An update from the previous post. Via the Canadian Press The Greek government says it will grant refugee status to a group of Iranian men who have held a hunger strike to protest long delays in the processing of their asylum applications. A government statement Monday said all six men, two of whom had refused [...]
The Facebook page for the hunger strikers is here and includes a petition to sign. Via the Associated Press ATHENS, Greece: Iranian refugees in Athens have launched a hunger strike to demand that Greek authorities process their asylum applications, following what they say has been nine years of delay. Rights activists say the protest highlights [...]
This statement from the Greek Council for Refugees came a few days after the bombing in Patissia that killed a 15 year old boy from Afghanistan and blinded his sister. I apologise for posting it so late but I was taking a break from blogging when this was written. The darkness that has forever covered [...]
Via Athens Plus (Athens Plus is currently unavailable online but you can download the pdf from here) Europeans urged not to send refugees to Greece Watchdog says facilities not good enough European countries should stop sending asylum seekers to Greece because it does not have the adequate infrastructure or procedures to process the refugees, Amnesty [...]
Via the Yale Journal of Human Rights Refugees in Greece are in danger. Though the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention grants asylum seekers protection, recent regulations and the Greek government’s bureaucracy are putting lives in jeopardy by illegally deporting refugees with pending asylum cases. Greece’s long shorelines and eastern border with Turkey have made it [...]
Via the Athens News ROZITA has spent one-third of her life in prison. She’s three years old. Her parents, undocumented migrants from Afghanistan, were arrested in Greece and sentenced for forgery and immigration violations. They had illegally entered the country last year and were caught trying to leave on forged passports. A court in Kilkis, [...]
From an article in the New York Times today The Greek government has come up with a novel solution to a growing backlog of asylum appeals: Abolish appeals. No backlog. No Problem. But the problem can’t be dismissed so easily. Greece has a backlog of about 30,000 cases. A part-time asylum appeals board hears about [...]
UPDATE: It was brought to my attention that I had used the wrong word in this post. I used the word “trafficker” when it should be “smuggler”. Thank you for pointing out the mistake. I have corrected it below The less than 1% recognition rate of asylum seekers in Greece (the lowest in Europe) may [...]
Via the Financial Times Greece’s asylum-seekers’ policy under fire By Kerin Hope The Council of Europe’s senior human rights official has sharply criticised Greece over its policy towards asylum-seekers amid a surge in arrivals of illegal immigrants from Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. A report by the Council published on Wednesday says there are “serious deficiencies” [...]
Via Kathimerini A group of lawyers working on a voluntary basis to help refugees and immigrants seeking legal status in Greece yesterday accused the police of having stopped processing asylum applications nearly a month ago. “For the past 25 days, the Athens immigration unit has closed its doors and is refusing applications while a large [...]
This article by Sean Brander covers the story of Sahar Kamrani who is fighting for asylum in Greece. She fled Iran after being arrested. When she was 19 and still living in Tehran, Iran, just eight years ago, the wind blew back her headscarf, revealing her hair, and the police stopped her on the street. [...]
I was inspired by a comment from merhan who called for some action from me on asylum in Greece. I have decided to start a blog/website/facebook campaign for proper asylum procedures here. I am currently designing the logo for it and here is what I have come up with: The “LESS THAN 1%” comes from [...]
From an article today at BBC News entitled Asylum seekers ‘abused’ in Greece Allegations that Greek police are abusing, threatening and torturing asylum-seekers are clearly taken very seriously in Athens. The man responsible for the treatment of immigrants, spokesman for the Public Order Department of the Interior Ministry, Athanasios Andreolakos, offers the BBC more than [...]
Via the BBC News from Athens based reporter Malcolm Brabant Last week I posted about the children at a detention centre in Leros who went on a hunger strike to protest conditions there. The good news is that Their action embarrassed the Greek government, which is under increasing pressure from its European Union partners to [...]
Via BBC There has been a fair bit written recently about the current situation facing asylum seekers in Greece. You can find some of the articles covering the issue here. Greece is now rejecting the criticism made by the the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Greece says the UN’s accusations are untrue and it is [...]
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