Crimes of the State

The policies of the present Greek coalition government are reminiscent of what was happening in Weimar Germany in the 1930s, policies that contributed to the rise of fascism and the consequences that we all know of.

Minister for Law and Order, Mr Dendias, established the Xenios Zeus operation where under the name of 'hospitality' (the irony of this is staggering), thousands of people of colour are arrested, beaten and terrorised and taken to detention centres that have been condemned by human rights organisations throughout the world, but are called 'hospitality centres' in the warped rhetoric of this repressive government. In the name of this 'hospitality law' aimed at 'clearing' the country of illegal immigrants, even tourists are arrested and in some cases, beaten, because the colour of their skin is not white.

'Greece's failure to respect the rights of migrants and asylum-seekers is taking on the proportions of a humanitarian crisis... Greece is proving itself incapable of providing even the most basic requirements of safety and shelter to the thousands of asylum seekers and migrants arriving each year', said John Dalhuisen from Amnesty International in 2012.

There are now at least 5,000 people languishing in these internment camps which are being used for anyone who is 'different' as this policy has now been extended: the Greek government has just announced that the camp capacity is about to double.  The next victims were the drug users and now, it is the turn of transgender men and women who have been warned  to 'return to normal' , or else.....

The new Minister of Public Health's first 'achievement' is the re-establishing of a law that was scrapped earlier this year, law 39a/2012, which under the aegis of defending public health, states that anyone who is suspected of having the HIV virus can be arrested, tested without their permission and put under forced quarantine. The targets of this barbaric law are obvious: immigrants, gays, sex workers and anyone who is deemed to be 'different'. It is not unreasonable or far-fetched to compare what is happening in Greece at the moment with dictatorships where people are thrown in prisons or put in psychiatric hospitals for any kind of reason that the authorities deemed reasonable - sexual preference for instance.

Hundreds of sex workers were arrested last May in the name of this law that was condemned by the EU, repealed and has just been re-introduced. When dozens tested positive, the attack was swift and vindictive: photographs and the names of those who tested positive were posted online by the police. They were then charged with causing bodily harm and locked in jail. Some websites posted the photographs of the women and within days vigilante mobs assembled outside the homes of the women's families shouting abuse. 26 of the women who were arrested remain in jail. They insist that they did not know they were HIV positive but no one is listening and no one cares.

The list of people who are being targeted keeps growing:

The beating in police cells of four young anarchists who were suspected of robbing a bank in the North of Greece hit the headlines in February. Despite the fact that the photographs were digitally altered by the police, the suspects' injuries were clearly visible. When The Guardian published the photographs, Public Order Minister Mr Dendias threatened to sue the newspaper.

In December 2010, 29-year-old anarchist Kostas Sakkas was arrested in Athens and was held in prison without a trial. On 4 June 2013 he went on  hunger strike, demanding an end to his detention. According to Greek law, pre-trial detentions can extend to 18 months, or 30 in exceptional circumstances. On 4 June, having already reached his legal maximum time in pre-trial detention, it was extended by another six months by an Athens court of appeal. While clearly stating his own anarchist convictions, both Sakkas and the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire group have denied his active participation. But whether Sakkas was indeed a member or not, is no longer the issue. As is becoming altogether too common in these cases of a breach of legality, the government has not attempted to defend its actions, but has instead lashed out against Syriza, the Left opposition party,  for defending 'any sort of accused who are charged with anarchy and terrorism'. 

Sakkas was released on the 38th day of his hunger strike: a bail of 30,000 euros, a ban on meeting or communicating with his fellow defendants, confiscation of his passport and I.D. and compulsory residence at his parent's house were the terms of his release.

The irony of the whole situation should not escape us: here is a young anarchist who was making the simple demand that a law-breaking State should obey and uphold the law: he was making this demand by putting his life in danger.

Such stories of police violence, governmental injustice, intrusion into citizens' lives and a total rupture between state and society is not occurring in Greece alone: neo-liberalism has resulted in the rise of a corrupt, self-aggrandizing political class that does not care about anything but its own interests, resulting in austerity policies, impoverishment of large sections of society and the rise of a repressive state that will not tolerate any form of opposition or dialogue.  Unlike any other country in Europe however, the government in Greece is turning the clock back at such rapid pace that we are indeed nearing the state of the Weimar Republic in the 1930s.




For more on Xenios Zeus go to:http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2013/01/the-starkness-of-streets.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2013/02/the-terrorism-of-law-and-order.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2012/08/these-racist-attacks-must-stop-now.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2012/08/shame.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2012/08/abdhullah-a.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2013/01/the-ugly-face-of-racism.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2012/10/hypocrite.html


Sources:

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_09/07/2013_508395
http://act.watchdog.net/petitions/3322?share_ref=CO7pX-NO0hA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/04/greece-kostas-sakkas-hunger-strike?INTCMP=SRCH

Greece's Guantanamo?

