The case of the 4 arrested during the police operation at ASOEE on 22/10 | Demonstration 21-12

If it wasn’t about the life and dignity of 3 people, we could talk about a sketchy/rough farce in 4 acts.

1st act
Tuesday 22/10. Another spectacular police operation on the occasion of “the fight against the commerce of street vendors” in Patission avenue, outside the ASOEE university. The cops -in the presence of the TV channels and the subminister Mitarakis- enter the university. Faced by hundreds of students, they are forced to leave. Despite no clashes taking place during the operation, anybody who appears to be an immigrant is arrested in the vicinity of ASOEE.

2nd act
Four of the arrested immigrants are accused with rigged indictment: resisting arrest and attempted bodily harm. They are taken to the court, but it is decided to set them free until the date of the trial, which is set for 10/12. However, the cops decide to keep them in jail, because they consider them as a danger to “public order and safety”. They base their decision on the rigged indictment that they themselves made up. The administrative court validates the cops’ decision.

3rd act
10/12. The trial lasts for many hours in front of tens of people who have come in solidarity. The verdict is that all four of them are to be acquitted. The silly and contradictory testimonies of the cops made certain of this positive outcome. All the people in solidarity who were in court begin to applaud. We have the impression that they will be soon free, together again with us.

4th act
11/12. The three immigrants are still imprisoned at the police department for seemingly administrative reasons. The police continues to keep them in jail despite the verdict of acquittal of the court, and it seems they are doing all they can in order to prolong the detention of the immigrants.

In other words, the life and freedom of the immigrants lie in the absolute power of the police and at the mercy of every racist cop. Through a network of racist administrative laws, the state has enabled the cops to control immigrants, to arrest them, to take them to court and to imprison them summarily and without regulation. That is exactly what is happening in the case of the arrested of 22/10 at ASOEE. The cops arrest many immigrants and later hold them in prison, in order to justify the unjustifiable. They accused four of them with rigged indictment and then they decided that their arrest makes them “a danger to public order and the security of the country”. Moreover, despite the fact that they were acquitted by the court, the cops insist arbitrarily and vindictively to prolong their imprisonment. They express their racist fury against those who struggle to live with dignity and are opposed to discrimination and state terrorism.

The rigged indictments and the state machinations do not frighten us, but they fill us with rage.

When the struggle to survive  lies at the mercy of the police and their obscure administrative procedures, is given the name
 “danger to public order and security”

Our answer is:
Solidarity and common struggles of locals and immigrants

DEMONSTRATION 21-12 | 13.00

Charilaou Trikoupi & Kallidromiu Str., Exarcheia

Microfoniki on October 15th at Victoria square and police repression

On Tuesday October 15th at 5pm we organized a manifestation with microfoniki and distribution of brochures in Victoria square on the occasion of Paulos Fyssas’ murder. The intervention was organized by the assembly of immigants and solidarians, the auto-administered squat of ASOEE university and the assembly of Victoria square. Victoria square was filled with music and brochures were distributed to locals and immigrants. Two hours later, and while the manifestation reached to its end, two trucks with cops “MΑΤ” appeared at the top of the square. Shortly after their disembarkation, the cops made their moods clear and lined up opposite the protesters. Two cops in shirts approached us in order to let us know about their demands. We immediately surrounded the cops in charge of social relations and we demanded to know why they prohibited the manifestation. Despite the pressure, the cops persisted in the order from on high, “to evacuate the square” (pogrom?) without ever explaining to us the reason. Eventually, despite the fact that the cops threatened us with arrests, we decided to leave under no escort. We have to mention that a few hours earlier the arrest of 15 members of the “Antifascist Front” had taken place, while they were placarding posters in Patission avenue in order to propagandize the anti-fascist moto protest carried out on Wednesday 23/10 in Keratsini. The strong police presence in the area is a very old story, but until now we were not accustomed to the ban of demonstrations, distribution of brochures etc.

