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Old July 8th, 2012 #321
N.B. Forrest
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So he lightly cuffed the commie whore a couple of times. Boo fucking hoo. If the ex-special forces man had been serious about hurting her, rather than giving her a little badly-needed attitude adjustment, she'd have been out on the floor.

Both those bitches are working to implement an insanely malicious kike-originated system that's buried more people than any other by far, so they deserve a hell of a lot more than they got that day - and may they and all their comrades get it in the very near future.
 
Old July 8th, 2012 #322
Alex Linder
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[here's a marxist analysis of Greek voting patterns]

A revealing study: Classes and parties in the June 17 Greek elections

Written by Christophoros Vernardakis, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Scientific Director of VPRC (a social research company)

Thursday, 05 July 2012

We are publishing this very interesting and detailed study of the Greek electorate. It provides extremely interesting data, which shows how the different classes and age groups voted. Syriza’s vote is overwhelmingly working class and young, which confirms once again the extreme radicalisation to the left of these layers in society.

The June 17 elections and new alignments in the party system

The elections of June 17 completed the change in the Greek party system that began with the election results of May 5. To a great extent both elections are similar; they recorded the transition from a two-party to a multiparty system, and revealed a new structure of political representation.

The social structure of voting on June 17 shows three cumulative polarisations: according to age; according to professional/class lines; and according to geography. The hitherto historic extreme differentiation between urban and rural areas seems to have receded, given that Syriza recorded its highest share ever of the suburban and rural vote. With the exception of Golden Dawn, which is chiefly a ‘male party’, there hasn’t been much differentiation along gender lines in any of the parties. The table provided helps with an initial analysis of these polarisations, which indicate, amongst other things, a clear picture of the dynamics and consistency of the parties.

1. Age-related polarisation


greek 17 June vote analysis (pdf, 1.51 MB)

The June 17 electorate is divided into two general categories, as shown in more detail in the Table: on the one hand, the 18-54 year-old age group, and on the other, those aged 55 and above (within which those aged 65 and above have a higher incidence). The former group gave the lead to Syriza whilst the latter to New Democracy (ND). The former group gave exceptionally low percentages to Pasok, whilst the latter maintained its levels to that of the previous election of May 6.

Indeed, comparing the lowest age group of 18-24 year-olds with the highest group of 65-plus there is an unprecedented deviation. The 18-24 year-old age group gave the lead to Syriza with 45.5%, whilst the 65-plus gave the lead to ND with 49.4%. The 18-24 year-old age group gave only 2.3% of its vote to Pasok whilst the 65-plus group gave 19.1% to Pasok – a significant vote judging by recent developments. Generally, the old two-party model of ND and Pasok survived among the older age groupings, albeit with big losses when compared to historical figures.

In relation to Golden Dawn, its share of the vote is chiefly from the 25-44 year-olds, the middle to lower age group. In that respect, it is neither expressive of a younger nor older electorate per se.

2. Profession-based and class-based voting pattern

The second major division of the electorate was along professional and class lines. A strong class polarisation reappeared in the elections of June, a polarisation which had previously been reduced noticeably since 1996 and the ‘modernisation’ of Pasok. Behind ND, and the Right broadly, mobilised the entrepreneurial and employer layers (35.9%) which also appeared to have given a remarkable 20.3% to Golden Dawn. In that category of the economically active population, Pasok also managed a 17.2% share of the vote.

The second most supportive group for ND had been that of self-employed farmers with 35.9%, a group that also supported Golden Dawn with a strong 7.5% of the share of the vote.

In summing up, what emerges is that the force behind ND is an alliance between employers, entrepreneurial layers, mid-level rural layers, and of the non-economically active population, as indicated by the majorities it attracted from categories such as public and private sector pensioners.

It is diametrically the opposite situation for Syriza which for the first time in the history of this party sees the class aspects become so pronounced, to such an extent that is it evident that it has objectively transformed into a different political formation than what it had been during the previous two elections.

Among the categories of public and private sector wage workers, it garnered about 32.5% and 32%, respectively. Among the unemployed it scored 32.7%, whilst in the category of small-scale businesses and small-scale industries, it attracted 32.6% of the vote.

Parallel to these figures, it is worth noting trends in certain sub-categories, (as appear in the Table). 37.1% of the public sector skilled workers vote went to Syriza, whilst the public sector middle management sector supported Syriza with a 34.9% share of its vote.

The lower-level private-sector white-collar office-based staff supported Syriza with 34.2% of its vote, whilst skilled workers supported it with 30.2% of their vote. Overall, therefore, Syriza’s electoral structure reflects an alliance of wage workers (especially the low and middle ranks) with the unemployed and self-employed, small-scale businesses and professionals. This social structure is recorded in the spatial mapping of the voting.

Consequently, therefore, the old SYRIZA (and Synaspismos) of the middle-bourgeoisie and the middle-class generally belongs to the past.

3. Polarisation along geographical lines

The voting pattern based on professional backgrounds is further confirmed by the geographical analysis of the vote, given the socio-professional parallels reflected in where people reside. [The Table gives the distribution of voting for all parliamentary parties in key urban, middle-bourgeois, middle-class, and working class areas of Athens and Thessaloniki, available in the Greek original].

From the rural election results we can draw some initial conclusions:

They confirm a strong, class-based distribution of the vote for both ND and Syriza. ND received the votes chiefly of residents in the areas of the middle upper, and upper classes, whereas it was underrepresented by the vote in lower middle and working class areas. Syriza, conversely, received the votes chiefly of residents from working class and lower middle class areas and was underrepresented in areas where the upper social classes reside. It is worth noting that ND managed to significantly alter the electoral landscape of the May 6 elections where its share of the vote was much lower due to the fragmentation of the centre-Right and Right vote and due to the purported distancing of its constituents from the old ND – what we then witness are the employer/entrepreneurial layers mobilising behind ND in the June 17 elections which was the key to its electoral victory.

Pasok managed to maintain comparatively remarkable shares of the vote in the areas where upper to middle-class layers reside, showing in this area of the vote a change in the structure of its electoral base. Its share of the urban vote was the highest in urban regions outside the two major conurbations of Athens and Thessaloniki.

The composition of the electorate of the Independent Greeks (ANEL) is particularly interesting as it displays some strength in the working class (rates above the average rate in urban areas), whilst it does not present much strength in areas where the upper and upper/middle classes reside. In that respect it scored similarly to a leftist party than to one of the centre-Right, despite the presence of strong populist influences in those regions that previously supported Right formations. It may be because it represents some “transitional option” for working class layers that have historically supported the Right, that may either move "leftward" in the coming years or adhere to the ideological positions of the fascist extreme right through Golden Dawn.

Similarly to the Independent Greeks, Golden Dawn exhibits this ‘populist
class’ [Translator’s note: In Greek with ‘laiki taksikotita’ – ‘laiki’ means ‘popular’ whilst ‘taxikotita’ means ‘class-ness’ – the author means to say that this new type of populist “class-ness” brings together layers that express both a kind of populist national pride and confused-socialist thinking hence ‘populist inter-class, new class’ or ‘populist class’ more or less translates the intended meaning], something suggestive of a significant difference compared to the extreme Right LAOS which had been more inclusive [ed., ‘polysyllectikos’ = ‘multi-collective’] and had significant influence in the upper middle and upper class areas. Golden Dawn presents a ‘purer’ populist influence which during the June elections expressed itself with a much more clearly ideological agenda than it did in the May elections. Golden Dawn’s geographical spread indicates a formation that does not coincide with the party-based system.

The Democratic Left [DIMAR], former ‘Renovator’ reformist wing of Synaspismos [who split from Syriza to absorb the Pasok constituency protest vote] seems to be the continuation of the old electoral structure of the ‘Renovator Left’. With a focus on areas where medium to high socio-professional classes reside along with an underrepresentation in the working class areas, it appears that a specific ideological-political audience is being formed moving more clearly than the old tradition of Synaspismos towards the moderate centre-Left, that is to say, in the same social space where it meets the current Pasok.

Finally, the KKE (the Greek Communist Party) in the 2012 elections maintains the same stable electoral base which it had after the fall of the Colonels’ regime and during the transition to bourgeois democracy; namely, an electoral base of middle and working class voters where the former, chiefly, led.

4. Dynamics and contradictions of today's parties

In attempting to outline a summary of the elections in relation to current party formations and their current dynamics, it is worth noting that:

The party system of this new transitional situation is still fluid. The current situation may be characterised as "polarised pluralism" of seven parties that coalesce along two axes:

The Left/Right axis (as defined mainly by the contrast Syriza/ND) and the intersection between anti-Memoranda and pro-Memoranda forces, as defined mainly by the specific positioning of the existing political forces on the question of government priorities: Syriza, the Communist Party and Independent Greeks are on the anti-side, whilst ND, Pasok, and Democratic Left are on the pro-side. Golden Dawn is increasingly trying to carve out a place for itself on the Right with its anti-immigrant and anti-left ideology seeking a role within the pro-memoranda bloc.

The configuration of these electoral forces along these two axes clearly involves much fluidity. Undoubtedly, some parties will contract while others will prevail. Based on the current situation, however, one can argue the following:

ND has restored the unity of a bourgeois urban social alliance, albeit temporarily and at a cost in relation to the middle class and traditional layers of small-scale owners of wealth that have historically supported it. Its main constituency is chiefly characterised by higher age groups.

PASOK is undergoing a structural crisis of social representation. No social or class category is represented by it, while its relatively higher rates were among groups that have voted for ND in the past. Both parties through their pro-Memoranda policies have assimilated their electoral bases.

The Independent Greeks belong to the Right/conservative political alignment, and receive support from the social and age groups that also elect Syriza. It is a "class" division within the conservative layers along coherent ideological lines, and that is why they retained significant support in the June elections. As a party that is receiving votes from layers that are moving away from other parties, it will be interesting to chart its course.

The KKE suffered a fall in its support and therefore its influence, without, however, its long-term social base being in any way altered. It is undoubtedly at a difficult turning point where it is facing a choice of policy options.

The Democratic Left attempts to balance itself between the Left and Right and can more appropriately be considered a centre party, than a party of the Left. Its attempts to firmly position itself in the centre are of very dubious success.

SYRIZA has a historic opportunity to become the main popular and working class political representation in Greece. It has a privileged position within both axes that define the party system and therefore has the potential to become the new open mass party of the Left in Greece.

Finally, the Golden Dawn is a coherent formation, with a strong class structure in its electorate and apparently has a great ideological homogeneity. It will be a strong pole in the coming years and a formidably strong opponent of the Left.

(25 June 2012)

[Original Greek]

http://www.marxist.com/revealing-stu...-electiosn.htm

Last edited by Alex Linder; July 8th, 2012 at 08:02 PM.
 
Old July 8th, 2012 #323
Alex Linder
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Greek government wins confidence vote

Sunday, July 8, 2012

ATHENS, Greece - The new three-party coalition government in Greece has won a vote of confidence in parliament early Monday.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, left, speaks with Socialist Leader Evangelos Venizelos at the Parliament during a debate on the new government's policy agenda before staging a vote of confidence in Athens, late Sunday July 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)

All 179 deputies of the three parties supporting the government - conservative New Democracy, the socialist PASOK and the moderate leftist Democratic Left - have voted in favor.

The 121 voting against the government included deputies of the Radical Left Coalition (Syriza), the nationalist right Independent Greeks, the extreme right Golden Dawn and the Communist Party.
 
Old July 8th, 2012 #324
Dale VanderMeer
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Woodpecker Long Live The Golden Dawn!

(It would be best to download this video and save it on to a DVD, a high megabyte/gigabyte flash drive or your hard drive. The censor happy jewtube could pull this one off of their "service".)

Very impressive video by Golden Dawn on one of their marches:

 
Old July 8th, 2012 #325
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American Jewish Groups fear the rise of the Golden Dawn.

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Christianity and Feminism, the two deadliest poisons jews gave to the White Race


''Screw your optics, I'm going in'', American hero Robert Gregory Bowers
 
Old July 9th, 2012 #326
Alex Linder
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So the country is polarizing... The communist Syriza supporters are a multiple of Golden Dawn supporters, but you don't hear a single word about the dangers of left-wing extremism. It is good to see that the right people (ADL and communist analysts) are saying the right things about GD. It is primarily a male political group, it is principled, its people are all on the same page, they are willing to fight to defend their people and cause and to advance their beliefs; they are likely to get even stronger in years to come.

We must appeal to people, reach out to women, follow the law, be respectful and respectable -- these are the cries of the bourgeois conservative - no matter what he calls himself, if he says these kinds of things, he's a sheep in wolf's clothing. Golden Dawn does the opposite of what Kevin MacDonald calls for, the opposite of what 2012 David Duke for, the opposite of what A3P calls for, the opposite what the Stormfront admins/moderators call for - and it succeeds.

The same thing would work in America too; it would work anywhere it was tried. Why? Because its actions are in line with reality, not fantasy. The enemy remains the same as it was 100 years ago. The enemy's lies and techniques have not changed, nor have the truths and techniques and strategies it takes to oppose them.

Now is the time of infighting, which should be conducted by the rules I've outlined in the White Nationalism section. Infighting will establish the strongest tendency within American White Nationalism (actually, across the entire right, including the mass Fox News segment), and Golden Dawn's experience shows that the model I've been advocating is correct, and the strategy advocated by pretty much everyone else outside of VNN is flat wrong.

Attack conservatives or mix with and support them? Appeal to women or to young and angry men? Focus on voting or on building a kernel of pro-level intelligence and pro-level fighting ability? Advocate our cause directly to hostiles and neutrals, or speak to our own at dinner parties and conferences behind closed doors?

Figure it out, white men. Figure it out. It's really not that hard, if you leave your ego at the door.

Why do we keep acting like this is our race's first rodeo?

Last edited by Alex Linder; July 9th, 2012 at 10:27 AM.
 
Old July 9th, 2012 #327
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For the love of god, read this article and understand. Hamilton reinforces everything I've ever said, and Hitler's experience shows the difference between serious men and conservatives. Conservatives, even their intellectuals, instinctively hate what works because it involves more than sitting on your ass reading books and fluttering fingers.


How Hitler did it:

- anti-middle class
- activist not intellectual from start
- opposed violently from day one (and defended itself violently from day one, see Jared Taylor. Not.)

http://www.counter-currents.com/2012...or/#more-27338
 
Old July 9th, 2012 #328
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[going to go ahead and post the text of Hamilton article on Hitler linked in post above. The point here is to tie Golden Dawn and its success to proven strategies and techniques. There is a big difference between Greece and Germany, I think you'll agree. Yet you can notice with me that the same techniques and strategies work in two vastly different lands in two vastly different eras. Why is that? Because they respond to an enemy who is essentially the same people (jews and allied defectives) pursuing the same strategies by the same tactics.

Figure it out. Figure it out. Figure it out, white man.

It doesn't matter if you're a Nazi, I'm not, you probably aren't either. Some of you are. Either way, the NS political experience is the single most relevant political example for those looking to advance the white racial cause anywhere in the white world today. Get over your bigotry, men, and start using your brain.

I've added bolding and my own comments in blue.]

Hitler as Orator
Andrew Hamilton

“I know that men are won over less by the written than by the spoken word, that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to orators and not to great writers.” — Adolf Hitler, “Author’s Preface,” Mein Kampf (James Murphy trans., 1939)

About ninenty-five percent of the functional conservatives who think they are, and call themselves, White Nationalists, run from this point. They speak only to their own, and only behind closed doors. This makes them comfortable. They don't see why they shouldn't be able to win without ever moving out of their comfort zone. This is one reason they never do win.

Houston Peterson, compiler of A Treasury of the World’s Great Speeches (1965), believed that “eloquent speech” (oratory) originated deep in the prehistoric past among men “who cast spells over their fellows with the magic of words. At first it was not words so much as the rhythm, the sounds, the incantation that was a part of ritual. Chiefs, priests, medicine men, millenniums before the heroes of Homer, must have risen to power through skill in speech as well as skill in arms.”

Adolf Hitler believed the magic of the spoken word was the primary propaganda weapon. Historian David Irving called Hitler’s power of elemental oratory “his greatest gift.”

In the Beginning Was the Word

In 1941, Raoul de Roussy Sales, the compiler of a book of extracts of Hitler’s speeches, wrote, “He is essentially a speechmaker, and although today it is his deeds and his conquests that most impress the world, it should not be forgotten that he started as a soap-box orator and spoke his way to power.”

Hitler succeeded because he was personally brave, and because he was able to persuade his audience through his eyes and bearing that he seriously meant what he said. Once they accepted that, they were open to considering his arguments. And they found his arguments compelling. Things in Germany were seriously wrong, and only someone serious and strong could redress them, and he more than any other man appeared capable of knowing and doing what needed to be done.

Post-WWI Germany suffered from disintegrative social and political tendencies.

Jews briefly succeeded in establishing embryonic Communist dictatorships, nearly pitching the entire country into a totalitarian bloodbath of Russian-style proportions. Historian John Toland described the German capital as without electricity, its trolley cars and subways stopped, garbage rotting in the streets, and shops and offices closed.

Only Berlin’s night life went on unimpeded, in darkness or candlelight. It was corruption out of an overdone movie with heavily rouged girl prostitutes of eleven competing with whip-toting Amazons in high lacquered boots. There were cafes for every taste and perversion—homosexuals, lesbians, exhibitionists, sadists, masochists. Nudity had become boring and art itself was plumbing the nadir of obscenity, disillusionment and cynicism. (Adolf Hitler, 1976, p. 100)

Sex-dreck is one way jews destroy settled Aryan society. Nothing has changed on that front, if you've ever watched tv. Ordinary Germans hated it back then the way ordinary Americans hate it today.

