Posts Tagged ‘Greece’

Human Rights Defenders in Greece on trial for baseless charges for assisting people on the move

November 21, 2025

On 18 November 2025 Frontline published an urgent appeal that I – as a resident of Greece – with some shame share [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/07/28/human-rights-defenders-in-greece-my-adopted-country-not-doing-well/]:

On 4 December 2025, 24 human rights defenders, including Seán Binder and Athanasios (Nassos) Karakitsos, will appear before the Mytilene Court of Appeals, on the island of Lesvos. This comes seven years (!!) after their initial arrests. The human rights defenders are facing felony charges of ‘membership of a criminal organisation’, ‘facilitation of the entry of third country nationals into the country’, and ‘money laundering’. The charges stem from work carried out by the defenders in Greece between 2016 and 2018, where they assisted people on the move whose lives were at risk while trying to reach safety to the island of Lesvos. If convicted, they face up to 20 years of imprisonment.

Seán Binder and Athanasios (Nassos) Karakitsos are migrant rights defenders who worked with Emergency Response Center International (ERCI) between 2016 and 2018. The humanitarian work carried out by ERCI was extensive, and included helping more than 1000 people reach safety, organising workshops and swimming classes for migrant children in the Kara Tepe camp, and providing residents in the Moria camp with medical assistance. ERCI was registered as a non-governmental organisation and regularly cooperated with Greek authorities, including with the Greek Coast Guard on rescue operations. The organisation was dissolved after the criminalisation of its members and volunteers.

In September 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeals’ decision, delivered on 13 January 2023, to dismiss four misdemeanour charges of ‘forgery’, ‘espionage’, ‘possession of unlicensed radio’ and ‘infringement of state secrets’ faced by Seán Binder and seven other non-Greek speaking defenders. This was due to procedural flaws, including key documents, such as the indictments, having not been translated for the accused. In January 2024, the remaining sixteen human rights defenders, including Athanasios (Nassos) Karakitsos, were acquitted of the same charges. [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/11/17/greeces-mistaken-deterrence-migrants-and-aid-workers-facing-heavy-prison-sentences/]

On 21 August 2018, Lesvos Police arrested Seán Binder after he attended the police station voluntarily, having learned that another human rights defender had been arrested earlier that day. In the following days, they also arrested Athanasios (Nassos) Karakitsos, the field director of ERCI at the time. The human rights defenders were kept in pre-trial detention for more than one hundred days, accused of ‘people smuggling’, ‘money laundering’, ‘espionage’, and ‘membership of a criminal organisation.’ In December 2018, the human rights defenders were conditionally released on bail.

The upcoming trial is the second court case since 2018 initiated against the 24 human rights defenders based on their work, aiding, assisting and saving the lives of migrants and refugees, who were trapped in the Aegean Sea between Türkiye and Greece.

Front Line Defenders calls on the authorities in Greece to:

Immediately and unconditionally drop all charges against Seán Binder and Athanasios (Nassos) Karakitsos, and the other 22 human rights defenders who are also on trial;

Cease the criminalisation of human rights defenders who peacefully defend the rights of the migrants and refugees, including the humanitarian assistance to save the lives of people stranded at the marine and land borders;
Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in Greece are able to carry
out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions, including judicial harassment.

Download the urgent appeal

https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/human-rights-defenders-trial-baseless-charges-assisting-people-move

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/kerry/north-west-kerry-news/in-limbo-for-seven-years-kerry-man-sean-binder-to-face-trial-in-greece-over-humanitarian-work/a40232245.html

Posted in Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: asylum, Frontline Defenders, Greece, Karakitsos, lesbos, migrants rights defender, refugees, rescue, Seán Binder

Panayote Dimitras – a Greek migrants’ rights defender – suffers judicial harassment

August 22, 2024

August 14, 2024:The recent summons by the Athens Magistrate marks a new development in Mr Dimitras’ long history of judicial harassment, this time also prospecting the criminal prosecution of his wife, constituting a major violation of their right to defend human rights as well as of the recently adopted European Union (EU) anti-SLAPP Directive. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH-OMCT) urges the Greek authorities to put an immediate end to this practice of harassment and to ensure that all human rights defenders in the country can carry out their legitimate activities without hindrance or fear of reprisals.

Judicial harassment of human rights defender Dimitras in Greece

his earlier troubles

Panayote Dimitras is a Greek migrants’ rights defender and Spokesperson of the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) who, over the past ten years, has faced continuous episodes of judicial harassment as well as vicious smear campaigns deliberately aimed at discrediting him and his work. In the latest development, Mr Dimitras and his wife – Nafsika Papanikolatou – were summoned on May 31, 2024, by an Athens Magistrate carrying out a preliminary criminal investigation into alleged breach of trust and money laundering (in violation of paragraph 1 of Article 390 of the Greek Criminal Code and paragraphs 1 b) and 1 c) of Article 39 of Law 4557/2018, respectively), following the opening of a criminal case by the Athens First Instance Prosecutor. Mr Dimitras and Ms Papanikolatou replied to the summons and their file is in the hands of the Athens First Instance Prosecutor since then.

