From Anti-Immigrant Summer to Zero Tolerance on Election Bait

Text in Greek available here.

On the occasion of the International Migrants Day

Just over a month and half ago Prime Minister Papandreou used the Global Forum on Immigration & Development proceedings in Athens to sketch government measures which would stand for a humanitarian turn compared to the policies and situation of the recent months .  He described as necessary

“[T]o stimulate the participation of immigrants in the political life of the country, through the possibility of Greek citizenship acquisition, particularly of course for the so-called ‘second generation’, in which we are suggesting the acquisition of citizenship by birth for the new person born in our territory.”

For people in Greece, though, the announcement of the Secretary for Home Affairs Theodora Tzakri two weeks later, which made clear that Greek citizenship would be granted only to children born to legal immigrants, came as no surprise.

The doctrine of “Zero tolerance to illegal migration” goes hand in hand with this government’s humanitarian turn… As for what this turn is all about, it aims at incorporating immigrants mostly from Albania, after two decades of overexploitation, and in exchange for votes. A phony exchange indeed.

Along with this, the dividing of immigrants into ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘useful’ and ‘superfluous’, ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ becomes more intense, and the system of exploitation grows deeper roots .

As we wrote in our above linked text on the Global Forum on Immigration & Development:

“The aim of developmental policy is to control migration flows (through the FRONTEX patrols and detention centres) as well as to regulate them (through 5-year rotating work permits, the annulment of asylum rights), in order to keep a stable proportion of productive inhabitants within the increasingly ageing, unproductive populations of Europe. In other words, recycling the migrants will keep the indexes of development in check, development being the systematic and bloodthirsty pillage of lives and resources, time and space.

According to the “UN Population Division report on replacement migration”, if the Europeans want to keep their ratio of older people to active workers at the 1995 levels, the Union will need 135 million immigrants by 2025.

This demographic issue is only part of the story, and maybe not the most important. Neoliberalization inside Europe has meant a weakened, destabilized labor force. It’s not just that capital wants selected migrants because it needs more workers, it wants migrants because they are powerless, unorganized, low-paid workers for whom there will be no job security, no health care and no pensions.In other words, they are far cheaper and less troublesome workers”.

Illegal immigrants are necessary because through them the rights of the legal ones are suppressed (there is of course rotation of people in these roles). At the same time, illegal immigration helps governments maintain a useful xenophobic atmosphere to impose authoritarian policies. “Migration management” includes both authoritarian hysteria and humanitarian logistics. The two seemingly opposite positions are the two sides of the same coin of subjugation.

So let’s outline against this backdrop the government’s humanitarian turn after the elections of October 2009…

The Doctrine “Insulated Greece”

The new doctrine was introduced by Minister of Citizen Protection (= Public Order) M. Chrisochoïdis on Tuesday, December 15, at his meeting with the FRONTEX Executive Director J.Laitinen.   The construction of the Southeast Mediterranean FRONTEX Headquarters at the U.S. base of Aktion or at Piraeus has been a permanent request of the Greek government, which proudly stated that 75% of illegal entry arrests at the sea borders of EU for this year took place in the Aegean sea.

A few days earlier in the frame of FRONTEX operations (on Saturday, December 12) officers in Samos island, on no notice whatsoever and violently, carried out with utmost secrecy the transfer of over 85 Afghan refugees from the local detention center to the island’s airport at Pythagorio.  There the refugees were boarded on an airplane which departed for an unknown destination.

The slaughter in the Aegean Sea continues

In less than two months, 16 migrants have died in the icy waters of the Aegean. Most of them were children.

• On Tuesday, October 27, 8 immigrants, three adults and five children, drowned in the east part of the Aegean Sea.
• On Saturday, November 7, the lifeless bodies of six children from Palestine, aged 2 to 12 years, washed up on shore near Bodrum (Alikarnasos), Turkey.  The boat in which 19 Palestinians – half of them children – squeezed themselves on an effort to pass from the Turkish town of Turgutreis to Kos island overturned 500 meters from the shore.
• On Friday, December 11, a boat carrying undocumented migrants sank near the island of Leros. Fishermen found 25 migrants perched on a rocky island and two more lifeless bodies in the sea.

