Since 2015, a few thousand of the 65,000 asylum seekers in Greece have found refuge in vacated buildings across Athens. These accommodations are commonly referred to as squats, and they offer a dignified alternative to overcrowded reception centers and refugee camps located far from public services and support networks. But police are now rapidly evicting refugee squats to allegedly crackdown on drug dealers.

The raids started in April under the country’s previous left-wing Syriza government. But they’ve witnessed a sharp uptick under the conservative New Democracy Party that came to power in July with a vow to impose “law and order” in Exarchia. Law enforcement agencies have evicted eight refugee squats in four separate raids over the past month. In all, nearly 1,000 asylum seekers have been driven out in these raids. And unlike the previous government, which left refugees to migrate to new squats, New Democracy is hauling evicted refugees back to prison-like camps and detention centers.

“Squats are necessary because the state doesn’t have a place to put everyone.” ~A.Z. A Lebanese Migrant

To be sure, drug gangs have carved out space in the central square of Exarchia, much to the dismay of the neighborhood’s residents. But migrants and activists say that none of the dealers lived in the evicted squats, all of which had a strict no-drug policy. Instead, they say, the evictions are part of a wider policy to accelerate the asylum process and deport rejected asylum seekers. New Democracy has said it aims to return 10,000 people back to Turkey by 2020, five times the number that Syriza deported in four and a half years.

 A police officer on the premises of the old Athens airport, during the evacuation of a refugee camp. –SOURCE PANAYOTIS TZAMAROS/GETTY

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“The new government is pushing this myth about how bad the squats were and how great the camps are,” says Ioanna Manousakki-Adamopoulou, a Ph.D. candidate at the University College London, who has lived in and focused her research on the squats in Exarchia.

The truth, she adds, is that the squats evolved into self-sustainable communities that Greek leftists and anarchists embraced. In two abandoned schools that sheltered hundreds of asylum seekers, activists and charities built small playgrounds for children, cooked meals and offered language lessons in classrooms. In other squats, activists repaired amenities and helped enroll refugee children in schools.

By contrast, aid workers in September warned of a looming catastrophe in refugee camps on the Aegean Islands: Attempted suicide rates among children were soaring, while hundreds of people were forced to share a single toilet and shower. The overcapacity, say rights groups, was largely responsible for an inadvertent fire that erupted in Moria camp on the island of Lesbos in September, which left a woman and a child dead.

 A view of the Prosfygika complex. Wedged between the Supreme Court of Greece and the Athens police headquarters, this is hardly the place you imagine you’d find Greek and immigrant squatters. –SOURCE LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/GETTY

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Soon after the fire was put out, riots erupted in the camp, prompting the government to begin relocating thousands of people to mainland Greece.

Refugee advocates welcomed the move, yet many suspect that the camps around Athens will soon become unbearably overcrowded. Only a few of the 26 camps on the mainland are legally registered, meaning there’s little oversight of how authorities treat refugees. The camps also can’t shelter everyone, especially with thousands of asylum seekers arriving in Greece after fleeing Turkey’s crackdown on Syrian refugees in recent months. And in March, the Syriza government ended U.N. housing accommodation and cash assistance for recognized refugees, according to a statement by the U.N. Refugee Agency. “Squats are necessary because the state doesn’t have a place to put everyone,” says a Lebanese migrant who requested he be identified by his initials, A.Z.

An English speaker, A.Z. often helped translate between Arab refugees and Greek volunteers in Exarchia. He too had lived in one of the abandoned schools in the area, but he moved out before it was evicted on Sept. 19. Most inhabitants were women and children, many of whom were enrolled in local Greek schools.