An uprising broke out in the Amygdaleza detention centre outside Athens on Saturday night. Greece has become a point of entry for immigrants and asylum seekers, mainly from Asia and Africa, who seek a better life in Europe, and who end up in detention centres instead: 1620 are held at Amagdaleza.

Just over a year ago Operation Xenios Zeus was put in place aimed at arresting and detaining illegal immigrants of mainly Asian and African origin who are transported to make-shift detention centres and kept there in appalling conditions. The number of those detained has grown to 5,000, with Dendias, the Minister for Public Order, recently announcing that camp capacity is to double.

The conditions in the camps are dreadful and are routinely condemned by international human rights agencies, but little changes. There was no soap for a month and a half in Amygdaleza according to Syriza MP Vasiliki Katrivanou and in some cases the detainees are kept in cells that have no daylight. Over 300 cases of scabies have been treated in the past few months. Inmates with tuberculosis, diabetes and kidney infections are also held there with little access to healthcare. A lot have started experiencing severe psychiatric problems and there are quite a lot of suicide attempts. There were three reported suicide attempts in Amygdaleza recently, where inmates broke windows and attempted to slit their throats with the shards of glass. A number of detainees went on hunger strike last month, demanding their release.








The windows of the old army barracks that is now the detention centre have bars while other detainees are held in shipping containers. Following the hunger strike, ten representatives from various humanitarian groups were allowed to go inside the camp. They issued the following statement: '...detention conditions remain appalling... overcrowding, minimal hygiene, inadequate or no courtyard, inadequate or no medical care, cases of police brutality. Thousands of people are herded into the cells of the detention centre without any concern for their welfare, without even any rights as prisoners'.

There are 45 boys kept in the detention centre for minors in Amygdaleza. There is no daylight in their cells so they mainly live under artificial light. When asked, they say they don't know why they are there.

On Saturday night, having discovered that they were now to be held for 18 months rather than the original 12 under which they were initially detained, the detainees had had enough! They refused to return to their sleeping quarters and set fire to their mattresses. According to one report electricity at the camp had been cut off a number of days previously. Sotiris Douros, the mayor of the region, told the media he regarded the rebellion as inevitable and noted that the municipal government had long warned about the risk of such an event. He described conditions at the camp as unbearable.





This video, following a visit of Green MEPs on 30 November 2012 in Amygdaleza, says it all.

Unfortunately, Greece is not the only European country exhibiting such racist, inhumane behaviour. The government in Switzerland just passed a law which segregates immigrant groups from public spaces and which will also relegate them to detention camps. New rules mean that people can no longer seek asylum for being conscientious objectors or deserting foreign militaries. Local authorities are introducing restrictions on asylum seekers, with the establishment of exclusion zones in public spaces which they cannot enter - these include swimming pools, libraries and churches. They are to be put in detention centres which will be guarded by the police and where they are subjected to a curfew which forbids them to leave the premises after 17:00.

Racism is rearing its ugly head all over Europe making life for people of colour intolerable.



Sources:

Kathimerini
The Guardian
The Independent

What is it you don't want us to forget?

This is our fourth full day in Greece and I have already started having this feeling of living in a parallel universe, a feeling that fills me with dread, and a heaviness that permeates my very being. I fear for what is in store, I fear for the country and its people, and I fear for the future of Europe and the world. And I ask myself the same old question: 'where is this going? What will it lead to?' And the possible scenario(s)  frighten me.




I am furthermore gobsmacked by the empty rhetoric and the hypocrisy of politicians. One of the headlines in yesterday's Kathimerini: 'Greek President Karolos Papoulias stressed the importance of remembering Nazi war crimes during a visit to the site of Auschwitz'. Mr Papoulias made the following statement: 'I am here to pay my respects to the thousands of victims of Nazi atrocities, including thousands of my fellow citizens.... It is the duty of us all to ensure our memories of the tragic historic fact of Nazi barbarism do not become rusty'.

What is wrong with that? you may ask. What is wrong is that the policies of this present Greek government are reminiscent of what was happening in Weimar Germany in the 1930s, policies that contributed to the rise of fascism and the consequences that we all know of. I have written at length about this in earlier posts, and you will find the links at the end of this post, but an update is necessary.

The present government's Minister for Law and Order, Mr Dendias, established the Xenios Zeus operation where under the name of 'hospitality' (the irony of this is staggering), thousands of people of colour are arrested, beaten and terrorised and taken to detention centres that have been condemned by human rights organisations throughout the world, but are called 'hospitality centres' in the warped rhetoric of this repressive government. In the name of this 'hospitality law' aimed at 'clearing' the country of illegal immigrants, even tourists are arrested and in some cases, beaten, because the colour of their skin is not white.

