No Borders South Wales

A message of support from Wales, UK

The human desire for freedom can never be stifled, and the voices of those in solidarity do  not go unheard in the moral vacuum of Europe’s murderous policies. The actions of the Greek Hunger Strikers have rippled across nations and inspired others no matter how far away we are. The members of No Borders South Wales stands in solidarity with you all, we are amazed at the bravery and courage of our brothers and sisters to defiantly show their humanity in a continent where dignity and solidarity are sorely lacking. We say no to their walls, armies and borders, we reject their division of us all into categories that suit them. We see through the lies of the market and understand that unemployment and hunger are artificial problems not created by migration. We will continue to fight together until every border is broken and every human is free.

Announcement to the society

We, the 300 migrants hunger strikers, we demand legalization of all migrants living and working in Greece and we declare the following:

–        We, 300, took the initiative for that kind of struggle, without the intervention of political parties, organizations and individuals.

–        We believe that the country that we live in is a democracy and as such must respect human rights and international agreements.

–        We are committed and we continue the hunger strike; despite all the pressure and the bad conditions of the place that, by force, we accepted to move.

–        We call every free thinking person in Greece or abroad to stand in solidarity with our fair struggle in order to live with dignity.

29 January 2011

5^th day of hunger strike

No One Is Illegal – Toronto

To our brothers and sisters on hunger strike in Athens and Thessaloniki and their allies,

No One Is Illegal – Toronto send our strongest expressions of solidarity with your inspiring struggle for justice and dignity.

We are a grassroots migrant justice group made up of migrants of color and allies, opposing the ongoing colonization of Turtle Island (North America) and demanding the recognition of indigenous sovereignty. We oppose the forces that displace and push people out of their homes globally and struggle for justice for all undocumented people and migrants.

While we see today the perpetrators of war and occupations, economic exploitation and environmental destruction, gather at the World Economic Forum in Davos to further their agendas of oppression and exclusion, we are inspired and honoured by your courageous example of resistance in Greece.

Like you, we struggle and strive for a world in which all people can live in justice and dignity. We are honoured to join your call in demanding an end to all detentions and deportations, an end to the exploitation of migrant workers, and for the complete legalization/regularization of all non-status people in Greece and beyond.

In Solidarity
No one Is Illegal – Toronto

PRESS RELEASE – January 29, 2011

PRESS RELEASE

Saturday 29^th January 2011

1. The fighting migrant hunger strikers at the Labor Centre in Thessaloniki announced that their comrades in Athens stopped drinking juice as of today and from now on will receive only water and tea. So will the hunger strikers in Thessaloniki.

2. The fighting migrant hunger strikers were outraged by the false rumors spread by the media that they are backed by some political party or group, which allegedly also paid for their tickets. They showed us the boat tickets they had bought with money they had collected themselves.

3. The assembly of the open solidarity initiative is organizing a car and motorcycle demo on Wednesday the 2^nd of February, a march on Thursday the 3^rd of February.and a solidarity concert on Saturday the 5^th of February.

THE GREEK STATE TORTURES HUNGER STRIKERS

Thursday, January 27, 2011:

THE GREEK STATE TORTURES HUNGER STRIKERS

On Thursday, the 27^th of January, the 237 migrant workers who were staying at an unheated, empty and unused part of the Faculty of Law at the University of Athens, still under restorative construction, were ordered to leave the place. They had started a hunger strike two days before, on Tuesday the 25^th, demanding the legalization of all migrants in Greece, and had made the place of the hunger strike known days before beginning their fasting struggle, both to the University rector and the student union.

 

From 5pm onwards, dozens of special force police units blocked all access to the building of the Law School where the migrants were staying, with three consecutive rows of fully armed guards. Under Greek law, and due to a tradition of struggles, university premises enjoy ‘asylum’ and are off limits to police unless they are specifically invited by university authorities or when a serious crime is being committed.  Here, the serious crime was sleeping in a building site and risking one’s own life for the right everyone deserves – the right to be recognized as an existing person, to live and work like everybody else.

 

In other words, after an orgy of orchestrated media propaganda the day before, that disclosed the fact that the migrants are on a hunger strike and emphasized their illegal status, on Thursday the university asylum was abolished in order to address the serious crime of dignity. (The university rector obviously chose the side of the reactionary bloc of fascists, the media and the government.) Then the torture of the hunger strikers began. Two Attorney Generals escorted by police who had entered the Law School, told representatives of the hunger strikers that all strikers should leave immediately and be transferred in police vans to another private building designated by the government. While the hunger strikers felt deeply offended, and had not imagined that anyone would dare move them around in the condition they were in, they held firm to their terms for leaving the building: They asked for the riot police to let the gathered demonstrators approach the building, so that the strikers join the solidarity demo and lead it towards the new location.

