Here is a report on the mexicans. Oh, and for the record, I am Irish. (lots of human rights abuse there too) Strikes me you lot who monopolise this forum are a bunch of racist zealots, but there we are. Who cares. Well, I do, because I expected more. And this aggressive name-calling is the sort of thing we grew out of in play-school. Grow up, boys!
On reflection, Tim w is right to post here in the tourist forum because God knows we should encourage people not to visit a country that has such raving nationalists who cannot be bothered to discuss a perfectly reasonable proposition.
As I said before, I know this man. He is not an Albanian, is who he says he is. He also has direct experience of torture in Greece so has more right to discuss these issues than many of you. If you want to bury your head in the flag and believe that all is great in Greece, please go ahead!
In the past, I have been sceptical of some of the things he has told me - of the terrorist camp in Lavrion, for instance- but your attitude confirms his worst fears and convinces me absolutely.
You bring shame on your country.
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Greece4 August 2004
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=11073
Concern at possible obstruction of news coverage on eve of Olympics
Reporters Without Borders today said it was "outraged" that two journalists with the Mexican TV station Televisa and their interpreter were arrested, handcuffed, insulted and hit by members of the Greek coastguard on 2 August as they were doing a report on Piraeus, the main port of Athens, where eight ships, including the Queen Mary II, are to serve as hotels during the Olympic Games.
"We welcome the fact that an investigation is under way and we call for it to be fast and thorough," the organisation said, noting that the Greek authorities had made contradictory statements about the incident, and that the exact circumstances needed to be clarified as quickly as possible.
Reporters Without Borders added: "Security measures are legitimate and necessary but they in no way justify aggressive behaviour that is utterly reprehensible. We hope that security procedures will not unnecessarily obstruct journalists in their work as this would tarnish the image of the Olympic Games."
The merchant marine ministry claimed in press release yesterday that reporter Eduardo Salazar, cameraman Russel Vaquiero and interpreter Fernando Kalligas "tried to flee by car," forcing police to detain them. The port police has roundly denied the allegations of violence, humiliation and insults.
The two journalists and their interpreter have denied trying to escape. Kalligas said they were at a spot overlooking the port where there was no sign saying filming was prohibited. They were about to leave when a military jeep arrived. Three uniformed men got out and confiscated their IDs and accreditation, along with their telephones and equipment. The officials then searched them in such a violent way that one of them fell to the ground. At the same time, they were insulted and threatened.
According to Kalligas, they were then handcuffed and take to the headquarters of the port police. Vaquiero was ordered to put his hands on a table. When he did not comply quickly enough, a policeman banged his head against the table.
Kalligas said that when an official from the 2004 Athens Games organising committee came to verify their accreditation, their handcuffs were removed. But they were put back afterwards. They were then led to a kind of gymnasium while being administered kicks to make them walk quickly. There, with their heads bent and legs wide apart, they were again insulted and threatened. When a policeman began to lower the trousers of one of the journalists, an officer came in and said: "None of that here." The behaviour of the policemen changed completely when senior military officers arrived.
The journalists were only able to telephone their TV station when the Mexican ambassador arrived. They filed a complaint today. The Greek news media yesterday just reported the Mexican TV crew’s arrest without mentioning their claims that they had been subjected to violence. When the international news agencies reported the allegations that they had been hit, threatened and insulted, the local media just used the statement issued by the merchant marine ministry.
The day following the incident, four Mexican journalists were detained near a military base in Tatoi, north of Athens. Previously, a photographer with Agence France Presse (AFP) who was taking photos in the tourist quarter was detained for several hours on 28 July. Another AFP journalist was forbidden from photographing the site of the marathon although he was in the street, not inside any Olympic installation.
about Lavrion: from TIME magazine
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1998/int/980330/europe.a_hellenic_haven.19.html
A Hellenic Haven
The flight of Kurdish refugees to Greece adds to a cycle of violence and vengeance
By MASSIMO CALABRESI
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t's not every day one sees recruits inducted into a terrorist organization. But at the Kurdish Cultural Center in downtown Athens it happens three or four times a month. About that often, a self-described "political branch" of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (P.K.K.) sets up a few dozen plastic chairs in a room on the center's dingy first floor, hangs the red and yellow P.K.K. flag on the wall and carts in a Yamaha electric organ to pound out Ey Ragip, a P.K.K. anthem. Grizzled P.K.K. loyalists watch as recruits proclaim their allegiance to the armed movement that has earned a place on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations. "Five to 10 Kurds leave here every week to return [to Kurdistan] and fight," says Rozerin Laser, Bal-kans general director of the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (E.R.N.K.), the P.K.K. political group that seeks a Kurdish homeland in parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq.