Exactly one year earlier, on May 31, 2023, the Greek Anti-Money Laundering Authority had already ordered the freezing of Mr Dimitras’ and Ms Papanikolatou’s personal account, pending an investigation into alleged misuse of donations to the Communication and Political Research Society (ETEPE) – a non-profit research organisation co-founded in 1990 by Mr Dimitras that manages human rights NGOs like GHM and Minority Rights Group – Greece (MRG-G). The same day the order was issued, Greek media published apparently leaked and inaccurate information about the case, reporting that all Mr Dimitras’ personal assets as well as those of the NGOs headed by him had been frozen, and that the alleged money laundering concerned funding received mainly from the EU “to support human rights causes” that “was used for other purposes than those claimed.” In fact, only a joint personal account of Mr Dimitras and Ms Papanikolatou had been frozen, and Mr Dimitras was accused of misusing, between 2010 and 2015, private donations to ETEPE amounting to 178.666,80 Euros and not EU funding.

Mr Dimitras and Ms Papanikolatou received the official notification from the Anti-Money Laundering Authority only one month and a half after the decision to freeze their personal account was taken, thereby delaying their right to access a remedy. The account freeze was initially ordered for nine months and then renewed for another nine months in February 2024. At the time of publication of this statement, the freeze is still effective notwithstanding Mr Dimitras’ and Ms Papanikolatou’s repeated requests to terminate it.

In another court case, the Three-Member Misdemeanours Court of Athens acquitted, in April 2024, Panayote Dimitras after five years of judicial harassment. Mr Dimitras was prosecuted under criminal charges of “false accusation” and “aggravated defamation” (Articles 229 and 363 of the Criminal Code of Greece, respectively) for having denounced racist comments from a public official, Christos Kalyviotis, who in return filed a complaint against Mr Dimitras for defamation.

The Observatory recalled, already at that time, that the procedure initiated by Mr Kalyviotis was only one of many abusive cases brought against Mr Dimitras over the past few years and constitutive of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), abusive civil proceedings aimed at criminalising human rights defenders and journalists.

Notably, since November 2022 a criminal case is ongoing against Panayote Dimitras at the Kos Court of First Instance in which he is accused of “forming or joining for profit and by profession a criminal organisation with the purpose of facilitating the entry and stay of third country nationals into Greek territory” under several articles of Law 4251/2014 (Immigration and Social Integration Code), for having provided humanitarian assistance to asylum-seekers. On January 23, 2023, preventive measures were imposed pending trial. Mr Dimitras was banned from carrying out activities with the GHM, a measure which was subsequently lifted. He was also banned from leaving the country, subjected to the obligation to report to the police station of his place of residence every 15 days, and required to pay a bail of 10,000 Euros.

More than one-and-a-half year later, these last three measures are still in place, with the consequence that Mr Dimitras cannot travel abroad for GHM human rights activities. In August 2023, he requested that the travel ban be lifted so that he could attend international meetings, and to be allowed temporarily to report to the police station in Kelafonia, where he has a summer home. Both requests were rejected by the First Instance Court of Kos. The European Parliament expressed concern about these measures in its resolution of February 7, 2024, on the rule of law and media freedom in Greece (2024/2502(RSP)). The responses provided by the Supreme Court and the Greek government to the resolution are of particular concern and seem to constitute both smear campaigns against Mr Dimitras as well as violations to his right to a fair trial, as it was falsely claimed that he had been arrested and that he had contacted a human smuggler.

The Observatory recalls that the anti-SLAPP Directive adopted by the European Parliament entered into force on May 6, 2024. The Observatory encourages the Greek authorities to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive and to ensure its effective implementation to protect human rights defenders from abusive proceedings.

The Observatory expresses concern about the continued judicial harassment against Mr Dimitras and its recent enlargement towards his wife. The Observatory urges the Greek authorities to put an immediate end to all acts of harassment against Panayote Dimitras and Nafsika Papanikolatou and to allow their free exercise of the right to defend human rights.

https://www.fidh.org/en/region/europe-central-asia/greece/greece-continued-judicial-harassment-of-migrants-rights-defender

https://www.fidh.org/en/issues/human-rights-defenders/greece-continued-judicial-harassment-against-migrants-rights-defender

Posted in FIDH, Human Rights Defenders, Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, OMCT | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Greece, Greek Helsinki Monitor, Human rights defender, judicial harassment, migrants rights defender, Observatory for the Protection of HRDs, Panayote Dimitras, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)

Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner lends voice to refugee defenders

March 11, 2024

Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo reported in the Guardian of 22 February 2024 that people and groups who assist asylum seekers are reporting a disturbing trend of escalating intimidation, with aid workers facing direct threats including being held at gunpoint and having their phone communications monitored by government authorities, according to a report from the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights.

