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The text companion to this week's #rbnews international show is now online. You can read it after the jump.
The human rights situation in
north-eastern Halkidiki, a region of northern Greece where tensions run high
between the government and ore mining company Hellas Gold on the one hand, and
local residents who oppose the development of the proposed ore mining project
on the other hand, further deteriorated
this week. The police continued detaining residents randomly and/or summoning
them to the regional police headquarters in Polygyros for deposition, allegedly
to investigate the arson attack on the mining site in the Skouries forest on 17
February. The total number of people detained and released exceeds 100 to date.
All detainees have been released without charges.
Residents and anti-mining activists
denounce the intimidation tactics used by the police, who detain people for
hours on end without charges, do not allow them access to lawyers and force
them to hand over DNA samples, with psychological but also physical pressure.
For example, an 18-year-old high school student reported that he was forced to
give a DNA sample under threat that he would not be released otherwise, with
hints that he might be beaten. Under Greek law, the police are not allowed to
take DNA samples from detainees who have not been charged with any crime.
The most shocking case this week was
a 15-year-old high school student from the village of Ierissos, who was
summoned to Polygyros to testify by a phone call to her school, while her
parents were not informed. After the village went in an uproar and her father
formally complained to the authorities, the police claimed that they had never
summoned the girl, then proceeded to send a written summons to her house for
the next day.
In the morning of Thursday 7 March,
large numbers of riot policemen, together with officers from the anti-terrorism
unit and national security, arrived in Ierissos to conduct house searches. When
local residents set up roadblocks to prevent them from entering the village,
the police responded with liberal amounts of tear gas, some of which was even
thrown in the high school courtyard, where a student was wounded by a direct
hit by a canister. The police claimed that the use of tear gas was limited,
that none had been used in the school, that the breathing problems of some
residents were due to the fumes from the roadblocks, and
that no detentions/arrests were made, despite multiple eyewitness testimonies
and photo and video evidence to the contrary. While the situation seemed to
have somewhat calmed down by midday, fully armed policemen started conducting
searches in the houses of detainees. The police launched a new assault in the
afternoon against residents and journalists who were following them as they
conducted house searches; reports suggest that they even threw tear gas in
private homes where families, including children, were sitting. One
five-year-old and one ten-month-old had to be transferred to hospital with
respiratory problems.
A spontaneous anti-mining protest in
solidarity with the people of Ierissos was organized in Thessaloniki in the
afternoon of 7 March. Another anti-mining demonstration was held on Monday in
Alexandroupoli, Thrace, another area of northern Greece threatened with ore
mining. The people's committees of Halkidiki, Kilkis and Thrace are also
planning a joint demonstration in Thessaloniki on Saturday 9 March.
Meanwhile, a pro-mining
demonstration was held last Saturday in the village of Megali Panagia in
response to the large anti-mining demonstration that took place at the same
location on 24 February. Demonstrators were mostly employees of Hellas Gold and
its parent company AKTOR. Residents of the region, as far away as the village of
Stavros outside the mining area, also reported receiving phone calls from the
mining company and the miners' union to pressure them to attend the rally during the course of the
week. Amusingly enough, at least two news websites used pictures from the
anti-mining rally held in Megali Panagia on Sunday 24 February to illustrate
their coverage of the pro-mining rally.
Residents of Halkidiki opposed to
the ore mining project say that it will cause massive damage to the
environment, deplete and contaminate freshwater resources and ultimately
destroy far more jobs in farming, animal husbandry, food processing and tourism
than it will create in mining-related activities. Their claims are supported by
the findings of several independent scientific institutions, including the
Environmental Council and the Faculty of Agriculture of the Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki and the Macedonia chapter of the Technical Chamber
of Greece.
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The Editors’ Newspaper published
this week a confidential document issued by the National Centre for Health
Operations, which describes the plan codenamed “Thetis”. The report says
that the police designed the plan in cooperation with the Centre for Health
Operations in order to implement it on Wednesday evening. This unprecedented operation is intended to
sweep drug users from downtown Athens without their consent and to transfer
them to the Amygdaleza detention camp for undocumented migrants, in order to
subject them to medical examinations and to record their personal and medical
details. In addition to staff from the police and the Centre for Health
Operations, employees from the National Centre for Disease Control and the
Ministry of Health are also expected to participate in the operation.
