A video from the demonstration on Friday, 2. July. It was organised by the Migrants Solidarity Network and ESF’s migration network at Kumkapi Detention Center, right in the center of the City.
Welcome To Europe presents the blog formerly known as lesvos09.antira.info
Archive for the 'Injustice' Category
Page 7 of 13
+++ Frontex expands border patrol +++ Pagani still works as closed detention centre +++ Frontex-interviewers replaces Medicines Sans Frontiers +++ marks of Noborder are still to be found everywhere +++
When you walk along the port of Mitilini, the capital of Lesvos island, you can hardly oversee that you are moving in a militarized zone of migrant-hunters. The greek coast-guard and the European border agency Frontex are even more obviously present than last year. The ship of the Rumanian coast guard (a lot of people might know it from last years Noborder-activities) looks small and almost friendly besides the more than double-sized grey vessel, named “Arago” from France. The “Arago” participated already in September 2008 in the Frontex-Mission Nautilus between Lampedusa and Malta. Even too big to be placed in the closed part of the port, it has to be parked in front of the Blue Sea Hotel. Sometimes it is also “hiding” near Petra on Lesvos’ north coast, the main arrival coast of the last years. In the main port in Mitilini the coast-guard is again present and the small hunting-speed-boats that had shown their manoeuvring in the harbours action last August as well.
On Monday, 12 of April the refugees detained in Samos Detention Center came on a hunger strike in which participate the great majority (126 hunger strikers in 150 detainees). The reason was the two massive transportations happened in 21 of March and 9 of April (60 refugees transferred in the northern greek borders each time). They react because they are afraid that they will be the next that will be transferred in the northern greek borders in order to be deported, despite the fact that the massive deportations are illegal and consist clear violation of human rights.
The most of them are Palestinians and they gave us a text in which they announce that it’s better for them to commit suicide than to be deported. They insist on their right to be released with formal papers and tickets and not to go through any kind of violence. According to their denounce, they have been violated to sign papers in an unknown language without any translator. Also, no one has informed them about their rights. Furthermore, the police change their nationalities in order to deport them, and because they cannot proof their nationalities and their problems, so there is no any concrete asylum procedure because in reality.
They also denounce us that on Tuesday, 13 of April in the morning there happened a violent incident. The police-guards beat a refugee and then they send him in the Samos’ hospital.
The Group for the Human Rights – Solidarity to Refugees tried from the beginning to go near the refugees, to discuss their problems and to hear their demands. On Tuesday, 13 of April ten members of our group went in the detention center to have a contact with the refugees. Suddenly the police commander denied our entrance because “there is no need any more” according to their words. We stayed outside the camp trying to communicate with the refugees from outside the fence. The police terrorized us, trying to keep us away. The police accused us that the revolt is our blame and they asked our identities.
We are sure that both the increased deportations and the denial of the access to the group is the result of the tough migration policy and of the permanent and improved role of FRONTEX on the island. We know that FRONTEX works 24 hours per day in the airport.
Solidarity to the refugees’ struggle. We demand the acceptance of their demands. Deport FRONTEX!
14 April 2010
Group for the Human Rights-Solidarity to Refugees
Samos
On April 12, 2010, 126 migrants detained in the samos detention camp started a collective hunger strike. Their demands are
- Freedom, immediate release with the “white paper” (allowing them to travel within Greece for thirty days)
- An end to the transfers to detention centres close to the greek-turkish land border in the north, where numerous illegal deportation to Turkey are taking place. Such transfers happen between two and three times a month in Samos, the last one happened on April 9, when 40 migrants were taken.
- Transparency about the work of so-called translators in the camp. As it turns out, these often are officiers employed by Frontex, who offer their translation services, but abuse the trust of the refugees and use the access to the refugees to determine their identity and prepare their deportation. There is a particular problem with the Frontex officers who in the process of identification often change the country of origin of the migrants on paper.
In the last days, as many as 14 Frontex officers were in the detention centre. There is also talk about migrants being beaten up, some cell phones were taken, while the phones in the camp also don’t work, making it hard to communicate with the hunger strikers. No laywers seem to be present at the time.