The cops’ provocations were repeated on October 19th when a group of “DIAS” arrested 6 members of the Antifascist Coordination of Athens and Piraeus outside the Attiki train station, while they were going to an action of contra info at the open-air market in Michail Voda street (they carried brochures and a bucket in order to placard posters), on the occasion of the antifascist demonstration at Agios Panteleimonas on October 26th. The cops claimed that they had orders from on high to arrest whoever distributes leaflets, and so they checked if the brochures provoked violent actions, for instance because of their slogan or photos. We must note that fascists of the Golden Dawn had thrown too many flyers on Liosia avenue that day, but the police didn’t arrest them…The cops led the antifascists in a police van in Omonia and they checked their identities without taking them to the police station. Later, they released them. Finally, the antifascist coordination made the intervention in Michail Voda street, with the participation of 50 people, along with those who had been arrested earlier in Attiki. The distribution of the brochures was successful, because they distributed lots of them to natives and immigrants, but on the corner of Michail Voda and Pipinou, Giannatos, the known fascist of the Golden Dawn and also the chairman of the “committee of residents of Agios Panteleimonas”, together with 2-3 people they started to insult and provoke the antifascists, who responded. Therefore, the situation reached a point of high tension. The fascists’ hysteria was so big, that the cops arrested Giannatos outside the local police station. The antifascist action continued with slogans, distribution of brochures and placarding of posters for some time after the above episode and ended at 15:00 pm.

 

We are not terrified and we will be in the streets for as long as necessary.

COMMON STRUGGLES OF NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS

Cops and fascists, listen well:

THE STREETS AND SQUARES BELONG TO THE PEOPLE WHO RESIST

A common story that was repeated (not accidentally) once again

text of the assembly about the police invasion of 22-10 in ASOEE university and the arrests:

On Tuesday 22/10 the cops attacked once again the ASOEE university because they wanted to damage the trade that we do outside of the school. The minister of development Notis Mitarakis and TV channels were outside the university together with the cops. Journalists from the TV channel ALPHA were  near  ASOEE from 9am and we suppose that they were informed of the operation of the police, because it took place at 11am. Finally, they didn’t seem to be pleased by how things happened and TV channels didn’t show anything that day. The cops entered the school yard and surrounded it and they allowed only students to enter. They wanted to go inside the buildings and they arrested everyone who seemed to be foreign. On 9/5/2012,when the cops had made a similar operation at ASOEE, they arrested a world know Indian professor, who was invited by the university!

Hundreds of students were gathered at the school yard, they sang slogans and they demanded the police to leave. The cops remained about an hour at the yard and eventually not only failed to invade the buildings but they were driven out of the school by the students. However, they arrested 4 immigrants in totally different places around the school and while no clash had taken place, they accused them (as usual) for resistance against the authorities and attempting to cause serious bodily harm.

At noon of the same day, a general assembly of students decided to occupy the school until Thursday 24/10 and to make a protest march against the invasion of cops and for solidarity to the 4 arrested immigrants. The protest march took place in the afternoon near the neighbourhood.  On 24/10 the four detainees were led to court, where regular day of trial was set for 31/10. On 30/10 the cops tried again to create an aura of terror by surrounding ASOEE and they remained in the wider area for about three hours, while they threw a few tear gases. The next day in court the case of  four immigrants was not heard and the trial was suspended for 10/12. The thing that is the most frustrating of all is that while from the first time on 24/10, the court had decided that the 4 immigrants will be released until the trial, on the contrary they remain detained until today.

