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Xenios Zeus, the Dorian invasion and the Lernaean Hydra
It has become a governmental custom for the respective Public Order and Citizen Protection
Minister to unleash, with his inauguration, a "sweep" operation, complemented by the mass
arrests of undocumented immigrants, while promising the absolute enforcement of legality.
In recent days, we are witnessing the same scenario, ironically denominated "Xenios Zeus":
immigrants undergo mass arrests and are sent hastily to schools labeled overnight as
'detention centers', while at the same time, border guards are sent to Thrace with no prior
planning whatsoever, in order to intercept, what the Minister has defined as, the Dorian
invasion.
The Hellenic League for Human Rights is expressing its deep concern about the way in which
- once again - the state's immigration issue is being addressed. We remind that according to
Law 3386/2005 the detention of immigrants awaiting deportation cannot exceed an
eighteen-month period and in order for it to be legal, on the one hand, a reasonable
possibility of deportation should exist, while on the other, the detention conditions should
not constitute an inhuman and degrading treatment. In practice, it has been proved that
none of the two is actually happening, since a great number of undocumented immigrants
are not eligible for deportation, either because Greece is evidently unable to return them to
their country (eg, Afghans, Syrians) or because they have been residing for so long, albeit
irregularly, and have developed strong biotic ties in our country; as a result, their
deportation violates rights provided by both the Greek and the international legal order.
Furthermore, detention in Greece is proven tantamount, by the reports of international and
European organizations, to torture as well as to inhuman and degrading treatment.
In any case, it is almost self-evident that both the arrest and the detention of a small number
of undocumented immigrants and the temporary fortification of a small section of the
15,000 km country’s boarder line, are actions insufficient to resolve the complex and
lingering migration issue, for the addressing of which the HLHR has already submitted a
comprehensive and workable proposal, compliant with the principles and laws of the state,
but also with the country's international obligations.
Yet, what is most worrying in this case is that the Minister’s new convulsive effort to
communicate this – otherwise hopeless – [followed] government policy is accompanied by a
series of misleading and racist statements. Thus, the mass and devoid of legal safeguarding
arrests of people who might be eligible for some form of protection are made by invoking
the principle of legality and in order to impede the public’s corruption by the immigrant
invasion.
But it is certain that with such arguments and actions, instead of a solution, the
consolidation of a rhetoric and tactics that legitimizes xenophobia and racism is highlighted,
wrecking the principles of the rule of law and promoting to the community a rather flawed,
distorted and, for that reason, dangerous perception of what is ultimately the rule of law:
the Greek citizens’ security against the respect of human rights, illegal residence against a
crack on crime, “sweep” operations against integrated strategies and policies, people
storage against lawful detention.
We would like to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that the Dorian invasion,
cited today in the most perverse way imagined, contributed decisively to what we currently
define as a brilliant period of Greek civilization, of which hospitality is a part. Moreover, we
would like remind him that in Greek mythology the myth of the Lernaean Hydra is also quite
popular. So, except if the Minister is to be re-baptized Hercules, he should remember that
the state’s responses to the migration issue in the last 20 years, by the constriction of the
rule of law and through the establishment of a racist discourse, has already brought forth
other, more dangerous and terrifying heads, as evidenced by the recent racist attacks and
murders of immigrants in cold blood.
See the specific proposals of the HLHR as concerns immigration policy at
http://www.hlhr.gr/detailsen.php?id=681