 Refugee children chant in front of riot police during a protest of refugees living in squats and solidarity groups over the detention by police of five migrant children. –SOURCE LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/GETTY

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One Syrian refugee named Mohammad, who didn’t disclose his last name for fear of reprisal from authorities, notes that the police were less aggressive under the previous government. “I used to tell the police I was Syrian and they wouldn’t ask me for legal papers, but now they’re after us,” he tells me. He’s still in Exarchia, but fears he too will be moved to a camp soon. He already has harrowing memories of Chios island when he arrived in Greece in 2017. Unable to bear the stench of garbage, the police harassment and the sight of barbed wire around the camp, he paid a smuggler $650 to take him to Athens. He eventually came to Exarchia, where he found a community of Arab refugees and anarchists who became his close friends. Most of the squats in Exarchia are run by popular committees, which meet frequently to establish rules, sort out disputes and discuss housing needs. “If Greece didn’t have anarchists, it would be terrible,” says Mohammad.

Iyad Akram, a 25-year-old from Gaza, had stayed in one of the camps on the mainland when he arrived in Athens last July. He remembers the police shouting racist remarks, while migrants often fought in the camp. Fed up, Akram moved to Exarchia nine days later.

The squat where he and Mohammad were staying was evicted in the early morning on Oct. 17. Those found without legal papers were hauled to detention centers, while everybody else was taken to camps. Akram and Mohammad left the camp yesterday and are now sleeping in a garden in Athens. The hopes they carried with them to Greece are already in tatters.

“I hate the camps,” Akram tells me, as he smokes a cigarette. “I didn’t leave Gaza to end up there.”

Source: https://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/greeces-latest-war-on-refugees-clearing-squats-in-an-athens-anarchist-hub/97219/

The post Greece’s new war on refugees: Clearing squatters in Athens first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Just before Easter, police in Athens raided a building where a group of refugees had been sheltering, arrested several of them and sent the rest either to camps or out on to the streets. In retaliation, between 40 and 100 refugees, many of them Persian-speakers from Iran and Afghanistan with the correct documentation for claiming asylum, have organized a sit-in outside the Greek parliament.

The refugees had been staying in a squat in the central Athens neighborhood of Exarchia, home to the city’s anarchist movement. But since the police evicted them on April 18, they have nowhere to stay — and they have even lost what few belongings they had.

One man I spoke to couldn’t stop crying, his face furrowed and his words, spoken in a scratchy voice, difficult to understand through the tears. He told me about his son, who had literally been kicked out of his sleep when the Greek police raided the building and arrested him. He held up his finger and said: “This is not justice.”

Refugee camps in Greece are of two kinds — open and closed. Refugees in open camps are free to come and go and to receive visitors, but in the closed camps, they have to get permission to leave, and visitors are only allowed to speak to the refugees for a few minutes from across a fence.

The “squats” are usually empty buildings that groups of anarchists have taken over and made available to refugees. The refugees have no money, but agree to take part in the anarchists’ demonstrations in exchange for a place to shelter and sleep. The squat the police raided on April 18 was located on Bouboulinas Street in central Athens.

The Defeated “Caravan of Hope”

The first police raid on these buildings took place immediately after the “Caravan of Hope” movement failed in early April —a convoy of refugees who had tried to cross the border from Greece to Macedonia. The first night, the police forced people in two of the squats, one of which sheltered single women and mothers with children, to evacuate. More evacuations took place during the following nights.

After a few hours, refugees with papers that proved they had applied for asylum in Greece were released on to the streets without a shelter to go to. But undocumented refugees who had not been fingerprinted were taken to closed camps. They will be entitled to request asylum after a few months — but at that stage they will also be thrown out on the streets alongside fellow shelterless refugees.

Most of the refugees are Persian-speaking Iranians or Afghans. Since April 18, close to 100 of these refugees have been staging a sit-in in their tents in Syntagma Square outside the Greek parliament building.

I spoke to one refugee named Sajad. “We lived in the Clandestina squat for close to a year,” he told me. “At five o’clock in the morning the police savagely attacked our squat. Earlier, we had heard that two other squats had been evacuated as well. At dawn, the police, brandishing arms, entered the building and our rooms. It was very scary. We are in front of the parliament to ask why they did this to us when we are documented. When we went to other government bureaus and registered to find a home, they told us that the squats were a good place. We are [calling for] our rights and want them to give us a secure place to live.”

Work Permits but No Jobs

Elaheh, who has set up a tent with her family outside parliament, told me: “The police did not pay any attention to the fact that there were pregnant women, old women and children among us. They took all of us to the police station and when they found out that we had documents, they told us to go. The police did not even allow us to grab some clothing for the children. They sealed the squat. We all have Greek documents. All the families have children. But there are also families who do not have cash cards or have yet to be registered so that they will receive documents for their IDs. My husband and my child are ill, but they have done nothing about it. We even have work permits, but there are no jobs. We hope the Greek government can help us.”

After I visited the refugees outside the parliament building, I wanted to see how the refugees who had been transferred to a closed camp were doing. On April 18, police arrested about 15 of them and transferred them to the camp. The police agreed to take me there, bringing me to the camp’s entrance in a windowless van. At the first inspection point, I had to register with officials and hand over my documents. Then I had to wait for the police to search my belongings. Wherever I looked I saw fences and Conex shelters [a type of shipping container]. The authorities had put up fences around groups of 10 Conex shelters, like cages. The refugees were not allowed to leave and no visitors were allowed to enter.

Eventually I was able to talk with a group of detained Iranian refugees for 10 minutes. I shook their hands through the fence. They had no belongings and the camp had not provided them with anything. It was just them and the fences that surrounded them.

“It was 5am and we were asleep,” a woman in the camp named Hranush told me. “Suddenly the police attacked. Many people escaped through the back entrance. We stayed and told the police that we were all families with children, but they paid no attention. No matter how much we pleaded they would not let us take our personal things. Our documents were left behind as well. Then they sealed the building and we have no idea what is going to become of them.”

An Inhuman Situation

Now hundreds of refugees, most of them Persian speakers, are adrift on the streets of Athens. In contravention of its commitment to the European Union, the Greek government has failed to bring order to the lives of refugees in this country. Human rights organizations have repeatedly warned that the situation for refugees in Greece is inhuman, not only for those wandering the streets but also for those in the camps.

The refugees spend their days and nights in a state of anxiety, anguish and insecurity. Whatever facilities they have access to are unhygienic, and they suffer from poor nutrition. Many of them have suffered enough living without any roofs over their heads, but the recent spate of arrests has given rise to new panic, further proof of the Greek government’s failure to attend to the situation of refugees. “We came here to be secure, but our lot was insecurity,” several refugees told me.

In the summer of 2018, the European Union reached an agreement with Greece, Turkey and Italy that meant an increase to the budget for handling refugees. In exchange, these countries agreed to cooperate toward helping to slow the tide of refugees moving into northern and western Europe. They also agreed to reinstate the 2013 Dublin Regulation, which refuses refugees the right to choose the country in which they seek asylum. Instead, the regulation states that the person must apply for asylum in the first country he or she arrives in, and in which authorities officially register them. As a result, if an asylum seeker has registered in Greece and somehow manages to reach another EU country, he or she will be returned to Greece.

But the conditions in Greece for refugees, coupled with the government’s inefficiency in handling their affairs, have made them averse to remaining in the country. Men, women and children, young and old, who had all sought asylum in Greece to escape insecurity have now been turned to cast-offs with no clear future ahead of them.

While most media have described Greek authorities as hostile, or incompetent at best, when it comes to refugees, according to one report, some Athens city officials have shown concern about the situation. “You can’t throw families with small children into the street without having first considered what will happen to them,” said one, without giving his name.

The same official said the evicted refugees may be moved to the city’s only camp, Elaionas, provided there is enough space for them to be sheltered there.

