6.400 imigrants rounded up in athens in police pogrom to be deported

[Sasha]

6,400 migrants detained by police in largest ever pogrom operation in the centre of Athens
In the past few days, police have been conducting their largest ever pogrom operation in the centre of Athens. According to the released information, 1,500 people were detained by police in the first two days of the operation (August 2-3) and another 4,900 in its third day alone (August 4). The operation has been taking place in Athens and in Evros, at the NE border with Turkey. At least 1,630 people have been arrested and are facing deportation.
In an Orwellian twist, the racist pogrom operation has been named “Zeus Xenios” — the ancient god of travelers and hospitality.
The racist operation is continuing for a fourth day today (Sunday, Aug 5). It appears that today’ s operation is centred around Omonoia Square, Monastiraki, Mars’ Fields (Pedion tou Areos) and Vathis Square, all in central Athens. We are getting reports that police stop, search and detain*all migrants in their path, regardless of whether or not they carry documents.
http://blog.occupiedlondon.org/2012/08/05/6400-migrants-detained-by-police-in-largest-ever-pogrom-by-police-in-the-centre-of-athens/

[The Douche]

Is this the action of a syriza government, or have they not formed a government yet?

[ВАЛТЕР]

Is this the action of a syriza government, or have they not formed a government yet?

Wondering the same thing. Maybe some of our Greek posters could fill us in?

is the left organizing anything to try and prevent this from occurring?

[Sasha]

Is this the action of a syriza government, or have they not formed a government yet?

no no, in the end new democracy, pasok and democratic left made a pro-austerity coalition government already in june; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18515185

[Fight Social-Fascism]

SYRIZA = PASOK

They would be doing this just the same.

SYRIZA leader pledges return of neighbourhood policeman (http://www.phantis.com/news/syriza-leader-pledges-return-neighbourhood-policeman)

http://phantis.com.nyud.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/newspics_230x170/newspics/2012/06/12/20120612-083624_2012061101962_120383940.jpg

[Positivist]

Other reports on the same issue;

http://www.newser.com/article/da0fscbo2/greek-police-detain-6000-people-during-crackdown-on-illegal-immigrants-will-deport-1600.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2184455/Dealing-illegal-immigration-Greek-style-6-000-people-detained-ONE-weekend.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[Sasha]

SYRIZA = PASOK

They would be doing this just the same.

SYRIZA leader pledges return of neighbourhood policeman (http://www.phantis.com/news/syriza-leader-pledges-return-neighbourhood-policeman)

http://phantis.com.nyud.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/newspics_230x170/newspics/2012/06/12/20120612-083624_2012061101962_120383940.jpg

so would the KKE :rolleyes:

[Sasha]

pictures of whats going on; http://avpixlat.info/2012/08/04/operation-xenios-zeus-grekland-utvisar-narmare-tva-tusen-illegala/

thanx to l' enferme for sending me the link

[Fight Social-Fascism]

so would the KKE :rolleyes:

And you know that how?

[Sasha]

And you know that how?

http://libcom.org/library/without-you-not-single-cog-turns%E2%80%A6

[Fight Social-Fascism]

The government of social-democrats (PASOK) and liberals (ND) will proceed with the creation of concentration camps for immigrants, utilising EU funding. These camps will function with the aim of deporting destitute people, who as a result of imperialist wars and interventions and capitalist barbarity in their countries seek a better fate in the countries of the EU.

It is characteristic that they will have triple fencing three metres high according to NATO standards. The external guarding will be carried out by armed police staff and the internal by private security personnel. This will be supported by technical surveillance tools (CCTV).

In this way the coalition government of the two largest bourgeois parties claims that it will resolve on the one hand the issue of illegal immigrants and on the other it will create jobs, allegedly fighting against unemployment.

