published first by  Deportation Monitoring Aegean  on 24. March 2022

The Dystopia in form of a camp – The “Closed Controlled Access Centre of Samos”

The so-called “Closed Controlled Access Centre of Samos” became operational in September 2021, when people were transferred from the old slum-like camp growing out of Vathy town to a remote prison-like complex between the mountains.

Sterile white containers are lined up behind barbed wire, forming a uniform complex of plastic and metal without any apparent signs of individualized or self-determined living. It is a place of total surveillance and control, yet with air-conditioned ISO-boxes, Wi-Fi and laminated floors inside the containers.

Reminiscent of border checkpoints, the entry to the camp is only possible through an elaborate security gate, guarded by private security companies and police. Camera masts surround the entire area and some are positioned to even film inside the ISO-boxes. The whole setting is the realization of a dystopian panopticon: drones are planned to be used, in addition to a software which analyses movement of people in order to avoid gatherings.

Migrants on Samos who refuse to live under total control have little choice but to to hide in the old and partly burned barracks of the old camp close to the town. In-between broken barbed wire, hills of rubbish, old children’s toys, dirty blankets and clothes, people have neither access to water nor electricity, but at least some self-determination. It leaves the small chance of living as a human being, compared to being regarded as a number in the high-security prison-like camp.

The construction of the camp site had already started at the end of 2019 but was speeded up after the fire in Moria, when the EU provided 276 million Euro to the Greek government to build five so-called “Multiple Purpose Reception and Identification Centers” on the Greek islands. The camp construction site on Samos was financed with 48 million to create the new controlled centre.

The rationality behind the multi-million camp project remains opaque, since the implementation of the EU migration-management technocrats’ wet dreams seems to be rather dysfunctional: in the face of violent pushbacks, hardly anyone arrives on the islands so that ‘only’ roughly 300 people are trapped in the facility that was designed to hold about 2000 people and is still under further construction. Since March 2020, there have been no deportations from Greece to Turkey. Consequently, the specially-designed prison in the back of the camp, the pre-removal section (PROKEKA), also seems to remain useless so far, although it has space for 960 people who can be legally held there for 18 months.

The controlled centre complex leaves no doubts on which path the European migration policies with their double standards are following: while white Ukrainian war refugees are welcomed with open arms, BIPOC racialized migrants are constructed as ‘the others’ and pushed back or locked up in clean, remote detention centers under strict surveillance. They are not only denied protection and a life in dignity, but are actively pushed back and killed in violent operations at sea. Countless fatal pushbacks have been documented, such as a recent pushback operation from Samos leading to the death of two men in February 2022.

n short, there is
a huge building being besieged (alongside other occupied buildings), and
we are calling for support inside and outside, now and for the days to
come. Attached are images from the roof of the building, and the two
previous statements. Following is the most recent statement.

Statement – We will not let ourselves be taken away!

Since Friday 4 February, we have been occupying a building in Rue
d’Ajaccio, which has been uninhabited for a year. This occupation took
place within the framework of the commemoraction, an international day
of mobilization initiated by the families and relatives of people who
have died at the border, to denounce the murderous migration policies of
the UK, France and the EU.

In Calais, about 1500 people are living on the streets in unacceptable
living conditions. Displaced people occupy wastelands and have no access
to basic services: housing, sanitation, water, food and medical care.
The state imposes conditions of extreme precariousness and invisibility
through illegal evictions every 48 hours, the theft of personal
belongings by the police, the illegal dismantling of living sites
without the possibility of defense in front of a judge, and recurrent
police violence. The French and British governments, alongside Natacha
Bouchard and all their other friends, have deliberately turned a
political issue into a humanitarian crisis, keeping people who want to
cross the border in a context of survival.

But displaced people are not the only ones experiencing precariousness
and lack of access to housing in the Calais region. The entire housing
estate which the building is part of is due to be evicted and then
destroyed. While some people, including those in the building we
occupied, have already been evicted, others are still opposing their
eviction in the absence of any alternative proposals from the town hall.
It is in this context that, when the first police officers arrived on
Monday 7th, many residents came to show their support for the
occupation. We were thus able to express our refusal of the discourse of
war between the poor. French or foreign, with or without papers, a roof
is a right. Moreover, the police refused, on several occasions, to see
the evidence of occupation.