While everybody is waiting for the new asylum law announced to be passed around May 2010, the new season has begun! Almost every day refugees arrive on the island: 11 today (within them a pregnant woman/ 9th month!), 14 yesterday, 30 the day before, depending always on the weather conditions. The new screening center in Outza is under construction despite protests by neighbouring businesses. New arriving refugees are currently being brought to Pagani for one or two days, issued a white paper and released to go to Athens. Probably some are still transferred to Chios island. The doors of Pagani are widely open. No police presence, only food is being brought there. The facilities of the detention center have not changed at all. There is no stuff working there. 
At the same time Frontex is preparing the official opening of their operational office in Piraeus. Officers are already working in the detention centers of Samos and Chios, with additional presence on other islands such as Kos and Rhodes. Within the next two months German officers are expected to arrive in Greece with two helicopters strengthening the Frontex force. Also the Greek coast guard of Mytilini expects enforcement and additional stuff for the coming summer.
Our faithfull source in Greece just told us a story about going with the ferry trip from Mytilini ( over Xios ) to Athens.
Last night I travelled by ship from Mytilene to Athens. That gave me the opportunity to observe a transfer from Pagani to Xios. On board there were around 50 people that the police was bringing from Pagani to the prison in Xios. The police gathered them outside on deck, guarded by about four or five police men. As I tried to approach them the police told me that I am not allowed to do so. After a short discussion I could at least talk to one man from Somalia. He told me that the police didn´t take their fingerprints until now and that he doesn´t know where the police will bring them. I told them that I think that they will bring them to the prison in Xios.
When we arrived in Xios the police brought the people down to the exit. They tried to hold them all together but they were not separated from the other people. One police man was quite nervous as if he was fearing something would happen. Next to the ship there was a turistic bus waiting for the people.
When I returned inside the ship in order to go to Athens, I met a group of people that I already met in Pagani. Most of them were Afghan families with little children. Two of them told me that the police wrote a higher age on their paper than they are , if they are obviously under-age. Like that, they lost the special protection their are supposed to retrieve as under-age refuges.
First time I these people was on Sunday. Probably they have been taken to Xios on Monday. Now the police gave them the deportation decision and let them free. That means that they stayed about two nights in Pagani and another two nights in Xios. In between they have been transferred from one island to another. In a very short time the families were bothered a lot. First by keeping them in Pagani which is in an even worse status after the revolts. Then by bringing them to another prison. For sure it is more expensive to transfer them with police and pay them first one ticket to Xios and then another one to Athens. For sure I could imagine a lot of things better to invest that money
.
Athens, 25th of October 2009 | Reflections on Lesvos two months after Noborder:
Hello, my name is Milad. I am 17 years old. I was for 23 days imprisoned in Pagani in Mitilini and first I want to define how was the situation inside this prison and how was the behaviour of police and doctors with us.
Some guys were sick for weeks, they were calling for a doctor, but nobody was ready to listen to our voices. There was no treatment for sick persons and the drinking water had a bad smell. If we asked for a doctor, for clean water or anything, mostly nobody was even listening.
They also did not have a good behaviour to the families with the small kids. One day I saw the kids had their ten minutes time to go out. They were playing football and one policeman was beating a small kid, he was about 8 years old, his mother was crying.
Continue reading ‘“We really didn’t feel like refugees!”’
News from the “Open Centre” in Pagani:
Today 60 people were n Pagani, all together in one cell. The cells are still open but the atmosphere does not seem very open. The people were transported today at 6:00 pm to the detention centre in Xios, of course accompanied by the police. The refugees have now arrived in Xios. Obviously the end of pagani is only the begnnng. As it seems now the plans are pointing in the direction of a new detention centre will be opening n Lesvos in the one or two years. Until then, Pagani will be used as a open transit centre.
There is only one thing left to say:
- No Detention Centre! Not n Pagani, not in Xios and nowhere!!!
Local newspapers in Mytilini about the situation with pagani:
Yesterday a delegation went to pagani to estimate the demages in the prison complex. it says they will open Pagani again in two month. The question is if it will be a detention or a open centre.
Our demands.
- Pagani has to stay closed, no more centre in Pagani!!
- open centre in Mytilini!
- papers for everyone
Voices from the Inside of Pagani (2009)
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