Money for detention centers until “screening centers” come…

source: athens news

THE GOVERNMENT has announced it will pay back all the money spent last year by the country’s border prefectures – including Samos, Lesvos, Chios, Chania and the Dodecanese – to maintain and operate the detention centres for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. The prefectures have accrued some 8.5 million euros in debt.

The decision was announced by Deputy Interior Minister Theodora Tzakri during a meeting with the prefects in Athens on December 7.

“We are very pleased with the minister’s announcement,” Manolis Karlas, prefect of the island of Samos, which lies just off the coast of Turkey, told the Athens News immediately following the meeting. “She promised we would receive all the money owed by the end of the year. A first instalment will be paid next week. This money has been spent to feed and clothe the migrants and to pay for their transportation to Athens.”

Karlas, like the other prefects, is responsible for the maintenance and operation of the detention centres for illegal migrants.

“We have about 80 [migrants] on the island today,” he explained. “But during the summer months the number exceeds 800. And they all need food, clothes and shoes. We feed them three times a day. All this costs money.”

He and the other prefects informed Tzakri that the current situation has forced them to shop on credit and run up huge debts with local merchants.

The number of migrants sneaking into Greece has skyrocketed in the past few years. Official data compiled by Greece’s interior ministry show more than 146,000 migrants were arrested for entering the country illegally in 2008. This is more than double the number recorded three years ago. The government has repeatedly stressed the need for more EU help.

To provide a permanent solution, the Pasok government is planning to transform migrant detention centres into so-called screening centres, where undocumented migrants and asylum seekers will stay for only a few days as their status is being decided. A similar system exists in other European Union countries.

This is a major detour in policy pursued by the former New Democracy government, which had announced the creation of dozens of additional migrant detention centres across the country. It had planned to transform dozens of disused military facilities into detention centres and to detain undocumented migrants for as long as a year or until they were deported.

However, the conditions at many of the country’s existing migrant detention centres have been harshly criticised by representatives of local and international human rights groups, and the current government itself.

During a visit of the overcrowded facility on the island of Lesvos, Spyros Vouyias, the deputy minister for the protection of citizens, condemned the condition of the overcrowded facility on the island of Lesvos and ordered its immediate closure last month.

Using language surprisingly harsh for a cabinet member, he told reporters that conditions there were “appalling, inhuman, a violation of basic human rights”.

Last week, the government announced plans to overhaul existing asylum legislation in order to increase the number of people who may secure refugee status. Greece currently has the lowest rate of refugee recognition in Europe. According to Michalis Chrysohoidis, the citizen protection minister, it is currently 0.03 percent.

Chrysohoidis has also announced that the police will no longer be the sole decision-maker on asylum applications. This will be assigned to a new committee of government officials, legal experts and members of non-governmental organisations. As many as 40,000 asylum applications are currently pending.

After Pagani (…?). 20 acres of military estate to be turned into refugee settlement.

This is a translation of this enet article.  Many thanks to Efi for the translation.

Stapsa for clandestinenglish

20 acres of military estate to be turned into refugee settlement

There are a lot of legends connected to the Hill of Karatepe in the island of Mytilene, Lesbos. During the Roman era, Dafnis and Chloe’s love story is said to have taken place on this hill. When Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire,  the Mytilene branch of the “Filikoi”, the secret organisation said to have prepared the 1821 Revolution,  had hid on it. In World War II, the German forces attacked it, and during the Greek civil war it was a place of torture. Currently both the hill and the area surrounding it belong to the Greek military forces.

20 acres of this estate are going to be turned into an “exemplary refugee camp”, as the Minister of  National Defence, Mr. Evangelos Venizelos stated in a recent press conference in Athens. This ambitious plan is a cooperation between the Ministries of Citizen Protection and National Defence, and the Hellenic Army National Staff.

A year ago, the head of Lesbos prefecture, Mr. Pavlos Vogiatzis, had requested for the land to be granted to the prefecture. However, the Ministry of National Defense initially rejected his request, although the Ministry of interior had announced that they were looking for an estate that would host a new refugee camp, since the living conditions in the already overpopulated “Pagani” camp in Lesbos were deteriorating.

The 20-acre-estate is located close to the local fire brigade; in 1974 the Mytilene Charity Insitutions had sold the land to the National Defense Fund for the symbolic price of 50,000 drachmas in order to cover military housing needs or defense plans.