The Statement of the Press Office of the CC of the KKE is as follows:

“The intention of the coalition government PASOK-ND, with the agreement or toleration of the parties and regional prefects of capital, to create 30 concentration camps for immigrants in 10 of the country’s regions, starting with Neapoli Kozani, must meet the fierce resistance of the people. It is a part of the more general and merciless offensive against the rights of local and foreign workers and does not aim at relieving their explosive problems. Those who worship at the altar of capitalist profit, do not have either the ability or the desire to deal with crime, prostitution, drugs and the closure of small shops. The areas that will be “cleaned” of immigrants will be handed over to be exploited by big capital. They want to free themselves from the demonstrations and mobilizations of the people’s movement. The clean-up operations, the mass arrests and deportations of immigrants will be accompanied by the intensification of intimidation and repression, attacking the rights both of local and foreign workers.

http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2012/2012-03-29

Platform point 30 of SYRIZA:


30. Guarantee human rights in immigrant detention centres.

Big difference, eh?

[Fight Social-Fascism]

http://libcom.org/library/without-you-not-single-cog-turns%E2%80%A6

What does this have to do with immigration?

That the KKE doesn't like stupid anarchists and the police provocateurs who pretend to be anarchists screwing up their demonstrations is another matter entirely.

[agnixie]

screwing up their demonstrations is another matter entirely.

Standing guard in front of parliament is not a demonstration, it's class treason to defend the bourgeoisie.

[The Douche]

SYRIZA = PASOK

They would be doing this just the same.

SYRIZA leader pledges return of neighbourhood policeman (http://www.phantis.com/news/syriza-leader-pledges-return-neighbourhood-policeman)

http://phantis.com.nyud.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/newspics_230x170/newspics/2012/06/12/20120612-083624_2012061101962_120383940.jpg

SYRIZA does not "equal" PASOK, and while I don't support SYRIZA in any way, shape, or form (not even in any critical way, shape or form), it is dishonest to say something like that.

Oh, and by the way, your username is even douchier than mine. And I find it extremely offensive, especially to those brave communists who were murdered for being so called "social-fascists".

[cynicles]

SYRIZA does not "equal" PASOK, and while I don't support SYRIZA in any way, shape, or form (not even in any critical way, shape or form), it is dishonest to say something like that.

Oh, and by the way, your username is even douchier than mine. And I find it extremely offensive, especially to those brave communists who were murdered for being so called "social-fascists".

Don't bother, he's just gunna quote Stalin or Lenin call you a white supremacist based on nothing or a western radikkkal.

[Fight Social-Fascism]

Standing guard in front of parliament is not a demonstration, it's class treason to defend the bourgeoisie.



Even more dangerous and dirty is the slander that PAME protected the parliament from the protesters, an allegation reproduced by bourgeois and opportunist mass media - domestic and international ones. This dirty allegation seeks to portrait PAME as a support of the bourgeois system and the KKE as a “systemic force”, as a party of the bourgeois system. It emanates from those forces which praise the “spontaneous” movement and present it in opposition to the organized class-oriented workers’ movement. It is they who misleadingly identify the revolution and the people’s uprising with the burning of rubbish bins and the breaking of shop windows and not with the organized political struggle of the workers’ movement which has roots in the factories, in workplaces, in people’s neighbourhoods and will dispute the bourgeois power leading to a conflict with the imperialist organizations of NATO and the EU, to the establishment of people’s power. The KKE and PAME do not need any “credentials” for their militancy which the bourgeois media hand over to the hooded provocateurs, to the anarcho-fascist groups. Our history and activity has the appreciation of hundred of thousands of working people who take part in the people’s demonstrations, of millions of workers who appreciate the consistent, unwavering struggle of our party, the firmness of its goals for the overthrow of the capitalist barbarity and the militancy of its members and cadre in the places where they work and live. This slander that PAME allegedly “protected the bourgeois parliament from the rebels” has nothing to do with reality and moreover it seeks to conceal the truth, namely the fact that PAME managed, thanks to its strong vigilance, to defend the demonstration and prevent the plans for its dissolution.