The P.K.K. recruitment of Kurds in Greece is an overlooked link in the vicious cycle of refugees and revolution across Europe's southeastern frontier. In January, an influx of thousands of Kurds into Italy and Greece reminded the rest of the E.U. how permeable its borders really are. But not all Kurdish asylum seekers end up in Western Europe. Some join the P.K.K. and return to would-be Kurdistan to fight, fueling more Turkish repression and a new flood of refugees and potential P.K.K. recruits. With the Greek government turning a blind eye, P.K.K. representatives claim the recruiters are free to start the process over again. The latest refugee crisis, says one senior Western diplomat in Athens who specializes in terrorist issues, "unveiled Turkey's appalling human rights record and revealed the porous frontiers of Greece and Italy." But, he says, "It also took the wrappings off Greece's tolerance of rebel Kurds."
The E.R.N.K.'s induction ceremonies are just the tail end of the process for turning refugees into revolutionaries. The real indoctrination and recruitment goes on at places like Lavrion, 45 km southeast of Athens, one of about five main refugee camps for the 100 or so Kurdish asylum seekers arriving each month. Although hardly lavish, the camp boasts an 18-inch color TV with a satellite dish to receive daily broadcasts from MED TV, the Kurdish news station. Kurdish camp leaders use cell phones for calls to their "brothers in battle," as they describe their cohorts on the outside. The crumbling walls are hung with pictures of P.K.K. strongman Abdullah Ocalan and martyrs to the Kurdish cause.
"This is the greatest help that Greece is providing us," says Ferzeyn Iskender, a self-proclaimed P.K.K. loyalist at Lavrion. "It is here away from their homeland that the Kurds nurture their ethnic identity, learn who they are, what they stand for, how they've been abused by the Turkish authorities." He points to a group of children playing in the compound's concrete courtyard. "Listen," he says. "They're singing Ey Ragip." P.K.K. tutors arrive twice a week, according to camp leaders, to teach the history of Kurdistan, its language, customs and traditions, subjects that would be illegal in Turkey. But P.K.K. activists at the camp quickly turn such topics into propaganda. The E.R.N.K.'s Laser admits that her success in recruitment "is the result of a process of ideological training."
Turkey says Greece is aiding and abetting the P.K.K., citing the confessions of P.K.K. members as proof. "We are just stating what P.K.K. terrorists captured in Turkey are saying," says Sermet Atacanli, a spokesman for Turkey's Foreign Ministry. "They have been trained in Greece, both ideologically and militarily." "Lies, lies, lies!" responds Greece's fiery Foreign Minister, Theodore Pangalos, to accusations of Greek involvement. Western diplomats monitoring the P.K.K. say there's no hard evidence substantiating such accusations, but that "there is a gray area in the field of financial support."
Much sympathy and support comes from the Greek population itself, which sees parallels between the Kurdish nationalist movement and their own 1830 liberation from the Ottoman Empire. "The same thing is happening now with the Kurds," says English teacher Kaiti Piperopoulou as she delivers school supplies to Lavrion. "We must help them." The P.K.K. builds on that backing, circulating fundraising leaflets festooned with symbols of Greek, Kurdish and Greek Cypriot unity and bearing slogans like, "The solution to the disputes in the Aegean and Cyprus goes through Kurdistan." The leaflets always include the bank account numbers for the E.R.N.K. "We are not hiding what we are doing," says Lavrion's Iskender.
In the U.S., such open P.K.K. activities would be a breach of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 and would bring prison sentences of up to 10 years for those perpetrating them. But in Greece, the P.K.K.'s terrorist fire spreads virtually unchecked. Across the border, Turkey fans the flames with its draconian treatment of the Kurdish minority, and year by year more Kurds are drawn into the conflagration.
--Reported by Anthee Carassava/Athens
Turkish Daily News:PKK’s Cooperation with the Greeks
Monday, September 10, 2007
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=82837
Greece's support for the PKK:
It is obvious that the PKK is supported by Greece, considering the PKK's historical development with major support from Greece. Greece has always intended to damage Turkey in every way and seize a portion of our land as a part of its ‘great idea', “Megali Idea”.
To this end, Greece initially helped the establishment and assistance of ASALA, the Armenian Terror Organization, with the agony she experienced after our 1974 Peace Operation in Cyprus. Following our state's strike against ASALA, Greece changed her tactics and started to play its cards on Kurds.
In this context, first it initiated the “Lavrion Camp” near Athens. Ayfer Kaya with the code name Rozarin, who was responsible for military training at the Lavrion Refugee Camp that was once used to treat foreign refugees, told in an interview with the Time Magazine that Kurdish young men coming to the camp receive military training under the auspices of Greek officers. They are then they sent to Turkey for terrorist activities.
