Home Page Countries Organizations Special Issues
Publications Links Profile Communication
The Greek Human Rights Web Pages

 

PRESS RELEASE

 21/3/2001

TOPIC: MINISTER OF PUBLIC ORDER’S CYNICAL DESCRIPTION OF STATE RACIST RESPONSE TO INCREASING RACISM

 

Greek Helsinki Monitor and Minority Rights Group-Greece on the occasion of today's International Day Against Racism release in Greece too the text of a cynical statement by Minister of Public Order Mihalis Chrysohoidis to the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) that describes vividly the vengeful and evidently racist character of the (anyway illegal according also to the Greek Ombudsman) collective expulsions of (mainly Albanian) immigrants, as a form of governmental response to increasing racism in Greece. The relevant excerpt, with HRW's comment -to which we fully subscribe-, follows:

“When Human Rights Watch interviewed the Greek Minister of Public Order in November 2000, he admitted to us that sweeps have occurred and that Albanians have been collectively expelled from Greece without the benefit of procedural safeguards. The Minister claimed at that time that due to increasing racist and xenophobic violence by Greeks against Albanian migrants, the Greek government had to take matters into its own hands. We were dismayed that the government’s response to racist and xenophobic violence took the form of discriminatory sweeps, denial of process, and collective expulsion of Albanian migrants.”

Our NGOs note that this statement was included in HRW’s report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD - available in the web page http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/bhr/english/organizations/hrw_cerd.doc), that was reviewing Greece’s compliance during its current 58^th session in Geneva (on 16 and 19 March 2001). The Greek diplomatic delegation (that included a representative of the Ministry of Public Order) did not refute that statement, during the hours-long presentations, with which it presented –embellished- the situation in Greece and responded –often misleadingly- to a large number of critical questions by CERD experts.