Human Rights Watch report: Xenophobic Violence in Greece

Hate on the Streets

The 99-page report documents the failure of the police and the judiciary to prevent and punish rising attacks on migrants. Despite clear patterns to the violence and evidence that it is increasing, the police have failed to respond effectively to protect victims and hold perpetrators to account, Human Rights Watch found. Authorities have yet to develop a preventive policing strategy, while victims are discouraged from filing official complaints. No one has been convicted under Greece’s 2008 hate crime statute.

Read the Press Release

Read the Report

Leaks about planned gigantic detention centers, racist attacks on the rise

According to  Eleutherotypia newspaper,  the “Ministry of Citizen Protection”, taking advantage of the new coalition government in Greece, where members of the far-right LAOS party participate, is planning to create two gigantic detention centers for immigrants in Athens. The two new detention centers “should be in the area of Attikovoiotia (close to Athens) with a capacity of about 5-6 thousand people, to offer real relief to the capital city”.
LAOS also demands the withdrawal of the citizenship bill, voted 1,5 years ago.

Meanwhile, racist attacks are on the rise again. Last Saturday, in Mylopotamos in Crete, 3 immigrants from Pakistan were beaten up in their own home and a car owned by another immigrant was set on fire.
In Athens, two Kurds from Iraq were beaten up by 15 policemen while held in custody, awaiting their trial. They were brought back to the prison, where a prison warden, realizing how badly they had been beaten up, ordered their transfer to the prison’s hospital.
(photo here)

YFANET squat in Thessaloniki comes under fascist attack

source: http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog

The YFANET squat has come under attack by fascists at about 2330 hours local time tonight. Reports now indicate that the intruders have been chased away from the occupied building; we are expecting a report from the comrades who were inside very soon and will be publishing it here once it’s out.

What follows is a rough translation of a statement put together by people in YFANET tonight.

At around 2300 hours tonight and while the assembly of YFANET was under way, around 20 fascists with sticks, helmets and hoodies attacked the squat. They tried to enter the space of the assembly but were successfully pushed back by comrades; they then tried to burn various parts of the squat.

The damage that they caused was relatively small – a burnt scooter, some furniture and the like. None of us has been injured.

After this, various cops started arriving outside the squat, while people in solidarity also started to gather. The fascists disappeared. There was tension between the gathered people and the cops; at some point, with no previous provocation, riot police arrived, attacked and threw much tear gas in the squat.

At this moment there are many people outside the squat, more than 200 people and the atmosphere is very comradely. Cops and fascists are nowhere to be seen.

One girl was detained while away from the squat, they probably suspected her as being a person in solidarity.

More in a bit.

YFANET squat

There was one detention of a woman near the squat, but will be set free. Hundreds of people in solidarity arrived in YFANET shortly after the attack happened. Many remain in the area of FABRIKA YFANET, and after having a short assembly, decided another main assembly for tomorrow 6pm in the squat.

There is another information for 2 fascists trying to throw a molotof cocktail at Orfanotrofio squat, that is also in Toumba (same area as YFANET in east Thessaloniki), but they were chased by people from inside. After this many comrades were walking around the squats and some fascists were chased, but most were saved by police forces.

I would like to remind that YFANET squat (old factory) is the largest occupied area in the country, was occupied in 2004, and since two years ago the state has announced that they want to use the place, that triggered actions and a demonstration in solidarity.

PS1. Also yesterday a mechanism with gas canisters was placed near the squat but did not damage anything.

PS2. The collaboration of fascists and the police is once again obvious, but this is nothing new and does not sound strange of abnormal anymore.

ATHENSIMC FRONT PAGE wrote:

Fascistic attack against YFANET Fabrica Squat

Coordinated attack together with fascists and cops against Yfanet Fabrica Squat in Thessaloniki during the night of Tuesday 9th February. Fascists tried to set on fire the squatted factory but they were perceived by people who were inside and chased them away. At the same time, the area got surrended by special pigs’ forces who started throwing chemicals and stones inside the building.
Men and women gathered in solidarity at the Polythecnical school of Aristoteleio University and directed collectively to the squat so they chased the cops away from the spot.

