One more dead in Evros

An immigrant died of hypothermia while 14 others were rescued. The 15 migrants were trying to cross river Evros from Turkey to Greece, and were trapped in an island on the Evros river near Tychero village. Seven of the survivors are nationals of Eritrea, two are Palestinian nationals, three are from Algeria, one from Syria and one from Bangladesh. The dead immigrant was also Palestinian. He was transferred in critical condition at the Medical Center of Feres, where he died of hypothermia.

Immigrant child drowned in the river Evros

The dead body of a young child was discovered yesterday in the river Ebros, near the village of New Cheimonio.
The unlucky boy was probably one of the sans papiers immigrants, who were carried away from river waters and found dead in the region of Dilofoy – Marasion, a few days ago. The corpse, in advanced decay, was discovered by a fisherman, who notified the Police.

Afghan refugees in Greece on the Patissia bomb explosion.

Yesterday, Wednesday 31, at 8:00 pm circa 200 Afghan refugees made a silent and peaceful protest in front of the Greek Parliament in Syntagma Square, lighting candles and honouring the 15 year old Afghan refugee’s memory (traditionally) on the third night after his tragic death .  This is a translation of the text calling to the protest. The original text has been posted at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1149594.  As athens indymedia users have reported this critical text was not reported by mass media and mass circulation newspapers.

More on the case of the victims of the Patissia bomb explosion: http://libcom.org/news/boy-dies-athens-mystery-bomb-30032010, http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1149778.

Call for a peaceful and silent protest

We choose a silent protest, not because we are not hurt by the unjust and tragic loss of our innocent fellow Afghan, who perished just as bad as he might have perished in Afghanistan, if he had not fled the country with his family. If we choose a silent protest, its not beacuse we are not angry with the state of refugees in Europe in general and especially in Greece. Its not as if we are not angry with the medieval conditions at concentration camps of refugees and immigrants, which entrap our children and our families; its not as if we are not angry with the daily opppressive treatment in the street, in squares, in our homes, in government services for foreigners, for all  we are subjected to for the crime of being refugees.

We choose a silent protest because we respect our fellow man who died, and we protest against the conditions he lived under with his family as refugees. We respect his family, especially his mother, a woman who experiences the shock of the tragic loss of her son and probably the loss of her daughter’s sight. And finally, we respect the Holy Week and Easter holiday period of our fellow citizens in the country that “hosts” us. All those that the corporate media and the government institutions did not observe by ridiculing all human dignity and by encroaching and violating fundamental human and refugee rights respectively.

Najafi family with the tragic loss of their 15 year-old son and the loss of her 11 year old daughter’s sight in the bomb explosion of March 28 in Patissia adds to the long list of victims of the Greek-European inhuman and repressive policy towards economic and political refugees . There is no doubt that the young Afghan refugee Hamidoullah killed in the bomb explosion at Patissia and his little sister who is in danger of losing her sight suffered these due to the lack of asylum system in the country.  We believe that there are political responsibilities, and we urge the Government to assume them to prevent such tragedies of innocent people from happening again.

We wonder, how comes that suddenly all the ministries now show their “interest” for the family, offering gifts and promotions and making (false?) promises? Or is it that the government is only trying in this way to disguise their zero policy, which is implemented in the daily sweep operations, expulsions, hellish torture and detention of refugees and immigrants everywhere? We also wonder how comes that suddenly for all the media yesterday’s “illegal immigrants [lathrometanastes=clandestine immigrants]” are today’s “refugees”?

We are refugees of a war that has been exported against us and we demand all the rights we are entitled to in accordance with international treaties on refugees. Those rights are: asylum for all refugees, protection of our lives, shelter for families and for unaccompanied minors, medical care for all etc.

We also demand:

• that the government stops playing the philanthroper and assumes its obligations towards refugees and immigrants.
• that particualr media stop disturbing the troubled and shocked family in the hospital and respect their situation.

March 31, 2010, Athens

Afghan refugees in Greece

Latest news, Monday 15 – Friday 19 Feb.