Dunja Mijatović has warned of increasing harassment and in some cases criminalisation of people and groups who assist refugees, especially in Hungary, Greece, Lithuania, Italy, Croatia and Poland. [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/11/17/greeces-mistaken-deterrence-migrants-and-aid-workers-facing-heavy-prison-sentences/ and https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/10/09/mary-lawlor-condemns-criminalization-of-those-saving-lives-in-the-mediterranean/]

“Organisations and people assisting refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants have been subjected to beatings, had their vehicles or equipment destroyed, or have been targeted by vandalism of their property, and even by arson or bomb attacks,” she wrote.

A recent example was the bombing on 5 January of the office of Kisa, an NGO assisting refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Cyprus. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/01/19/attack-against-cypriot-anti-racism-ngo-kisa/]

Mijatović said she had observed in certain member states how authorities had engaged with human rights defenders in an aggressive or intimidating manner. During the humanitarian crisis at the Poland-Belarus border, thousands of refugees from the Middle East were offered a route by the Lukashenko regime to try to reach the EU from Belarus, highlighting the restrictions by Poland on access to the border zone for people and organisations providing humanitarian assistance and legal aid.

The commissioner noted how “the emergence of an approach in which migration issues are increasingly addressed by member states from a security perspective” had led to the building of fences and deployment of military personnel, equipment and surveillance in border areas that has also affected NGOs.

“These physical obstacles deny asylum seekers the chance to seek protection and the right to a fair and efficient asylum procedure [and] this approach has also created an extremely difficult environment for human rights defenders,” she wrote.

“Those who assist refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants may be seen by states as an obstacle to the implementation of asylum and migration policies focused on deterrence and security, and therefore are faced with hostility. The rolling back of human rights, which is often part of states’ policies in this area, also leads to measures explicitly or implicitly targeting those helping.”

NGO rescue boats have also faced violence, including the use of firearms, from non-European countries with which Council of Europe member states cooperate on external migration control. NGO workers on some of these vessels have documented how often the Libyan coastguard has fired gunshots and endangered crew members and people in distress in the central Mediterranean. [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/12/18/international-migrants-day-the-story-of-the-ocean-viking/]

Mijatović also noted the growing use of surveillance technologies. “During discussions for the preparation of this document concerns were raised that, in some member states, pervasive surveillance activities created mounting challenges for human rights defenders, including lawyers and journalists,” she wrote.

“Governments, in the name of national security concerns, often employ advanced surveillance tools to intercept communications and monitor online activities, including human rights defenders’ social media.”

In 2022, the Greek journalists Thanasis Koukakis and Stavros Malichudis were allegedly targeted for investigating sensitive topics such as financial crime cases and migration. The Italian justice minister in 2021 dispatched inspectors to Sicily after revelations that prosecutors had intercepted hundreds of telephone conversations involving no fewer than 15 journalists and covering migration issues and aid workers in the central Mediterranean.

Mijatović wrote: “Invasive surveillance practices, whether through physical surveillance, phone and internet tapping or by using spyware not only infringes on the personal security and privacy of individual human rights defenders, but also threaten the confidentiality between human rights defenders and the refugees, asylum seekers and migrants they assist, which is often crucial to working effectively.”

She added that people helping refugees, asylum seekers and migrants often experience extremely high levels of online hate and even death threats. Human rights defenders who are themselves refugees or from an ethnic minority background may also receive racist abuse, online and offline.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/feb/22/people-helping-asylum-seekers-in-europe-face-rising-violence-report-warns

Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: asylum, Belarus, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, Europe, Greece, Human Rights Defenders, Immigration, KISA, Lorenzo Tondo, migration defenders, refugee rights, refugees, rescue-at-sea

Human rights defenders in Greece, my adopted country: not doing well

July 28, 2022

Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, conducted an official visit to Greece from 13 to 22 June 2022, to assess the government’s efforts towards creating an enabling environment for those seeking to protect and promote human rights.

Human rights defenders in Greece, particularly those working on migration, operate in an environment of pervasive fear and insecurity, concluded Mary Lawlor. “I am concerned about the increasing criminalization of humanitarian assistance in Greece. Solidarity should never be punished and compassion should never be put on trial,” she said while presenting her preliminary findings at the end of a 10-day mission in the country.

