In Xanthi, Greece, anti-rascist action days take place on the university area.
The Day before yesterday about 30 people from the bulgarian noborder camp were expected on the greek border and taken to Xanthi, yesterday a first demonstration took place with about 100 to 150 people, the main topic was the discrimination of the muslim-turkish population in Thrace. (for more information see:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/08/321996.html )

For about 500 years there are splits in this region between the muslim, most of the muslims regard themselves as turkish, and the greek population.
The governments of Turkey and Greece claim the right on different versions, the rascism against refugees from Turkey ( be it out of economical or political reasons) is present in the public as well as the version of the “inner enemy” who has been living there for centuries already.

There are daily discriminations, such as 10 years ago it was usual in Xanthi that greek soldiers were accompanying the people back into their homes.
This is also the reason for the slogan “Greece, Turkey, Albania, the enemies are the banks and ministries”, which is used a lot on demonstrations to refer to the position of being against nationalism and rascism.

In spite of the official EU laws there are still minefields of the Greek border police to the Turkish border. The deportation prisons had so far never been entered by the public, and this was the underlying cause for the action yesterday. There were long discussions about what would be the best approach and what would have to be exptected. The demands of the action was against the deportation prisons in general, but there were also demands to give a delegation access to the prison and to view the situation of the refugees and be able to arrange legal support for them.

After a short demonstration in the city centre of Komotini without any incidents 2 busses and several cars drove to Vna.
In Vna, there is a small refugee prison, which does not exist officially and where 20 riot cops were waiting.
A masked mass of about 70 people formed with short sticks and motorcycle helmets and attacked the cops and pushed them away.
The police had accompanied the buses to the prison with 2 cars but did not seem to take the situation serious. There were no special units and the undercover cop had to improvise his helmet.
The eastern part of Greece is countryside for such activities and such actions are rare there.
Pepperspray was shot and a policemen even shot in the air with live ammunition.
Several stones were thrown and the shields of the cops broke and some cops threw stones back. There were injuries on both sides but no arrests.


After a short spontaneous power struggle the demand for a delegation was posed and several people, one with a camera, visited the inside of the prison, asked the three prisoners questions and got a list of the imprisoned to enable legal support for them.

Such an action has never taken place in Greece before, a deportation prison has never been entered by public before and therefore it was a big success that the demand was fulfilled, even if the police was present and the prisoners were well intimitated and unsettled.
They said (in the presence of the police) that they would be treated well and would have been here for the duration of 10 days already, the talk was short because of language problems.

According to Greek Law refugees are allowed to file an application for political asylum and are free till their case is in court.
But for these procedure lawyers need their names and nationalities.
At the moment efforts are made to care for legal support for the 12 refugees present in the prison.
They come from Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran and Moldova, and they are only men.
The video material is edited to a film which will be distributed via Indymedia and the local organisers.

Today on the 28th of august the camp will finish.



More Information under:
 http://www.noborder2005bg-gr.net
 http://no-racism.net/article/1319/
 http://athens.indymedia.org/display.php?articleId=3335