If I didn’t live in the United States of America I might think he was exaggerating.

Upon joining the miniscule German Workers’ Party (DAP; Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) in 1919, Hitler quickly became its dominant figure and main speaker.

The first “large” meeting he addressed was held in the smoky basement of the Hofbräuhaus in Munich on October 16, 1919. There he spoke from behind a crude lectern atop a table for half an hour to an audience of seventy.

According to biographer John Toland, “Abandoning all restraint, he let emotion take over and by the time he sat down to loud applause sweat covered his face. He was exhausted but elated ‘and what before I had simply felt deep down in my heart, without being able to put it to the test, proved to be true; I could speak!’” (quoting Mein Kampf).

Hitler appealed to emotion? But I thought we were supposed to use reason, and speak in moderate tones. This is the difference between professionals and amateurs, and between conservatives (MacDonald and A3P and Vdare and AltRight) and nationalists. Emotion is unseemly to conservatives, and they fear it. Emotion, though, is where the power lies. Emotion is the avenue into the heart and the marrow; it is what will encourage and inspire men to fight. The intellect and reason are there, but they're just the support staff. We all know something is wrong with our nations, and it's really not too hard to discover the why. We all see the same symptoms. The controlled media and authorities can lie about their cause, but once we find the right man to tell us the why, the intellectual battle is complete. The real battle is to get people willing to fight. And that's an emotional matter, not an intellectual puzzle.

Toland characterized this event as “a turning point” in Hitler’s career and in the historical trajectory of the German Workers’ Party, soon to be renamed the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP).

Hitler later wrote in the party newspaper the Völkischer Beobachter, “When I closed the meeting, I was not alone in thinking that now a wolf had been born, destined to burst in upon the herd of seducers of the people.”

The name Adolf, derived from Old High German, literally meant “noble wolf.” From that day forward “wolf” had a special meaning for him, as a nickname among close friends, his pseudonym, and the name for most of his military headquarters.

A month later Hitler spoke to 130 students, shopkeepers, and army officers in another Munich beer hall, the Eberlbräu.

Inasmuch as the speech was only the unknown Hitler’s second public address for the tiny party, two points are worth noting.

First, a government spy was present. Incorrectly identifying Hitler as a merchant, he reported that the orator “held forth in an outstanding manner” and was destined to become “a professional propaganda speaker.”

Second, Jews, Leftists, and Communists were well-organized in advance to use violence to suppress a speech targeting only 130 people, the content of which would not be circulated to a larger audience via newspapers or magazines (the mass media of the day). Their intention was to stop the meeting and intimidate the participants so that even a tiny audience could not hear Hitler’s message, knowing few would risk doing so ever again.

This pattern persists today.

The jews used violence against Hitler from day one, with the intention of nipping the threat they knew he presented even then in the bud.

Currently, for example, World War II historian David Irving is in the midst of a speaking tour of the US, one of the few remaining European countries where free speech has not (yet) been formally outlawed as “hate,” “terrorism,” “Holocaust denial,” or “defaming the memory of the dead.”

A few days ago he spoke to a handful of people at a hotel in Oklahoma City. Irving and his listeners are forced to meet furtively in private, indeed, under conditions of utmost secrecy, otherwise armed, Leftist “antifa” thugs who stalk the writer across the United States will criminally break up the meetings.

Even so, elsewhere in the hotel that evening “thirty men dressed in black with bandanas and masks,” wielding illegal weapons, stormed in, “found a birthday party for a Dr. Kunz’s family, and mistakenly smashed into that.” The crime, Irving says, was planned and led by the owner of a Tulsa wholesale computer firm.

But these masked stalkers and domestic terrorists will receive little more than a slap on the wrist from the System, if that. In essence, police, prosecutors, and courts smirk about it, as they have done for more than half a century now.

There is no great mystery about why our race is in the peril it’s in. It is not a mysterious puzzle. It is a lie to say that “we did it to ourselves.” The real reason is plain: violence, hatred, force, power, and government-approved criminality designed to suppress civil liberties.

Exactly right. It is so good to hear someone other than me stating this plain truth. Every possible underhanded tactic has been used against VNN from virtually day one, to try to drive us off the internet. There have been so many foul moves against us I've forgotten half of them. People who just post and read can be tempted to believe that we have a level playing field, but it is not the case at all. And this is merely for online typing. Which is a good remove from in the field political activity. Those who think that our politics is some kind of refereed debate, where fairness and propriety have real meaning, are very far removed from the reality of the situation. The reality is that jews took over our country by foul means, and they hold their position by all manner of criminal activity, from murder to economic reprisals -- getting men fired for political reasons -- to DDOSing and hacking. The jew will never be defeated by arguing, but only by counter-measures.

But at the Eberlbräu in 1919, Hitler had alerted his military contingent in advance, and within minutes after hecklers began interrupting, the Leftists “flew down the stairs with gashed heads.” (Mein Kampf )

Does A3P have a military contingent? Does American Renaissance? Then why should anyone take them seriously? If you don't have people willing to beat up those who attack your people, you're not serious. And everyone you're trying to sell can see this, and they won't join you. Weakness breeds contempt, not support.

After a few more meetings speaking to similar-sized crowds, Hitler insisted that the German Workers’ Party transform itself from a small ideological discussion and writing group into a true political party.

Quit masturbating, start fucking, says Hitler.

During the final days of December 1919 he and party founder Anton Drexler drafted a 25-point program that Hitler presented to the “public” for ratification.

This important meeting took place on February 24, 1920 in the Festsaal, or Festival Room, of Munich’s Hofbräuhaus, a great hall on the third floor jammed with hundreds of people.

Festival Hall, Hofbräuhaus, Munich, today

Hitler was “particularly pleased” that more than half the crowd consisted of Communists or Independent Socialist Party members. He was convinced he could win over the “true idealists” among them while making short work of the hard core disruptors.

There you go. If you actually believe you're right, why would you have any interest in speaking only to people who already agree with you? Men who do that are conservatives, and they don't deserve the name nationalist, no matter how they style themselves. Men who speak only behind closed doors don't actually believe what they're saying.

Unaccustomed to speaking to such a large audience, his voice was loud one moment and weak the next. But he spoke so simply and clearly that even those at the farthest tables could hear him.

Hitler began quietly, outlining the history of the previous ten years. But as his narrative reached the post-WWI Communist revolutions, his eyes flashed, passion crept into his voice, and he began to gesture.

Soon, angry shouts erupted from all corners of the great hall as thugs hurled heavy beer mugs at Hitler. Immediately his army supporters, forerunners of the SA, armed with whips and rubber truncheons, sprang into action, hustling the troublemakers outside.

If you're a neutral or hostile, and you see tough men spring to defend the speaker, how does this affect your perception of him and what he's saying? Are you more or less likely to take him and his cause seriously? More or less likely to join him?

Throughout 1920, at weekly or two-week intervals, Hitler continued to deliver speeches in Munich beer halls. Summaries of many of these speeches survive in lengthy secret police reports which contain accurate head counts. The audiences ranged in size from 1,200 to 3,500 people.

According to hostile German biographer Joachim Fest, by 1922 “he began holding series of eight, ten, or twelve rallies on a single evening, at each of which he would appear as the principal speaker.” (Hitler, 1973, p. 158) Though these numbers seem difficult to credit, they are what Fest reports.

Can you imagine the bodily, let alone psychological, strength it took to address twelve rallies in a single day?

On August 16, 1922 Hitler addressed his largest audience to date, a crowd of 40,000 in Munich’s great central square.

By Hitler’s own account, it took him two full years of hectic speaking to perfect his craft and become master of the art of oratory.

He could speak with spellbinding force both extemporaneously and from personally drafted scripts that he revised two, three, four, or even five times late into the night, occupying three secretaries taking dictation directly onto typewriters.

Like many expert public speakers, Hitler practiced tirelessly. He carefully rehearsed gestures, often in front of a mirror, designed to generate particular responses from his audiences.

He also experimented with his own image, asking his personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann to take photographs for him to review. Then he’d examine them, deciding, “No, that looks silly” or “I’m never going to do that again.”

A handful of these photos exist showing Hitler practicing gestures to one of his speeches. He never intended for them to be published.

The Crowd

A psychic and emotional synthesis occurs between orators and their listeners. The orator’s stream of speech fuses individual members of the audience into Gustave Le Bon’s crowd. It is this crowd that the orator actually interacts with.

“Hitler was an actor of prodigious talents who could raise the temperature of the audience to flash-point, and at this point they were no longer separate individuals; they were all fused into the mass.” (Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, 1973, p. 156) The bigger the audience, the easier it was to manipulate it in such a manner.

People enjoy being part of a throng. For all their egotic belief in their own individualism, they are in fact very much the same.

Hitler paid close attention to his audiences.

At the time, Communism, socialism, and the class struggle were fundamental to political discourse everywhere.

So, in his early days, Hitler’s primary appeal was to the working and lower middle classes. He actively discouraged attendance or participation by the middle class (the bourgeoisie).

“The political attitude of that class is marked by the sign of cowardice. It exclusively concerns itself with order and tranquility.
[He might better have said "conformity" and "blind obedience to authority."] I aimed, instead, to awaken the enthusiasm of the working-class world to my ideas.” (Table Talk, April 8, 1942.)

How would Hitler look at A3P and American Renaissance, and the attitudes inculcated at Vdare and TOO and other conservative sites? The answer is obvious. He would say they were focused on propriety, not radical change, and that this was characteristic of bourgeois fundraisers.

Contempt for the middle class was a recurring theme in Hitler’s writing, thinking, and private remarks.

Yet every WN group out there is 'obsessed,' and I think I use the word fairly, where it is usually used epithetically, with appealing to Jim Khaki and Sally Soccerpractice.

The trappings of his meetings were carefully calculated to exert certain effects upon the audience.

Hitler personally tested the acoustics of the important Munich meeting halls, determining the best places to stand, how loudly or softly he could speak and still be heard, the atmosphere, ventilation, and tactical layout of the rooms.

Detailed party guidelines were drawn up pertaining to such matters, specifying among other things that a hall should always be too small, and that a third of the audience should consist of party followers.

The atmosphere in the halls—impressively adorned with dramatic red, white and black swastika banners—was made genial with free beer, sausages, pretzels, folk singing, and music.

Such measures created receptive listeners.

At the appropriate psychological moment, Hitler would make a dramatic entrance—sometimes late, to intensify anticipation. He would silently survey the audience for a full minute or more before beginning to speak, further heightening tension.

After he’d carefully gauged the mood of the crowd he started talking slowly and quietly, feeling out the audience the way an actor would, adapting his manner and speech to its needs, building emotion slowly. People sat motionless, eyes riveted upon him.

He possessed an actor’s ability to suddenly throw on the extra generators and become absolutely charged with energy. Before the end of his talk he had roused the people to a pitch of almost uncontrollable excitement.

Remember too - these are Germans. Not the easiest to light of the ethnic groups. Which makes Hitler all the more remarkable.

Organized anti-white opposition, including loud heckling, hurling of heavy beer mugs stockpiled under tables as weapons, and the use of table and chair legs as clubs to beat pro-German speakers and attendees, was frequent.

Hitler handled this life-and-death problem for the movement by forming a protective service and, whenever possible, roughly chucking disruptors unceremoniously from the hall.

That's right: how we deal with violence is a vital (life and death) matter for our movement. We can solve it by not fighting, and playing make believe that we're involved in a debate, with a judge, an election, with fair vote counters and fair media. Or we can be realistic, and realize that humans are animals driven by fear, and must be able to beat or bluff down the opposition if they wish to mate and produce offspring. We know which position 90% of WN take - the functional conservative position, the position of cowardice. They do this because 1) they aren't serious; 2) it is safer; 3) it facilitates fundraising.

At a November 4, 1921 speech at the Hofbräuhaus, there were about 700 Communists in a crowd of 2,200. At a prearranged signal they attacked with fists, a hail of flying beer mugs, and chair legs. After a fierce hand-to-hand battle, Hitler’s 42 security men expelled all 700 of them from the hall, which looked as if it had been hit by a bomb.

The meeting organizer then leaped onto a table, shouting, “The meeting continues! The speaker has the floor!”

So 42 National Socialists beat down 700 punk commies. What effect do you thnik that has on people who hear about it? What effect did that have on neutrals in the hall? What do think they said, when they went home, to their family and friends and neighbors? How would you feel yourself? Would you be less or more likely to respect Hitler's party after hearing about this beat down? Would you be more or less likely to join the side of the 42 or the 700? You know the answer. It's the same for you and me and everybody else. We're not in a debate, we're in a fight. If we actually partake in the fight, and win, why, people will flock to us. If we merely mouth mealy maunderings, and accept getting shoved off the podium by teenage punks, as Jared Taylor does, we attract no support at all. We're seen to be weak and despicable, and no one wants any part of that.

Hermann Otto Hoyer, "In the Beginning was the Word"

The result of this process seems to have been a sort of culling or winnowing. Hitler was not simply speaking to the choir. In contrast to the tens of thousands who came to the mass meetings, at the beginning of 1922 there were still only 6,000 registered party members.

Many Communists and socialists unsympathetic to the movement remained. But the organized hardcore were physically ejected as soon as they began disrupting proceedings.

The remaining Leftists were often hostile and continued heckling. But Hitler drew energy from such public hostility—the very social rejection that causes most whites to shrink in fear. His powerful oratory ultimately won many Leftists to his side.

Hitler knew he was right. He believed his own bullshit. He did not back down. Nor did his men. This is why they dominated all other nationalist/conservative/right-wing tendencies and rose to the top to take over Germany. And they didn't even do it illegally, but only because they proved they could do it that way, if the state and left played that game, as we have seen they did.

Hitler also sent his own people to enroll in courses in public speaking at schools organized by opposition groups. “Thanks to this,” he said, “we obtained a good insight into the arguments which would be used by those sent to heckle at our meetings, and we were thus in a position to silence them the moment they opened their mouths.” (Table Talk, April 8, 1942)

He scattered party members throughout his audiences with orders to interrupt his speeches along prearranged lines to suggest spontaneous public (group) approval, “and these interruptions greatly strengthened the force of my own arguments.” (Table Talk, April 8, 1942)

By way of analogy, consider laugh tracks on TV, or the carefully-rehearsed tone of voice and facial expressions used by newscasters to elicit specific instinctive reactions of approval or disapproval from the passive viewing audience.

Hitler wasn't concerned with fairness, he was concerned with winning. The stakes were that important. Yet time after time we see WN who are conservatives without realizing it focused on fairness or some other lofty neutral idealism while their jew-mud opponents are never anything but vicious partisans. Jews are for jews. Muds are for muds. Whites are for individual rights, fairness, equality. Which side is going to win: the one that stands up for itself, or the one that stands up for supposedly universalist, neutral principles? The answer is obvious.

Impassioned Oratory

Early on, Hitler attended the meetings of his main rivals to study their techniques. His critical judgment was that the speakers delivered their speeches “in the style of a witty newspaper article or of a scientific treatise, avoided all strong words, and here and there threw in some feeble professional joke.” (Mein Kampf)

Hitler could be describing MacDonald, A3P, Vdare, AmRen, Jared Taylor and all those gathered around them. That is exactly how they do it - it is the conservative way. But the real power lies in emotion. The only time a conservative has even dared to come close to trying to pick up the emotional weapon was Pat Buchanan in his Culture Wars speech. If Pat were a serious man, it would have been a Racial Wars speech. And he would have spoken full truths, not halves, and he wouldn't have backed off when the pressure came. The use of reason is in compiling our 'backgrounders' - the stuff and studies people new to our side read to flesh out their intellectual understanding of their new cause. But for winning people over, emotion must be in the driver's seat. Only if we believe our own bullshit, and will back it with our bodies, will we attract people to a cause the powers that be do everything they can to make hateful and odious.

Hitler, in contrast, spoke with a primitive force and unabashed emotion that set him apart from intellectuals who appealed to reason. Underlying his rhetorical theory was the Ciceronian maxim that man is moved more by passion than by reason.

Hitler was a daring and original speaker, according to biographer Joachim Fest. “His courage in voicing ‘forbidden’ opinions was extraordinary. Precisely that gave him the aura of manliness, of fierceness, and sovereign contempt, which befitted the image of the Great Leader.” (Hitler, 1973, p. 159)

That and his Iron Crosses for bravery.

“They say we’re a bunch of anti-Semitic rowdies,” Hitler proclaimed in one speech. “So we are, we want to stir up a storm! We don’t want people to sleep, but to know a thunderstorm is brewing!”

Oratory is characterized by a gravitational force extending beyond the ideas expressed or the specific words used to articulate them.

Of Hitler it has been said, “It wasn’t as though he were using words, it was as though the emotions came direct without words. There was a rawness about it, a power.” (The Fatal Attraction of Hitler, BBC TV, 1989) Such speeches are, in a sense, a form of magical art.

Perhaps that is why one reader of translations of portions of Hitler’s speeches said that it was “like reading lyrics from songs without the music.”

Fest described religious-style “awakenings” and “conversions” experienced by his listeners.

