Greece’s justice minister, Haralambos Athanasiou, has been accused of homophobia after unequivocally denouncing gay marriage.

In an outburst that startled human rights defenders and activists in the country’s increasingly visible LGBT community, the minister, Haralambos Athanasiou, said he was virulently opposed to same-sex marriage as it posed dangers to a society that “respected traditions”.

“I won’t discuss it, I can’t conceive of it,” the conservative politician told Mega TV. “Besides, the convention of human rights forbids it. When it speaks about marriage it speaks [of marriage] between a man and woman. We are a country that respects traditions, respects human nature, and it’s not possible at least with this government and this ministry, to permit marriage.”

Complying with EU demands to legalise domestic partnerships for homosexual couples was also problematic, he said, because it was not without potentially adverse consequences for society.

“It’s a little dangerous to simply speak of civil unions. The matter is not easy. The problem is what are the consequences going to be … are we going to go as far as talking about adoption [by same-sex couples] next?” he asked.

Athens was fined by the European court of human rights last year for failing to extend protective rights, including domestic partnerships, to gays and lesbians, a move the tribunal described as discriminating to same-sex couples.

Following the judgment, the prime minister Antonis Samaras’s conservative-dominated coalition signalled that it would redress the wrong but got cold feet when rightwingers and clerics reacted in fury. Greece and Lithuania stand alone in refusing to grant such rights.

When put to him that the vast majority of EU member states had implemented such laws, the Greek justice minister retorted: “That’s their issue.”

He said: “Our country has structures. We have to look at it from the religious point of view, the political point of view, the social point of view. The ministry of justice will not, under the pressure of anyone, examine such an issue without calmness and composure.”

This year the bishop of Thessaloniki, Anthimos, an influential figure in the Greek Orthodox church, called homosexuality “a perversion of human existence”.

In April a prominent MP with the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party, Ilias Panagiotaros, denounced same-sex relationships as a “sickness”, telling an Australian interviewer: “Until 1997 the international association of doctors and I don’t know what considered homosexuality a sickness, illness, which it is.”

With the rhetoric at such levels, gay activists are far from being inured to the need to be battle-hardened in the fight for equal rights. But campaigners expressed shock at Athanasiou’s statements at a time when attacks on gay people have increased alarmingly in recent months.

Andrea Gilbert, a prominent LGBT activist, said: “Greece wants to present itself to Europe and the rest of the world as a modern democratic country that respects the rights of all its citizens. These are really very shocking statements when the man making them is the minister of justice, the person who is meant to protect citizens, not a crackpot member of Golden Dawn.

“No declaration of human rights forbids anything and the Greek constitution for sure does not define marriage as being between a man and a woman. With their emphasis on ‘consequences’ these remarks reek of fear-mongering of the worst kind.”

Source of the Article: The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/02/greek-justice-minister-gay-marriage

Source of the featured image: Efimerida ton Syntakton, http://www.efsyn.gr

Greece’s supreme court has upheld a decision by a jury court of appeals in the city of Patras to acquit the farmers who opened fire, last year, on 28 unpaid Bangladeshi strawberry pickers, seriously wounding four of them.

Deputy public prosecutor Konstantinos Paraskevaidis ruled there was no legal basis for a retrial of two of the four farmers  implicated in the shooting and that they will not stand trial again. The decision came after Supreme Court prosecutor Efterpi Koutzamani had requested a review of the original decision.

The incident in question took place in the farm town of Manolada, Southern Greece in 2013, when the Bangladeshi strawberry pickers refused to keep working unless they were paid salaries they were owed. Instead of receiving their money, they came under a hail of fire.

The trial took place in the summer of 2014 in Patras where a panel of judges and jurors unanimously decided that the farm owner and one of his superintendents should be cleared of all charges. The other two farmers were found guilty of grievous bodily harm and complicity and were handed suspended sentences of  14 and 7 years respectively. They will stand another trial after both lodged an appeal.

The ruling had sparked outrage in Greece and abroad, and human right groups dubbed the decision a ‘racist scandal’. The victims lawyer Moisis Karabeyidis, who felt ‘ashamed as a Greek’, said at the time that he would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Source: http://www.thepressproject.net/article/68567/Supreme-court-upholds-disgraceful-ruling-clearing-farmers-who-shot-unpaid-Bangladeshi-strawberry-pickers

Α comic telling the stories of three people, drawing upon recent events in Greece: An HIV-positive woman used as a scapegoat, a Greek man mistaken for an immigrant, and an antifascist, are all captured by the police and thrown in prison. Their fate is shaped by the hate rhetoric adopted by the mainstream politics and media.

