Poll underlines urgency of anti-discrimination bill
Helena Smith in
Athens
Tuesday
November 11, 2003
The Guardian
Greeks found guilty of
discriminating against religious or ethnic groups will face up to a year in
prison under legislation presented by the Athens government in attempts to quash
a rise in racist incidents.
The measure, included in a new anti-discrimination law, follows
a rash of confrontations with the growing immigrant population. One attack
prompted a protest by Pakistani migrants in Athens.
"This is a law whose aim is to try to guarantee the equal
treatment of all people," said the justice minister, Philippos Petsalnikos.
"More work needs to be done to ensure the smooth integration of immigrant
communities."
The bill, which aims to bring Greece in line with EU
anti-discrimination standards, is expected to be approved by the
Socialist-dominated parliament before the end of the year.
Coming on the day in which the Simon Wiesenthal Centre issued a
travel advisory to Jews thinking of visiting Greece in the wake of a spate of
anti-semitic incidents, the poll revealed evidence of Greeks being the most
xenophobic people in Europe.
The poll, commissioned by the European Social Survey, showed
most Greeks believed immigrants caused unemployment. More than 79% said they
should be deported if caught committing a crime. By contrast, only 41% of
Britons held the same views.
More than 10% of Greece's 11 million-strong population are
thought to be immigrants. Although the vast majority are Albanians, increasing
numbers have begun to arrive, illegally, from the developing world.
With Greece's proximity to the Middle East, most say they see
the country as the easiest backdoor entrance to Fortress Europe.
But human rights activists say "institutionalised intolerance"
is such that the state has failed to assimilate the immigrants adequately,
despite pledges to give many of them work and residence permits.
The new law follows a rash of embarrassing incidents over the
treatment of immigrants, including the refusal of state-run hospitals to offer
them healthcare. While the media, politicians and church leaders regularly
indulge in racist invective, classified ads in Athens frequently state "no
foreigners" for home rentals.
An Albanian boy, whose top grades had earned him the right to
carry the Greek flag at a national parade, was prevented from doing so after
nationalist protests.
At least 25% of pupils in Greek schools are believed to be the
children of immigrants, according to polls.
Last week the Pakistani owner of a video store was badly beaten,
along with a Pakistani bystander, by about 20 youths on motorcycles outside his
Athens shop.
The xenophobic attitudes have been increasingly blamed on the
absence of a civil society in Greece and the lack of an anti-racist education in
a country where children are still taught to take immense pride in their "ethnic
purity".
"It's not that Greeks are implicitly racist, they have just
never been taught anything different," said Panayote Dimitras of the the Greek
Helsinki Monitor.
"Greece is at the point where most democratic European countries
were before the second world war."
While human rights groups welcomed the anti-discrimination bill,
they questioned whether the country's ultraconservative judges and prosecutors
would be prepared to implement it. "It's an important step but by itself it
means nothing if the courts don't change their mentality and are allowed to
ignore it with impunity," Mr Dimitras said.
Immigrants under siege
· Many villages impose night-time curfews on immigrants'
movements, with some communities setting up vigilante groups to enforce the
restrictions. There have also been incidents of border guards shooting at
Albanians trying to enter the country
· Greek newspapers often carry anti-semitic,
anti-Albanian and anti-immigrant letters and headlines. Jewish cemeteries have
been desecrated. Greece's 120,000-strong Turkish Muslim minority often complains
of discrimination
· Courts invariably refuse to prosecute cases involving
racial hatred or incitement to violence
· Hospitals regularly refuse to treat immigrants
· Immigrant school children - accounting for 25% of pupils across
Greece - are not allowed to take lead roles in national parades
