Welcome to The Conservative Cave©!Join in the discussion! Click HERE to register.
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
FarCenter (10,819 posts)Greek police evict immigrants from AthensAFP - Police said Saturday they had rounded up about 2,000 people in an operation to evict undocumented immigrants from central Athens, claiming that "national survival" was at stake for debt-choked Greece.The aim of the operation was "to send them back to their countries of origin, close the borders and ensure that Athens returns to being a lawful city with a quality of life," police spokesman Christos Manouras said.Operation Xenios Zeus, named after the name of the king of the ancient Greek gods in his role as protector of guests, mobilised 2,000 police in Athens and another 2,500 on Greece's eastern border with Turkey.Manouras said the deportation of illegal immigrants was a necessity for national survival."We must send the message that Greece cannot afford work and hospitality" to would-be immigrants, he said.http://www.france24.com/en/20120804-greek-police-evict-immigrants-athens
Starry Messenger (18,885 posts)1. Holy crap.I remember a story that the police had high levels of fascist voters in the last elections. But do they have the authority to just round people up like that, all in a mass? Not only is it inhumane, it's going to have political implications.
FarCenter (10,819 posts)2. If the immigrants are in the country illegally, why not?
Starry Messenger (18,885 posts)3. Because tossing thousands of people from one location to another without warning seldom goes well?The countries where they are from are going to have trouble absorbing a large spike. I know the humanitarian aspect holds no interest for you, but the logistics of it might give you pause.
FarCenter (10,819 posts)5. The populations of the home countries are much larger than the population of Greece.Greece's population is only 11.3 million.The population of Pakistan, for example, is 176 million. So the home countries of the immigrants are arguably better able to absorb them than is Greece.
Starry Messenger (18,885 posts)6. Then why are they in Greece?They prefer the cuisine? Please.
FarCenter (10,819 posts)7. Because the Turkey-Greece border is the weakest border of the European UnionOnce in Greece, they can attempt to travel on to another EU country.
HiPointDem (4,121 posts)10. doesn't really answer the root question -- why other countries?
dixiegrrrrl (25,500 posts)8. You are "getting it" but I fear so many others do not see the intent and the message behind the round up of "undesireables".Slippery slippery slope.Esp. since ..."For the first time in Greek political history, the country in June voted into parliament a neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn, which has promised to purge the country of illegal migrants."
Starry Messenger (18,885 posts)9. Oh, very much yes.Greece has had immigrants going to and fro for decades. Germany is putting the pressure on Greece to "stem the tide"--I find the historical parallels incredibly alarming.http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/19/golden-dawn-s-violent-war-against-immigrants-in-greece.htmlBeing an immigrant—illegal or not—has become a risky way of life in Athens. Since May 6, when Greeks gave voice to extremist neo-Nazi anti-immigration party Golden Dawn, attacks on immigrants have doubled. On May 31, an Albanian man standing on the street in Athens’s Neos Kosmos neighborhood was stabbed with a sword by a masked motorcycle driver. Paramedics had to remove several ribs to dislodge the sword, which pierced his chest and was left sticking out of his back.The same night, 20 minutes later, two Polish men were stabbed with knives in the same part of town. The next day men from Bangladesh and Pakistan were stabbed in the city’s subway stations. “Things have gotten worse since the elections,†Reza Gholami, who heads an association for immigrants from Afghanistan, told Greek Kathimerini newspaper after the May 6 election. “There are daily beatings.â€I'd say the "problem" is scary neo-nazis gaining power, not immigrants who are contributing to the economy:http://www.migrationinformation.org/Profiles/display.cfm?ID=884More than 1 million immigrants have arrived in Greece over the course of two decades, contributing significantly to the improvement of the demographic and economic profile of the country.The numbers of immigrants have actually been going down in recent years:It has widely been reported that the current economic crisis in Greece and growing xenophobia among the citizen population have reduced immigrant registration. The number of registered foreign born has fallen in the past three years, from 602,797 in 2009 to 553,916 in 2010 to 447,658 in 2011.The business of ferrying immigrants into Greece is big business in the countries of origin, just like it is here. Therefore, people are not going to stop profiting on people trying to get to better jobs in Europe. So what message is this intended to send?
dixiegrrrrl (25,500 posts)13. Message is being sent all over the globe.One quick google gives stories of international immigrant crackdowns:here in US,,"Operation Safe Communitites" is the plan's name and in Israel, in China,in Britain, in France ( they are after the Romany gypsies, who have been persecuted for ages, the Nazis killed a lot of them)Besides Greece and the above, I have not yet heard of other countries.Rather interesting that this has suddenly become a global issue.
HiPointDem (4,121 posts)12. perennial feature of economic downturns. the same folks who colluded to encourage 'illegals' to hold down wages in booms (wink wink nod nod) now do a 180 & start using them as scapegoats, suddenly 'cracking down' like they just caught the clue train.and yes, fascism goes with that scenario.
emilyg (22,479 posts)4. I'm a legal immigrant and have very little sympathy for the illegals.
