HANDS OFF THE 8 PETROU RALLI PERSECUTED MIGRA

One more show trial …

On May 31, 2017, at the Attica Aliens Police Directorate, the infamous Petrou Ralli pre-removal detention centre, 8 immigrants were arrested after they were attacked by cops inside their very cells. The reason for the cops’ attack was that detained migrants were asking to contact the head of the detention centre, in order to be informed for how long they would be held there, as they had already been 8 to 10 months in detention. The cops’ response to this simple request was to heavily beat them. As a result, the eight were transferred to hospital with  heavy injuries on their heads and broken hands. The cops, in order to cover up the beating,  immediately filed a case against them. A virtually reflective move that torturers always resort to when they want to justify their violence.

The magistrates’ court of Athens (members: Georgias Gikas -president-, Stergios Raptis and Spyridon Stavros), accepted the proposal of Prosecutor Dimitris Lianopoulos and decided to send the 8 immigrants to the felony court charged of participating in a prison riot (felony), assault and battery, and carrying weapons. Two of the migrants were additionally charged on criminal possession of a weapon. The proposal of Prosecutor Lianopoulos is based entirely on fake witnesses: the cops involved, which the Prosecutor apparently seeks to cover.

According to the fabricated evidence, the migrants attacked police officers with “improvised razor blades and phone cards” and there has been an “escalation of tension” for “forty minutes”. It is even supposed that during this time, the prisoners tried to escape by hitting themselves on the central door of their cellblock, in order to break it, and that, supposedly, in their attempt to “flee”, they slipped and got injured on their own.

Immigrants for their part argue that the cops invaded the cells unprovoked and started beating anyone they found in front of them. Fabricated evidence is an indispensable prerequisite and the consistent practice of the juridical system in order to cover up police brutality. Thanks to a well-organized mechanism that takes care of hiding these and so many other incidents, cops enjoy immunity offered by their political leadership. They are thus free to manage the prison population as they want, i.e.: by daily using violence.

Then, in order to complete the exemplary punishment of detained migrants who dared to demand their fundamental rights, the Ministry of Justice and their cops dispersed the 8 migrants all over the country (in 6 different prisons: Volos, Nigrita Serres, Domokos, Malandrino, Nafplio, and Chania) depriving them of the possibility of direct contact with a lawyer. They are currently in a precarious situation and they are deprived of basic rights, as a result of their long administrative detention.

Moreover, in mid-December 2017, six months after their initial imprisonment, a judges’ council examined their request to be released until their trial, and decided to extend their detention for six more months. The date of their trial has not yet been set, it is expected to happen in the coming months.

… within a flood of repression…

Migrants are being managed through a wide range of repressive tactics. Filthy living conditions, isolation and invisibility, indefinite detention without trial, daily torture and beatings for insignificant reasons, show trials and imprisonments for exemplification. On the other hand, the oppression of NGOs’ charity, paternalism, vague and unfulfilled promises aimed at making migrants fully dependent on NGOs, i.e.: losing any autonomy and becoming passive receivers of the “help” the NGOs offer, thus decompressing any tension that coiled be created and preventing any active protest. Finally, a basic pillar of migrant management is also the concept of administrative detention, a totally vague framework of detention, in which the prisoner does not even know how long (s)he will be detained. So (s)he wakes up every morning hoping that (s)he will be freed, and sleeps every night with the burden of another day in the cage.

And when, against this treatment, detained migrants dare to make even the smallest protest, for example asking for information about the reason and the length of their detention, the State’s response is relentless but organized and deliberate. This is evidenced both by the fabricated charges against the “Petrou Ralli 8” and by the almost simultaneous arrest of the 35 migrants in the camp of Moria, charged for exactly the same felony, “participating in a prison riot”, after facing the same repression: fierce beating and random arrests, in short subjects of the same central political decision.

In both cases there is recorded visual material. Videos, showing how  migrants are “manage”, i.e.: using violence. Prison cops dare support the very opposite and the prosecutor accepts their lies. This does not surprise us, it just confirms that cameras, like all monitoring instruments, only serve the interests of those who handle it, the interests of power and its lackeys. This situation for us is a given and we know that the use of force is the constant response of the cops to the migrants demands. Detained migrants denounce it in every contact we have with them, and we can see it ourselves during our interventions in Petrou Ralli.

The timing of this climax of oppression is not accidental. Recently, migration minister Mouzalas repeated that the government is moving towards the next step agreed in the EU-Turkey Treaty. He announced the creation of new detention centers for migrants in the islands and the expansion of the already existing ones, an announcement by itself is a declaration towards more repression. As a result, the number of imprisoned migrants will increase, and for the overwhelming majority, the only possibility after detention is deportation. The camps are officially militarized and operate under “prison” rules, always with the cooperation of police, army, judicial authorities and NGOs. In this way, better management of the immigrant population is achieved: strict control of the detained, as well as disciplining those who are “free” (though trapped in the Greek territory) under the threat of imprisonment.

Petrou Ralli, as the Attica Aliens Police Directorate, plays a key-role in planning and implementating the official immigration policy, which aims to turn migrants into invisible. For Muzala’s plans, P. Rallis and the prison conditions prevailing there may be the model for managing immigrants.

In spite of the humanitarian facade, charity solutions and their advertising, the State, be it in its leftist or right-wing version, does not forget its legal arsenal. Together with the cops’ globs, the State can use it whenever necessary, showing its toughest face in the bodies of the wretched of the earth.

…should be transformed into one more victory of the oppressed!

The main unpredictable obstruct to these plans is the reactions mainly by the prisoners themselves, who decide to resist their unreasonable detention. It is obvious that resistance and uprisings come as a result of all the above. Felony charges on the “Petrou Ralli 8” and the “Moria 35”, means that the State wants on the one hand to prove its absolute commitment to its real purpose – and so giving a signal on the fascists-, and on the other hand, proves that it does not hesitate to commit exemplary punishment and indiscriminately and arbitrary arrests.

For our part, we try to express by deeds our solidarity with migrants, creating common struggles and struggling to break down any visible or invisible wall that lies between us. We will continue to make heard the voices that echo from within the detention centers, we will continue to make pressure in solidarity and resist any repression of immigrants.

Because in any internment, even in the one with the most “humane” facade, resistance -from the smallest gesture to the most violent rebellion-, is neither legal nor illegal, it is just fair.

As long as migrants are stacked in cells and detention centers, we will try to invent ways to stand next to them.

As long as people are segregated on the basis of the papers in their pocket or their country of origin, we will shout that the borders are scars on the face of the planet and we will do anything we consider fit to eliminate them.