300 migrants in hunger strike in greece

Statement by the 300 migrant hunger strikers – March 13, 2011

The hunger strike of the three-hundred migrant workers has ended. The struggle for a world of equality, solidarity and freedom continues!

March 9, 2011 6pm: THE HUNGER STRIKERS WON!!!!!

Deadline for asylum seekers appeals

We inform you that from the 22nd of November 2010, the provisions of the no.114 Presidential Decree were put in place. 4
According to this new legislative provision, the asylum seekers who have received a negative answer on their demand for political asylum (no.81 Presidential Decree, 30/06/2009) will have the right to make an appeal in order to have their demands reexamined. This provision includes all negative answers on demands for political asylum given by the Headmasters of the Aliens’ Directorates in both Attica and Thessaloniki along with the ones given by Headmasters of all Police Directorates in the country.
To take advantage of this right and to be able to make an appeal, the asylum seeker must not have submitted an appeal to the High Court or have been resigned from any relevant application.
The deadline to apply for the appeals ends on the 20th of February 2011.
The ones interested, could go to the Authorities from which they received the decision mentioned above in order to be guided on further actions.

Afghani, Albanian, Arab, Bangla, Farsi, French, Georgian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukranian, Urdu

Fishworkers strike: solidarity discussion and concert in Thessaloniki

SOLIDARITY ASSEMBLY BLOG

http://solidarityaliergates.blogspot.com/

Two days of solidarity action in Athens

Two more “single incidents” of the everyday war against immigrants.

On Friday March 4 an immigrant fron Guinea was arrested, incriminated with drug dealing, only for the police to show off their anti-drug raids.  More in this post

Last Decmber immigrant street vendors were severly abused by cops during a manhunt in Athens high street, and then at the infamous Acropolis police station.  Victims of this story are still detained.  A court hearing is tomorrow, March 19.  More in this post and this post.

TWO DAYS OF ACTION

INFO & DICUSSION EVENT  AND VIDEO PROJECTION,THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 20.00, EMME BUILDING, 2, KALAMIOTOU STR., KAPNIKAREA AREA (near Ermou str.)

SOLIDARITY GATHERING@ATHENS COURTS (Evelpidon str.) MARCH 19, 09.00.

Assembly for Solidarity to Immigrants

Events in Chania, Crete and Larissa, Thessaly on the new law on Citizenship

Chania, Friday 5 March, 8 pm, Technical Chamber Chania, Nearhou str.

Larissa, Thursday 5 March, Trade Union Center, Larissa, 19.00

Mobilisation in solidarity with the Venna persecuted, against all immigrant concentration camps

For background see this post

A call has been made by the Initiative Against Concentration Camps in Rodopi and Evros (text in greek)  for a solidarity coordination meeting with the following demands:

• abolishment of all concentration camps
• immidiate release of all detained immigrants
• acquittal of all persecuted immigrants for the Venna insurgency
• struggle for life and dignity is not illegal, it is fair

The meeting is to take place today, Thursday, Feb 11, 19 pm, at the prokat building of Xanthi Polytechnic.

Open discussion in Thessaloniki: the new citizenship bill. Τuesday 16 February.

Συζήτηση:
Ο νέος νόμος για την ιθαγένεια
Συμμετέχουν: Ομάδα Αλλοδαπών-Μεταναστών Φοιτητών Θεσσαλονίκης, Φόρουμ Μεταναστών Κρήτης, Oμάδα Μεταναστών & Προσφύγων, Κ. Τσιτσελίκης (καθηγητής ΠαΜακ), Σ. Μαρκέτος (καθηγητής ΑΠΘ), Δίκτυο Clandestina
Τρίτη 16 Φλεβάρη, 7.00 μμ
ΕΔΟΘ, Πρ. Κορομηλά 51

Open discussion:
the new citizenship bill
Speaking: Group of Foreign & Immigrant Students (Thessaloniki),
Forum of Immigrants in Crete,
Group of Immigrants and Refugees,
Κ. Τsitselikis (professor UOM),
S. Marketos (professor ΑUTh),
Clandestina network
Τuesday 16 February 7.00 pm
Koromila 51

