On August 26, Greek police forcefully evacuated four buildings in the Exarchia district of Athens that housed around 143 migrants, including 35 minors. The police operation was said to be a part of the plan by the current conservative New Democracy (ND) government in Greece to demolish 23 buildings in the neighborhood, occupied predominantly by anarchist groups and radical activists.
Esquerda.net reported that the 143 migrants, evacuated from the buildings Gare, Spirou Trikoupi 17, Rosa de Fok, and Clantestina, have been transferred to overcrowded refugee camps spread across the country.
Responding to the police operation on migrants, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) said, “The government’s ‘law and order’ doctrine, implemented in Exarchia, cannot hide the responsibility of all governments to date, which have not provided human living conditions for refugees and migrants living in our country.”
“We demand that all refugees and immigrants receive humanitarian accommodation as long as they remain in our country, with the sole responsibility of the state and not the NGOs, to close the hot spots of shame,” the KKE added.
Several anarchist and anti-fascist groups in Greece, as well as abroad, expressed outrage and condemned the police action in the Exarchia neighborhood. The neighborhood is well-known for being Athens’ historical core of radical political and intellectual activism.