Kurt Luedecke, a 32-year-old businessman who later became a leading member of Hitler’s entourage, described the spell cast by Hitler’s oratory: “The intense will of the man, the passion of his sincerity seemed to flow from him into me. I experienced an exaltation that could be likened only to religious conversion.” (Fest, p. 162)

On Hitler’s part, the “violent physical effort” required for speaking engendered “profuse perspiration” and even weight loss.

His half-German, half-American WASP foreign press secretary Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl recalled his first meeting with Hitler after one such speech. Hitler’s exhaustion resembled that of “a great artist at the end of a grueling concert”; his face and hair were soaked and his starched collar wilted.

Naturally. The guy isn't simply speaking some borign shit for twenty minute behind a lectern, he's performing - often for hours. It's far more akin to a rock star than a professor. He's using his whole body, not just his brain and larynx.

Hitler himself said,

Whenever I have to make a speech of great importance I am always soaking wet at the end, and I find I have lost four or six pounds in weight. And in Bavaria [southern Germany, including Munich, his initial political base during the early years discussed here], where, in addition to my usual mineral water, local custom insists that I drink two or three bottles of beer, I lose as much as eight pounds. (Table Talk, July 8, 1942)

As Scottish philosopher David Hume noted in his essay “Of Eloquence” (1742), great oratory entails unleashing restraints and taking great risks—letting go—in front of an audience. The speaker taps into something deep and true within, and lets it explode.

It's parallel to sexual climaxing - you don't start there, you have to get there. And that come-flow can create babies. Hitler is basically having soul-sex with the audience. He's not just trying to amuse them or instruct them for a few minutes, he's working into a communion of family souls over matters of deepest importance. If you sweat when you have sex, then surely you have to sweat when you're talking about matters of vital (life and death) nation-al importance.

Hitler did this. As Egon Hanfstaengl, son of Ernst, who had known Hitler intimately when he was a little boy in Germany in the early 1920s, explained in 1989,

He had that ability which is needed to make people stop thinking critically and just emote. The ability derived from his readiness to throw himself totally open, to appear as it were bare and naked before his audience, to tear open his heart and display it. (Interview in The Fatal Attraction of Hitler)

And this must be done and will work today for any who can do it, as we are the same people we ever were, no matter which White country we're part of. The bourgeois, who are always competing with their fellows, and worried always about how they look, cannot reach the level at which serious political change is effected. The very idea of trying is so scary to them they don't even think about it. So don't worry about them, and don't listen to them, but instead keep your studying eye on the man and men who actually knew and know what they are doing. Hitler and his National Socialists yesterday, and Golden Dawn today, for two.

Selected Sources

The Fatal Attraction of Hitler, BBC TV documentary, 1989.

Joachim C. Fest, Hitler, trans. from German by Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973).

Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (New York: Praeger, 1973; pbk., Popular Library, 1973). References to the paperback edition.

Table Talk. References to the paperback edition of Hitler’s Secret Conversations, 1941–1944 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953; pbk., New York: Signet Books, 1961).

John Toland, Adolf Hitler (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1976).

http://www.counter-currents.com/2012...or/#more-27338

Last edited by Alex Linder; July 9th, 2012 at 11:50 AM.
 
Old July 9th, 2012 #329
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Independent Greeks, Golden Dawn seek to abolish citizenship law

The right wing Independent Greeks party has made an official proposal in Parliament to abolish a citizenship law granting migrants greater rights, Skai reported on Monday.

The far right Golden Dawn party has made a similar proposal, Skai said.

Passed by PASOK socialists in 2010, the law allows second-generation immigrants whose parents have been living in Greece legally to apply for Greek citizenship.

New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras has in the past said he wants to repeal the law, saying it is a magnet for undocumented migrants who see it as an opportunity to obtain legal status in a European Union country.

PASOK and Democratic Left, the two other parties in the conservative-led coalition government, oppose any changes to the legislation.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...07/2012_451208
 
Old July 9th, 2012 #330
N.B. Forrest
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Quote:
So 42 National Socialists beat down 700 punk commies. What effect do you thnik that has on people who hear about it? What effect did that have on neutrals in the hall? What do think they said, when they went home, to their family and friends and neighbors? How would you feel yourself? Would you be less or more likely to respect Hitler's party after hearing about this beat down? Would you be more or less likely to join the side of the 42 or the 700? You know the answer. It's the same for you and me and everybody else. We're not in a debate, we're in a fight. If we actually partake in the fight, and win, why, people will flock to us. If we merely mouth mealy maunderings, and accept getting shoved off the podium by teenage punks, as Jared Taylor does, we attract no support at all. We're seen to be weak and despicable, and no one wants any part of that.
Well, there is one crucial difference between then & now: today the goddamned cops make sure that the Whites are totally disarmed beforehand, while pretty much letting the fucking "antifa" scum pack whatever they want. Ways must be found to get around this criminal wink 'n' nod bullshit on the part of kike-whore kwaps before the effective counter ass-stomping of yore can be implemented once again.


Quote:
Naturally. The guy isn't simply speaking some borign shit for twenty minute behind a lectern, he's performing - often for hours. It's far more akin to a rock star than a professor. He's using his whole body, not just his brain and larynx.

Hitler himself said,

Whenever I have to make a speech of great importance I am always soaking wet at the end, and I find I have lost four or six pounds in weight. And in Bavaria [southern Germany, including Munich, his initial political base during the early years discussed here], where, in addition to my usual mineral water, local custom insists that I drink two or three bottles of beer, I lose as much as eight pounds. (Table Talk, July 8, 1942)

As Scottish philosopher David Hume noted in his essay “Of Eloquence” (1742), great oratory entails unleashing restraints and taking great risks—letting go—in front of an audience. The speaker taps into something deep and true within, and lets it explode.

It's parallel to sexual climaxing - you don't start there, you have to get there. And that come-flow can create babies. Hitler is basically having soul-sex with the audience. He's not just trying to amuse them or instruct them for a few minutes, he's working into a communion of family souls over matters of deepest importance. If you sweat when you have sex, then surely you have to sweat when you're talking about matters of vital (life and death) nation-al importance.
'Dolf was the Angus Young of politics.
 
Old July 9th, 2012 #331
Donald E. Pauly
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Smile World's Greatest Speeches

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex Linder View Post
.........
Houston Peterson, compiler of A Treasury of the World’s Great Speeches (1965), believed that “eloquent speech” (oratory) originated deep in the prehistoric past among men “who cast spells over their fellows with the magic of words. At first it was not words so much as the rhythm, the sounds, the incantation that was a part of ritual. Chiefs, priests, medicine men, millenniums before the heroes of Homer, must have risen to power through skill in speech as well as skill in arms.”
.........
This book is available online in several forms at

http://archive.org/details/treasuryofthewor010734mbp . As best as I can tell, there is only one speech of the Fuhrer, of Blessed Memory.
 
Old July 9th, 2012 #332
Alex Linder
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Originally Posted by N.B. Forrest View Post
Well, there is one crucial difference between then & now: today the goddamned cops make sure that the Whites are totally disarmed beforehand, while pretty much letting the fucking "antifa" scum pack whatever they want. Ways must be found to get around this criminal wink 'n' nod bullshit on the part of kike-whore kwaps before the effective counter ass-stomping of yore can be implemented once again.
Either get in with them, or overwhelm them with numbers. It's not easy, but Chester Doles managed it. That's why he was shut down. Golden Dawn manages it. It's why I say the natural people to form a real political vehicle for Whites must come from a military background like Michaloliakos (sp?) and his party spokesman do.
 
Old July 10th, 2012 #333
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I wonder what the kwaps would legally be able do if Whites showed up leaning on canes & crutches - ya know, for their twisted ankles, pulled muscles, phantom pains & suchlike.
 
Old July 10th, 2012 #334
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Video of leftist commies walking out of parliament when Michelakis is about to speak.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=RFC2CQqYJBE

Reminds of when Ahmadinejad was speaking at the UN and the ZOG countries reps walked out.
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Last edited by Serbian; July 10th, 2012 at 12:27 AM.
 
Old July 10th, 2012 #335
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[new report blasting Golden Dawn circulating in anti-White media]

[NYT blog]

Listening to the Victims of Xenophobic Violence in Greece

July 10, 2012

By ROBERT MACKEY

As my colleague Liz Alderman reports from Athens, the electoral success of a far-right political party in Greece this year, after the economic downturn, has been accompanied by a series of violent attacks on foreigners.

Although a spokesman for the party, Golden Dawn, denied that members are behind any of the racially motivated attacks, its leaders campaigned on a pledge to “rid the land of filth.” This week, the party introduced a measure in Parliament that would abolish a law that gives the children of legal migrants the right to apply for Greek citizenship.

In a new report, “Hate on the Streets: Xenophobic Violence in Greece,” Human Rights Watch faults the authorities for failing to properly investigate the attacks. To illustrate its study, the rights group also released a video report in which foreign-born migrants described their attempts to report the violence to the police. The video was produced by Zalmai Ahad, an Afghan photographer who was 15 when his family was forced into exile in Switzerland after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.


http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...nce-in-greece/
 
Old July 10th, 2012 #336
Alex Linder
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[It's not hate when the jews open the borders. It's not hate when the invaders mug your grandmother. It's hate when you organize to fight back against the jews trying to wreck your nation. DEATH TO THE JEWS.]

[entire report text below]

Hate on the Streets
July 10, 2012


Hate on the Streets

Xenophobic Violence in Greece

Summary

Key Recommendations

Methodology

I. Background

Economic and Humanitarian Crisis
The Politics of Hate
Vigilante Groups

II. Xenophobic Violence in Athens

May 2011
Continuing Violence
Aghios Panteleimonas
Attacks elsewhere in Central Athens

III. Violence elsewhere in Greece

Aspropyrgos, September 2011
Corinth, February 2012
Crete, 2011
Patras May 2011 and May 2012

IV. Greece’s Legal Obligations

V. State Response

Inadequate Police Response
Failure to prevent attacks
Discouraging complaints by undocumented migrants
Insistence on a fee to file a complaint
Inadequate response and investigations

Failure to Prosecute Attacks as Hate Crimes
Ali Rahimi: Waiting for Justice

Failure to Acknowledge Severity of Problem

Recommendations

Acknowledgements

Annex: Text of an Anti-Immigrant Manifesto, Athens

......................

Summary

As human beings, we shouldn’t be treated like this…. I am not an animal to be chased with sticks.
—Douglas Kesse, Ghanaian asylum seeker, January 11, 2012

In May 2011, in the days following the murder of a Greek man, Manolis Kantaris, in central Athens, gangs of Greeks, in apparent retaliation for the killing, indiscriminately attacked migrants and asylum seekers, chasing them through the streets, dragging them off buses, beating and stabbing them.

The flare up of anti-immigrant violence was cause for serious concern. However, attacks against migrants and asylum seekers began well before May 2011 and have continued since with frightening regularity both in Athens and elsewhere in Greece. Migrants and asylum seekers spoke to Human Rights Watch of virtual no-go areas in Athens after dark because of fear of attacks by often black-clad groups of Greeks intent on violence. Yunus Mohammadi, the president of an association of Afghans in Greece, told us he started showing newer arrivals a map of Athens with a red line around areas they should avoid. “This is exactly what I used to do in Afghanistan with the Red Cross about places people shouldn’t go because of fighting,” Mohammadi said. “And here I am doing the same thing in a European country.”

A country that prides itself on its hospitality, Greece has become over the past decade a decidedly inhospitable country for many foreigners. While tourists are welcome, migrants and asylum seekers face a hostile environment, where they may be subject to detention in inhuman and degrading conditions, risk destitution, and xenophobic violence.

This report is based on interviews Human Rights Watch conducted with 59 people who experienced or escaped a xenophobic incident, including 51 serious attacks, between August 2009 and May 2012. Victims of serious attacks included migrants and asylum seekers of nine different nationalities and two pregnant women. Patterns emerge from the victim testimonies: most of the attacks take place at night, on or near town squares; attackers, who include women, work in groups, and are often dressed in dark clothing with their faces obscured by cloth or helmets; bare-fisted attacks are not uncommon, but attackers also often wield clubs or beer bottles as weapons; most attacks are accompanied by insults and exhortations to leave Greece, and in some cases the attackers also rob the victims.

Among the migrants and asylum seekers Human Rights Watch interviewed, Ali Rahimi, an Afghan asylum seeker, was stabbed five times in the torso outside an apartment building in Aghios Panteleimonas in September 2011; Mehdi Naderi, an undocumented Afghan migrant, has a prominent scar on his nose from a December 2011 attack in which he was beaten by a mob with sticks and an iron bar near Attica Square; and Afghan refugee Maria N.’s left hand was ripped open in August 2011 when two men on a motorcycle hit her with a wooden club with iron spikes as they drove by.

Since the early 2000s, Greece has become the major gateway into the European Union for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers from Asia and Africa. Years of mismanaged migration and asylum policies and, most recently, the deep economic crisis, have changed the demographic face of the capital city. The center of Athens, in particular, has a large population of foreigners living in extreme poverty, occupying abandoned buildings, town squares and parks. Concerns about rising crime and urban degradation have become a dominant feature of everyday conversations as well as political discourse.

Parties across the ideological spectrum regularly and explicitly link irregular immigration to the city’s ills. Undocumented migration and crime in Athens were high on the agenda in the lead-up to the May and June 2012 national elections. Nationalist, far right-wing parties such as Golden Dawn have in recent years gained strength and popularity largely because of their exploitation of anti-immigrant sentiment. Having gained a seat on the Athens city council in 2010, Golden Dawn secured enough votes in the June 2012 national elections to enter Parliament for the first time in its history. It will have 18 seats.

Exploitation of legitimate concerns about crime, combined with widespread hardship in the economic crisis, appear to have nurtured a climate of intolerance towards migrants and asylum seekers. As one resident of Athens said, “I was never a racist but I’ve become one. Why can’t we send them all home?” So-called “citizens’ groups” (ομάδες πολιτών ) have emerged over the past several years in the city center as self-appointed neighborhood watch units, claiming they have organized to patrol the streets and protect residents by getting rid of migrants. Virulent anti-immigrant posters signed by these groups are on display around the city. Although no known police analysis or court ruling has linked the citizens’ groups with groups carrying out violent attacks on migrants and asylum seekers, there is some evidence to suggest that the perpetrators of the violent attacks are members of or are associated with these groups. Two men and one woman on trial for the stabbing of an Afghan asylum seeker in September 2011 are allegedly members of a citizens’ group, and such groups have signed threatening posters on view in downtown Athens. Local residents credit – or blame – these groups for taking action against migrants, including the closing of the Aghios Panteleimonas square playground because there were too many foreigners.

The true extent of xenophobic violence in Greece is unknown. Government statistics are unreliable due to failures of the criminal justice system, beginning with law enforcement, to adequately identify, investigate and prosecute hate crimes. Underreporting by victims, particularly undocumented migrants, is also a significant problem. In the entire country, the Greek government reported just two hate crimes in 2009, and only one in 2008. In May 2012 the senior Athens prosecutor tasked with collating all information relating to hate crimes told Human Rights Watch there were nine cases in Athens from 2011 under investigation as possible hate crimes.

Non-governmental sources help fill in the gaps. In June 2011, Doctors without Borders director Nikitas Kanakis estimated that 300 victims of racist attacks had sought treatment at the organization’s clinic in Athens in the first half of 2011. Tzanetos Antipas, the head of the Greek non-governmental organization (NGO) Praksis, said at the same time that they had treated just over 200 victims in roughly the same period. Finally, a network of NGOs recorded 63 incidents between October and December 2011 in Athens and Patras.

Greece has clear obligations under international human rights law to undertake effective measures to prevent racist and xenophobic violence, to investigate and prosecute perpetrators, and should condemn publicly and unequivocally such violence. These obligations apply whether the perpetrators of the violence are agents of the state or not.

Yet the cases documented in this report demonstrate that migrants and asylum seekers have little chance of seeing justice done. Victims of xenophobic attacks in Athens face many obstacles in reporting crimes and activating a police response to attacks. Prosecutors and the courts have so far failed to aggressively prosecute racist and xenophobic violence for what it is. Preoccupied by the economic crisis and concerned with control of irregular immigration, national authorities—as well as the EU and the international community at large—have largely turned a blind eye.

In theory, the legal tools and police guidelines are in place. In keeping with binding EU law, Greece amended its criminal code in 2008 to make racist motivation an aggravating circumstance for sentencing purposes. A 2006 Ministry of Citizen Protection circular to the Hellenic Police force ordered the police to investigate possible racist motives in the commission of a crime when invoked by victims or witnesses, when this interpretation is substantiated by evidence, when admitted by the perpetrator(s), or when the alleged perpetrator(s) and victim(s) of the crime belong to different racial, religious or social groups or self-identify as such.

In practice, the police appear 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.

Victims we interviewed recounted police officers telling them it was pointless to lodge a complaint if they could not positively identify the perpetrators or that they should simply organize themselves to fight back. Police told Human Rights Watch that it was difficult to investigate crimes involving masked perpetrators. However, the police’s failure to take preventive action or pursue investigations even in areas where violence is predictable and recurring makes this justification ring hollow. Three victims who insisted that they wished to pursue a case were told they would have to pay a 100 Euro fee (US$ 125) instituted in late 2010 to discourage frivolous criminal complaints, even though justice officials told Human Rights Watch that hate crimes would be prosecuted ex officio, with no formal complaint (or fee) required from the victim. Finally, undocumented migrants were told they faced detention if they persisted in seeking to have a criminal investigation opened.

