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Racist violence in Greece
Greek - 06.09.2004 21:43
The lights of the Olympic Games are off now in Greece. All the world is happy with the success of the Games. However, only a week after the closing ceremony racist violence against Albanian immigrants was spread around the country, following the defeat of the Greek by the Albanian national soccer team.
Albanian after an attack taken to the hospital, Sunday early in the morning
Immigrant beaten by Greek racists
Before the soccer match between Greece and Albania in Tirana mass media in Greece made an effort to provoce racism. Images of crazy Albanians ready to kill all Greeks appeared in the TV news. Before and during the game there were also several acts of provocation from Albanian nationalists in Tirana.
After the match thousands of Albanian immigrants went to the streets of Greek cities to celebrate peacefully the victory of the Albanian team by 2-1 (exactly like the Greeks in Portugal when Greek beated Portugal in the final of the EURO 2004). The reaction of Greek nationalists was immediate: they organized themselves into groups and they start beating every Albanian they found. This happened in more than 10 cities of Greece. The result: 1 Albanian immigrant (Gramos Paluci) murdered by a Greek - american (Panagiotis Kladis) in the island of Zakinthos and at least 50 others wounded in several incidents on Saturday evening!
In most of the cases the Greek police was present but did nothing to protect the Albanians. In some cases they participated in the beating of immigrants. It is important to stress that except for the murdered and his accomplish no other Greek was arrested for the incidents of violence. On the contrary, there were a few arrests of Albanians...
The elected prefect (local governor) of the perfecture of Thessaloniki P. Psomiadis (he was supported by the ruling conservative party ND)requested from the ...Albanian government to apologize for the incidents!
Left groups (Struggle Initiative, Greek SF etc), antiauthoritarian initiatives and antiracist coalitions have planned an antiracist demonstration in Athens on Thursday evening and in Thessaloniki on Tuesday.
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| Lees meer over: anti-fascisme / racisme vrijheid, repressie & mensenrechten | | aanvullingen | | | Wat een onzin | Griek - 07.09.2004 21:19
Als Duitsland van Nederland wint en Duitsers gaan hier in Nederland de straten op om luidruchtig feest te vieren, dan kun je toch ook verwachten dat er rellen uitbreken? Ik wil dit absoluut niet goedpraten, gebruik van geweld vind ik sowieso schandalig. Maar het is nogal idioot om meteen te spreken van racisme, daar is hier absoluut geen sprake van, zulke dingen gebeuren elke dag bij(Grieks) voetbal.
| | Hooligan fights? | Toevoegeraar - 07.09.2004 21:36
Are you sure this is racist? It seems to me more plausible that it is just ordinary hooligan fights? You got these too in holland between national soccer teams, at one time also resulting in a dead person. Ofcourse, beating up each other because of a football game is not tolerable... but in the case of nationalistic hooligan fights (whoever started what) then I wouldn't call it racism...
I have to admit I'm not familiar with the apparently greek-albanian situation.
| | Greek - Albanian situation | Greek - 09.09.2004 21:22
The situation is simple to understand. Till 1989 borders were sealed. After the fall of the "socialist" regime in Albania thousands of Albanians (some of them are Greeks living in southern Albania) came to Greece trying to find the "promised land". Numbers increased in time and now about half a million Albanians live in Greece. They are doing all the jobs that most Greeks wouldn't like to do: construction workers, seasonal workers in agriculture etc. Olympic Games would not have taken place without them (and the rest of the immigrants of course). They constructed the stadium, the Athens metro and the new avenues and some of them died in the constructions due to the violation of security regulations.
They are crossing the border illegaly many times as the Greek government is not giving visas very easily. Many times they get shot by the Greek border police and die at. As all immigrants in all countries of the "civilized west" they are accoused of being thieves, murderers etc.
Every now and then the Greek police launches an "attack" against them and arrests few thousands of them and deports them. There are all the time reports of police abuse and sometimes people die in police stations.
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