This was the second attack during the day, after the dawn of Tuesday when “unknown” parastatists tried again to set the squat on fire by putting gas-bottles in a garbage bin in front of the building.
Mass Media in turn, with misinformation as a weapon attack in their way trying to mislead the public mind and completely reverse the events.

Fasco-thugs hit once more in Chania, Crete.

The fasco-thugs in Chania, Crete made one more hideus, cowardice assault (for the previous ones see this and this).   In the small hours of Dec 27 inside a bar in the city’s Venetian Port area (an area with many bars) they beat with  baseball bats and knuckle dusters two Palestinians and one Moroccan guy, as well as a German woman who was in their company.    They only person in that company they did not beat was a Greek woman.   The “hit squad” of the thugs entered the bar prepared and with the sole purpose of attempting the murderous assault they did attempt, without having been provoked in no way whatsoever.

The male immigrants suffered injuries at their head and face, but were not in immediate need of hospitalisation after receiving first aid treatment.  The German woman is at hospital, with very severe injuries at her head and with face virtually deformed.

source: Forum of Migrants in Crete’s blog.

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

New assaults by para-state neo-nazis in Chania Crete against social spaces and comrade’s home – Rally and march tomorrow against rising fascist violence.

Immigrant's Haunt, Social Haunt's entrance after the fire.

Police’s pets, right extremists in Chania, Crete, continue with their aggression.  Yesterday evening, unknown perpetrators threw two molotov coctail bombs against the family house of a comrade who is involved in anarchist and antiracist initiatives, while his family (not he himself) was inside (includng his toddler nephew).  Some days ago, he and a friend had been ambushed late at night by a group of ten and severely beaten.  Info by Chaniotika Nea local newpaper.

The last social space hit by the fasco-group(s) in the town of Chania was the Immigrants Haunt – Social Haunt.    In the small hours yesterday night they broke into the building and put a fire on the entrance.   They signed on the walls with swastikas.   Last week they had painted racist graffiti on the outside walls.

AFTER THE RECENT NEO-NAZI-ACTIVITY, AN ANTI-FASCIST RALLY AND MARCH CALL HAS BEEN MADE BY VARIOUS ORGANISATIONS AND COLLECTIVES  FOR TOMORROW, THURSDAY, DEC 17, 19.00, AT AGORA SQ.

BELOW IS THE POSTER CALLING.

Murderous assaults by neo-nazis in Chania, Crete, and impunity for racist murder perpetrators.

TWO NEW PRESS – RELEASES BY THE FORUM OF IMMIGRANTS IN CRETE ON RECENT PROLIFERATION OF NEO-NAZI ACTIVITY IN CHANIA, CRETE; AND THE PROLONGATION OF A HIDEOUS RACIST CRIME BY THE SYSTEM OF “JUSTICE” IN RETHYMNO

Savage Assault against Immigrants in Chania

Τwo immigrants were savagely assaulted by last Tuesday, December 8, in downtown Chania, at10 at night. The unknown perpetrators nearly killed the immigrants who were sitting on a bench in a square of the city centre.  They attacked them with iron crowbars, all of a sudden and from the back, and behind the bench so that not to be noticed and resisted by their victims . They left them with serious head and body injuries.

One of the 2 immigrant workers happened to be one of the 15 hunger strikers who last year surprised the town with their proud struggle. At the hospital he was able to give us a first description of the thugs. Gym freaks with shaved heads. Figures that allow us to suspect with certainty the neo-Nazis, Hitler-nostalgics, para-state that recently have been trying to make their pittiful presence sensed in the town. The scumbags who in large groups ambush and beat individuals simply because they do not like their face of social and political areas because they classify them as enemies of the homeland and their Aryan race. The same people who appear and “provoke” rallies and marches, who flock and flirt in public with the police, who threaten or beat protesters, because they don’t like demonstrations.