Indeed, fear of detention and deportation emerged from interviews as a principal reason why migrants were reluctant to seek assistance from the police in the aftermath of an attack, although Human Rights Watch did not document any cases where victims were in fact subject to immigration detention or deported from Greece after making complaints.

The response of the judiciary has also been inadequate. As noted above, racist motivation was introduced in 2008 as an aggravating circumstance in the commission of a crime, giving judges the discretion to impose the maximum penalty for any given crime. To our knowledge, racism as an aggravating circumstance has not once been applied in the nearly four years since it was introduced. The Athens public prosecutor’s office has no specialized prosecutors to handle directly or oversee hate crimes, including racist and xenophobic violence.

National authorities have largely tended to downplay the extent of the problem, but positive steps have been taken recently. An inter-ministerial working group met in April 2012 to discuss targeted measures to raise awareness of racist and xenophobic violence amongst the police as well as efforts to improve recording of hate crimes. These include use of a special form by the police and the criminal justice system, and the creation of a centralized database located in the Justice Ministry. Also in April 2012, the Justice Ministry asked the Attorney General to adopt specific guidelines for prosecutors to help them address racist violence. Finally, there is discussion about reforming criminal law to strengthen the scope and application of the aggravating circumstance of racist motivation.

The European Union has an important role to play in ensuring that Greece lives up to its obligations to effectively prevent and prosecute racist violence. Thus far, European institutions have paid little to no attention to increasing anti-immigrant sentiment and incidents of violence against migrants and asylum seekers. Yet it is precisely the pressure on Greece from its European neighbors to take responsibility for a disproportionate number of asylum seekers on the one hand and secure its internal EU and external borders on the other that has contributed to the present untenable situation. The severe budget cuts arising from Greece’s austerity measures have also strained the police force and the provision of services that might help alleviate social tensions that fuel the violence.

However these realities do not relieve Greece of its duty to counter racism and xenophobia. There is no excuse for allowing violent gangs to harm migrants and asylum seekers with impunity. The Greek authorities must take urgent action to crack down on this alarming phenomenon.

Key Recommendations

To the Greek Government

- Publicly and unequivocally condemn, at the highest level, instances of racist and xenophobic violence.

- Urgently address deficiencies in police action to prevent and investigate reports of racist violence by:

- Moving quickly to institute the special form for recording allegations of racist violence and the centralized database;

- Ensuring obligatory and appropriate training at all levels and in-service training on detecting, preventing, responding to, and investigating hate crimes, including racist and xenophobic violence for all police officers; and

- Disseminating detailed guidelines for police for the investigation of hate crimes, including racist and xenophobic violence.

- Adopt and implement a preventive strategy to counter xenophobic violence, including appropriate deployment of law enforcement in areas with high rates of such violence.

- Ensure, either in law or through binding circulars, that regardless of the nature of the offense, any crime that may be categorized as a hate crime is subject to mandatory state action – investigation and prosecution – without the requirement that victims pay the 100 Euro (US$ 125) fee.

- Improve the response of the judiciary by:

- Reforming the Criminal Code to improve the scope and application of the aggravating circumstance of racist motivation;

- Ensuring appropriate training, including through inclusion of special seminars in continuing professional education courses, for prosecutors and judges in national and European anti-racism legislation; and

- Encouraging the appointment of one or more specialized prosecutors in relevant public prosecutor’s offices including Athens to provide technical expertise to colleagues prosecuting such cases.

To the European Union

- The European Commission’s Directorate General on Justice should assess Greece’s compliance with its human rights obligations with respect to preventing and prosecuting racist and other hate violence, and allocate funding to support initiatives to address the deficiencies in state response to racist and xenophobic violence, as well as public awareness-raising campaigns.


Methodology

This report is based on Human Rights Watch research in Athens in November-December 2011 and January and May 2012. We chose to focus on Athens because background research, including media monitoring and exchanges with NGOs in Greece, indicated that the problem of racist and xenophobic violence was most acute in the capital. While the geographical scope of this research and available data do not allow us to draw any conclusions about the extent of xenophobic violence in the rest of the country, we believe lessons can be drawn for actions on a national scale to arrest increasing xenophobia.

We interviewed 79 migrants, asylum seekers and legal foreign residents of Greece. They came from a variety of countries, including Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan, Senegal, Somalia, and Sudan. Fifty-nine interviewees had experienced an attack, including 51 serious attacks, or escaped unharmed from an attempted attack. Twenty interviewees had not experienced incidents relevant to the focus of this report, though four had witnessed attacks.

Two Human Rights Watch staff carried out victim interviews, both jointly and separately. A Greek-speaking staff-member conducted interviews in Greek with interviewees able to express themselves in Greek. Both Human Rights Watch staff conducted interviews in the native language of the interviewee through the help of interpreters. A few victim interviews were conducted in French, a language both researchers speak. Interpreters were paid for their services.

Where noted, we have used a pseudonym to protect the identity of undocumented migrants upon request. In keeping with Human Rights Watch policy, we use pseudonyms followed by an initial for all children. We spoke with one police officer on condition of anonymity. In a few cases, interviewees declined to provide their real names; in all other cases Human Rights Watch has their real names on file. All interviewees were informed of the purpose of the interview, and that their testimony might be used publicly. No incentives were offered or provided to persons interviewed.

We also spoke with over a dozen staff from as many organizations including Aitima, Praksis, the Greek Council for Refugees, the Ecumenical Refugee Program, Doctors without Borders (Médécins sans Frontières), Doctors of the World (Médécins du Monde), and Babel (an NGO providing mental health care for migrants), as well as migrant community associations including the Greek Forum of Migrants and separate Greek Forum of Refugees, the Afghan Community of Greece and the Pakistani Community of Greece. We met with representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Greece and the former vice-president of the European Court of Human Rights, a Greek national. Finally, we met with His Holiness Archimandrite Father Maximus, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Athens and priest of the Aghios Panteleimonas church.

We had meetings with eight senior police officers at the Ministry of Citizen Protection, eight prosecutors, one official in the Ministry of Justice, and one elected member of the Athens town council. We also met with the Greek Ombudsperson and her deputy as well as a staff member of the National Commission of Human Rights. Almost all government interviews were conducted in Greek with translation into English, in the presence of a Greek-speaking Human Rights Watch staff member. In some circumstances, the Greek-speaking Human Rights Watch staff member acted as interpreter; in most cases, a professional interpreter was used. Two government interviews were conducted in French.

The Ministry of Citizen Protection denied our request to meet with the ranking officers in the police stations of Aghios Panteleimonas, Omonia, Kypseli and Akropoli.

[cont'd]
 
Old July 10th, 2012 #337
Alex Linder
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I. Background

Greece is a country that prides itself on its hospitality. But over the past decade it has become decidedly inhospitable for some foreigners. While tourists are generally welcome, migrants and asylum seekers face an increasingly hostile environment in which they risk detention in inhuman and degrading conditions, destitution, and xenophobic violence.

There has been a dramatic increase of immigration to Greece over the past twenty years. The collapse of communist regimes in the neighborhood in the late 1980s and early 1990s triggered large-scale migration from Balkan countries, in particular Albania. Between 1991 and 2001, the immigrant population more than tripled to 7.3 percent of the total population, with Albanians accounting for the largest national group.[1]

Since the early 2000s, Greece has become the major gateway for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers from Asia and Africa, in part because it shares a land border with Turkey, a major transit route into Europe. The European Union external borders agency Frontex declared at the end of 2010 that Greece accounted for 90% of all irregular border crossings into the EU.[2] In 2011, Frontex recorded 55,000 irregular border crossings at the Greek-Turkish border, a 17 percent increase over the previous year.[3] According to official Greek government data, Afghans comprised by far the largest national group entering Greece in 2011, followed by Pakistanis.[4] Greek authorities estimated in April 2012 that there were as many as one million undocumented migrants living in Greece.[5]
Economic and Humanitarian Crisis

The failure of successive Greek governments to adopt coherent migration policies, chronic mismanagement of the asylum system, and, most recently, the deep economic crisis and resulting austerity have exacerbated what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) described in late 2010 as a “humanitarian crisis.”[6] Countless undocumented migrants and asylum seekers live in deep destitution, occupying abandoned buildings, town squares, parks, and even forests. The ultimate goal for many, whether they are economic migrants or asylum seekers, is to transit through Greece to other countries in the European Union. Hundreds of foreigners congregate in port cities such as Patras and Igoumenitsa looking for a chance to stow away on trucks and ferries heading to Italy, often risking life and limb to do so. Human Rights Watch also spoke with 17 migrants, including ten children, in Patras in late November 2011 who described physical abuse by law enforcement officials in and around the port area.[7]

It is impossible to estimate how many undocumented migrants qualify for international protection because of the risks they face in their countries of origin but are unable or unwilling to apply for asylum in Greece. Despite reforms initiated in late 2010, the Greek asylum system remains largely dysfunctional, with the lowest refugee recognition rate at first instance in Europe (less than 1 percent in 2011) and significant obstacles to submitting asylum applications.[8] At this writing, the Central Police Headquarters in Athens was still accepting asylum claims at the rate of twenty per week. In March 2012, UNHCR criticized the fact that over 100 people, including women and children, sleep overnight outside the police station every Friday in hopes of being among the twenty chosen to register their asylum application on Saturday morning.[9]

Five asylum appeals committees, created in February 2011, and five more created in September 2011, were tackling the heavy backlog of 38,000 cases as of October 2011.[10] In March 2012 the government inaugurated two institutional reforms aimed at fixing its dysfunctional handling of asylum seekers: a new Asylum Service and an Initial Reception Service, which once fully operational should respectively take over all responsibilities for processing asylum applications from the police, and provide asylum seekers adequate reception facilities. Then Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrysochoidis acknowledged in April 2012 that Greece had so far expended only 40 million Euros (US$ 50.2 million) out of the 250 million Euros (US$ 313.9 million) in allocated EU funding for immigration and asylum management.[11]

The European Union’s Dublin II Regulation, which generally assigns responsibility for examining asylum claims to the first EU country in which an asylum seeker sets foot, has significantly increased the burden on Greece.[12] The Regulation allows member states to return asylum seekers to the country where they first entered the EU; given Greece’s location at the EU’s external border and popularity as a transit route into Europe, Dublin II has exacerbated the country’s large backlog of asylum applications and appeals, while adding strains to its overcrowded detention facilities.[13] In 2011, numerous EU member states suspended Dublin transfers to Greece following a January 2011 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that the return of an Afghan asylum seeker from Belgium to Greece exposed him to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in Greece.[14]

The pressure on Greece to take responsibility for a disproportionate number of asylum seekers, on the one hand, and to prevent third country nationals from traveling irregularly across its internal EU borders on the other, means that many asylum seekers find themselves trapped in what a 2008 Human Rights Watch report called “a revolving door.”[15]

Long-term Greek residents of the center of Athens, in particular, have seen their neighborhoods change dramatically with the influx of migrants and asylum seekers. This has had an impact on attitudes towards such foreigners. One resident of Aghios Panteleimonas, spoke approvingly of Golden Dawn’s work in his neighborhood. The party, he said, “chased away all the blacks, who had flooded [us]…even in my own building…it was full [of blacks]…but they left. Those who were the dirty ones and had all the diseases left, because they had to.”[16]

Concerns about the impact of immigration on the social fabric of local communities are legitimate. And the perceived rise in so-called survival crimes by destitute migrants and asylum seekers, as well as exploitation of these populations by organized crime, has given rise to genuine fears. A survey in May 2011 found that eight out of ten residents of downtown Athens had been the victims of a mugging, theft or burglary, and three-quarters of respondents said they lived in fear of crime.[17] One woman living in the Attica neighborhood interviewed for a documentary after the May 2012 elections, clutched her handbag as she explained she didn’t feel safe walking around as she used to, and no longer wears jewelry to avoid being mugged. She blamed irregular immigrants.[18]

But the persistent linkage of immigrants with criminality combined with increasing hardship caused by the economic crisis appears to have nurtured anti-immigrant sentiment in Athens. As one resident of Athens said, “I was never a racist but I’ve become one. Why can’t we send them all home?”[19] Costis Papaioannou, until recently the head of the National Commission for Human Rights, an independent government advisory board, stated plainly that “Since the [economic] crisis broke out, Greeks have absolutely become more xenophobic…We have large groups of marginalized people, both Greeks and immigrants, and the first group blames the second.”[20]
The Politics of Hate

Immigration issues have become a dominant feature of Greek political debate. Undocumented migration and crime in Athens historic center were high on the agenda in the lead-up to the May and June 2012 national elections, with parties across the ideological spectrum explicitly linking irregular immigration to urban degradation, crime and public health problems. Greeks voted for a second time in June 2012 after political parties were unable to form a majority coalition government following the May elections.

Antonis Samaras, the leader of New Democracy, the party that won the largest share of the vote in the June 2012 elections, campaigned in part on a pledge to reclaim Greek cities from immigrants: "Greece today has become a center for illegal immigrants. We must take back our cities, where the illegal trade in drugs, prostitution, and counterfeit goods is booming. There are many diseases and I am not only speaking about Athens, but elsewhere too.”[21]

In the months before the elections, the government adopted a series of heavy-handed measures to demonstrate its attention to the issues. In February, construction began on a highly touted 12.5 kilometer fence along the border with Turkey in Greece’s Evros region, and in late March the government announced a plan to build 30 new detention centers around the country to house undocumented migrants pending deportation; sweep operations in downtown Athens began immediately. Earlier that same month, the then Minister of Citizen Protection Chrysochoidis, had blamed a ten percent increase in muggings and robberies in 2011 on foreigners: “Greeks are a peaceful people. The main problem is the presence of thousands of people who live here illegally… We have one of the lowest rates of criminality in Europe. What exists is petty crime, linked to foreigners.”[22]

Calling the growing population of undocumented migrants in central Athens “a ticking time bomb for public health,” in April 2011 Chrysochoidis and then Health Minister Andreas Loverdos pushed legislation through Parliament to permit detention of migrants and asylum seekers suspected of representing a danger to public health.[23] Carrying an infectious disease, belonging to a group vulnerable to infectious diseases (an assessment which can be based on country of origin), being an intravenous drug user or sex worker, or living in conditions that do not meet minimum standards of hygiene are all grounds for detention. Such legislative provisions are incompatible with many of Greece’s obligations under international law including the obligations to protect the right to health, not to inflict cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, not to permit arbitrary detention, and not to engage in discrimination based on status.

Populist, right-wing parties such as Golden Dawn, have in recent years gained strength and popularity in part because of their exploitation of anti-immigrant sentiment. Golden Dawn secured enough votes in the June 2012 national elections to enter Parliament for the first time in its history. It will have 18 seats.

Golden Dawn is an unabashedly neo-fascist party with a logo reminiscent of the Nazi swastika; its manifesto calls for the creation of a People’s Nationalist State which does “not ignore the law of diversity and difference in nature” and asserts that “[b]y respecting the spiritual, ethnic and racial inequality of human we can build equity and law in society.”[24] The leader of the Golden Dawn, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, won a seat on the Athens municipal town council in local elections in November 2010; he was filmed doing the Nazi salute in the Athens town hall in January 2011.[25]

In an interview with Human Rights Watch before the elections, Michaloliakos explained, “We want Greece to belong to the Greeks. We are proud to be Greek; we want to save our national identity, our thousands-year history. If that means we are racist, then yes we are. We don’t want to share the same fate of the Native Americans. Right now, the immigrants are the cowboys and we are the Apache.”[26] He added that if Golden Dawn were in government they would give everyone asylum “and cheap tickets on Easyjet, because they all want to go elsewhere.”

In a March 2012 press release, the party went further. Calling new detention centers a “pre-election fairy tale,” Golden Dawn proposed laying anti-personnel landmines along the Greece-Turkey border in Evros and placing special forces in the area with a license to shoot at will.[27]
Vigilante Groups

Over the past several years, “citizens’ groups” have formed in Athens neighborhoods like Aghios Panteleimonas and Attiki, in the center of the city, as self-appointed neighborhood watch groups. These groups claim to fill the void left by financially-strapped police forces by patrolling the streets at night to protect residents and rid the streets and parks of migrants. In 2009, a group claiming to be local residents locked the gates of the playground next to the Aghios Panteleimonas church, to keep immigrants out. Graffiti in blue and white letters (the national colors) on the pavement reads “immigrants out of Greece” and “Greece our homeland.”

Virulent anti-immigrant graffiti and posters are on display in Athens. One particularly strident poster in Aghios Panteleimonas showed horrific, bloody, but unexplained photographs (including one of a smiling woman wielding a knife above the head of a bloodied child) with the writing in Greek: “This is Islam. These are the calm people. This is the religion that always seeks to expand. These are the people who steal, rape and kill Greeks. Greeks, Wake up!”[28] Below this is a long text in poor English directed at foreigners (capital letters in the original), including the following:
RETURN TO YOUR COUNTRY NOW…YOU ARE NOT WANTED HERE…We are angry with this government and all politicians that brought you here and support you and defend you AND WE ARE DETERMINED TO PUNISH THEM AND YOU. From now on, we will take every necessary action in order to force you and the TRAITORS-POLITICIANS that help you to GET OUT OF THIS COUNTRY (or what you left of it). YOU HAVE NO FUTURE IN GREECE. GO HOME NOW.

The poster is signed simply “Citizens of Athens.” The full text and a photograph of the poster are in Annex I.

