Second pogrom against foreign workers in Lakonia, Peloponnese

On Tuesday, July 22, around 2 a.m., “indignant citizens”, nationalist thugs that is , assaulted Afghan workers at the district Sotiras or Kouskouni near Areopolis in Lakonia Prefecture, Peloponnese.   According to the police report around ten people wearing hoodies broke and entered in the Afghans’ house and beat them with clubs.  Then they fired a gun on the air and left with their cars.  Four Afghans were taken to the Health Center of Areopolis and Sparta Hospital, and were allowed to return home in the afternoon of the same day.   The police mentions some small dispute the Afghans had with Greek locals in the previous days.

This is the second major racist incident in Sparta in the last months.  On February 5 2010, a group of 13 adolescents 14-17 years old set the house of Banghladeshi workers on fire.   The workers who were sleeping inside took notice of the fire in the last instance and managed to escape.  The young arsonists posted on the web the video they had shot with their cell phones some hours later.

adaptation of this enet article.

Latest news, Monday 15 – Friday 19 Feb.

Monday Feb 15 Tention in the police station of Tripoli, Peloponese after the suicide attempt of a 35 yearold Palestinian who was imprisoned in purpose to be deported. Other migrants prisoners, also under deportation, looted blankets so a small fire was caused. The pigs entered the detention centers and evacuated the imprisoning cells by transfering the prisoners to a room beside. Later, the migrants were also transfered to the Panarcadic Hospital for health checks, where also the Palestinian was transfered whose deportation is planned to take place in two weeks. http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1133089

Tuesday Feb 16 In Archontiki village, Rethymnon, Crete, an Indian farm worker was shot and heavily injured by his boss – a shepherd himself.   The culprit then took the victim on his car which crushed on the road.  He left the victim there in a horrid condition and disappeared.  http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1132976

A shoot-out between cops and bank robbers in the neighbourhood of Vironas, Athens saw an innocent passer-by assassinated by the cops: 25-year old migrant worker Nikollas Todi was unfortunate to be at the shooting range of the pigs in uniform. He was executed in cold blood, shot with nine bullets in the back, one going through his head and another one through his heart.  Leuteris Oikonomou, head of the greek police, stated that “nothing went wrong in the operation – simply the 25-year old found himself amidst crossfire”. Trying to supposedly disassociate himself from this provocative statement, Michalis Chrisochoidis (minister of citizen protection) stated that “a crucial battle was won, even if the cost was dear”. Earlier today, Chrisochoidis announced that Athens will see “unprecedented” policing operations after easter. http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1133637

Thursday, Feb 18 50 Palestinian refugees detained at the Samos refugee center were boarded on a ship to Athens probably to be deported.   They cannot communicate and they have no legal assistance.   http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1133671

Friday, Feb 19 In Patras, the police  warned earlier today the Sudanis living in the makeshift settlement in an old train depot that they should evacuate it (the plan is to make a parking there) or be arrested and deported. http://patras.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=7337

Arrests of sans papiers in Ileia, Peloponnese and Ipeirus

41 undocumented immigrants from Iraq, Afganistan and Palestine were arrested the night before yesterday in Ileia, Peloponnese (the prefecture which lays  next to Patras’ prefecture in the south).  They had paid 1,000 – 1,5000 euros each to be transported by a little fish-ship to Brindesi, Italy.   After the ship-owners abandoned them at the shore at the Katakolon area, they tried to hide but were reported and arrested.

Some hours later, in the nearby area of Lehena, Ileia, Peloponnese, 21 refugees from Palestine were arrested.  http://www.enet.gr/?i=news.el.article&id=78517

In two days, 2 and 3 of  September, 137 immigrants were arrested in Ipeirus region, in northwestern Greece. source: http://epirusgate.blogspot.com/2009/09/137.html

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.

Photos from Nea Manolada – immigrant workers conditions of living

These are last summer photos, reproduced at: http://garizo.blogspot.com/2009/06/blog-post_25.html

System of Injustice intervenes in the Nea Manolada case – Torture victims with criminal charges, their torturers with misdemeanors

tvxs article info on the development in the Nea Manolada horrendous case of immigrant abuse.

clandestinenglish

The immigrants that fell victims of torture by the farmers in Ileia were led to the public attorney, facing criminal charges.  Their torturers were also led to the attorney, them facing misdemeanor charges,  though!

Four days after the incident,no forensic examination has taken place, on the pretext that the immigrants did not request one, this at a time when they did not even had a lawyer to represent them.

Article by the plsweb.org of 17 july.

Immigrant farm-workers tortured by Greek landlords

Friday, July 17, 2009
By: Nikos Kavadias

Down with anti-immigrant attacks!

