Pressure on Greece from the European Union to tighten controls on
refugee support is
directly implemented

This morning, the 1st February 2016, Greek police with the support of
some heavily-armed special-units, stormed the accomodation of a group of
international refugee-supporters near the Greek-Macedonian border. The
whole house, the buses around the house and all members of the house had
to stand for full body searches.  The pretext given was a drugs search.
Nothing was found, except for a few pocket knifes.
“It’s just absurd!” says one of the supporters, “We are cooking soup! It
seems as if the criminalization of supporters now comes from the islands
to us.”

The house is located near the border village of Idomeni, and has now
been used for the past few months
by international refugee-supporters. From here they support thousands of
people who are on the passing through, serving warm food, tea and
distributing clothes everyday.
There are  between 600 to 3000 people arriving on the Greek-Macedonian
border to the transit camp of Idomeni each day.  The situation however
is unstable. “Some of them are shortly “parked” in the transit camp at
the border, while others have to wait for up to 30 hours at a gas
station situated 20 km away from the border” tells one of the
supporters. “Nobody tells them where they are exactly or how they can go
on. We try to as best we can to spread information during the food
delivery”. An official delivery of food and tea  to the gas station
simply does not exist.
It is especially difficult for people who are not from Syria, Iraq or
Afghanistan. They are not officially allowed to cross the border or
enter the camp, which means that many camp in the woods around Idomeni.
Often in order to cross the border they are dependent on smugglers and
many of them become victims of police brutality and/or robberies.  The
independent volunteers are also active in trying to support illegalized
persons on their journey with food, blankets and clothes.
While the situation on the Greek-Macedonian border remains a
humanitarian catastrophe, the European Union continues to work further
their inhuman asylum politics. They threatened Greece with an informal
“Grexit” of the Schengen deal if the Greek government can not control
the flow of refugees from the Turkish-Greek border, which for example
the Interior Minister of Germany, de Maizière demands.  Furthermore,
reports on the 30th January 2016 from The Times London stated that the
EU interior ministers who met in Amsterdam on January 27 2016 want to
criminalize refugee-supporters as “smugglers”.
The almost immediate repression from the Greek police, reflects how
Greece is absorbing the pressure and passing it along.  Todays poilice
action is therefore not really surprising. It just shows once again the
monstrosity of excluding politics around fortress Europe, and the
vehement and criminalizing proceedures against anybody who stands up for
the freedom of movement and self-determination for everyone;
irrespective of passport and origin.
In spite of everything today cooking in the Greek village near the
border goes on. Especially as thousands of people are expected to arrive
today.

Contact: 004915210640117 solidarity_with_refugees-fr@riseup.net
http://aiddeliverymission.org/