Police violence

Incidents of abuse and humiliation by the police amount to dozens, and most of them never reach the public attention. We report the following characteristic cases:

• In the afternoon of October 22, immediately after the visit of Secretary of State Vougias the detention center in Pagani of Mytilene, police officers responsible for guarding the center abused and beat prisoners, including a 17-year boy, who was evacuated to the Vostanio Hospital, where lesions were diagnosed on his head, back, waist and arms. According to the interpreter, the police promised 350 euros to the victim to buy his silence.
• On the 19th of November in the afternoon a 35-year old immigrant was beaten by two officers serving at the infamous Aghios Panteleimonas Police Station in Athens. Her two year old child witnessed the beating and the arrest, and along with her mother remained under custody at the Kypseli Police Station for four hours! The incident became known only because the woman is married to a famous Greek musician.
• On Friday, November 20 , immigrant detainee Mohammed bin Taher collapsed in the courts of Evelpidon street in Athens. His condition was such that he was taken to hospital by ambulance. As reported by the his fellow detainees (and he later confirmed) Mohammed bin Taher had been savagely beaten by police at the Omonoia Police Station.
• On the 9th of October Mohammed Kamran dies after the treatment he received by the policemen who had raided the house where he and fellow Pakistani workers resided in Nikaia, Athens.

Para-state violence

The para-state mechanism was launched last summer against immigrants and since then it has been working relentlessly despite the supposed change of policy.

• The most recent incident was the attack of last Tuesday, December 15, against the Social Haunt – Immigrants Haunt in Chania, Crete (hometown of the former Minister of Public Order Markoyannakis).  In the same city on December 8 there has been a savage criminal attack against two immigrants by unknown perpetrators. The near-killers attacked the immigrant workers in the back with crowbars, and left them with serious head and body injuries.  One of the 2 victims was among the 15 hunger strikers of last year , who shook the island of Crete with their proud struggle. The intensity of the attacks in Chania definitely is related to the dynamic struggles of immigrants in the city.
• In Athens, brutal attacks against Arab shops took place at the Neos Kosmos district on Monday, November 22, when 40 people holding crowbars and molotov cocktails attacked and injured the employees in two mini-markets, destroyed the merchandise and stole the money of the cashier.

Para-state organized violence encourages and feeds the diffuse social one.

• Thus, on November 8, four immigrants who had been working at olive fields in Messolongi, Western Greece, were attacked with crowbars and clubs and beaten savagely by circa 15 people. The immigrants were transferred to the emergency dept. of the Messolongi hospital. The immigrants had been asking their wages from the owner of the fields in which they had been working.  They were ambushed and beaten in an old warehouse, where they had an appointment with their employer to get their money.

Institutional violence

• In late November the trial of 25 immigrants (mainly Arabs and one Afghan) took place; they had been arrested during the events of December 2008 and had been detained ever since.  All this period they were considered missing.  All of them were sentenced to imprisonment from 7 months to 3 years.  It is characteristic for the fairness of the trial that only one interpreter had been assigned , who translated simultaneously for 24 defendants who were divided in three groups in the court’s room.  The Afghan who did not understand Arabic was seated on the last bench of the room…
• On Friday, December 11, in Thessaloniki, a report was issued by the Hellenic League for Human Rights, about the detention centers in Evros and Rodopi.  The survey took place from the 25th to the 29th of November 2009 and states:

In many cases there is inadequate lighting, ventilation and heating (…)  At virtually none of the premises visited have the possibility to go outdoors on some yard. Even in detention centers where there is an adequate yard, the large number of detainees on the one hand and the lack of personnel on the other allows usually only for some prisoners to have outdoor breaks for a minimum period and not on a daily basis (…)  Food in many cases is inadequate, the quantity and quality in general varies (..). The care taken for sanitation and hygiene conditions varies from inexistent to inadequate (…) The availability of medical and nursing staff is poor and at all cases occasional (…) The detainees were in total confusion regarding their rights, the time of their detention and ill-informed as to asylum procedures; interpreters were not available.

December 18, 2009

Clandestina Network

Group of Immigrants and Refugees, Thessaloniki

Event in Athens on Refugee Camps & Petrou Ralli Foreigners Police Station

 

event's poster

BORDERS ARE WITHIN OUR NEIGHBORHOODS

EVENT – DISCUSSION AND VIDEO PROJECTION ON REFUGEE CONCENTRATION CAMPS AND THE PETROU RALLI POLICE STATION TORTURE CHAMBER

T.E.I. OF ATHENS, INFORMATICS HALL, THURSDAY 12 NOV. 19.00

by the Aegaleo Anarchists Inititative

http://anarxikoiaigaleo.squat.gr/

 

Arrested for protesting against flagrant brutality. A petition against police violence.