Many observers allege that these “citizens’ groups” are responsible for vigilante violence against migrants and asylum seekers.[29] Christos Rozakis, a former vice-president of the European Court of Human Rights, told us not only does he see no organized effort to address the problem of such groups but that the authorities may be relieved that there are groups dealing with certain problems.[30]

There are also persistent accusations that Golden Dawn has mobilized these groups, and that members of Golden Dawn participate in their violent actions, although Human Rights Watch found no evidence to support the allegations that violent attacks are directed or sanctioned by the party.[31] Golden Dawn party members have been implicated in specific attacks, however.

Themis Skordeli, one of the three people standing trial for the September 2011 stabbing of an Afghan asylum seeker, ran as a candidate in the electoral district encompassing central Athens on the Golden Dawn roster in the May and June 2012 elections. She was not elected. The trial is discussed in Chapter V. Two party members who won parliamentary seats in the May 2012 were detained, along with the daughter of Golden Dawn leader Michaloliakos, and questioned by the police in connection with anti-immigrant violence during a Golden Dawn rally on June 1, 2012. During the rally, a number of participants, who evaded arrest, assaulted a Pakistani man who had to be hospitalized. The party members were released without charge; Golden Dawn denied any involvement in the violence.[32]

One resident of Aghios Panteleimonas complained to a reporter in January 2011,
Initially we had an increase in criminality. Now we also have the Golden Dawners threatening us if we don’t go to their gatherings…We don’t know who to trust and denounce what is happening to us…The problem is not the 15-year-old kids but their instigators, those who appear in the guise of ‘indignant citizens’ and guide them to violence and terror against anyone who does not share their views. Where are the state and the democratic institutions to protect us?[33]

An older woman who has lived in the neighborhood for thirty years told Human Rights Watch it was a combination of Golden Dawn members and local residents creating the problems. “It’s this big group that is here [in the square] and every night at 9 p.m. we almost have heart attacks,” she said. “There is total silence, suddenly they come and throw bottles, bombs to the people.”[34]

Human Rights Watch spoke with a police officer who worked on patrol for two years in a neighborhood in central Athens. When asked who is involved in attacks on migrants and asylum seekers, he said, “Those who beat migrants are Golden Dawners, or Citizens [Groups]. It’s very easy. There are twenty houses with Greeks, and the rest are foreigners [in the sensitive neighborhoods]. They say, ‘We gather here, we do this.’ And if someone knows a Golden Dawner, they call him. It’s not difficult.”[35]

Golden Dawn’s perceived role in cleaning up neighborhoods and protecting residents from crime is often cited as the reason for the party’s success in the 2010 Athens municipal elections, giving party leader Michaloliakos a seat on the city council. In a January 2012 interview, Michaloliakos told Human Rights Watch that while “there is no organic relationship between Golden Dawn and these groups, we support their activities. Not illegal activities, however… Many of their members voted for us, and members of Golden Dawn belong to these groups, but the crimes don’t come from these groups.”[36] He said Golden Dawn members found to be involved in unprovoked violence would be kicked out of the party. Michaloliakos minimized the importance of the citizens’ groups, saying “they don’t really do anything, just some meetings, some announcements. They don’t try to stop foreigners from living there [in their neighborhoods]. Even if they tried, they couldn’t succeed!”[37]

There are also persistent allegations, including statements from high-ranking government officials, of collusion between the police and Golden Dawn members. Numerous interlocutors interviewed by Human Rights Watch, including a police officer, raised the possibility of collusion between the police and extremist elements.[38] Chrysochoidis, appointed Minister of Citizen Protection in March 2012 and who served in the same position between February 1999 and March 2004, as well as October 2009 to September 2010, said in a June 2011 interview that he had launched a purge of police officers with close ties with Golden Dawn when he took power in 2009: “I am not referring to old things. I am talking about two years ago…there were Golden Dawn forces that helped the police do their job.” When asked about the situation in 2011, he said, “I do not know, I do not exclude anything, the phenomenon might have a tail…”[39]



[1] Ioannis Cholezas and Panos Tsakloglou, “The Economic Impact of Immigration in Greece: Taking Stock of the Existing Evidence,” Institute for the Study of Labor Discussion Paper Series, October 2008, http://ftp.iza.org/dp3754.pdf (accessed April 12, 2012), p. 6. The government has not yet published the final data of the 2011 census.

[2] “Current Migratory Situation in Greece,” Frontex Press Release, November 29, 2010, http://www.frontex.europa.eu/rabit_2...d_information/ (accessed April 4, 2011).

[3] http://frontex.europa.eu/news/greek-...ry-2012-DWvKc6 (accessed April 12, 2012).

[4] National Hellenic Police, “Illegal Immigration Statistics 2011,” http://www.astynomia.gr/images/stori...mimoi_ypik.jpg (accessed April 12, 2012). Albanians and Bengalis are in third and fourth place, respectively.

[5] “Chrysochoidis eyes 30 migrant detention centers by 2014,” ekathimerini.com, March 26, 2012, http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...03/2012_434766 (accessed May 17, 2012).

[6] “UNHCR Says Asylum Situation in Greece ‘A Humanitarian Crisis,” UNHCR Briefing Notes, September 21, 2010, http://www.unhcr.org/4c98a0ac9.html (accessed March 22, 2010).

[7]For a more detailed discussion, see Human Rights Watch Updated Submission to the United Nations Committee against Torture, April 2011, http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/04/25/u...-torture-greec.

[8] Eurostat, “Asylum in the EU 27 – The number of asylum applicants registered in the EU 27 rose to 301,000 in 2011,” news release, March 23, 2012, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cac...2012-AP-EN.PDF (accessed May 17, 2012). Out of 8,670 decisions at first instance, 45 claimants were granted refugee status. Eighty-five were granted subsidiary protection, and 45 were granted authorization to stay for humanitarian reasons. The overall recognition rate was 2 percent. A March 2012 progress report on the implementation of Greece’s national action plan on asylum said the overall recognition rate at first instance was between 1-6 percent, with a recognition rate at second instance at 12 percent. “Implementation of the Greek National Action Plan on Migration Management and Asylum Reform (“the Greek Action Plan”) and border management issues, Progress Report, March 2012, http://aditus.org/mt/aditus/Document...tMarch2012.pdf (accessed May 22, 2012).

[9] UNHCR press release, “Dozens queue every week in Athens to apply for asylum,” March 12, 2012, http://www.unhcr.org/4f6c8b6a6.hmtl (accessed April 17, 2012).

[10] Greek Plan of Action on Asylum and Migration Management, State of Play 27.10.2011, http://www.hcg.gr/sites/default/file..._10_2011_0.pdf (accessed April 13, 2012).

[11] “Greece wants more EU support to tackle irregular migration but is unable to absorb funds already granted,” Migration News Sheet, May 2012.On file with Human Rights Watch. The name of the Ministry of Citizen Protection was changed to Ministry of Public Order and Citizen Protection in June 2012.

[12] Council Regulation (EC) No 343/2003, February 18, 2003 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/...01:0010:EN:PDF (accessed April 13, 2011) establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the member state responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the member states by a third-country national, February 25, 2003. The position for unaccompanied children is different, since it does not require the return of children to a country unless the child has already claimed asylum there. Human Rights Watch analyzed the problems with the Dublin-II Regulation on several occasions before, see: Greece/Turkey – Stuck in a Revolving Door: Iraqis and Other Asylum Seekers and Migrants at the Greece/Turkey Entrance to the European Union, November 2008, http://www.hrw.org/en/node/76211/section/8, p. 22.

[13] Human Rights Council, Mission to Greece Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak, March 4, 2011, A/HRW/16/52/Add.4, http://www.scribd.com/doc/50378215/H...sion-to-Greece (accessed April 3, 2011) (Below: “Mission to Greece Report, March 4, 2011”).

[14] European Court of Human Rights [Grand Chamber], MSS. v. Belgium and Greece, application no. 30696/09, judgment of January 21, 2011, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 2011.

[15] Human Rights Watch, Greece/Turkey – Stuck in a Revolving Door: Iraqis and Other Asylum Seekers and Migrants at the Greece/turkey Entrance to the European Union, November 2008, http://www.hrw.org/en/node/76211.

[16] Stavros Theodorakis, Protagonistes, "Who is Golden Dawn" (Ποιά είναι η Χρύση Αυγή), May 14, 2012, http://www.megatv.com/protagonistes/...pubid=29338279 (accessed June 8, 2012). Resident quoted at minute 16:35.

[17] “Eight in 10 say they are victims of crime,” ekathimerini, May 22, 2011, http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...05/2011_391741 (accessed June 8, 2012).

[18] Stavros Theodorakis, "Who is Golden Dawn" (Ποιά είναι η Χρύση Αυγή), May 14, 2012, http://www.megatv.com/protagonistes/...pubid=29338279 (accessed June 8, 2012). Resident quoted at minute 3:00.

[19] Niki Kitsantonis, “Violent Crime Soars in Athens,” The New York Times, June 14, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/wo...ewanted=1&_r=2 (accessed April 12, 2012).

[20] Nicholas Paphitis, “Rights groups say racist attacks up in Greece,” Associated Press, March 21, 2012, http://www.todayzaman.com/newsDetail...?newsld=275019 (accessed March 22, 2012).

[21] “Samaras claims Greeks must ‘take back’ cities from immigrants,” Athens News, April 19, 2012, http;//www.athensnews.gr/portal/8/55031 (accessed April 20, 2012).

[22] “Grecia achaca a la inmigración el aumento de la delincuencia,” EFE, March 12, 2012, http://www.departamento19.hn/index.p...incuencia.html (accessed April 13, 2012).

[23] “Greece, compulsory health checks for migrants,” ANSAmed, April 2, 2012, http://ansamed.ansa.it/ansamed/en/ne...160444247.html (accessed April 2, 2012).

[24] Golden Dawn manifesto, “Identity – I am a Golden Dawner means,” http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/kinima (accessed June 6, 2012).

[25] The video can be viewed at
(accessed May 17, 2012).

[26] Human Rights Watch interview with Nikolaos Michaloliakos, Athens, January 12, 2012.

[27] “Right-wing extremists want mines on Evros border,” Athens News, March 28, 2012, http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/1/54405 (accessed April 17, 2012).

[28] Human Rights Watch translation.

[29] Human Rights Watch interviews with Tina Stavrinaki, National Commission for Human Rights, Athens, November29, 2011; Daphne Kapetanaki, UNHCR, Athens, November 29, 2011; Spyros Rizakos, Aitima, Athens, November 28, 2011; anonymous police officer, Greece, January 16, 2012;Maria Kouveli, Athens city council member, Athens, December 9, 2011.

[30] Human Rights Watch interview with Christos Rozakis, Athens, May 11, 2012.

[31] See for example, “Greek Minister Warns of Ne0-Nazi Political Threat,” AFP, March 31, 2o12; Joanna Kakissis, “Fear Dimitra,” Foreign Policy, June 23, 2011, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...3/fear_dimitra (accessed April 18, 2012).

[32] Paul Hamilos, “MPs from Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn arrested over racist attack,” The Guardian, June 2, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...zi-golden-dawn (accessed June 3, 2012); Makis Papasimakopoulos, “Golden Dawn denies role in migrant attacks,” Athens News, June 2, 2012, http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/9/55993 (accessed June 3, 2012).

[33] Marina Vichou,”The Golden Dawn ‘blackmails’ residents of Aghios Panteleimonas,” January 19, 2011, http://tvxs.gr/news/ελλάδα/η-χρυσή-α...9;να, (accessed March 2, 2012).

[34] Human Rights Watch interview with Aghios Panteleimonas resident, Athens, January 14, 2012.

[35] Human Rights Watch interview with anonymous police officer, Greece, January 16, 2012.

[36] Human Rights Watch interview with Michaloliakos, Athens, January 12, 2012.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Human Rights Watch interviews with anonymous police officer, Greece, April 16, 2012.

[39] The interview is available at
(accessed April 13, 2012).

[cont'd]
 
Old July 10th, 2012 #338
Alex Linder
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II. Xenophobic Violence in Athens

They say it’s a free country but then they beat me because I’m a migrant … I don’t go outside when it’s dark.
—Qadir Hossaini, Afghan legal migrant, Athens, December 6, 2011

On May 10, 2011, a 44-year-old Greek man, Manolis Kantaris, was fatally stabbed by assailants who stole his video camera as he prepared to take his wife to the hospital to give birth. Just hours later, and before any official announcements were made about the national origin of the attackers, protesters converged on the area where the attack took place shouting “Foreigners Out” and “Greece is for Greeks.”[40] Over the next few days, gangs of Greeks attacked migrants and asylum seekers indiscriminately in central Athens in apparent retaliation for the murder. They chased them through the streets, dragged them off buses, and beat and stabbed them.

The upsurge of anti-immigrant violence was a cause for serious concern. However, attacks against migrants and asylum seekers began well before May 2011, and continue with frightening regularity. Migrants and asylum seekers interviewed by Human Rights Watch spoke of virtual no-go areas in Athens after dark because of fear of attacks by vigilante groups. Yunus Mohammadi, the president of an association of Afghans in Greece, told us he shows newer arrivals a map of Athens with a red line around areas they should avoid. “This is exactly what I used to do in Afghanistan with the Red Cross about places people shouldn’t go because of fighting,” Mohammadi said. “And here I am doing the same thing in a European country.”[41]

The true extent of xenophobic violence in Greece is unknown. Government statistics are unreliable due to failures of the law enforcement agencies and criminal justice system to adequately respond to, identify, investigate, and prosecute hate crimes. Underreporting by victims, particularly undocumented migrants, is also a significant problem. In the entire country the Greek government recorded just two hate crimes in 2009, and only one in 2008.[42] In December 2011 an official at the Ministry of Citizen Protection told Human Rights Watch there were three cases from 2010 and 11 cases from 2011 under investigation as possible hate crimes.[43] In a May 2012 interview, Dimitris Zimianitis, a prosecutor who serves as liaison for the Greek government with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, indicated there were nine cases from 2011 under investigation as possible hate crimes in Athens.[44]

To fill the gaps in official data and in the wake of growing evidence of violent attacks on migrants, the National Commission for Human Rights—an independent government advisory body—and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spearheaded the creation, in October 2011, of a network of 18 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to systematically record racist attacks. The first results of the pilot project were presented in March 2012.

The Network recorded 63 incidents between October and December 2011 in Athens and Patras. Forty-two incidents involved physical injury, including twelve involving serious injury. Eighteen of these incidents involved police officers, while the rest were perpetrated by private citizens.[45] Most victims were undocumented migrants (27) and asylum seekers (23), from Afghanistan (25) and sub-Saharan Africa (21).[46]

Doctors of the World and the Greek NGO Praksis, both members of the recording network, run health clinics in downtown Athens. Both organizations have expressed serious concerns about the increasing number of migrants and asylum seekers seeking medical assistance following what victims described as racist attacks. The two groups only began systematically recording cases of racist violence as part of the Network’s pilot project in October 2011. But in June 2011, Doctors without Borders director Nikitas Kanakis estimated that 300 victims of such attacks had sought treatment at the organization’s clinic in the first half of 2011. Tzanetos Antipas, the head of Praksis, said at the same time that they had treated just over 200 victims in roughly the same period.[47]

In the course of our research, Human Rights Watch interviewed victims of 51 serious attacks between August 2009 and May 2012. Victims were from Afghanistan, Somalia, and seven other countries; they included two pregnant women. Patterns emerge from the victim testimonies: most of the attacks take place at night on or near town squares; attackers work in groups, include women, and are often dressed in dark clothing with their faces obscured by cloth or helmets; bare-fisted attacks are not uncommon, but attackers also often wield clubs or beer bottles as weapons; most attacks are accompanied by insults against the migrants and exhortations to leave Greece, and in some cases the assailants also rob their victims.

A number of victims said women actively participated in the assault. Jereer K., a 17-year-old undocumented Somali boy, was attacked by four men and two women on motorcycles near Aghios Panteleimonas Square in November 2011: “They attacked me with sticks and were kicking me,” he said. “One lady hit me, so much. She was around 20 years old, with thick black hair with red in it, dark complexion.”[48] Saadia, a 20-year-old Somali, was eight months pregnant when four men and one woman attacked her in the same area in April 2012. They yelled insults, slapped her and kicked her to the ground. They ran away when she clutched her stomach; she thought they might not have understood she was pregnant until that point because she was wearing a loose dress. Her child was born healthy a few weeks later.[49]

Not included in this figure are eight comparatively minor incidents in which the interviewee was approached menacingly, chased, slapped or otherwise lightly accosted, or spat on.

It is impossible to know how many attacks were thwarted by the intervention of passers-by or because the intended victim was able to escape. We spoke with ten people who told us of their own near misses, and a Human Rights Watch staff member witnessed an attempted attack in front of the Navy Tribunal in Piraeus (the port of Athens) on December 16, 2011, where a large group had gathered in support of 39 members of Hellenic Coast Guard Underwater Missions Unit on trial for chanting in unison racist slogans during the Greek Independence Day Parade on March 25, 2010. A group of black-clad youths surrounded a South-Asian man with apparent intent to harm him, but were ultimately convinced to desist by an older demonstrator. We note also that we learned of four incidents in which the person we interviewed escaped harm but someone else was injured.
May 2011

On May 10, 2011, in downtown Athens, Manolis Kantaris was murdered during the theft of his video camera as he prepared to go to the hospital for the birth of his child. This crime triggered widespread attacks on foreigners on the streets of the city after his killing was attributed to migrants.

