Mass grave of refugees in Evros Greece uncovered

Published on August 9, 2010

During the first seven months of the year 2010, 28 human beings dies while attempting to cross the heavily guarded Turkish-Greek border. The corpses of the dead are being transferred to the department of forensic medicine of the university clinic of Alexandroupoulis. Since they can often not be identified, only a DNA-test is being carried out so that relatives can still gain certainty.

On 25th of June 2010 19 people drowned in the river Evros/Meriç. 14 corpses washed ashore on the Greek side and were brought to the university clinic by an undertaker from Orestiada. After the dead had been examined and registered, the undertaker brought them to a village of the Turkish minority on the mountains above Souflí for them to be buried on muslim cemetery.

cemetery of the illegal immigrants - muftia evros

However, the corpses can now be found in a mass grave outside the village of Sideró, in inaccessible terrain. Only a sign, riddled by many gun-shots, tells that this is the cemetery of the illegal immigrants where the corpses are buried. It is not immediately obvious that it is a mass grave. Upon closer inspection, one can however see holes that were excavated and again filled up by bulldozers and that can contain up to ten corpses.
Further investigation by w2eu, currently in the area to look for the corps of the father of a family who died in the incident on the 25th of June and whose family is currently in relative security shows that this practice has been ongoing for years. It is believed that between 150 and 200 dead have been buried in the mass grave. Although the local government ordered an ablution and burial according to muslim rite, the dead have merely been buried in the mass grave. This practice fundamentally lacks any respect for the dead as well as their relatives. Even an exhumation for the dead to be buried in a more dignified way is not possible anymore.
The existence of this mass grave at the external border of the EU fits the image of constant and continued humiliation and degradation of refugees. It is with a systematic brutality that refugees and migrants are stopped from crossing the borders, a brutality that even puts up with the death of those looking for protection. Even after their death, those human beings remain second class people that seemingly not even deserve a burial of human dignity.
We protest the abominable treatment of refugees and migrants and the contempt that is shown to them, no matter if dead or alive.

cemetery of the illegal immigrants – muftia evros

3 DAYS EVENTS GIGS HAPPENINGS

FOR 1 YEAR A LIVE RADIO REVOLT! SALONIKA GREECE! CLIK ON!

Conspiracy group suspected in blasts 15/5 greek media...

As forensic experts of the police’s counterterrorism unit yesterday examined the remnants of two bombs that targeted Attica’s Korydallos Prison and Thessaloniki’s main court complex within 24 hours of each other, police sources said they believe members of Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire to be behind both of the attacks.

Yesterday’s blast occurred shortly before 1.30 p.m. when a large bomb that had been planted in the basement men’s rest rooms at Thessaloniki’s main court complex detonated, injuring one court employee in the leg. An anonymous caller had phoned in a warning to the Eleftherotypia daily 20 minutes beforehand. According to sources, the caller had asked that the court complex be evacuated immediately, emphasizing several times that “this is not a hoax.” Police started ushering people out of the courtrooms but the bomb went off before everyone had left the premises. Televised images at the time of the bombing showed frightened citizens and policemen streaming out the entrance.

Police had not made any official statement regarding the suspected perpetrators behind the bombing by late yesterday but sources said they believed it – and Thursday night’s bombing outside Korydallos jail – had been the work of Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire and had been intended to remind police that the urban guerrilla group is still active. Ten suspected members of the group have been arrested over the past year. Of these, three are still in custody.

According to sources, the modus operandi of the perpetrators behind the court complex bombing and the blast outside the prison resembles that of Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire, whose recent hits include bombings at the Athens headquarters of Ethniki Insurance, the Aliens Bureau on Petrou Ralli Street and the central Athens offices of Chryssi Avgi (Golden Dawn), a far-right organization.

The bomb used at the court complex is believed to have comprised 10 kilograms of high-impact explosives, according to police sources. The bomb used in the Korydallos hit was very powerful, with reverberations felt as far away as central Athens, but no details about its composition were revealed. It caused significant damage and minor injuries to the 22-year-old resident of an adjacent apartment block.

By late last night, there had been no claim of responsibility for either attack.

Athens: death of a (riot) dog.