This situation makes us feel angry but it doesn’t surprise us, because we know that many inhabitants of this country, the immigrants, are estimated from the state as second-class people. Too many racist administration laws define their lives to such an extent that there is a serious chance for them to be transported to the other side of the world, or to the detention centres all over Greece. On every occasion the cops and their political superiors advertise this policy, so as we get used to the submission and degradation of our lives. The detention of immigrants without official identities for 12 to 18 months is supposed to be a special case of the law, but however it is the rule since the decision is made by the police.  Apart from the special administrative measures which impose the deprivation of liberty only for immigrants, there are also special provisions that give the additional capability to the cops to exclude any immigrant (with or without official identity) even from these administrative laws, and to consider him as a “danger to public safety or public health”. They can even decide to remove his identity, confine him for eighteen months in a concentration camp and deport him. In other words, the police can arrest an immigrant, accuse him for whatever they want (as they very well know how to do) and then decide that this arrest makes him “a danger to public order or security of the country” and therefore lead him to detention and deportation. And in case of appeal against this decision, responsible to judge is again the police…Even if these measures are not enough, the police have the political support and cover to continue an illegal, unjustified and vindictive detention, without any written decision, as it is the case of the detainees of 22/10.

The attack that the cops made at ASOEE is not irrelevant to our everyday life. The state and the cops run after us everyday. The fascists with their cover move freely and attack in our neighbourhoods. The bosses do whatever they want with us, because for them it is like we are inferior people. We all remember the shots against immigrants labourers in Manolada. They want us to be afraid in order to remain harmless and quiet in our homes. Otherwise we expect operations of massive round-ups know as “Xenios Dias”, detention centres and expulsions. In the neighbourhoods where we live the police patrols are very often, the TV channels talk about us and the government implements new laws, while it makes new detention centres. They say all the time that we “take their jobs” but it is the state that reduces the salaries, it eliminates pensions and destroys public health and education. The state knows that its policy is too extreme and chooses to terrorize the people and create an aura of fear for immigrants and all those who struggle.

The aim of the attack at ASOEE was not only to frighten us, but also to make us stop what we are doing here. For us the trade outside the university is the only way in order to earn the money that we need to live, to pay the rent, the food and our bills. We want to work so as to be able to live with dignity. The state does not care about the trade that we are doing, but it attacks us because we have chosen to stand all together and feel equal.

The only solution for us is to find ways to live and act together against the difficulties we face and all those that will come. We fight against any discrimination of race, sex, color, we stand together and united against any kind of brutality and we are making the foundations for the world we want to live in. All together immigrants and natives, we fight against racism and poverty they are trying to impose.

RESISTANCE- SELF ORGANISATION- SOLIDARITY

COMMON STRUGGLES OF LOCALS & MIGRANTS

 

Assembly of immigrants and solidarians at ASOEE

on Thursdays at 19:00, ASOEE (76 Patission Av.)

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND ALWAYS: OUR FIGHT CONTINUES

On  September 17th,  the antifascist rapper, Pavlos Fyssas was murdered by fascists of the Golden Dawn and paid with his life his political views . Earlier this year, on January 17th Shehzad  Luqman was stabbed by members of the Golden Dawn in Petralona,while he was going to work, just because he was an immigrant.

Thousands of people participated in protest marches that immediately took place in Keratsini,the site of the murder, and all over Greece as well: in Chania,Thessaloniki, Patras etc. Meanwhile, journalists and politicians pretend to have been shocked by the incident and they are proceeding to revelations about the crimes of the Golden Dawn, which they had hidden so far, while they are now pleased by the prosecution of its members and even its abolition. But what they – deliberately- forget to clarify is that the fascists collaborate with the government.
Their speech and acts have many profound similarities : On February 1st Babacar Ndiaye was pursued and murdered by the municipal police in Thissio. No justice has been done  until today. For many years,  the fascists are protected by the police, as it was demonstrated once again on Wednesday 18th September, when they were standing behind the policemen, they were throwing stones against the protesters and taking  part in beatings. In September 2012 fascists attacked immigrants many times in the area of America square. The police were just watching and did nothing.  On September 30th  2012, when antifascists made a moto protest  against these fascist attacks, in the centre of Athens, they were attacked by the police and 15 of them were arrested, beaten and tortured in the GADA police station. They were also charged with severe crimes. Τhe greek government keeps on building detention centres for the immigrants, it is organizing the operation of massive round-ups known as “Xenios Dias”, it  is building a wall and putting mines on the border with Turkey and talks about immigrants as “public health time bomb”. The cops arrest, beat, torture and kill people at the police stations. Bosses exploit immigrant workers, they have them work and live in very bad conditions and the authorities don’t  do anything about it. In some cases bosses even opened fire on the workers. This is what happened last April when immigrants farm workers received the bullets of landowner’s Vaggelatos minions’ guns in Manolada, just because they demanded their money that the landowner owed them for 6 months. Greek justice, that allows all the above to happen, prosecutes the immigrants who dared to revolt at the detention centre of Amygdaleza, on August 10th. When the fascists organize to do their dirty racist task, government, justice and cops  turn their back and look elsewhere.

