In recent days, the issue of illegal immigrants has fallen into the background of Greek news. Nevertheless, public responses continue. In the area of Amigdaleza, where the first detention centre for immigrants will be established, groups of citizens held violent protests. The last of them ended with the arrest of several people last Wednesday. Parliament has already voted on the decision for the centres' establishment but protests are expected to continue.
GRReporter decided to consult its readers for their position on the issue and not only in relation to detention centres but also to find out how much European society is ready to accept residents of countries with very different cultures and religion in most cases and to integrate them.
The results are indicative. The readers of all three versions of the website believe that illegal migrants should return where they came from. This is the opinion of 36% of the voters in the Bulgarian, 41% in the Greek and 42% in the English version.
Contrary to the intentions of the Greek Government, GRReporter readers do not believe that the establishment of detention centres will solve the problem of illegal immigration. This measure was supported by 6% of the Bulgarian, 3% of the Greek and only 1% of the English-speaking participants in our poll.
The majority of them believe that the European Union should distribute the burden equally among all member states. The belief that Greece is not able to cope alone with the huge influx of immigrants because of its geographical location is shared by 25% of the Bulgarian and 23% of the Greek and English visitors to the website.
The same number of visitors to the Greek and English versions state that introducing a more flexible procedure for granting Greek citizenship and political asylum to refugees would significantly contribute to solving the problem. This is the opinion of 16% of the Bulgarian readers.
17% them proposed more effective border controls in Greece. At the same time, this opinion is supported by 10% of the Greek readers and 11% of the English-speaking visitors to the website.
It is abundantly clear that as long as the continent is not pursuing an adequate immigration policy the problem and the public responses to the phenomenon will worsen. In all cases, the caravans of economic refugees and people fleeing political regimes and military actions in their countries will not stop. And until then, all attempts to partially solve the problem even by police actions will be doomed to failure.
We thank you for your contribution and we invite you to take part in our new poll: Who do you think is the most detested Greek politician?