The district of Ano Liosia, in NW Athens, has a large Roma population; the community’s relationship with the police has often been tense: last year, a DIAS motorcycle policeman ran over and killed a 6-year old Roma girl.
On Sunday, one DIAS policeman died and another was seriously injured after crashing into a van driven by a Roma man. Both sides claim that the others violated a STOP sign.
What has followed since is partly unclear: it is confirmed that the police conducted a large operation in the Roma camp, supposedly in response to the traffic accident, but essentially harassing the camp’s residents. There are also still unconfirmed by very strong leads that the Golden Dawn held a gathering in Ano Liosia tonight, insulting and provoking the locals.
The local Roma have reacted, took to the streets, set a bus on fire (confirmed) and shot toward the police, injuring up to six of them (number unconfirmed). It appears that the situation has calmed down for the time being.
More information as it comes.
11 Comments
i hope it DOESN’T calm down
The problem is the evolving alliance between nazi golden Dawn on the streets, the new bourgeois government and the economic elites. Samaras is not only a conservative, he is a right- wing populist. If migrants, roma, poor people … defend themselves, he will use it to scare and threaten the bourgeois parts of the people in Greece, that they will shout for a strong leader in the crisis. I’m getting pessimistic, seems like postmodern neofascism (an alliance of populism, neoliberalism, rassistic nationalism) is coming up….
when the sky is the darkest moment and the hope of living is the farest away. when the people begin to hang on hierachic identities which give them false power and forget of being togheter. when counterrevolution give pressure on society that every moment of liberty is on danger to be eaten. when confused begin to identify themselves with uniforms.
When people can not believe, that something like revolution could be, THAN revolution will be stronger than ever before
we only have to stop to reproduce in identities (the anarchist one in special) and multiply our networks of free relationships, to prepare the floor for insurrection
someone who want to be
Come on Greeks-show the rest of us how to fuck the rulers over. Rise up-when the shit is fucked up-fuck shit up!
Revolution may be called for from those far away, and it may seem the only road left to those involved, but it will be a hard and bloody road. My heart goes out to those who have family and face the task of revolution. The suffering will be long and hard for benifits in the future that some of those fighting will never see.You can be an inspiration to the rest of the world, but also a sign of how difficult a task we all have.
The situation of Roma people is one of the most explosive in Europe. While immigrants can be thrown out eventually by law, Roma people can only be tossed around in Europe as they are recently (think about France). Governments of Europe were complicit in the institutionalized violence and deprivation of Roma communities for a century or more, and racism toward this European ethnicity. While good deal of immigrants eventually try to settle in a workplace, a sizeable part of the Roma population lives in a largely different life-style which is not tolerated by capitalism, and therefore they are harassed all around.
In the South- and Eastern-Europe, there’s a gloomy prospect of outright racial cleansing against Roma people as things are going right now. In Greece at least there’s a comparable size of anti-fascist, anti-racist movement, but in the ex-socialist block you won’t find any, and the Roma is alone.
Anarchist need to lead a strong and clear answer in greek streets against this nazis. However, I see that they’re organising and growing quite faster than us. Need to worry. Anarchist need to organise much better.
In Greece there is a native Roma population of about 300.000 people, not all of them live a “different lifestyle” and you will find – just like in Central Europe Sinti and Roma – who are part of the Greek Diaspora all over the world. That this “different lifestyle” isn’t wished anymore by other Rom will emerge out of the fact that many Rom girls are prostitutes in Central Europe.
http://thisisnotmycountry.com/the-roma-series/
It’s less than amazing than when I asked a fellow San Franciscan what he thought about all of the months of rioting in Greece he told me that the people there really look after one another. Had I asked him what he thought of a day of rioting in America or of any rioting in Africa he would have told me that the communities are all screwed up because all they can do is fight one another like animals. And there are so many Americans who talk out of both sides of their mouths that way that’s it’s amazing they can eat? How do they coordinate the movement of their jaws when each side seems to have a mind of it’s own?
Completely agree with you JB
@@shelter: I didn’t say that all, or even the majority of Roma people lives a gypsy life-style. But the mostly media influenced perception of Roma people is of the half-nomadic moving camp, and that weights on the rest of them too.
I also want to repeat, that this way of life also forced on them, because they were rejected for many centuries. I have no first hand information about Greece and perhaps I was generalizing too much, but I see an on-going disaster in Eastern-Europe for sure. For instance in Hungary or Czech Republic, the far-right is mostly defined by the hatred against the Roma (and of course against the Jews).
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