With Greece facing intense international criticism over unlawful pushbacks of migrants at its borders and wider human rights concerns related to migration and asylum, the Greek government has moved to silence groups and individuals documenting these abuses. While acknowledging Greece’s migration challenges and government efforts to address them, Lawlor criticized burdensome rules for the registration of nongovernmental organizations working on migration, introduced in 2019, calling them discriminatory and in violation of Greece’s international human rights obligations. See my earlier: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/11/17/greeces-mistaken-deterrence-migrants-and-aid-workers-facing-heavy-prison-sentences/

The UN expert noted that human rights defenders not only face criminal sanctions for their activities, but are operating in an increasingly hostile environment where the general public is influenced by negative rhetoric from high-ranking officials and their unfavorable portrayal in the media, which often conflates their activities with traffickers and criminal networks.

Greece fell 38 positions within a year in Reporters Without Borders’ 2022 report on the Press Freedom Index, with the organization marking it the lowest-ranked European Union country for press freedom. “Journalists who counter the government’s narrative on the management of migration flows are often under pressure and lack access to mainstream media outlets.… Journalists reporting on corruption are sometimes facing threats and even charges,” Lawlor said. She noted that journalists have very limited or no access to facilities where migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are being held, further contributing to a general lack of transparency regarding the government’s policies in this area.

Lawlor will present a detailed report with her findings at the March 2023 session of the UN Human Rights Council. The government should listen to what the UN expert has to say and champion human rights defenders. The European Commission, which noted in July last year the narrowing space in Greece for groups working with migrants and asylum seekers, should step up its engagement on the issue and press Greece to stop harassing civil society groups and activists.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/media-advisories/2022/06/un-human-rights-expert-visit-greece-assess-situation-human-rights

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/06/greece-migration-policy-having-suffocating-effect-human-rights-defenders

https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/europe-and-central-asia/greece/report-greece/

Greek court fails human rights defenders on antisemitism

February 18, 2022

greek orthodox bishop seraphim hate speech — Greek Orthodox Bishop Seraphim of Piraeus. Two activists were found to have falsely accused him of hate speech by a Greek court on Tuesday. Credit: Ewiki/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0

Several newspapers (here Anna Wichmann for GreekReporter of 16 February 2022) commented on the rather surprising ruling by a Greek court that two human rights activists falsely accused a Greek Orthodox bishop of hate speech and sentenced them to year-long prison sentences that were suspended for three years.

Bishop Seraphim, who is the Metropolitan of Piraeus, was acquitted on charges of hate speech. The bishop has made what many believe are both coded and explicit references to antisemitic tropes many times. For example when Greece introduced new legislation to expand rights for gay and lesbian couples in 2015, he claimed that an “international Zionist monster” was behind the bill.

He also claimed that Jews themselves funded and planned the Holocaust and charged that they were the reason for Greece’s financial troubles on Greek television five years ago. After his statement about the Holocaust began to garner controversy, the Greek Orthodox Bishop clarified that it was his own opinion and not that of the Greek Orthodox Church.

These comments were seen as extremely troubling in a country whose once vibrant Jewish community was nearly wiped out during the Holocaust, and antisemitic rhetoric and attacks, usually in the form of vandalism, are still a major problem.

The accused brought a formal complaint against the Bishop in 2017 in which they claimed he fueled hatred and incited violence against Greece’ Jewish minority with his inflammatory statements about Jews and the Holocaust. They also claimed that he had abused his office.

The prosecutor dismissed the activists’ complaint in 2019, but the Bishop decided to file his own motion against the activists for falsely accusing him of hate speech, and the prosecutor subsequently formally charged the accused in November.

Greece passed Law No. 4285/2014 in 2014, which criminalized hate speech — particularly speech which incites violence — and genocide denial. The law reads “Anyone, who publicly incites, provokes, or stirs, either orally or through the press, the Internet, or any other means, acts of violence or hatred against a person or group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, in a manner that endangers the public order and exposes the life, physical integrity, and freedom of persons defined above to danger, will be punished by imprisonment of from three months to three years and a fine of €5,000 to €20,000.”

Human rights groups around the world paid careful attention to the case; many believed that bringing the activists to trial alone was a sign of an alarming shift of the judicial system’s role in the country as a force against activists.

Amnesty International stated on social media that “The ruling poses a direct threat to the right to freedom of expression and has a chilling effect on human rights defenders advocating against racism and hate speech.”

Andrea Gilbert, one of the accused, who works for the Greek Helsinki Monitor rights group, expressed her outrage at the verdict to The Guardian: “Today’s outrageous verdict is representative of the institutionalized antisemitism that exists in Greece…We have immediately appealed and will fight it all the way.”

Activists and people who work for NGOs argue that the trial epitomizes how difficult it is for them to work in Greece.

