Category Archives: Press Realease

Greece, Media, Mytilini, Press Realease

press release / village of all together: Morias’ prison in Lesvos has opened

Morias’ prison in Lesvos has opened
The first migrants have already been transferred there!

When you take a closer look you are stunned, you can’t get used to it. A naked space, that has been recently digged up,with four turrents around, crammed wth containers and with a high fence that seems to compress everything further more. The scenery of interdiction even here it’s made of the same, identical materials likewise in Amygdaleza, Corinth, Orestiada and in Pagani before.

Cement, wires, raised outposts, guns pointed at helpless people. Refugees and migrants sentenced to deprivation of their liberty for having committed no crime and without being taken to trial, are called to cope with their detention for an unspecified period of time.

The Minister of Public Order had already pre-announced the “work” in many occasions; in his last statement he precised that it will be completed by the end of 2013, but it will partially start operating in the end of August 2013. So, here we are in the end of September, where only some days before, workers were still trying to close up the holes in the empty prefabbricated and obviously used containers, from where water was already puring into them after the first rain of the season. There are 14 containters, of 33 square meters each, with 7 bunk beds, a small toilet and a small kitchen area. Till now, no aircondition or any other heating system was installed.

The outdoor space, which would serve as a courtyard, practically is a long corridor of 3X4 meters infront of each cointainer. There’s not a shelter to protect people from the sun or the rain. The temporary solution with the olive sheets raised in front of the containers, does not make things any better.

With some quick calculations we come to the following conclusions:

Interior spaces

7 bunk beds = 14 persons

33 sq.m – 3 sq.m for the kitchen and the bathroom = 30 sq.m

14 persons / 30 sq.m = a little more than 2 square meters for each person.

In this space, the refugees or migrants who will have the “luck” to be transferred there, will have to figure out how to cover all their needs and endure these conditions for weeks or even for moths.

Outdoor spaces

3X4= 12 sq.m for 14 persons, that is 0,85 sq.m of outdoor space for each person.

Based on the aforementioned elements, it is clear how Morias’ prison will function from now on. Even if the numbers improve, the policy of repression won’t change.

There’s only one demand, shared by even more people nowadays

NO to closed detention centers – YES to open reception centers with a short stay for migrants and free access for the volunteers

P.s The palestinian family shown below, stayed in Pikpa Lesvos for 11 days without being registered by the police or the port authorities. They just remembered them on Wednesday 25/9 when they emptied up PIKPA. Together with 8 afghans they are the first persons to be detained in Morias prison.

Greece, Media, Press Realease

press release / w2eu: SCREENED BY FRONTEX AFTER TEN HOURS IN THE SEA

Mitilini, Greece

SCREENED BY FRONTEX AFTER TEN HOURS IN THE SEA:
Forgery of documents – who does it and how?

In the early morning of the 15th of September 2013 twelve refugees from Syria were rescued by the fisher boat Kapetan Stratis and the cargo ship YALKER (see earlier post). After this rescue operation and act of humanitarian support a vessel of the Greek Coast Guard took the rescued people in order to bring them to the Port of Mytilene (Lesvos). Local media took pictures, a video was uploaded on youtube. The Coast Guard utilised the brave work of the sailors to present themselves as life savers.

This was only the image for the public: After the “photo shooting” the refugees went through the so called “screening” of the European Border Agency FRONTEX. The authorities instead of calling a trauma therapist or first aid for the exhausted survivors who had been nine hours swimming in the sea not knowing if they would survive, brought them to FRONTEX. Even the first food in Greece was given to the hungry by supporters from the island. The foreign officers operating with EU-funds on the Turkish-Greek border interviewed the survivors immediately to find out the “real nationalities”. The so called “screening” is a tool to check the identity of refugees and migrants which has been criticised on several levels by a lot of human rights supporters like i.e. the German NGO Pro Asyl. To use this tool directly after a case of heavy trauma comes indeed close to torture.

