Some last week's news from Greece.

Evros fence to be built, detentions centers announced

Citizen’s protection minister Christos Papoutsis announced the government’s decision to set up detention centres for migrants and released the plans of the fence that will finally be built in the Evros region. The announced detention camps and screening centers are:

1. Laconia, sparta = detention camp
2. Chios, Mersinidi= detention camp
3. Samos, Vathy = screening center
4. Amygdaleza, Attica = screening center for minors
5. Εlliniko, Attica the old jails = detention camp
6. Elliniko, Attica the new jails = screening center
7. Petrou Ralli Police Station, Aliens Bureau (Attica) = detention camp
8. Aspropyrgos, Attica = detention camp
9. Vena, Rhodopi = detention camp
10. Fylakio, Evros = detention camp + in prefabricated houses in an adjacent public land= screening center
11. Prefecture of Thesprotia (Igoumenitsa, Sayada, Filiates, Syvota, Paramythia,Margariti, Acherontas) = taking into consideration 3 proposals for the construction of a detention camp outside the city of Igoumenitsa
12. Aitolakarnania, Stanos – in Psarogiannis’ military camp = detention camp
13. Evros, Karoti, former military camp Filiridi = detention camp
14. Orestiada, Evros = Taking into consideration the proposal for the construction of a multi-dynamic centre (asylum service, screening center, Frontex Administration, Orestiada’s Police Department, Orestiada’s Fire Brigade)
15. Citizen’s protection minister Christos Papoutsis announced the government’s decision to set up detention centres for migrants and released the plans of the fence that will finally be built in the Evros region. The announced detention camps and screening centers are:
    
    1. Laconia, sparta = detention camp
    2. Chios, Mersinidi= detention camp
    3. Samos, Vathy = screening center
    4. Amygdaleza, Attica = screening center for minors
    5. Εlliniko, Attica the old jails = detention camp
    6. Elliniko, Attica the new jails = screening center
    7. Petrou Ralli Police Station, Aliens Bureau (Attica) = detention camp
    8. Aspropyrgos, Attica = detention camp
    9. Vena, Rhodopi = detention camp
    10. Fylakio, Evros = detention camp + in prefabricated houses in an adjacent public land= screening center
    11. Prefecture of Thesprotia (Igoumenitsa, Sayada, Filiates, Syvota, Paramythia,Margariti, Acherontas) = taking into consideration 3 proposals for the construction of a detention camp outside the city of Igoumenitsa
    12. Aitolakarnania, Stanos – in Psarogiannis’ military camp = detention camp
    13. Evros, Karoti, former military camp Filiridi = detention camp
    14. Orestiada, Evros = Taking into consideration the proposal for the construction of a multi-dynamic centre (asylum service, screening center, Frontex Administration, Orestiada’s Police Department, Orestiada’s Fire Brigade) Citizen’s protection minister Christos Papoutsis announced the government’s decision to set up detention centres for migrants and released the plans of the fence that will finally be built in the Evros region. The announced detention camps and screening centers are:
        
        1. Laconia, sparta = detention camp
        2. Chios, Mersinidi= detention camp
        3. Samos, Vathy = screening center
        4. Amygdaleza, Attica = screening center for minors
        5. Εlliniko, Attica the old jails = detention camp
        6. Elliniko, Attica the new jails = screening center
        7. Petrou Ralli Police Station, Aliens Bureau (Attica) = detention camp
        8. Aspropyrgos, Attica = detention camp
        9. Vena, Rhodopi = detention camp
        10. Fylakio, Evros = detention camp + in prefabricated houses in an adjacent public land= screening center
        11. Prefecture of Thesprotia (Igoumenitsa, Sayada, Filiates, Syvota, Paramythia,Margariti, Acherontas) = taking into consideration 3 proposals for the construction of a detention camp outside the city of Igoumenitsa
        12. Aitolakarnania, Stanos – in Psarogiannis’ military camp = detention camp
        13. Evros, Karoti, former military camp Filiridi = detention camp
        