Release for 1,200 illegal migrants from police holding cells, no deportation for immigrant’s children announced the Government

source: Kathimerini

Release for 1,200 illegal migrants

Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis yesterday announced the impending release of 1,200 illegal immigrants from police holding cells around the country while also heralding a overhaul of the coast guard and police force to deter traffickers from bringing would-be migrants to Greece.

The freed immigrants would be given a month to leave the country and offered financial incentives for their repatriation, the minister said, noting that migrants facing trial on criminal charges would not be subject to release.

Chrysochoidis said that more measures were in the pipeline, including the reform of legislation to ensure greater rights for the children of migrants. “Child migrants who have grown up in Greece and merit protection status will not be subject to deportation,” he said.

“First and foremost we want to discourage illegal entry but we must also drastically improve our country’s human rights record,” Chrysochoidis told reporters following talks with top police and navy officials. The minister added that Greece would “no longer be a free-for-all but neither a hell pit for human souls.” To this end, and in an apparent reaction to complaints lodged against Greece by international rights groups earlier this week, Chrysochoidis also heralded the creation of a police department that would probe alleged rights violations by officers. The plan is for the unit to operate in cooperation with the Ombudsman, Giorgos Kaminis, who last week highlighted the problem of illegal immigration when he appeared at the new government’s first ministerial meeting.

Chrysochoidis said another priority would be reorganizing the coast guard with the aim of intensifying sea patrols and curbing a relentless influx of migrants to islands in the eastern Aegean.

Earlier this week, the European Union’s border-monitoring agency Frontex reported a 47 percent increase in the number of illegal immigrants entering Greece through its sea border with Turkey. This sharp increase came even as Italy and Spain, also external EU border states, reported a 60 percent drop in illegal arrivals partly due to repatriation agreements signed with Libya and Senegal respectively.

and a short announcement commenting on this at Athens Indymedia

“Amnesty” a ploy by “antiauthoritarian” PASOK

“Amnesty” for 1200 administratively detained immigrants  promised the minister “protector of citizens” M. Chrisochoïdis; they will be given one month to leave the country as well as financial incentives!

The “sensitive” and “humanitarian” measures can not hide the real intentions of the dominants.   This is in principle the implementation of plans of their predecessors, Pavlopoulos-Markogiannakis, which is done with the knowledge that, among other things, for many immigrant detainees deportation was impossible or their detention would have to cease with legal acrtion and in that case as well they would have to leave the country within one month all the same.

At the same time “virtue operations” [police raids] are still conducted on a large scale in many areas of Attica, which leaves no doubt that  this will be transferred in the so-called historic center of Athens with intensity.  The detention centers, then, are drained only to be quickly refilled, when the center of Athens will be evacuated this time for good from the immigrant  “taint”.

The idea is to directly demonstrate the “effectiveness” of a government which strugges from the early start to look “different”.  This is  “amnesty” to “criminal” undocumented migrants, which ensures social approval for broader repressive approaches that appear to be in the pipeline.

The same trick of  “social amnesty” was applied by PASOK and A. Papandreou in 1981 who released many prisoners of minor penalties.

(Published by Syspeirosi Anarchikon)

www.anarchypress.gr

Change in khaki: a very Socialist repression looms in Greece

Submitted by taxikipali on Oct 9 2009 at libcom.org

Continuing waves of mass police operations in down town Athens set the pace for new era of repression in Greece

Everyone thought it was just a show of power – but it proved to be the Socialist government’s plan for “change” after 5 years of brutal right wing rule.

The police invasion of Exarcheia, the Athens alternative-radical hub, on the early hours of Friday 9 October was evaluated by most journalists, activists and veteran politicians as a power-show of the new government, in response to a limited solidarity attack against banks in the area just out of Exarcheia earlier the same day. Minister of Public Order Mr Chrisochoidis, the notorious anti-terrorist mastermind of the last Pasok administration, appeared to many as just typically determined to show who is the new boss. But the continuing waves of police invasion (3 by Friday 19:00 pm) into an area which is commonly acknowledged as the most vibrant intellectual, student and political hub of the country, with hundreds of people stopped and checked, many manifold times in the same day, shops stormed, and locals humiliated by being made to kneel on the pavement and body-searched, has come to prove the new government’s self-professed “antiauthoritarianism” a bitter joke.

Pasok, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, now in power has a long record of police brutality.

“Theater of the absurd with immigrants”

Two excerpts of today’s “Eleftherotypia”  newspaper issue.

