Two videos posted online on August 23 show Greek members of the extreme right illegally “arresting” migrants in Evros, a Greek region bordering Turkey. The footage shows the militants forcing one group of men to sit in the dirt. Another group of terrified migrants have been crammed into a trailer. While members of the far right have carried out this type of illegal arrest of migrants before, it is rare to have footage of it. The attackers accuse the migrants of being responsible for the widespread fires in the region. These militiamen feel empowered by the political context hostile to migrants, say our Observers.
"Four more … you see? It is noon and where are the authorities? […] We will contact the police, but there is never any response,” rages the man filming a video posted online on August 27. While it is clear the video was filmed in the region of Evros, it’s not clear when it was filmed.
The man filming points the camera at four men, migrants, sitting on the ground in the dirt behind a Land Rover. Meanwhile, at least two other men loiter alongside the vehicle – seemingly in cahoots with the man behind the camera. At the end of the video, the man turns the camera on himself and you can see that he is bearded and wearing a black tee-shirt and camouflage pants.
The video was posted on social media by an account under the name Walandi Abrassis – likely the man who filmed it.
A video posted online a few days earlier shows a similar scene – albeit even more disturbing. The guy filming focuses the shot on his Land Rover, which has a trailer attached. When he opens the door, there are at least four men crammed inside, looking terrified.
“I’ve loaded up 25 of them into the trailer. Get organised, get them all out and grab them," he says. He seems to be speaking to his cronies about the migrant men in the trailer. "The whole mountain is full, guys.”
“They swore to burn us […] They will burn us, that’s all I’ll say,” he adds, this time referring to the wildfire that has been raging across the northeast of Greece, considered to be the largest ever recorded in the European Union. According to the local press, this video was filmed in Alexandroupoli, just a few kilometres from the Turkish border, the Evros River.
The website the Press Project later reported that these militia men had “arrested” 13 migrant men, not 25 as the man filming claimed. The victims told journalists that the militants had beaten them with metal rods.
“They took off all of our clothes and filmed us. We stayed there a long time, sweating and unable to breathe,” said one of the 13 men who was detained.
Greek authorities have put the man who filmed this second video under house arrest awaiting charges.
But are you surprised that fascist have numbers? I see what’s happening in France and I’m thinking that it’s a result of bad immigration policies. It’s a result of brining lots of people and not giving them proper education and opportunities. So in my opinion the solution is to have a proper, controlled immigration and making sure that people we accept will actually have opportunities and be destined to slave labour or life in ghettos. If we do this everyone wins, if we don’t everyone loses. You think that migrants that come here and spend decades doing shitty jobs for almost no pay are happy here? I don’t. Then I see people like you proposing absurd ideas like getting rid of all the borders and spreading fantasy theories like ‘people will not emigrate if they have hope’ and I’m like… this guy is delusional. You’re proposing extreme solutions and hope that some fair, new world will emerge out of the chaos. Well, good luck with that. I’m not going to risk everything to help some people that can’t really help themselves. If for you it means I’m a racist and fascist that’s fine, I don’t really care. Just be aware that bullshit rhetoric like yours is adding more fuel to the right-wing movements than all the talk about scary migrants fascist do.
Good god, I’m helping the fascists? You’re the one who endorses fascist policies and repeats fascist talking points. The rise of fascism, as I said before, is due it being a useful tool for the ruling class in preserving the status quo, hence why these talking points are pushed and why demagogues are trying to make the population afraid of immigrants. It worked on you. The problem of people fleeing poverty and violence will never be solved by closing the borders, that just makes it worse, and many people die because of it.