SEPTEMBER 1998 ACTIVITY REPORT OF THE GHM ROMA OFFICE

September 1: The area of Messologi was hit by a tornado on August 30. The media reported that lots of Roma huts were damaged. We contacted various Roma families and the president of the Roma settlement in Messologi to ask about the damages and the situation in the settlement. We were informed that the greater part of Roma huts and houses had not been affected by the tornado. Two huts were slightly damaged, and the state authorities were already recording the damages and taking care of the alleviation of the situation.

September 2: Greek Helsinki Monitor’s Panayote Dimitras and Nafsika Papanikolatos visited the only center available for street children in Athens, and in all of Greece. As we were told by its founder, the Greek government, in 1992 signed and ratified the UN Convention on children’s rights. Since that time it became a state law; nevertheless, the government is not respecting its signature and is acting against a law it ratified by tolerating minors who are street workers. The center is a product of private initiative and functions entirely on the basis of voluntary work and donations. Mrs. Mirto Lemou is the person behind this unique mission she calls “Social and Educational Action”, which she founded and has run for five years in the “Center for the Rehabilitation of the Child and the Family”. The center tries to provide a place where street children can come and play, receive some elementary schooling or simply visit a place that is theirs, where they are welcome.

They are children of internal and external immigrants. A large number are Roma who came from agrarian regions, mostly Thrace. Also a small number of them come from Abania, Macedonia and FRY. Most families are Muslim, and leave nearby, in the area of Metaxourgio in extreme poverty, in old buildings that lack the essential conditions of hygiene and safety. Nevertheless, the rents they pay are rather high and do not correspond to the facilities. The following day, GHM’s Mehmet Dukkanci visited the area where the families live. The parents are illiterate, uneducated, without professional formation. The parents usually ignore that nine years of schooling is mandatory in Greece; although, in this case the Greek State does not insist on its application. In the rare cases when these children do end up in school, they get disappointed and feel humiliated. Greek schools lack a multicultural educational system which provides special education to newcomers and minorities, therefore most teachers lack the knowledge of how to handle such particular cases. They react usually as if the children were a problem for the rest of the class. In addition, Roma usually show up at school after the year has begun, because until early October they work with their parents in agrarian areas; so the argument is that classes are full. Last but not least the argument posed is that they are unadaptable, mischievous, dirty, slackers. This may be the case sometimes, but no one seems interested to provide the conditions that will teach them otherwise. This is what the center of “Social and Educational Action” tries to provide.

It is inevitable that most of these children will end up as street workers. They are selling flowers in the evening or, during the day, water, Kleenex tissues or washing the windows of the cars at the street lights. They have been working from a very young age and they provide their family with a means of subsistence until they reach an age of over 14, when it becomes more difficult to sell in the name of pity. Nevertheless by that time they have no possibility of turning back. Most of them have never been to a school and do not read or write.

Naturally they are extremely undisciplined. They have no sense of order, no sense of programming, with strong tendencies towards lawlessness. GHM was profoundly impressed by Mrs. Lemou’s patience, tolerance, understanding towards them, trying to encourage them to feel at home, to feel like a family and to respect that place which is theirs. There are four other voluntary social workers providing their services on part time basis. Through donations the center receives every year school material, toys, educational games, and other equipment which has made this place, in one of the abandoned districts of Athens, a warm and happy place for all those children who do not have the opportunity to enjoy childhood elsewhere. The children are usually between 5-14, and as Ms. Lemou told us, the center so far has been visited by over 300 children and on permanent basis there are around 50-75 children that visit these 100 square meters.

Greek Helsinki Monitor will try in the future to have a closer cooperation with the center by the way of its Roma office, since most children visiting it are Roma. During our visit we donated to the center, in the memory of Phaedon Vegleris, a renowned Greek human rights activist who died this summer, 100,000 drachmas.

September 9: Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) members Dimitris Angelidis and Panayote Dimitras visited the Roma settlements in Nea Liosia and Aspropyrgos. They listened to the angry complaints of the Roma about the sordid conditions in the settlements. Roma live near a rubbish dump, in shacks made of cardboard, glass, used fertilizer sacks, tin, etc. In bad weather the people living there are not protected from the rain. A large dusty cloud pollutes the air whenever a car passes by.

September 10: Greek Helsinki Monitor organized a visit to the Aspropyrgos Roma settlement for the founder and President of The Body Shop International chain-stores, Ms. Anita Roddick, who was on a two-day trip to Athens to promote her company’s human rights campaign. The group, which visited the Roma camp, consisted of Ms. Roddick, three members of The Body Shop Greece office and four GHM members (Dimitris Angelidis, Panayote Dimitras, Nafsika Papanikolatos, Gregory Vallianatos). The GHM wanted to coordinate the press and television coverage of the visit together with The Body Shop Greece Public Relations Office. The latter finally agreed to the presence of the media, as long as the story was not released before The Body Shop International Human Rights Campaign which was happening on the next day. However, at the very last minute before our visit The Body Shop Greece representatives informed us that no media would be present, due to technical problems. Despite that, we went to the settlement, where we were met by some 30-40 desperate and angry Roma, protesting against the sordid conditions in the place. Ms. Roddick listened to the complaints, spoke to the Roma, walked around the shacks, played with small Roma children. An hour and a half later the visit was over. On the way back, Ms. Roddick expressed to the GHM group her surprise about the absence of the media. We explained to her what had happened and she expressed her wish to talk to a newspaper. An appointment with Eleftherotypia’s journalist Ioanna Sotirhou was set and Ms. Roddick gave an interview as soon as she returned to her hotel.