They have long been active in our town as well, and elsewhere in the prefectire, as in Kastelli Kissamou. The names of their leaders have been whispered in schools, football stadiums and cafes.  They recruit and trade in the divisive violence among the the youth whose blood is hot with passion and anger. They complete the work begun by “loyal to democracy” right-wing circles and political spaces. They poison the social body with hatred and preposterous lies for ten years now, with the full support of economic and political power blocs. The neo-Nazis are merely the executive arm of the fascist turn in the society .

After the uprising of December, these processes accelerated. Like everywhere in Greece, so in the ‘democratic Chania’ we have been witnessing a proliferation of attacks against immigrants and struggling people. In fact, the perpetrators have been acting scandalously undisturbed. We have no doubt that the society of labor, work, dignity, the democratic society can deal with them. It must stand against to them, because it is itself the target of fascists. This is what fascists hate and want to discipline, just like their ideological ancestors 70 years ago did.

Chania, 10 December 2009

Innocent by-standers of an assassination!!!

At New Year’s Day 2006, a young Albanian was killed with incredible ferocity -17 stabs – in his house, in Old Town, Rethymno.

His fault was that he was Albanian. His name was Edison Jahai.

The System of Justice in 2009 decided to prolong the crime by judging not guilty 3 of the accused perpetrators considering them “mere bystanders in front of the assassination” (!!!)

The questions raised are obvious:

• Is society to be trained to tolerate injustice?
• Is society to be trained to fear the “other” in order to regard him/her as the absolute root of all evil;
• Is society to be trained not to claim its rights – social, economic, political, labor – and be satisfied with what is minimum and be in fear of losing even this?

We think this Court of Appeals’ decision took this direction.  It is unfair and humiliating for both dead Edison and his family.  It is dangerous at a time when atrocities against wage-workers by trained Nazi stabbers prolifarate. The response to all forms of injustice and all forms of rights violations, all racist murderous attack must be the strengthening of the fight for a society with equality and freedom, with essential respect to life and dignity.

For racism does not only affect its victrims, but also those who tolerate it.

CHANIA 10 Dec 2009

Fascist bomb in Salonica, racist pogrom in Athens

source of article and updates this libcom.org article

Last Monday the fascist parastate made a double attack in Greece with the bombing of an antiauthoritatian centre in Salonica, and the pogrom against the arab community of Neos Cosmos in southeast Athens.

The fascist para-state has waged a double attack in the two major Greek cities, Athens and Salonica, on the night of Monday 23 November with police providing impunity to the perpetrators and the bourgeois media systematically under and misreporting the events.

In the case of Athens, a mob of fascist thugs attacked the arab community of Neos Cosmos, a southeastern neighbourghood of the metropolis, in the area of the proletarian blocks next to Syngrou avenue after 21:00. The fascists shouted racists slogans while beating the arabs on the street and smashing their shops, looting the tills and destroying their merchandise. The arab community was quick to mobilise a counterattack, chasing the fascists and forcing them to seek refuge in a block. At that moment strong riot police forces arrived which attacked the arabs, and let most of the fascists to escape. The cops then moved to detain 6 arabs and two fascists who claimed to be accidentally in the area playing basketball, and thus set free. Besides, the greek police in an attempt to cover the traces of its para-state accomplishes published a communique that claimed the clashes were between rival arab gangs. For many hours this story monopolised the news, and had to be revised in gross embarrassment after the intervention of left-wing parties and anti-racist organisations. The Radical Left Coalition has accused the police of being “provocatively inert” allowing the fascists to escape. Three arabs are reported to be in hospital wounded. The attack comes as a climax of racist bigotry on the side of the extreme-right, which seems to be losing its ability to control the area of Agios Panteleimonas where with the support of the police it had created a white-only zone through stabbing and beating people of color.