Theater of the absurd with immigrants

http://www.enet.gr/?i=news.el.article&id=78162

A real “theater of the absurd”  of dramatic proportions has been going on with reagrd to the issue of migrants, since the preoccupation with the forthcoming (?) elections, among other things, has paralyzed the procedures for the planned (?) management of the problem, after the thousands of arrests of the previous two months.

Gradually the police detention centers open their doors and free hundreds of non-legal immigrants who can not be deported nor be detained further.

The reasonable question «why then did they arrest them in the first place” has also a reasonable answer. This was an opportunistic policy by a collapsing government, which was under the influence of the promises it made vis-a-vis the euroelections.  And the worst thing is that the main opposition was also drawn to the unrealistic doctrine, «zero tolerance for illegal immigration».

Interior Ministry agents foresee that nothing will be implemented of the alleged “places of temporary detention” and that they will be forced to reduce the crowding of detention centers on Aegean islands, leaving non legal immigrants with minor children free.

«Athens cannot take up more immigrants» –

http://www.enet.gr/?i=news.el.article&id=78163
The capital is confronted once again with the failure of immigration policy . «Athens should not be a dump of human suffering and cannot  bear the burden of more illegal immigrants», is the strong reaction of the prefect of Athens faced with the transportation of 570  immigrants from Mytilene to Athens this morning, without anyone knowing what will happen to these people since there is no plan for accommodation and hospitality- except for the 100 minors who will stay at the Aghios Andreas children summer camp facilities.

«And as is the usual development, [the refugees] will end up in the hands of drug traffickers, pimps and crime padrons, who feed on the chaotic reality», says Mr. Sgouros, highlighting the lack of any organization.  Among other things, he proposed the legalization oef long residing immigrants and the acceleration of asylum grants to those who are entitled to them, as well as the establishment of humane reception centers for undocumented immigrants illegally entering the country.

Fascism on the rise: the last few days in Greece…

Nazi Greek state: Kristallnacht in Patras, bullets in Athens, torture in Simi.

source: libcom.org article

Submitted by taxikipali on Jul 13 2009

The rapid nazification of the Greek state took off last weekend with the violent evacuation and torching of the large Afghan immigrant settlement in Patras, shooting of immigrants in Omoinoia square and institutionalised torture of Pakistanis in the island of Simi.

The nazification of the Greek state which is endorsing parastate groups to ‘clean and patrol’ areas comes in a climate of acute social antagonistic upheaval. Besides the continuing resistance locals of Grammaticos villages who rose against the construction of an open refuse dump in their area, erecting barricades and clashing with the police, last week saw a series of dynamic antifascist antiracist protest marches against State-nazi attacks against immigrants. At the same time, on the early hours of Saturday the house of the ex-Minister of Public Order (active during the December Uprising and Alexis Grigoropoulos assassination by the police) and ex-chief of the Greek Army, General Hinophotis, was bombed with a strong explosive device after prior warning call to the press. A few hours later earlier yet another armed attack against riot police forces occurred near the HQ of PASOK with no victims On the early morning Sunday, following the surge of State-fascist attacks the HQ camp of the riot police (MAT) in Athens came under attack by protesters which piled the riot policemen with stones leading to a half hour battle.

The Greek state’s response to the December Uprising and the politicisation of immigrants across the country has solidified in a programme of nazification that includes open endorsement of neo-nazi vigilante combat groups, a series of the most repressive laws seen since the junta, and open attack against both the social antagonistic movement and immigrants across the country.

On early Saturday 11/7 morning armed nazi scum riding a car drove by the heavily policed Omonoia square in down town Athens and opened fire on bystander immigrants near the offices of the Golden Dawn neo-nazi party. Three wounded immigrants were taken to hospital and are out of danger. Later the same night nazi scum set fire on Palio Efetio, the Old Appeal Court opposite their offices which is being squatted by immigrants and is being vilified by the bourgeois press.

The same day, the Pakistani Community denounced yet another incident of institutionalised stripping and torture committed by the fascist greek police in the island of Simi. For 8 hours Wassim Sanjat, Mazhjar Ali and Mohamet Ali were tortured: cops tortured Wassim by “placing a gun on his head, beating him with a glob and iron stick on the soles of his feet (a torture loved by the junta called phallanga) and on his bottom and stripping him again and again. The other two persons were severely beaten. The Pakistani Community demands the immediate punishment of the torturers-policemen.

