Since late November, Afghan refugees stay in tents at Propylaea (central Athens) protesting and requesting asylum. The authorities together with para-state fascist scums try to repress their struggle but the refugees don’t give up.
On December 2nd some fascists (or secret cops?) attacked the refugees at Propylaea destroying their photo-dashboards, shouting to an alderman who was with the refugees “take your blacks and go away” and “we will come back to burn you” etc.
On December 20th around 100 Afghan and Iranian refugees went on a peacefull protest outside the Ministry for Civil Protection. After some hours 2 senior associates of the minister Papoutsis accepted the representatives of the refugees for a talk. They promised that the Asylum committees would start operating in the next days/weeks but they couldn’t take on any commitment about the date.. After some hours (at the dawn of December 21st ) a brutal and cynical attack by MAT (riot police) took place, prompted by the political leadership of the Ministry and executed with Nazi misery by the chief brigadier Ioannis Loukas. A secret cop started shouting to an alderman that accompanied the refugees “take your blacks and go away”, “get lost, this is Greece” and the minister’s official fully covered him. Then the riot police brutally attacked against the 100 refugees that were peacefully protesting laid on the street. They kicked and injured a man on the head while many women and children were beaten up and pushed away. Watch a video here. The cops arrested 3 refugees and tortured 1 of them while they were transferring him to police headquarters (G.A.D.A).
Today, December 25th the refugees are still protesting at Propylaea and they will stay there till they get political asylum and they call citizens, student and labor unions to support their struggle.
here is their letter:
Asylum Request for the Afghan Political Refugees Propylaea Panepistimio (Athens)
We the people of Afghanistan are political refugees. We have come to Greece to ask for political asylum and there are many reasons why we appeal for this. One of the main reasons is the terror campaign carried out by the Taliban group.
Taliban fighters carry out murderous attacks in areas they control and they capture young people to join them. They attack and terrorize cities, towns and villages and do dreadful things to people that cannot be described simply in words.
The Afghan people suffer murders, massacres, looting and fire bombing on a daily basis. People who survive these terror attacks are forced to abandon their homes and villages. However, what is even worse is the indifference of the state and the international community.
In the villages of Afghanistan people have no protection or human rights.
This makes it easy for terrorist groups to find and attack unprotected people and to exploit the situation to cultivate opium. Fear for their lives makes young people join terrorist groups and makes it easier for terrorists to accomplish their acts.
After nine years of presence and action by NATO forces and international agencies, the situation instead of getting better seems to be getting worse, and the Taliban is getting stronger. The truth is that international forces are in Afghanistan mostly for their own interests (such as disguised occupation and exploitation, pillage of our country, production of refugee-slaves, testing new weapon systems, etc.) and not really to help the Afghan people. Thousands of Afghans are being killed every year by both the Taliban and NATO forces.
For proof of what we have said above please look on the internet. There are thousands of videos, pictures and articles in different languages of what is happening in Afghanistan.
Now we are here in Greece we are still afraid. The government does not care what happens to us, and although we have asked for asylum we wait for years for a response. All we can get is a temporary red card, valid only for six months and we never know if it will be renewed or not.
There are refugees here in Greece who have waited up to 11 years for an answer! Our children have been born here and have learned the Greek language which has become almost their mother tongue.
Should be announced that we are gathered for
20 days and even we have sent a letter
To Greece Interior university but till this
Moment (12/12/2010)not supporting of
Any Greek organization of this reason we Are request
ing from you to support us
Facebook: AfghanRefugeesGr Afghan
Blog: AfghanRefugeesGr.blogspot.com
E-mail: afghan.refugees@yahoo.gr
Youtube: youtube.com/AfghanRefugeesgr
and an older video:
source: http://afghanrefugeesgr.blogspot.com/
read more about the refugees struggle in Greece and the Greek authorities’ brutality here: http://w2eu.net/