JUNE 1998 ACTIVITY REPORT OF THE GHM ROMA OFFICE

June 4, Aspropyrgos. On Thursday June 4, we visited the Aspropyrgos settlement to check if the Mayor had kept the promises he gave us on an earlier visit. That is, to send bulldozers to clear the area which was full of rubbish, to spread gravel and supply the settlement with running water. He had done absolutely nothing. We will ask for a new appointment. Let us point out that the racist Union of Workers, employed in the rubbish dump near the settlement, is holding a strike for almost a week now, stopping the trucks from emptying the rubbish. Their demand is that the Gypsies must be prevented from entering the rubbish dump. It is well known that the Gypsies collect recycling material from the rubbish dump, which they then sell in order to ensure an income allowing them to survive. They do that putting their lives in danger, as they risk being buried under the rubbish.

June 8. On Monday June 8 we contacted M. Vlahopoulos in Veria, the counselor of Vasilis Sierif, father-in-law of Angelos Jelal, who was killed by policemen in the beginning of April 1998. M. Vlahopoulos is also the counselor of Nikos Asimakis, whose son was maltreated in the General Security Office of Thessaloniki where he was held. We asked M. Vlahopoulos to provide us with the medical report of the forensic doctor on the torturing of Vasilis Asimakis and he said that he will look for the report in Asimakis’ file. Nikos Asimakis had told us that when he saw that his son had been beaten up, he asked a forensic doctor to examine him. After the examination, the doctor issued a report. M. Vlahopoulos offered to help us.

We also spoke to the counselor of Giorgos Kamberis in Larisa, Mrs Panayota Sourla and asked her if what the 16 year-old G. Kamberis told us - that he was tortured and threatened with rape in the police station of Volos - was true. Mrs Sourla denied he was tortured. She told us that if something like that had happened, she would have denounced it and followed the case. She said that this story is a product of G. Kamberis’ imagination.

June 9. The lawyer Mrs Yanna Kourtovik has prepared a case and will press charges against the police station of Messolongi for the beating of two minors, Lazaros Bekos and Lefteris Koutropoulos, on May 7 and 8. The two minors were found by the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) on Saturday May 9, heavily beaten with clubs, fists, kicks and with an iron bar. Their bodies were covered with bruises. The GHM brought them to the Patras forensic doctor M. Orfeas Peridis who issued a medical report. The case will be presented before the Public Prosecutor’s office of Messolongi.

June 12, Aspropyrgos. On Friday June 12, Sofia Nikolaidou and Vasilis Sakellariou visited the Gypsy settlement of Aspropyrgos to get a power of attorney from M. Yannis Panayotopoulos authorizing his lawyer to ask the Public Prosecutor to pursue the case of his wife Penelope Panayotopoulou. She was buried under tons of rubbish in the rubbish dump, on July 1996, as she was trying to collect recycling material, and since then she is considered missing. Her husband brought a charge at the police station of the area on the same day of her disappearance. The case was never forwarded to the Public Prosecutor as it should, but was kept at the police station for over a year and a half until February 1998, when the GHM assigned the case to a lawyer.

June 13-14. On Saturday June 13 and Sunday June 14, the Founding Conference of the Panhellenic Federation of the Greek Gypsies’ Associations was held in Athens. The Conference was attended by the most important Associations, such as the Evosmos Association of Thessaloniki, the Tyrnavos Ass. of Volos, the Sofades Ass. of Thesalia, the Kimeria and Evlalos Associations of Xanthi, the Messolongi Association, the Nea Alikarnasos Ass. of Crete, the Aya Varvara Association, the Ilion Association, as well as two Associations from Zefyri, Attica.

The Conference was opened by the President M. Randis and representatives of the Greek political parties brought greetings to it: M. S. Halvadzis from the CPG, Mrs S. Alfieri from Synaspismos, Mrs. Arapi from DIKKI. Also, M. A. Altanis brought greetings to the Conference on behalf of the Vice Minister of Health and Welfare M. Kotsonis, Mrs H. Zerdeva read a message sent by the Vice Minister of Interior Mr. L. Papadimas, Mr. K. Katsibardis, special counselor, greeted the meeting on behalf of the Minister of Public Works and Physical Planning, and Mrs. Fr. Stamou represented the Prime Minister’s Office. The extreme right winger MP of New Democracy Karatzaferis, well known for his racist views, greeted the meeting representing only himself.

Then the Mayor of Aya Varvara, Attica Mr Mihos who covered all the expenses of the Conference took the floor, to be followed by Mrs. Sofia Nikolaidou representing the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM). After that, the delegates representing the various Associations spoke.

The founding of the Confederation is a very important step forward for the Roma. For the first time ever the Roma will have their own representative body, which will be able to negotiate directly with the authorities on all the accumulated problems. It is necessary for the Roma to speak up for themselves, so that the patronizing activities of some self-appointed representatives appearing under the false names of «Panhellenic Associations» and «Panhellenic Presidents» may at last be brought to an end.

