Close the camps of shame
Not the refugee housing squats
It looks like the government attack against the refugee housing squats is being escalated. Following the evacuation of the Thessaloniki squats in the summer, the Alkiviadou refugee housing squat and Villa Zografou were evacuated a few weeks ago. Following the statements by Minister of Public Order Nikos Toskas last week, regarding the evacuation of refugee housing squats, rumors and leaked information has been circulating, setting the stage for a new round of attacks.
Instead of planning to close the refugee detention centers, end the apartheid between the Greek mainland and the islands, and house trapped refugees within cities in dignified housing conditions, the government is ramping up measures against the trapped refugees, is preparing to open more closed detention centers, mass deportations and, in order to implement a “policy of deterrence”, is organizing a completely authoritarian neoliberal programme against the trapped refugees, thereby being a keen implementer of the EU-Turkey deal of shame.
We are certain that the planned attack against refugee housing squats is part of exactly this anti=refugee and anti-migration policy. It is neither an exception nor a diversion. It is completely logical that a government policy that presents refugees as being an enemy within is now adopting a policy of hostility to any example of dignified living and housing. This is, of course, a continuation of the broader anti-grass roots government policies.
As Refugee Accommodation Space City Plaza, we are completely against this racist policy, and we are unwilling to make a step back in the struggle for dignity, social integration and equality, coexistence between locals and foreign nationals, solidarity to all those fleeing war and poverty, from Syria to Senegal and from Afghanistan to Morocco. Over the course of one year, over 1500 refugees and hundreds of people in solidarity, local and international, are organizing a model for meeting fundamental human needs and a model for social self-organization and multi-ethnic cohabitation. An abandoned hotel on Acharnon is a center of struggle and solidarity at an international scale.
We demand nothing more than the free movement of people, dignified living, the granting of asylum, equality and freedom for all the people who fled their homes and arrived here. We accept nothing else.
We are here and we will remain here! Don’t even think about it…
Refugee Accommodation Space City Plaza
Athens, April 3, 2017
