In the last month the police have been showing off their power in the university of ASOEE. Everyday, all kinds of cops stand around the university in order to frighten us and make us stop selling on the pavement in front of ASOEE. As the municipal elections are approaching, the candidates are trying to prove who will be the most effective in “restoring the order in the centre of Athens”, who will be stricter towards us, the immigrants, towards the students and everybody who stands everyday next to us.
On 8/04, the police surrounded the university once again. Groups of DELTA who were supported by MAT, chased and hit many people, without any reason. As a result, 12 immigrants and 1 student were arrested. The trial was postponed on 23/04. Τhe student was set free, but the 12 immigrants are still in prison after police order.
The cops enforced racist administrative laws (presidential decree 113/2013, law 3386/2005) and they considered them as “a danger to public order and security”. The police can arrest an immigrant, even in cases that he/she has official identity, accuse him/her for whatever they want (as they very well know how to do) and then decide that this arrest makes him/her “a danger to public order or national security” and therefore they lead him/her to detention and deportation
When we left our countries, we believed that we would at least continue to live free. But we lost our liberty, since we arrived in Greece, even if coming to Greece meant that we would risk losing our lives at sea, like those who were drown in Farmakonisi or, not long ago, in Mitilini. So when we arrived here, we found ourselves in a kind of a prison, a prison without walls. They say lies about us by using racist campaigns of misinformation. According to the media, we are thieves, murderers, carriers of diseases. They enforce racist and outdated laws and they don’t let us work. The cops, the fascists and racists chase us in the streets. And it’s not only around ASOEE. It’s also Monastiraki, Thissio, Omonia, in all our neighbourhoods. We live everyday under the threat of imprisonment either in a police station or in a camp centre. The period of detention is increasing: at first, it was 3 months, then it was 6, 9 months and now it is 18 months or even more.
By making these constant police operations outside the university, they forbid us to sell there, which is the only way for us to survive. It is the only way to earn some money, to pay our rent, the bills for water and electricity and to pay our food.
Greece hasn’t understood that we, the immigrants, are not a problem. But we can become their problem.
MIKROFONIKI thissio 22/4 17:00
DEMONSTRATION Evelpidon 23/4 12:00
LIBERATION of the arrested
COMMUNITIES OF STRUGGLE until every immigrant is liberated
assembly of immigrants & solidarians of asoee
thursdays at 20:00