EUROPEAN DAY FOR ACTION AGAINST DETENTION CENTERS
IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE
DETENTION CENTERS
MUST CLOSE
In 21st century Greece, an operation has been set into motion whose aim is to terrorize,
torture and humiliate thousands of people, while insulting us all: refugees are being held in
concentration camps. This is about real storehouses for human beings, located all over eastern
continental Greece, on the Greek islands and even in Athens and Corinth. The only “offence”
committed by the thousands crammed into these spaces is that they are here without papers –
no matter if they come from war-torn Syria, occupied Palestine or African countries ravaged by
extreme poverty. The Greek state is violating both European treaties and its own constitution,
without showing a trace of humanity or sensitivity when it sentences thousands of immigrants
(including minors, people who require medical assistance and torture victims) to an 18-month
imprisonment in the most deplorable conditions: no yard time, a complete lack of hygiene,
inadequate food and medical care, no communication with friends and family. The goal is to
discourage new immigrants from entering Greece. The Greek state has the arrogance to
describe immigrants as a “health time-bomb”, while dismantling the public health sector and
ignoring the inhumane conditions of the refugee detention centers, thus putting the health of
both Greeks and immigrants at great risk.
Although the EU allocates funds for detention centers, the Greek state either does not
use them, or uses them to finance the oppression of economic and political refugees. The
disgrace only gets worse if we consider that the vast majority of detainees in concentration
camps cannot be deported, making their imprisonment nothing but a punishment for having
tried to escape war and extreme poverty. This is the epitome of hospitality! (Police “sweep”
operations have been named “Operation Xenios Zeus”, after the ancient Greek god of
hospitality.) “Greece is no longer an open door when it comes to immigration”, the Minister of
Public Order has announced. The Greek government, though, has opened the country’s doors
wide to the Troika and to local or foreign capital, which are responsible for the memoranda
that have impoverished millions of Greeks and immigrants and have created zones of absolute
social degradation within Greece.
At the same time, we are observing European leaders trying to transform Europe into a
huge fortress. Europe first devastated whole continents, through financial plundering and
imperialist wars, and is now building walls to protect itself from its own victims. This policy
causes more and more “Lampedusa” incidents, increasing the misery of hundreds of thousands
of people who are simply looking for a place in the sun. The incidents near Lampedusa, near
the Greek island Leukada, the people who die on a daily basis in the Ionian, the Aegean and
the Mediterranean are parts of the same immigration policy implemented all over Southern
Europe. It is a policy based on fortified states and the exclusion of immigrants.
Faced with this brutality, we have taken the initiative to organize a nationwide
campaign against detention centers and detention in police cells, where the same appalling
conditions are found. The campaign is open to any collective and to any individual willing to
resist to the illegitimacy of concentration camps and European and Greek immigration policies.
It is a long-term campaign and we are well aware of the fact that its main goal (the closure of
detention centers) will not be achieved without struggle and persistence. The campaign is
meant to cover many levels both in institutions and within the movements. We discuss and
plan our actions every Thursday at 19.30 at the “Steki Metanaston”.
Our goal is to make Greek society aware of the issue of detention centers in many ways
and through different interventions, such as protesting in police stations (e.g. in Omonia) and
concentration camps (e.g. in Amugdaleza and Corinth), using the institutions and spreading
the word through the internet. Our first goal is a big demonstration on December 18th in the
centre of Athens, for the International Migrants Day. On that day we are going to condemn the
government’s immigration policy and demand, together with the immigrants, what is selfevident.
Enough with the disgrace of concentration camps and of the thousands of immigrants
detained in police station cells all over the country under even more deplorable conditions.
None of our social problems has been solved by imprisoning those people (who actually
believes that immigrants are responsible for mass unemployment, the dismantling of the
public sector and the hundreds of thousands of dismissals?): on the contrary, lives are being
destroyed, racism is increasing, immigrant-exploitation rings are gaining power and corrupting
Greek people, while any idea of democracy is being dishonoured.
Let’s fight, by extending the open initiatives that already exist in many cities to all of
Greece, so as to give medical and legal organizations free access to detention centers, to free
all immigrants without papers and to get travel documents for all refugees who want to move
to the west.
 Open reception centers for immigrants and refugees
 Asylum for all refugees
 Regularization of immigrants who live and work in Greece
Open Initiative Against Detention Centers
Centers
Everyone in Omonia Square on
Wednesday, 18th December, at
17.00