http://infomobile.w2eu.net/2014/06/09/hunger-strike-against-18-detention-in-corinth-detention-centre/
Hunger strike against 18+ detention in Corinth detention centre
Edit
On June 9th, 2014 refugees detained in Corinth detention centre began a hunger strike to protest against indefinite detention. In February 2014, the Greek authorities had announced a policy of indefinite detention until repatriation, based on an opinion of the Legal Council of the Greek State. Only recently Athens court considered in an appeal-case of an Afghan refugee that the detention of more than 18 months is against national and European legislation and asked for it to be revoked.
Letter from the detainees:
Many undocumented refugees were arrested by the Greek authorities since a year and a half (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 a 1 year, then to 1 1/2 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 having 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.
psychological. Specially those who stayed already more that 18 months are in a devastating state and desperately need support.
Today on 9.6.2014 we people detained in the detention centre of Corinth have 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!
by Vasiliki Katrivanou, Parliamentarian of Syriza
“Are you kidding?” I ask the director of the detention centre Amigdaleza with a feeling of indignation and despair when he describes us how normal the centre is functioning despite “individual” problems.
How ‘individual’ are the problems? Hearing for example that you will be held there over 18 months, for “indefinite” periods (following the opinion of the Legal Council of State, which was issued upon request of Mr. Dendias). Young people, who have nothing to do all day, who are detained just because they have no papers, indefinite detainees. And they get crazy! So when there are riots, hunger strikes, suicide attempts, let us not wonder why, let’s not be surprised. The causes, if we want to close our eyes, we know already.
The National Health Operations Centre (ΕΚΕΠΥ) has taken responsibility of the health care inside Amigdaleza four months ago. In the one small clinic, which works for about 1,400 people, we talked with two doctors – a surgeon and a gynecologist – admittedly sophisticated specialties, especially the second, in a detention center for men only. The supply of drugs is extremely problematic, and thus ‘Depon’ (Greek Paracetamol drug) is the king of drugs for all kinds of diseases! We found a man hiding under his beddings for days refusing to communicate, other mentally ill who surely get worse in these circumstances because stress, depression and anxiety are the main symptoms of most detainees. We found a kidney patient who should be hospitalised, a man with a probe, a man whose tongue was cut by the Taliban and which has not healed properly (while it is prohibited to detain torture victims), minors, Syrian refugees – all these categories of people which even with current legislation are illegal to be detained.
Dirt is dominating the places and people. Soap is “distributed every fifteen days,” says the director. But if we had to judge using our sensory organs of sight and smell,it is probably given every three months (every three months we were told, however by prisoners). The rooms are not being cleaned as a tender for cleaning companies is pending. No cleaning articles are provided. The food is scarce and people are hungry, “they give us just as much to keep us alive,” they tell us. And when we talk to the directory about individual persons giving names, they don’t recognise them, only if we give them their numbers – each of them is a number.
It’s the fifth time we visit Amigdaleza. Visits, protests, campaigns, questions, parliamentary questions, international condemnations, representations, statements, interviews, articles … and, nevertheless, the situation worsens. The addiction to barbarism, filth and abandonment leads to complete inaction and all drown ins this, all drown: prisoners, guards, directory. Because even the directory which during our first visits was much more open to arrange small improvements which were still a relief to the lives of people, now seems to have accepted the cynicism, despair and swamp. And I feel an unbearable burden, sadness and anger and wonder what else to do, what will bring change.
The lawyer Vasilis Papastergiou who works since many years with refugees and migrants and recently became a father, wrote: “One day people will come and they will ask us: “Why did you then bear all this?”
There is a scandinavian legend which says that if we have a solar eclipse or a moon eclipse, when the sky darkens this happens because the Great Wolves have begun to eat the heavenly bodies and the light disappears. If people do not cry out and if they do not cry enough, the wolves will not stop, they will eat everything, they will even eat the heaven itself in the end. To stop then wolves, people have to shout; and they should shout loud.
PS. Monday night. Just now, a few minutes after I had finished writing, I heard that the prisoners in the camp of Corinth began a hunger strike to protest their detention beyond eighteen months.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten