Τhe state of siege and the massive police operation in Idomeni marks the turn from the publicly advertised “humanitarian governmental policy on the refugee crisis” to the “obligatory” and by tacit consensus brutality: “The country is in line with its commitments”.
Physical brutality was there before, but the whole situation was presented in the mass media as a combination of the valiant efforts of our left government and the philanthropic concerns of the Greek Volk (this was the way that the humane attitude of a large number of people was presented, mixed with the bureaucratic profit-making of various NGOs and the selfless made by various “first-world” citizens who, being attracted by the tragedies of the ‘others’, addressed the issue as if they were in a safari in Africa).
Under the new tactics, minister Mouzalas can be photographed posing as an activist together with the radical superstar Susan Sarandon (the last remaining, along with the comic actor Slavoj Žižek, to reaffirm the radicality of the Greek Government) ignoring the small detail that in the first weeks of December 100 migrants died in the Aegean sea.
Many of the dead belonged to the “good category”, they came from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, they were “refugees”. The rest belonged to the “bad ones”, they were migrants. If they had survived, they would have been imprisoned in the Moria detention center in Lesvos, waiting to be transported to some concentration camps in the mainland (after protests and hunger strike of Maghreb migrants, the Greek police returned to the policy of giving to the sans-papiers a 30-days permit to leave Greece by their own means, but the final Greek Police decision is that all Maghreb migrants “after being recorded in Hot Spots, will be detained”).
Under the new tacit consensus brutality, the concentration camps that were supposed to be shut down have started being filled up again: in mid-December over 200 migrants were transferred form Tae-kwon-do stadium (they were brought there after the evacuation of Idomeni) to the concentration camp / detention center at Corinth. In the mass media the reason for these arrests was supposed to be the migrants “criminal activity”, but what happened were “collective responsibility” mass arrests on the legal basis that … the migrants have violated police orders prohibiting them to be in Athens, although they were moved by force to the Greek capital by the Greek police itself, after the evacuation of Idomeni!
Under the new tacit consensus brutality, the Greek Church threatens to evacuate the squat for migrants “Orphanotrofeio” in Thessaloniki and the police did the same against the self-organized structure in Platanos, in Skala Sykamnias, Lesvos island.
Brutality is there on all sides of the borders: human smugglers receive large sums to pass migrants from an opening in the fence to the Republic of Macedonia, where mobsters and soldiers are waiting to rob them, beat them and return them to Greece. Cops in Idomeni then return the migrants to Athens, ignoring the fact that they are usually injured, with broken arms, limbs, injuries to the genitals etc. The ideal space after all for medical treatment is the “open centre of hospitality” in Ellinikon, in Athens (open centre indeed, as it is an open stadium…).
Brutality is there on all sides of the borders:
Dec.24/2015: New shipwreck with 18 dead migrants
Dec.23/2015: 13 people dead in the Aegean – among them 7 children
Dec.22/2015: Turkish coast police reports: 11 refugees drowned off Kuşadası shores
Dec.20/2015: Two dead migrants near Ikaria island
Dec.19/2015: New shipwreck in the Aegean – 18 drowned migrants
Dec.19/2015: New Tragedy: 1.5 years-old girl dies in a shipwreck near Oinousses island
Dec.18/2015: Anothes shipwreck near Bodrum: 4 dead, 4 survivors
Dec.16/2015: A little girl and a man dead in another shipwreck near Lesvos island
Dec.16/2015: Two children dead near Çeşme
Dec.15/2015: Three dead and three missing in a shipwreck near Kastelorizo island
Dec.13/2015: Two refugees missing east of Lesvos
Dec.10/2015: Pharmakonisi: 16 migrants dead in another shipwreck
Dec.09/2015: 400 riot policemen evacuate Idomeni
…
In 2015, there were 632 deaths in the Aegean up to December 14.
clandestina 