In the early hours of Sunday 12/7 strong riot police forces surrounded the big Afghan immigrant settlement in Patras, cordoning off the area. The riot policemen then moved to evacuate the thousands of asylum seekers using maximum force, while bulldozers moved in to demolish their houses.During the evacuation operations, the settlement was ‘mysteriously’ set on fire, and torched to the ground. The settlement is believed to have been housing more than 2,000 Afghans and has been repeatedly targeted by fascists receiving the solidarity of a wide spectrum of progressive social forces in the city of Patras. The Red Cross has condemned the evacuation and torching of the settlement as ‘terrorist’. The Communist Party (KKE) has condemned the attack as barbaric and the Coalition of Radical Left as ‘beastial’ and ‘criminal’. The evacuated immigrants are held in concentration centers of zero hygienic facilities, host to continuing greek police torture and brutality.

[clandestinenglish note: minors from the camp are said to be transferred to Konitsa, Epirus, at a center for unaccompanied minors.   At this center young Afghans had been hunger striking for better condiutions – see  Afghan adolescents hunger-strike for better conditions at Konitsa, Epirus care center.]

The nazification of the Greek state which is endorsing parastate groups to ‘clean and patrol’ areas comes in a climate of acute social antagonistic upheaval. Besides the continuing resistance locals of Grammaticos villages who rose against the construction of an open refuse dump in their area, erecting barricades and clashing with the police, last week saw a series of dynamic antifascist antiracist protest marches against State-nazi attacks against immigrants. At the same time, on the early hours of Saturday the house of the ex-Minister of Public Order (active during the December Uprising and Alexis Grigoropoulos assassination by the police) and ex-chief of the Greek Army, General Hinophotis, was bombed with a strong explosive device after prior warning call to the press. A few hours later earlier yet another armed attack against riot police forces occurred near the HQ of PASOK with no victims On the early morning Sunday, following the surge of State-fascist attacks the HQ camp of the riot police (MAT) in Athens came under attack by protesters which piled the riot policemen with stones leading to a half hour battle.

19 Pakistani detainees in Glyfada police station go on hunger strike

translation from athens indymedia article with tvxs.gr info

19 Pakistani refugees detained in Glyfada, Athens police station have gone on hunger strike since 4 days.

They go against the common decision of  the Pakistan embassy in Athens and the Greek Ministry of Public Order to expell them.  They say their lives are at risk in Pakistan.

One of the hunger strikers, Mohammed Abbas, says that the Police beat him vehemently for refusing to sign his deportation documents.

Sweep operation in Tripolis, Peloponnese

Meanwhile, “sweep operations” are now a diffuse practice of the police even in smaller cities.  According to athens indymedia article there are 30 immigrants detained in the Tripolis, Peloponnese police stations.

Big Brother state

New Police State Regulations are introduced.   A new law has been proposed in the Parliament  introducing  DNA “banks”, the collection, that is, of DNA indices from even minor traffic offences, and the use of public space surveillance cameras data not only for the regulation of traffic, as was ostenslibly the reason for planting them in the first place, but for the prevention of crime.

info from this athens indymedia article.

Fascists attack squat in Athens with Minister of Public Order supervision

One more article on the issue at Fascists attack Villa Amalia squat in Athens, Greece

Some weeks ago we had posted the following (translating a newspaper article):

[M]arkoyannakis said the police faces two major challenges: illegal immigration and the action of anarchists. He added that the police will leave aside the issue of anarchists for now to tackle the illegal immigrants issue first.  For the latter, concentration camps are ready and waiting (source).  His plans for cleansing down town Athens from immigrants will be concluded in one month or so from now.

see this post: Public Order Ministry’s agenda translates into everyday anti-immigrant terror…

Markoyannakis directing police and "indignant citizens" on the spot

source: libcom.org article.

Submitted by taxikipali on Jul 10 2009

Nazi scum organised by the police in vigilante groups in Agios Panteleimonas attacked one of the oldest anarchist squats, Villa Amalias, 20 minutes after meeting with the Minister of Public Order.

On Thursday 9/7 the second mass protest march in a week took to the streets of Athens against State sponsored racism and police collaboration with fascist groups in the area of Agios Panteleimonas. The march which was organised by the left and numbered 5,000 protesters took to the Parliament.

