Tag Archives: 2014

Greece, Journey back to the borders, Part II, Report

LESVOS: VOICES FROM INSIDE MORIA – THE NEW PAGANI OF TROIKA

‘First reception’ practices of refugees in Greece: The example of Moria on Lesvos island

“We didn’t come to Europe to get beaten, insulted and imprisoned.”

In September 26th, 2013 the new so called “first reception center (KEPY)” opened in Moria on the island of Lesvos. It is the second of its kind in Greece following the example of the KEPY in Fylakio, Evros that opened earlier in the same year.
The Pagani of the Troika – as it is called to remind of former prisons and to disconnect it from nearby Moria village, is a prison where only a few selected NGOs have access under the precondition not to share any information with the outside world. Civil society gets presented the term ‘first reception’ that gives a false impression of an open, accessible place while it is nothing else than another new prison in the tradition of Amigdaleza’s fenced containers the only difference being the detention duration – at first sight. As prescribed by law, detention does not exceed 25 days maximum in this place BUT detainees might just be transferred to (pre-removal) detention centers such as Fylakio, Komotini, Xanthi or Chios for example, where they might stay up to 18 months or more if they are not readmitted to Turkey, deported or sign voluntary return in the meanwhile.moria2

Currently the detention center in Moria is being constructed directly next to the “first reception” center, and build within the same fences and with the same containers. It is about to be opened in beginning of July 2014 with a capacity of 750 people while the capacity of the “first reception” screening center is supposed to reach 250 places. Nonetheless, only detention is what has marked the character of Moria since the beginning.

It is our aim to show from the very beginning of its functioning the real face of the ‘first reception’ detention center and to insist that this has to be closed. We do not argue for better detention conditions but for freedom!

We asked refugees having passed through Moria prison one single question:

‘What was your worst experience inside Moria detention?’
Continue reading LESVOS: VOICES FROM INSIDE MORIA – THE NEW PAGANI OF TROIKA →

Greece, Press Realease, Turkey

Kayiki Press Release: End death at border now! Respect human life and death!

KAYIKI Press Release

20.06.2014

End death at border now! Respect human life and death!

We, the inhabitants of both sides of Aegean Sea, express our anger and our shock about the thousands of deaths of refugees and migrants in their effort to cross Europe. They are a direct result of the Europe Fortress policy: The sealing of the borders and the lack of any other way for these people to seek protection.

Dozens of tragic shipwrecks have taken place on both sides of the Aegean Sea since August 2012 after the completion of the border fence in Evros, the land borders between Greece and Turkey: In Farmakonisi, in Lesvos and in Samos, near and some along the border river Evros.

Small children, women and men; refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Eritrea died in the Aegean Sea and in Evros trying to escape war, poverty and political persecution in their effort to cross the European borders. Their dead bodies were either found near the coastlines either they disappeared in the Aegean. Many of them were never identified, buried in unmarked graves in remote cemeteries and not according to their cultural and religious traditions. Family members who survived are weeping silently for the loss of their beloved. Others are still trying desperately to locate their missing ones. Continue reading Kayiki Press Release: End death at border now! Respect human life and death! →