A monstrous crime was committed on June 18 in the Greek town of Nea Manolada. Two immigrant farm workers from Bangladesh were beaten up, tortured and pilloried (publicly humiliated) by two Greek landlords, Dionisis Gomostiotis and Petros Samaris.

Greek authorities assaulted and burned an immigrant refugee camp down to the ground in Patras on July 12.

According to their story, they waited one night by their pen and saw three immigrants approach it. They recognized two of them but the next day could not find them. They then attacked another immigrant from Bangladesh, tied him up and tortured him until he agreed to guide them to the other immigrants.

When they found the immigrants they were after, they assailed, threatened, tied up, beat and tortured them. Then they roped them behind their motorbike and dragged them through the town center.

At one point, the workers got tired and fell down. The thugs stopped their bike, propped them up, beat them and continued pillorying them. They stopped only when the police arrived.

The police, loyal as always to the propertied classes, arrested all four of them, claiming that the workers were undocumented.

On June 22, the district attorney of Amaliada openly sided with the thugs. The Bangladeshi workers were charged with felonies for their alleged attempt to steal sheep, while the Greek bigots were charged with misdemeanors.

One year ago in the same town, immigrant farm workers staged a three-day strike against the local strawberry agribusiness. The landlords responded with a violent rampage. They threatened and beat workers with clubs and fired shotguns in the air. They even threw dynamite at the workers’ protest rally. The workers stood their ground and forced the landlords to concede.

During those events, the police witnessed the landlord terrorism but did nothing to stop it.

The recent attacks and the response of the local authorities are no surprise. They flow from the racist anti-immigrant policies of the Greek government itself. In its effort to keep wages low and the working class divided, the government is constantly escalating its attacks on immigrant workers. It denies even the most basic human rights.

The Greek government ignores its most basic duties under international law towards refugees. In 2008, the Greek government granted refugee status to only 358 people of 29,573 who applied. Tens of thousands more immigrants tried to apply but were unable to. Applications must be delivered in person and applicants need to wait for up to two days in line. Instead of granting asylum, the government is mass deporting the refugees.

On July 12, Greek police raided and burned to the ground a refugee camp in the town of Patras. On June 23, 25 undocumented workers from Afghanistan were flown back to the war zone—back to a country occupied by NATO forces, including Greek troops. An increasing percentage of immigrants come from countries that are in the crosshairs of imperialism: Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia, and Pakistan.

The government is now preparing concentration camps where undocumented immigrants will be incarcerated for 12 months before being deported.

Greece is the entry point to Europe for many immigrant workers. The government is increasing its anti-immigrant assaults in cooperation with Italy, Spain and other European countries.

The entire Greek elite is supporting these attacks on immigrants, including the major opposition PASOK party, the chauvinist LAOS party, all mainstream media, local governments and land developers. Nazi gangs that appear as “citizens’ committees” are assaulting immigrants in their houses or on the streets with makeshift or real weapons.

The rise in racism and violence against immigrants in Greece and other imperialist countries is not accidental. Mass immigration in the era of capitalist globalization is a result of the owners’ need to under-develop and dominate the resources of poorer countries abroad and the need for cheap labor at home.

During times of economic crisis, when workers all over the world face a tidal wave of unemployment, the capitalist powers seek to turn as many sectors of society against immigrants as possible in order to direct workers’ anger and frustration away from the guilty party: the capitalist class. Racism and attacks on immigrants are given the seal of approval by government oppression, violent raids, mass deportations and worse.

Joining immigrants in struggle against racist attacks is a necessary component of working-class struggle, especially in a time of global economic crisis.

The bigoted landlords alleged that the workers were stealing their sheep. They never filed a police report. Government policies promote racist attacks

Immigrant workers degradation practices in Nea Manolada: farm owners brutally abuse immigrants “to set an example”.

Immigrant abuse in Nea Manolada

Unspeakable violence in Nea Manolada, Ileia, Peloponnese.   Farmers in the area “took the law into their own hands” and decided to punish in their own cruel way economic migrants living and working in the area.

Two farmers had set a guard on their farm to watch for the people who had been allegedly stealing sheep.  Having identified some Bangladeshi immigrants as those attempting to steal and made them flee during the night, the morning after the farmers visited the alleged thieves houses.

They punched and kicked them and hit them with clubs while on the ground.  The farmers then tied the immigrants on a motorcycle and dragged them around in the center of the village to set an example for others.

The thefts had never been reported to the police … The intervention of the police  informed of the tragedy by witnesses rescued the immigrants.   Two farmers and two immigrants were arrested.

Translation of excertpts from tvxs article. What follows are articles on the recent history of the strawberry fields of the area.