'Greece's failure to respect the rights of migrants and asylum-seekers is taking on the proportions of a humanitarian crisis... Greece is proving itself incapable of providing even the most basic requirements of safety and shelter to the thousands of asylum seekers and migrants arriving each year', said John Dalhuisen from Amnesty International in 2012.

There are now at least 5,000 people languishing in these internment camps which are being used for anyone who is 'different' as this policy has now been extended: the Greek government has just announced that the camp capacity is about to double.  The next victims were the drug users and now, it is the turn of transgender men and women who have been warned  to 'return to normal' , or else.....

Pastor Niemoller's 'First they Came' poem could not be more appropriate.  I just read in the paper that new Minister of Public Health's first 'achievement' is the re-establishing of a law that was scrapped earlier this year, law 39a/2012, which under the aegis of defending public health, states that anyone who is suspected of having the HIV virus can be arrested, tested without their permission and put under forced quarantine. The targets of this barbaric law are obvious: immigrants, gays, sex workers and anyone who is deemed to be 'different'. It is not unreasonable or far-fetched to compare what is happening in Greece at the moment with dictatorships where people are thrown in prisons or put in psychiatric hospitals for any kind of reason that the authorities deemed reasonable - sexual preference for instance.

Hundreds of sex workers were arrested last May in the name of this law that was condemned by the EU, repealed and has just been re-introduced. When dozens tested positive, the attack was swift and vindictive: photographs and the names of those who tested positive were posted online by the police. They were then charged with causing bodily harm and locked in jail. Some websites posted the photographs of the women and within days vigilante mobs assembled outside the homes of the women's families shouting abuse. 26 of the women who were arrested remain in jail. They insist that they did not know they were HIV positive but no one is listening and no one cares.

Meanwhile, Mr Papoulias, the President,  tells us that we must not forget what happened during the Holocaust.

The list of people who are being targeted keeps growing:






The beating in police cells of four young anarchists who were suspected of robbing a bank in the North of Greece hit the headlines in February. Despite the fact that the photographs were digitally altered by the police, the suspects' injuries were clearly visible. When The Guardian published the photographs, Public Order Minister Mr Dendias threatened to sue the newspaper.

In December 2010, 29-year-old anarchist Kostas Sakkas was arrested in Athens and has been held in prison without a trial since. On 4 June 2013 he went on  hunger strike, demanding an end to his detention. According to Greek law, pre-trial detentions can extend to 18 months, or 30 in exceptional circumstances. On 4 June, having already reached his legal maximum time in pre-trial detention, it was extended by another six months by an Athens court of appeal. While clearly stating his own anarchist convictions, both Sakkas and the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire group have denied his active participation. But whether Sakkas was indeed a member or not, is no longer the issue. As is becoming altogether too common in these cases of a breach of legality, the government has not attempted to defend its actions, but has instead lashed out against Syriza, the Left opposition party,  for defending 'any sort of accused who are charged with anarchy and terrorism'.

The irony of the whole situation should not escape us: here is a young anarchist who is making the simple demand that a law-breaking State should obey and uphold the law: he is making this demand by putting his life in danger.

Sakkas is on the 38th day of his hunger strike and the doctor who is looking after him has stated that 'his condition is critical'.

Such stories of police violence, governmental injustice, intrusion into citizens' lives and a total rupture between state and society is not occurring in Greece alone: neo-liberalism has resulted in the rise of a corrupt, self-aggrandizing political class that does not care about anything but its own interests, resulting in austerity policies, impoverishment of large sections of society and the rise of a repressive state that will not tolerate any form of opposition or dialogue.  Unlike any other country in Europe however, the government in Greece is turning the clock back at such rapid pace that we are indeed nearing the state of the Weimar Republic in the 1930s.

What exactly is it that you do not want us to forget, Mr Papoulias? The abuse of human rights? The use of the courts to further the interests of the few? The suppression of any dissent? The incarceration of people who are 'different'? The setting up of camps to detain people that your government does not deem to be desirable?


P.S. A few hours after I posted this, Kostas Sakkas was released: a bail of 30,000 euros, a ban on meeting or communicating with his fellow defendants, confiscation of his passport and I.D., compulsory residence at his parent's house.





For more on Xenios Zeus go to:

http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2013/01/the-starkness-of-streets.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2013/02/the-terrorism-of-law-and-order.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2012/08/these-racist-attacks-must-stop-now.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2012/08/shame.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2012/08/abdhullah-a.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2013/01/the-ugly-face-of-racism.html
http://a-place-called-space.blogspot.gr/2012/10/hypocrite.html


Sources:

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_09/07/2013_508395
http://act.watchdog.net/petitions/3322?share_ref=CO7pX-NO0hA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/04/greece-kostas-sakkas-hunger-strike?INTCMP=SRCH





For more information on Greece and lots more on current affairs, go to: http://99getsmart.com/