How could it be possible to believe that banning the neo-nazi party Golden Dawn, as many politicians say, will change the current situation, while its members will always be there to spread their racist ideology and attack those who resist them and will always want to take power? Will the issue of fascism be solved by laws? Can we ask the government that oppresses us every day to do justice in our place? Can the solution be calling for institutional help, expecting others to act in our place and staying in our homes without doing anything for ourselves?

Today, as always, the attacks against immigrants continue, with arrests in the squares and our neighborhoods, in the modern slavery of concentration camps, here in ASOEE with the continuous police operations, where the anti-riot forces and undercover cops persecute the pedlars. The repression continues with beating and tear gas against protesters, with imprisonment for those who are arrested at demonstrations, with massive dismissals, with evacuations of squats and with cops all over the town. The government forces with the help of the fascists, who are the long arm of the state, attack those who refuse to bow their head and obey them.

Today, the slogan “common struggles of immigrants and natives”, is more than ever well-timed,  because it is all of us, immigrants with or without papers, natives, who become the target of the state and the parastate and every fascist. It is us who have all together to rise up, as it is our will and courage to fight that unite us. After all, the continuous struggle for a new world is the best way to remember all those who died while fighting for life.

We think that the only solution is to find ways to live and act together to make things better. All together, immigrants and natives, without hierarchy and discrimination because of the race, sex or colour, we stay united against fascist and police brutality, for the new world that we want to make. These are only some of the reasons why we participate in the Assembly of Immigrants and Solidarians of ASOEE, and we try to face the attacks in the present and in the future by the common struggles of immigrants and natives. Our arms in this fight will be solidarity and equality.

We are not only fighting our mortal enemies, the fascists. They are forced to contend with threat within the government that jeopardise our very existence. All we fight for us, one love, equal rights, peace and justice, for a better tomorrow.

RESISTANCE – SELF ORGANISATION – SOLIDARITY

COMMON STRUGGLES OF LOCALS & MIGRANTS

SMASH FASCISTS EVERYWHERE

Open mics multiethnic hip‐hop concert Friday 21 of June // 19.00 at Amerikis square

afisa-synaylia-amerikis-21-6LOCALS AND MIGRANTS

we live together in the same neighborhoods

in the same streets
in the same squares

we fight together

against the detention centers, that are being filled with our neighbors
against the racist pogroms
against the everyday violence and the police controls
against our exploitation by the same bosses
against the impoverishment and the devaluation of our lives

WE SMASH THE FEAR AND THE ALIENATION
WE BUILD COMMUNITIES OF RESISTANCE AND SOLIDARITY

Open mics multiethnic hip‐hop concert
Friday 21 of June // 19.00
at Amerikis square

Assembly of Agios Nikolaos
Assembly of migrants and soilidarians of Asoee
https://immigrants-asoee.espivblogs.net/

Film, collective food and party

 asoe-7-6-web

We live all together, we fight together/ Vivons ensemble, luttons tous ensemble/

Zούμε μαζί, αγωνιζόμαστε μαζί

 

       Film, collective food and party
/Film, cuisine collective et party    /Προβολή, συλλογική κουζίνα & party