FarCenter (10,819 posts)14. Charity begins at homeRarely could charity have had such negative connotations as on Wednesday in Syntagma Square, central Athens, where neofascist Chryssi Avgi (Golden Dawn) handed out free food to passers-by, as long as they could prove they were Greek.The party, which gained 7 percent of the vote in the June elections, was completely open about the fact that it had taken a political choice to feed just Greeks. The sociopathic nature of this decision is self-evident. The fact that the event was a bare-faced publicity stunt is also clear. Golden Dawn's decision to use state funding (taxpayers’ money) for “good causes†is a direct challenge to the parties accused of consistently pocketing or wasting public funds. It underlines that Golden Dawn is a product of the political system’s chronic apathy.It is too late to correct this now, the damage has been done. Cleaning up the political system and completing the transition from the self-serving politics of the last few decades to something more productive will take time. But this is a commodity Greece doesn’t have when dealing with the rise of extremism. Wednesday’s events highlighted that the country is fast approaching social disintegration.The discrimination exercised in how food was handed out or the fact that Golden Dawn defied a ban by the City of Athens to use the capital’s main square for its event is the least of Greek society’s worries. There was something much darker, more malignant going in Syntagma Square. Anyone wanting to avail themselves of the far-right party’s “generosity†was asked to produce an ID card proving they were Greek. This document was then taken by party members, who recorded all the details.http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite3_1_02/08/2012_455135Things are likely to get worse after Greece is kicked out of the Eurozone. Standard of living will probably fall by half.
dixiegrrrrl (25,500 posts)15. "First they came for..."
Starry Messenger (18,885 posts)16. The police are also complicit in the street harassment and hate crimes-http://www.pappaspost.com/view-news/-/acontent/50760“Despite clear patterns to the violence and evidence that it is increasing, the police have failed to respond effectively to protect victims and hold perpetrators to account,†says the report. “Authorities have yet to develop a preventive policing strategy, while victims are discouraged from filing official complaints. No one has been convicted under Greece’s 2008 hate crime statute.â€Human Rights Watch accuses the police of being ill-equipped or ill-disposed to investigate reports of racist violence. “There is no specialized, practical training at the police academies, and there are no specialized officers tasked with pursuing or overseeing investigations into possible hate crimes. While responders will provide immediate assistance – calling an ambulance, for example – Human Rights Watch heard repeatedly that police discourage victims from filing official complaints.â€Making an already bad situation worse, Greece introduced a 100-euro fee to file police complaints in 2010. Designed to discourage frivolous complaints that clog a chronically slow system of justice, the fee is also preventing migrants from filing complaints.Sunderland interviewed 79 foreigners living in Greece. The majority (59) said they experienced or escaped a xenophobic incident in Greece between August 2009 and May 2012.The victims included migrants and asylum seekers, as well as two pregnant women.This is a rising political campaign of terror. It's not going to stop with immigrants, who are an "easy" target to scapegoat. Fascists control whole neighborhoods with the winking encouragement of police. They have a political base and are training shock troops to control populations. This frightens me.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/fascism-rises-from-the-depths-of-greeces-despair-7712276.htmlIt started, as many days do in Greece, with a trip to the kiosk to buy cigarettes. Still half-asleep, Panayiotis Roumeliotis was surprised to be asked to show his identity card by two young men with shaved heads. It was his first direct contact with the vigilante groups that have become a feature of everyday life in some areas of the Greek capital."They were calling themselves the residents association but they were just fasistakia (little fascists)," said the 28-year-old.Over the last two years, Mr Roumeliotis has watched the central Athens neighbourhood of Ayios Panteleimonas, where he grew up, undergo an ugly transformation. Taking the bus on another morning soon after, a gunshot shattered the back window and a gang of men forced the driver to stop. When the doors opened, they came on to the bus and started to assault the non-Greek passengers. The attackers were wearing T-shirts from the right-wing extremist group Golden Dawn. While panicked people were trying to escape from the bus the men were hitting them with flagpoles."They were beating people with the Greek flag," said Mr Roumeliotis.When the police arrived they stood off until the thugs had finished. When he asked the police why no one had been arrested one of the officers replied to him: "Why, did they do something to you?"
socialist_n_TN (7,352 posts)17. Time for the Greek left to put together some worker's militias.......This is the way the fascists start. With the MOST disenfranchised and hated of the population. Then they move on to their next enemy. That would be you Greek Reds. You either defend these immigrants and yourselves or you lose without firing a shot.
FarCenter (10,819 posts)18. Wouldn't worker's militias be just as xenophobic?
They can friggen AFFORD their legal citizens you stupid idiots.
They can't friggen AFFORD their legal citizens you stupid idiots.