It was known that until the 1990s, Lavrion was one of PKK's most important training bases along with Bekaa Valley. Those activities in Lavrion, which is still known to function, are continuing right in front of the secret services of our so-called NATO allies. This point, and the fact that our allies are trying to take advantage of the PKK card for their intentions about Turkey, is more obvious when the origins of the guns captured from the PKK are considered.
It is an acknowledged fact, that Lavrion and the support given to the PKK is a national policy of Greece and it is backed by every Greek government and the deputies of PASOK, DIKKI and the YDP.
Following developments and information about the PKK's active presence in Greece as a result of Greeks' and Greeks Cypriot's vengeance pursuit for their defeat in 1974 are presented in various media agencies:
· Stelyos Papathemelis, who was a member of the Greek Parliament, was a PASOK member who nourished and directed ASALA's and PKK's activities against Turkey. In 1978-1979, he joined and represented his party in the conventions organized by ASALA in various European countries, and made speeches such as: “Turks are enemies of all of us. They only understand violence, so their blood has to be shed in order to bring them to their knees.” During his two terms of Public Order Ministry in the PASOK government, Papathemelis supported terrorism against Turkey in Greek Cyprus. In October 29, 1994, while Turks in northern Cyprus were celebrating their “Republic Day Festival”, Public Order Minister of Greece came to the island and participated in a convention in Lefkoşa (Nicosia). In the convention, he got together with representatives of the PKK, ASALA and a Greek terrorist organization functioning in Cyprus under the name of “Committee of Solidarity with Kurdistan”. In the convention, the future terrorist activities in Turkey for the year 1995 were discussed and decisions were made.
· Another person who was helping the terrorist activities of the PKK was a PASOK politician Panayotis Sguridis, who was the vice president for the president of the Greek Parliament, Apostolos Kaklamanis. He was a fan of terrorist chief Abdullah Öcalan, who killed 35,000 innocent people. Sguridis paid countless visits to PKK camps in Syria and Lebanon and met Öcalan there.
· Among the other Greek politicians who supported the PKK terrorist organization, were PASOK deputy Dimitrios Vunatsos, Greek Parliament President Apostos Kaklamanis, ex-Minister of Education Dimitrios Arsenis, ex-Minister of National Defense Tsohazopoulos, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs Pangalos. During the first term of the Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, PKK's activities in Greece, which used to be an important educational and logistical base for the PKK, were moved to Greek Cyprus as a result of pressure from Turkey and reactions from the world. As Greek Cyprus started to reach some of it goals in accessing the EU in the mid-1990s, it got encouraged and intensified the support for the PKK that it once gave to ASALA as a so-called state policy, in accord with hostility toward Turkey and the goal of capturing the whole island to itself.
In this context:
· In 1990, offices of Kurdistan National Liberation Front (ERNK) and Kurdish Democratic People's Unions (YDK) opened in Lefkoşa.
· Following this, Kurdistan Culture Association Office was opened in Limassol.
· Trodos, Mashera and Stavrovoru terrorist camps were built in order to train PKK members and send them to Turkey to commit terrorist activities. The camp in Trodos was built on the land that belongs to the Greek National Church.
· Moreover, two offices in Limasol and Lefkoşa that belonged directly to PKK were opened with special help from Cypriot Greeks.
· It was confirmed that in the March of 1996 Greek Orthodox Church invited the head terrorist Öcalan to city of Baf (Paphos) and gave him a significant amount of money.
· It was known that in 1990s, the PKK was smuggling arms over Lazkiye Harbor while trafficking drugs to Europe through Greek Cyprus.
................
finally from your own Indymedia:
http://athens.indymedia.org/
[VIDEO] Greece: Shocking Video of the Torture of Immigrants Inside Police Station
Submitted by blackandred on Mon, 2007-06-18 23:24. Greece | Migration | Security apparatus | Terrorism | Video
Athens, Greece: Shocking Video of the Torture of Immigrants Inside Police Station
Saturday, June 16 2007 @ 03:29 AM PDT - Infoshop News
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=200706160329...
A lot of times in the past we came across immigrants, youth, protesters, and generally individuals who had the marks of state terrorism on their body.
This time we have evidence to show: a video from inside a police station where you can see two Albanian immigrants being tortured by at least one civil cop with a big baton. As part of the torture he forces them to hit each other in order to satisfy his masochist authoritarian appetite and the appetites of his fellow-pigs who watch...
Similar torture happen again and again. In the recent insurgency of the prisoners all around Greece, we had reports of whole riot squads entering prison cells and torturing all...the prisoners [together]. The cops are not human beings, they choose not to be!
Download the video before they erase it. Circulate it as widely as possible, so everyone...knows what's happening in Greece.
THE POLICE IS THE OCCUPATION FORCE OF DEMOCRACY!
http://mostlywater.org/video_greece_shocking_video_of_the_torture_of_immigrants_inside_police_station