Before the march protesters attacked a group of fascist parastate elements who have been trying to expand the apartheid imposed in Agios Panteleimonas to the near by Attiki square. After the successful ambush against the nazis, the Minister of Public Order, Mr Markoyannakis, infamous for his involvement in the huge Seimens scandal and for his pro-nazi views, visited Attiki square and then Agios Panteleimonas to hold common meeting with the fascist vigilante committee, led by Mr Pipikios, an officer of the Army renowned for his junta nostalgia and love for armed blackshirt formations. 20 minutes after the meeting of the State and parastate scum, a group of nazis left Agios Panteleimonas and attacked Villa Amalias, the 19 year old anarchist squat, with molotov cocktails and projectiles. Fascists had managed to set fire to the squat last year leading to extended damage to the historic building. This time the fascist attack was successfully repelled with fascists running for their lives behind police lines which came to their help.

The new incident of police-nazi cooperation brings the counterinsurgency strategy of the State into new perspective. It is the first time since the junta that a Minister meets with fascist combat groups. The policy of open State support of such murderous elements was commonplace even before the junta, under the government of K. Karamanlis (uncle of today’s PM) who actively supported EKOF, a prastate group designed to break up protest marches and terrorise the left.

Mr Markoyannakis first entered public office as a public persecutor of the colonels’ junta.

The bourgeois media have imposed an information black-out on the incident.

When the Minister met the Fascists (and OK’d them to attack an anarchist squat, it seems)

from “AFTER THE GREEK RIOTS” – occupied London blog

Christos Markoyannakis (pictured, centre) is a vice-minister for the Greek government. Mr Markoyanakis is head of the Vice-Ministry of Public Order – and he certainly does not lack the experience to fill the position. He launched his pubic sector career being appointed in the position of attorney general during the dictatorship (1967-1974). Old habits die hard: In the picture below, Mr Markoyanakis is chatting to the so-called “residents’ initiative” of the Ayios Panteleimonas neighbourhood in Athens. The front group for the neo-fascists of the Golden Dawn (Chrysi Augi), have imposed an Apartheid-style rule in the neighbourhood: Locking up the local playground “because it was used by migrants’ children” they chase away migrants from the area. Mr Markoyanakis visited yesterday (9 July) to offer his support to the “residents’ initiative”. Apparently one of the questions he was asked during this meeting was “how come he hasn’t yet evicted the Villa Amalias squat”. Villa Amalias is one of Athens’ longest-standing squats. Only minutes after Markoyanakis visited, a group of fascists tried to attack Villa Amalias with molotov cocktails. They were pushed back by anarchists defending the occupation. Even being backed up by the cops (Riot police and the newly-introduced “Delta” motorcycle force) the fascists failed in their attack.

To sum up: A junta-appointed attorney general and present government minister meets with a “residents’” group widely known to be a fascist front. Minutes after the meeting, fascists attempt to attack the local anarchist squat, backed by police force. Sometimes, the line between fascism and democracy is much, much thinner than we’d ever think.

The need of oppressive states to share the risk of social unrest – “Immigration Is A Threat To Greek Democracy” says EU Commissioner

The antagonism between states is the game under which the share of the fear or the risk of social unrest due to harsh economic and social conditions becomes itself something to be negotiated between players.   Migration “flows” are a parameter of this risk – certainly not the only one, and not the severest one , since non migrant populations have also many reasons to resist.

Notwithstanding the inter-state antagonism,  though, the best strategy for all states to have their powers unchallenged is to scapegoat someone for the domestic problems, and the best way to do that in the case of Greece is to blur preemptively any social reaction – by immigrants and non-immigrants – in the national threat / political “destabilisation” discourse.   Barrot, thus, mingles the traditional external enemy (Turkey) with the novel internal one (immigrants) for the Greek government and offers a service of disorientation. 

clandestinenglish

Source of the article.

Immigration Is A Threat To Greek Democracy – EU Commissioner

Thursday, 2 July 2009 – 17:09

BRUSSELS (AFP)–A huge flow of migrants through Turkey could threaten social unrest in Greece, European Union Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot said Thursday.

“There is a major threat to the equilibrium of the Greek democracy because of the uncontrollable flow of immigration,” Barrot told a press conference in Brussels.

Greece has accused Turkey of failing to stop clandestine immigration through Turkish territory which the Greeks say has pushed their resources to the limit.

Greek Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos Tuesday said the number of migrants detained in Greece tripled to 148,000 in 2008 from 40,000 in 2006.