What is the social and political background of these events? How do the election games create the ‘enemy’? What is the role of the media? How far is mainstream racist discourse from neo-Nazi violence in the streets? What can we do to reverse the situation? These are only a few of the questions that The Box invites us to answer through its strong language and art.

The presentation of the graphic novel and the discussion with the artist, M. Astikos, will take place on Saturday 21 June at 14.00 at the bookstore de Rooie Rat, Oudegracht 65, Utrecht.

Deze trend beperkt zich niet tot Nederland. Door heel Europa zijn deze ideeën in opkomst. Wilders bundelt op Europees niveau zijn krachten met andere extreemrechtse en zelfs fascistische partijen. Solidariteit tussen verschillende bevolkingsgroepen is nodig om deze gevaarlijke tendens te keren.

Wij hebben daarom vijf eisen:

1.Er moet een actiecampagne komen die discriminatie in het onderwijs en op de arbeids-markt tegengaat. Bedrijven die discrimineren moeten worden beboet.

2.Alle discriminatiegronden moeten even serieus worden genomen. Naast homofobie, racisme en antisemitisme moet ook de islamofobie in Nederland in kaart worden gebracht en actief bestreden worden.

3.Er moet een onafhankelijk vervolgonderzoek komen op het rapport van Amnesty International over de politie. Etnisch profileren moet stoppen.

4.Dit kabinet moet de uitspraak van het Europees Comite voor Sociale Rechten opvolgen: alle vluchtelingen hebben recht op voedsel, onderdak en kleding. Geen vluchteling op straat of in de cel, laten we de mensenrechten weer respecteren!

5.De Sinterklaasoptocht moet dit jaar Zwarte Piet vrij worden. In het onderwijs moet er meer aandacht komen voor het Nederlandse slavernij- en koloniale verleden.

DEMONSTREER MEE OP DE DAG TEGEN RACISME

Our Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) argues that the new restrictive criteria will undermine the conditions for integration in Greece, undoing most of its major advancements on integration since 2007.

A major change in Greece’s MIPEX score

Between 2007 and 2010, Greece made significant progress on political participation. It opened political opportunities for migrants that were found to be average for most MIPEX countries and following the trends in other new countries of immigration.  If the envisaged provisions come into force, the political participation rights in Greece would become slightly unfavourable for immigrant integration. The abolition of the right to vote and stand for elections would lower Greece’s MIPEX score on political participation from 40 to 31 and give Greece a score on electoral rights of zero.

The new immigration bill will undo most of the Greece’s major achievements in the past few years. The country would fall below the European standards set by the 1992 Council of Europe “Convention on the participation of foreigners in public life at the local level” (ETS No. 144), which inspired the major reform that led to the adoption of  Law 3838/2010.

Moreover, Greece will be the only European country on record to have abolished the right to vote for immigrants. The only such example found by Kees Groenendijk, one of Europe’s preeminent expert on migration law, was the Swiss canton of Neuchatel all the way back in 1875. Today in Europe it is very hard to find any example of a major political party advocating to disenfranchise immigrant voters, except for Denmark’s far-right Danish People’s Party, which has been advocating this position since 1981.

In contrast, according to MIPEX non-EU citizens have the right to local voting in over half the EU Member States as well as many countries of immigration around the world, from Australia and New Zealand to Japan.

Governments granting voting rights to immigrants are committed to provide equal treatment and thus better conditions for social integration of non-nationals. Letting immigrants participate in local elections also encourages naturalisation at law implementation and maintenance costs. In practice, few of the supposedly negative effects often raised in debates play out in practice – e.g. greater foreign influence, creation of ethnic parties, and radical overturn of status quo.

1. Racisme is een veel te alledaags verschijnsel

De ontwikkelingen rond racisme in Nederland geven een dubbel beeld.Enerzijds lijkt het racisme onder de bevolking als geheel af te nemen.Het Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau publiceerde in december een onderzoek dat liet zien hoe steeds minder mensen in Nederland moeite lijken te hebben met het grote aantal verschillende nationaliteiten in Nederland. In 2002 gaf bijna de helft van de ondervraagden aan hiermee een probleem te hebben, terwijl dit nu minder dan een derde is.

Tegelijkertijd zien we dat de racistische minderheid verder verhardt. Uit cijfers van het Verwey-Jonker Instituut blijkt dat het aantal racistische incidenten in 2012 met een kwart is toegenomen ten opzichte van 2011.