“Human rights defenders (in Greece) are consistently targeted for their legitimate work…(They) face different types of attacks, including surveillance, judicial harassment, arbitrary arrests, detentions, ill-treatment, entry bans and expulsions,” the international secretariat of the World Organization Against Torture stated to The Guardian.

Although not included in the activists’ initial complaint of hate speech against Greek Orthodox Bishop Seraphim, he is also known to express what many believe are homophobic sentiments.

He has claimed that homosexuality brings about disease and can be “carcinogenic.” He has also called homosexuality an issue of “psychopathology” rather than sexuality.

In 2021, when Greece was hit with catastrophic wildfires that destroyed vast swaths of land and thousands of houses, Seraphim released a statement in which he hinted that the fires were a punishment for Greece adopting legislation that expanded the rights of gay people, writing:

“With love I would say to our leaders that when they show off the subversion of human ontology and human nature and institutionalize it as a “human right,” despite the fact that it doesn’t have any relationship with human nature, and they view it as a plus on their CV for advancement in their position of authority, they don’t understand that this is hubris, and each instance of hubris requires purification and ‘just repayment.’”

https://greekreporter.com/2022/02/16/greek-bishop-hate-speech-seraphim/embed/#?secret=PjaG4AEUTf#?secret=1rJoahvQnx

https://www.dw.com/en/dangerous-orthodoxy-greek-human-rights-activists-sentenced-for-challenging-clerical-antisemitism/av-60818537

https://ecre.org/greece-aegean-sea-unmonitored-as-crackdown-on-civil-society-continues-new-violent-pushbacks-amid-collective-deportations-from-turkey-to-syria-new-lesvos-camp-in-high-risk-area/

Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: Antisemitism, Bishop Seraphim, court, defamation, freedom of expression, Greece, Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM), hate speech, OMCT

Greece’s mistaken deterrence: migrants and aid workers facing heavy prison sentences

November 17, 2021

An abandoned life jacket in the Aegean Sea in 2016 | Photo: Picture-alliance/AP Photo/L.Pitarakis

A post by Marion MacGregor published on 15 November 2021in ‘Infomigrants’ brings out an awful truth which I have to face up to even though Greece is my adopted country. In the face of Turkey ‘weaponsing’ migrants, it is trying its hands at deterrence in the hope that it will diminish the pressure of inflows

Greece and other European countries are increasingly using the threat of criminal proceedings against aid workers and those migrants who ended up being marked as migrant smugglers.

Hanad Abdi Mohammad is in prison, he says, because of something he was forced to do. The Somali is serving an impossibly long sentence of 142 years (!) after he was convicted last December for driving an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants to Greece. He says that he didn’t have a choice, because the smuggler hit him in the face and threatened him with a gun before abandoning the boat in rough seas. As 28-year-old Mohammad told journalists and members of the European Parliament who visited the prison last week, he “didn’t think saving people is a crime.”

In the same prison on the Greek island of Chios two men from Afghanistan, Amir Zaheri and Akif Rasouli, both in their 20s, are also serving sentences of 50 years for similar criminal offences. The men’s convictions and staggering prison terms show how far Greece is ready to go in order to stop migrants in their tracks.

On the day the smuggler abandoned them at sea between Turkey and Greece, Mohammad and nearly three dozen other migrants were only concerned about their lives. Mohammad says that he called the Turkish coast guard repeatedly, begging to be rescued. But when it arrived, the Turkish patrol boat circled the migrants’ dinghy sending water into the boat and gradually pushing it toward Greece. In the chaos, two women fell overboard and drowned, AP reports.

The survivors were finally rescued by the Greek coast guard, and Mohammad helped others onto the rescue boat. He admitted to having driven the boat after the smuggler left. It didn’t cross his mind that would lead to him being prosecuted as a smuggler.

“It’s not possible that someone who comes to claim asylum in Greece is threatened with such heavy sentences simply because they were forced, by circumstances or pressure, to take over handling a boat,” one of the lawyers representing the three imprisoned in Chios, Alexandros Georgoulis, told AP. Greek authorities, he said, “are essentially baptizing the smuggled as the smuggler.”

From file: Sara Mardini and Seán Binder | Screenshot from Amnesty International Ireland

Greek authorities have also accused aid workers and volunteers helping migrants in Greece of serious crimes. In one widely publicized case, the Syrian human rights worker Sara Mardini, a refugee herself, and an Irish volunteer Sean Binder were arrested and detained for months in 2018 on suspicion of espionage, money laundering, human trafficking and other offenses. Due to face trial on the island of Lesbos alongside 22 other civil society activists later this week, Binder says he is “terrified.”

