How the world sees Greece
Greece to Toughen Hate Crime Sentencing ABC News Greece will toughen sentencing for hate crimes, following a surge in attacks against immigrants and violence involving members of a far-right political party, the country's justice minister said Wednesday. Antonis Roupakiotis said racially motivated ... |
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 ABC News | Greece: Police Deployed Outside Far-Right Party HQ ABC News The police move came after Golden Dawn party members last week smashed stalls at a church fair in Rafina near Athens and at a farmers' market in the central Greek town of Messolonghi. Videos of the attacks posted by the media on the Internet showed ... Greece scraps police protection for far-right lawmakers |
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 euronews | Greece scraps police protection for far-right lawmakers Reuters ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece scrapped police protection for lawmakers from the far-right Golden Dawn party on Monday after the bodyguards did nothing while the deputies went on a rampage destroying street stands run by migrant vendors. Led by three ... Greece: Police deployed outside far-right party HQ Greece removes police guards from extreme right lawmakers, citing party's ... |
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Greece removes police guards from extreme right lawmakers, citing party's ... Washington Post ATHENS, Greece — Greece's public order ministry is withdrawing police guards who have been protecting the lawmakers of an extreme far-right party that has vowed violent intimidation against immigrant street vendors. A ministry statement says it wants ... |
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New Greek deputies sworn in to Parliament Fox News Greece's 300 newly elected lawmakers are being sworn in to Parliament, eleven days after the country's second election in six weeks left no party with enough ... |
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 CTV.ca | Antonis Samaras: The Aristocrat Who Now Leads Austerity-Ridden Greece TIME Antonis Samaras opposed a bailout and then voted to support another. Now prime minister, he must figure out a way to bring the Greek economy back from the dead By Joanna Kakissis / Athens | @joannakakissis | June 20, 2012 | + Kostas Tsironis / AP ... Antonis Samaras appointed Greece's prime minister Greek coalition takes power, promises to revise bailout Greece Forms New Government |
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Too many refugees fleeing their own country end up in inhumane detention centres in Europe. We should all take responsibility
Today marks World Refugee Day, which aims to raise awareness of the plight of the 42.5 million people worldwide who remain forcibly displaced due to conflict and political persecution. The UNHCR's Global Trends report, released earlier this week, shows how during 2011 major conflicts in Ivory Coast, Libya, Somalia and Sudan caused several major refugee crises, forcing more than 800,000 people into neighbouring countries, the highest in more than a decade, and internally displacing a further 3.5 million within the borders of their own countries.
Yet with world leaders focusing on the fate of the eurozone, the plight of the world's most vulnerable people is in danger of being overlooked. As well as working together to solve our economic troubles, it is vital that we help the millions of men, women, and children who have been forced from their homes and had their lives thrown into a state of fear and uncertainty.
The EU plans to reach an agreement over a common European asylum system by the end of this year, aiming to strengthen common standards on asylum, establish greater solidarity between member states, and ensure fair and decent treatment of refugees.
However, countries on the EU's periphery continue to shoulder the brunt of refugee flows relative to their capacity, burdening the already strained living conditions in immigration reception and detention centres. Malta provides a case in point. During 2011 Malta received more asylum requests per capita than any other EU country, with 4,500 applications per million inhabitants, 10 times more than the UK. Meanwhile, in one single incident last month 600 migrants were rescued and hosted by the Maltese government. Taking the tiny island's population into account, that is the equivalent of 90,000 refugees arriving in the UK in one day.
It is therefore no great surprise that conditions in Malta's detention centres, where asylum seekers must wait for their application to be processed for periods of up to 18 months, have been described as "unhealthy, unsuitable and dangerous".
Cash-stricken Greece must also manage a disproportionate amount of Europe's migrant flows. In 2010, 90% of all irregular entries to Europe took place along the Turkish-Greek border, whereas 57,000 attempted entries were recorded last year. The upcoming completion of a six-mile razor wire wall along the border may stem the number of irregular migrants arriving, but will only provide a temporary solution as it will simply serve to divert migratory flows.
In the meantime, the growing population of undocumented migrants in Greece, which is now thought to stand at 400,000, is fuelling xenophobic sentiment and racism, as the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party shows. Meanwhile, the growth in asylum requests is causing a humanitarian crisis, as the creaking asylum system suffers under budget cuts and migrants continue to suffer appalling conditions in detention centres.
The European Commission has criticised Greece's poor treatment of asylum seekers, and has pledged €90m to help Greece with its migration management, although it refused to contribute to the €5m fence at the Greek-Turkish border which it has called "pointless". In addition, the Dublin II regulation, which allows EU member states to transfer asylum requests to the country of first entry, has recently been called into question, with the European court of justice ruling that asylum seekers may not be transferred to a member state where they risk being subjected to "inhuman treatment".
Since then many "Dublin" returns to Greece have been temporarily suspended, as EU members realise it is not realistic to transfer yet more asylum requests to a country already struggling to cope with its refugees.
However, despite the drive for greater solidarity and common European standards, wide disparities continue – as shown by the vast differences in the recognition of asylum claims. For Afghan asylum seekers, recognition rates ranged from 73% in Sweden to 11% in Greece, with the UK somewhere in between with 32%. Meanwhile, the acceptance rate for Iraqis varies from between 0 and 81%. There are fears that with economic and political pressures growing, we may increasingly see a regulatory race to the bottom, with countries attempting to make their asylum policies more restrictive than their neighbours in a form of "burden shifting".
This sort of unco-operative approach also threatens the freedom of movement that underpins the single market and brings significant economic benefits to European countries, including the UK. For example, when the Italian government last year issued Tunisian migrants with temporary residence permits and tacitly encouraged them to go to France, the French government responded by temporarily blocking trains from Italy. While just last week the European Council agreed to give national governments more freedom to impose border controls within the Schengen zone, excluding the European parliament from co-legislating in this area and potentially threatening labour mobility.
Ultimately though, it is refugees themselves who stand to suffer most from the lack of co-operation between European countries and the shrinking of asylum space. While conditions in detention centres continue to deteriorate in the EU's peripheral states, increasing numbers of asylum seekers are arriving, fleeing regional conflicts such as the ongoing brutal civil wars in Syria or Somalia, only to find themselves living in inhumane living conditions and in fear of racist attacks.
To give these people the fair and dignified treatment they deserve, there needs to be more financial solidarity to allow countries such as Malta and Greece to manage their refugee populations adequately. Moreover, there needs to be an independent EU body to oversee the processing of asylum applications, to prevent divergences and allow a fair process for all. More controversially, a system of internal redistribution of asylum seekers, as exists between the different states in Germany, could enable a more even distribution of responsibility for Europe's refugee flows.
Finally, a common European asylum system can only truly be common if the UK, Ireland and Denmark fully partake, and stop opting out of many of the directives regarding asylum policy simply because they are not part of the Schengen zone. Only by working together can we hope to overcome the complex issues asylum poses, and assume our responsibility to give international protection to those who need it. As the UN secretary Ban Ki-moon recently commented, refugees leave because they have no choice. We, on the other hand, do.
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Despite predictions of a slump in popularity, Golden Dawn won 6.92% of the vote – marginally down from 6.97% last month
Its members have slapped and hurled water at female rival politicians live on TV, threatened to throw immigrants and their children out of hospitals and creches, been accused of violent assaults on foreign workers in Athens, and arrested for attacking anarchists. But despite polls predicting Golden Dawn's share of the vote would slump following its shock eruption on to the national stage last month, support for Greece's ultra-right party – which preaches ridding the country of illegal immigrants, promotes books on Aryan supremacy and has denied the Holocaust – held strikingly firm in Sunday's general election re-run.
According to official government figures, Golden Dawn collected 425,970 votes compared with 441,018 in the previous, inconclusive vote on 6 May. That gave the party a 6.92% share of the national vote, only marginally down on the 6.97% it scored last month, and secured it 18 seats in parliament – just three fewer than before.