Dezelfde verharding zien we ook uit de reacties op Quinsy Gario en Anouk. Vorige maand kwam daar de 17-jarige diabetespatiënt Yosra bij. Zij werd vorige maand aangehouden in een Hema omdat ze voor een junk werd aangezien toen ze in een pashokje insuline spoot.

Onder druk van publieke woede bood de Hema een week later excuses aan voor de arrestatie. Op een onlineforum schreef een collega van de beveiligers over de arrestatie: ‘Echt weer zo een buitenlander streek. Als het aan mij zou liggen komen ze de winkel niet eens meer binnen.’

Maar het probleem gaat verder dan individuele opvattingen van beveiligers. Toen Yosra op het politiebureau haar medicijnen liet zien zei een agent: ‘Dat is vast een truc om eerder weg te mogen uit de cel. Dat doen veel allochtonen.’

De politie zegt dat dit gelogen is, maar hun geschiedenis spreekt tegen hen. Het incident komt maanden na het nieuws van oud-agenten dat de Haagse politie in de Schilderswijk structureel racistisch geweld gebruikt tegenover (al geboeide) arrestanten. Doordat korpsleiding en VVD-burgemeester van Aartsen stil blijven, groeit het zelfvertrouwen van racistische agenten. Zij worden nog eens gesterkt in hun ideeën door de politiek.

2. Gevestigde politiek is onderdeel van het probleem

De PVV is in peilingen even groot als de PvdA en VVD samen. Maar racistische opvattingen worden ondertussen door het hele politieke spectrum omarmd. Een initiatief in Amsterdam om de opkomst tijdens gemeenteraadsverkiezingen te verhogen onder ‘jongeren, internationals en allochtonen’ werd na een mediastorm aangepast. Het argument was dat de campagne vooral de PvdA stemmen zou opleveren. CDA’er Marijke Shahsavari is bang voor een grotere verkiezingsopkomst: ‘Als een etnische groep plotseling massaal gaat stemmen is de verkiezing geen afspiegeling van de samenleving meer.’

Maar de PvdA gebruikt evengoed rechtse retoriek om stemmen te winnen. In een interview met de NRC zei voorzitter van de deelraad van Amsterdam Nieuw-West, Baâdoud, dat de oorsprong van criminaliteit ‘bij de opvoeding ligt’. Hij heeft aan minister Hennis-Plasschaert voorgesteld een legerkazerne in zijn wijk neer te zetten om Turks-Nederlandse jongeren ‘discipline’ bij te brengen. Bij Baâdoud geen woord over de werkloosheid die bij dezelfde jongeren in Nieuw-West boven de veertig procent ligt. Zo gebruiken politici racisme om mensen te verdelen en de aandacht af te leiden van werkelijke problemen.

3. Om het momentum rond racisme te vertalen naar de straat

Door het moedige werk van zwarte activisten is racisme weer onderwerp van discussie geworden. Dit is een positieve ontwikkeling, maar om verandering af te dwingen moeten we de druk op politici opvoeren. Op zaterdag 22 maart wordt er in Amsterdam gedemonstreerd in het kader van de internationale dag tegen racisme de dag ervoor. Die dag werd uitgeroepen door de Verenigde Naties in reactie op de protesten tegen de pasjeswetten in Sharpeville, Zuid-Afrika, waarbij 69 mensen werden gedood door politiekogels.

Vorig jaar op 23 maart gingen meer dan 3000 mensen de straat op tegen het Nederlandse vluchtelingenbeleid. De coalitie die dit organiseerde bestond naast vluchtelingen zelf uit meer dan tachtig organisaties: linkse partijen en organisaties, vakbonden, kerken, moskeeën en vluchtelingenorganisaties. De doelen van groepen liepen hierbij uiteen van het opheffen van elke vorm van migratiebeperking tot het eisen van een ‘humaner’ asielbeleid.

Met een grote en brede demonstratie op 22 maart tegen racisme zetten we niet alleen de politiek onder druk, maar komen we ook in contact met veel meer mensen die in actie willen komen tegen racisme. De oproep van het 21 maart Comité combineert een brede analyse over de opkomst van extreemrechts in Europa aan concrete eisen uit campagnes rond bijvoorbeeld etnisch profileren en Zwarte Piet.