Monday Feb 15 Tention in the police station of Tripoli, Peloponese after the suicide attempt of a 35 yearold Palestinian who was imprisoned in purpose to be deported. Other migrants prisoners, also under deportation, looted blankets so a small fire was caused. The pigs entered the detention centers and evacuated the imprisoning cells by transfering the prisoners to a room beside. Later, the migrants were also transfered to the Panarcadic Hospital for health checks, where also the Palestinian was transfered whose deportation is planned to take place in two weeks. http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1133089

Tuesday Feb 16 In Archontiki village, Rethymnon, Crete, an Indian farm worker was shot and heavily injured by his boss – a shepherd himself.   The culprit then took the victim on his car which crushed on the road.  He left the victim there in a horrid condition and disappeared.  http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1132976

A shoot-out between cops and bank robbers in the neighbourhood of Vironas, Athens saw an innocent passer-by assassinated by the cops: 25-year old migrant worker Nikollas Todi was unfortunate to be at the shooting range of the pigs in uniform. He was executed in cold blood, shot with nine bullets in the back, one going through his head and another one through his heart.  Leuteris Oikonomou, head of the greek police, stated that “nothing went wrong in the operation – simply the 25-year old found himself amidst crossfire”. Trying to supposedly disassociate himself from this provocative statement, Michalis Chrisochoidis (minister of citizen protection) stated that “a crucial battle was won, even if the cost was dear”. Earlier today, Chrisochoidis announced that Athens will see “unprecedented” policing operations after easter. http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1133637

Thursday, Feb 18 50 Palestinian refugees detained at the Samos refugee center were boarded on a ship to Athens probably to be deported.   They cannot communicate and they have no legal assistance.   http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1133671

Friday, Feb 19 In Patras, the police  warned earlier today the Sudanis living in the makeshift settlement in an old train depot that they should evacuate it (the plan is to make a parking there) or be arrested and deported. http://patras.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=7337

Dead bodies of immigrants washed ashore at Samos island

One more fatal shipwreck in the Agean.  The coast guard found early today 8 bodies at the Potokakio area of Samos island.

Yesterday, a Palestinian was rescued by a commercial vessel at the sea area near Turkey.  He told the authorities that he had boarded on a plastic boat along with 10 or 12 more people and sailed from Turkey to Greece.  Due to strong winds and rough sea the boat capsized.

The weather conditions were so adverse that rescue and coast guard helicopters could not fly.

The exact number of people missing is not clear since there is a probability that there have been more than one shipwrecks in the area in the last night(s).

source: http://www.protothema.gr/greece/article/?aid=60704

About the death of the Indian immigrant worker in Varipetro, Chania, Jan 31, 2010

This is a Forum of Migrants in Crete press release.

For the death of the Indian worker in Varipetro, Chania, on Sunday, 31/1/2010

3 FEB 2010
Labour accidents are tragic, shocking events. But what is more than shocking is what these people die of: inadequate protection measures.
One more spectre that should haunt the sleep of state bureaucracies, trade union bosses, and the business world.

Another worker killed, due to inadequate safety measures.

He fell from scaffolds, from a 6 meters height …

We note that many immigrant workers have already lost their lives in a working regime verging on cruelty. We are not only talking about the labour intense and unsafe conditions, but also about the long shifts, the ridiculous wages and of course the uninsured status. It is the harsh reality, which the Greek politicians do not see and nobody refers to now that the new bill on citizenship and immigration is discussed. It is the hard fact that some Greek people refuse to see, entrenched as they are in insecurity and fear and the conviction that they have discovered the “enemy” of their wealth: immigrants. Yet, it is immigrants -uninsured and underpaid – who build their houses, who look after their elderly relatives and their household, who pick fruit from their fields, who do all those jobs that Greeks refuse to do anymore.

We require that the state protects workers and implements the labour law.

We demand that trade union leaders deter further accidents and deaths by having unions’ and associations’ gates wide open for their immigrants colleagues (with or without papers) who should be fully entitled to the rights of membership

Let us not wait passively for the next “accidental death”.
Greek and foreign workers, united, let us claim now everything that is ours.

Let us push with our actions the employers, who we know very well will never show concern for us.

No more deaths, no more crippled workers.

Young Albanian got killed trying to avoid police documents check in Lasithi, Crete

A 26 year old Albanian lost his life when he fell from a height in Lasithi, Crete while running from a police check.  The young Albanian who had no residence permit and would be deported took notice of cops in the night of Wednesday, Jan 20, and started running from them, since he had no residence permit and if arrested he would be deported.  He climbed on a house’s roof but due to darkness he lost his balance and fell.

The deceased  had been for some months  working in farms of the Makri Gialos area.

A similar incident had happened in Heraklion, Crete, in September 2009.  A young Albanian had seriously injured himself by falling from a great height to avoid a police patrol.

sources: candia alternatival, http://filoxenoi.wordpress.com/

Death toll reaches 21 in suspected boat capsizing

source: zaman newspaper

The discovery of two more bodies early Sunday brought the death toll of suspected refugees who drowned along the Greek-Turkish border to 21, the Anatolia news agency reported yesterday. The first bodies, believed to be of people who failed in an attempt to cross the Maritsa, or Evros, River into Greece illegally, were discovered last Monday.

It is unclear how large the suspected refugee group was and whether any of them made it across the river safely. Authorities believe the group tried to cross the river in a boat, but died under circumstances that remain unclear.

