Tag Archives: police violence

Greece, Mytilini

Visit of the Minister of Immigration in Lesvos, Greece

The new Minister for Immigration G.Mouzalas visited yesterday the Island of Lesvos.
inspecting the camps with thousands of people that are not yet registered.
After his visit he announced following changes:

  • After 2 weeks there will be 60 new people andnew computers working for the registration procedure.
  • Registration will take place in Kara Tepe and in Moria
  • The Ferry Eleftherios Venizelos will be coming only to Mitilini and will
    be leaving as soon as all tickets are sold.
    (yesterday people having tikets were stuck outside the Port and could
    not enter the boat that was waiting to get full to leave.)
  • more MAT special police forces for Lesvos.
    (there is money for police special forces but not money for enough
    translators in Farsi and Arabic to communicate with the people so that
    they are informed about what they are to expect )
  • the army will bake daily 1.500 breads to distribute and is willing to
    give cars for transport.
  • the military spaces that are empty like in KLEIOU village will be opened
    for newly arrived Refugees.
  • new registration place in another military space KOURTZI in the north of Mitilini.

in the meantime the streets are again full of newly arrived refugees, walking from the north of the island 70 km since the authorities have blocked the bus transports due to too many people concentrated inMitilini/Kara Tepe/Moria.
NO REGISTRATION at the moment at the PORT!

Greece, Mytilini

Police Violence in the Port of Mytilini

Police Violence in the Port of Mytilini from w2eu Lesvos on Vimeo.

Around 20 000 Refugees are currently stuck on the Island of Lesvos.
Since one week, registration for new arriving refugees in Lesvos has become an obstacle to continue the procedures and leave the Island. Since Friday the situation in the Port of Mytilini has escalated.
Hundreds if not thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are caught in limbo. Every day they try to fight for a registration number in the port. Most of them try up to 10 days to get a registration number with no success, they are forced to camp around the port, the city or sleep rough. Their money has finished and they suffer from hunger and thirst. Desperate, if not in rage due to lacking infrastructures and the absence of any system, they break out in daily protest and not seldom fights. The state shows its presence in form of riot police, beating down men, women and children alike.


On Friday 4th of September hundreds of refugees tried to storm a ferry. The police threw tear gas.
In the following they banished all refugees from the port.
Newspaper Article about police violence in the port.
On Saturday 5th of September the refugees self-organized a queue for the Registration – Numbers. While th refugees where peacefully waiting in their queue, the police beat them with batons.
In the late evening some young Syrians started a protest in the port shouting

we want to go

Continue reading Police Violence in the Port of Mytilini →

Greece

Goodbye in the port of Lesvos / Officer kicks Syrian unaccompanied minor to wake him up

It is Sunday. For at least two nights no refugee was seen during night sleeping in the port of Mytilene. Today there are again about 100 persons from Afghanistan and Syria mainly but also from Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and other countries.

“We spent five nights in the detention center in Moria,” they say. “It was specifically over crowded at the outside area where we were in the beginning.”

66a
Everybody is stressed to leave. A handful of families didn’t know they had to get tickets for their babies too even if they were for free. While trying to enter the ferry they were send back to the ticket office. The mothers had already entered with the other children and were not reachable. Two Syrian dads and one Afghan holding all small babies stand beside the ticket shop not knowing what to do. Their women have the documents of the children inside the boat. Only in the last minutes and after discussions with the ticket office they manage to solve the problem and run in the ferry.

A group of kurdish Syrian men is standing aside. They are angry.

“I want to ask you what we can do. In the morning an officer came on a motor bike. He parked and came over to the place we were sleeping on the street. Then he kicked this 16-year-old who is traveling alone twice and shouted ‘stand up’. We are no animals! If we had more time we would go to report this at the police station. We are not afraid, we have honor. We want you to publish this somewhere. The number of the motor bike was MTZ 415. It was around 5:30 in the morning of Sunday 2.8.15. Thank you.”

Greece

Minors separated from their family in Moria / Greek coast guard punctures refugee boat under the eyes of Frontex

Two days between Kara Tepe tent camp and the port of Mytilene (24.7.-25.7.15)

A small Afghan boy is sitting outside a blue tent built up just behind the kiosk in the port of Mytilene. On the other side of the tent there are some other Afghan minors sitting on a blanket on the floor and leaning at the walls of an abandoned swimming hall. It is late in the night. His elder brother has fever. He is climbing out of the tent to join us. The two underage boys from Afghanistan are camping there already since four nights. They arrived to Lesvos together with their mother and father and two little sisters. In Moria they registered themselves as adults, as other people advised them to avoid reporting their real ages for the own good. Then the two of them got released alone.

“We fear to loose track of our family if we move away from here,” F. the elder brother says. “My father said we should wait here for them.” He seems exhausted and under pressure carrying all the responsibility of holding his family together on his small shoulders. With an official note ordering them to leave the country within 30 days, both boys’ time is running out, while they wait for their relatives. “My father said they would be released today. Again they didn’t let them go. Others were only one night in there. I don’t understand why they don’t let them free.”

Continue reading Minors separated from their family in Moria / Greek coast guard punctures refugee boat under the eyes of Frontex →