A well known anarchist activist (of the canine kind), known as 'S@ns Papiers' , sadly passed away after dying of natural causes, following childbirth. She was founder of a group known as the Bl@ck Dogs, co-members were her puppies.

Early on Saturday the 8th of May, S@ns Papiers passed away, 2 months after a difficult pup-birth, aged six. She had 3 puppies, Petras, Luben and Giganta (Giant).
She first took to the streets early, in 2006, in Athens and elsewhere, as her mother grew and her human carer was attacked with flash-bangs and chemicals. In December 2008 she was with human comrades in the thick of the social-class struggle. On the 5th of May S@ns Papiers managed to reach the entrance of the parliament, placard in mouth!
S@ns Papiers was buried alongside her gran with honor, as and "enemy of the state".

An abridged translation of http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1167968
Numerous photos of this comrade are shown!

about 5th of May

THE FAIR UPRISING OF 120,000 DEMONSTRATORS, THE RAID AGAINST THE PARLIAMENT BY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ENRAGED PEOPLE HAD NOTHING AND COULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PARA-STATE GANG WHO MURDERED THREE PEOPLE IN A BANK IN STADIOU STR. AND TRIED UNSUCCESSFULLY TO DO THE SAME AT THE BOOKSTORE IANOS

“Oh sky, your mirror image can be seen on the mud also”.

At first, we want to make it clear that our anger is indescribable, for the cowardly para-state gang who is responsible for murdering three people, two women, one pregnant on the fourth month, and a man who worked at Marfin bank at Stadiou Str., as well as for the gang of politicians and journalists who rushed to associate the fair uprising of hundreds of thousands of people in Athens and other cities with this atrocious murder.

But the truth cannot be erased. An angry river of protesters surrounded the Parliament and for hours and hours attempted to invade during a ferocious battle with the forces of repression.

This fact cannot be hidden or covered by tons of mud, which the panic-stricken state employees, gloomy party-directors of every colour and the ‘elite’ managers of ‘journalism’ try to throw. Even the video-feedback that they supposedly commented with their almost pale faces , is an irrefutable evidence of what actually happened for hours either on the stairs leading to the courtyard of the parliament, or in front of the Unknown Soldier, or at Amalias Ave. in the wider area of “Sintagma”.

Tens of thousands of protesters tried to break the ring of the repressive forces, while the entire demonstration not only applauded this effort but they also supported by not moving from the area which was full with tear gas. People of all ages with their face covered or not, rattled the atmosphere with the slogan ”Burn the parliament this bordello”, which was shouted just from the lips of anarchists some years ago. As for the anarchists, yes they were among all those who gave a thunderous message to local officials of the IMF and EU but also to their famous bosses.

Here is the Balkans, it’s not funny. The people still know how to struggle, to uprise, to revolt, to bleed in order to hold just a piece of hope for what they believe is fair. The neck of the dissidents in Greece has proven to be sensitive to state oppression, their recalcitrance feeds every insurgency, every social conflict.

International news agencies, once again, record an uprising in Greece in a crucial “moment” for the lords of the EU and beyond. They fear that this fiery message would, once again, pass the blaze to other grounds, which would gradually become a fire. The European south, which appears unable to “adapt”, is attempted to be put in the ‘gypsum’, to be disciplined in any way.

So, let’s welcome the new plans. Let us make them sure that the whip is not enough to make us passive and unable to lift our head. Let them have no doubt that the fairy tales and ideologies of ‘national survival’, ‘patriotism’, ‘national emergency’ and certain other stories have unraveled.

As far as we are concerned, we have not forgotten, not for a single moment, that we have every reason to stick the knife as deep as we can into the bone. To do everything to keep the wounds of the authoritarians open. The failure is all their own, we did not and will not ever have anything to share with those who suck the lives of people, who now deny to them even the crumbling they granted yesterday. As for those who waver, those who will be placed outside, because the fate that the system of domination and exploitation holds for them is now worse, we have nothing else to do but to welcome them.

