In Lefkada the oppression and abuses against the Roma people continue. In the afternoon of 14th August, four cops (who didn't show their badges) brutally and without any provocation abused a Roma youth and his mother during a "papers please" ID check (Translator's note: in Greece everyone has to carry a police ID card --the "papers"-- on their person or else face a few hours of jail time in the local police station if discovered without papers).

His parents were asking the cops to cease beating their son, but the cops answered by swearing at them and threatening them. The youth and his parents were taken by the cops to the local police station, where the cops immobilised the youth and cleansed his blood with water. He was then taken to the hospital where the medical doctor refused to describe his findings on a paper, even though the youth was asking for it repeatedly. The cops let the youth free after one and a half hour, after he was made to sign papers he couldn't read where he was accepting guilt. His parents will sue the police.

See on video the gripping account of the Roma youth and his parents, where one more time the abuses against the Roma people in Lefkada are verified.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGp7psVdeG8

16 August 2009

Initiative "Lefkada Unforgettable Vacations"

 http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=en&article_id=1068696