source/SIGN THE PETITION AT:

http://www.petitiononline.com/nomadic1/petition.html

To:  The Greek Minister of Citizen Protection

Following the December revolts in Greece, police violence against migrants and activists in Greece is becoming more and more intense. The xenophobic turn of the mainstream media combined with the electoral rise of the extreme right wing party LAOS have played a vital role in legitimizing police violence against both foreigners and citizens who dare to protest. Ironically these tactics are part of an overall plan to “protect the citizen” by openly demonstrating the ability of the state to control those who participated in the December revolts. While “scoop” operations and deportations take place daily all over the country subjecting migrants to different forms of physical and psychological violence, activists who react against it are also becoming subject to the arbitrary violent and terrorizing tactics of the police. Recently Mohamed Kamran Atif, a migrant from Pakistan, has died after being tortured in detention at the police station of Nikaia. During the protest march organized in response, several activists were arrested and imprisoned.

Few days later Dimitris Parsanoglou, a sociologist and anti-racist activist, has been arrested and detained without a legal representative for three days because he protested against the arbitrary arrest and beating by the police of a migrant in a central spot of Athens.

We ask from the Greek government to

– stop police violence against migrants and activists

– stop “scoop” operations and arbitrary deportations of migrants

– stop arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of activists of all nationalities

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

View Current Signatures

The Stop police violence against migrants and activists in Greece Petition to The Greek Minister of Citizen Protection was created by and written by Nomadic Universality(phatzopoulos@gmail.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service.

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

Anti-immigrant terror in Greece: attempts for pushbacks of refugees, sweep operations, police – fascist collaboration, forced evictions…

Sachtouri street - athens indymedia photo

ABDUCTIONS AND PUSHBACKS

After a police abduction that took them from the southern end of the country to the northern, the Kurdish refugees who reached the shores of  Crete seem to have been transferred to Rodopi, Thrace.  There is an ongoing campaign against their deportation, especially the deportation of the children among them and of the ones that have already filed asylum applications in Chania.

In Greek, see http://fmkritis.wordpress.com/

Same with the Chios refugees, who are now detained in Tychero, Evros,  near the border with Turkey.  The police chief of Alexandroupolis has been contacted by journalists and there are two important facts : first, that there were children among the immigrants, who have now been tranferred to Thessaloniki (the exact place is unknown) and, secondly, that he does not want to give a clear answer on what they plan to do. However, it is considered certain that the police wants to «return» them to Turkey.

In Greek see http://indy.gr/newswire/sto-ty3c7ero-toy-ebroy-kratoyntai-oi-prosfyges-poy-ekdi3c7thikan-apo-ti-3c7io/tyxero-b.jpg

There are also reports of ca. 61 arrested immigrants reaching Peireus port with the “Mykonos” F/B. http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1064479

SWEEP OPERATIONS AND POLICE – FASCIST SCUM COLLABORATION

According to the police, yesterday, 109 people were arrested during one more storming of the center of Athens by various police forces.  About 90 of them were sans papiers.  What is more, at  21.00 in the evening,  fascists went down in Attikis square – around which many immigrants live -, without even previously announcing their presence with the infamous “committees of residents” rally calls.  The fascists came to the square and began to bludgeon whatever laid ahead of them; they also sprayed faces with some unknown gas.   At least three refugees were transported to hospital, many others were injured.  Among the injured people was an American professor who was in the area and attempted to photograph the racist pogrom. He spent the night in the hospital, with blows to his head. The fascists took his camera.  Around the square there was a large police force, who not only did nothing, but went on to mass arrest mainly Afghan refugees!

In Greek, see http://indy.gr/newswire/agria-epithesi-fasistn-kai-mazikes-syllpseis-apo-tin-astynomia-3c7thes-brady-stin-pl-attiks

EVICTIONS, MASS ARRESTS AND CLASHES

Today the police evicted immigrants en masse from two buildings in the center of Athens, which had been designated by the prefecture of Athens as dangerous for the public health or something.  Police forces  invaded the buildings at Sachtouri 7, and at Veranzerou str. near Omonia, and arrested a total of 86 immigrants.

During the eviction at Verantzerou street neighbors and immigrants with flags of Somalia were gathered in support of the arrested people, as well as some ΠAME (Communist Party trade union) members and a Communist Party MP (many Somalis who work as builders have links with their organised in ΠAME colleagues).  The Somali women at some point reacted vocally and attempted a sit-in protest, but the cops confined them again in the building to isolate them from journalists.  According to the cops, the building was rented to a company which sub-letted it illegally to immigrants for of 5 euros a day per person.