 Συνελευση Μεταναστων & Αλληλεγγυων ΑΣΟΕΕ
http://immigrants-asoee.espivblogs.net

Strawberries and human exploitation

Strawberries and human exploitation
Manolada5These are the two basic export products, both in big amounts, of Nea Manolada, a region in Ilia, 260km west of Athens. On one hand, we can see the strawberries every spring, red and fresh, in the supermarkets and the street markets. On the other hand, the exploitation of the immigrant workers, during the whole year, a well hidden secret in the racist and xenophobic local society, being published in local and international Medias only when some landowners’ minions do something very extreme to the workers.
A few words about the medieval fields of Manolada
In the fields of Manolada the recent years’ work around 4000-5000 land workers. All of them immigrants, mostly from Bangladesh and from Pakistan, with many of them having no papers. Their basic job is farming, harvesting and packing the strawberries but depending on the period of the year they work also in other farming operations like harvesting potatoes, oranges etc. Their work starts at 6 o’clock in the morning and ends at 9-10 o’clock at night with a day work of 25 euro and off course without insurance and any medical help in case of a work accident. They live, winter and summer, in tents or inside the greenhouses without water, electricity, toilet and other basic necessities. The working conditions are totally inhuman, as apart from the grueling working time they have to work under the constant surveillance and blackmails of the big landowners’ minions who treat them as slaves. Beatings and derogatory behaviors on a daily basis, threats of their life, blackmails to those who don’t have papers that the police will arrest them, deny of paying them and even shooting them, when the workers dare to speak for their rights.
The incident
200 immigrants from Bangladesh working at one of the many fields of the area, that of the big landowner Baggelatos, started to demand their money that the landowner owed them since 6 months. They were asking constantly for their money but the big landowner and his guards were always answering with insults and threats. They even wrote a letter of complaints trying to give it to the police and the local authorities but without any success. A few days before the murderous attack against them they had a one day strike but the big landowner threatened them by bringing other workers to take their place, Albanians, Rumanians, Bulgarians and that he won’t pay them. The workers’ answer was : “give us the money that you owe us and we will leave”. Obviously the landowner didn’t bring new workers because the Balkan workers demand 40 euro per day. So at 17/4 the same Bangladesh workers decided to go at his house and protest. What they receive as an answer was the bullets of landowner’s minions guns, injuring 30 workers, 7 of them severe. Except that it took 2 hours for the ambulance to arrive, the first thing that the police did was to try to arrest the immigrants not having papers without caring about the murderous gunmen.
It was the local and mainly the foreign medias reports and the damage to the country’s fame[1], the incapability of hiding the incident and the fear of the immigrants’ workers reaction that forced the authorities to deal with the matter and prosecute the perpetrators.
The following 2 days, 18 and 19 of April, none of the immigrant workers, in the whole area, went to the fields and there was even a protest with the participation of more than 10.000 immigrant farm workers. The media didn’t report anything about the protest but it was the main reason that made the minister of public order, N. Dendias to promise the immigrants the obvious, that they would be paid and that the police would arrest the killers and their boss.

It was not an isolated incident; it is the future they try to impose
At 2008 some photos of the same area that of Manolada, were showing the inhuman living and working conditions of the immigrant land workers. Then most of the immigrants were from Pakistan. As now all of us were “shocked” from the incident, the media had put for a while their charity mask and the state declared the solution of the problem, saying it was just an isolated incident. But also the years before 2008 the agriculture production model was the same. The only difference was that instead of Pakistani and Bangladesh workers, the workers were from Albania.
After all this year’s nothing has changed. The working conditions are even harder and the exploitation of immigrants is a plan of the state and the bosses for economic growth and overcoming the crisis.
It’s the state itself that directly or indirectly pushes the immigrants to work at the fields of these local big landowners. Those immigrants in fact who manage to pass alive from the minefields of Evros or the depths of the sea. Those for whom there is not enough space in the hellholes of the police stations and the detention centers. All those who have to answer in the question of staying alone and frightened enclosed and starving in their homes, as in every corner there are police and fascists, or working like a slave avoiding in this way the deportation or the enclosure in a detention center. And this, because there is an agreement among the state, the local authorities and the big landowners not allowing the police to arrest all these immigrants working in Manolada’s fields[2].
In this way the labor under these terms seems to the immigrants as the only way out and lifeline and for the bosses a great tool for exploiting more and more the workers. Icing on the cake of exploitation, as for the bosses’ minions not having any complaints, the money withholding from immigrants land workers’ day work for giving them just a piece bread[3].
What happened at 17th of April at Manolada it is not just another isolated incident. It’s a violent and inhuman working status that is firstly imposed to the outcasts and those being in the bottom of the barrel. And as the crisis becomes deeper this barrel’s bottom fits more and more of us. As long as we fight each other and put the blame on the immigrants and the “others” for what we suffer, we make it easier for the exploitation and oppression to spread out. As long as we do not fight the real enemy, those who are getting richer to our detriment, we doff our eyes with our own hands.