Four central organisations for the
rehabilitation of drug users immediately issued a joint statement in response,
saying : “At a time when the crisis makes the situation of drugs users a
little worse every single day and pushes more people into drug abuse and
marginalisation, one would expect the State to take measures for prevention,
timely early intervention, treatment and reintegration. On the contrary, this
type of punitive policies, that stigmatize, pillory and further marginalize
people have no place in a State with the rule of law. They deepen the fault
lines in Greek society and increase its problems. ” The Federation of
Associations of Hospital Doctors also expressed its opposition to the Thetis
plan.
.....................................................................
The trial of Golden Dawn MP Ilias
Kasidiaris finally took place, after several postponements since his
parliamentary immunity was lifted, on Thursday in Athens. Kasidiaris was
accused of participating in an assault against a student in the Zografou campus
of the University of Athens in 2007. He was specifically accused of aiding and
abetting persons unknown who clubbed and stabbed the student and stealing his
ID card. Kasidiaris’s name was brought to the case following the testimony of
an eyewitness who had told the authorities that the attackers had escaped
immediately after the assault in a vehicle whose licence plate number matches a
car owned by the man who would become an MP for Golden Dawn.
The trial took place in a hostile
environment as the court room was full of supporters of Golden Dawn, who came
in early in the morning and were intimidating the lawyers and witnesses. People
who were present in the room reported that the main witness received threats
after completing his statement to the court. There were also complaints that
the police were controlling anyone who sought to enter the room and who was not
a member of Golden Dawn. An anti-fascist protest took place outside the
courthouse during the trial.
Kasidiaris’s line of defence rested
on the line that he was being framed by the Athens Indymedia website, which is
explicitly anarchist-leaning. It is noteworthy that they key witness of the
defence was journalist Nadia Alexiou, who has been accused several time of
extreme-right leanings and of acting as a spokesperson to the police rather
than as a journalist.
The court acquitted Kasidiaris,
citing insufficient proof. As he left the court, Kasidiaris told the assembled
journalists: “Until today, your trash TV stations called me a thief, a murderer
and a criminal. I rub this decision in your face. We’re almighty and soon we’ll be in power.”
..........................................................................
A report broadcast on British TV
channel Channel 4 this week caused a public outcry and the intervention of the
judiciary, to whom it was referred by the newly established service of the
police in charge of racist crimes. The report shows Andreas Plomaritis, a candidate
in the 2012 general elections with Golden Dawn, saying about immigrants: “we’re
ready to open the ovens. They’re primitive. They’re miasma. They’re sub-humans. We don’t care at all for their
existence.” He goes on to add that immigrants “should be turned into soap, but
no for people, only for cars and sidewalks, because they’re chemical and we
might get a rash.” Golden Dawn responded to the public outcry that Plomaritis
had been pulling the filmmaker’s leg and that the channel had used a hidden
camera, threatening to sue the channel, despite the fact that the video clearly
shows that the Golden Dawn members are fully aware of the presence of the
camera.
..........................................................................
The « Expel racism »
movement reported on Tuesday that a teacher from the 5th secondary school of
Zografou was being subjected to disciplinary action for walking into the school
while holding a leaflet calling for an antifascist protest which had been given
to her by anti-fascists distributing flyers in the street outside the school. It
must be noted that disciplinary action against a teacher is no laughing matter,
as the new disciplinary code of civil servants stipulates that any employee of
the public sector subjected to a sworn administrative inquiry will be suspended
without pay from his or her position until proven innocent. The Expel Racism
movement has vowed to mobilize antifascists and provide all necessary support
to the teacher until the investigation is over.
..........................................................................
Several antifascist marches took
place this week, notably in Kallithea near Athens on 02 March, in Heraklion,
Crete on 3 March and in the Athens neighbourhood of Pangrati on 1 March, where
protesters succeeded in cancelling a planned Golden dawn event. A bicycle
demonstration also took place in Athens on 02 March, with some 120 to 150
participants. The bikers notably set up a commemorative plaque set up at the
place where Pakistani worker Shehzad Luqman was murdered in January. The archbishop
of Siatista, Pavlos, stated again his support to the antifascist movement,
saying that "Golden Dawn is a dangerous Nazi phenomenon."