In de aanloop naar de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen legt dit protest de vinger op de zere plek: Nederland heeft een racismeprobleem en het wordt hoog tijd de strijd ertegen weer serieus te nemen. – See more at: http://socialisme.nu/blog/nieuws/39903/geen-ruimte-voor-racisme/#sthash.ibswAgOF.dpuf

The deaths come as Morocco, under pressure from Spain, struggles to limit the rising tide of sub-Saharan Africans heading to its northern shores in a desperate quest to reach mainland Europe.

Hundreds of migrants headed out to sea from the Moroccan town of Fnideq at 6 am (0600 GMT) in a mass attempt to circumvent the six-metre (20-foot) barriers that mark the land border with the Ceuta enclave, Spanish and Moroccan officials said.

Moroccan police pulled the bodies of nine migrants, including a woman, from the waters near the Spanish border post, the photographer said.

Authorities in Fnideq said around 200 migrants attempted the crossing, while the authorities in Ceuta said around 400 had taken part in the desperate bid to reach EU territory, braving the strong currents of the Strait of Gibraltar.

Moroccan coastguard vessels picked up 150 of the migrants, while the rest turned back to shore, the official MAP news agency reported.

The head of a rights group in the region, Mohamed Benaissa, said many of the migrants were from Cameroon.

Officials in Ceuta said that before heading to the beach, they clashed with police as they tried to enter the Spanish territory via a bridge used to transport goods.

“The immigrants adopted a very aggressive violent attitude, throwing rocks and other objects at the Moroccan and Spanish security forces,” said a spokesman for the authorities in Ceuta.

The Spanish police managed to drive them away using anti-riot gear, including rubber bullets.

“This drama shows once again the risks taken by illegal migrants, who put their lives in danger,” the authorities in Fnideq said.

Storming the barriers

Ceuta is the northernmost point on the coast of northwest Africa and lies just 15 kilometres (9 miles) across the strait from the Spanish mainland.

Along with Spain’s other north African enclave Melilla, it has the European Union’s only land borders in Africa.

They are both seen as stepping stones to a better life in Europe for sub-Saharan migrants, who often risk their lives attempting to enter the tiny Spanish enclaves, either by sea or by storming the barriers separating them from Morocco.

On Sunday, the bodies of five presumed migrants thought to have been trying to reach Spain in an inflatable boat were found in the Nador area of Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, near Melilla.

According to the Rif Human Rights Association, more than 40 migrants died trying to reach Ceuta or Melilla from Morocco over the past two years.

Many more attempt the perilous journey across the Strait of Gibraltar, often in overloaded makeshift boats.

Spain is just one of the southern European countries facing a mounting influx of African migrants and asylum-seekers.

Earlier this week, Italy said the number of asylum-seekers landing on its shores rose tenfold in January, compared with the same month last year.

Rome launched a military and humanitarian response last October, after hundreds of migrants drowned in two shipwreck tragedies near the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Faced with the same problem, Spain last year began to put barbed wire along Melilla’s 11-kilometre (seven-mile) border fence in a bid to deter the migrants, drawing criticism from rights groups.

The authorities in Tangiers, Morocco’s main northern city, also said they were beefing up surveillance along the coast, where they claim to intercept scores of migrants trying to reach Europe each week.

Morocco estimates there are around 30,000 illegal immigrants on its soil, most of them from sub-Saharan Africa.

In early January, the government launched an operation to regularise their situation and grant them residency permits, in the face of allegations that several migrants had died at the hands of police in 2013.

Source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140206/9-migrants-drown-trying-reach-spanish-enclave-morocco

This is an email sent by one of Reinform’s members who is at the moment in Athens, Greece. Yesterday she participated in the protest against the Greek Coast Guard which is allegedly accused of the drowning of 12 migrants (3 women and 9 children) off the coast of Farmakonisi island.

Hello everybody,

Yesterday I attended the interview that 3 of the 16 survivors gave to several political organizations for the rights of immigrants and Greek journalists at Sintagma Square.

I was shocked to hear what the 3 men, Abdel Sabur Azizi, EHsanula and Fada Mohumad Ahmadi, experienced during the night of 21st January . They were exhausted and shocked by the loss of their own family members but they had summoned the courage to be able to answer all the questions.

I heard one of them saying that his wife and his child jumped into the water after they got panicked when their boat was towed by the Greek Coast Guard which was heading at high speed for the Turkish coast. When the man saw his wife and his child sinking into the water, he started screaming and asking for life-jackets but the Coast Guards were just swearing at him and ignored him. “Other Coast Guards were shooting in the air with their guns trying to intimidate us and they shouted back to us: Fuck you, we will kill you all”, said the same man.