In the case of Salonica, the attack against the antiauthoritarian centre BuenoVentura came in the early hours of the morning, causing only material damage to the premises. Although initially the media reported the story as an anarchist attack against a cafe, once it became obvious it was a fascist bomb attack against an antiauthoritarian centre all reference to it stopped. The centre is located in a central spot of the city and is an active venue of social action and counter-information. What follows is the communique of the centre:

Regarding the ignition of an explosive device at the free social space “Buena Ventura” (Thessaloniki)

At the dawn of November 24, at 03:55 am, the free social space Buena Ventura (which hosts the assembly of the group Solidarity – Antiauthoritarian Movement) came under attack with a strong explosive device.

The way in which the device was placed reveals much about the morality of the perpetrators, a morality of murderers – since they did not just attack Buena Ventura, but the entire neighbourhood. In short, the windows of neighbouring blocks of flats were smashed by the explosion in a radius of 15 meters, while shattered pieces were whammed all around, posing an imminent danger to the lives of neighbours. Shattered pieces also hit three cars, which also highlights the murderous nature of the attack since any random passer-by could have been hit by them too.

The attack comprises the tip of the iceberg – part of the framework of repression and of the blooming of para-statist action over the decades. It begins with the activity of the para-statist group “Karfitsa” in the 1960s and comes all the way to the placing of the explosive device at Buena Ventura.

It becomes painstakingly obvious that free social spaces are being targeted – as approximately six months ago the haunt of the “Struggle Movement” (Sfentona) was also attacked. The method of the attack and the construction of the mechanism reveals that the perpetrators are the same, naturally raising the question of who will be next and – what scale of attack they will come under.

Such attacks comprise expressions of a fascist-type logic that aims at the terrorising of people in struggle; a logic that finds refuge and legitimacy on a practical level in the coordinated attack launched by authority against everything last year’s December has given birth to.

This witch haunt, the zero-tolerance schemes, the demonization of the anti-authoritarian movement both from mass media and from the state (from the mouth of the “Citizen Protector”, Minister Chrisochoidis), offers the strongest alibi for the activity of such circles, within and in parallel to the action of the state.

In our face, the entire movement was attacked, since we consider the choosing of our particular group for the attack entirely random. In our place it could have been anyone who has chosen the paths of struggle and resistance.

It could have been any free social space, haunt or squat. Through us, they attacked all those parts of society that revolted in December, since the symbolism of the date cannot be overlooked: the attack came only days after the mass mobilisations of November 17th and ten days before December 6th, marking a year from the assassination of Alexis Grigoropoulos.

Our response cannot be other than the one given by society itself during last year’s revolt: The state and its dogs won’t scare us.

Open Assembly: 24/11, 7pm at Buena Ventura

Solidarity – Antiauthoritarian Movement

UPDATES

Nov 25 2009

Update: Today after a press conference by the Buenaventura centre, the bourgeois media made a u-turn, portraying for the first time the attack as “ultra-right paramilitary”. Forensics demonstrated that the explosive device was a pipe-bomb filled with metal shrapnel which would have caused certain death to any passer-by. The media claim that the explosion was felt all around the centre of the city and that the police in making investigations amongst extreme-right groups.

2nd Update: As a response to the fascist violence against the arab community of Neos Cosmos in Athens, a protest march took the the streets around the scene of Monday’s pogrom. It must be noted that one victim of the racist violence remains in hospital due to a stab in his eye with a knife.

 

Thessaloniki “Buena Ventura” anti-authoritarian space attacked with explosives (Thessaloniki)

http://www.resistance2003.gr/

greek original here

photos at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1108047

Regarding the ignition of an explosive device at the free social space “Buena Ventura” (Thessaloniki)

At the dawn of November 24, at 03:55 am, the free social space Buena Ventura (which hosts the assembly of the group Solidarity – Antiauthoritarian Movement) came under attack with a strong explosive device.

