinenglish

20 acres of military estate to be turned into refugee settlement

There are a lot of legends connected to the Hill of Karatepe in the island of Mytilene, Lesbos. During the Roman era, Dafnis and Chloe’s love story is said to have taken place on this hill. When Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire,  the Mytilene branch of the “Filikoi”, the secret organisation said to have prepared the 1821 Revolution,  had hid on it. In World War II, the German forces attacked it, and during the Greek civil war it was a place of torture. Currently both the hill and the area surrounding it belong to the Greek military forces.

20 acres of this estate are going to be turned into an “exemplary refugee camp”, as the Minister of  National Defence, Mr. Evangelos Venizelos stated in a recent press conference in Athens. This ambitious plan is a cooperation between the Ministries of Citizen Protection and National Defence, and the Hellenic Army National Staff.

A year ago, the head of Lesbos prefecture, Mr. Pavlos Vogiatzis, had requested for the land to be granted to the prefecture. However, the Ministry of National Defense initially rejected his request, although the Ministry of interior had announced that they were looking for an estate that would host a new refugee camp, since the living conditions in the already overpopulated “Pagani” camp in Lesbos were deteriorating.

The 20-acre-estate is located close to the local fire brigade; in 1974 the Mytilene Charity Insitutions had sold the land to the National Defense Fund for the symbolic price of 50,000 drachmas in order to cover military housing needs or defense plans.

EU plans joint ‘charter flights’ to deport immigrants

 

source: EURACTIV

5 November 2009

EU plans ‘charter flights’ to deport illegal immigrants

Published: Wednesday 4 November 2009

EU leaders have for the first time asked for the creation of joint charter flights to deport illegal immigrants. These flights would be financed by Frontex, the European agency in charge of the EU’s external borders.

undeclared blood

In the last few days the mass media  in Greece have been producing all kinds of elaborate arguments in favour of the young police woman who was critically injured by the bullets of some obscure urban gorilla group.

There has been much more blood shed than that in Greece , much more. Blood that remained in the shadow of public attention.

Some horrible reminders:

At least eight refugees (women and children) drown in the Aegean – one more unspeakable tragedy

Immigrant victim of police torture passes away in Athens

Greece: 5 immigrants murdered in one year, 50 in the last decade

(and in the Mediterranean The massacre continues: 459 deaths in the first 6 months of 2009)

plus the horrible deaths at work, the so called “labor accidents” (many immigrants among them) – list “brought to attention”  by Alice’s blog).

According to the Labor Inspectors, the following fatal industrial accidents have been officially recorded in the last 10 years   :

• 2000 127 accidents
• 2001  188 accidents
• 2002  153 accidents
• 2003  145 accidents
• 2004  127 accidents
• 2005  111 accidents
• 2006  128 accidents
• 2007  115 accidents
• 2008  142 accidents
• it is estimated that in 2009, 57 people lost their lives at work.

1293 dead workers

Pagani detention centre in Lesvos to close down (for now?)

source: After the Greek Riots blog

#119 | One Less Prison: Pagani detention centre in Lesvos to close down (for now?)

The “migrant welcoming centre” (that is a prison in the government’s doublespeak) of Pagani in Lesvos was one of the main targets of the No Borders camp that took place in the island last August, with activists calling for the immediate closing down of a detention centre in which, “living” conditions were a disgrace, even by greek prison standards… On 22.10, a government official (Sp. Vougias) visited the prison to inspect living conditions there. Astonishingly, only hours after his visit, a 17-year old migrant detainee was severely beaten before being offered 350 euros by police, to keep silent about the attack…

One of the Iranian hunger strikers was taken to hospital

source: athens indymedia post

Today, at 7:20 p.m., one of the hunger strikers was taken to the hospital as he had pain in the kidneys, was throwing out blood and was urinating blood. The ambulance took him from Propilaia and transfered him to the hospital, where he received first aid and the doctors prescriped him some medication. Late the same night, the Iranian political refugee returned to Propilaia and he will continue the hunger strike until the satisfaction of their demands, as he decided.

iranianrefugeesfromtipf.blogspot.com

Palestinian minors and other refugees tortured in Greece

A long report on the situation by The Palestine Telegraph

SOS Palestinian minors and other refugees tortured in Greece – 5 women 3 children drowned in Aegean

Greece, October 27, 2009 (Pal Telegraph) -

The photo is from the 17 year old Palestinian victim (from "Eleytherotypia" newspaper)

A 17 year old Palestinian has accused his guards of brutally beating him, in the Pagani “detention center” for immigrants without papers, in the island of Lesvos, close to Turkey. The incident happened just a few hours after the vice minister of the newly named “Ministry of Protection of the citizens” has visited the place and expressed his indignation over the living conditions of hundreds of immigrants stuffed in an old depot transformed to a nasty prison. The vice-minister left, the newspapers wrote articles about how much the new “socialist” government cares about human rights, and the policemen punished the immigrants and refugees that dared to denounce their ill treatment to the vice-minister by torturing them even more!