As we say in Greece “lies have short legs”… On Friday morning hundreds of cadre and members of the KKE, numerous forces of the class-oriented movement visited many workplaces informing the working people and preparing new mobilizations. This mass political work among the people which will continue on a daily basis constitutes a decisive response to every kind of anarcho-fascist, to the police informers, to the bourgeois state, to the government and the parties of capital, the opportunist formations.

http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2011/2011-10-21-murderous-attack-info/

[agnixie]

The use of "anarcho-fascist" is adorable in its sectarian stupidity.

It's original, you're not quoting from Stalin for once.

[cynicles]

The use of "anarcho-fascist" is adorable in its sectarian stupidity.

It's original, you're not quoting from Stalin for once.

But atleast he's still quoting, because everyone knows that if something is in quotes it must be true!

[Delenda Carthago]

What does this have to do with immigration?

Nothing. He just mad cause he got his ass wooped by the big bad "stalinist" wolf.

[brigadista]

back to the subject :)

Isnt Nikos Dendias New Democracy?



http://greekleftreview.wordpress.com/

GREECE: 6,000 DETAINED DURING RAIDS ON IMMIGRANTS
Posted: August 7, 2012 | Author: SOZ | Filed under: Society | Tags: Immigration | Leave a comment »
BY NICHOLAS PAPHITIS 
ASSOCIATED PRESS



ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Authorities in Greece are rounding up thousands of suspected illegal immigrants in a large-scale deportation drive to combat what a government official compared to a prehistoric invasion.

Greece has long been Europe’s main entry point for illegal immigrants from Asia and Africa seeking a better life in the West. But Greece’s severe economic problems and high unemployment are making the problem worse than ever.

Police said Monday that 6,000 people were detained over the weekend in Athens in a massive operation incongruously named after the ancient Greek god of hospitality, Zeus Xenios.

Officers across the city were seen stopping mostly African and Asian people in the street for identification checks. Most were only briefly detained, but about 1,600 were arrested for illegally entering Greece and sent to holding centers pending deportation.

Left-wing opposition parties criticized the crackdown, while the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees voiced concern that migrants from war-torn countries and genuine asylum-seekers could be denied the right of protection.

Some 100,000 illegal immigrants are estimated to slip into Greece every year, mostly from neighboring Turkey, and up to a million are believed to live in Greece, which has an official population of about 10 million.

The uncontrolled influx, which coincided with a recent spike in crime, contributed to the sharp rise of an extreme-right political party which uses aggressive rhetoric against immigrants.

Once beyond the pale of Greek politics, the extreme right Golden Dawn gained nearly 7 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections six weeks ago. Mainstream parties also pledged to curtail immigrant flows.

Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias said Monday the rounding-up of illegal immigrants would continue, arguing that their unchecked entry has brought Greece “to the brink of collapse.”

“The country is being lost,” he told private Skai TV. “What is happening now is (Greece’s) greatest invasion ever. Since the Dorian invasion some 3,000 years ago, the country has never received such a flow of immigration.”

Ancient tradition linked the invasion of Greek-speaking Dorian tribes with the end of the heroic Mycenaean age, although historians believe that the Mycenaean palatial civilization was brought down by financial and social unrest.

Dendias said arrested immigrants will be temporarily held at police academy buildings in northern Greece, which are closed for the summer, and at a detention center outside Athens. He claimed that by the end of the year Greece will be able to detain up to 10,000 people.

“Whoever is arrested will be held and then deported,” he said.

The Greek office of the U.N. High Commission for refugees said that while Greece has the right to carry out checks on immigrants, it should ensure that vulnerable groups do not suffer. “People who truly need protection must be able to request it,” said Petros Mastakas, associate protection officer at the UNHCR office in Athens.

“It is very difficult, practically impossible, for asylum seekers to apply for protected status, and we are concerned that among those arrested there may be people who want protection but were unable to submit their requests because access to the relevant authorities is practically impossible,” he said.

[Delenda Carthago]

Wondering the same thing. Maybe some of our Greek posters could fill us in?

is the left organizing anything to try and prevent this from occurring?
The point is, is this just a greek left's problem?

