BBC: Greek police accused over racism and asylum rights

Newsnight’s report on the Greek far-right party Golden Dawn made headlines across Europe last week.

In it, MP Ilias Panagiotaros claimed Greece was “in civil war” and indeed advocated a new kind of civil war, pitting the far-right against migrants, anarchists, etc.

Within 24 hours Mr Panagiotaros had retracted his claim that Greece was “in civil war”, saying instead “there is no civil war” and accusing Newsnight of “paraphrasing” his words. We had simply broadcast them, un-edited and in English.

Now three new reports cast light on the substance of our story – which was: alleged police torture of anti-fascist detainees, Golden Dawn’s influence inside the Greek police force, and its potential influence on the operational behaviour and priorities of the police in the Attica region around Athens.

The Guardian: Greek anti-fascist protesters ‘tortured by police’ after Golden Dawn clash

Fifteen people arrested in Athens says they were subjected to what their lawyer describes as an Abu Ghraib-style humiliation

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Fifteen anti-fascist protesters arrested in Athens during a clash with supporters of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn have said they were tortured in the Attica General Police Directorate (GADA) – the Athens equivalent of Scotland Yard – and subjected to what their lawyer describes as an Abu Ghraib-style humiliation.

Members of a second group of 25 who were arrested after demonstrating in support of their fellow anti-fascists the next day said they were beaten and made to strip naked and bend over in front of officers and other protesters inside the same police station.

Greece: police protects fascists, more racist attacks, more police pogroms, more clashes with fascists

In the evening of Sunday, Sep 30th the third anti-fascist motorcycle patrol spotted nazis in the area of Amerikis Square in Athens and clashed with them. Soon thereafter, the anti-fascists were brutally attacked by the police. Many antifascists were injured and 23 arrested.

WHEN THE INVISIBLE HAND OF THE MARKET RISES IN A NAZI SALUTE …

The manufacturing of a populist ultra-right “movement”
and 6 myths about migrants in Greece

Α lot has been written about how we decide to discuss political affairs without falling into the trap of simplifying facts and taking power structures for granted. Power structures are for granted however until they are challenged. A few years ago Greek Universities and the bar culture were still a paradise for Erasmus students, the islands an agreeable yet maybe increasingly expensive place for vacation.

And it was plain to see, almost everywhere, that a significant part of the population, and that does not only include youth, subscribed to a kind of rhetoric of anti-authoritarianism and vague social justice. Public spaces in the cities were often used as commons, and it was much more fashionable to be an anarchist than a neonazi.

This has changed. We will try to merely outline, rather than to explain, this change, and will point to a simple fact: That today we are experiencing a devaluation of labor and life in Greece and that this seems to be part of a larger picture. This larger picture has been described in different ways… Subcomandante Marcos declaring, in 1997, that the 4^th World War has begun, has given a lucid account of it:

“…[T]here is a proliferation of “regional wars” and “internal conflicts”; capital follows paths of atypical accumulation; and large masses of workers are mobilised. Result: a huge rolling wheel of millions of migrants moving across the planet. As “foreigners” in that “world without frontiers” which had been promised by the victors of the cold war, they are forced to endure racist persecution, precarious employment, the loss of their cultural identity, police repression, hunger, imprisonment and murder (…) The objective of neoliberalism’s migration policy is more to destabilise the world labour market than to put a brake on immigration. The fourth world war – with its mechanisms of destruction/depopulation and reconstruction/reorganisation – involves the displacement of millions of people. Their destiny is to wander the world, carrying the burden of their nightmare with them, so as to constitute a threat to workers who have a job, a scapegoat designed to make people forget their bosses, and to provide abasis for the racism that neoliberalism provokes…” (Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, The fourth world war has begun, 1997)

 

The place: Greece, the time: 2012

Some stills of an undeclared war