“I’ve had a taste of life in prison on Chios. It was all scabies and bed bugs with 17 of us packed in a cell,” Binder told The Guardian. “The police holding cells were even worse, the most awful place on earth; squalid, windowless rooms full of asylum seekers just there because authorities had nowhere else to put them.”

Giorgos Kosmopoulos, a campaigner with an Amnesty International group which plans to monitor the trial in Greece, says that this is not only happening there. “Human rights defenders across Europe are being criminalized … for helping refugees and migrants,” he told The Guardian. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/10/09/mary-lawlor-condemns-criminalization-of-those-saving-lives-in-the-mediterranean/

AP reports that, according to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Germany, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Spain and Greece have initiated 58 investigations and legal proceedings since 2016 against private entities involved in search and rescue.

“I think it’s important to challenge these in the courts, to not at all sit back and accept that we should be cast as smugglers or spies because I offered CPR, (or) more often than not just a smile, to someone in distress,” Binder told the news agency. “It is preposterous that we should be cast as criminals. I don’t accept it….It doesn’t matter who you are, you don’t deserve to drown in the sea.“

Binder told The Guardian that he has not bought a return ticket to the UK, where he has been studying. He and Mardini face a maximum eight-year sentence, convertible into a fine. They are still under investigation for offences which could carry 25-year sentences if they are convicted.

In my view, the problem can only be tackled in a European context [see e.g. https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/legal-migration-and-integration_en%5D but it seems most member states cling to outdated notion of sovereignty.

Not directly related but possibly relevant is recent legislation in Greece, adopted on November 11, 2021, that makes it a criminal offence to spread “fake news.” Human Rights Watch said that the Greek government should immediately move to revoke the provision, which is incompatible with freedom of expression and media freedom. “In Greece, you now risk jail for speaking out on important issues of public interest, if the government claims it’s false,” said Eva Cossé, Greece researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The criminal sanctions risk making journalists and virtually anyone else afraid to report on or to debate important issues such as the handling of Covid-19 or migration or government economic policy.”

While the trial began Thursday, it was almost immediately suspended. The court’s decision to adjourn, said 27-year-old Binder, a diver and German national, “is further proof of the absurdity of this case.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/11/18/drop-charges-greece-delays-trial-humanitarians-who-aided-refugees-sea

https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/36487/greece-migrants-and-aid-workers-facing-decades-in-prison

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/kerryman/news/kerry-aid-worker-faces-trial-in-greece-41058865.html

https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/17/greece-alleged-fake-news-made-crime

https://reliefweb.int/report/greece/greece-guilty-verdict-migrant-rights-defenders-could-mean-more-deaths-sea-un-expert

https://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/politics/2021/11/19/trial-of-aid-workers-in-greece-is-adjourned-amid-protests_5de29280-fde8-4c77-b7c2-ef878c497157.html

and on 12 April: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/04/un-committee-enforced-disappearances-publishes-findings-greece-and-niger

Posted in Amnesty international, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 3 Comments »
Tags: 'Infomigrants, Amnesty International, criminalisation, deterrence, Eva Cossé, fake news, Greece, HRW, migrants rights defender, migration, refugees, rescue-at-sea, Sara Mardini, Sean Binder

Historic Conviction Against Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party

October 8, 2020

Justice Delivered in Greece

Magda Fyssa, the mother of late Greek rap singer Pavlos Fyssas, who was stabbed and killed by a supporter of the extreme right Golden Dawn party in 2013, celebrates immediately after the delivery of the verdict in Athens, October 7, 2020. © 2020 AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris

Living in Greece as I do, I can only warmly endorse the reactions of the international human rights community (here Human Rights Watch): In a momentous ruling today, an Athens appeals court found that the far-right neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party was operating as a criminal organization. The court also found that members of the group orchestrated or colluded in the 2013 murder of 34-year-old antifascist activist and rapper Pavlos Fyssas, the 2013 murder of 27-year-old Pakistani national Shehzad Luqman, and numerous brutal attacks against migrants, trade unionists, and human rights defenders.

It’s a landmark victory for the victims, their families, and civil society says HRW. An estimated 20,000 people who gathered in downtown Athens erupted in cheers when they heard the verdict. Magda Fyssa cried out, “You did it, my son!” perhaps finally finding some meaning in the otherwise senseless loss of her son Pavlos.

People holding a banner depicting Greek rap singer Pavlos Fyssas, who was stabbed and killed by a supporter of the extreme right Golden Dawn party in 2013, gather for a protest outside a court in Athens, Wednesday, October 7, 2020. © 2020 AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis

It has been a long time coming. Back in 2010-2013, when Golden Dawn flourished, Greece saw an epidemic of violence. In 2011-2012, we documented dozens of attacks on foreigners, who had been beaten, kicked, and chased down the streets of Athens by gangs of Greeks linked to Golden Dawn. Victims included migrants and asylum seekers, pregnant women, and children. Many attacks went unpunished, with police doing little to intervene and courts to hold perpetrators to account.