[ВАЛТЕР]

The point is, is this just a greek left's problem?

This is a worldwide problem. Reactionaries always target immigrants. It's their standard procedure.

I meant have any groups tried to help hide the immigrants, or help them avoid detainment by police?

[Threetune]

so would the KKE :rolleyes:

You can prove that?

[A Marxist Historian]

http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2011/2011-10-21-murderous-attack-info/

This all of course is a diversion from the original thread, about the mass deportations of immigrants, carried out by ND and PASOK and the so-called "Democratic Left," and not by SYRIZA and most certainly not by the KKE.

But the fact remains that the KKE has, rhetorically at least, responded absolutely properly, whereas SYRIZA is muttering disgracefully about "humane conditions" in concentration camps. Now, what has the KKE done to fight these racist deportations?

Meanwhile, we have the disaster last fall at the parliament dragged out again. The KKE's attempt to defend its collaboration with the cops vs. the so-called "anarcho-fascists" falls pretty flat, but what is noteworthy is just how much revolutionary language they employ to cover their tracks. Not something that happens much lately with a mass working class party in Europe!

My impression is that the KKE was pushed by blowback from this incident, and probably internal questioning from KKE militants unhappy with allying with the cops, to take its current left turn.

Greek workers should tell the KKE to put its actions where its mouth is. This could help separate the sheep from the goats, the communist Greek workers who take the left wing language seriously from the opportunist blowhards.

It's time for Greek workers to move from the regular one-day general strikes every few months that the KKE and PAME have been holding for a few years now to something more serious. The anarchists trying to storm the parliament may not have been tactical geniuses, but at least they wanted to do something, not just march around the parliament and go home at the end of the day and watch the parliament pass austerity legislation on TV in the evening.

And voting for SYRIZA, a party calling for "humane conditions" in concentration camps, is totally insane.

I think voting for the KKE in recent elections, while criticizing the KKE's record, is very appropriate, for as long as the KKE is still taking this leftist line, verbally at least. Bt what does the KKE really have in mind other than running for office every year or so, hoping for their vote total to climb, and marching the troops out of the factories once per season for the one day general strike ritual, which only blows off steam and doesn't accomplish anything?

-M.H.-

[Delenda Carthago]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oAlQRZkcSh4/UCUVsKnL_6I/AAAAAAAAYfY/ihkkNzCDaeY/s1600/TSIPRAS+PERES.jpg

Tsipras today met up with Simon Perez. Nice puppy...:thumbup:

[ВАЛТЕР]

Video of the immigrants being escorted from the trains. This looks like something you would see from a WW2 documentary. :crying:

S_ucx7UHEDc

This was posted on the FB page I got the clip from:


9/8/12 Welcome to Auschwitz, Larisa, Greece - ''It might look like a scene from the Schindler's List but this is happening in Greece 2012.
Against all international laws, Greek police is gathering up -like livestock- immigrants as soon as they get off trains at Larisa station.
The mass media is backing up this disgraceful practice. According to the media "one out of four immigrants has no valid documents". Of course, that sounds very different than "three out of four immigrants DO have valid documents" which won't sell as good.
What they don't tell us is who brought all those immigrants and who took advantage of them all these years. Who had them working as slaves without medical insurance, sleeping like livestock in horrible conditions.
The irony behind all this is that the police operation is called 'Xenios Zeus'. Xenios Zeus was the god of hospitality.''

[Tim Cornelis]

You can't compare (or rather equate) this to Nazi deportation of minorities and political opponents by trains. First, they are not sent to death camps. Second, these trains are not stuffed so full that people literally suffocate and die.

[ВАЛТЕР]

You can't compare (or rather equate) this to Nazi deportation of minorities and political opponents by trains. First, they are not sent to death camps. Second, these trains are not stuffed so full that people literally suffocate and die.

I'm not comparing it, I just quoted what the FB page that posted it wrote.