Finally, we reiterate once again that the anarchist militants have nothing to do with any sort of miserable gang. They participate in social struggles, proposing first of all the ethics, their selflessness and abnegation. They do not intend to gain economic or other kind of profit. They don’t bear the flag “steal, break, grab”. They deplore and do not associate with anyone who wants to impose, in a revolutionary way or not. They explicitly disregard any kind of “medals”, claimed by supposedly “enlightened vanguards” and turn their back without a second thought to the “movement majorities”, who, however, seem so few and so small…

The 5th of May, will be surely recorded in the strongest way possible in the history of social struggles. We wish to believe that the painful fact of murdering three people will be the swan song of those who attempt to tie down social practices, promoting – from the position of an assignee – various para-state gangs, whatever disguise they have.

Of course, “don’t just wait for help from Gods, u have to move your hands yourself” …

Athens, 5th May 2010

Anarchist’s Coil

www.anarchy.gr

www.anarchypress.gr

Greece May 2010
The political unrest spreads to football .. in Greece
the crowd just before the beginning of the football match is shouting .." burn - burn the Parliament" , "thieves - thieves" ..

10 minute video with subtitles in english of precariously working teachers invading and protesting at the studios of greek national TV while on air, the day before the general strike of May 5th, only to be confronted by the riot police.

VIDEO FROM THESSALONIKI DEMO 5/5

1. marfin 6/5

2. greek telecommunications building damaged and slogans during 5/5 riot

3. 6/5 Left outside parliament

DSC00043.JPG

DSC00042.JPG

From Athens, from 2 of the 200.000 provocateurs

WITHOUT EMERGENCY EXIT

A note for May 5th demonstration and the three dead Marfin bank employees
To the strikers that are still smashing shit up
It is indeed inappropriate to "put the entire responsibility" and blame on Mr. Vgenopoulos for the depressing deaths of the three employees of the burnt Marfin bank. The fact that he forced his employees under threat of dismissal to remain locked in the upper floor offices of a seemingly empty and unprotected bank, without any fire protection or emergency exits, in the epicentre of the greatest strike demonstration of the last thirty years, was not yet another criminal negligence on the altar of profit [1], that his class has got us used to. This conscious use of workers as a human shield for banks and businesses [2] is one of the boss class's responses to December and the common violence of insurrection that spreads, de-legalising and destroying the circulation of commodities, breaking and torching vehicles, shops, its police guards and most of all its headquarters: the banks.
To be clear, the intention of Vgenopoulos and his class to sacrifice a few workers in order to block the process followed by insurrections up until now, must be answered as such. Legal points or leftist evasions such as: insurrection means storming the parliament and not the banks/shops, having no idea what they'd do there of course, do nothing more than refuse to address the issue.
You see, it is common for a boss to know better what his interests are and how to pursue them, than the workers do. And any boss always knows that "we're at war", even if they'll never cry it out openly, as these naive people that think that in a war it is ok to hit but once challenged one should rely on an intervention of an allegedly neutral justice. By setting ourselves under the tutelage of the state, we recuperate even the most extreme act into nothing more than violent reformism. The only justice in the streets, to the degree they are under our power, is us. The responsibility for whatever happens there, who lives and who dies, is ours: PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP period. If we lack -other than an effective guard of strikes that wouldn't leave any colleague in the hands of the bosses - an essential trust among us, a trust manufactured through our common experiences in struggles and meeting in the streets, then the next step will be to call ourselves police in our demonstrations, to be in charge and bear responsibility for whatever happens. WHOEVER BEARS VIOLENCE, FORCES JUSTICE. To perform violence, ignoring the "sense of right" it comes with, to bring - abstract - chaos, doesn't promote anything other than the highest organized structures, that come with their formed armed "justice" (the Stalinists, the police, the mafia, the parastate groups...). Victory belongs to those who bring chaos WITHOUT CARRYING IT INSIDE THEM.
Fetishising insurrection as the destructive act, that represented a past phase of our movement, weak and marginal at the time, after December, and the stripping of every fetish from violence with its simultaneous open communisation, must now be overcome. A second December would no longer be a victory but a defeat. Any related invocation, shows nothing more than a complete lack of any plan for afterwards. Our enemy has advanced, we are forced to do the same if we are not to disappear from the historical scene.
We must not sit home to be disciplined by their TV programs as if we were naughty children given too much leash. We must retake Logos (speech) back to the streets. Spit on the bourgeois and TV justice that "vindicates" the pain of one with the suffering of another, accumulating misery for all and socializing their cannibalism. The most retarded of these vultures, before they ascertained how the three employees' deaths would paralyze us, were trying to make us feel guilty for a bunch of ridiculous things, from the expected fall in the tourist trade to the country's image abroad. To make us feel guilty for fighting. To divide us into "peaceful workers" and "hooded criminals with molotovs", now that everyone knows (except of course the Communist Party that only saw provocateurs) that on 5/5 there were no peaceful workers that didn't stand up - with or without hoods and molotovs, no importance - to the State's last playing card: its police terror.
Their justice devours blood, the blood of the offenders, of anyone that resembles them, or most of all the anarchists, since it is they that generously have given their flag to any insurrectionary violence of even the most isolated elements of our class, globally [3]. But, it wants something more than that. It wants to open as a larger trauma to the social memory, that would break our familiarization with our own violence, with the violence of our struggle, with its subjects and the communication among them. Our justice will deal with nothing other than the healing. We don't know what kind of persons the dead were, if their sense of dignity would cope with the fascist scum and the TV vultures mongering their deaths or not, but we are sure that as workers their interests were with the victory of our struggle, with all the workers of Europe and the World. We won't drag one another down - we will rise together: GENERAL WILDCAT STRIKE!
Let's embrace the occupations!Let's stay to the streets!Let's talk!
2 of the 200.000 provocateurs
[1] For the time, let's bear this in mind : 36,1% pure rise in profits for Marfin bank this year, in the middle of the "most harsh crisis" to which every worker must reconcile working and obeying in the name of the nation.
[2] Similar incidents with that of Marfin bank on 23, Stadiou street, proceded to Bazaar supermarket behind Omonoia square, where a worker from inside put out the fire with an extinguisher, and Ianos bookstore that was open (as it is known, culture merchandising doesn't give a fuck about strikes).
[3] The night of 5/5, armed gangs of Delta, Zeta, plainclothe cops and riot police stormed the squat of "anarchists for a polymorphic movement" on Zaimi street, the Immigrants Haunt on Tsamadou street, and many houses and cafes at Exarchia, beating and intimidating people. In the same time on the TV, everyone was more or less asking for the anarchists' heads.