When the cops tried to transfer the arrested immigrants from the rear street where they thought they would face no obstruction.  Once this was understood by the assembled immigrants, some óf them moved to the rear of the police vehicle to prevent it from departing.  Some of them clashed with riot police men and other police forces with sticks, punches, etc.  The police vehicles made it to leave afterwards, leaving behind women and children.   A few minutes later the large police forces withdrew from the point and concentrated their attention to guarding the nearby police department.

During the operation, a passer-by  woman of about 50 years complained loudly about the police brutality calling the cops  fascists for behaving this way to the immigrants.  An undercover cop grasped her by the head and attempted to take her to the police station  but people  protested and intervened and the woman managed to escape.

Angry Somali men and women broke the window of a  shop on the ground floor of the building where the immigrants lived.  The squads were on the corner and intervened directly and there were more clashes.  Indeed, the shop-owner had been insulting the immigrants everyday by calling them racist names, and has been a pioneer member in the “committees of residents and shop-owners” of the center –  perhaps this is why the passing police patrols salute him.

The building was not completely evacuated, there were immigrants left inside when the police left.

About the evictions read in Greek http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1064260

The Somalis took it to the street on a protest march later in the day, together with ΠΑΜΕ – photos at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1064493

As an Athens Indymedia user commented, this day was an Ode to the Barbarity of Democracy -5 days ago was the anniversary of 35 years of Greek Democracy after the fall of colonels’ junta back in 1974.

TVXS.gr video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjPAN762lj4&eurl=http://www.tvxs.gr/v17277&feature=player_embedded

Many photos at:

• http://indy.gr/newswire/odos-beranzeroy-i-ellinik-dimokratia-giortazei-ta-35-3c7ronia-apo-tin-apokatastasi-tis-dimokratias-gyrizontas-piso-to-3c7rono
• http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1064459
• http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1064459

Greece: Failed trespass attempt against Pikrodáfni, Athens free space!

Greece: Failed trespass attempt against Pikrodáfni free space!

by Pikrodáfni free space

Announcement by the Pikrodáfni free space in Athens, Greece:

While lately our free space is under constant surveillance by undercover cops, a few nights ago two persons approached Pikrodáfni free space and tried to trespass, but their plan failed as we noticed them almost immediately.

We consider this strange visit part of the general climate of repression that has been developed as the main government political line against the anti-authoritarian movement and the self-managed free spaces or squats in Greece, and is based on the open and shameless coöperation between cops and fascists.

Brahámi, Athens
26-07-09

Update on mass media crisis, urban guerillas and anti-immigrant & repression laws in Greece

This is an article submitted by the author taxikipali on Jun 30 2009 at libcom.org covering much of what is going on in the country now.  Originally appeared here.  Emphasis on the recent police state regulations added.

clandestinenglish

Press and media strike in Greece in midst of repression and urban guerrilla flareup

The entire press and media world goes on 24h strike across Greece in response to the closing down of a major daily and radio station, in a context of rising repression and urban guerrilla warfare.

On the 24th of June 2009, the entire press and media apparatus of Greece came to a standstill due to a 24h strike of press and media workers in response to the surprise shutting down of Eleftheros Typos, one of the country’s oldest right-wing newspapers, and the popular City Radio, both owned by the tycoon and president of the 2004 Olympic Games, Mrs Angelopoulou. The closing down of the daily and radio station came with no previous warning and are considered to be the first major effect of the global economic crisis in the country. The industrial solidarity action that took place on the 24th and deprived the entire country of newspapers and news broadcasts on both radio, TV and the Internet is a first response to the sacking of 450 workers of the joint business. At the same time workers occupied the offices of the newspaper and the radio station.

The press-media crisis and labour struggle come at a time of renewed tension across the country despite the summer holiday season. Social polarisation, which is seen by many as a result of the December Uprising, peaked again last week with yet another urban guerrilla attack by the Sect of Revolutionaries, a group that had attacked a police department and a TV station with automatic weapons last winter. This time the country came to a standstill as guerrillas executed an officer of the elite and secretive anti-terrorist bureau who was guarding the only accusation witness in the so-called Revolutionary People’s Struggle (ELA) trial. The trial, which is going through the appeal court, has been accused by the vast majority of the legal world as a sham (the accusation witness is in fact the ex-wife of the chief accused), putting innocent people through a long and painful ordeal on non-existent evidence regarding their involvement in the urban guerrilla group that disbanded in 1995 after 20 years of action. In their much-publicised communiqué, the Sect of Revolutionaries promised to make Greece bleed, targeting journalists, politicians and fascist leaders, while putting forward a new class theory positing at its epicentre as an archenemy what the guerrillas call the Lumpen Petty-Bourgeois Class. The assassination and the communiqué have created havoc in the government, which has been trying to introduce a series of tough ‘Law and Order’ laws of disputable constitutional validity and judicial applicability.

