Police attacks protestors at Venna refugee concentration camp.

source: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1146716, http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1146343.  Thanx to Ben for his help with this post.

police force at the horrible camp

The horrible living conditions in the Venna detention centre, a refugee camp located 30 minutes outside the northern Greek city of Komotini, was the spark that fueled over 100 protestors to converge on the site on Sunday. Among the protest group were doctors, lawyers and members of the No Borders Assembly.

The group was met at the site in Venna by a police force that also had around 100 members, among them much riot police. The group of activists was there to protest while the doctors among the group checked the health and living conditions of those inside the detention centre.

A clash between the protest group and riot police began after the police attacked the group on no provocation at all. The police threw stones at the protestors and then moved in on them with their clubs, injuring two people after hitting them in the face and head. Some members of the riots squad were also injured in the clash.

Three people were arrested and transferred to the police station in Komotini but the rest of the protest group was stopped from entering the town after the police blocked the Egnatia highway.

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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.

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.