Greece’s strawberry war ends in uneasy truce

by Teacher Dude | April 22, 2008 at 02:19 am

In scenes reminiscent of Steinbeck’s 1930’s classic, the Grapes of Wrath, immigrant and minority workers have clashed with what Greek newspapers called “hired thugs’ over pay and conditions. Amidst sometimes violent clashes agricultural workers in the Greek town of Nea Manolada, home to 90% of Greece’s strawberry production took part in a four day stoppage aimed at getting a pay rise of 3.5 euros a day.

As of Sunday strawberry producers have agreed to rise pay from 22.5 to 28 euros for farm labourers.However, the figure of 28 euros only applies to European workers, non-Europeans will receive only 25 euros according to the Greek newspaper, Kathimerini. Fears still remain that the producers will fail to honour even this agreement, due to be take effect in Autumn, once media attention has died down. The local council sets the minimum wage for untrained labourers at 30.4 euros a day.

It should be noted that strawberries, sometimes called “red gold” by local producers, retail at 1.5 to 3 euros a kilo on the Greek market

The newspaper also brought to light several cases in which the police force and members of the local authorities, which turned a blind eye this week to attacks on union and political activists by landowners, are also involved with various scams involving the sale of fake residence permits for immigrant workers.

Miltos Paulou, head of the European Union Agency for Fundemental Rights (FRA) stated that 70% of those working in intensive agriculture in Greece are illegal immigrants and that Greek law limits foreign workers ability to change jobs so allowing the kind of exploitation seen in Nea Manolada and many other areas.

source of the above.

Migrant workers in Greece wage historic strike

Author: Laura Petricola

People’s Weekly World Newspaper, 05/28/08 08:28

ATHENS — Migrant workers laboring in the strawberry fields of Nea Manolada, in Greece’s southern Peloponnese region, where 90 percent of the country’s strawberry production is concentrated, waged a historic strike last month that will pave the way for immigrant workers in the country to battle for their rights, side by side with Greek workers.
After a three-day strike April 18-20, the field laborers returned to work with a wage increase to 25-26 euros per day. Their wages had been 22-23 euros for a full workday. The strikers have vowed to continue their fight for a daily wage of 30 euros.

Though over 2,000 of the 2,500 agricultural laborers in Nea Manolada are undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Bulgaria, Albania, Romania and other countries, they fought back against police terror and the vicious attacks of the large producers, demanding better working and living conditions as well as a higher wage.
The All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) has been in Manolada for the past year aiding migrant laborers to organize their struggle and to link these issues to wider workers’ struggles throughout Greece.

On May 11, PAME forces from all over Peloponnese and nearby islands mobilized in Manolada in a mass show of support for the field laborers. The rally’s theme was “Greek and Immigrant Workers United in Struggle!” Large landowners made determined efforts to turn Greek farmers against PAME and the strikers, claiming that immigrant labor costs Greeks their jobs.

Migrant agricultural laborers in Nea Manolada live and work in squalid conditions. They are forced to work every day, including Sunday. Lost days mean lost wages and the threat of firing. They harvest strawberries in greenhouses in 113 degrees Fahrenheit. There are no toilets at the work site; workers must use the fields. The only water supply comes from the pipes used to water the strawberries.

Many workers live in the greenhouses because they cannot afford rent elsewhere. They cover their makeshift beds of wood pallets with newspapers and rags. No running water, electricity or toilets are available. Those “lucky” enough to have housing live with 25 people or more sharing one toilet in abandoned village houses or warehouses where they pay up to 50 euro per month per person.

Workers must pay out of pocket for all medical care, to a government that refuses to grant free medical care to undocumented permanent immigrants. Yet they have many medical problems because of the exhausting work and the excessive use of pesticides and fungicides without protective equipment. Many workers are raising young children under such foul and desperate conditions.

The government refuses to guarantee the workers’ basic rights but instead does all it can to support the “right” of large landowners to extract the greatest maximum profit from them. Just half an hour of work represents the actual cost of labor on a given day; the other six and a half hours line the pockets of the boss. In clearer terms, on average a strawberry worker fills five crates per hour, with 10 boxes per crate. Each box is sold for roughly 3 euros. Do the math!

Given the profits involved, it is clear why strikers and members of PAME were under attack. From the very first day, strikers were terrorized by the bosses. During the strike’s second day, three of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) members present for support were attacked and wounded, while armed groups stormed the workers’ shanties. Threats and provocations continued into the third day while the police looked on.

On the third day, landowners agreed to increase wages and strikers agreed to go back to work, vowing to continue their struggle for a 30 euro daily wage. KKE is demanding that the Ministries of Labor and the Interior intervene, with no results as yet.

