Wiretapping, police brutality, racism and pushbacks – Amnesty International’s “kolafos” report on Greece

A catapult for Greece is Amnesty International’s annual report on human rights, a few hours after the State Department’s report on human rights.

The report makes reference to incidents of police brutality, racist attacks, illegal repatriation of refugees and also the wiretapping case.

Amnesty International specifically talks about the violation of human rights for refugees and immigrants, with extensive reference to the wreck of Pylos, but also to cases of targeting individuals and human rights organizations.

Of course, the report does not miss the reference to the case of interceptions and surveillance with the Predator malware.

Special mention is also made of women’s rights and the issue of “co-custody” as well as the rape of a young woman at the Omonia police station in October 2022.

Police brutality

As the report states, “reports of unlawful use of force during police operations, including the policing of demonstrations, such as the protests following the Tempe train disaster in February, continued.”

The report refers to specific incidents that occurred within 2023:

• In June, an Athens court convicted a police officer of “misdemeanor” torture for beating a student during a covid check in Nea Smyrni Square in March 2021. A second police officer was convicted as an accomplice.
• In November, an appeals court found the police responsible for the life-threatening injuries suffered by psychologist Yiannis Kavkas during a demonstration in Athens in 2011 and awarded him compensation.
• In September, Kostas Manioudakis died after allegedly being ill-treated by the police during a check in the village of Vryses in Crete.
• In October, a prosecutor recommended that a police officer be indicted for manslaughter and unlawful shooting in connection with the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Roma Kostas Fragoulis in 2022 in Thessaloniki.
• In November, 17-year-old Christos Michalopoulos was fatally shot by a police officer in Leontari, Aliartos municipality, after a car chase. The police officer was charged with manslaughter and unlawful shooting.

The wreck of Pylos

“Human rights violations continued at the Greek border, including illegal, summary returns, which in some cases were accompanied by violence,” the report emphasizes.

“On June 14, a ship carrying around 750 people, including many children, sank off the coast of Pylos several hours after it was initially spotted by a Frontex aircraft, that is the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. Only 104 people survived. The survivors firmly stated to Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch (HRW) that the Greek coast guard had towed the boat with a rope, causing the boat to tilt in various directions until it capsized” he says characteristically and continues, regarding the investigations, that :

“Independent reports from credible NGOs and media sources described a similar version of events, but this narrative was strongly denied by the Greek authorities. Amnesty International and HRW also noted serious failures by the Greek authorities in their handling of the rescue operations, noting further that subsequent investigations launched by the Greek authorities into the actions of the coast guard did not make much progress and that the authorities may have undermined the integrity of key evidence’.

Racist rhetoric

The fires in the Evros region fueled racist rhetoric and mistreatment of migrants and refugees, the report points out.

An amendment to the law passed in December allowed undocumented immigrants who had been in Greece for at least three years until the end of November 2023 and who had a job offer, to apply for a three-year residence permit. The amendment also reduced from 6 months to 60 days the period of time that asylum seekers had to wait to be able to work from the moment they submitted their request for asylum,” it states specifically.

The wiretapping case

The report also refers to the wiretapping case and the “88 people who were informed that their mobile phones had been targeted”.

“In July, an investigation by the Greek Data Protection Authority into the use of Predator spyware found 350 SMS messages attempting to install tracking software.

»In September, civil society and members of the European Parliament expressed concern over the Greek parliament’s sudden replacement of several members of Greece’s Communications Privacy Authority (NDPA) at a critical time in the investigation of the software monitoring scandal .

»In October, during a hearing before a committee of the European Parliament, the head of ADAE expressed his concern over the fact that a current and a former member of ADAE were the subject of a criminal investigation, while to date no one has been charged for using tracking software’.

Women’s rights

“Between January and early December, 14 femicides were reported,” the report says.

“The group of experts (GREVIO) monitoring the implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, in its report in November expressed deep concern that the 2021 legislation on “joint custody” did not have sufficient safeguards to ensure that incidents of domestic violence are taken into account when determining child custody and visitation rights.

“In October, a prosecutor proposed the referral to trial of two police officers for the gang-rape of a young woman at the Omonia police station in October 2022 and a third police officer as an accomplice.”

Full report here.