Source: https://iranwire.com/en/features/5981

The post Hundreds of Iranian and Afghan Refugees Thrown out on the Streets of Athens first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

At least 74 people have been killed and 170 injured as the deadliest wildfires in Greece in more than a decade swept through seaside areas near Athens.

Two major forest fires started burning out of control on both sides of Athens on Monday, with Rafina to the city’s east, and the other at Kineta, to the west, being the hardest hit areas.

What we know so far:

• Many people attempting to escape the fires fled to nearby beaches to be evacuated by navy vessels, yachts and fishing boats.
• A number of people are believed to have died after having swum out to sea to avoid flames and smoke.
• The Red Cross reported finding 26 bodies huddled tightly together in the courtyard of a villa at the seaside resort.
• Four other fires were burning in other parts of the country, including near Corinth and on the island of Crete.
• Hundreds of firefighters are tackling the blazes.
• The fires had largely abated by Tuesday afternoon, but were not out.
• Hundreds of homes and cars have been destroyed.

Read more: The global heat wave that’s been killing us

Eye-witness accounts: Residents described how the ferocity of the rapidly spreading fires caught them off-guard and sent them running toward the sea.

“I saw the fire move down the hill at around 6:00 pm and five or ten minutes later it was in my garden,” said 60-year old Athanasia Oktapodi, whose home is surrounded by pine trees. “They caught fire. I ran out like a crazy person, got to the beach and put my head in the water. Then the patrol boats came.”

Another resident of the impacted area described that “everything happened in seconds.”

“I grabbed a beach towel. It saved my life. I soaked it, grabbed my wife and we ran to the sea,” said local resident Andreaas Passios. “It was unbelievable. Gas canisters were exploding, burning pine cones were flying everywhere.”

Death toll expected to rise: Emergency officials said that the death toll is expected to rise as crews continue to check burned-out cars and gutted homes. “The problem is what is still hidden under the ashes,” said Vice President of Emergency Services Miltiadis Mylonas.

Help on the way: The Greek government invoked European Union civil protection agreements to seek international help from its EU peers. Germany, Italy, Cyprus, Croatia and Spain have offered to send firefighters, planes and equipment. Brussels is coordinating the volunteer aid response. European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU “will spare no effort to help Greece and the Greek people.”

Fires set intentionally? Authorities have not ruled out that fires were started by someone intentionally. Fifteen fires had started simultaneously in three areas around Athens on Monday. “I am really concerned by the parallel outbreak of these fires,” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said.

Three days of national mourning: Tsipras, who cut short a trip to Bosnia and returned to Athens, has declared three days of national mourning in memory of those who perished in the wildfires. “The country is going through an unspeakable tragedy,” he said in a televised address.

Why are there so many more fires? Science suggests that over the past several decades, forest fires have indeed increased. Large forest fires in the western US have been occurring nearly five times more frequently than in the 1970s and 80s.

Fires are a common problem in Greece during the heat of the summer when temperatures can reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 Farenheit), and can cause major loss of life. Wildfires that broke out on the southern island of Evia in 2007 claimed 77 lives.

According to the European Environment Agency, fire risk depends on many factors, including climatic conditions, vegetation, forest management practices and other socio-economic factors.

The agency found that the annual area burnt in the Mediterranean region increased from 1980 to 2000 but has decreased since. In a warmer climate, more severe fire weather and, as a consequence, an expansion of the fire-prone area and longer fire seasons are projected across Europe. The impact of fire events is particularly strong in southern Europe.

Europe burning: The fires in Greece come as northern European countries also struggle with forest fires exacerbated by drought and unusually high summer temperatures. Sweden, Finland, Norway and Latvia are also fighting multiple blazes. Sweden’s civil protection agency MSB said on Monday there were 27 active fires across the country, and temperatures were expected to soar as high as 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) this week. Other EU countries have sent assistance to Sweden.

cw,rs,av/se (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/greece-many-killed-in-forest-fires-near-athens/a-44798629

The post Greece: Many killed in forest fires near Athens first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.