9 folks from the UK and the European Union member states are dealing with deportation from Greece days after they took half in a protest in solidarity with Palestine at a Greek college.
A complete of 28 folks had been arrested by Greek police throughout the protest and encampment on the Athens Legislation College on Might 14 on prices together with disturbing the peace, damaging property, trespass in addition to violations of the legal guidelines on weapons and flares, all of which they deny.
Of these arrested, the 9 UK and EU nationals have been designated as “unwanted aliens” and deemed a menace to public order and nationwide safety, dealing with deportation in an uncommon transfer by authorities.
The group of legal professionals representing the 9 non-Greek protesters say they’ll problem the choice to deport them at their trial in Athens set for Tuesday. In a press release, they requested whether or not the precise of free motion of European residents “only applies to tourists and investors and is suspended in the case of political action, especially if it concerns Palestine”.
Based on them, the arrested protesters are at present being held within the Amygdaleza detention centre simply exterior Athens in “deplorable conditions” and with “no interpreters”.
In a press release to Al Jazeera, the 9 non-Greek detainees stated they discovered themselves immediately at a deportation processing centre having been informed they had been being moved to a different police station for doc checks.
They referred to as the choice to deport them “the heftiest punishment” the state may mete out “for the crime” of being inside a college, including, “This revealingly fragile and audacious reaction of the Greek state still wanes in its outrageousness when considered in the context of the very reason the university was occupied: genocide.”
In response to the latest arrests and protests on the universities, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the chief of the right-wing New Democracy get together, which has been in energy since 2019, stated on the day of the arrests that the authorities wouldn’t enable universities to develop into websites for protest over Israel’s warfare on Gaza as has been seen in nations all over the world.
In 2019, the Mitsotakis authorities eliminated decades-old laws which beforehand barred safety providers from getting into college campuses. That regulation had been established within the wake of a call by the army dictatorship, which was in energy from 1967 to 1974, to violently disband a historic pupil protest towards the federal government by forcing its method via the gates of the Athens Polytechnic in 1973 with a tank. It’s estimated that about 24 folks died within the ensuing crackdown and the protest is commonly seen as a key second within the eventual downfall of the dictatorship in 1974.
A ‘pivot’ to Israel
The detentions and the chance of deportation from Greece come amid a sequence of comparable threats that pro-Palestinian pupil protesters have confronted in different Western nations. In early Might, the UK revoked the visa of Dana Abuqamar, a regulation pupil on the College of Manchester, over feedback she had made at a protest rally final yr, which had been seen by many as celebrating the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel, during which 1,139 folks had been killed and about 250 others had been taken captive. She has stated her feedback had been mischaracterised.
In the USA, the place college students at universities throughout the nation have led encampments demanding that their colleges divest from companies with ties to Israel, suspensions of protesters have left them liable to potential deportation.
But, in contrast with the UK and the US, Greece has taken a pro-Palestinian stance, stated Sotiris Roussos, professor within the political science division on the College of Peloponnese. Greece was among the many final European nations to formally recognise Israel as a state, a stance stemming from the nation’s reliance on Arab powers within the wake of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Roussos stated.
Former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, who was in energy via a lot of the Nineteen Eighties, additionally loved a detailed relationship with the previous chief of the Palestinian Liberation Group (PLO), Yasser Arafat.
Nevertheless, for the reason that 2000s, Greece has adopted a extra pro-Israeli coverage, Roussos says. “This strategic shift – you can describe it as a pivot – to Israel is because Greece thought that Israel, Cyprus and Greece could form an alliance in the eastern Mediterranean,” stated Roussos.
Mitsotakis, who was re-elected final yr, has persistently expressed his assist for Israel’s proper to defend itself in keeping with worldwide regulation and met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem quickly after October 7, calling him a “true friend”.
“We stand at this point where this government thinks that if it stands firmly with the Israelis and the Americans, this will increase the defensive capacity of Greece vis-a-vis Turkey,” Roussos stated.
Nevertheless, regardless of Greece’s present political stance, there seems to be rising assist for the Palestinian trigger, notably amongst Greek youth. “You can sense that there is an increase of sympathy for the Palestinians and the Palestinian state,” Roussos stated.
Since October 7, there have been protests on the streets of Athens and different elements of Greece in assist of Palestine. On Might 17, Yanis Varoufakis, the previous Greek finance minister and the final secretary of MeRA25, a left-wing political get together, stated in a press release that the executive detention and deportation of the 9 non-Greek residents was “unprecedented” and demanded their launch.
The Greek police had not responded to a request for remark by Al Jazeera on the time of publication.