An article published at the Rioters Agency on the May 5th events

An employee of the burnt bank speaks out on tonight’s tragic deaths in Athens – please spread

Tonight’s tragic deaths in Athens leave little space for comments – we are all very shocked and deeply saddened by the events. To those (on the “Occupied London” blog even) who speculate that the deaths might have been caused purposefully by anarchists, we can only reply the following: we do not take to the streets, we do not risk our freedom and our lives confronting the greek police in order to kill other people. Anarchists are not murderers, and no brainwashing attempted by Greek PM Papandreou, the national or the international media should convince anyone otherwise.

That being said, and with developments still running frantically, we want to publish a rough translation of a statement by an employee of Marfin Bank – the bank whose branch was set alight in Athens today, where the three employees found a tragic death.

Read the letter, translate it, spread it around to your networks; grassroots counter-information has a crucial role to play at a moment when the greek state and corporate media are leashing out on the anarchist movement over here in Greece.

I feel an obligation toward my co-workers who have so unjustly died today to speak out and to say some objective truths. I am sending this message to all media outlets. Anyone who still bares some consciousness should publish it. The rest can continue to play the government’s game.

The fire brigade had never issued an operating license to the building in question. The agreement for it to operate was under the table, as it practically happens with all businesses and companies in Greece.

The building in question has no fire safety mechanisms in place, neither planned nor installed ones – that is, it has no ceiling sprinklers, fire exits or fire hoses. There are only some portable fire extinguishers which, of course, cannot help in dealing with extensive fire in a building that is built with long-outdated security standards.

No branch of Marfin bank has had any member of staff trained in dealing with fire, not even in the use of the few fire extinguishers. The management also uses the high costs of such training as a pretext and will not take even the most basic measures to protect its staff.

There has never been a single evacuation exercise in any building by staff members, nor have there been any training sessions by the fire-brigade, to give instructions for situations like this. The only training sessions that have taken place at Marfin Bank concern terrorist action scenarios and specifically planning the escape of the banks’ “big heads” from their offices in such a situation.