The way in which the device was placed reveals much about the morality of the perpetrators, a morality of murderers – since they did not just attack Buena Ventura, but the entire neighbourhood. In short, the windows of neighbouring blocks of flats were smashed by the explosion in a radius of 15 meters, while shattered pieces were whammed all around, posing an imminent danger to the lives of neighbours. Shattered pieces also hit three cars, which also highlights the murderous nature of the attack since any random passer-by could have been hit by them too.

The attack comprises the tip of the iceberg – part of the framework of repression and of the blooming of para-statist action over the decades. It begins with the activity of the para-statist group “Karfitsa” in the 1960s and comes all the way to the placing of the explosive device at Buena Ventura.

It becomes painstakingly obvious that free social spaces are being targeted – as approximately six months ago the haunt of the “Struggle Movement” (Sfentona) was also attacked. The method of the attack and the construction of the mechanism reveals that the perpetrators are the same, naturally raising the question of who will be next and – what scale of attack they will come under.

Such attacks comprise expressions of a fascist-type logic that aims at the terrorising of people in struggle; a logic that finds refuge and legitimacy on a practical level in the coordinated attack launched by authority against everything last year’s December has given birth to.

This witch haunt, the zero-tolerance schemes, the demonization of the anti-authoritarian movement both from mass media and from the state (from the mouth of the “Citizen Protector”, Minister Chrisochoidis), offers the strongest alibi for the activity of such circles, within and in parallel to the action of the state.

In our face, the entire movement was attacked, since we consider the choosing of our particular group for the attack entirely random. In our place it could have been anyone who has chosen the paths of struggle and resistance.

It could have been any free social space, haunt or squat. Through us, they attacked all those parts of society that revolted in December, since the symbolism of the date cannot be overlooked: the attack came only days after the mass mobilisations of November 17^thand ten days before December 6^th, marking a year from the assassination of Alexis Grigoropoulos.

Our response cannot be other than the one given by society itself during last year’s revolt: The state and its dogs won’t scare us.

Open Assembly: 24/11, 7pm at Buena Ventura

Solidarity – Antiauthoritarian Movement

www.resistance2003.gr

Folk singer hospitalised after attack by neo-nazis in Athens

source: taxikipali on Oct 1 2009 at libcom

Submitted by taxikipali on Oct 1 2009 at libcom

Sofia Papazoglou, a popular folk singer was attacked by members of the Golden Dawn neo-nazi party in Athens after throwing election leaflets handed to her in the garbage. The singer remains hospitalised with serious burns from use of unidentified acid spray and with impaired vision.

Sofia Papazoglou, a popular folk singer of the “entehno” genre known for her progressive politics was attacked on Thursday 1st of October outside the metro station of Katehaki, in Athens, by ten members of the neo-nazi party Golden Dawn when she threw election leaflets handed to her by the thugs in the garbage. The Golden Dawn was created in the 1980s by the convicted neo-nazi bomber Mihaloliakos at the orders of the imprisoned head of the military junta of 1967-1974 Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos. Since, the Golden Dawn has been waging a campaign of terror against the left wing and anarchists as well as immigrants, people of color and jews. Nevertheless, as it comes under the explicit protection of EYP, the greek secret services (the daily eleftherotypia has published a pay-sheet of Mihaloliakos by EYP), the neo-nazi group has never been persecuted and is allowed to participate in national elections. As a clear indication of the above patron-client relation with the secret services, the election campaign booth of the neo-nazis was placed this year directly under the headquarters of the EYP, in Katehaki avenue, a few meters away from the main riot police camp of the greek capital. When Ms Papazoglou threw the racist leaflets in the bin, ten thugs attacked her with a still unidentified acid spray in the eyes and then proceeded to beat her up savagely. The police did not intervene and the folk singer was taken to hospital after the intervention of metro workers. Half an hour later the neo-nazis were dispersed by anarchist who arrived at the spot upon hearing the news of the new vicious attack.

Ms Papazoglou remains in hospital with impaired vision and serious burns and bruises on her body. The Golden Dawn denies involvement in the incident, decrying it as “rumors spread by dirty jews and freemasons” and “protectors of ecologists and greens”…