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EnetEnglish.gr, 00:40 Thursday 12 June 2014
Migrants on hunger strike at Corinth detention centre
Detainees launch protest over indefinite detention
Incarcerated migrants start hunger strike at Corinth detention centre after being told they can be kept inside indefinitely
The entrance to the migrant detention camp at Corinth (File photo)
Migrants being held in one of the Greece’s largest detention camps have commenced a hunger strike in protest at a recent ministerial order that effectively allows the authorities to prolong their incarceration indefinitely.
The protest began on Monday at the detention centre in the city of Corinth, about an hour south of Athens. Local sources say the population of the camp, housed in a former military barracks, is 681 people. About 130 to 200 detainees are believed to be participating in the strike.
In a statement (see below) issued on the day they started refusing food, the protesters said: “With the systematic and open end detention the Greek government is massacring us. They are wasting our lives and killing our dreams and hopes inside the prisons. All of that while none of us has committed any crime. Most of us are have severe health problems: both physical and psychological. Specially those who stayed already more that 18 months are in a devastating state and desperately need support."
The detainees were picked up by police during the so-called Xenios Zeus sweep operation, launched in the summer of 2012. By June 2013 – the most recent period for which government statistics are available – police stopped and took to a police station almost 124,000 people of foreign origin. Only 6,910 – 5.6% – were found to be in Greece unlawfully. In some cases, that meant being unable to renew a work permit because of temporary unemployment. Many of those have spent months in detention for not having correct paperwork. They have not been charged with any crimes.
In an audio recording uploaded to YouTube by anti-racism group Keerfa, one of the protesters says detainees are being kept in deplorable conditions, suffer ill-treatment from police officers and guards and are being kept for more than 18 months in detention. The male voice says:
We say "good morning" and they [the police/guards] say "motherfucker, faggot"
We are human, too!
We don’t have clean food nor clean water here ... nothing
We are human, not sheep ....
It’s very difficult, we’ll continue this strike until we get out.
If you don’t let us free, we will die inside.
If we don’t have that, we will stay inside to die ...
At the root of the detainees’ protest is a decision, signed in February by former public order minister Nikos Dendias, empowering the authorities to prolong the detention of migrants indefinitely, beyond the 18-month limit set down in European Union directives, if they don't agree to their "voluntary departure" from Greece.
The decision, which has been supported by the State Legal Council, refers to migrants who are being detained pending deportation. If the deportation cannot take place because the individual objects, the new rules enable the authorities to continue to detain the individual concerned until he or she agrees to the deportation.
However, an Athens court recently ruled, in an appeal taken by an Afghan refugee, that the detention of more than 18 months is against national and European legislation and asked for it to be revoked.
Last month, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, the Greek Council for Refugees and Aitima, an NGO that works with refugees and asylum seekers, said that the decision and its consequences were a matter of "grave concern" and in clear violation of EU directives.
Detainees and human rights groups have repeatedly complained about conditions at the Corinth camp and other detention centres. In April 2013, a riot broke out after police reportedly beat up a detainee who had refused food to protest the extension of his detention. In another case, an Afghan man detained for 14 months in the Corinth camp said detainees were packed scores to a room and often beaten by police. In protest at the appalling conditions, he and others sowed their mouths together and went on hunger strike.
Statement from the detainees (source)
Many undocumented refugees were arrested by the Greek authorities more than a year and a half ago (August 2012). The massive controls and arrests were realised in a very racist and cruel way. People were brought in detention centres all around Greece. Without going into a lot of details about the bad situation that we, all these refugees, went through, our only fault was that we didn’t have a piece of paper.
When the detention centres were opened, the Greek government published a law where the maximum detention period of a refugee was 6 months. Then they increased the detention period to one year, then to 1.5 years and this is the maximum period that the Greek law allows today.
But then suddenly some weeks ago, they even increased the detention duration to open end periods! This step was a racist decision. It is injustice. The aim of this is only to stop us refugees from coming to Greece, us whom we left our countries due to our suffering. Now we are forced to suffer in Greece.
With the systematic and open end detention the Greek government is massacring us. They are wasting our lives and killing our dreams and hopes inside the prisons. All of that while none of us has committed any crime.
Most of us are have severe health problems: both physical and psychological. Specially those who stayed already more that 18 months are in a devastating state and desperately need support.
Today on 9 June 2014, we, people detained in the Corinth detention centre, started a hunger strike. We feel an immense pressure due to our unknown destinies. We protest against the illegal extension of the detention duration to more than 18 months!
* A protest in solidarity with the hunger strikes will take place in Corinth on Sunday 15 June at noon