The worst of the violence occurred on May 12, when a 21-year-old Bangladeshi man named Alim Adbul Mana was stabbed to death and at least 25 people were hospitalized, according to news reports, with stab wounds or injuries sustained from severe beatings.[50] A reporter from the Associated Press who witnessed the attacks described a horrifying scene on May 12:
Several hundred youths, dressed in black and some wielding bats, were involved in the daytime attacks in an area where thousands of Asian and African immigrants live. Immigrants were chased through narrow streets of the city’s Kato Patisia neighborhood and punched and kicked to the ground by groups of attackers…Thugs in motorcycle helmets beat up immigrants, sending others fleeing for safety amid heavy rush-hour traffic. Similar attacks have occurred over the past two days. The black-clad ultranationalist youths marched through migrant areas… Male and female protesters were seen taking part in the beatings.[51]

Olivier Abdoulai, a 30-year-old Congolese, was out on the streets when he saw the anti-immigrant demonstration on May 12 and changed course.
It was the day they hunted men in Omonia. Two days after the Greek man’s death. They had red flags and bats. They hit people with the bats: blacks, Pakistanis, Arabs…I saw them hitting [people]… and a Greek man said, ‘Be careful, you shouldn’t go that way because they’re hitting people. I didn’t see any police…In the group [of attackers] there were men and women, mixed ages. They were yelling in Greek, I couldn’t understand. They were yelling, they swung their bats, they hunted down foreigners.[52]

Virtually all the migrants and asylum seekers we interviewed who had been in Athens in May 2011 said it was a period of intense fear. One Afghan man who did not want to give a name told us simply, “In May we understood we would be attacked. We only went outside for essential things. Otherwise, we stayed inside. Since then we don’t go out at night. When we go out, someone watches from the window to see if we get attacked.”[53]

Badara Gueye, a 28-year-old Senegalese man, also hid: “We stayed indoors for two days… One day we opened the door to look outside. They saw us and the racists said ‘come here, we’ll kill you.’”[54]Mohammed Idress, a 33-year-old Sudanese man, said he escaped several attempted attacks in this period. “You know I am an athlete in Sudan. I run the Marathon. Nobody caught me. Because of my legs. Three or four times they found me, but they never caught me. Because whenever I see two or three motorcycles or groups, I run.”[55] Modou Ndiaye, a 31-year-old Senegalese, told us he managed to evade an attack by a group of roughly thirty men, dressed in black and armed with bats, in the Omonia neighborhood.[56]

Abuubeker Adam, a 23-year-old Somali man, managed to avoid harm on several occasions during the May violence. On one occasion a few days after the murder of Kantaris, Adam was in an internet café, along with many other Somalis when a group of fifteen people, including one woman, burst in. Adam remembered that the people in the group were dressed in black and wearing helmets, and had with them metal objects, bottles and knives. “They got inside, they counted [us] and then they asked ‘any other people inside?’ We said no, and they left. There was a lot of police in the streets at that time.”[57]

Witnesses to the violence interviewed by Human Rights Watch spoke of vigilante groups forcing people to get off buses, or beating them up when they disembarked at bus stops. Arif Muhammadi, an interpreter Human Rights Watch used for some of the interviews, said he watched the violence from an upstairs window on Chalkokondyli Street: “I saw how the fascists went on the buses and when they saw an Afghan they pulled him off and beat him. I saw this.”[58] Qadir Hossaini, another interpreter who works for the humanitarian NGO Médécins du Monde (Doctors of the World), said he was taken to and from work by his employers during this period because taking the bus was too dangerous.[59] Many others hid indoors, according to migrants interviewed by Human Rights Watch.[60]

Youssef, a 26-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, told us he was attacked when he got off a bus at Aghios Panteleimonas Square.
I saw some people on the road, like 15 or 20 people…They stopped the bus…and five or six men came inside. They had sticks and said ‘down, down, down’ to all the foreigners... This thing had happened in Iran, it reminded me of Iran. There [in Iran], they [the Police] stop the bus, enter inside and choose whoever looks Afghan and send them back to Afghanistan. But this is Europe, I said to myself. This happens in Europe. And not by the police, but by normal citizens. The men said the foreigners had to get off, hitting them. People outside were singing Greece is for Greeks. People getting off were hit. I got off, and got hit on the back. I thought I’d have more trouble if I spoke Greek so I said some German words I knew and I pushed and I escaped. A car almost hit me. I saw others running too, and others ran after them. Someone ran after me too but didn’t catch me.[61]

Youssef said all of the assailants were men, most of them wearing sweatshirts, and some of them hooded. He did not report the attack to the police because he had no faith they would help him.[62]

There are conflicting reports about police behavior during the worst of the violence. Riot police were out in force during and after the demonstration and engaged in “running battles” with attackers, according to some press accounts.[63]Abubeker Adam told us that though he had to insist, the police had responded to his call for help, escorting him and a friend down Tritis Septemvriou Street (where the murder of Kantaris took place), and encircling them to protect them from an angry mob.[64]

At the same time there were allegations of police failing to act to prevent or end the violence, or arrest those responsible. Badara Gueye, who recalled seeing hundreds of people armed with bats, complained that the police “did nothing.”[65]Abduwahab Mohammed, a 23-year-old Somali, told us what happened when a large group attacked a gathering place for the Somali community: “The police came and just stood and the racists ran away… The police told the Somali people to go home…and then the police left.”[66]

On May 16, 2011, Athens mayor Yiorgos Kaminis condemned what he called political violence by extremist groups in some parts of the city and accused the police of inertia in combating right-wing attacks on migrants.[67] A few days later, he complained that “the police are slow to react or are scandalously absent when extreme rightist groups carry out criminal attacks on migrants.”[68]

It does not appear that anyone was ever charged in connection with the 2011 May violence. Although a police statement on May 12, 2011, indicated that 47 people (40 Greeks and 7 foreign nationals) were brought in for questioning that day, Human Rights Watch was unable to learn whether charges were brought or whether anyone was brought to trial and if so what the charges were. In a letter dated May 17, 2012, the Athens prosecutor office informed Human Rights Watch that the events have been “classified in the File of Unknown Perpetrators.” Two Afghan men were arrested for the murder of Manolis Kantaris on May 10, 2011; according to the Athens prosecutor’s office the case is still under investigation.[69]
Continuing Violence

Violent attacks on migrants and asylum seekers in Athens neither began nor ended in May 2011. As noted above, Human Rights Watch documented 51 serious attacks between August 2009 and May 2012.

Although the majority of those interviewed who had experienced an attack were men, we also spoke with seven women who told us about being attacked. Two of these women were pregnant at the time of the attack. Five of the women are Somali while two are Afghan.

Human Rights Watch research and the select testimonies below suggest that large squares in central Athens such as Aghios Panteleimonas Square, Attica Square and Victoria Square are particularly dangerous areas for anyone who does not look Greek.
Aghios Panteleimonas

The repeated attacks on the home of Razia Sharife, an Afghan asylum seeker and single mother of three, illustrate the intensity of anti-immigrant activity in the Aghios Panteleimonas neighborhood. Her street-level apartment next to Aghios Panteleimonas Square has been attacked numerous times, including four times in January 2012 and one time in April 2012. In three incidents in January, individuals threw bottles and rocks at her windows and doors. The fourth incident that month, on January 15, 2012, was more serious: Sharife said someone she recognized as a neighbor first broke the windows then threw tear gas into the apartment. She believes he then sprayed a fire extinguisher into the apartment, causing her to fear that “he wanted to burn us alive.”[70] In April 2012, a large group of men with their faces obscured actually entered her apartment, broke beer bottles all over and destroyed furniture. They then left. None of those in the apartment at the time, who included her three young children (a three-year-old, and eleven-year-old twins), were injured.[71]

Human Rights Watch interviewed Sharife for the first time on January 9, 2012, shortly after individuals had thrown bottles and stones at her windows and front door. Sharife explained:

Every time they pass here this happens. Three days ago, they came and were hitting the door with their legs…today they broke the window and the door. At first they threw bottles and then they broke the glass with stones and threw stones inside and then they started kicking the door… They wear black clothes and…hoods and they do these things… Today when this happened I called the police… They came, they took my statement…and they told me they cannot do anything and that I had to go…file a complaint. Until now I have made three complaints…once in 2010 and two times in 2011. I go there and they say to me they will search…but they have done nothing… Today there were [only] men but often there are also two girls that have dogs. The girls too wear hoods and wear black… Every day they are sitting at the café next to the church… Why can’t they [the police] catch them?[72]

Human Rights Watch observed the broken window and cracks in the door.

When Human Rights Watch researcher visited Sharife’s apartment on January 13, 2012, to conduct interviews with other Afghan victims of attacks, she herself witnessed an attack on the apartment. There were a dozen people in the apartment at the time, including Sharife, her three children, the researcher, and seven Afghan men.

The Human Rights Watch researcher was sitting with an interpreter near the curtained window that looked out onto the street when she heard a loud noise as individuals outside began to hit the door with something she could not identify. “The door is made of thick glass and I could see the cracks appearing and the shadows of people on the other side of the door,” she recalled. Everyone stayed inside for the duration of the attack, roughly three minutes, and the researcher called the police as soon as it ended (9:23 p.m. according to her cell phone records). [73]

The police at the scene took information from Sharife and the Human Rights Watch researcher about the attack, but neither was able to give a description of the assailants because they had both remained inside during the attack. Sharife explained about the previous attacks and told the police about the group that regularly gathers on Aghios Panteleimonas Square. The police left shortly afterwards to search for the attackers; they did not interview anyone else in the apartment or anyone in the Afghan-owned internet café next door, which was open at the time.


The exterior of Razia Sharife’s house the day after the January 2012 attack. © 2012 Eva Cossé/ Human Rights Watch

After the police had left, the Human Rights Watch researcher spoke with an Afghan man who had witnessed the attack from the café; he said there were five or six men who beat the door with hammers. Said Jafari, the 40-year-old owner of the internet café, and one of his employees told Human Rights Watch the next day that they had seen two or three men attacking the door while others stood on the corner watching. All were dressed in black and wearing hoods, according to Jafari.[74] Outside the apartment door, the researcher observed three big stones as well as a broken bottle of beer.

Sharife says the police returned three times that evening, each time different officers, to ask more questions about the incident. The following morning, officers from the Aliens police also visited: “They asked me for my pink card. I gave it. They said, ‘You are not Afghan, we don’t believe you, prove to us that you are Afghan.’ I had a passport and I showed it to them and they left.”[75]

Accompanied by the same Human Rights Watch researcher and an interpreter, Sharife filed an official complaint at the Aghios Panteleimonas police station on January 14, 2012. The police officer who took Sharife’s statement insisted that there was a mandatory 100 Euro (US$ 125) fee to file the complaint. He said the police are under orders from the prosecutor’s office to not accept complaints without the fee, and that complaints forwarded to the prosecutor without the fee are archived immediately. Ultimately he accepted the statement without the fee, and in an email on March 13, 2012, the Aghios Panteleimonas police station informed Human Rights Watch that the Sharife’s complaint had been forwarded on January 18, 2012 to the Athens Public Prosecutor. The prosecutor reportedly ordered a preliminary investigation on January 31, 2012. The message further stated that “daily foot and car patrols are dispatched from our service for the policing of the area under our responsibility in order to prevent criminal acts against citizens and for the enforcement of existing laws.”[76]

Sharife also called the police after the incident on January 15, 2012, when assailants sprayed tear gas into her apartment, and again after a further attack in April 2012. She said the police came on both occasions, took her statement, and urged her to relocate. She has not heard from them since, nor is she aware of any developments in the investigation, despite the fact that she provided information on the neighbor she suspects of involvement in the January 15 attack.[77]

Said Jafari, the 40-year-old Afghan owner of the internet café next to Sharife’s apartment, told us he has had to change his store-front window three times because of similar attacks. There were two attacks in 2010, and one in August 2011. On that last occasion, someone wrote “Foreigners Out” in blue letters on the store-front shutters. After Jafari reported the incident to the Aghios Panteleimonas police station, the police painted black markings over the words to try to obscure the message, but the writing is still clearly visible. Jafari complained that he was refused a copy of the complaint he filed, and that the police took no action in response to his repeated reports to them linking a group of people who gather at a café on the corner of the square to these attacks.[78]

Human Rights Watch documented 23 other serious attacks that took place in the Aghios Panteleimonas neighborhood between August 2009 and April 2012. Three of these are described below.
Safar Haidari, December 2011


Safar Haidari just after the December 2011 attack. © 2011 Anonymous

Safar Haidari is a 29-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan and is the vice-president of a cultural association called Nour. On December 23, around 8 p.m., he was attacked roughly 200 meters from the Aghios Panteleimonas police station. A group of 10-15 men, who all appeared to be around or under 30 years old, wearing helmets or hoods, approached him, asked him where he was from, and then one of them punched him in the right eye. He fell to the ground and then the group began to beat him with sticks and kick him. The assailants stole his mobile phone and cigarettes, and then left.
In front of me there was a store with people…My body was hurting and I couldn’t move too much…I went there. Two or three people in the store saw what happened. I asked in what direction they [the attackers] had gone and they told me that half of them headed towards Acharnon Street and the other half towards Attica Square. I had a second phone with me because I had it in my pocket and they didn’t take it and I called the police. Fifteen to 20 minutes later two police motorcycles came by…I don’t know if they came because I called or they wanted to go somewhere else. I told them what happened. They asked for my papers. At that moment I was in a really bad situation because I couldn’t see well and they asked for my papers. I said, ‘Ok, I have papers but you should leave in order to find those who just left. They must be somewhere close; they must be in Attiki, in Acharnon.’[79]

The patrol officers told him to report the crime at the police station. Haidari did go the station, but left after 20 minutes or so, without filing a complaint, because he was in pain and felt the police were not attending to him. “There were five policemen. My head was hurting because I was hit on the head. I said I cannot wait because I wanted to go the hospital, but the policeman said to me, ‘Now we cannot do anything, we are busy, you should wait.’ But I saw the five policemen in the office drinking coffee and chatting. I made a remark to them. They told me again to wait.”[80]

Haidari returned to the police station on December 27, but again left after waiting for what he felt was too long. “There was also an old Greek man there. They served him immediately. I waited around 20-30 minutes. I asked how much longer I have to wait and they told me that they are very busy and cannot do anything now. Then I left.”[81]
Yasser Abdurraham, December 2011


Yasser Abdurraham’s wrist. © 2012 Judith Sunderland/Human Rights Watch

Abdurraham, an 18-year-old Somali, said he was attacked in early December 2011 in front of the Aghios Panteleimonas church by six or seven men on motorcycles.
It was late, around 2 a.m. I was walking home alone. They called to me—‘Come on, come on, Africa, Africa’—and I walked over and they hit me…with a beer bottle. It broke on my head and they slashed my wrist when I held it up [to defend myself]. They punched me in the face, cracked a tooth, and my nose. I don’t know why they did this. They didn’t say anything after they started hitting me. The police came and they ran off on their motorcycles. I showed them [the police] my wrist and I said, ‘Box box’ [to indicate he had been beaten] and they said, ‘Hey Africa’ and made a face and left. I didn’t go back to the police [to report it]. They don’t do anything for people like me.[82]
Mina Ahmad, October 2011

Though she couldn’t remember the exact date, Mina Ahmad, a twenty-year-old Somali woman, told us she was attacked near the end of October 2011, when she was six months pregnant, in the vicinity of the Aghios Panteleimonas church. She was with her infant daughter and was six-months pregnant. Five or six men, all wearing black, approached her as she was about to cross the street.
They asked me first, ‘Where are you from?’ I said Somalia. When I answered they tried to take my daughter away… They hit me on my head with a wooden stick… I fell down bleeding. When I fell down and they saw I was bleeding they ran away. My daughter was crying. I couldn’t see her but I heard her cry behind me… I called some friends. All the people [around at the time of the attack] they were watching but nobody helped me. Friends came to help me. I didn’t go the hospital, I stayed at home… I took coffee and put it on the wound. Now I have a small scar. [At the time] I just thought about the baby inside me. It didn’t matter if I was hurt. I just thought about the baby and my daughter.[83]

Though upset, Ahmad’s daughter was unharmed; Ahmad’s son was born healthy a month later. According to Ahmad, the attackers yelled at her, “Get out of the country!” Ahmad has been in Greece since 2009. Undocumented at the time of the attack and our interview, she has since applied for asylum. She did not report the attack to the police.
Attacks elsewhere in Central Athens

Xenophobic violence is not limited to the Aghios Panteleimonas neighborhood. We documented 19 attacks in other areas of downtown Athens, as well as a five in other neighborhoods of the city. Below are four cases from the Attiki and Victoria neighborhoods in the center of the city.
Douglas Ebenezer Kesse, January 2012

A 32-year-old Ghanaian asylum seeker, Douglas Ebenezer Kesse was assaulted near a big tram depot in the vicinity of Attiki train station on January 9, 2012. He was walking down the street between 8:30 and 9 p.m. when a group of about ten young men dressed in black with three dogs attacked him.
The first thing, one of them asked me, ‘Hey friend where are you from?’ That is the only thing, only words that I could remember. All of a sudden… they rushed on me with sticks. All the people like that. All of them would rush on me and started beating me... I fell down, when I got up, because I was struggling for survival, because many people were beating me up, I got up, I ran again, and the dogs chased me, they brought me down, they beat on me again. The third time I got up I was running, they used their sticks to hit my legs and I fell down again, so for the fourth time, I was able to run just a distance. Some cars were coming like this, towards the direction so they left. I shouted. I’m a Christian so the only words that I know could save me is Jesus Christ. So I begin to shout to call the name of Jesus, ‘Jesus, Jesus!’ There were some people on the street but they were just looking at the action, like a movie… Nobody came to my assistance.[84]

The attackers also stole Kesse’s wallet which he told Human Rights Watch contained a large sum of money he needed to pay his rent. After recovering from the attack at home, Kesse went later that night to the Kypseli police station on Patision Street near America Square, the closest to where he lives. He was told they could do nothing and that he needed to report the attack to the Aghios Panteleimonas police station. Kesse did not do so.

