Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.12.2009, Qupperneq 10

10
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2009 In late October, Grapevine dispatched journalist Haukur Már Helgason to Athens, Greece, so
he could provide our readers with insight on the situation faced by our asylum seekers when
we dispose of them. Read his full report below.
Athens, city center, October 2009.
In the church square Aghios
Pantaleimonas some 300 people have
gathered for an anti-racist concert,
reclaiming the square occupied by
fascists earlier in the year. The fascist
gangs stabbed and injured immigrants
who dared show up. They also beat up
a priest for showing sympathy to the
foreigners. In June 2009, “anarchists
and people in solidarity unlocked the
playground at Aghios Panteleimonas,
which had been sealed so as not to be
used by the children of immigrant
residents” and were eventually gassed
by the police.1 One man who brought
his child to the playground was
arrested for refusing to leave, allegedly
“to protect him from the fascists” who
menaced the protestors from behind
the police squads.
The anti-racist concert at the end of
October felt as peaceful as life inside a
condensed gas container —riot-police
squads stayed ready on every street
corner in a kilometre’s radius from
the square. It was not far from here
where a 15 year old activist was shot
dead by police during demonstrations
in December of 2008, sparking riots all
around Greece. The police remained
neutral this time, however, arresting
young men ready with clubs and racist
intentions already at noon. Activists
were bewildered, hopeful that it might
signal a change in policy after a left-
wing government took office in early
October. But only moderately hopeful.
“With their tanks and their bombs, and
their bombs and their guns, in your
head, in your head, they are crying …” –
the Cranberries’ Zombie was blasted in
between acts, a song that never before
had sent shivers down my spine.
Politics in the
street
Greek politics take place on the
street: the fascists are actual fascists,
they go around in herds and beat up
immigrants. Many of them vote for
the Popular Orthodox Rally, which
gathered more than 7% support
and two seats in the 2009 election
for the European Parliament. More
are openly supportive of violence;
however, it is the minor 0.5% ‘Golden
Dawn’ party, which describes itself as
“uncompromisingly nationalist.” Links
between active members and the police
are not only witnessed by activists,
but acknowledged by ministers as
a problem.2 The current left-wing
government consists of a large social-
democrat party, the Communist Party,
Coalition of the Radical Left and the
Ecologist Green party.3 The matter of
division which unites various left-wing
forces and anarchists against fascists,
right-wing and central-right parties,
and frequently against the police, is
immigration.
In the first half of 2009, 140
thousand people applied for asylum
in European countries.4 Nearly half
first arrive in Greece.5 The Dublin II
regulation, fully implemented in 2006,
allows member-states of the Schengen-
zone to transfer asylum seekers to the
country they first arrived in within the
zone. Some states, such as Iceland,
apply this clause to transfer people
back whenever possible, making it
hard for any asylum seeker who sets
foot in Greece to get any further. Since
the pressure this creates on border
states was fully foreseeable, Greece is
subsidized by the EU to process these
cases and provide people with shelter.
The money, however, seems to go
towards something else.
Local activists and the immigrants
on whose behalf they fight are to a
large extent separate communities.
The situation of many immigrants is
too precarious for most of them to take
an active part in the struggle. Yet ties
between the groups are created through
language courses and other initiatives
within the city’s social centres,
hangouts created by activists, most
dense in Exarkheia, a neighbourhood
populated by immigrants and activist
movements. Next to Exarkheia lies
Omonia, home to many irregular,
paperless immigrants who sleep on
the street or share accommodation for
as cheap as possible. “I know of a house
where fifty people sleep in one room,
on three eight hour shifts through
every 24 hours,” one source tells me.
“It’s not that unusual.”
The police presence in these two
neighbourhoods is overwhelming—
the days I was there, police hardly ever
left my field of vision. Literally. “They
say they’re fighting crime, but they’re
mainly suppressing the activism.”
iraq—iceland
I am here to meet Nour Aldin
Alazzawi, a 19 year old Iraqi who first
arrived in Greece by boat in 2006, with
his mother and sister. Just like his
father, a translator, Nour worked for
the US forces in Iraq.
In 2006 members of the Sahwa
movement6 killed Nour’s father for
supporting the US. Shortly afterwards
Nour was kidnapped by another group,
but was spared as they collected a
$12.000 ransom from his mother.