Europe’s asylum legislation puts pressure on the first E.U. country that receives applicants to handle their claims, but the rules could change in the next six months.

Immigration is causing social tension in Greece and is used as an argument by the extreme right, which saw its share of the vote rise to 7% in recent European parliamentary elections.

Barrot visited Greece this week and called on Turkey to do more to tackle clandestine immigration.

“Turkey has to help us fight the facilitators and the traffickers who push people to make risky journeys,” he said in Brussels.

“We can’t simply remain motionless. We have to get much firmer control from the Turkish government. We would also encourage the Turks to sign a readmission agreement,” the French commissioner said.

He added that he would like to see readmission agreements with Pakistan and other Asian nations, from where some would-be migrants begin their journeys.

Barrot said he intended to relaunch debate on immigration during an informal meeting of E.U. interior and justice ministers in Stockholm July 15-16.

E.U. nations Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta are in the frontline of the battle against migrants without papers and are gearing up for the summer wave of arrivals by sea.

Other E.U. nations refuse to be constrained to accept numbers of asylum seekers to help the four, with some stressing that they have to concentrate on the E.U.’s eastern borders in the former Soviet Union.

Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

GREECE: IMMIGRANTS AND ANARCHISTS STRUGGLE AGAINST RACIST ATTACKS

This is a part of the Britain, RESISTANCE bulletin issue 114 July/August 2009 providing some context and links of the on-going anti-immigrant campaign with December’s revolt and the State’s “counter-revolt” since then.

clandestinenglish

GREECE: IMMIGRANTS AND ANARCHISTS STRUGGLE AGAINST RACIST ATTACKS

Throughout December, Greece was alive with working class dissent. Police stations burned,
luxury shops were ransacked, roads blockaded and the centre of Athens saw continuous
running battles with aggressive riot police (often in collaboration with neo-Nazi
paramilitary organisations).

An important factor that was to colour the December events was the sheer diversity of
those involved. Anger at the murder of 15-year old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police was
shared across Greek society. This and the continuing attacks by the state on workers’
conditions in response to the economic crisis served to fan the flames of wider political
dissent across the country.

But this time the streets were not only filled with the usual gang of hooded
insurrectionists. Factory workers, school students, university students, teachers, health
workers, the precariously employed of the so-called “seven hundred Euro generation”,
immigrants, agricultural labourers, the unemployed (and many more) all took to the streets
in outrage. Helena Smith of the Telegraph reported on the 14th December that, to her
horror, even “middle-class rioters are buying rocks”. It seemed that everyone was starting
to see the rotten state of the system.

Yet, the mainstream media inside Greece, and later the professor’s of Greek Universities,
would continue to tell two stories about the riots. The first, that it was just a mob of
hot-headed youth. This wasn’t political, these people were just bored and disillusioned.
All they needed was better jobs and better opportunities. The economy had failed them, we
know what’s best for them, oh the folly of youth etc. The second accusation betrayed a far
more vicious agenda and introduced a political scapegoat for the violence. That poor Greek
youths had been led astray by immigrants whose only aim was to loot and steal from native
Greeks.

In the media, distinctions were continuously made between the naïve and hot-blooded
actions of Greek youth and the criminal behaviour of immigrants and minorities. Such
accusations were also backed by a very real campaign of intimidation and violence against
immigrant communities by Fascist organisations.

In early May, for example, a rally called by fascist groups quickly turned violent.
Neo-nazis began randomly beating immigrants with iron bars with the police looking on.
Later, under the protection of the riot police, the neo-nazis attacked buildings where
immigrants find refuge with stones and flash and sound grenades.

Such anti-immigrant activity, however, was not limited to the streets. The European
elections saw the ascent of LAOS, the populist rightwing Popular Orthodox Alarm Party, to
4th position with 7% of the vote. This, combined with the governing party’s landslide
defeat, led the government to endorse the core of the extreme-right wing policies of LAOS.
The Minister of Public Order, Mr Makroyannakis, announced the launch of a mass pogrom of
immigrants in the centre of Athens. He pledged to “clean” immigrants from the city centre
and displace them in what he called “a ghetto” at the outskirts of Athens. The camp, which
will use the old NATO base of Aspropyrgos in the city’s heavily industrially polluted
rustbelt, is expected to hold more than 2,000 ‘illegal’ immigrants. The premises had been
proposed in the past as a temporary concentration camp for immigrants, addicts and
homeless people during the 2004 Olympic Games but the plan was abandoned after a huge
public outcry.