Since 2pm today, a disproportionate police presence has surrounded the
building. The police are not allowing anyone to enter, nor are they
allowing food, water or equipment to be provided.

We restate our demands: we demand an end to all evictions in Calais. We
demand an end to the harassment of people blocked at the border by the
police. We demand the regularisation of all squats in the city. Finally,
we demand the immediate requisition of all empty buildings in Calais,
and that sustainable solutions be provided to all inhabitants, whatever
their administrative status or vulnerability.

Until our demands are met, we will not leave these premises. We refuse
to be intimidated by this police pressure and remind you that the time
limit for ‘délit de flagrance’ is over: there can be no eviction without
an enforceable court decision. We will not let ourselves be taken away!

We call on everyone who is in solidarity with the people on the street
and those blocked at the border, and on everyone who believes in the
right to housing to come and help us defend the buildings we occupy!

The inhabitants”

Today, on 29 June 2021, the defendants for the fire in Vial Camp were all acquitted of the felony charge of arson and of the membership in a criminal group! Four people were found completely innocent, eight people were found guilty for resisting arrest and violence in the camp and one person for destroying public goods. One of the defendants was excluded from the procedure on the first day because he is a minor. Another person could not be found and arrested and therefore was not present in the trial. The nine people who were convicted received a 3.5 years suspended sentence, which the lawyers will appeal. All 15 people will now be transferred back to Athens and Chios and then be released, some on probation.

The court procedure followed arrests in the course of riots of camp residents against the disastrous living conditions in the hotspot camp of Vial. The protests took place in April 2020 after a Corona-curfew was imposed on Vial camp without providing sufficient basic supplies to the affected people. The rage of the people in the camp reached a peak when an Iraqi woman died in an isolation container without having received sufficient medical treatment.

All defendants who have now been officially cleared of the charges, had to stay 14 months in prison for minor offenses. Nine defendants are still not cleared of all charges.  Within the entire procedure, the prosecution could not produce any well-substantiated evidence against the accused, basing the conviction of the defendants solely on the questionable identification of a security guard of Vial camp. Even the 15^th defendant – who was officially recognized by the asylum service as minor – stayed in prison for 14 months, despite a maximum detention period of six months for minors in Greece. He has been finally released but still awaits his trial before a juvenile court.

The court procedure was riddled with irregularities. At first, the core witness of the prosecution, a security guard of Vial camp did not appear in court. He claimed to have recognized the defendants although it was dark and the people in the camp had their faces covered as a Covid precaution measure and especially because of the heavy smoke and tear gas. When he finally arrived at the court the next day and was questioned, the judges carried out an arbitrary identification procedure, calling the ten defendants that the witness claimed to have recognized out by name and asking them one by one to stand up and take down their medical masks. The witness just confirmed that he would recognize them each time and did not have to identify them on his own. Nevertheless, the witness testified that he had not seen the defendants setting fire. The second witness of the prosecution did not claim to have recognized any of the defendants.

The final judgement has been influenced by the thorough preparation of the defence lawyers who managed to show that the accusations were implausible and poorly substantiated. Also due to the solidarity and efforts of the defence witnesses – migrants who had lived with the accused in Vial camp at the time of the fire and who travelled to Lesvos on their own expense for four times to testify – the felony charge was eventually dropped. Two of the defence lawyers stated:

“We are very happy with this development. Proud that we made the court to hear our plies for a fair trial and hopeful that this is not the exception but it will be the rule from now on. Also we are sad that this people spend a year and a half pre-detained for a crime that they didn’t commit. We wish them a better future in Greece with justice and solidarity.”

Dimitris Choulis, Human Rights Legal Project Sámos and Alexandros Georgoulis 

The trial joins a series of court cases targeting migrants for resistance against the inhuman treatment they are facing on the Greek islands. Only two weeks before the trial against the Vial 15, the Moria 6 were convicted in an unfair trial with flimsy evidence to long prison charges and found guilty of burning Moria camp on Lesvos Island.

While the migrants have been convicted, no one has been held accountable neither for the death of the woman in Vial camp nor the unknown deaths within other camps or at sea. Instead, it is again migrants who are bearing the weight of inhuman and distressing policies of segregation, encampment and incarceration of the EU. The real crime of putting human beings in unbearable living conditions, condoning even their deaths, has not been touched by any court. The problem is not the self-organized protests against this repression and the camp structures. The problem is the existence of the camps!

