Post APZZEJcPi7pZkhCvLs by lk2015r@mastodon.online
 (DIR) More posts by lk2015r@mastodon.online
 (DIR) Post #APZZEJcPi7pZkhCvLs by lk2015r@mastodon.online
       2022-11-13T11:52:47Z
       
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       CW: violenceAnother #pushback case in Greece, this time with a difference. Ezrat, an Afghan man with refugee status who lives in Thessaloniki was kidnapped, beaten & pushed back to Turkey at #Evros. In August 2021 he went to the village of Kimmeria, nr Xanthi with 3 friends to pay ransom for his nephew, who was held by a smuggling network.2 police officers arrived at the house, beat Ezrat & his friends, handcuffed them & drove them to a detention site nr Xanthi in a car with 🇧🇬 plates.
       
 (DIR) Post #APZZEKA5gullR8xoqO by lk2015r@mastodon.online
       2022-11-13T11:54:03Z
       
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       They were stripped and detained for two days. Then the police took them to the border near Soufli, beat them again, took a video of them (interesting – why?) and threw them in the river handcuffed. Ezrat managed to return to Greece from Turkey after a lawyer went to Istanbul with Ezrat’s papers, which he had left in the car. The twist: Ezrat works as an interpreter for the police & courts. He complained to Internal Affairs & identified 5 police officers involved in the smuggling network.
       
 (DIR) Post #APZZEOfQwKDXPVeuFk by lk2015r@mastodon.online
       2022-11-13T11:55:07Z
       
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       Internal Affairs sent the case to the prosecutor, who sent it back for the police officers to be interviewed as suspects. More than a year after, the case is still with Internal Affairs. Ezrat meanwhile has been threatened by police officers whom he knows through his work.https://www.efsyn.gr/ellada/koinonia/366537_kayti-patata-sta-heria-ton-esoterikon-ypotheseon
       
 (DIR) Post #APcwsPz2LWuRUnlD4y by lk2015r@mastodon.online
       2022-11-15T10:10:16Z
       
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       @corfiot They're not incompetent. What happens in Evros & elsewhere, the whole process of kidnappings, detention, beatings, thefts, transfers & pushbacks, is a very well organised operation. The videos might be for boasting but might serve other purposes - e.g. an archive of sorts. Even pushing back people who work for the police  - or for that matter Frontex, as it happened with their interpreter last year - has no consequences. And of course there's no resistance to such practices.
       
 (DIR) Post #APd9qP10H3hJJl388u by lk2015r@mastodon.online
       2022-11-15T14:15:32Z
       
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       @corfiot You may think that they are incompetent, but I'd say they are anything but: they implement the policy as intended. Incompetence is too convenient an excuse for the systematic exercise of state border violence.