After these incidents, Nour’s mother
decided the family would emigrate.
Nour was 16 when they went to Syria,
where a total of 1.2 million displaced
Iraqis currently reside.7 His mother
remains there, but in 2007 Nour
travelled, with his brother and younger
sister through Turkey to Greece. “I
always wanted to go to Europe, since
I was a child,” Nour tells me. “To live
a simple and peaceful life. But when
we arrived the Greek police caught
us and took our fingerprints.” Part of
the Dublin II system is a fingerprint
database common to the member-
states of Schengen, monitoring the
travels of paperless immigrants.
The siblings intended to reunite
with their oldest brother, who lives in
Belgium. They travelled to Belgium
and filed an application for asylum. The
fingerprints database, however, did its
job and the three were ‘Dublinned’
back to Greece. Back on the street in
Athens, Nour’s sister went back to their
mother in Syria, while the young men
went on looking for more permanent
shelter.
“I decided to go to Canada,”
says Nour, “because they lie outside
Schengen and don’t have my
fingerprints.” Nour travelled by train,
on the required false passport, to
Norway. From Norway he booked
a flight to Canada, with transit in
Iceland. In August of 2008, Icelandic
border patrol caught him. “The police
discovered I had a false passport. They
put me in a camp,”—Fit Hostel, in
Njarðvík—where Icelandic authorities
offer asylum seekers accommodation,
close to the airport, far away from city
life.
“The camp was not good. I had
nothing to do but sleep. But my mother
told me: if you want something you
must wait and you must fight. So I
waited. In March of 2009, the police
picked me up and said they would ship
me back to Greece. In the middle of the
night, they changed their mind again.
I don’t know why.” In fact, on many
fronts people were putting pressure
on the recently elected socialist
government to change Iceland’s
deportation policy. The Red Cross
urged that asylum seekers would not
be transferred to Greece in the name
of the Dublin II regulation.8 “So we
remained in Iceland and this time I
expected to stay there still. I started
learning the language.”
“Then I found a job and applied for
a work permit. And they gave me a
six month work permit”— valid till
the end of 2009. As Nour got work in
two different cafés, he moved to the
Reykjavík city centre. In the collectivist
enterprise Café Hljómalind, Nour
established close relations to many
people. “Then in October, I got a
negative answer from the Minister of
Justice. I asked my lawyer why. She
said: the reason is you don’t have any
relation to Iceland, no friends, no work
and you don’t speak Icelandic. But it’s
not true! The only thing that makes me
stay in Iceland is the good people there,
the friends that I have now. There are
many people who love me and I love
them.
Two or three weeks later, the police
called me where I was in my apartment
and they told me: We are down by the
door and want to speak with you. Please
come and open up for us. I opened the
door, and one of them told me: ‘Time to
go.’ I said: ‘Are you joking? Go where?’
– ‘Time to go back to Greece.’ ‘No way!’
I said. After all this time, one year
and two months in Iceland, they will
send me back to Greece! Why? They
replied: ‘Because Greece accepts you
and will open your case. They will do
everything for you’. And I said: ‘No. It’s
not true. They’ll say anything but they
do nothing.’”
dePortation
The officers told Nour to go upstairs
and pack his stuff. “I said ‘OK, but I
want to call my lawyer, my girlfriend,
or my friends, to tell them I would be
deported, and say goodbye.’ And they
told me: ‘No no, just pack your stuff
and later you can call whoever you
want.’ I said OK. They did not let me
take my things. I had a television, table,
computer and a bed. I could not even
take all my clothes. They would not let
me take my salary from my workplace.
They told me that I would take my
salary later.”
Feature | Social Justice
our
Murderous
Fences
In twenty years, Iceland has granted four persons
asylum—out of 500 applicants. Under ten percent
of asylum claims are solved with a residence permit
for humanitarian reasons. The rest are declined. In
comparison, Denmark solves 45% of its claims by
providing asylum or residence permit.
Authorities refer to the European Dublin II
regulation as the basis for their deadly deportation
policy. The fact is no country rejects asylum claims
as brutally as Iceland—except Greece.
BY HAUKUR MÁR HELGASON