...........................................................................
Multiple demonstrations took place
in the field of education this week across Greece, to protest the death of two
students in Larissa last week as well as spending cuts to education and the
higher education reform plan put forward by the government. The two students in
Larissa died from suffocation after bringing inside their house a coal barbecue
to heat the space due to massive tax hike which has made heating fuel
prohibitively expensive. Banners reading "they are killing us"
appeared in every one of the many education demonstrations held this week
across the country.
Another particular issue of focus to
universities is the "Athena" reform plan of higher education put
forward by the government. The government claims that the "Athena"
plan is intended to upgrade the quality of higher education while rationalizing
the allocation of resources, chiefly by merging departments, faculties and even
universities and higher technical education institutions. The higher education
community at large denounces the fact that the merging plan is designed on the
basis of clientelist political relationships instead of academic criteria, and
that it will result displacing tens of thousands of students to other
universities in the midst of a deep economic crisis, which many families cannot
afford. The discussion of the "Athena" bill in parliament this week
further highlighted tensions within the government on the issue, as junior
coalition partners PASOK and Democratic Left joined the opposition parties in
expressing reservations and objections to the reform plan. Student
demonstrations against the plan are expected to continue in all Greek cities in
the coming days.
....................................................................
The issue of possible further cuts
to the minimum wage in Greece was raised again this week as EU Commissioner for
Fisheries Maria Damanaki issued a statement in which she said that cuts to the
minimum wage in all European countries are promoted by Brussels as a means to
increase competitiveness. Meanwhile, To Vima newspaper published a report
claiming that representatives of 11 multinational companies asked Development Minister
Kostas Hatzidakis to cut the minimum wage for unemployed youth. The report
caused an uproar and was officially denied by representatives of three of the
companies; the Ministry of Development however did not issue an official
denial. The minimum wage in Greece currently stands at €586 a month, with To
Vima claiming that the 11 multinationals asked for it to be lowered at €300
when recruiting unemployed workers.
....................................................................
It transpired this week that the
purchase of 6 islets in the Ionian sea by the emir of Qatar was finalized for a
sum of €5 million. The news made much noise on Greek media who emphasized the
prime minister's personal intervention to speed up the sales process following
his recent visit to Qatar. What several media outlets, both Greek and
international, failed to mention, is that this was not a privatization or sale
of land by the Greek State to the emir of Qatar, but a sale of islands that
were already privately owned by one private owner to another - albeit to a very
prominent one. It is reported that the emir of Qatar intends to develop the
islets as a private holiday resort for his wives and children.
....................................................................
More than 5000 farmers participated
in a protest in Athens on 5 March to demand that the government takes measures
to reduce production costs as well as the burden of tax and benefits payments
and mitigate the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy, which results in
ever-larger surfaces of farming land being concentrated in the hands of an
ever-smaller number of owners. This march came at the end of a full month of
farmer protests, which took mainly the form of roadblocks on key national
roads. While the farmers have decided to withdraw their roadblocks for now,
they vowed to continue their struggle in other ways.
..........................................................................
In its new edition on Thursday 7 March, the
magazine HOT DOC revealed that Ilias Philippakopoulos, who was recently
appointed by prime minister Antonis Samaras to the post of chief of staff to
the secretary-general for governing party New Democracy, is a supporter of the 1967-1974
Junta and is accused of actions against students of the National Technical
University of Athens during their uprising against the military dictatorship.
Philippakopoulos was a chairman of the student unions that were appointed by
the Junta. HOT DOC magazine published several letters sent by Philippakopoulos
to dictator Papadopoulos, in which he congratulates him for the «Revolution of
National Salvation» and its accomplishments. Even after Greece was expelled
from the Council of Europe because of its antidemocratic regime,
Philipakopoulos congratulated the dictator for confronting the European
«barbarians». HOT DOC further notes that Philippakopoulos was denounced in the
past by trade unions representatives of his own party and that he was recently
sentenced in first instance to a year's imprisonment and deprivation of his
political rights.
Philippakopoulos is not however the
only New Democracy official with ties to the Junta, the most prominent other
example being the parliamentary spokesman of New Democracy, Makis Voridis, who started his political career as the leader of the youth movement of the
National Political Union, a party founded by imprisoned dictator Papadopoulos.
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