Immigrants march in Athens in response to new incident of police anti-muslim racism

On Thursday 21 May afternoon 1500 immigrants took to the street of Athens marching to the police station of Kypseli, the most densely populated area of the Greek capital. The protest march was organised in response to yet another incident of police racism against Muslims the previous night. When as part of the now common anti-immigrant sweeping operations the notoriously racist greek police stopped a Syrian immigrant and found in his bag a copy of the Koran, they severely beat him, tearing the Koran in pieces and jumping on its torn fragments on the ground.

The incident comes as yet another example of greek police fascism which has reached new levels after the active involvement of immigrants in the December uprising. The most common target of both police, the secret services and paramilitary thugs are members of the Pakistani community, which is despised by the police state for its active involvement in left wing politics. An increasing number of attacks against Pakistani activists has been reported after December, recalling the infamous arrest of more than a thousand Muslims in Athens after the London July metro bombing, and the setting up of secret interrogation camps in the greek mountains, uncovered by the British media in the winter of 2006. In a bravado of racist policy unique to Europe, no public worship of Islam is allowed in Athens or other major cities, and the State does not allow the creation of a Muslim cemetery.

The police sweeping operations against immigrants are concentrated on the area of Agios Panteleimonas where a number of Greek residents allied with neo-nazi groups have been launching an racist hatred campaign in the last year. Thursday's protest march began in Omonoia, met at the square of Agios Panteleimonas with solidarity protesters and marched to the Kypseli police station where limited clashes occurred, with one policeman injured. New marches are planned for the following days.