[D66] Syriza government carries out mass deportation of refugees from Greece

[J.N.]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/04/04/gree-a04.html

Syriza government carries out mass deportation of refugees from Greece
to Turkey
By Robert Stevens
4 April 2016

Protests continued in Greece over the weekend as the Syriza government
finalised the mass deportation of Syrian refugees to Turkey, where they
are to be herded into concentration camps.

The refugees are being deported from Greece to Turkey as part of the
recent European Union/Greece/Turkey deal to hermetically seal off the
“Balkan route” to desperate refugees fleeing the war zones of Syria,
Afghanistan, Iraq and North Africa.

The thousands of refugees and asylum seekers are set to be shipped out
on eight boats commissioned by the EU border agency, Frontex. Greek
government figures showed that 52,147 refugees and migrants were
stranded in the country on the weekend, with 6,129 registered on Aegean
islands. Those sent to Turkey can expect even more brutality, with
Syrians set to be shifted to refugee camps or other undefined areas
within Turkey.

On Friday, the Greek parliament voted in support of the EU deal,
allowing the first deportations to proceed today. At least 750 migrants
are set to be deported between Monday and Wednesday from the island of
Lesbos to the Turkish port of Dikili.

The bill, allowing the deportation of every refugee and migrant who
arrived in Greece after March 20, was passed by 169 deputies in the
300-seat parliament. All those who arrived after that date have been
rounded up and sent to dedicated detention centres on five Aegean
islands—Samos, Chios, Lesbos, Kos and Leros.

Just two deputies of the pseudo-left Syriza party, which heads a
coalition with the xenophobic Independent Greeks, voted against the
deal. The legislation was passed with the support of the
social-democratic PASOK and the right-wing populists, The River. It
contains fundamental attacks on democratic rights, including allowing an
appeal process of just 15 days in the case of an asylum claim being
dismissed.

On Friday, around 800 refugees being held on the Greek Aegean Sea island
of Chios, fearing their forced deportation, broke through the razor wire
fence surrounding the Vial detention camp. More than 1,440 people were
being held at the former recycling plant, which is meant to hold a
maximum of 1,100.

As hundreds streamed out of the camp, riot police attacked with stun
guns and teargas. The refugees proceeded to the town’s port in order to
protest their intolerable situation. There have been regular dinnertime
protests against the EU agreement by the mainly Afghan refugees in Vial,
who have virtually no chance of being granted asylum in Europe.

Earlier in the week around 700 refugees held at the Piraeus port
demonstrated in the centre of Athens, with other protesters, in
opposition to their captivity in Greece and against “Fortress Europe”.

The deportations have been condemned by United Nations (UN) relief
officials and human rights organisations, including Amnesty
International, who describe the plan as illegal and inhumane. All forced
returns to Syria are illegal under Turkish, EU and international law.

The UN refugee agency said Friday that it doubted that Greece and Turkey
were legally capable of carrying out the mass deportations of those
being held in camps. It made a mealy-mouthed appeal for both countries
to offer further protections for asylum seekers before undertaking
deportations.

Amnesty International, in a report issued Friday, documented proof that
Turkey was not a safe country for refugees. The report, entitled
“Illegal mass returns of Syrian refugees expose fatal flaws in EU-Turkey
deal,” reveals how Turkey recently sent hundreds of Syrian asylum
seekers back to their devastated homeland, contravening basic human
rights procedures. It reports that Turkish authorities have been
“rounding up and expelling groups of around 100 Syrian men, women and
children to Syria on a near-daily basis since mid-January.”

The New York Times noted, “Among the cases the group [Amnesty] claimed
to have documented was that of three young children forced back to Syria
without their parents.”

Groups including Doctors Without Borders, the United Nations refugee
agency and the International Rescue Committee recently suspended some of
their operations at detention centres on the five islands and elsewhere
in Greece to protest on-going violations of international law. These
include the squalid camp containing more than 12,000 refugees at the
northern Greek border town of Idomeni and at Piraeus, near Athens, where
nearly 6,000 refugees are being held in more than a thousand tents and
warehouses.

The brutal deportation operation is being carried out under instructions
from the EU, even as its largest member states—Germany, France and the
UK, proclaim their “humanitarian” motives for waging war in Syria. And
they want the crime done with as little expense to themselves as
possible. Syriza’s migration spokesman, Giorgos Kyritsis, complained
that of 2,300 officials the EU has promised to send Greece to assist in
the operation, only 200 have arrived so far. Aid parcels have not been
forthcoming and, Kyritsis told the Observer on Sunday, “We are still
waiting for the legal experts and translators they said they would send.”

On Sunday, Kathemerini reported that the first refuges were set to
arrive in the western Turkish coastal town of Dikili, which lies just
opposite the Greek island of Lesbos. Interior Minister Efkan Ala said,
“We have prepared for 500 people to come on Monday.”

Kathemerini reported, “Ala indicated that citizens of countries like
Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan sent back by Greece would be returned by
Turkey to their home countries.”

A report by the Agence France-Presse Saturday revealed that the Turkish
authorities had still not completed plans to process the refuges and
asylum seekers due to arrive. They will be processed in a camp in a “500
square-metre area by the Ulusoy harbour in Cesme” in Izmir province.
“Pictures broadcast by NTV television Friday showed only a barren space
at the site of the proposed Dikili centre,” AFP notes.

According to Turkish daily Milliyet Saturday, the Dikili centre was not
finished and registrations of refugees from Monday would take part in
indoor sports arenas in the town.

AFP continued, “Turkish media reports meanwhile have said the Turkish
Red Crescent is preparing to open a new refugee camp with capacity for
5,000 people further inland in Manisa in western Turkey—its first
outside the south and east of the country—to accommodate the new influx.”

The Syriza government, currently imposing savage levels of austerity, is
once again acting as a willing accomplice of the EU in its attempt to
seal Europe’s borders to refugees fleeing war and violence. Kyritsis
told the Guardian, ahead of the despicable operation, “We are expecting
violence. People in despair tend to be violent.”

Last week, a Greek government source told AFP that around 400 Frontex
police officers would participate in the first deportation operations.

Many refugees from various war-torn areas continue to make the hazardous
trip across the Aegean from Turkey to Greece. Figures from the
International Organization for Migration found that 151,104 had made the
trip already this year, with 366 drowning in the attempt. Under the EU
deal, those now attempting the journey are being ruthlessly turned back.
On Saturday, the Turkish coast guard intercepted more than 60 migrants
and refugees in the Aegean as they tried to reach Lesbos. The group,
which included Syrians, were immediately transported to Dikili.