In a demonstration of extreme State authoritarianism and repression, the Greek police forces attacked and evacuated three big squats that have been hosting refugees on the dawn of Wednesday 27^th July. Furthermore, the police proceeded with mass arrests of refugees and people acting in solidarity. This is the Greek State and democracy that Tsipras promises.

The refugee policies of the SYRIZA-ANEL government coalition form part of the wider EU dealing with refugees with the Evros fence, the packed and overcrowded refugee concentration camps and the 3,000 deaths in the Mediterranean Sea. The EU has been building a Europe-fortress, while it pioneers in the imperialist invasions in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, thus causing the huge flows of refugees and migrants.

The government planned this costly evacuation, while it refuses to secure decent living conditions for the refugees since it aims at restricting any actions of solidarity towards them. The government targets everyone who refuses to cooperate with it or with the NGOs and refuses to promote the EU ideas. Therefore, the propaganda against the “No Border Camp”, which took place recently in Thessaloniki, is not irrespective to this climate. This police barbarism taking place in the daybreak is highly related to the policies of the Memorandum that attack the rights of the workers and the poor.

At the same time, the party mechanisms of SYRIZA and its youth section announced their disagreement with this attack. However, the hypocrisy of SYRIZA and its party mechanisms cannot fool us regarding their real incentives. The SYRIZA-ANEL government coalition is hostile to the solidarity movement to the refugees.

The solidarity of the people to refugees and the demand for open borders and cities, which were expressed massively throughout this year, can’t be stopped by the authoritarianism of riot police. It forms part of the wider struggle for a better and decent life, with rights and freedoms; it will go on at full strength. Alongside the anti-racist movement and all those who defend the right of refugees for a better life, ANTARSYA demands the immediate release of the people arrested and the termination of the prosecution and attack on refugees and democratic freedoms.

ANTARSYA (Thessaloniki branch)

27.7.2017