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.
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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
The demonstration took place in the late afternoon. The route was from the center to the harbor, where the demonstration stopped to express loud and clear, and also written the disagreement with Frontex and the greek coast guard.
Normally Frontex and the greek coast guard have their landing here:
New refugees are arriving in Mytilini every day. Currently 900 people are inside the “welcome center” (= detention centre) Pagani. The intended capacity of the prison is 250 people. Since the new act from June 2009, the refugees are held inside Pagani for at least 6 month. The only “way” to get out of the prison is to be deported. Because the prison is that crowded, a deportation is expected this weekend.
The greek government has this “six point plan” about how to deal with what they refer to as illegal migration. You can read more about it at the website of our friends from Thessaloniki.
The first point reads as follows:
A ship of sufficient tonnage to be used as a first reception and transport centre. This ship will sail near the islands of the Aegean where illegal migrants have been arrested, it will take them on board and carry them to the reception centres already in, or due to be put into, operation. The ship must be equipped with the necessary logistics infrastructure so as to ensure a complete health check of illegal migrants and to cross-check their identification data in order to ascertain their country of origin reliably and in a timely manner.
Apparently, this ship has already been chartered, but is still in the process of being refitted: they need to build cells and such. The plan however is clear, the greek government wants to centralise the internment of refugees. A couple of days ago, there was the attempted deportation of 62 refugees from Lesvos to a detention centre in mainland Greece. As you can read at occupiedlondon blog, this failed miserably due to intervention of antiracist activists.
As soon as embarkation started, the guards created a cordon around the migrants and started to lead them on foot toward the catapult of the boat. The sixty of us who were there jumped in front of them, blocking with banners and with our bodies their entrance to the boat. At the same time, we shouted slogans and handed out texts to the people that continued entering and exiting the boat. Following an initial surprise, the return of the migrants back to the bus that transferred them was decided. We held our positions exchanging slogans with the migrants who slowly started to realise what was going on and in turn started to shout and to wave.
You can find more pictures at Athens Indymedia.
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.
Voices from the Inside of Pagani (2009)
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