September 11: Eleftherotypia published the interview with Anita Roddick. In it Ms. Roddick says that the government should be ashamed of the situation in the Aspropyrgos Roma settlement. Roma form a society with loose organization, so they need help. NGOs, the government and the ordinary people should cooperate to provide simple means of living for the Roma. The most urgent things which should be provided are: solar power, water, better conditions of life. Doing anything more than meeting these most basic needs sounds rather unrealistic at the present moment.

Following the interview, our office received an angry call from a representative of the Public Relations Office of The Body Shop Greece, Mr. Alexandros Manos. He accused GHM for not having informed him about the interview. When we explained to him that it was not our responsibility to inform The Body Shop Greece about the decisions of their international President, he hung up the phone in a rather rude manner. GHM informed Ms. Roddick about the incident and expressed their wish that such a rude behavior would not hinder the further cooperation for the sake of human rights and of the destitute Roma in Greece. Ms. Roddick apologized for the attitude of her employee and said that she was hoping that GHM and The Body Shop International would cooperate in the future in a project related to the Roma in Greece. And last but not least, it should be mentioned that there were no GHM members present at the formal event organized by The Body Shop Greece and the Athens Mayor on the same evening. At any rate, The Body Shop Greece had failed to send invitations to GHM.

September 14: GHM’s Panayote Dimitras and Nafsika Papanikolatos, along with the representative of the NGO "DROM Network for the Roma’s Social Rights" Thanasis Triaridis, visited the Roma settlement near the Gallikos river, where most of the Roma living in Evosmos until their expulsion have moved. They also visited the Gonos area where, in former barracks, the state has promised a year ago to settle in a decent way these Roma.

Most dramatic, and characteristic of Greek attitudes towards Roma, was the story of the multiple expulsions in August 1998 of the largest destitute Roma community, made up of 3,500 people who had lived in Evosmos, near Salonica, for over thirty years. GHM was informed about it only in early September by media stories and then by members of DROM.

First, on 2/6/1998, four -at the time- mayors (three supported by the government party PASOK and one by the main opposition party New Democracy) threatened to prevent both these Roma from resettling in a former military barrack allocated a year earlier by the state as well as the public contractor appointed by the authorities to carry out the necessary infrastructure works therein. As a result, this resettlement did not take place, neither did the infrastructure work in the camp.

However, in early August 1998, this Roma community was told to leave Evosmos immediately lest large fines be imposed on them for squatting in private land (for 30 years…). The Roma gave in to the threats and had to wander from place to place in the outskirts of Salonica. First, they went to Neo Rysio, but were told to leave. Then they went to Peraia, to face the same reaction. Third "stop," an area behind the Evosmos cemetery: from there, too, authorities ordered them to leave. Finally, they settled near the Gallikos river: a NGO mobilization helped force the authorities to promise they would not be expelled from there until the former barracks be prepared for the final resettlement.

In the meantime, no action was taken against the obviously racist mayors who continued to enjoy the support of their parties in the following elections, despite a public NGO request (see below) to the three party leaders concerned that their party’s support be withdrawn… .

September 17: Greek Helsinki Monitor, along with the other NGOs Minority Rights Group - Greece, DROM Network for the Roma’s Social Rights, Network of Movements for Social and Political Rights, as well as the political party Progressive Left Coalition and the Prefecture Election candidate list Prefecture Movement of Salonica "Ecology - Solidarity" filed charges, in the Office of the Public Prosecutor of Salonica, against all parties involved for the unacceptable living conditions in the Roma settlement near the Gallikos River. The same day, the Prefecture of Salonica, implicated in the charges, finally started installing containers to be filled with water for the Roma. Subsequently, preparations for an infirmary to be operated by the Doctors of the World started.

September 23: Four NGOs, Greek Helsinki Monitor, Minority Rights Group - Greece, DROM Network for the Roma’s Social Rights, Network of Movements for Social and Political Rights sent letters to party leaders Costas Simitis (Prime Minister) of socialist PASOK, Costas Karamanlis of conservative New Democracy, and Nikos Constatopoulos of the Progressive Left Coalition, asking them to withdraw their party’s support to the mayors who signed the racist appeal (see above) in the forthcoming local elections.

September 27: The same NGOs issued a public statement condemning Salonica’s Prefect’s pre-election leaflet in which he claimed he had found a "bold solution" to the problems of the Roma living in tents. In it he was reminded of ERRC’s statement after the May 1998 mission to the area that the Prefecture of Salonica has the Roma with the worst living conditions in the whole of Europe, East and West. The Prefect was asked to pay a visit to the Roma settlements and provide immediate solutions.