The new police-state legislation introduced by the frail 1-MP majority right-wing government, which secured the backing of the tiny fascist party (LAOS), include: a) immediate extradition of any ‘foreigner’ (non-greek citizen, including EU citizens) who is accused (not convicted) for a crime that can receive a penalty of more than 3 months; b) up to 10 years imprisonment for any greek citizen who ‘helps or harbours’ ‘illegal immigrants’, doctors included; c) up to 10 years imprisonment of committing any crime or felony (from spitting on the street to murder) wearing a hood, or otherwise ‘disclosing one’s characteristics’, including heavy make-up; d) compulsory DNA sampling of anyone convicted to three months of prison or more; e) free and unlimited use of blast flash grenades by the police in dispersing crowds. The new dictatorial measures have been met with hostility of all the political world, fascists excluded, and by the Lawyer’s Union who has pledged to challenge their validity both in national and international courts.

The police strategy of gradually evacuating the old Court of Appeals Building

This a rough translation of a  http://filoxenoi.wordpress.com/ report. More photos there.

clandestinenglish

Torturers’ maneuvering

With the aim of evacuating the old Court of Appeals Building, the police do not take the risk of a public manifestation of brutality which a full blown assault on the buiding entails.  Instead of that, every day for almost a month now they keep the building surrounded by 4 patrol  vehicles, 2 on the front entrance at Socratous str. and 2 at Menandrou str. (the rear entrance). Immigrants who appear to be related with the building and those who attempt to enter or leave it are taken to the Omonoia police station, for which there have been made public many cases of  torture (this is the police station where a video was shot, and then leaked, of  some fascist in uniform forcing an immigrant to beat his friend …[clandestinenglish note: the horrendous video can be seen here].  In this way the state spreads its violence in a molecular and invisible from the public eye level.  The building  is being gradually evacuated, and this prevents effectively organized and united action against this to be taken .

Greek Government on immigration after the Brussels EU summit and the new draft law

sources

• http://www.ekathimerini.com/4Dcgi/4Dcgi/_w_articles_politics_10_20/06/2009_108235
• http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100011_22/06/2009_108266

EU to push Turkey on immigration

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said yesterday that Greek efforts to secure greater support from the European Union in its fight to curb illegal immigration had met with success after EU leaders attending a summit in Brussels agreed on the importance of migrant repatriation agreements being honored.

The move was seen as a nudge for Turkey, which has failed to hold up its side of a bilateral pact with Greece to repatriate illegal immigrants arriving on Greek territory from the neighboring country.

“Greece’s positions were understood absolutely and taken into consideration in the conclusions,” Karamanlis told a press conference in Brussels yesterday afternoon, noting that leaders had agreed on the need to further “sensitize” Turkey to issues of migration as an EU candidate.

Specifically, it was agreed that the EU should seek to forge new repatriation pacts with migrants’ countries of origin and with “transit countries” such as Turkey and Libya. In addition, existing bilateral pacts on repatriation, such as the one signed by Greece and Turkey in 2003, should be honored, delegates agreed.

Another significant decision highlighted by Karamanlis was one to boost the activities of the EU’s border monitoring agency Frontex to curb illegal immigration in the southeastern Mediterranean region. There was no response to Greece’s appeal for the creation of a joint European coast guard, which is reportedly regarded as “premature.”

As for the official focus of yesterday’s summit, which was the fallout from the global economic crisis, Karamanlis noted that EU leaders had decided to step up supervision of the European Central Bank system and push through reforms to boost employment.

Immigration progress expected

Buoyed by an agreement among European Union leaders on Friday that all countries, including Turkey, should be pushed to uphold migrant repatriation agreements, Alternate Interior Minister Christos Markoyiannakis said yesterday that he expects “visible results” in Greece’s immigration problem as of September.

“I would like to believe that when we are ready, when we have the reception centers that we are getting ready, when we start a process of speedier repatriation, things will improve greatly,” he said during a visit to his home island of Crete.

