Migrants Protest Police Violence

Via PR-Inside

ATHENS, Greece (Associated Press)

Pakistani migrants marched through Athens Monday to protest alleged police violence against asylum-seekers in Greece. A human rights group said more than 3,000 people took part in the peaceful protest. Police had no estimate for the number of demonstrators.

The group, Stop the War Coalition, claimed that 15 immigrants were injured at the weekend in Athens when officers clashed with asylum-seekers queuing with their applications. One Pakistani man in the crowd was fatally injured when he fell into a riverbed trying to escape police, group spokesman Petros Constantinou said.
A police statement said three people were hurt when officers repulsed a «mass movement» of migrants trying to jump the queue. It denied any police involvement in the Pakistani’s death.

Greece approved only 140 of the 20,692 asylum applications made in 2007, according to the UN refugee agency. Tens of thousands of illegal migrants enter Greece every year.

Technorati Tags: greece, migrants, police, brutality, immigration