The experience, the only attack in four years of living in Greece, has marked Kesse. He explained,

I feel very bad because, as human beings, we shouldn’t be treated like this. We know that in Europe, these things shouldn’t happen…because it’s not in the jungle. I am so much depressed and so much downhearted to see something like this happen to somebody who is seeking political asylum and a human being also. I am a human being; I am not an animal to be chased with sticks.[85]
Mehdi Naderi, December 2011


Mehdi Naderi. © 2011 Eva Cossé/Human Rights Watch

Naderi, a twenty-year-old Afghan who arrived in Greece in September 2011, was injured when he and two friends were attacked on a pedestrian street near Attica Square on the night of December 12, 2011. We spoke with all three the following day. Naderi said they were just walking down the street when a group of roughly 15 people attacked them.

They didn’t say anything. Suddenly they attacked, they beat me, and I left. It was around 8:30 or 9 p.m. We were on the street… It was dark and we did not understand what happened. We didn’t see them. Suddenly they attacked. But we realized that those who hit us were men. They suddenly appeared from inside the park, in Attica Square, and started hitting. They were saying something but we didn’t understand. But they had in their hands woods and irons. They have hit me everywhere, and in my body also. It is not only my nose and my head… I started running but there was a lot of blood flowing. Suddenly, I felt dizzy and then I stopped and my friends caught me. They were chasing us for a long time. They were behind us. At the time they attacked, my two friends escaped. I ran a lot.[86]

Naderi and his friends went home, but later, with the help of an Afghan activist, called an ambulance and went to the Korgialeneio Benakeio Athens General Hospital for treatment. Naderi received stitches to his head and nose. According to Naderi and Medhi Sarwari, one of the friends who witnessed the attack and accompanied him to the hospital, there were three other injured migrants and numerous police officers that night at the hospital. It was unclear how the migrants sustained their injuries.[87]

Naderi did not report the attack to the police. “I didn’t think to go the police because I am sure that if I go, the police won’t help me, they will bother me more. That’s what most of the people say. They say they go to the police and the police do nothing and scare them.”[88]
Hassan Mohamed, October 2011

A 25-year-old Somali without papers in Greece, Hassan Mohamed was attacked on October 29 as he returned home from an internet café near Victoria Square.
I was talking on the phone and they came at me from the front. Maybe 20 to 25 people. They beat me. I ran and they beat me. I fell unconscious. The police came and called an ambulance. They told me to come back after the hospital with the papers. I went back, I told them, I am the one you took from the street, this is the paper with everything: blood test, scan, x-rays, I had a broken bone under the right eye.

Mohamed ultimately gave up filing a complaint because he was concerned he would be detained because of his undocumented status.[89]
Mahmoud and Maria, August 2011


Maria’s scars from the August 2011 attack. © 2011 Mahmoud

Mahmoud and Maria are a couple from Afghanistan with refugee status in Greece. On August 5, 2011, near Attiki train station in broad daylight two men on a motorcycle attacked Maria, leaving her with a prominent scar on her left hand. The two men on a motorcycle swung at them with what Mahmoud described as “something white, maybe wood with nails” as they yelled the word for ‘dirty’ (Βρωμιάρα). Maria remembered,
I held my hand in front of my head when something hit my hand. After that I held my hand, it was something very hard, I didn’t know what it was but it seemed like a saw. My hand was hurt severely here. It was injured so deeply that you could see the bone. [90]

Mahmoud explained to us that he thinks the attackers were aiming at him, but hit Maria when, out of instinct, he ducked. [91]

After the attack, Mahmoud and Maria ran away, and only went to the hospital the following day. Maria told us they did not report the attack to the police because “we had already heard that the police don’t help us in situations like that.”[92] Mahmoud said, “Go to the police? Is that a joke? If you go to the police they tell you to go fight yourself.”[93]

Although better now, Maria was deeply shaken by the attack. “I didn’t want to go out anymore, and my husband had to do all the everyday errands and things I normally did… Now I try to dress more like Greek women; I don’t want to draw any attention to myself.”[94]



[40] “City murder fuels racial tension,” Kathimerini, May 12, 2011, http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...05/2011_390629 (accessed May 15, 2011).

[41] Human Rights Watch interview with Yunus Mohammadi, Athens, December 6, 2011.

[42] Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, “Hate Crimes in the OSCE Region. Incidents and Responses, Annual Report 2010,” November 2011, p. 26.

[43] Human Rights Watch interview with eight Ministry of Citizen Protection officials, chaired by Major General Vasileios Kousoutis, director, International Police Cooperation Division, Ministry of Citizen Protection, Athens, December 9, 2011.

[44] Human Rights Watch interview, Dimitris Zimianitis, Athens, May 9, 2012. The discrepancy in the figures may be attributable to subsequent analysis of complaint descriptions.

[45] Racist Violence Recording Network, “Presentation of results of pilot phase 1.10.2011-31.12.2011,” press release, March 21, 2012, http://www.nchr.gr/media/deltia_typo..._21_3_2012.pdf (accessed March 22, 2012).

[46] Ibid. The other victims included 5 legal residents, 1 recognized refugee, 1 person with subsidiary protection, and six victims whose status was unknown. Victims included 4 Bangladeshi and 2 Pakistani nationals.

[47] “Fear covers attacks by racists,” (“Ο φόβος καλύπτει τις επιθέσεις των ρατσιστών”)Eleftherotypia, June 12, 2011, http://www.enet.gr/?i=news.el.ellada&id=283835 (accessed April 19, 2012).

[48] Human Rights Watch interview with Jereer K. (pseudonym), Athens, January 12, 2012.

[49] Human Rights Watch interview with Saadia (pseudonym), Athens, May 10, 2012.

[50] “25 injured during far-right rampage against immigrants in Greece’s capital,” Associated Press, May 12, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.world/new_...s=rss_homepage (accessed May 15, 2011).

[51] Ibid.

[52] Human Rights Watch interview with Olivier Abdoulai, Athens, January 5, 2012.

[53] Human Rights Watch interview with an Afghan man, Athens, group interview, December 8, 2011.

[54] Human Rights Watch interview with Badara Gueye, Athens, January 4, 2012.

[55] Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Idress, Athens, December 9, 2011.

[56] Human Rights Watch interview with Modou Ndiaye, Athens, January 4, 2012.

[57] Human Rights Watch interview with Abuubeker Adam, Athens, December 12, 2011.

[58] Human Rights Watch interview with Arif Muhammadi, Athens, December 2, 2011.

[59] Human Rights Watch interview with Qadir Hossaini, Athens, December 6, 2011.

[60] Human Rights Watch interviews with Abduwahab Mohammed, Athens, December 15, 2011; Modou Ndiaye, Athens, January 4, 2012; Badara Gueye, Athens, January 4, 2012.

[61] Human Rights Watch interview with Youssef (pseudonym), Athens, December 8, 2011.

[62] Youssef had experienced a prior attack in 2009, in which a group of young men surrounded him when he tried to cross Aghios Panteleimonas square. Youssef sought help from nearby police officers, pointing to one of the young men who was walking away. “The police said, ‘don’t point like that, where are you from, you create problems, what are you doing here.’ They checked my papers and then told me to leave immediately.” Ibid.

[63] “25 injured during far-right rampage against immigrants in Greece’s capital,” Associated Press, May 12, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.world/new_...s=rss_homepage (accessed May 15, 2011).

[64] Human Rights Watch interview with Abuubeker Adam, Athens, December 12, 2011.

[65] Human Rights Watch interview with Badara Gueye, Athens, January 4, 2012.

[66] Human Rights Watch interview with Abduwahab Mohammed, Athens, December 15, 2011.

[67] “G. Kaminis ‘Mixed patrols, stop to foreigners,’” (Γ. Καμίνης: «Μεικτές περιπολίες, στοπ στους αλλοδαπούς»),To Vima, May 16, 2011, http://www.tovima.gr/society/article/?aid=400988 (accessed April 12, 2012).

[68] Kathy Tzilivakis, “Politicians urged to tackle Athens crime,” Athens News, May 21, 2011.

[69] Letter from the Athens prosecutor’s office, dated May 17, 2012. On file with Human Rights Watch.

[70] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Razia Sharife, Athens, January 25, 2012.

[71] Human Rights Watch interview with Razia Sharife, Athens, May 8, 2012.

[72] Human Rights Watch interview with Razia Sharife, Athens, January 9, 2012.

[73] Description of the incident written by the Human Rights Watch researcher shortly after the incident.

[74] Human Rights Watch interview with Said Jafari and internet café employee (name withheld upon request), Athens, January 14, 2012.

[75] Human Rights Watch interview with Razia Sharife, Athens, January 14, 2012.

[76] Email to Human Rights Watch from Aghios Panteleimonas police station, March 13, 2012. On file at Human Rights Watch.

[77] Human Rights Watch interview with Razia Sharife, Athens, May 8, 2012.

[78] Human Rights Watch interview with Said Jafari, Athens, January 11, 2012.

[79] Human Rights Watch interview with Safar Haidari, Athens, January 3, 2012.

[80]Ibid.

[81] Ibid.

[82] Human Rights Watch interview with Yasser Abdurraham, Athens, January 12, 2012.

[83] Human Rights Watch interview with Mina Ahmad (pseudonym), Athens, December 12, 2011.

[84] Human Rights Watch interview with Douglas Ebenezer Kesse, Athens, January 11, 2012.

[85] Ibid.

[86] Human Rights Watch interview with Mehdi Naderi, Medhi Sarwari, and Zaki Hassani, Athens, December 13, 2011.

[87] Ibid.

[88]Ibid.

[89] Human Rights Watch interview with Hassan Mohamed, Athens, December 9, 2011.

[90] Human Rights Watch interview with Maria (pseudonym), Athens, May 11, 2012.

[91] Human Rights Watch interview with Mahmoud (pseudonym), Athens, December 9, 2011. In our first encounter with the couple, on December 9, 2011, only Mahmoud spoke. Maria was able to speak for herself in our second encounter, on May 11, 2012.

[92] Human Rights Watch interview with Maria, Athens, May 11, 2012.

[93] Human Rights Watch interview with Mahmoud, Athens, December 9, 2011.

[94] Human Rights Watch interview with Maria, Athens, May 11, 2012.

[cont'd]
 
Old July 10th, 2012 #339
Alex Linder
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III. Violence elsewhere in Greece

While xenophobic violence appears to be most acute in and around Athens, media reports suggest that anti-immigrant sentiment has led to violence in other parts of the country. Human Rights Watch documented attacks in Aspropyrgos, a town roughly 20 kilometers north of Athens, as well as one attack in Corinth, roughly 80 kilometers southwest of the capital. Several incidents have reportedly taken place on the island of Crete, although Human Rights Watch was not able to independently investigate these incidents.
Aspropyrgos, September 2011

A spate of anti-immigrant attacks over a two-day period in mid-September 2011 in Aspropyrgos left a number of Pakistani immigrants injured. The police told a Pakistani community leader that the attacks were triggered by allegations that a Pakistani man had harassed a Greek girl.[95]

It is unclear how many separate incidents occurred and how many people were attacked. The grass-roots organization United Against Racism and the Fascist Threat reported that 25 people were injured in a series of attacks that included mob violence at a suburban train station, an assault on a bus, and attacks in ten different homes, all on September 10, 2011.[96]

Asia Ilieva, whose testimony about an attack on her Pakistani companion’s store is below, confirmed that mobs were specifically targeting Pakistanis:
There was no house that they didn’t enter and beat people. In all houses with Pakistanis, all the guys were beaten. Around 20 guys were at the hospital that night. This started on Saturday [September 10]… they [the attackers] were entering buses and they were beating people and were making them get off. It started on Saturday and continued on Sunday all day long.[97]

Forty-year-old Mahmoud S., a Pakistani national who has been living legally in Greece for 14 years, told us ten hooded men, armed with wooden and iron bars as well as screwdrivers, attacked his home in the Goritsa neighborhood of Aspropyrgos on the night of September 11, 2011. Mahmoud and his five roommates, also Pakistanis, had gone to bed for the night when “they came, broke the door, and entered the house.”
They were shouting, “Μαλάκα, το μάνα σου, το σπίτι σου” [Asshole, fuck your mother, fuck your house]… [T]hey had woods, their legs, irons... They broke everything and beat my roommates and me... They beat me on the head and chest and I was bleeding. I still have a hole in my head. They beat me with iron. The attack lasted 20 minutes. The house had three rooms and two persons were sleeping in each room. They went first to one room, then to other room and that’s why it lasted 20 minutes. In total, they beat five guys as the sixth guy was hidden in the toilet.[98]

All five were taken to a hospital in Magoula by ambulance. Mahmoud required five or six stitches to his head, one of his roommates required nine stitches and another suffered three broken ribs and head injuries.[99] According to Mahmoud, he called the police numerous times after the attack, “but they didn’t come.” The police later interviewed him and his roommates at the hospital, but he has no information about any investigation into the attack.[100] He and his roommates have since moved to another area of Aspropyrgos.

Javet Aslam, the president of an association of Pakistanis living in Greece, witnessed an attack on one home late in the evening of September 11. Earlier in the evening, he had met with the Aspropyrgos chief of police and received his assurances that the police would act against the violence, so when he received a call from someone saying his home was under attack Aslam immediately called the police chief.
He said he didn’t have anyone to send. I insisted, I said just sent one or two, and after an hour he sent two officers. I went with them, there were a lot of people, and the police said they couldn’t do anything…maybe because there were only two of them…and they left. They left us there. There were around 30 people breaking things inside the house. Around 11 p.m. Then the police took one injured person to the hospital. Why didn’t the police prepare to respond better, given the attacks the day before and the meetings of people to organize the attacks? How could they [the police] not know this?[101]

According to Aslam, the Aspropyrgos police said these were not racist attacks because they were sparked by accusations that a Pakistani man had molested a Greek girl. “But I say if that happened, then that one person is a criminal, not everybody,” Aslam said.[102]

Javet Ikbal and Asia Ilieva described an attack on their store in the Goritsa neighborhood of Aspropyrgos around 10 p.m. on the night of September 11, 2011. Ikbal’s brother, Abit Housein, 32 years old, was in the store at the time and suffered head injuries. Ikbal, a 52-year-old originally from Pakistan who acquired Greek nationality, and Asia Ilieva, his 56-year-old companion from Bulgaria, have owned the mini-market since 2003; this is the first time they have experienced such an attack. Ilieva explained,
We left [the store] to put gas [in the car]. We came back and we stopped on the road because I cannot describe how many people were on the street… We’re talking about 200-300 people… Tall kids, beautiful, strong kids... They had nothing covered [i.e. their faces]. And they were dressed with sport clothes. But they were holding wooden bats and had stones. The store was full of stones [after the attack]. They also had hammers. They didn’t have flags or anything.
I turned my head and I saw there was no light in our store. We always leave a light on and it can be seen from outside because his [Ikbal’s] brother sleeps there... We come here [to the store] and what do we see? Nothing has been left in place. All the refrigerators were outside, broken, there was fire... They did it in 15 minutes! And…there was a pool of blood because they broke his [Ikbal’s] brother’s head. The damage in money was 5,000 to 6,000 Euro (US$ 6,278 to 7,534). I threw everything away. We didn’t have insurance in the store.[103]

Three police cars from the Aghios Anargyros police station responded to Ikbal’s call and arrived on the scene minutes later. The couple filed an official complaint, but has since heard no news about the investigation. Ikbal complained that the authorities did nothing to prevent the violence:
The police knew everything. They did nothing. No patrols, nothing. The police usually patrols every day. For three days, we didn’t see even one motorcycle, not even one car from the Aspropyrgos Police. But it’s nobody’s fault, there is no law, there is no state, there is no police, there is no logic.”[104]

Ikbal’s brother, who required stitches on his head in three different places, relocated to Nikaia, a neighborhood on the periphery of Athens and would later leave Greece. Ilieva explained, “we didn’t let him stay here… we were afraid that they [the attackers] would come back and kill him. And we, ourselves, for ten days, we left the store in the situation it was.” She added that many of those who experienced attacks in those days have left the area, while those who remain are scared to go out after dark. As a precautionary measure, Ikbal and Ilieva have removed the Urdu writing from their storefront.[105]
Corinth, February 2012

Two North Africans were seriously injured in an attack near the abandoned train station where they live in Corinth on February 18, 2012. According to testimony Human Rights Watch gathered from Mostafa El Mouzdahir, a Moroccan, and two witnesses, a group of seven Greek nationals came to the train station around 3:30 p.m. claiming two migrants had stolen some money. Hearing calls for help, El Mouzdahir and his friend Isham went outside the wagon they live in and saw a group of men beating a migrant. As more and more migrants arrived on the scene, the Greeks fled but a crowd gathered around an attacker’s car. El Mouzdahir told us he tried to prevent a lynching, but ended up a victim:
He got into his car. Some Algerians followed him and tried to open his door, and I went there…to tell them to stop. I told them to not hit him, to let him leave. And the Greek [man] said thank you…. I speak a little bit of Greek so I…told him ‘no one will hit you, but close your door and leave and there’s no problem’. When he closed his door, he saw people in front of his car. He became insane. He accelerated and hit Saïd the Algerian in the legs and then he went ahead for maybe 200 meters and then accelerated again in reverse and hit me. There were a lot of us but I didn’t manage to get away… I had a big hit on the head and then I forgot everything. My feet, my back, my jaw, my head are still hurting.[106]


El Mouzdahir’s friend Isham, as well as two foreign journalists (a Spanish reporter and an Italian news photographer), witnessed the attack.