The area around the Maritsa and the nearby Aegean Sea are popular routes for illegal immigrants trying to access the European Union. Thousands of illegal immigrants from Asia and Africa enter EU-member Greece every year, usually making risky crossings from Turkey in boats that are not seaworthy. Ten people died in October 2009 when a boat carrying Afghan families sank off the eastern Aegean Sea island of Lesvos.

15 dead in suspected immigrant boat accident in northern Greece

UPDATE JAN 8, EVENING: The number of bodies found so far has risen to 15.  The date of the shipwreck is estimated to be the 29th of december.

UPDATE JAN 6, AFTERNOON: Unfortunately, the number of dead bodies washed ashore is rising, 10 bodies have been found so far.

source: associated press

THESSALONIKI, Greece – Police in northern Greece say six bodies have been recovered from the sea or have washed up on the shore following a suspected boat accident involving illegal immigrants.  Their IDs were not found, reports said.

Two bodies were found Monday and four at the weekend near Alexandroupoli, a city in northeastern Greece, near the border with Turkey.

From Anti-Immigrant Summer to Zero Tolerance on Election Bait

Text in Greek available here.

On the occasion of the International Migrants Day

Just over a month and half ago Prime Minister Papandreou used the Global Forum on Immigration & Development proceedings in Athens to sketch government measures which would stand for a humanitarian turn compared to the policies and situation of the recent months .  He described as necessary

“[T]o stimulate the participation of immigrants in the political life of the country, through the possibility of Greek citizenship acquisition, particularly of course for the so-called ‘second generation’, in which we are suggesting the acquisition of citizenship by birth for the new person born in our territory.”

For people in Greece, though, the announcement of the Secretary for Home Affairs Theodora Tzakri two weeks later, which made clear that Greek citizenship would be granted only to children born to legal immigrants, came as no surprise.

The doctrine of “Zero tolerance to illegal migration” goes hand in hand with this government’s humanitarian turn… As for what this turn is all about, it aims at incorporating immigrants mostly from Albania, after two decades of overexploitation, and in exchange for votes. A phony exchange indeed.

Along with this, the dividing of immigrants into ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘useful’ and ‘superfluous’, ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ becomes more intense, and the system of exploitation grows deeper roots .

As we wrote in our above linked text on the Global Forum on Immigration & Development:

“The aim of developmental policy is to control migration flows (through the FRONTEX patrols and detention centres) as well as to regulate them (through 5-year rotating work permits, the annulment of asylum rights), in order to keep a stable proportion of productive inhabitants within the increasingly ageing, unproductive populations of Europe. In other words, recycling the migrants will keep the indexes of development in check, development being the systematic and bloodthirsty pillage of lives and resources, time and space.

According to the “UN Population Division report on replacement migration”, if the Europeans want to keep their ratio of older people to active workers at the 1995 levels, the Union will need 135 million immigrants by 2025.

This demographic issue is only part of the story, and maybe not the most important. Neoliberalization inside Europe has meant a weakened, destabilized labor force. It’s not just that capital wants selected migrants because it needs more workers, it wants migrants because they are powerless, unorganized, low-paid workers for whom there will be no job security, no health care and no pensions.In other words, they are far cheaper and less troublesome workers”.

Illegal immigrants are necessary because through them the rights of the legal ones are suppressed (there is of course rotation of people in these roles). At the same time, illegal immigration helps governments maintain a useful xenophobic atmosphere to impose authoritarian policies. ”Migration management” includes both authoritarian hysteria and humanitarian logistics. The two seemingly opposite positions are the two sides of the same coin of subjugation.

So let’s outline against this backdrop the government’s humanitarian turn after the elections of October 2009…

The Doctrine “Insulated Greece”

The new doctrine was introduced by Minister of Citizen Protection (= Public Order) M. Chrisochoïdis on Tuesday, December 15, at his meeting with the FRONTEX Executive Director J.Laitinen.   The construction of the Southeast Mediterranean FRONTEX Headquarters at the U.S. base of Aktion or at Piraeus has been a permanent request of the Greek government, which proudly stated that 75% of illegal entry arrests at the sea borders of EU for this year took place in the Aegean sea.

A few days earlier in the frame of FRONTEX operations (on Saturday, December 12) officers in Samos island, on no notice whatsoever and violently, carried out with utmost secrecy the transfer of over 85 Afghan refugees from the local detention center to the island’s airport at Pythagorio.  There the refugees were boarded on an airplane which departed for an unknown destination.

The slaughter in the Aegean Sea continues

In less than two months, 16 migrants have died in the icy waters of the Aegean. Most of them were children.