To give an example of this kind of inhuman behaviour we report what we heard from two of the refugees. One of them was not able to swim and was held by other refugees above the water level. Even three days after one could see the injuries on his throat and legs that came from the heroic live saving measures of the others (see photo below). A German psychologist and trauma therapist supported them upon release from the Coast Guard.
His diagnosis is clear: They suffer from Post traumatic Stress Reaction (ICD10, F 43.0). Nevertheless, both were put under pressure brutally by the FRONTEX officer and his translator. He shouted on them, they were threatened with 6 to 12 months imprisonment as a penalty for “forgery of documents”. The translator tried to force them to sign that they are not from Syria .

injuries from the clothes after 9 hours in the sea on Wahids body
injuries from the clothes after 9 hours in the sea on Wahids body

Instead of giving them documents to continue their journey together with the other ten traumatized refugees, these two victims of the “Screening” were imprisoned by the Greek authorities with the aim to deport them . Everything other than giving them papers and freedom is an act of disrespect to and violation of their human rights.

These people need support, no prison!

We demand the immediate release of Sami and Wahid, survivors of the ship accident of the 15th September 2013 near Lesvos!

w2eu – welcome to europe

Greece, Media, Mytilini, Press Realease

w2eu press release: Mytilene / Greece: European Border Agency FRONTEX invades place of solidarity

Mytilene / Greece: European Border Agency FRONTEX invades place of
solidarity

The people of the Greek island Lesvos (Mytilene) are famous for their
solidarity to the refugees arriving on the island. In December 2012 the
solidarity organized by the network “Village of Alltogether” was in the
focus of international media as a seldom example of good practice
showing that human rights in reality are a matter of the people and not
of politicians and their empty words.

Now, in September 2013, again the local people are offering with the
help of the islands’ authorities a shelter in PIKPA (a place for youth
summer camps) to 70 refugees mainly coming from Syria, Afghanistan and
Somalia. The people of the solidarity movement take once more the
responsibility to cover all the daily needs like food, clothes e.g.
Local people individually pass by practicing the famous Greek
hospitality and bring whatever useful they can offer: some apples, loafs
of bread, soap or just a welcoming smile.

On one of our solidarity visits we made to support the local structures
in their everyday effort, we – some members of the network Welcome to
Europe (http://lesvos.w2eu.net) – got aware of the fact that the
European Border Agency FRONTEX, has prepared themselves to occupy two
rooms in the main building with the aim to open an office for their so
called “screening”. This procedure most of the times results in the
wrong registration of refugees’ nationalities and/or age. With this
involvement they have the power to categorize you in “readmittable”,
“deportable” or a potential refugee and thus determine the immediate
destiny of all new arriving sans papiers. It depends on what they write
if a refugee will be send back to Turkey, if he/she will be detained or
not and even if he/she will be treated as a an adult or as a child.
FRONTEXs screening is part of their “risk research” to improve “border
security” in an area known for the inhuman treatment of refugees trying
to cross the external borders of the EU. Meanwhile FRONTEX is playing a
key role being responsible for the implementation of structures, through
know-how, staff and equipment sealing the European borders also in
Greece. They are directly and indirectly involved in national and
international structures of human rights abuses against refugees who try
to enter Greece (i.e. witnessing push-backs) and who already managed to
enter Europe (i.e. witnessing the degrading detention conditions in
prisons such as the police stations of Lesvos and the new detention
center to be built on the island).

On the 6th of September 2013 two FRONTEX-officers from Italy and Sweden
expulsed a family with small children and a pregnant woman from the
rooms they were hosted in order to occupy and re-use these rooms as
their offices introducing themselves as European Border Police. It is
more than obvious that thereby they abused the solidarity the local
people are offering and the trust that has developed among the civilian
supporters and the refugees in order to fulfill their task: to
militarize Europes’ borders instead of building a common space of
solidarity.

Mytilene, 9th of September 2013

Network Welcome to Europe
Contact: w2eu@hotmail.com