The Minister of Public Order, Mr Makroyannakis, has announced the launching of a mass-scale pogrom of immigrants in the center of Athens after the euroelections. He pledged to "clean" the center of the city from immigrants and displace them in what he called "a ghetto" at the outskirts of Athens. The camp which will use the old NATO base of Aspropyrgos in the city's heavily industrially polluted rustbelt, is expexted to hold more than 2,000 'illigal' immigrants. The premises had been proposed in the past as a temporary concentration camp for immigrants, addicts and homeless people during the 2004 Olympic Games but the plan was abandoned after a huge public outcry. A wide range of social and political forces, as well as mainstream media, have been denouncing the new plans as nothing sort of constructing a concentration camp.

As part of the post-election plan of "cleaning Athens", the Ministry of Public Order has also announced mass sweeping operations against addicts, which will coincide with the closure of Athens' central methadone center, moving the facilities to hospitals.

Also the Ministry of Public Order announced that a third leg of the operations will include "sweeping operations" against anarchist and anti-authoritarian squats and social centers across the greek capital.

Public tension over issues of immigration has been accentuated by malicious media reporting on areas hosting immigrant workers, and especially the neighborhood of Agios Panteleimonas where fascist parastate groups have been imposing a reign of terror in the last weeks. Locals claim that the neonazis with the backing of the police have been threatening anyone who does not take part in their anti-immigrant stunts. Even the priest of the local church has announced that he has received life-threats for his unwavering support of immigrants. As of last week all public happenings in the neighborhoods square held by local groups (puppet theater, book presentations etc) have been canceled after attacks by fascist thugs who even locked the local playground so as not to let "greek blood be polluted by afghans". The wave of fascist terror in the area has reached its peak after the mobilisation of immigrants in response to a police racist incident the previous week which targeted the Koran.


Excerpt from "Libcom"

 http://libcom.org/news/greek-government-announces-pogrom-ghetto-immigrants-27052009