"It really shows the aggression in Greek society right now," said Nikos Zydakis, commentator and editor in chief of the daily Kathimerini. "This is a society not just in crisis, but in depression – like Germany or Italy in the 30s. The EU is pushing too hard, on the economy, yes, but also on society, which is cracking. When that happens, all the barriers to extremism fall."
Golden Dawn collected around 10% of the vote in parts of Piraeus and the Peloponnese, and saw its share between the two polls fall significantly – by between 1% and 2% – in only a handful of electoral districts, including one part of Athens and in Corinthia. Its lowest score nationally was on Crete, where it averaged little over 3%. "Today's vote proves that the nationalist movement is here to stay," the party's leader, Nikolaos Mihaloliakos, who fiercely denies his party is neo-Nazi, said in a televised message on Sunday night. "Golden Dawn represents the Greece of the future."
Polls had earlier estimated that support for Golden Dawn had dipped to between 3.6% and 5% percent before Sunday's vote, with some voters seeming set to take their vote elsewhere after watching assorted party members order journalists to stand to attention, get themselves arrested for violent aggression, and smile next to an Auschwitz oven.
In the most highly publicised incident, the party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris hurled water at one leftwing female rival then slapped another during a live TV debate, before going on the run. He appeared alongside his party leader on TV on Sunday night. Sia Anagnostpoulou, a historian and political scientist at Athens Panteion university, said Golden Dawn, whose party symbol resembles the Nazi swastika and whose members frequently give Nazi-style salutes, is rooted in a historic current of extreme nationalist neo-Nazism in Greece.
"Combine that with relatively high immigration, particularly Muslim immigration, and the fear and insecurity engendered by the economic crisis, and you have a potent cocktail," she said. "This is a racist party, its language is completely racist. But its support is nourished by fear." Zydakis said Golden Dawn, which opposes the international bailout deal for Greece, proposes mining Greece's borders to stop illegal immigration, and actively works to clean up crime-ridden neighbourhoods, is also part of a broader nationalist, protectionist and anti-immigrant movement across Europe, from Scandinavia through Austria, the Netherlands and France.
Javed Aslam, president of the Union of Immigrant Workers, said the party's score was also a consequence of mainstream political parties repeatedly blaming foreign workers for the country's woes. "Then people start to think: 'That's why I haven't got a job,'" he said. "The police, too, stand by while these people attack foreign workers on buses, trains, in the street. This is a black day for foreigners in Greece."
Golden Dawn voters, however, are increasingly confident about expressing their views. In the central Athens neighbourhood of Ayios Panteleimonas, Alex said he had voted for the party because "they help deal with the immigrants". A 29-year-old unemployed labourer, he said his mother had been attacked twice by men he presumed to be illegal immigrants. On one occasion "they took her crucifix from round her neck", he said.
Was he happy at Kasidiaris televised assault? "They wound him up, called him a fascist and a Nazi. How much is he supposed to take?" he said. "You can say that it's shameful. But, you know, she asked for it."
Party members and sympathisers have become a strong force in Ayios Panteleimonas, lingering outside cafes in black T-shirts. The area used to be solidly middle-class but has in recent years seen a large influx of immigration, mainly Somalis, Nigerians, eastern Europeans and south Asians. Violent crime has risen. Aris, a postman who grew up in the area, said crime was more of a concern than the economy. "When I don't feel safe in the place I was born, when I live just streets from my mother and she asks me to call her at 9pm to let her know I got home safe, it hurts psychologically," he said. "In a situation where we're going bankrupt, we just can't take more hard luck stories from another unfortunate part of the world."
Europe looked on with wary relief today as Greek conservative leader Antonis Samaras launched coalition talks after coming first in a vote that follow weeks of uncertainty over whether the debt-crippled country could remain in the joint euro currency.
 Wall Street Journal | Greece's New Democracy seeks bailout coalition Reuters ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's centre-right New Democracy party will try to form a coalition on Monday to back the country's international bailout after a narrow ... Greece's Conservatives to Start Coalition Talks Greece poll: Pro-bailout party's narrow win hailed Greece Conservatives Win Parliamentary Elections |