COMMON STRUGGLES OF LOCALS AND IMMIGRANTS

AGAINST EVERY OPPRESSOR OF OUR LIFE

Assembly of immigrants and solidarians of ASOEE

__________________________________________________________________________

1 The image of the injured immigrants land workers traveled around the world. For one more time different international organizations redacted convictions against Greece for her immigrants’ handling policy considering that 5 signatures are enough to give a solution to this problem. Furthermore, various entities and organizations have started, mainly through social medias (facebook, tweeter, etc) a campaign named “Blood and Strawberries” for boycotting the strawberries of Manolada.
2 The plan is :The local big landowners, in awareness of the local authorities and the government, are asking every time a specific number of workers. They communicate with an immigrant considered “their cooperator” known as ‘the craftsman”, usually having the same citizenship as the workers, who finds the workers living in Athens. There is no need for the immigrants future workers to have papers, all they need is good acquaintances and a bit of luck. Their transportation to the fields is done by cars that arrive and collect them to Athens. The only guarantee of the deal is that for as long as they work without creating any troubles, they will not have problem with the police.
3 The day works are between 17 and 25 euro but are paid every 2 to 3 months. The food expenses and any other subsistence costs of the immigrants are withhold from their total salary. Even at this case, the exploitation has no end. The shopping is not done by the immigrants themselves but by the supervisors or by the “craftsman”. Even though every immigrant needs 70-80 euro to meet these needs, they have a withholding that sometimes reaches the amount of 400 euro per month, getting paid finally with 150 euro per month. It’s obvious that this withholding money end to the big land owners’ and their guards pockets.

Police attack at ASOEE on Monday 1/4

Today, and after a few time, the police attacked in a organised way the migrants-street vendors who are in front of the school. Once again, MAT squads participated in today’s attack and approached the door on Patission, while others police forces where around the school. The cops have been finally pushed back by the migrants and students, and thus open again the trafic on Patission who has been closed by the police of the road just before the attack started.

About the police attack to immigrants on 11-2

On the 11/02/13, we saw one more organised attack taking place outside ASOEE. This time, the attack didn’t came from the side of the MAT with tear-gas and flashbang like so many times in the past, but from plainclothes cops from the nearby police station, and in a way that reminds attacks from fascists of Golden Dawn.
More specifically, a group of 7-8 plainclothes cops attacked from the side of Patission and Antoniadou the immigrants who were present at that time outside of ASOEE, whether street-vendors or passerby. At the same moment a second similar group of plainclothes cops, wearing helmets and telescopic clubs, crossed vertically Patission street, through the traffic, in order to reach the main entrance of the school and prevent people to get in. Two immigrants, that didn’t knew exactly what was going on, and while trying to get away, have been caught and beaten. The one  who managed to “slip away” had several stitches on the head and a broken leg, while the other who wasn’t beaten that much, although he has many obvious wounds on the face and the head, get caught. They accused him of 6 misdemeanors (insults, threats, resistance, attempt of causing bodily  harm, illegal possession and use of arms), of which the ridicule is been showed by the accusation of insults, with a rich vocabulary, from a person who doesn’t speak greek at all.