It was decided in Brussels that the EU should seek to forge new repatriation pacts with migrants’ countries of origin and with “transit countries” such as Turkey and Libya. In addition, existing bilateral pacts on repatriation, such as the one signed by Greece and Turkey in 2003, should be honored, the EU leaders agreed.

A draft law that proposes stiffer penalties for people smugglers, transforming their offense from a misdemeanor to a felony, is due to be discussed in Parliament tomorrow.

“Up until now, we have seen that many are arrested – just this year almost 500 have been caught – mostly smuggling illegal immigrants from Turkey, but none have been sent to jail,” said Markoyiannakis.

“We think that the penalties foreseen in the bill will act as a deterrent and there will be a reduction in the flow of migrants from the east.”

Last year, almost 150,000 illegal immigrants and more than 2,000 traffickers were arrested in Greece. It is not clear how many of the alleged smugglers were jailed.

Markoyiannakis rejected criticism from PASOK on the government’s immigration policy by saying that previous Socialist governments had been wrong to sign Greece up to the EU’s Dublin Regulation, which means that the member state where an asylum seeker first enters the Union is also the country responsible for registering him and examining the application.

Yesterday’s pogrom in Athens….

This is a translation of the “Red Anti-Reporters” [Kokkinoi Anti-Reporters] report published at the athens indymedia.  50 people were arrested yesterday, only hours after the Governement annnouned its plans.

clandestinenglish

The Police encircled Athens facing no resistance…

It is the first time we intervene in this way about the pogrom against immigrants the state machine and the deep state fascist bastards of Golden Dawn have launched.

Because the reality – either we like it or not – is a long way from the platforms, the revolutionary keyboard verbalisms and the solidarity, resistance and disobedience to the police that DID NOT TAKE PLACE YESTERDAY against the encirclement of the streets of Socratous, Sofokleous, Agios Konstantinou and Piraeos.

The Police occupied the area since 20.00. A similar police operation was set up in the square of Aghios Panteleimonos, manned by riot squad, Golden Dawn fascists and people shrieking gibberish.

The wider area from Omonoia square to the Larissis train station was occupied by the police. Cops in groups of 4 or 5 patroled and did checks in shops as well in the street, in Omonoia and Aghios Konstantinou Ave. (they entered a coffee shop in the ground floor of the building of the left newspaper Avgi. A journalist had a verbal conflict with the cops).

In the Court of Appeals building people had not taken notice of what was going on around, since no one had informed them about. Police forces of various types and police vans were patrolling in nearby streets since 20.30.

Other vans were parked in Omonia Square along with dozens of police motorists and undercover cops. The traffick police station at the train station Larissis as well as the section Patisia police station were shielded.

Cops with bulletproof vests were guarding outside the Aghios Panteleimonas police station, and had small talks with the fat pig-headed “indignant citizens” [the Golden Dawn fascists].

The same situation at the Aghios Panteleimon square as well: the fascist killers of Golden Dawn hanging out with the cops, the riot police, the undercover police… In other parts of the area extending from Omonoia to Aghios Panteleimonas big motorcycles with their plates covered were waiting.

Immigrants: Solidarity does not fit in steelyards.

In yesterday’s pogrom in Athens against immigrants and… undesirables, the first part of the summer project of repression took place. They will keep doing that, clearing people, and will be announcing the numbers “50 illegal immigrants arrested today”. Tomorrow, 50 more. Tomorrow 50 more and so on.

Still, comrades, do not fear. Police terror will be embedded.

The immigrants left in the Court of Appeals building are few. They will leave; gradually the government troops of the new junta will be invading the building; they will find it empty; the cops will be arresting the immigrants in the small allleys around. And we will not take notice or we will underrate the news….

Until then, the police will be arresting people and without us taking notice, the refugee camps (in Aspropyrgos, in Schisto) will be operating….

Then operations will take place against our haunts, squats and free space, laws agains the weraing of hoods and university asylum, and then … then we will wear hoods and be sent in small new Guantanamos in the burnt pine forests of the mountains … already set on fire for the new season… or in the operational refugee camps’ hell….

No one did anything against the pogrom yesterday. This was an effective plan by the police, with a very large police force, the armored vehicles and motorcycles of the Greek democracy. In full cooperation with the deep state and the fascists of the Golden Dawn.

When a whole area in Attiki is occupied by the police and the deep state, let us not just sit on our keyboards and write bullshit.

No one did anything yesterday and the cops roamed loosely performing a major “sweep operation”at ease … As if this is nothing special. As if this is something natural to happen…

PS: In the Aghios Panteleimonas square fascists and riot squads expelled two news agencies photoreporrters.