An 11 member Council was elected. The elected President is M. Hristos Lambrou from the Aya Varvara Association, the Vice President is A. Paiteris from the Volos Association and the Secretary is M. Sp. Kitsas from Zefyri, Attica. The new Council has two main tasks: a) to ratify the statutes of the Confederation and b) to organize, three months after the ratification of the statutes, the first annual Conference.

June 16. On Tuesday June 16, a meeting took place at the Ministry of Interior between Sofia Nikolaidou from the GHM, Mrs. Stamou from the Prime Minister’s Office, Mrs. Zerdeva representative of the Vice Minister of Interior Mr. Papadimas, Mr. K. Katsimbardis, special counselor of the Ministry of Public Works and Physical Planning. Present at the meeting was also the president of the Community of Sageika Mr. Giorgos Paleologos. We told Mr. Paleologos’ that the Roma in Sageika are complaining that he refuses to register them in the Municipal Roll. He replied that most of the Roma are registered and enrolled in the Community and that those who complain are not permanent residents. Nevertheless, he promised to see to the issue. We will keep in touch and follow the matter.

June 16. On June 16, Vasilis Sakellariou, Sofia Nikolaidou and Grigoris Valianatos, representatives of the GHM, visited M. Diamantouros, the Citizen’s Ombudsman, and informed him about the violations of the human rights of the Roma by the Police, the Municipal Authorities and part of the local societies. M. Diamandouros told us that his office will start functioning properly by next November or December and then he will examine all the cases concerning the violation of the rights of the Roma on which we informed him.

June 18. On Thurday June 18, Vasilis Sakellariou, Sofia Nikolaidou and Dafni Vayanou, lawyer of Yiannis Panayotopoulos, visited the settlement of Aspropyrgos. Mrs Vayanou is assigned to bring to the court the case of the disappearance of Mr Panayotopoulos’ wife Penelope in the rubbish dump of Ano Liosia on July 1996, where she was collecting recycling material and buried under tons of rubbish. The case risks to be closed, because no witnesses have come forward so far, and Mrs Vayanou wanted to speak to several people who have stated that they themselves were threatened by the drivers of the machines burying the rubbish. Unfortunately we found nobody.

June 19-20. On Friday 19, and Saturday 20 June a Symposium of the Doctors of the World was held at the Goulandri-Horn Foundation in Plaka,. Its subject was: «Health and Social Exclusion: the European Dimension».

Representatives of the Doctors of the World from France, Germany and Italy took part in the Symposium and, in a very documented way, presented their work, the services they provide and the results of their research among the socially excluded. Participants in the Symposium were also representatives of NGOs. The Symposium included six round tables on the following subjects: «Health Policies for the socially excluded populations in Europe», «Health Education and Social Exclusion», «Homeless, marginalized populations», «Access to the Health System», «Migrants and Asylum seekers in Europe», «Problems of access to the Health System», «Health Policies for the drug addicts in Europe». In the round table organized on the issue of the «Gypsy Populations all around Europe; similarities and differences» the representative of the GHM Sofia Nikolaidou was invited and contributed as a reporter.

The representative of the Doctors of the World from France, M. Claude Moncorge spoke on the fundamental role of the organization. The Doctors of the World, he said, were founded in France in 1990, after an intervention made in Vietnam, in the Sea of China, when many Vietnamese were trying to escape from the regime. He stressed that the missions of their organization are two: one is Health, and the other is recording testimonies and registering cases.

June 26. The lawyer Mrs Vayanou assigned with the case of Penelope Panayotopoulou who was buried in the rubbish dump of Ano Liosia, contacted us. Mrs Vayanou asked us to urgently find witnesses to testify, otherwise the Public Prosecutor would close the case, as no specific charges were brought against anybody. We contacted Mr. Yiannis Panayotopoulos and he gave us the names of the witnesses.

June 28. On Sunday June 28, Vasilis Sakellariou and Sofia Nikoladiou met Fryni Panayotopoulou niece of M. Y. Panayotopoulos and visited with them the Aspropyrgos settlement to find Nektarios Halilopoulos, a basic witness for the case of Penelope. He avoided to contact us in person, he did not even answer the phone when we called him later. His sister told us that he was afraid of the police, as he owed some unpaid orders. We assured her that the Public Prosecutor would not examine him on the unpaid orders. The driver of a bulldozer had threatened Nektarios Halilopoulos in the rubbish dump saying to him «go away because I will do to you what I did to Penelope».

June 30. We contacted M. Panayotopoulos and he undertook to bring Nektarios Halilopoulos to the lawyer, after explaining to him that he had nothing to fear about the unpaid orders.

Sofia Nikolaidou