After the car sped away, the police came quickly and took the journalists, though none of the migrants, to the police station to take their statements. Isham explained that an ambulance came for El Mouzdahir and Saïd much later: “Imagine! We are a five minute walk away [from the hospital] and it took one hour for the ambulance to come. They transferred two persons in the same ambulance. ”[107]

El Mouzdahir and Saïd were hospitalized for five and four days, respectively. El Mouzdahir told Human Rights Watch the police guarded his door the first night, and returned twice to take his statement. He believes it was the police chief who questioned him.
He told me about the press. He said, ‘Because of you and the press, we have a big problem with many countries.’ I didn’t say anything… After that he told me ‘Now I'll give you the Χαρτί [order to leave Greece within 30 days] and I wish you good health. When you get out of here, no police officer will bother you in the street.’ The Police was kind because they heard that photos of me were seen in Spain, Italy, everywhere"[108]

The driver of the car turned himself into the police on February 20, two days after the attack. Panos Damelos, an anti-racism activist in Corinth following the case, said the police had told him that they did not consider the attack to be racially-motivated, but rather the actions of a man with psychological problems. The police, according to Damelos, refused to investigate the car incident in relation to the group attack on migrants in the abandoned train station. None of the undocumented migrants wanted to file an official complaint, and the police argued they had no obligation to investigate ex officio; none of the other assailants have been identified.[109]

El Mouzdahir and Isham told Human Rights Watch this was the second attack they experienced. A large group of young men with motorcycles and on foot attacked the train station near the end of November 2011. They said that at around midnight, a friend of theirs who was outside talking on the phone saw a group of some fifty people begin throwing stones. He rushed inside the train wagon where El Mouzdahir and Isham were and closed the door. El Mouzdahir remembered the volley of stones was “like rain.” He and Isham, interviewed separately, both complained that the police “don’t care” that a group of seven or eight people gather regularly in a nearby park with their dogs and harass migrants. They believed these young men could have been involved in the stone attack. Isham explained that two young police officers arrived on the scene shortly after the incident: “We told them it was the racists and then they left. They don’t care. They didn’t come back to ask us questions or anything.”[110]
Crete, 2011

An Albanian national was hospitalized on May 13, 2011, in Rethymno, on the Greek island of Crete, after suffering multiple injuries in an attack by a group of Greeks.[111] Another Albanian suffered minor injuries in the same attack. Police were reportedly investigating whether the attack was racially-motivated and related to the incidents in Athens only a few days before.[112] On September 11, 2011, police in Lasithi arrested four young men and one 16-year-old boy in connection with the violent beating of a Mauritian immigrant the day before.[113]

On November 19, 2011, three Pakistanis were hospitalized after being attacked in their home in Perama-Mylopotamos in what police are investigating as retaliation after an elderly woman was beaten and strangled to death in a robbery allegedly committed by two Afghan migrants.[114]A few hours later, a car owned by a Pakistani national was engulfed in flames in the same area.[115]
Patras May 2011 and May 2012

In Patras, on May 7, 2011, a few days before the violence in Athens, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into an abandoned house occupied by four homeless Romanians. The newspaper Eleftherotypia reported that the police carried out investigations to identify the perpetrator and were considering the possibility that the attack was racially motivated.[116]The Patras prosecutor replied to a detailed query from Human Rights Watch about this case stating simply that the case is still under investigation, with unknown perpetrators sought on charges of arson posing a risk to human life.[117]

On May 19, 2012, in Patras a 30-year-old Greek man was fatally stabbed by three men believed to be Afghan nationals. According to news articles, police arrested one Afghan man and are looking for two others in connection with the murder.[118] In the days following the murder, large and violent anti-immigrant protests took place in front of an abandoned factory occupied by hundreds of migrants. On May 23, 2012, around 350 people described by the police as “mainly members of Golden Dawn” participated in an anti-immigrant demonstration that led to clashes with the police.[119] According to a police statement, eight officers were injured and hospitalized, and a bus patrol car and two motorcycles were damaged. Officers brought 22 people in for questioning and arrested five of them.

In a call to end the violence in Patras, UNHCR stressed that “the anger generated by the murder, for which a criminal investigation is on-going, should not lead to a cycle of violence, with civilians taking the law into their own hands. It can also not serve as an excuse to target and victimize migrants and refugees in Patras or other regions of Greece.”[120]

Human Rights Watch sent letters on April 12, 2012, to the Prosecutor’s Office of Corinth and on April 21, 2012, to the Prosecutor’s Offices of Lasithi and Rethymno in Crete inquiring about these incidents. The letter to the Corinth office was returned unread on May 25, 2012 and was resent on June 6, 2012. At the time of writing, we had not received an answer to any of the letters.



[95] Human Rights Watch interview with Javet Aslam, Athens, January 11, 2012

[96] United against Racism and the Fascist Threat, “Racist pogrom in Aspropyrgos with the protection of the police,” press release, September 11, 2011, http://www.antiracismfascism.org/ind...nts&Itemid=150 (accessed April 10, 2012).

[97] Human Rights Watch interview with Javet Ikbal and Asia Ilieva, Goritsa (Aspropyrgos), January 8, 2012.

[98] Human Rights Watch interview with Mahmoud S., Magoula (Aspropyrgos), January 8, 2012.

[99] A Human Rights Watch staff member felt the scar under Mahmoud’s hair.

[100] Ibid.

[101] Human Rights Watch interview with Javet Aslam, Athens, January 11, 2012.

[102] Ibid.

[103] Human Rights Watch interview with Javet Ikbal and Asia Ilieva, Goritsa (Aspropyrgos), January 8, 2012.

[104] Ibid.

[105] Ibid.

[106] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Mostafa El Mouzdahir, March 1, 2012.

[107] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Isham (last name withheld upon request), March 1, 2012.

[108] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Mostafa El Mouzdahir, March 1, 2012.

[109] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Panos Damelos, April 13, 2012.

[110] Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Isham, March 1, 2012.

[111] “Two migrants at the hospital after they were beaten,” (Ρέθυμνο - Στονοσοκομείομετά από ξυλοδαρμό δύομετανάστες”), To Vima Rethymnon, May 13, 2011, http://www.tovima.gr/society/article/?aid=400452 (accessed April 20, 2012).

[112] Ibid.

[113] “Six held for migrant attack on Crete,” Kathimerini English Edition, September 11, 2011, http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...09/2011_405782 (accessed April 20, 2012). The 16-year-old’s father was also detained.

[114] “Unknown persons sent -for revenge- to the hospital three young men,” (“Άγνωστοιέστειλαν-για αντίποινα- στονοσοκομείοτρειςνεαρούς!”), Creta Live electronic edition, November 19, 2011, http://www.cretalive.gr/new/61406/cr..._treis_nearous (accessed April 12, 2012)

[115] “Concerns about the new incident in Perama –car in ‘flames’,” (“Προβληματισμός για τονέοκρούσμα στοΠέραμα- "Λαμπάδιασε" αυτοκίνητο”) Creta Live electronic edition, November 20, 2011, http://www.cretalive.gr/new/61474/cr...ito_sto_Perama (accessed April 20, 2012).

[116] “He tried to burn with Molotov homeless migrants in Patras,” (“Προσπάθησε να κάψειμεμολότοφάστεγουςμετανάστες στηνΠάτρα”), Eleftherotypia electronic edition, 7 May, 2011, http://www.enet.gr/?i=news.el.article&id=273588 (accessed April 12, 2012).

[117] Letter to Human Rights Watch dated April 26, 2012. On file with Human Rights Watch.

[118] “Three Afghans suspected of killing local near Patra port,” Kathimerini English Edition, May 21, 2012, http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...05/2012_443221 (accessed May 22, 2012).

[119] Hellenic Police, “Announcement of the General Police Directorate of Western Greece Periphery on yesterday’s incidents in Patras, outside the old factory of ‘Peiraïki Patraïki’”, (Ανακοίνωση της Γ.Α.Δ.Π.Δυτικής Ελλάδας σχετικά με χθεσινά επεισόδια στην Πάτρα, έξω από το παλιό εργοστάσιο της "Πειραϊκής Πατραϊκής"), Press Release, May 23, 2012, http://astynomia.gr/index.php?option...emid=912&lang= (accessed May 29, 2012)

[120] UNHCR, “UNHCR calls for an end to the cycle of violence in Patras”, Press Release, May 24, 2012, http://www.unhcr.se/en/media/artikel...the-cycle.html (accessed May 24, 2012).

[cont'd]
 
Old July 10th, 2012 #340
Alex Linder
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IV. Greece’s Legal Obligations

Greece is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) , which requires all state parties to ensure to all persons their fundamental rights without distinction of any kind, including race, language, religion, national origin, or other status.[121] The Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with the ICCPR, has made clear that states have a positive obligation to prevent and punish human rights abuse by private actors.[122] Greece is also a party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) which obligates states to guarantee everyone “without distinction as to race, color, or national or ethnic origin…security of person and protection by the State against violence or bodily harm, whether inflicted by government officials or by any individual, group or institution.”[123]

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), ratified by Greece in 1974, provides for the equal enjoyment of all Convention rights without distinctions based on race, color, religion, or national or social origin, among other grounds.[124] The Convention also imposes positive obligations on states to protect individuals from attack, assault, or injury by private individuals, in particular when combined with protection of the rights to life and bodily integrity.[125]

The European Court of Human Rights has established in its case law the duty of states to investigate whether a criminal offense was motivated by racist animus. In its 2005 ruling in the case of Nachova and Others v. Bulgaria, the Court argued:
When investigating violent incidents … State authorities have the additional duty to take all reasonable steps to unmask any racist motive and to establish whether or not ethnic hatred or prejudice may have helped play a role in the events. Failing to do so and treating racially induced violence and brutality on an equal footing with cases that do not have racist overtones would be to turn a blind eye to the specific nature of acts that are particularly destructive of fundamental rights.[126]

The court has reiterated the positive obligation to investigate possible racist motivations in many successive cases.[127] In relation to lethal attacks the court has emphasized that,

[W]here that attack is racially motivated, it is particularly important that the investigation is pursued with vigour and impartiality, having regard to the need to reassert continuously society's condemnation of racism and to maintain the confidence of minorities in the ability of the authorities to protect them from the threat of racist violence.[128]

The European Union Council Framework Decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law, adopted in November 2008, underlines the obligation of EU states to ensure that racism and xenophobia are punishable by “effective, proportionate and dissuasive” criminal penalties.” [129] A binding legal instrument, the framework decision establishes an obligation to ensure that racist and xenophobic motivation is established under national law as an aggravating circumstance in the commission of crimes or subject to penalty enhancement. [130]

As a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Greece is also bound by the 2009 Ministerial Council decision on “Combating Hate Crimes,” calling on states to take measures to address the problem, including collecting reliable data, tailoring appropriate legislation, assisting victims, and raising awareness. [131]

International and national human rights bodies have expressed concern about Greece’s failure to live up to these obligations. In June 2012, the UN Committee against Torture said Greece should “strongly combat the increasing manifestations of racial discrimination, xenophobia and related violence, including by publicly condemning all such intolerance and motivated violence and sending a clear and unambiguous message that racist or discriminatory acts, including by police and other public officials, are unacceptable, and by prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators of such acts.”[132]

In 2009, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had expressed its concern that Greece was not acting diligently to address racially motivated crimes, and urged Greek authorities to “ensure the effective implementation of all legal provisions aimed at eliminating racial discrimination and that racially motivated crimes are effectively prosecuted and punished.”[133] Also in 2009, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) urged Greek authorities to ensure appropriate and ongoing training for judges and prosecutors on “legislation against racism in general, and in particular the new ones which provide for the racist motivation of a crime to be considered an aggravating circumstance at sentencing.”[134] This provision is discussed in more detail below.

During Greece’s Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council, in May 2011, numerous countries raised concerns about discrimination and intolerance, including racist violence, and made a series of recommendations, including through ensuring that racially motivated crimes are effectively prosecuted and punished.[135] Greece accepted these recommendations.

In June 2011, the Greek National Human Rights Commission, an independent government advisory body, expressed its concern about rising racist and xenophobic violence and issued a series of recommendations including improved training of police and the judiciary on racist crimes; the introduction of specific guidelines on investigations of racist crimes and a mandatory registration system using a special form; the creation of liaison police officers and teams specialized in racist crimes; improving police-community relations; and the establishment of a centralized recording system to improve data collection and analysis of racist crimes.[136]

Greece should publicly and unequivocally condemn racist and xenophobic violence, and act on its obligations under international human rights law to undertake effective measures to prevent such violence and to investigate and prosecute perpetrators. These obligations apply whether the perpetrators of the violence are agents of the state or private actors.



[121] ICCPR, G.A. res 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N.GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force March 23, 1976, article 2(1); see also ibid., article 26 (equal protection under the law). Greece ratified the ICCPR on May 5, 1997.

[122] Human Rights committee, General Comment 31, Nature of the General Legal Obligations on States Parties to the Covenant, U.N. Doc CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.13 (2004): “However the positive obligations on States Parties to ensure Covenant rights will only be fully discharged if individuals are protected by the State, not just against violations of Covenant rights by its agents, but also against acts committed by private persons or entities…There may be circumstances in which a failure to ensure Covenant rights…would give rise to violations by States Parties of those rights, as a result of States Parties’ permitting or failing to take appropriate measures or to exercise due diligence to prevent, punish, investigate or redress the harm caused by such acts by private persons or entities,” para. 8.

[123] ICERD, Adopted and opened for signature and ratification by the General Assembly resolution 2106 (XX) of 21 December 1965, entered into force January 4, 1969, article 5(b). Greece ratified ICERD on June 18, 1970.

[124] European Convention on Human Rights, Council of Europe Treaty Series, No. 5, Rome November 4, 1950, ratified by Greece on November 28, 1974.

[125] ECHR articles 1, 2, and 3. See for example European Court of Human Rights cases A. v. The United Kingdom, judgment September 23, 1998, para. 22: “The Court considers that the obligation on the High Contracting Parties under Article 1 of the Convention to secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in the Convention, taken together with Article 3, requires States to take measures designed to ensure that individuals within their jurisdiction are not subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment including such ill-treatment administered by private individuals;” and Osman v. The United Kingdom, judgment of October 28, 1998, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-VII, p. 3159, para 115: “The first sentence of Article 2§1 enjoins the State not only to refrain from the intentional and unlawful taking of life, but also to take appropriate steps to safeguard the lives of those within its jurisdiction…The State’s obligation extends beyond its primary duty to secure the right to life by putting in place effective criminal law provisions to deter the commission of offense against the person backed up by law enforcement machinery for the prevention, suppression and punishment of breaches of such provisions.”

[126] European Court of Human Rights [Grand Chamber], Nachova and Others v. Bulgaria, judgment of July 6, 2005, para. 156-159.

[127]See, for example, Bekos and Koutropoulos v Greece, judgment December 13, 2005 paras. 63 – 65; Zelilof v Greece judgment May 24, 2007, paras. 72 – 74; Secic v. Croatia, judgment of May 31, 2007, para. 66; Cobzaru v Romania, judgment July 26, 2007, paras. 88 – 91; Cakir v. Belgium judgment March 10, 2009 paras. 77 – 78; Beganovic v. Croatia judgment of June 25, 2009, para.93.

[128] See Angelova and Iliev v Bulgaria, judgment of July 26, 2007 and Menson and Others v. the United Kingdom, no. 47916/99, Decision on Admissibility on May 6, 2003, ECHR 2003-V.

[129] Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of 28 November 2008 on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law, Official Journal of the European Union L328, 6 December 2008, http://www.legal-project.org/documents/219.pdf (accessed March 12, 2010), preamble, para (5).

[130] Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA, Article 4.

[131] OSCE Ministerial Council, Decision No. 9/09, “Combating Hate Crimes,” Athens, December 2, 2009, MC Dec 9/09, http://www.osce.org/item/41853.html (accessed November 5, 2010).

[132] UN Committee against Torture, Concluding Observations: Greece, CAT/C/GRC/CO/5-6, June 2012, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/cats48.htm (accessed June 8, 2012).

[133] UN CERD, Concluding Observations: Greece, CERD/C/GCR/CO/19, August 28, 2009, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/type,C...ba17fe2,0.html (accessed April 20, 2012).

[134] ECRI report on Greece (fourth monitoring cycle), CRI (2009) 31, September 15, 2009, p. 13, http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring...09-031-ENG.pdf (accessed November 2, 2011).

[135] Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: Greece, U.N. Doc A/HRC/18/13, July 11, 2011, http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UND...df?OpenElement (accessed April 20, 2012).

[136] National Commission for Human Rights, “Suggestions for tackling racist violence by the police and the judiciary,” press release, June 9, 2011, http://www.nchr.gr/media/gnwmateusei...ynDikfinal.pdf (accessed July 12, 2011).

[cont'd]
 
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