Today, we were at Pagani again, although with a smaller group. The situation was a bit calmer, which greatly helped to deepen conversations with the detained migrants. Here are a couple of images which once again prove how bad it is to be in Pagani, and a short video clip we produced with different material taken inside. It shows that even youngest kids are imprisoned. You also see detained women demanding freedom, and some young men show that their room is so overcrowded that they not only sleep on the ground, but also beneath the other beds.
Welcome To Europe presents the blog formerly known as lesvos09.antira.info
Monthly Archive for August, 2009
Page 3 of 5
We have great media echo about yesterdays demonstration, the island press picked up the issue of the unbearable conditions at Pagani. Today, we are front page on both newspapers, who report very objectively about what is going on in Pagani. But see for yourselves.
Prices for a taxi to the campsite (Kantina Karpuzi at Charamida)
- from the Airport = 10€
- from Myitilini = 16€
As always: Check the page How to Lesvos for complete information. And you can always check the How To Lesvos Category for updates, also alvailable as RSS.
We received these two letters today:
Prisoners requesting Freedom to the Society of Greece
First we would like to thank the people as well as the government of Greece. We the prisoners we are suffering a lot of problems, to mention some of them:
- Health Problems due to lack of sanitation. Such as skin diseases and diarrhea
- We the teenagers are around 300, having hardship times because the dimensions of the rooms is too small. As a result, we are forced to sleep on the ground without blankets.
- We didn’t expect such jail room from the government of Greece., treating teenagers in such a way
So as to conclude we are requesting the government of Greece, international community, European Union, human righters, UNHCR, UNICEF and all the remaining NGOs to make a solution as soon as possible just to get our freedom.
Thank you for your care.
Asodii – AzadaFREEDOM!
Prisoners.
Thanks again.
We have a lot of problems in this jail.
- We have health problems like stress, skin diseases, heart problems, blood pressure, diabetes, but we didn’t get good care (just as animals)
- We have no facilities of taking shower, WC. It’s hard to make conclusion of our problems by qaiting our bad situations. So till waiting for your great help
- Every moment due to great stress a lot of prisoners cry every second and as a [?] they need to make suicides
So please don’t go out of this compound until we get our freedom.
Thanks a lot.
On 18th of August 2009, 160 unaccompanied minors detained in Pagani detention centre went on hunger strike to demand their immediate freedom. All of them are detained in just one room, where they share one toilet, many need to sleep on the floor due to lack of beds. Some of the minors are only eight or nine years old. 50 of them have been detained for over 2 months, the others have been in Pagani for several weeks already. The detention of minors is illegal under greek law.
The European elections, that took place during June 2009, brought the ultra right wing party “LAOS” to the fourth place for the first time in the recent Greek history. “LAOS” made a very open anti-migrant campaign based on the national security and immigration control. The support of this movement by the Greek media was and still is very obvious and, consequently, after the elections, the agenda that “LAOS” has set, has been adopted by several institutions and politicians across the political spectrum and mostly from the governmental parties, called “New Democracy” and “PASOK” (Greek Socialist Party).
One of the outcomes of the above mentioned conservative and xenophobic campaign was the very recent presidential decree 81/09, which assigns the examination of asylum claims exclusively to police directors. It further deprives asylum seekers of the right to have their asylum claim examined at second instance, in violation of European standards.
Continue reading ‘Brief report from the field: Pagani emergency’
This article about the practices and strategies of Frontex concerning the European sea borders was published in the brochure Frontex – Widersprüche im erweiterten Grenzraum by the “Informationsstelle Militarisierung” in German. Here is a translated version without the references included in the original article.
Frontex in the Mediterranean – Of Grey areas and legalisations of a different kind
If you don’t want to sleep together with the mosquitoes then make sure that your tent has a mosquito net or bring one.
If you plan to bring your dog, the first thing you do you don’t bring the dog. But if you are already on the way, the first thing you do when you arrive is to speak with Fanis, the owner of the Kantina. Because his two dogs bark the whole night if another dog is around.
As always: Check the page How to Lesvos for complete information. And you can always check the How To Lesvos Category for updates, also alvailable as RSS.
If you wanna come, and you want to know what you should know bevor coming and during the camp, there is the perfect thing for you, right here: The “How to Lesvos Reader”.
As always: Check the page How to Lesvos for complete information. And you can always check the How To Lesvos Category for updates, also alvailable as RSS.
Voices from the Inside of Pagani (2009)
noborder09lesvos
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- Untitled March 14, 2011
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