Stop violence of the Greek Police towards Albanians

Based on the press reports and the in-field fact-finding from the correspondents of the Albanian Helsinki Committee (AHC), there have been several cases that the Military Greek Police in the vicinity of the Albanian border points detained and cruelly maltreated Albanian citizens[1] from different districts such as Elbasan, Tirana, Pogradec, Devoll, Cërrik etc,. Albanian Helsinki Committee has already condemned this barbarous act of the Greek Police and has demanded that the culprits be held legally responsible. One of these cases has also been denounced by Greek Helsinki Monitor and Amnesty International.

In this open letter, AHC appeals to the Greek government to give an end to such condemnable acts also by the Greek legislation. These acts have discriminating features towards the Albanian migrants and are incompatible with the international standards. Additionally, AHC has already demanded from the Albanian authorities to protect the rights of the Albanian emigrants in Greece.

Due to the poor economic situation in Albania and taking into consideration the high rate of unemployment in our country, a part of the Albanian citizens have been obliged to migrate to neighboring countries including here Greece. Having no opportunities to be equipped with regular papers to enter Greek territories, a part of these citizens are obliged to illegally migrate. AHC would like to bring to the attention the fact that the majority of Albanian migrants living in Greece work in an honest way to support their families.

Among these migrants there have been persons who have committed criminal acts and who are serving their sentence in Greek penitentiary institutions.   But from time to time, there have been cases reported on failure to respect the rights of the detained, arrested and convicted provided in the international documents and even in the Greek legislation.

Special Greek circles and even sometimes certain Greek press have cultivated seeds of distrust, hate and xenophobia especially towards Albanian migrants and therefore, they have been prejudged for having committed criminal acts even in cases when they have not been involved. Thus, the principle of the presumption of innocence has been violated flagrantly in many cases. This anti-democratic and anti-humane spirit has been denounced by Albanian migrants’ children and even by Greek children in the Youth Parliament in Athens which was organized these days.

Concluding, AHC emphasizes that such condemnable acts and attitudes mentioned above violate the European Convention of Human rights, Covenant against Torture, and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and other international documents. Regretfully, it should be mentioned that these acts are committed in the territory of a country, member of the European Union.