Bisedë: Ligji i ri për shtetësinë
Marrin pjesë: Grupi i Studentëve Emigrantë & të Huaj Selanik, Forumi i Emigrantëve te Kretes, Grupi emigrantëve politikë dhe ekonomikë, K. Cicelikis (Profesor i universitetit PAMAK), S. Marketos (Profesor i UAS), Rrjeti Clandestina
të Martën 16/2 më orën 19:00
Koromila 51

“Our struggle is a struggle for dignity” – update on the fishworkers’s strike

info from athens indymedia articles and http://asyntaxtostypos.wordpress.com

Yesterday Wednesday Feb 3, the Egyptian fishworkers’s strike was brought for the fourth time to court. The trial’s outcome for the first time was positive. The court decided for the first time that the strike is not “illegal and abusive”.

Unsurprisingly this was the first time the court examined the case’s essence, unlike the three previous courts when the strike was declared “illegal and abusive” on various technical legalistic “irregularities” (for example on the pretext of notification of the strike to the “wrong recipient” or “at a wrong time”, etc.).

In this trial as well, two witnesses were examined, one from the shipowners side, the chairman of the cooperative of the ship owners D. Ntaoultzis, and a witness for the defence of fishworkers, the Secretary of the Trade Union Center of Thessaloniki, Zarianopoulos.

At the beginning of the process in front of dozens of fishworkers, people in solidarity and ship owners , the judge asked police officers to come forward and stay in front of the judges.

The issues addressed included the non delivery of necessary documents by the ship owners to the workers for the latter to be able to renew their residence permits, which is a very urgent thing. Fishworkers defence also referred to the fishworkers uninsured status in case of work accidents and the assignment of the [yellow] workers union – which does not include the mass of Egyptians – with the calculation of shares.

The ship owners representative admitted indirectly that he had taken action to have scabs sent to Michaniona (in cooperation with the labour representative of the Egyptian embassy). The issue of the document proposed by the ship owners as a settlement of demands [see previous posts/updates] targetting active strikers and prohibiting political or syndicalist activity to Egyptians was also discussed. The ship owners representative argued that the process of calculating the shares is accessible and transparent to the fishworkers, who refuted this by saying that at the crucial time of the calculation they are still on board. He also said that he does not think it is necessary that Egyptians are represented at the process and that “it would be good if Greeks had those jobs to combat unemployment”- prejudice towards foreign workers was obvious at all times. The ship owners lawyer warned the strikers that they “should be careful, because things will be wild from now on!”. He also said that the strikers are misguided by CP / PAME trade union, which supports them to gain their votes in view of the granting of voting rights to immigrants with the new immigration bill.

The strikers said after the trial’s first day “our struggle is a struggle for dignity”. Dignity will be the criterion of their decisions for further action.

Despite the good news with the court’s decisions, the strikers are in a very difficult situation in terms of money. Today there is a meeting of the Solidarity Assembly at the Thessaloniki Antiracist Initiative’s place [ermou & venizelou str.] for practical solidarity coordination.

– > previous update

Solidarity with immigrant street vendors in Athens!

FINANCIAL SUPPORT FEAST FRIDAY, February 5, 2010, ASOEE (Economic Univ., Patision str.), 9 pm SOLIDARITY GATHERING, Monday, 8 February 2010, EVELPIDON STREET COURTS, ATHENS 10 a.m.

Immigrants text:

Immigrants,

we invite you to support en masse our action and show your solidarity.

We call all those who feel that this is of their interest,

Every day we immigrants vendors, we get arrested and beaten and imprisoned for doing “illegal trade”

We’re on the road and we need to sell things.

We want a better life.

We want to work and make a living free and out of the sweat of our hands,

Let us unite for the common goal: solidarity and mutual aid among immigrants.

Immigrants

:::::::

The text of people in solidarity

In the center of Athens and Piraeus, the political and municipal authority, all kinds of cops, media and “indignant” shopkeepers engage everyone diffuse manhunts against immigrants.

