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Anastasia Balezdrova

The murder of the 44-year-old Manolis Kantaris by three immigrants in central Athens seemed to open the Pandora's Box. The hard clashes, involving members of the far right and left wing groups and the police created an atmosphere of uncertainty that has been strengthened by the attack on the police station in the district of Ekzarchia last Saturday. The Molotov cocktails seriously injured a saleswoman and a visitor to the open market, which is very close to the police building. The events provoked discussions at all levels, and the Minister for Citizens Protection Christos Papoutsis even accused the police in a lack of democracy in their actions to suppress the responses.

The problem with crime and turning into a ghetto the centre of Athens where there are a lot of immigrants, is not expected to fade soon. GRReporter consulted Dimitris Hristopoulos, an Assistant Professor at the University of Athens Pandion and President of the Hellenic League for Human Rights.

What is your assessment of the last week’s event?

The last week’s events were "stated" in advance. None of the people dealing with these issues were surprised by them. The fact that the things escalated in this way indicates that for a very long time the Greek state has withdrawn from an important field of exercising state power and social responsibility. As a result, and because there are no empty chairs in politics, the space was occupied by the far right. So, it was a matter of time for this to happen.

Therefore, the escalation of violence leads to situations that could not be forecasted through political means. Once it is on the agenda, on the one side and on the other, we could not know how far it would go.

Do you think the situation could become even worse?

We have to distinguish between the types of violence. The violence by the state is one thing and the violence by protesters is completely different, as odd as this might seem. An organised society could not meet stones with stones and kicks with kicks.

What often determines the particular actions of the Greek police in these cases is that they also respond to a "gang" as the defendant, for example, to the "gang" of protesters.

Furthermore, the violence that far right groups have implemented systematically in recent days is also different from all other types of violence. Of course, it was provoked for certain reasons. But in general, there are always reasons that cause violence in a society. The way in which the Greek media presented this systematic far-right variation in recent days is indicative of the overall atmosphere. The events were presented almost like: "well, maybe the young went a little too far and took the law into their hands." Very characteristic is the fact that all the media, from the most conservative to the most advanced, used precisely this term. This is not "taking the law into our hands." It would be if the victim's wife takes a gun and kills his killers, and not thousand of other people to attack another thousand people, having nothing in common with the case and kill them. This is called a pogrom, this is systematic crime.

What is it that caused the events?

The fact that the state has not been doing for years what it had to do. And I mean to take steps not only to suppress these reactions, because the discussion, which is currently taking place in Greece on this issue, is hinting that the state has not done everything necessary for the application of criminal law. This is only partially true. The state has not done what it had to do for its social responsibility, for the redistribution of income, for crime prevention and for many other things which require funds in this moment difficult from a financial point of view now. The first victim of the way Greece is trying to cope with the crisis is the social side. From this perspective, what we see today is the diminishing and the cancellation of these policies and the only thing to mention is suppressing the reactions.

Let us get to the essence of the topic. Are there many immigrants in Greece?

Nobody knows their exact number. If someone says something like that he or she does not know that he or she does not know or is lying. This is a very relative question. When all these people were working with low wages and the whole system was able to reproduce itself that way no one was talking about it. The question was put strongly in a time when the crisis broke out in the country. From there, it is important to mention that the state allowed a very large number of immigrants to settle in certain places. By this I mean that there are many immigrants in the centre of Athens. They are not everywhere, but concentrated in one place.

And in terms of actual figures, there is an immigrant issue – namely, that Greece, because of the current financial situation, is not able to do the minimum and even give them work. I.e. the question is not whether the immigrants are many, and whether many immigrants do not have work because people are not immigrants to go for a walk or for the adventure, but to work. If the main reason that drives immigration flows is not filled, i.e. the people can not work, and then there is the danger of social exclusion and everything. From this perspective, the question of whether the immigrants are many is wrong.