The building in question had no special accommodation for the case of fire, even though its construction is very sensitive under such circumstances and even though it was filled with materials from floor to ceiling. Materials which are very inflammable, such as paper, plastics, wires, furniture. The building is objectively unsuitable for use as a bank due to its construction.

No member of security has any knowledge of first aid or fire extinguishing, even though they are every time practically charged with securing the building. The bank employees have to turn into firemen or security staff according to the appetite of Mr Vgenopoulos [owner of Marfin Bank].

The management of the bank strictly bared the employees from leaving today, even though they had persistently asked so themselves from very early this morning – while they also forced the employees to lock up the doors and repeatedly confirmed that the building remained locked up throughout the day, over the phone. They even blocked off their internet access so as to prevent the employees from communicating with the outside world.

For many days now there has been some complete terrorisation of the bank’s employees in regard to the mobilisations of these days, with the verbal “offer”: you either work, or you get fired.

The two undercover police who are dispatched at the branch in question for robbery prevention did not show up today, even though the bank’s management had verbally promised to the employees that they would be there.

At last, gentlemen, make your self-criticism and stop wandering around pretending to be shocked. You are responsible for what happened today and in any rightful state (like the ones you like to use from time to time as leading examples on your TV shows) you would have already been arrested for the above actions. My co-workers lost their lives today by malice: the malice of Marfin Bank and Mr. Vgenopoulos personally who explicitly stated that whoever didin’t come to work today [May 5th, a day of a general strike!] should not bother showing up for work tomorrow [as they would get fired].

- An employee of Marfin Bank [greek original]

Cops break windows of shop, threaten residents athens exarxia area...

DIRECT NEWS FROM A COMRADE IN ATHENS TODAY 5/5

1) Police attack social spaces:

More than 60 abducted to GADA police headquarters and at least 6 confirmed arrests up to now. Motorbike police gangs of Delta, Zeta and plain clothes cops holding a siege at the offices of the "anarchists for a polymorphic movement" and of the "cooks and waitreses' base union" at Exarchia. They invaded the "polymorphic" space, beating their way in, injuring heavily one girl and arresting many others. Also many cops are moving to Patision and Skaramanga str. squat. Some arrests and many beatings near the self managed park of Navarinou and on Tsamadou street, at Exarchia. There is also information they invaded "Diktyo" social rights network space at Tsamadou. Some people are still inside Polytechnic uni maintaining minor clashes with the cops. There are talk about a new march during the night, and many workers claimed another strike for tomorrow.

Police checkpoints around the whole city center. The cops are playing nervous, threatening to use their guns.

2) Indeed, the three employees of Marfin bank are announced dead by the fire brigade service. Their boss (mr Vgenopoulos, owner of Olympic air and MIG business corporation) made them work on a strike day, locked in the upper floors of a seemingly empty bank building with no exit doors available nor fire extinguishers! The fire brigade issued a complaint to the police, for not letting them approach the building in time, but after some time the media say they changed their evaluation to the police cooperation as "good" and said it was the rioters that didn't let them approach instead.

Some more info: A Bazaar supermarket was expropriated during the riots and stuff were distributed to the people. One minister was dressed up as protestor with helmet to enter the parliament during the demonstrations! A mercedes was set on fire near the polytechnic university and many other luxurious cars during the riots near Syntagma square. Also a jewelery and few banks, and the offices were the state keeps the taxes record! If the back up are harmed or not found, many people's owing to the state will be virtually evaporated! The president of GSEE was once again kicked out of the marches...

Now the despicable media say "when some people asked the rioters why are they burning a building with employees inside the rioters replied they deserve to burn because they re working for the bank" which is ofcourse yet another hideous lie. We weren't actually near the Marfin bank fire, but we were in front of another bank being burnt on Stadiou street a few minutes earlier, and again an employee let us know there are people inside, and right after that the people starting the fire helped put it out...

This kind of manipulation is typical for our pathetic and incompetent bourgeois scum.

more info maybe later.

