1) Can you tell us what are you going to do in Patras? What links the port of Patras Venice?
We went to Patras with a delegation from the Venetian network of associations "Tuttiidirittiumanipertutti" with the desire to reconstruct the stories of those migrants rejected by the port of Venice and sent back to Greece. In the Adriatic ports, fact, arrive daily in women and men escape from the limbo of the Hellenic Republic, where migrants' rights are routinely violated. They hide inside the insulated boxes for trucks, with the risk of dying suffocated, or in cold storage, seeds and arrive frozen. They flee in search of international protection, and when found by police in the Italian border in most cases are forced to sign papers that do not understand why they are not allowed to meet any legal interpreter or an operator, and are re-embarked on the same ship with which the truck had arrived on which they were hiding. Locked in cramped cabins for dozens of hours on their arrival in Patras awaits violence Greek police, detention in a container on a few square meters, and then again in limbo, with no opportunity to defend its own history of persecution and violence against them personally. Almost all are in fact refugees fleeing conflict areas most devastated in the world: Iraq, Afghanistan, and even Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan since the route south of Lampedusa has become increasingly militarized.
And when they arrive in Ancona, Bari, Brindisi or is substantially the same practice. Yet with these rejections entrusted to the captain of the ship are not respectful of the rules of national and international law. This is not an application of the Dublin Convention, which assigns the responsibility to accept asylum applications in the first layer between the signatory countries where the migrant in question has entered, but an administrative procedure conducted in an arbitrary and summary by referring to an agreement between Greece and Italy instead of 1999 is legally subject to the Community Law (as the European directives on asylum), as well as the Geneva Convention which first prohibited the refoulement of persons to countries where they might run into inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 33 prohibition of refoulement). Of what happens in those moments, however, there can be no written document. Venice has long associations seek to shed light on this reality, but at some point we realized that the most important thing we could do was make ourselves the way back: to go to Patras to collect the testimonies of those who had been rejected.
2) There is much concern about the situation of asylum seekers in Greece, even by the UNHCR. Why?
Greece, in fact, does not warrant the slightest opportunity to seek and obtain asylum. The recognition rate is 0.4% and in September 2008 was even suspended the acceptance of applications. Furthermore, the conditions of detention centers for immigrants are bad and people are constantly subject a violenze e soprusi da parte delle forze dell’ordine. La cosa più grave in assoluto, però, sono le pratiche di deportazione verso la Turchia attuate dalla Repubblica ellenica ai danni di persone, soprattutto curdi e afghani, che avrebbero invece diritto di ricevere una forma di protezione internazionale nel territorio dell’Ue. La Turchia, è bene ricordarlo, non ha mai firmato il protocollo di New York che ha abbattuto la riserva geografica che vincolava in origine la convenzione del ‘51. Ciò vuol dire che non contempla la possibilità di concedere l’asilo a profughi non europei. Afghani e curdi vengono dalla Turchia rimpatriati nei loro paesi con un’alta probabilità di incorrere nella tortura, nella la morte, and still in widespread violence. These are blatant violations of the principle of non-refoulement, whose responsibilities, when you refer migrants to Greece, also fall on the Italian police. is therefore clear that in this situation, however, also widely reported recently by a beautiful report by Human Rights Watch on migrants in Greece and Turkey and a report by the European Commission, the UNHCR has had to take a position calling for much of the signatories Dublin Convention to suspend the convention itself if it is to send back asylum seekers to Greece.
3) How will you act now to denounce this situation?
Meanwhile he continued to denounce and to counter. The results of this study are already seeing in part. Until a few months ago, very few knew of Patras, now speak of famous television and national newspapers. It is certainly not just the result of our battles, because unfortunately, as always, the spotlight came on, especially after the death of young boys fleeing from police checks Italian ports. the most striking case was that of Zaher Rezai, who died Dec. 10 after being unable to get to Venice and from Patras, slipping from under the truck which was being attacked and overwhelmed by the same means. Our contribution in this tragedy, however, was to impose a simple question, beyond the emotion and solidarity that a bit 'all have demonstrated, because a 13 year old boy from Afghanistan is hidden and not die just to meet the border police at the port of Venice? For fear of being rejected, of course, as has happened to others in its exact condition. Yet the figure should be more protected the entire legal system. Minor and refugee Zaher died with his poems in his pocket. One I always think back and say, "gardener, open the door to the garden, I am not a thief of flowers."
There are also a number of legal remedies that we are building and that will come out soon, because the margins of legal action are vast. Greece and Italy in violation of dozens of EU and international standards, and even their own domestic laws. It is true that under the pretext of security and public order are breaking down the basic rights piece by piece until now at least formally considered inviolable. But there is a way groped. Of course, not as of awareness that which has characterized the people of Lampedusa, from which all movements and the daily struggles, actions and remedies in general can never reach too far.
4) What are the percorsi dei migranti che avete incontrato a Patrasso per arrivare in Italia?
La rotta dell’Egeo sta assumendo dimensioni sempre più importanti nel panorama dei percorsi migratori, e ad attraversarla e a determinarla sono quasi sempre profughi in cerca di protezione, evidente ‘effetto collaterale’ delle guerre condotte in medio Oriente nelle quali anche l’Europa ha pesantissime responsabilità. Gli afghani, ad esempio, si trovano a fuggire in Iran e poi in Turchia, da dove passano anche i profughi iracheni. Segue il difficile attraversamento della lingua di Mare che separa Smirne dalle isole greche e nella quale le polizie di entrambi i paesi si rimpallano le piccole barche non di rado distruggendo il motore or puncturing the inflatables. When you manage to cross it ends up directly in the constellation of detention centers of the islands, where they remained for 90 days under conditions of maximum uncertainty and subjected to daily violence. In these centers are interned children and adults alike. Chance to seek asylum, of course, not even talking about it. After this extension you can follow two paths. The first is imposed by the government when it decides to try to deport back by returning to Turkey. The migrants are then moved into the area of \u200b\u200bEvros and again kept waiting for the turkish government gives the green light. When most of the time, the authorization does not arrive, people come to a certo punto liberate e abbandonate al confine. La seconda strada è invece un misto di scelte soggettive e di controllo imposto: i migranti raggiungono Atene e da lì direttamente Patrasso, consapevoli che in Grecia, per loro, non c’è alcun futuro.
5) Ultima domanda: pensi che il campo profughi di Patrasso e la trasformazione del centro di Lampedusa in un CIE siano figli di una stessa logica? Qual'è la differenza tra chi è fermo a
Patrasso e chi a Lampedusa, oggi?
Credo che esista una logica europea di gestione della mobilità migrante che necessita di centri di detenzione come quello di Lampedusa (che, è bene ricordarlo, è was only for a few years a hub and has a long history behind him when he was a Cpt) and informal areas of concentration such as that of Patras. Of course, this is not a coherent process and free of contradictions, but a continuously evolving system that for example, at this juncture of global crisis, is still experimenting with new forms of control and redefining their goals.
would be a mistake, however, consider the migrants simply as victims of all this. Their active role, subjective choices, aspirations and desires, force the same control devices to relocate pursuing them, and to redirect the time. Where a route is becoming militarized, for example, se ne apre immediatamente un’altra. Lampedusa e Patrasso sono luoghi in cui diventano più visibili ed evidenti queste opposte tensioni che si affrontano.
