First New Concentration Camps in Europe Set to Sprout on Greek Soil

End the Lie
Madison Ruppert

As if the current circumstances of austerity-riven Greece were not bad enough already, it seems that the country is set to have a dozen or so concentration camps dotted around the country.

In language that might have been lifted straight from the Nazi lexicon, these establishments will be known as ‘closed-hospitality’ centers.

The incarcerates will be undocumented – meaning unwanted – refugees flooding in from North Africa, particularly the once prosperous and richest country in the Maghreb belt, namely Libya.
Most of the Mediterranean countries are in the thick of the refugee tide, but Greece is so far the only country that plans to compulsorily pen them up.

The first ‘reception center’ is scheduled to open at a former army base near Athens in the next few weeks.

Why the sudden haste, you ask? The answer is simple. A general election is scheduled for May 6th.
All the parties straddling the spectrum from left to right are playing the immigrant card for all its worth, but none more so than the main establishment parties: Pasok (theoretically socialist) and New Democracy (nominally center-right).

Right now their electoral prospects look decidedly dim. New Democracy, led by Antonis Samaris, is barreling on about 22% in the opinion polls, Pasok rates scarcely better at 18 and a smidgeon percent.
The nightmare entertained by the EU-imposed Greek Quisling, Lukas Papademos, is that neither party will end up with sufficient seats to ensure a majority in the Vouli, the national parliament.

As the two principal challengers shed votes by the hour, Greek voters are turning to a plethora of fringe parties rooted in both the left and right.

They may squabble fiercely among themselves but they are united by one core belief: total opposition to the EU/IMF austerity package which has ripped the heart out of the Greek economy.

The indecent haste of the mainstream figurines wildly wind milling the immigrant camps to attract voters’ attentions speaks for itself.

But to catch the flavor, listen to the chillingly titled ‘Civil Protection Minister’ Michalis Chrisohoidis grand-standing for his party, which is Pasok.

“We have a commitment to start operating these closed-hospitality centers, and we will keep to that commitment. The first centre will operate before the general election in greater Athens, and it will act as a model to show Greek citizens that these facilities are safe for the public and will operate to high standards of health and hygiene,” he said.

Europe on 'suicide watch': anger and pain over the human cost of austerity

The Independent
Peter Popham


Authorities have ignored everyday people as they struggle to get economies back on an even keel

When a retired chemist called Dimitris Christoulas walked into Syntagma Square in central Athens Wednesday morning with his hunting gun and looked over at his nation's parliament building, he is unlikely to have been aware that 1,900 miles to the north-east, the silence that had befallen a small Victorian terrace house in the town of Bedworth, Warwickshire was a symptom of the same malaise.

Mr Christoulas was typical of the newer, poorer subscribers to monetary union for whom the promise of guaranteed affluence and equality across ancient borders with old enemies such as Germany came as a blessing after a lifetime of toil. But the state that claimed his loyalty was no better, he decided, than the one hijacked by the colonels in their coup d'etat in 1967.

"The government has annihilated all traces for my survival," he wrote in a note found at the scene, "which was based on a dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years, with no help from the state." But what the state had not given, it was now taking away: he chose a dramatic end to "fishing about through rubbish dumps for things to eat".

Over in Bedworth, 19 miles from Birmingham, steel shutters over the windows and doors of the end-terrace where Mark and Helen Mullins ended their lives are the only remaining signs of their decision to choose a less painful way out last November. They were hammered into place once the couple's dead bodies had been removed.

Neighbours had seen no comings and goings from the house for some days when police broke in and found them dead, side by side. Their bitter end soon became a symbol of the harsh consequences of the Coalition's cuts.

Mr Mullins had worked as a PT instructor in the army but had left too soon to qualify for a pension. His new wife Helen, 59, suffered from learning difficulties and according to her husband could neither read nor write, which prevented her from finding work.

Her 12-year-old daughter had been taken into care when local social services judged her incapable of looking after her any more, and the couple were said to have lived in fear of them reaching the same conclusion about Helen, and having her sectioned. They spent a lot of time moving from place to place.

Neither had any work, and the only source of money was Mr Mullins's £57.50 per week jobseeker's allowance. Once a week they walked 12 miles into Coventry for the free vegetable handouts from the Salvation Army, and Mark kept a broth going all week with the proceeds.

The suicide of Dmitiris Christoulas, which triggered a new bout of rioting in the Greek capital, threw a spotlight on the fact which European authorities have gone to considerable lengths to obscure as they struggle to come up with ways to get European economies back on an even keel.

Greek pensioner kills himself at parliament to protest austerity

Canada
Paul Anast and Nick Squires

A mourner places a candle at the spot where a man committed suicide at Syntagma
square in Athens Wednesday, touching a nerve among ordinary Greeks feeling the
brunt of the country's economic crisis.

A cash-strapped Greek pensioner who said he feared having to "scrounge for food" shot himself dead in the main square of Athens yesterday in the latest in a series of suicides and attempted suicides triggered by European austerity measures.

The death of the 77-year-old retired pharmacist in the Greek capital's Constitution Square caused an outpouring of anger and grief and came after similar incidents in Italy.

The pensioner, named locally as Dimitris Christoulas, shot himself with a handgun a few hundred yards from the Greek parliament, which has been the focus of numerous violent protests against tough austerity measures in recent months.

Witnesses said he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger after yelling: "I have debts, I can't stand this any more."

A passer-by told Greek television the man said: "I don't want to leave my debts to my children."
A suicide note found in his coat pocket blamed politicians and the country's acute financial crisis for driving him to take his life, police said.