In January 2012, Golden Dawn leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos sat across a table from us and denied any involvement in violence. Now he and seven other former lawmakers are facing sentences of up to 15 years in jail for leading a violent, criminal organization. Many others await sentencing for membership.

Talking about Golden Dawn, Michaloliakos said to us, “We want Greece to belong to the Greeks … if that makes us racist, then yes we are.”

Today’s verdict, along with the massive crowd outside the courtroom, sends the clear message that these hateful ideas, and the violence that Golden Dawn spawned, are not welcome in Greek society anymore.

Mandela Prize 2020 awarded to Greek and Guinean humanitarians

July 22, 2020

UN Photo/Ariana LindquistUnveiling Ceremony of Nelson Mandela Statue from South Africa 17 July 2020

The 2020 Nelson Mandela Prize {SEE: http://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/nelson-mandela-prize-un] is awarded every five years and recognizes those who dedicate their lives to the service of humanity, will go to Marianna Vardinoyannis, of Greece, and Doctor Morissana Kouyaté, of Guinea, it was announced on Friday.

United Nations Marianna V. Vardinoyannis, female laureate of the 2020 United Nations Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Prize.

The President of the General Assembly, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, made the announcement, and will recognize the laureates during a virtual ceremony on 20 July, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. An in-person award ceremony will take place at a later date, at UN Headquarters in New York.

Ms. Vardinoyannis is the founder and president of two foundations dedicated to children: the “Marianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation” and “ELPIDA Friends’ Association of Children with cancer.”

She has been involved in the fight against child cancer for some 30 years and, thanks to her work, thousands of children have been cured. Notably, the ELPIDA association was instrumental in setting up the first bone marrow transplant unit in Greece, in 1999, and the country’s first oncology hospital for children, in 2010.

Her foundation also supports programmes for the medical care of refugee children and other vulnerable social groups, human rights education, programmes, and the fight against human trafficking. Ms. Vardinoyannis has been a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador since 1999.

United Nations Morissanda Kouyate, male laureate of the 2020 United Nations Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Prize.

As Executive Director of the Inter-African Committee on Harmful Traditional Practices (IAC), Dr. Kouyaté is a leading figure in efforts to end violence against women in Africa, including Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). He has received several international humanitarian awards for his work.

Dr. Kouyaté created IAC in 1984 in Dakar, Senegal, at a time when FGM was a highly controversial and sensitive issue for discussion. The organization aims, through education, to change attitudes towards the practice, and allow all African women and children to fully enjoy their human rights, free from the consequences of FGM, and other harmful practices.

It is a partner organization with the UN reproductive rights agency (UNFPA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UN childrens’ agency (UNICEF).

“I am pleased to join you to celebrate the life and achievements of Nelson Mandela – one of the greatest leaders of our time, a moral giant whose legacy continues to guide us today”, Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message to the virtual General Assembly commemoration.

Quoting Madiba Mr. Guterres said: “As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest”.

Maintaining that “inequality damages everyone”, the UN chief said it was “a brake on human development and opportunities”.

“The answer lies in a New Social Contract, to ensure economic and social justice and respect for human rights”, stressed the UN chief.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/07/1068721

https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/07/1068571

Posted in awards, UN | Leave a Comment »
Tags: awards, children's rights, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Greece, Guinea, health, humanitarian workers, Marianna Vardinoyannis, Morissana Kouyaté, Nelson Mandela International Day, Nelson Mandela Prize (UN), New York

Oak Human Rights Fellow is migrants’ rights defender Nasim Lomani

June 13, 2020

On 12 June 2020 the Oak Institute for Human Rights announced as the 2020 Oak Human Rights Fellow: Nasim Lomani, a human rights defender and migrants’ rights activist, who has been working in Greece and across the EU for over a decade.

As a then 16-year-old Afghanistani, Lomani left for Greece nearly two decades ago. Upon arrival, he was arrested and charged with illegal crossing of the Greek border, ultimately serving a two-year prison sentence. During the process of appealing to the court for having his rights as a refugee abused and violated, he learned about the bureaucratic difficulties that all migrants face while trying to enter Europe. He joined a number of solidarity groups, such as the Network for Social Support to Immigrants and Refugees and the Migrants’ Social Center in Athens, where he coordinated free language classes and the Athens Anti-racist Festival. He also engaged in solidarity work that involved lawyers, human rights defenders, as well as refugees and migrants.

