Greece: Immigrant Repression

Yet another longer article on the situation in Greece.

It has been around a year and a half now since the first attempt of the state to demolish the self-made Afghani refugee camp in Patras, which was prevented due to a vast and eminent solidarity movement. Nevertheless, the public authorities struck back and eventually succeeded to fulfil their initial plan on the dawn of Sunday 12th of July. This action can be only described as part of a major concrete plan of “zero tolerance” designed and declared by Markoyannakis, the Minister of Public Order of Greece.

The operation was initially planned to take place the night before, yet it was decided to postpone for a day in order for riot police reinforcements to arrive from Athens. At around 3.30 a.m. on Sunday numerous riot police forces swamped the whole area surrounding the refugee camp. By 5 a.m. they had already blocked every street leading to the camp inducing a climate of terror in the area. Only 150 immigrants were still there, by that point knowingly unable to defend themselves and their vestige shelter after weeks of continuous repression, arrests and terror deriving from the state. Some managed to flee the camp only moments before getting arrested and the rest were indulged to the hands of the authorities. The camp was unreachable for the protestors outside and the few who were already inside in solidarity got arrested and were released only after the operation was complete. The obvious reason for these arrests was to have no witnesses of the imminent villainous scenes of state-induced horror.

read the whole article.

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This is the blog of the antiracist network Welcome to Europe. It was formerly known as lesvos09.antira.info.

 

The name Welcome to Europe expresses the discontent and anger we feel when looking at the fatal realities of the European external border: the long documented deaths and suffering have continued for years, and no end is in sight. We stand for a grassroots movement that embraces migration and wants to create a Europe of hospitality.

 

We maintain our focus on the European external border in Greece, but will not limit ourselves to that geographical area. The right of freely roaming the globe has to be fought for everywhere. Join us!

 

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