Dim.

up day from comrades in athens 5/5

Tens of thousands demonstrators on the streets, more than 2000 with the anarchist blocks, not well organized though. Massive clashes around Syntagma and throughout central Athens. Few cops had their shields taken, and some cops in plain clothes were beaten. Some slogans were also spray painted in solidarity to the Buenos Aires comrades.

Delta and Zeta motorbike cops attacked people leaving the march at Syggrou-Fix metro station with batton charges, light-bang grenades and massive tear gas use leading to one elder person with resporatory problems, sitting at a nearby cafe, heavily injured.

The police used tear gas canisters even inside metro stations (Syntagma).

Also full police cordon around Exarchia. Dozens taken to GADA police headquarters. Many people are still out on the streets.

Three dead as Greece protest turns violent

WHY?? ARE THE BANK WORKERS WORKING TODAY IN THE GENERAL
STRIKE IN GREECE?? SOMEBODY FUCKING EXPLAIN TO ME!! PLEASE???

athens video today...

FOTOS NOW FROM THE CENTER ATHENS!

Protests in Greek general strike turn violent

Trouble erupted as a group of protesters tried to storm the Greek parliament

Protests in Athens have turned violent amid a general strike over planned austerity measures that has brought the country to a standstill.

Petrol bombs have been thrown at police who responded with pepper spray, tear gas and stun grenades.

A building in the city has also been set on fire and people are being evacuated, reports say.

Protesters are angered by spending cuts and tax rises planned in return for a 110bn euro (£95bn) bail-out for Greece.

Parliament is to vote on the measures by the end of the week.

Measures include wage freezes, pension cuts and tax rises. They aim to achieve fresh budget cuts of 30bn euros over three years, with the goal of cutting Greece's public deficit to less than 3% of GDP by 2014. It currently stands at 13.6%.

A mass rally attended by thousands of people took place in central Athens before some protests began to turn violent

Outside parliament, a group of protesters rushed up a flight of steps, taunting MPs to come out and calling them "thieves".

Riot police forced them back with pepper spray, tear gas and stun grenades.

EVERYBODY TO THE STREETS IN GREECE! INSURRECTION NOW!!

Actions this week against the cuts greece

• Monday 3/5 6.30 pm – blocking off of the ministry of Finance by Sintagma square with banners and sound-systems. Also, commencing of the hygiene workers’ strike; they are gathering at noon at Karaiskaki square in Athens; their strike is likely to turn into an indefinite one.
• Tuesday 4/5 the 48-hour general strike called by the union umbrella ADEDY commences. Teachers are also on strike and grassroots trade unions call for demonstrations across the country. Blocking off of the parliament building in the evening
• Wednesday 5/5 general strike called by GSEE and ADEDY
  
• Saturday 8/5 demonstrations by the grassroots trade unions across the country
• A fresh general strike will be called for early next week

  Occupations…

  Today the 48 hours strike started. Tonight, Agios Dimitrios’ and Vyrona’s town halls were occupied in the two Athens’ suburbs, by the unions of the municipal employees, while preparations for the tomorrow demonstration take place.

  Teachers clash with police in Greek State TV Headquarters

  
  

  • 
    

  Clashes erupted between teachers and riot police inside the Headquarters of the Greek State TV after the former entered the building trying to interrupt the speech of the Minister of Education

  On Monday 4 May evening teachers invaded the Greek State TV (ERT) Headquarters in order to interrupt the interview of the Minister of Education Mrs Diamadopoulou concerning the new educational reform which is expected to lead to a radical devaluation of the greek educational system. Ms Diamandopoulou was rescued by a back door of the building, while ERT interrupted its main news broadcast refusing to let the teachers present their demands live. At the same time, strong police forces surrounded the building which they entered attacking the teachers. During the clashes within the building many people were reported as wounded. Soon hundreds of protesters gathered in solidarity outside the ERT Mansion forcing the riot police to allow the exit of the teachers. After their exit representatives of the teachers have gone public calling the PASOK government a "quisling government" comparing it to the Tsolakoglou Nazi-collaborator government of the 1940s. The teachers and solidarity protesters formed a demo and marched down Mesogeion Avenue.

  The teachers have declared a 48h strike for the 4th and 5th of May in opposition to the educational reform which is believed will lead to a sharp devaluation of the educational system.