In Greece, Lomani, founded City Plaza – Refugees Accommodation Solidarity Space in Athens – where he organized daily life for migrants, managed media communication, coordinated international volunteers, and served as the public representative to researchers, students, and academics. City Plaza, once one of the largest solidarity migrant accommodations in Athens, was an abandoned hotel in central Athens repurposed to offer migrants the right to live in dignity in the urban space with access to social, economic, and political rights. Lomani lived inside the now-closed City Plaza for the entirety of its existence. Over almost three and half years, it welcomed 3,000 people, lodging up to 400 at a time. The story of City Plaza is known as an example of self-organization, self-management, and everyday processes to help empower refugees. In essence, it was a political statement against Europe’s use of militarized borders, repression, and systematic violation of human rights and refugees’ rights.

Lomani was also involved in organizing the largest NoBorder refugee and migrant solidarity camp to date, leading to the closure of the Pagani Detention Center on Lesvos island in 2009.

Lomani is at increasing risk, as migration solidarity work and defending human rights in Greece, and Europe at large has been criminalized in recent years. Helping refugees and criticizing the human rights violations by authorities is now a major offense by both national and European law. In Greece, this has led to large-scale evictions of housing sites for refugees and asylum seekers and to increasing arrests and trials of activists on the ground.

Lomani has been active in the human rights field since he was a child, so the Oak Fellowship will come as a much-needed respite.

Established in 1997 by a grant from the Oak Foundation, the Oak Institute for Human Rights hosts a Fellow each year. The fellowship offers an opportunity to spend the fall semester in residence at Colby, where they teach, conduct research, and raise awareness about important global human rights issues.

http://www.colby.edu/news/2020/06/12/migrants-rights-activist-to-be-2020-oak-human-rights-fellow/

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Tags: Afghanistan, City Plaza, Europe, Greece, Housing rights, Human rights defender, migrants rights defender, Nasim Lomani, Oak Human Rights Fellow, Oak Institute for Human Rights, profile, Refugee

Refugees and migrants in camp conditions at high risk of COVID-19

March 30, 2020

Women in the Ponte Galeria immigration detention center near Rome, Italy May 6, 2017. © 2020 Reuters/Steve Scherer

On 27 March 2020 HRW Europe said that people in immigration detention in European countries pending deportation should be given alternatives to detention amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “While entire societies learn to live under lockdown, we shouldn’t forget about people locked up because they have the wrong papers,” said Judith Sunderland, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Authorities across Europe should take measures to protect the health and rights of detainees and staff in immigration detention centers, including by releasing people and finding alternatives to detention.” ….As travel bans increasingly prevent forced returns and courts limit their activities, the reason that thousands of people across the EU and other European states may be held in detention – imminent deportation – is no longer justified. The EU Returns Directive allows detention pending deportation for up to 18 months, but stipulates that if “a reasonable prospect of removal no longer exists…detention ceases to be justified and the person concerned shall be released immediately.”

Amnesty International issues a call for action re Greece: While the world is facing the crisis of COVID-19 pandemic, the risks for refugees in the Greek islands are multiplying by the hour. Thousands of older people, people with chronic diseases, children, pregnant women, new mothers and people with disabilities are trapped there in dangerously overcrowded conditions. Now, they also face the threat of the COVID 19 pandemic, the consequences of which would be catastrophic for those confined in camps. In addition to protecting the rest of the population, the Greek Government must take immediate measures to protect refugees from the pandemic and move them to safety.

…In a statement of principles on the treatment of prisoners and detainees amid the COVID-19 crisis, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, a body of the CoE, asked authorities to use alternatives to detention “and refrain, to the maximum extent possible, from detaining migrants.” On March 25, its sister body, the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture urged all states to reduce populations in detention centers and refugee camps “to the lowest possible level.” The same day, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said governments should “work quickly to reduce the number of people in detention” to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 “rampaging through such…extremely vulnerable populations.” On March 26, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović echoed the call to release detainees from immigration detention to the extent possible.

Moroever, we should not forget that more than three quarters of refugees live in developing countries in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. As the Reuters and Al-Jazeeraa stories (link below) makes clear, a COVID-19 outbreak would put extraordinary strain on fragile local health-care services and likely result in avoidable suffering and death. Preventing or delaying outbreaks, particularly among the most vulnerable, is the most important action we can take right now.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/27/europe-curb-immigration-detention-amid-pandemic

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-refugees/just-one-case-fears-coronavirus-may-spread-like-wildfire-in-worlds-refugee-camps-idUSKBN21F0OW

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/front-worry-covid-19-spreading-african-refugee-camps-200329054029304.html

Posted in AI, HRW, human rights | Leave a Comment »
Tags: AI, Corona virus, Covid-19, detention centre, Greece, HRW, medical care, migrants, Policy response from Human Rights NGOs to COVID, refugees

Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards