Violence, Riots in Greece - Islamic Immigration - Eurabia

[Righting]

A rising tide of (Muslims) migrants unsettles Athens

 

By Niki Kitsantonis Published: October 2, 2008

ATHENS: About 80,000 migrants have traveled to Greece this year and decided to stay illegally, according to the authorities, who say the country can no longer handle the task of guarding the European Union's southeast flank.

 

While initial problems with the flood of migrants from Africa and the Middle East who are desperate to enter Europe centered on the Aegean islands, migrants are now wreaking havoc in the capital.

 

The historic center of Athens has been riven by several street battles in recent months, involving what the police characterize as rival groups, often involved in dealing drugs, from Afghanistan, Iraq and war-torn African countries wielding swords, axes and machetes.

 

After 11 people were hurt in one such brawl in late August, the police began 24-hour patrolling of the area. Store owners and residents are leaving the busy central shopping and restaurant district.

 

According to a residents' group, dozens of people renting in the area have left their homes in the past year, and several stores have closed, chiefly small but long-established neighborhood conveniences like bakeries, hardware stores or delicatessens.

 

"People are scared and depressed, it's getting worse and worse," said Vassiliki Nikolakopoulou of the group, Panathinaia.

 

The top policy adviser for immigration issues at the Interior Ministry, which also oversees public order, blames the influx of about 80,000 migrants this year.

 

"Because of this phenomenon, we see more and more immigrants in central Athens trying to survive, often through illicit activities," the official, Patroklos Georgiadis, said in a telephone interview. "This unpleasant situation - for the migrants and for us as an EU country - has become unbearable."

 

Georgiadis said that Greece supported the stricter line on immigration being promoted by the bloc's French presidency. "There will not be another wave of legalization of immigrants in Greece in the near future," Georgiadis said, referring to the three programs that have granted work and residence permits to some 500,000 migrants, most of them undocumented foreigners - at least half from Albania - since 1997.

 

The unrest in Athens has triggered a backlash from the far-right party Laos, whose popularity has jumped to 5.4 percent in opinion polls from 3.5 percent when it entered Parliament a year ago.

 

"The city center has been taken hostage by gangs of illegal immigrants with knives - isn't it about time we asked ourselves if we have too many of them?" a Laos legislator, Antonis Georgiadis, said during a recent television debate. He is not related to the immigration official.

 

Although some on the Greek left have warned against demonizing migrants, the Athens prefect, Yiannis Sgouros, who belongs to the main opposition Socialist party, Pasok, refers to an "explosive problem" in the heart of the capital, where thousands of migrants living in cheap hotels and derelict houses struggle to find work.

 

"Illegal immigrants are becoming pawns to local drug barons and are forming gangs," Sgouros wrote last week in a letter to Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis. He added: "Something has to change or the area will become an arena for race clashes and gang wars."

 

Thomas Hammarberg, a Swede who is human rights commissioner at the Council of Europe, has criticized Greece and other EU states for "criminalizing the irregular entry and presence of migrants as part of a policy of so-called migration management."

 

"Political decision-makers should not lose the human rights perspective in migration," Hammarberg wrote in an e-mail message when asked to comment for this article. "Migrants coming from war-torn states should be given refuge."

 

The government says that Greece grants protection to all refugees, as long as their status can be proven. But UN refugee agency statistics show that Greece approves less than one percent of asylum applications, compared with a European Union average of 20 percent.

 

According to minority groups, the treatment of migrants from war-torn states as "illegals" rather than refugees requiring protection forces them to eke out a life on the fringes of society.

 

"Most don't get asylum or social support and have to find other ways to survive," Adam Ziat, leader of the Union of Sudanese Refugees, said in a dingy café behind central Omonia Square that serves as his office.

 

According to Ahmed Mowias, coordinator of the Greek Migrants' Forum, newly-arrived refugees from conflict zones are being exploited by rackets run by Nigerians, <b>Moroccans and Algerians</b> established in the area for many years. "Refugees are the smallest links in the dealing chain," Mowias, a longtime resident of Athens who is from Sudan, said.

 

Police figures show that most immigrants arrested on drug-related charges in central Athens this year were from war-torn states like Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/02/europe/greece.php

 

Riots break out in two Greek cities after teenager killed in ...7 Dec 2008
Now just because I already know the Greeks have had massive problems with pissed off muslim immigrants doesn’t mean that I think they are solely responsible but they are participating and in large numbers.
http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/riots-break-out-in-two-greek-cities-after-teenager-killed-in-police-shooting/

 

Okay, so from BBC and AFP, and other news sources, I am not seeing the word “Muslim” or “Islam” being used here.
The cops shoot and kill a youngster who was with a large crowd of youths wearing masks throwing rocks at them. Then, there are breakouts of riots by youths. Sounds like Islam to me. Kind of like if they walked into a church and found a lot of people praying and the church had a cross on it, sounds like Christian. But, can the media silence really be this fanatic on the issue? After all, the Islam connection is being mentioned elsewhere, with these events… yet doing a google news search with the words ‘Greek’ and ‘Islam’ is showing up nothing.
Could it be these are far leftists?
There are over a thousand stories on the issue.
http://www.plnewsforum.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/44717/

[Will88]

“Most don’t get asylum or social support and have to find other ways to survive,” Adam Ziat, leader of the Union of Sudanese Refugees, said in a dingy café behind central Omonia Square that serves as his office.”

The reality is, there are enough people living in war torn nations, and people being denied basic human rights, and other people suffering from AIDS and other diseases they can’t get treatment for in poor nations, that if a fraction of these people could make it to Western nations and receive asylum, new arrivals and their decedents would become the majority in all nations of the West in a few generations.

These policies some consider to be humane and necessary are also self-destructive to the West, and we see more and more examples of what such loose asylum and immigration policies lead to, and it’s only getting started.

I’ve also read several stories about the riots in Athens and seen nothing about the ethnicity of the person shot by the police, or of the rioters.

[Righting]

...asides from masses of Muslim immigrants who are NOT eligible, abusing this asylum “loop hole”.

[arrogantsob]

Reports are that the kid killed was Greek and the rioters are anarchists and leftists not followers of Mad Mo.

[rfreedom4u]

deport, deport, deport!

[Will88]

“Reports are that the kid killed was Greek and the rioters are anarchists and leftists not followers of Mad Mo.”

That’s probably correct. There’s a website where a co-owner is a Greek immigrant who often comments about Greece and with parents and other relatives in Greece that she communicates with often. Just checked that site and the only mention of the riots referred to the rioters as anarchists.

[Jack Black]

the country can no longer handle the task of guarding the European Union's southeast flank.

Another once-great nation feminized into weakness. The entire GREEK NATION can't deal with 80,000 immigrants? The same nation that sent less than 2000 men to hold a pass against an army of 250,000 or more, and held it for days.

We of the West are not the men our forefathers were. How sad.

[Tzimisce]

Muslims are taking over and nobody cares.

Guess I should get ready for conversion. :(

[Jack Black]

Look at the pictures. They are full of communist signs in Greek, not green banners and signs in Arabic.

Please, lets remain truthful and not lie about facts on the ground to fit into our preconceived notions. The one article that everyone is sighting as proof of Islamic involvement was published in EARLY OCTOBER. The Muslims did have a march in October, which is what the chanting took place at. It is not connected with the anarchist riots going on now.

Here is pic from today's riots. There are lots of them out there. There is no visible Islamic component to the signs. This is the so-called black-block anarchists. They are a huge problem in Europe. This needs to be well understood by everyone at Free Republic.

Note: motorcycle helmet, man with video camera. Not penniless refugees and the don't look African or Middle Eastern.

I know these people. They are variously referred to as "anarchists" "black-block" "autonomous" and "anti-authoritarians". We have them in the USA too. They were the instigators at the Seattle riots a few years back.

They come ready to fight police, all in black, masked with motorcycle helmets.

Here is video, their anarchist banners (black and red) are clearly visible. The BBC reporter mentions that this is escalation of frequent clashes between anarchists and police; VIDEO

note: black & red flag in right background

note: worldwide anarchist symbol grafitti

[apro]

That is because they are not muslims nor are they immigrants, the rioters are homegrown GREEK anti-capitalist leftists in other words Communists, anarchists and hooligans, mostly youths and students are involved behind the riots. The kid who was killed was Greek, he wasn't a muslim, he wasn't an immigrant and his father had a nice bank job. The rioting right now is not as serious as it is made out in the news reports, Monday night was another matter, now only a few hundred idiot teenagers are mostly out going along for fun nothing more. Once the armed riot police turned up they scrammed like mice.

Unfortunately this kind of rioting is common among HOME GROWN European origins youths who call themselves 'anarchists', so no muslims aren't taken over Greece but moronic destructive GREEK anarchy youths have been taken over the country when they have a grievance with the state ever so often, more often then people actually realize but this has nothing to do with muslims or immigrants.

Anarchist movement in Greece traces its origins to the brutal military junta in the 1960s & 1970s. It ruled the country from 1967 to 1974 and it still is a sore spot with most Greek today.
Greek Military Junta of 1967-1974

In 1973 a student protest against the junta at Athens Polytechnic university resulted in the military sending tanks into the school which resulted in the deaths of over 40 civilians, mostly students, but this event was just the climax to over six years of brutal military rule in the country. Since the country has this violent past the Greek population is very sensitivity to state violence against civilians, which is why the authorities hesitant to use overwhelming force against them. To this day Greek police and military are not permitted to enter college campuses since 1973, when tanks quashed the student uprising at Athens Polytechnic. The movie "Z" is actually based upon Greek military rule of this time period.
Z Film

Its the events that took place in 1973 with killing of over 40 students by the military where what we are seeing today in Greece stems from, not muslims and not immigrants, THAT is from where Greece's reluctance to take strong action against student protests and demostrations stems from. Since then schools have always been springboards for such riots and the current wave of violence is no different and it also explains why many of the riots are in university towns. Students and pupils have effectively been given carte blanche to carry on such protesting, because their idiot professors have declared a three-day strike.

In 1985 another police shooting and the death of a teenager, Michalis Kaltezas, resulted in WEEKS of rioting by angry anarchist youths and months of daily clashes between students and police, those riots were MUCH worse then the ones we are seeing today. Granted these are the worst since then but rioting by anarchist Greek youths and the police is very common in Greece...has been common since the 1970s.

Clashes between the police, anarchists and other radical youth groups in Greece are common, but they have never attraced such international attention. There is a longstanding, delicate co-existence between the police and groups of far-left & far-right youths/adults tolerate certain crime in where many believe the authorities know who these individuals who organize such events are but won't go after them. Such violent anarchists who clash with the police because they don't believe in 'authority' are very common through out Europe and the world minus North America.
Organized Anarchy Europe Intergovernmental Organizations

Exarchia the area where the shooting took place is a hanging ground for anarchists along with other groups so the cops didn't just pick to be in that location randomly out of blue and it is also the area where the 1973 violent student protest against the Greek junta at Athens Polytechnic university was crushed by the military over thirty years ago.

[apro]

Jack Black is 100% correct. Clashes between the police, anarchists and other radical youth groups in Greece and Europe in general are common. There is a longstanding, delicate co-existence between the police in Greece and groups of “anarchists” “black-block” “autonomous” and “anti-authoritarians” youths/adults tolerate certain crime in where many believe the authorities know who these individuals who organize such events are but won’t go after them because their ‘leaders’ are the children of the elite in Greece, i.e. bored rich kids with nothing to do, but this type of anarchism isn’t a Greek thing only, they are not some poor immigrant kids rioting. Such violent anarchists who clash with the police because they don’t believe in ‘authority’ are very common through out Europe and the world.