• On Tuesday, October 27, 8 immigrants, three adults and five children, drowned in the east part of the Aegean Sea.
• On Saturday, November 7, the lifeless bodies of six children from Palestine, aged 2 to 12 years, washed up on shore near Bodrum (Alikarnasos), Turkey.  The boat in which 19 Palestinians – half of them children – squeezed themselves on an effort to pass from the Turkish town of Turgutreis to Kos island overturned 500 meters from the shore.
• On Friday, December 11, a boat carrying undocumented migrants sank near the island of Leros. Fishermen found 25 migrants perched on a rocky island and two more lifeless bodies in the sea.

Police violence

Incidents of abuse and humiliation by the police amount to dozens, and most of them never reach the public attention. We report the following characteristic cases:

• In the afternoon of October 22, immediately after the visit of Secretary of State Vougias the detention center in Pagani of Mytilene, police officers responsible for guarding the center abused and beat prisoners, including a 17-year boy, who was evacuated to the Vostanio Hospital, where lesions were diagnosed on his head, back, waist and arms. According to the interpreter, the police promised 350 euros to the victim to buy his silence.
• On the 19th of November in the afternoon a 35-year old immigrant was beaten by two officers serving at the infamous Aghios Panteleimonas Police Station in Athens. Her two year old child witnessed the beating and the arrest, and along with her mother remained under custody at the Kypseli Police Station for four hours! The incident became known only because the woman is married to a famous Greek musician.
• On Friday, November 20 , immigrant detainee Mohammed bin Taher collapsed in the courts of Evelpidon street in Athens. His condition was such that he was taken to hospital by ambulance. As reported by the his fellow detainees (and he later confirmed) Mohammed bin Taher had been savagely beaten by police at the Omonoia Police Station.
• On the 9th of October Mohammed Kamran dies after the treatment he received by the policemen who had raided the house where he and fellow Pakistani workers resided in Nikaia, Athens.

Para-state violence

The para-state mechanism was launched last summer against immigrants and since then it has been working relentlessly despite the supposed change of policy.

• The most recent incident was the attack of last Tuesday, December 15, against the Social Haunt – Immigrants Haunt in Chania, Crete (hometown of the former Minister of Public Order Markoyannakis).  In the same city on December 8 there has been a savage criminal attack against two immigrants by unknown perpetrators. The near-killers attacked the immigrant workers in the back with crowbars, and left them with serious head and body injuries.  One of the 2 victims was among the 15 hunger strikers of last year , who shook the island of Crete with their proud struggle. The intensity of the attacks in Chania definitely is related to the dynamic struggles of immigrants in the city.
• In Athens, brutal attacks against Arab shops took place at the Neos Kosmos district on Monday, November 22, when 40 people holding crowbars and molotov cocktails attacked and injured the employees in two mini-markets, destroyed the merchandise and stole the money of the cashier.

Para-state organized violence encourages and feeds the diffuse social one.

• Thus, on November 8, four immigrants who had been working at olive fields in Messolongi, Western Greece, were attacked with crowbars and clubs and beaten savagely by circa 15 people. The immigrants were transferred to the emergency dept. of the Messolongi hospital. The immigrants had been asking their wages from the owner of the fields in which they had been working.  They were ambushed and beaten in an old warehouse, where they had an appointment with their employer to get their money.

Institutional violence

• In late November the trial of 25 immigrants (mainly Arabs and one Afghan) took place; they had been arrested during the events of December 2008 and had been detained ever since.  All this period they were considered missing.  All of them were sentenced to imprisonment from 7 months to 3 years.  It is characteristic for the fairness of the trial that only one interpreter had been assigned , who translated simultaneously for 24 defendants who were divided in three groups in the court’s room.  The Afghan who did not understand Arabic was seated on the last bench of the room…
• On Friday, December 11, in Thessaloniki, a report was issued by the Hellenic League for Human Rights, about the detention centers in Evros and Rodopi.  The survey took place from the 25th to the 29th of November 2009 and states:

In many cases there is inadequate lighting, ventilation and heating (…)  At virtually none of the premises visited have the possibility to go outdoors on some yard. Even in detention centers where there is an adequate yard, the large number of detainees on the one hand and the lack of personnel on the other allows usually only for some prisoners to have outdoor breaks for a minimum period and not on a daily basis (…)  Food in many cases is inadequate, the quantity and quality in general varies (..). The care taken for sanitation and hygiene conditions varies from inexistent to inadequate (…) The availability of medical and nursing staff is poor and at all cases occasional (…) The detainees were in total confusion regarding their rights, the time of their detention and ill-informed as to asylum procedures; interpreters were not available.

December 18, 2009

Clandestina Network

Group of Immigrants and Refugees, Thessaloniki