On December 30, 2009, ca. fifty cops persecuted immigrants in the streets around Ermou street. They pushed around and beat savagely four of them.  One was taken to hospital and after his return to the infamous Acropolis police station he was beaten up again. Yet, it was the immigrants who were accused of “resistance to authority, disobedience and property damage”. The trial was postponed for February 8, 2010. One of them is still detained for not having “papers”.

The fury of racist cops, the beatings, the tortures and even the murders of immigrants are not “single / isolated incidents”.

It is an integral part of the daily and extensive structural violence against immigrants from the ones in power, cops and judges.

Solidarity, dignity and resistance pave the road for common struggles.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT FEAST  FRIDAY, February 5, 2010, ASOEE (Economic Univ., Patision str.), 9 pm

SOLIDARITY GATHERING, Monday, 8 February 2010, EVELPIDON STREET COURTS, ATHENS 10 a.m.

::::

{for background see these posts:

• Manhunt against immigrant street vendors in Athens center.
• More testimonies of abuse and humiliation at the Acropolis Police Station Torture Chamber
• New case of severe immigrant abuse by cops of the Acropolis Police Station}

What happened earlier today during the third trial of the fishworkers’ strike.

SOURCE: http://asyntaxtostypos.wordpress.com/ post, published in athens indymedia.

most recent update in this post

What happened today in the third trial of the fishworkers strike (the strike was brought anew to court).

The judge of the Thessaloniki Court gave the fishworkers’ lawyers a deadline  to produce by 12 tomorrow (Wednesday, Jan 2010)

noon the necessary documents proving their claims against the trawlers bosses.These documents, according to the legal defence of the fishworkers, prove a series of abuses committed by the trawlers owners, including:

– The illegal practice of inviting other fishworkers, essentially to work as scabs,

– The deception of some Egyptians who were misled to sign a labour agreement in Arabic and in Greek language, which was very different from the original English version [the valid one should disputed occur] which contained onerous labor terms*.

– The fact that “employers unilaterally delegated to “representatives” of a “union of Michaniona fishworkers” (a  union which excludes the overwhelming majority of Egyptian) to calculate the “share”, with no control whatsoever exerted by the workers themselves; thus, the trawlers bosses were in position of paying the fishworkers as little as they wished ” testified today on court by the defence witness Secretary of Thessaloniki Trade Unions  Sotiris Zarianopoulos.

– The fact that the trawlers owners refused to provide the fishworkers with copies of their individual employment contracts, which are necessary for them in order to renew their residence permits, with a view to have them deported and replace them with other, cheaper fishworkers.

For these allegations, a witness for the prosecution said that the she either did not know of those facts or denied them, rousing a storm of protests by tens of strikers who were present in the court room and watched the process. Amid strong protests over allegations and arguments of the trawlers owners’ lawyer (who argued inter alia that “foreign workers shouldn’t be allowed to come here and establish unions at will …”), the procedure was halted until tomorrow for the strikers’ lawyer to produce the required documents.

The trial was attended by the CP MP Sophia Kalantidou (who had submitted interpellations to the parliament  on the issue), the Secretary of Thessaloniki Trade Unions Center Sotiris Zarianopoulos (PAME), the Deputy Secretary of the Thessaloniki Trade Unions Center , Despina Charalambides (Aftonomi Paremvasi –Radical Left Coalition), the President of the Thessaloniki Builders Union  Vassilis Revas (PAME) (last Monday a press conference by the fishworkers and S. Zarianopoulos took place at the offices of the Trade Union of Thessaloniki) and several leftist and independent supporters of the struggle including the Soliodarity Assembly with the Fishworkers’ Strike.

In a gesture of support to the strikers who have found themselves in the recent months in a deplorable financial situation, student unions, anti-racist, anti-capitalist and leftist organizations and the Solidarity Assembly called for today Tuesday at 6 pm a solidarity rally. On Friday Jan 29 the Assembly organizes a Concert at 9 pm at the University “to support the Egyptian fishworkers in Mihaniona”. [SEE RIGHT SIDEBAR ON THIS BLOG]

* The unacceptable “lost in translation” Greek text of  ‘agreement’ which misled five (of a total 130) of Michaniona Egyptian fishworkers included the following condition in paragraph 6: “The Egyptian fishworkers should not be involved in any Greek political party or body related to labour obligations and rights “!