The strike shows migrants have power when that power is channeled into mass collective action. KKE proposes a framework of organization and struggle for the needs of migrants and their families including immediate legalization and equal rights in work, health care, education and social security.

source of the above

Pogrom against Somalis and Sudanese in Patras

Around 60 Somalis and Sudanese imigrants were virually hunted and captured (=arrested) by the police in Patras.  They were then detained at the police headquarteres of the nearby town of Patras.  Now in the detention room there are 80 immigrants, despite the fact that the space there is hardly enough for 30.  The detainees were yesterday visited by members of the Movement for the Advocacy of Migrant and Refugee Rights.  10 migrants have applied for political asylum, but communication is dificult since there is no interpretator.   There is some info suggesting that the immigrants will be either tranferred to Athens or deported.  There is a protest gathering today outside Pyrgos police at 13.00.  

info: Athens Indymedia Article, Patras Indymedia Article, tvxs article.

Antiracism in Kalamata, Peloponnese and the pittiful reaction by neo-nazis losing ground…

 

banners at the symbolic occupation of the town's old wheat mills - "Kalamata 1934 - Chicago 1886 - Greece December 2008 : class memory - revolt memory"

Yesterday an anticapitalist – antiracist demo and event took place in Kalamata, in southern Peloponese.  The demo among other things commemorated the 9^th of May 1934 workers revolt, in which 8 workers were killed by the Greek state.  The local anarchist group “Alania tou Nedonta” has been lately much active and of course this annoyed the neo-nazi “golden dawn” braindeads.   The comrades are also active in initiatives against mobile telephony antennas which spring out everywhere in Greece, even in residential areas.

Although during yesterdays’s successful demo the neo-nazis were prevented from making their pittiful presence visible in the town, in the evening some of them attacked comrades on the spot where an event against the antennas is to take place today.   Yestarday, an assault against Greeks and immigrants in the town’s railway station took place and some days ago one against comrades in a caffe of the town . 

info from Patras Indymedia and Athens Indymedia articles.

Recent racist assaults in Rethymno, Crete and Skala, Laconia.

Between 12 and 14 of April in Rethymno, Crete, some racist scum attacked high school pupils both of Greek and Albanian origin who were hanging out together in the street. The racist “gang” consisted of young Greeks who first attempted to terrorize and beat a Greek boy; when his Albanian friend intervened non-violently to stop them, the “gang’s” “leader” turned to him, asked “where do you come from?” and when the boy answered “Albania” he started beating him. One day after that, the “gang” assaulted again the Albanian boy. The incident in Rethymno comes approximately one month after the beating of leftists students by ultra-nationalist neo-nazi scum in the same city.

As the announcement of the Forum of Immigrants in Crete reads:

“[…] These attacks target not only immigrants but also Greek pupils, students or citizens who defend their fellow people of immigrant origin. This is absolutely not a conflict between some two extremes or some local gangs and immigrants, as some argue.
These attacks is a continuation of all that happened the prior years. It starts with slogans and graffities full of hatred against immigrants and those who defend democratic values and expands in attacks as the one two weeks ago against two students. It is the continuation of attacks that immigrants fall victims of by right-wing groups with their allies in various media (for example, in Agios Nikolaos, at Petrou Ralli, around Agios Panteleimon in Athens, etc.). No crisis legitimizes violence and fascism against immigrants![…]”.

Some days later and some kilometers norther in the Country the diffuse racism of the Greek provinces took a more organized form. What is very encouraging is that there as well, a place with remarkable tolerance for ultra-conservative scum, there also one meets people fighting against the ideologies of hatred (http://skalalakonias.wordpress.com/). Their announcement of April 22 reads as follows:

“In Skala, Lakonia, a small rural town in southern Peloponnese, in the last 2 days something very disturbing happened, which should not be left unanswered.

The Day before yesterday in the evening at around 12 a group of about 10 young people vituperated a Romanian man. Me and two comrades happened to be passing by around there and asked them why they do it. They responded aggressively and started argument. At that time a police patrol arrived, but they did not say a word about the incident, they simply decided to carry the comrades to the Police station for the procedure of identity verification . The next day (April 21), around 12, the story got bigger and more dangerous. A group of about 20 young people (16 to 20 years old) from two cafes in the town took it to the miserable settlement some Pakistani orange-field workers use to dwell in. The workers are living under appalling conditions and with extremely low wages. The group of juveniles began to throw stones at sleeping people. Indeed one of the Pakistani was injured when one from the group hit him with a broomstick. The Pakistanis tried to react, and went armed looking for the perpetrators who of course had already disappeared, as much as the Greek police had done so that to leave fascistic action take place unobstructed […]”