Workers shot by racist Greek boss compensated

This video says about itself:

1 May 2013

Although the climate of terror unleashed in Manolada after the mass shooting of workers who demanded six months of unpaid wages from their employer, more than 2.000 immigrants take part in a demonstration supported by the labor unions.

Greek and immigrant workers march together a distance of a 6 Km, from Manolada to the police station of Varda town and back.

On the way workers from the strawberry fields are constantly joining the protest. The workers chant: “What do we want? Legal papers!”, “Freedom-Liberty!”, “Never again fascism“, “Hands off immigrants“. They hold flags and the main banner that reads: “Legal immigrants and organized in trade unions.”

During the demo around 2,000 migrants, many of whom are without papers, (“sans-papiers”) fill out applications to create a Union of Migrant Workers to collectively fight for their rights and to stop terrorism of bosses and racism.

The anti-racists who organize and support the demo stress “the connection between the crimes of the bosses and the racist policies of the government that doesn’t legalize migrants, takes back the limited rights of citizenship from the children of migrants, organizes special police corps to chase them and lock them up in concentration camps, keeps borders closed leading to the death of people in the sea, in the river between Greece-Turkey and in the minefields.”

Protestors showed that it is rage, and not fear which dominates, hope and not despair, the mood for a massive organization and not individuation.

By Ben Chacko:

Greece: Top court compensates Bangladeshi workers who were shot at by farmer

Friday 31st March 2017

GREECE was ordered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) yesterday to pay between €12-16,000 (£10,250-£13,700) each to 42 Bangladeshi nationals who were shot at for demanding unpaid wages in 2013.

The 42, who did not have permits to work in Greece, were illegally hired by a strawberry farmer to pick fruit near the southern town of Manolada.

They protested after going unpaid for six months and were shot at by foremen — with 28 being injured in the incident.

But in a case that shocked Europe the farmer and head foreman were cleared of wrongdoing while two other supervisors present were released pending appeals despite being found guilty.

To add insult to injury the Greek court fined the destitute migrants €360 (£309) each for requesting the case be heard by another judge, on the grounds that the presiding one was racist. Lawyer Moisis Karabeyidis took the case to the ECHR — the top court of the Council of Europe, not to be confused with the smaller European Union — declaring the Greek court’s behaviour “an outrage and a disgrace.”

The judge ruled: “The state failed in its obligations to prevent the situation of human trafficking, to protect the victims, to conduct an effective investigation into the offences committed and to punish those responsible for the trafficking.”

But the court itself came under fire yesterday from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who told the annual congress of the European People’s Party in Malta that the ECHR’s judgements were “a threat to the security of EU people and an invitation for migrants.”