        14. Orestiada, Evros = Taking into consideration the proposal for the construction of a multi-dynamic centre (asylum service, screening center, Frontex Administration, Orestiada’s Police Department, Orestiada’s Fire Brigade)

Greek ‘left’ composer proposes immigrants to be transfered to uninhabited islands

‘Athens cannot become the dumping ground for all these people,’ Dionysis Savvopoulos told City Hall’s radio station

Comments by the respected composer Dionysis Savvopoulos, according to which undocumented immigrants living in central Athens, should be sent to sparsely-inhabited Aegean islands for farm work under the aegis of the United Nations refugee agency, caused a stir on Thursday.
Speaking to Athens City Hall municipal radio station, 984, Savvopoulos said on Wednesday that the problems being caused by a burgeoning population of illegal immigrants in the city’s historic center were overwhelming and called on authorities to declare a state of emergency and remove all migrants from the area.
“Athens cannot become the dumping ground for all these people,” Savvopoulos said, noting that the capital should bar access to any new migrants until the European Union drafts a more effective policy for the repatriation of economic migrants.
Responding to objections by journalist Angelos Tsekeris that exiling immigrants to rocky islets might not be the ideal solution to the city’s problems, Savvopoulos remarked, “it is time to decide whether to live or die.”
The composer also drew attention to the scourge of drug dealing and suggested that all derelict buildings currently being occupied by drug addicts be evacuated and renovated.
The drug addicts can be transferred to areas where drug dealers cannot easily find them, he added

Evros: Border guards unhurt in shooting

Four Greek border guards and two German commandos dispatched to the Greek-Turkish frontier by Frontex, the European Union’s border monitoring agency, emerged unscathed on Friday after four suspected Turkish people smugglers opened fire on them with hunting rifles.
The smugglers had been preparing to disembark a group of nearly 100 would-be migrants onto an islet in the River Evros, which forms part of Greece’s land border with Turkey, when they spotted two police patrol vehicles on the Greek side of the border.
The suspects fired their guns in the air first, presumably as a warning for the Greek-German contingent to retreat. Seeing no reaction, the smugglers started firing at the two vehicles which were a few hundred meters away.
Neither the Greek border guards nor the Frontex officials returned fire but contacted the Turkish police by radio to inform them of the incident. Turkish authorities reacted quickly, arresting a group of 97 people including the suspected smugglers. The ethnic origin of the would-be migrants remained unclear.
Speaking to Kathimerini, the head of the Evros police officers’ union, Constantinos Hatzianagnostou, said yesterday that the number of illegal immigrants entering Greece via the Evros River has increased to more than 100 per day following a brief lull.
Earlier this week, Citizens’ Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis said that a European Union-subsidized project to build a fence along the Greek-Turkish border to keep out would-be migrants was moving forward. The minister also heralded the construction of several new migrant reception centers.

Two dead, child missing when dinghy carrying migrants turns over

A man and an eight year old child drowned while another child was missing in the sea off Nikopolis, Preveza, northwestern Greece on Wednesday, when a dinghy carrying 24 sans-papier migrants overturned in the water.
(18.05.2011)

Fascist pogroms in Athens, one migrant stabbed to death, 17 hospitalized

In the early hours of May 12th a 21-year old Bangladeshi migrant was stabbed to death in the Kato Patisia district of Athens. The victim was lethally stabbed almost certainly by fascist thugs who have launched a series of attacks in the centre of Athens following the murder of a Greek man on Tuesday night, on the corner of Ipirou and Tritis Septemvriou Street. Eye witnesses report that the murderers of the 21-year old man chased him around the neighbourhood and spoke Greek. On Wednesday night alone fascist thugs roamed  through a number of districts of central Athens, injuring many migrants, 17 of them were hospitalised..