Re: The Guardian: Greece Is A Racict Society

No surprise there. Did they mention racist Germany?

Anonymous <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Greece tackles its image as a state of racists
> 
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/farright/story/0,11981,1082337,00.html
> 
> 
> 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