Immigrants and their allies are not taking these attacks lying down. Early March, after
all, saw protesters, in response to an attempted hand grenade attack on an immigrant
community, break into the offices of Neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn (Xrysi Avgi) and torch
them to the ground. On Friday 29 May immigrants and solidarity protesters also marched to
the Greek parliament despite a fascist counter-demo and media scaremongering. Tensions are
high, however, and attacks on immigrants are likely to escalate.

Early June saw anarchists in the area of Agios Panteleimonas move to unblock the entrance
of the local children’s playground which the fascists want to keep locked in an effort to
impose segregation between Greeks and immigrants, and “to preserve the blood purity of the
white race”. While unblocking the playground the anarchists were attacked by fascists who
were soon routed before the arrival of riot police forces.

During the clashes one policeman was injured and five protesters were arrested on criminal
charges. After the end of the clashes, a local Greek father, Mr Tasoulas, took his son to
play in the coveted playground. Soon they were surrounded by fascists who blocked the exit
of the playground and threatened to lynch the father calling him a traitor. After he
managed to hand the child to a sympathetic neighbour, the fascists beat the father in full
presence of the chief of the local police station.

The Greek – Turkish diplomatic gaming with refugee lives continues while Jacques Barrot cruises the Agean…

source:

http://www.ekathimerini.com/

Ankara snubs migrant repatriation pact

Asked about Greek calls for the reopening of the Orthodox Seminary on the island of Halki near Istanbul, Bagis said he backed it in principle but linked it to the thorny issue of the Muslim minority in Thrace. Meanwhile, Turkey’s Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay indicated, in an interview with the Turkish mass-circulation daily Milliyet, that Ankara was leaning toward reopening the seminary. “Both my personal and the general inclination is that the school will be opened,” Gunay was quoted as saying.

While Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis and her Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu yesterday pledged to work together on bilateral issues in their first meeting on the sidelines of an international summit on Corfu, Turkey’s Minister for European Union Affairs revealed, in an interview published in yesterday’s Kathimerini, that Ankara would not be honoring a bilateral repatriation pact with Greece.

“We refuse to become the world’s biggest refugee camp,” Egemin Bagis said, noting that bilateral pacts such as the one signed by Athens and Ankara should only be honored if similar pacts are agreed between so-called transit countries for would-be migrants, such as Turkey, and countries of origin, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Bagis also reiterated Ankara’s opposition to the idea of a special partnership for Turkey with the EU. “We will accept nothing less than full membership. There is no alternative.”

source: http://www.ana-mpa.gr

Visit to Samos migrant centre

European Commission Vice-president Jacques Barrot, responsible for justice, freedom and security, on Monday paid a visit to reception facilities for illegal immigrants on the eastern Aegean island of Samos, accompanied by Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos. In statements afterwards, he acknowledged that Greek authorities faced a difficult task but also stressed Greece’s obligation to provide a refuge for immigrants arriving on its shores.

“I understand the difficulty facing the Greek government, which finds itself having to deal with an ever increasing number of migrants, as well as the obligation for Community solidarity, but also that there is an obligation on the part of the Greek government to offer refuge to the foreigners that come here,” Barrot said.

The Commissioner, upon his arrival on the island, was given a tour of the French vessel belonging to the EU Frontex agency and visited the Migrant Reception Centre on the island, where he talked with immigrants detained there.

In statements to reporters, he said that this was a more general problem that cost human lives and required cooperation with non-EU countries of origin or transit in order to be solved.

Pavlopoulos declared himself satisfied with what he had seen at the Samos centre and what the Commissioner had witnessed regarding Greece’s efforts to tackle a problem that concerned all of Europe.

“It can be understood that Greece is currently receiving the greater number of illegal immigrants. It is making huge efforts to accelerate asylum processes but, as I explained to Mr. Barrot, and as he has himself acknowledged, this does not solve the more general problem that concerns illegal immigrants who are not seeking asylum,” the minister said.

According to Pavlopoulos, coping with the economic migrants required solidarity between EU nations.

“We must carry out the agreement for migration and asylum, which means signing readmission treaties and putting pressure on countries such as Turkey to honour those agreements that exist. The solution, as Mr. Barrot will explain in Athens on Tuesday, is to look at the root of the problem, and this means that we must stamp out all this illegal trafficking of migrants that exploits human lives,” he stressed.