 

It looks like the Greek police and politicians’ CIA training and seminars on exhausting the opponent are paying off. For nine hours the strikers were being threatened, they were offered lies, fake deals and promises the authorities kept breaking, a ‘negotiation technique’ that aimed at prolonging the process for as long as possible, so that the solidarity demo would disperse and the strikers become more disheartened. One hunger striker tried to kill himself by jumping off the building and was stopped by his comrades. The pressure was enormous, and most strikers did not know exactly what was going on.

 

The strikers were finally left to exit the Law School building with a solidarity group in the small hours of the night. Even after all this suffering, they carried their bags and blankets with their heads held high, and marched briskly the empty streets of Athens shouting slogans of victory. The sleepless migrants were taken to some mansion, owned by a businessman who is a friend of the minister of education and other MPs. All eight rooms of the mansion were locked. The heating was off and the building was freezing. The toilets were inoperative and filled with luxury furniture that had been removed from the corridors. There was no water. Around half of the hunger strikers were allowed to lie on the floor of the corridors and the rest were left outside on the lawn in front of the building. At 6 o’clock in the morning of a particularly cold day, it started raining. 80 hunger strikers that had been left outside to rest under the winter sky, were transferred, by a small solidarity group that was staying with them for protection, to a social centre nearby.

on Thursday, the 27^th of January

-237 hunger strikers were terrorized by special police forces with bullet-proof vests and heavy weapons

-237 hunger strikers had to endure 9 hours of meaningless negotiations

-80 hunger strikers were left sleepless in a yard for a whole night in cold and rainy weather, 157 were amassed in the corridors of the first floor of a businessman’s mansion with no toilets or water

The actions of the Greek government and the police, with the help of the media, transgressed every moral law. They showed no respect to the university asylum, but, most importantly,  they showed no respect to the sacred figure of the hunger striker, who, in claiming life and dignity, only has his  own life and dignity to offer.

Open Initiative of Solidarity to the 300 Migrant Hunger Strikers – Thessaloniki

Call for solidarity with the Hunger Strike in Greece

Migrants Solidarity Network – Turkey

On Tuesday January 25, 300 migrants started a collective action in Athens and Thessaloniki. They demand the legalization of their status. They are men and women currently living and working in a country without any social and political rights. They are denouncing the modern apartheid which they are victims of. They are denouncing the hypocritical way western countries are dealing with migration, turning it into a problem which needs be tackled and managed, defining women, children and men as unwanted and illegal, and designating them as the scapegoats to current economic and social problems. Their collective action is now being the target of populist speeches spread around by the mainstream Media and of police pressure.

Every year, people leave their home countries, fleeing poverty, dictatorship and wars. While seeking for a better life they engage in a highly uncertain journey. The western countries have indeed declared a war to these designated enemies and their neighboring countries are expressly invited to be part of it. This war uses several tools. Military means are deployed on borders, responsible for the deaths of thousands over the past 20 years. Those managing to make it are drawn into a system of physical and symbolical isolation. The most visible is the use of detention and of deportation. Within the past ten years, in all of Europe and its neighboring countries we have watched the multiplication of so called administrative detention centers for migrants. The deportation machine makes sure migrants are physically removed. Those remaining are forced into a life of invisibility and fear, deprived of any rights and of any possibility to claim these. They are moreover made responsible for this situation, and are the target of racist and populist attacks from rightist groups, Media and political mainstream discourses.

However this system cannot fool us! We know that poverty, war, and any kind of occupation and dictatorship pushing people onto a deadly journey are in fact the very consequences of the dictates of imperialism and economic globalization. Furthermore, migrants represent a cheap working force vital for western economies. This systematic repression, as well as this social and political exclusion actually allows for the maintenance of a massive population in a situation of fear and extreme precariousness, facilitating economical exploitation.

As the Migrants Solidarity Network we affirm that migration is a reality and not a problem. No borders, no fences, no walls can prevent people from seeking for better life conditions, and neither do they have any legitimacy. The struggle of the migrants in Greece must win because it is a legitimate one. As our comrades in Greece emphasized, the destitution of one segment of society signals the upcoming destitution of the rest. This is a struggle for all workers and it is our duty to stand in solidarity.

We demand:

The immediate legalization of the hunger strikers in Greece

An equal access to economical and social rights for all

The end of the modern apartheid regime that prisons migrants into undignified life conditions

The immediate opening of borders

The immediate end of the shameful detention and deportation regime in Europe and in its neighboring countries.

We call for:

Unconditional solidarity with migrants at hunger strike in Greece

A chain of transnational actions of solidarity with the hunger strikers.

 

Migrants’ solidarity Network

Istanbul, January 29 2011

Solidarity from Chiapas

27 de Enero de 2011

Hermanas y hermanos migrantes en huelga de hambre,

Saludamos su lucha desde México.