See the Statement in Deutsch, English, ελληνικά, Español, Farsi, Français, Italiano

https://freethemoria6.noblogs.org/

#FreeTheMoria6 – After the Fire in Moria Camp: Call for a fair and transparent trial for the accused Moria 6 based on the presumption of innocence!

On 11 June 2021, the trial against four of the six teenage migrants accused of burning down Moria Camp will take place on the Greek island of Chios. From the moment of their arrest and before any due process of law, they have been presented to the public as the culprits. Two co-accused minors were already convicted to prison sentences in March, despite a lack of evidence and a trial riddled with irregularities.

We are deeply concerned that their right to a fair and just trial based on the presumption of innocence is not guaranteed and that they are instead made scapegoats for the inhumane EU migration policy. We stand in solidarity with the Moria 6 & against the deadly European border regime!

On 8 September 2020, the infamous refugee camp Moria on the Greek island of Lesvos burned down, fanned by a strong wind. The widespread and long-lasting fires, well-documented and almost live-broadcasted via social media, brought the ongoing policy of deterrence through inhumane conditions in Europe’s Hotspot Camps in the Aegean region back into the international media spotlight. (Footnote 1)

Rather than seeing the fire as an inevitable disaster in a deadly camp infrastructure, the Greek state arrested six young Afghan migrants and presented them as the culprits and sole cause for the fire, attempting to stifle further public debate on the living conditions inside the camp and the political responsibility. The fires took place at a time when the number of people living in the camp had reached 12,000, movement restrictions had been in place for almost six months and a growing fear of Covid-19 was spreading inside the camp. One week prior to the fire, the first person had been tested positive. Instead of moving infected people out of the camp and improving the living conditions for the people trapped inside, the government planned to completely seal off the entire camp with a double high-security Nato-wired fence and cracked down violently on any protest. (Footnote 2)

Not only do authorities deny any responsibility, there is also reason to assume that the accused cannot expect a fair and just trial. They were presented by authorities as guilty from the moment of their arrest. The Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum stated – only one week after the fire – that “the camp was set on fire by six Afghan refugees who were arrested”, violating their right to a fair trial under the presumption of innocence. Five of the Moria 6 were minors when they were arrested, but only two of them were recognised as such by the Greek state and consequently treated according to the Juvenile Criminal Code.

Concerns have already come to pass when the two officially recognized as minors stood trial in March 2021. At that time, the two had already been held in pre-trial detention for almost six months, the legal maximum period for minors, and consequently should have been released soon. In a hastily convened court hearing that flouted basic procedural standards of fairness (footnote 3), they were found guilty despite lack of evidence and sentenced to five years in prison.

The case of the Moria 6 is not the first time that migrants have been arbitrarily arrested and charged in Greece (see Moria 35). This practice has long been part of the inhumane EU border regime. However, in the current political environment, the criminalisation of migration has reached a new level, as have the illegal pushbacks of migrants by the authorities.

We call for fair and transparent trial on 11th of June!

We stand in solidarity with the Moria 6 & against the deadly European border regime!

We call on the EU and the Greek state to take responsibility for the inhuman camps they purposefully created and for the human suffering that is resulting thereof!
– Stop the containment of people at the margins of the EU!
– End the EU-Turkey Deal!
– No more Morias!
– Free the Moria 6!

++ Sign the appeal, share the information, organise solidarity actions under the hashtag #FreeTheMoria6 ++

All soldarity groups who want to sign, please sent an email by latest 5 June 2021 to freethemoria6@riseup.net

Footnotes:

(1) The fire had been preceded by many smaller ones throughout the years, e.g. caused by faulty wires or during cooking. They claimed the lives of two Kurdish migrants in November 2016, of Faride Tajik in September 2019, and of a 6-year-old girl in March 2020. No state agency, governing institution or camp management official has been held accountable for these fires resulting from overcrowding and a deadly camp infrastructure until this day.

(2) From March to September 2020, while movement restrictions were imposed on the camp, there was continuous protest: against the lack of public health measures, hunger strikes against arbitrary detention, demonstrations following outbreaks of deadly violence. Police responded by blocking the camp’s communication with the outside world, threatening suspected organisers with arrest, sometimes using tear gas and smoke bombs. The response to the fire was no different. The Greek state declared a state of emergency, sent riot police units from Athens to Lesvos, and used tear gas against migrants who had lost all their belongings in the fire and were scattered in the street, camping on the roadsides. The police also failed to protect people when armed far-right groups harassed them.