One journalist asked the 3 migrants, how it is possible that only men managed to survive. The answer was that they managed to climb on the vessel of the Greek Coast Guard which could not move because its engine was stopped. While they struggling to climb on the vessel, the Guards were trying to kick them back but in the meantime Turkish boats approached and the Greek Coat Guards were panicked.

Afterwards the survivors were brought to a posh restaurant on the nearby island of Leros. Later on they were transferred to the Police Station of Leros where they spent the night with their wet clothes still on and also without any food and water. At the Police Station they were asked to sign several papers with the help of a translator who spoke Farsi but not their language. When members of the UNHCR showed up at the Police Station, then the Police officers changed their attitude and they were pretending that they following the process in order to help the migrants.

“They only thing we want now is to find the bodies of our family members and bury them”, said another migrant.

After the interview was finished, several representatives of the political organizations talked about the responsibility of the Greek Government to this crime and asked the Greek authorities to take under consideration the testimonies of the survivors during the judicial process in order the perpetrators of this crime to be punished. Afterwards all demonstrators walked to the Police Station of Omonia where official declarations were submitted by the organizations demanding the immediate judicial process for those ones who are behind this crime as well as the application of the law for the rights of migrants .

I am wondering now who is really responsible for this crime? Who is allowing Coast Guards to behave like that? Isn’t Prime Minister Antonis Samaras who is blaming the migrants for the hunger of the Greek people and at the same time he is boosting for the fact that EU has now accepted officially the term “illegal migrant” ? Isn’t Merchant Marine Minister Militadis Varvitsiotis who is trying to deny that a crime has been committed by saying that all these testimonies is an exaggerated and made up story to stain the honour of Greece?

Best regards,

V.I.

26 January 2014, Athens

Eyewitnesses accuse the Greek Coast Guard of drowning migrants off the coast of the island of Farmakonisi.

As UNHCR reports: “According to survivors’ testimonies, the Coast Guard boat towing their vessel was heading, at high speed, towards the Turkish coast, when the tragic incident happened amid rough seas. The same witnesses said people were screaming for help, since there was a large number of children on the boat”.

International organisations have condemned, several times, the refoulement policy against migrants entering Greece without papers.

UNHCR has requested explanations in the past from the Greek authorities about the mysterious “disappearance” of dozens of migrants by the Greek police, under circumstances that caused an international outcry against the Greek government.

In other cases, residents of peripheral islands have denounced that migrants surrendering to the port authorities, in order to be transferred to reception centres, never arrive there.

The full announcement of the UNHCR:

“UNHCR expresses its concern for the continued loss of human lives at sea, on the occasion of the incident in Farmakonisi.

A fishing boat with 28 people onboard (25 Afghans and 3 Syrians), including many women and children, was overturned and sank in the early hours of Monday, Jan. 21, 2014, in the sea area of Farmakonisi. 16 of those on board were collected by the Coast Guard. A woman and a 5 year old child were found dead near the Turkish coast, while 10 more people (2 women and 8 infants and young children) are missing.

A UNHCR team went on Tuesday, Jan. 22, to the island of Leros, where the survivors had been transferred by the Coast Guard, and talked with them as well as the Port Authority.

According to information from the Port Authority, the boat had been detected by the Coast Guard at midnight, Sunday, January 20, immobilised and without navigation lights and, taking into account the situation and the bad weather conditions, a salvage operation was launched to tow it towards Farmakonisi. During the operation, a large number of those on board were gathered on one side of the boat, which resulted in its overturn and sinking.

However, according to survivors’ testimonies, the Coast Guard boat towing their vessel was heading, at high speed, towards the Turkish coast, when the tragic incident happened amid rough seas. The same witnesses said people were screaming for help, since there was a large number of children on the boat.

“UNHCR urges the authorities to investigate the circumstances under which the incident occurred, and how lives were lost in a boat under towing”, Laurens Jolles, Regional Representative of the High Commissioner for Southern Europe, said.

The UN Organisation for Refugees has made an appeal to European and other countries’ governments to work together in order to reduce casualties, when dangerous passages in the Mediterranean and other key maritime borders are followed.

The Organisation notes the need for further strengthening of the rescue operations at sea, and the creation of channels for legal migration so that dangerous, irregular movements are avoided.”

Source: http://www.x-pressed.org/?xpd_article=the-coast-guard-drowned-the-migrants-in-farmakonisi