Nuestro pueblo es también un pueblo de migrantes. El sistema de explotación y opresión capitalista que los ha arrojado de sus casas, tierras y territorios también ha hecho que nuestros padres, madres, amigas, amigos y hermanos y hermanas tengan que migrar.

La misma persecución y desprecio que ustedes sufren en Grecia, es sufrida por millones de nuestros hermanos y hermanas en los Estados Unidos.

La derecha y las élites políticas y económicas se encargan de perseguirlos y negarles sus derechos, culpándolos a ellos de la falta de trabajo y de otros males que ellos mismos causan en sus sociedades. Nuestros hermanos y hermanas migrantes hacen muchas veces trabajos que nadie más querría hacer, por salarios que no podrían pagarse de manera legal. Su trabajo y sus aportaciones económicas, sociales y culturales son menospreciados por los poderosos, que sin embargo, se sirven de ellos y ellas.

México es también un país por el que muchos migrantes pasan en su camino hacia los Estados Unidos. Este es un tránsito tenebroso plagado de peligros e incertidumbres. El racismo, la discriminación y la impunidad también habitan en nuestros suelos. No sabemos cifras reales, porque de por sí los migrantes no le importan a la gente que hace cifras oficiales, pero miles de personas, de hombres y mujeres, son secuestrados, violados y no pocas veces, asesinados en este trayecto. Por si fuera poco, las redes de tráfico de personas y del narcotráfico, en contubernio con las autoridades, los fuerzan a incorporarse al crimen organizado.

Las mujeres son particularmente víctimas de estas redes que además ven en ellas una mercancía útil para sus redes de prostitución.

También sabemos que los países poderosos del Norte que se encargan decidir quién y qué es ser ilegal, son los que han llevado destrucción y muerte a sus países de origen. En México también nos hemos estado familiarizando últimamente con la “guerra” que nos ha sido impuesta desde arriba: la guerra contra el narcotráfico.

En fin, sabemos bien de los sufrimientos por los que ustedes han pasado y el presente infame que, mediante esta huelga de hambre, intentan cambiar. Ante esto, nos solidarizamos con su lucha y les decimos que son un ejemplo de dignidad y vida para todas y todos nosotros.

Brigada Feminista por la Autonomía (San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas)

PRESS RELEASE 28 JANUARY 2011

PRESS RELEASE

FRIDAY JANUARY 28, 2011

1. Τhe 50 migrant workers continue the hunger strike with determination.

2. We changed our plan for an evening demo in the Western neighborhoods of the town, as soon as it was made known that the deputy minister of Labor and Social Security would indeed attend the conference on migration organized by NGOs and other groups in Thessaloniki. Hundreds of demonstrators hurriedly moved towards the French Institute, where the conference was underway. Four riot police vans were stationed across the road leading to the Institute, while several riot police units and plainclothes policemen were blocking all access to the area. At some point, riot police units started moving with the intention to surround the crowd. At the successful attempt of some demonstrators to avoid this, a confrontation began, which was immediately responded to with teargas and sound grenades from all over. The crowd did not scatter and the demo moved towards Aggelaki street. There, the demo stopped and waited for a group of its people, while they occupied the State Radio ET3 and the radio station105.5FM, hijacked the emission and read out the hunger strikers’ demands on air.

3. It must be noted that certain co-organizers as well as participants at the conference on migration left the conference to express their disapproval and protest against what happened in Athens yesterday and in Thessaloniki today.

4. We end this announcement with an excerpt from the deputy minister’s talk at the conference on migration: One day she was cruising on her inflatable boat, and she met with a boat full of illegal immigrants trying to get to the shore.

Austria’s critical law review

Austria’s critical law review

Declares its full solidarity with the 300 migrant hunger strikers in Greece.

with best wishes from Vienna,

Ronald Frühwirth, Ines Rössl, Joachim Stern – editors in chief

—————-
juridikum – zeitschrift für kritik | recht | gesellschaft

www.juridikum.at

Rete BellaCiaoinMovimento

We, the people working and connecting through ‘ReteBellaCiaoInMovimento’, support the struggle of the migrant, women and men, who live all over Greece and who decided to start a Hunger Strike in Athens and in Thessaloniki, on the 25th of January.

They are risking their lives in order to say loud and clear that people with dignity cannot accept the conditions they are forced to accept. It’s time for us to stand up and support them. We cannot look at this in silence! Many of these migrants have already risked their lives to arrive in Europe and now they have to work and live without any rights practically in all countries in Europe. The fact that they may be undocumented hides from the public eye the reality of the awful situations they are facing.

The very same system which is cutting back the rights of workers all over Europe, and which, at the same time, is drastically curtailing social security, is also using these men’s and women’s ‘illegal’ status to cover the harsh truth of the daily exploitation of migrants.

We support the struggle of the migrants in Greece, and we also endorse the European migrants’ strike on March the 1st.

We demand DIGNITY AND RIGHTS FOR ALL

Rete BellaCiaoinMovimento