(3) For instance, the prosecution’s crown witness, who had caused the arrest of the accused through his testimony, did not appear and allegedly could not be located by the authorities. However, the prosecution was permitted to read out his written declaration, despite lawyers’ objection that this violated the defendants’ right to cross examine any witness against them, a fundamental right confirmed by ECHR.

Wir share an article of boderline-europe (https://www.borderline-europe.de/unsere-arbeit/lesbos-mohamad-h-zu-146-jahren-haft-verurteilt?l=en):

Trial report – Lesbos: Mohamad H. sentenced to 146 years in prison

On Thursday, 13th May 2021, refugee Mohamad H. was sentenced to 146 years in prison in the court of Mytilene, Lesbos. The sentence was passed despite the passengers of the boat testiyfing that they owe their lives to the actions of Mohamad. The lawyers will file an appeal.

“Why you did not come to Greece with a ferry or by buying a ticket?” – This one single question posed by the judge to Mohamad captures in a shocking way the absurdiy, the cruel cynism and the complete lack of contact with reality that the arrests and subsequent trials of refugees as “smugglers” in Greece but also everywhere else are based on.

On Thursday, 13th May 2021, the trial of 27-year-old refugee Mohamad H. took place in Mytilene, Lesbos. As previously reported, Mohamad H. was arrested upon arrival for being the “boat driver” of the boat in which he and 33 other passengers tried to reach Greece, and consequently charged with the “transportation of third-country nationals without permission to enter into Greek territory” (smuggling) with the aggravating circumstances of endangering the life of 31 people and causing the death of two. He had tried to save everyone’s life during a shipwreck by somehow steering the boat safely ashore, being a refugee himself with no experience in seafaring. Unfortunately, the boat capsized and two women died (read more).

At the trial, eight people who were in the same boat with Mohamad H. appeared in court in order to defend him. Two of them were accepted as witnesses and to testify before the court. They stated that Mohamad was one of them who just tried to save everyone’s life, that the smuggler was a Turkish man who abandoned them in the sea and that the shipwreck was caused by the actions of the smuggler and the Turkish Coast Guard that did not save them even though they called for help.

However, the judge insisted on the fact that in the preliminary hearing two witnesses pointed to the defendant as the “driver” although the defense stressed that during the preliminary hearing the interpretation was problematic, as it was in English and not in Somali, as well as the fact that they did not point out the defendant as the smuggler but as the person who drove the boat in a situation of distress.

Also Mohamad H. repeated once more that he was a refugee himself and not the smuggler. He explained that he neither knew how to drive a boat nor did he want to and that he only took the wheel in order to save his co-passengers from drowning. He did this without knowing that simply steering a wheel is considered a crime under Greek law.

To this, the judge responded by asking: “How is it possible you did not know that what you were doing was illegal? Then why you did not come to Greece with a ferry or by buying a ticket?”

In light of the fact that there are no safe and legal pathways to enter Europe and claim asylum, this question is not just grotesque and completely out of touch with reality, but cynical and cruel. It is the European policy of deterrence and closed borders that forces people onto makeshift boats and perilous journeys and to risk their lives and the lives of their families. Maybe someone should explain to this court how the European ayslum system works before they sentence a refugee to 146 years because he “did not just take the ferry or buy a ticket”.

The prosecutor’s suggestion on the guilt of the defendant was for him to be found guilty only for the crime of article 30-par.1 point a. (law 4251/2014): “transportation of third-country nationals without permission to enter into Greek territory”. Nevertheless, the judges insisted on the initial accusation of being also guilty of the aggravating circumstances (points c and d of article 30), meaning “endangering people’s lives” and “causing the death of passengers”. They accepted the mitigating circumstance of “prior lawful life” resulting into avoiding the life sentences as well as the money penalty. In more detail, they imposed 15 years incarceration for each deceased person (2 women) and 8 years for each transported person (31 people). Following a procedure called “merging of sentences” in Greek law, this resulted in a final sentence of 146 years.

The defense, the lawyers Dimitris Choulis and Alexandros Georgoulis, will file an appeal against the decision.