Anastasia Balezdrova
Protest and a symbolic occupation of the building of the Journalist Union in Athens held today the Initiative solidarity for the immigrants who are conducting a hunger strike, requesting that they be granted asylum in Greece.
30 members of the initiative went up to all the floors, where they held discussions with officials and journalists and met with the President of the Union Panos Sobolos. The activists explained that they oppose the "methods of the media" and protest against the way they presented the accommodation of immigrants in the building of the Faculty of Law in Athens. Members of the Initiative for Solidarity requested the support of the Journalist Union for "the propaganda of the major television networks to be limited".
Petros Yotis member of the Solidarity Initiative presented before GRReporter the aim of the protest.
"It was a symbolic protest. We held it to show the role played by a big part of the media in the slender against the accommodation of immigrants in the Facultyof law. In addition to this, last Tuesday the media with very small and bright I'd say exceptions stopped dealing with the hunger strike, which continues for the 11th day".
The activists distributed informational materials which describe their position on immigrants, and then left the building of the Union of Journalists.
In a text, which was published on the website Indymedia members of the Initiative criticize the "media regime, which began its well known orchestrated attacks from the first day of the hunger strike of the immigrants". They urged the citizens not to open to the "propaganda of the big TV channels" and said they would stay together with the immigrants to their victory.
At the end of the text there is a petition of the 300 immigrants, in which they argue that the initiative to start a hunger strike is their "without the mediation of parties, organizations and individuals".
After a week ends the 15-day period, which was given by the owner of the building on Patision street for the stay of the immigrants in it. People of the initiative claim that "threr is no such term. Nobody can put limits to people who say "we will will or we will die". The date for leaving the building will be determined only by the participants in the hunger strike and the endurance of their bodies".
Immigrants continue their hunger strike for the 11th day. They seem to be fine, though according to Petros Yotis "we started noticing emaciation, weight loss and fainting in some people. Overall, however, we have no serious problems. Most of the participants are young and strong people. They still endure".
27-year-old Abdul, who wished not to say where his homeland is and said he was "an immigrant - worker" has been in Greece since five years ago. During the first three he lived and worked in Chania on the island of Crete and then in Athens. For half a year now he is unemployed.
Abdul said that despite the hunger he feels good. He and the other strikers who live in the tents in the yard of the building "Hepatiya" use for heating gas stoves in the open.
I asked them how they spent last night when over Athens it poured with rain, the quantity of which is equal to a three months rainfall.
"There was some chaos here due to the rain last night. A lake was formed in the yard, the water came into the tents. We could not enter the building because there is no room. Inside were the ones who are housed there. Members of the initiative helped us. They cast out the water from the tents, and put nylon inside. They did what they could", said Abdul.
In the building there are other empty rooms, but "the owner either can not or does not want to unlock them" he said.
Signs of the difficult night they spent in the yard were more than obvious. Several activists covered the tents in which a part of the striking immigrants live with nylon. The paving stones were filled with mud, and the soil in the garden was soaked with water that formed large puddles.
The accommodation of immigrants in the university building caused heated debates also in the parliament. The minister of Education Anna Diamandopoulou depicted clearly, but without mentioning its name the left coalition SYRIZA as instigator of the protest. According to her the left party has performed its plan to "shed blood that night in Athens". The minister said further that there was an organized attempt to link the issues of illegal immigration to the university asylum "in the most explosive way possible". In response, members of SYRIZA defined the statements of the minister as "fantasies".
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