It is Thursday, the 4th of March 2010, and Alfa Abudhakar, a migrant from Senegal, has just left his flat in Kypseli with some friends and is walking towards Amerikis Square. Their plan is to go to Ermou street and make some money selling small things from an offhand stall on the pavement. Alfa has been in Athens for five days, after spending time in the detention center on Samos island. Suddenly he finds himself amidst a police raid.
Athens, 15 June 2011 – Inhumane living conditions in migrants’ detention facilities in the Evros region of Greece are causing major health concerns for detainees according to a new report published today by the international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières MSF (Doctors Without Borders).
http://www.zcommunications.org/support-the-striking-migrant-workers-of-greece-by-many-authors
Yesterday, January 25, three hundred (300) migrants who work in Greece without papers or any civil rights began what is perhaps the largest hunger strike in Greek history.
The strikers are asking for the “legalization of all migrant men and women,” and for “the same political and social rights and obligations as Greek workers.
http://w2eu.net/2011/01/25/legalisation-equal-rights-now/
Declaration of solidarity with the hunger strikers in Greece – Legalisation and equal rights now – Call for a week of action!
The 25th of January is the day on which 300 migrants in Greece started a hunger strike. Their demand is a collective legalisation of all the people excluded from Greek society based on their status – be it asylum seekers, not recognised refugees, illegalised people, exploited migrant labourers.
Statement of Solidarity from Afrique-Europe-Interact to the Hungerstrike of Refugees and Migrants in Greece
Bamako, 25th of January 2010
To the assembly of migrant hunger strikers
Today, simultanously with your struggle for legalisation in Greece we start a protest-caravan for freedom of movement and fair development in Westafrica.
Why, amidst the crisis, we insist to talk about immigrants
The obvious
In the name of human dignity, we are always on the side of the oppressed, never on the side of the bosses
The not-so-obvious truth
Before the crisis, society could only gain from its solidarity to immigrants and refugees. Now, if it doesn’t show solidarity, it has a lot to lose.
http://w2eu.info/dublin2.en/articles/dublin2.echr.en.html
The European Court of Human Rights decided in one single case on Friday, 21st of January 2011, that Greece is violating the human rights of a refugee by detaining him under inhuman conditions and leaving him homeless. It also judged that Belgium violated human rights by deporting him there (see: http://w2eu.
Germany stopped deportations to Greece on 19th of January 2011. Until
January 2012 all asylum claims of refugees who have been first
fingerprinted in Greece will be examined in Germany. German authorities
tried to prevent to loose a case in front of the constitutional court.
More information will follow soon!
source: http://w2eu.info/germany.en/articles/germany-dublin2.en.
Some of the hunger strikers in Thessaloniki
We are migrant men and women from all over Greece. We came here due to poverty, unemployment, wars and dictatorships. The multinational companies and their political servants did not leave another choice for us than risking 10 times our lives to arrive in Europe’s door. The West that is depriving our countries while having much better living conditions is our only chance to live as humans.
We inform you that from the 22nd of November 2010, the provisions of the no.114 Presidential Decree were put in place. 4
According to this new legislative provision, the asylum seekers who have received a negative answer on their demand for political asylum (no.81 Presidential Decree, 30/06/2009) will have the right to make an appeal in order to have their demands reexamined.
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