Marina Nikolova
The immigrants who have been on hunger strike for 44 days begin eating soup twice a day from today. In such cases, feeding takes place in hospital in order to monitor the rates of magnesium, phosphorus and other substances in the body. However, now this will be done under field conditions, told the doctor that monitored the health of the starving immigrants until yesterday. In her words, they will be on a strict diet for five days and the next ten days they will be fed little by little. Currently, 90 people are hospitalized and the rest of the immigrants are in the building on the Patision Avenue in Athens, said their representative Ahmed Haji.
Interior Minister Yannis Rangоusis yesterday promised the immigrants that they will obtain documents proving their “period of tolerance.” After negotiations and attempts to obtain a promise for change in the law they agreed with the decision of the Minister and suspended the hunger strike. The meeting between the immigrants and the heads of the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Citizen Protection, the Ministry of Employment and the Ministry of Health was held in the headquarters of the GSEE union. The message the government has sent is that Greece does not bend to extortion, id does not give residence permits, said Yiannis Rangousis.
Interior Minister said in an interview for Radio Real FM that the the government has not bound to reduce the period of stay of undocumented immigrants in the country from 12 to 8 years to qualify to apply for residence permits. According to the Minister, the government does not legalize the 300 emigrants but establishes contact between them and the Greek police, which has the sole jurisdiction to investigate each case individually and give them certificates of tolerance. What the government has achieved after 45 days is to make the strikers give up their only request, which was to qualify to stay. "The fact that we managed to stop the hunger strike and that there is public peace while we have not surrendered are three things that show we have achieved our goal."
Interior Minister explained that even the period of 12 years is reduced, the procedure will remain unchanged and immigrants will have to submit an application in which to show that there are exceptional reasons to obtain residence permit.
The regime of tolerance allows strikers to stay in the country six months with the option to renew it. This regulation is part of the law on asylum and refugees, consisted in the implementation of the European Directive on the return. Strikers agreed to be registered, to be taken fingerprints and to submit their personal data to be able to obtain certificates. Additional presidential provision, which is expected to be issued by the Ministry of Employment, will regulate how they will integrate into the labour market. According to the European Directive, all foreigners who can not be sent back to their homeland for various reasons will be allowed to work for the time they stay in the country under certain conditions until their possible return, says an article in Kathimerini. This regulation is part of the effort to fight the ever-spreading black use of immigrants in Europe.
Also, strikers will have the opportunity to travel to their homelands for serious family reasons in the period in which they can not be extradited. This issue will be regulated by the Ministry for Citizen Protection. An agreement was also reached with the Ministry of Employment to reduce the number of working days required for renewal of residence permits.
According to initial data, about 20-30 people had submitted applications for political asylum in the past, 15-20 people had permits to stay and failed to renew the because they did not have enough working days. One of the immigrants says that around 200 people from the strikers could submit their documents for a residence permit if the term is reduced from 12 to 8 years. He also says that he worked in a store for tiles in Crete, but he himself left not to trouble the owner because he was illegal and the police began chasing undocumented immigrants. Then he went to the Peloponnese where he worked in agriculture. Now he dreams to go home for a while and to see his relatives, and then to come to Greece for a new beginning in Athens.
"We are satisfied. This certificate satisfies us, we will comply with the law until we fill these years that we need. We will wait. I have been here six years, I had different jobs - recycling of metals, I’ve picked olives, oranges and I will return to my previous work - to help a market seller. I have no family here, just friends, my family is in Morocco. I will visit them when I recover. Now after so many days I feel very well, I tried food, light things until our bodies get better. Otherwise, we are just talking about what we want to eat and cook," said another striker.
"First, those hungry people here have to be examined by doctors at the hospital. They have to begin to recover by eating soup. Then we have an agreement with the ministry to register them in order to leave and have the document in hand. For us this is a kind of legalization. When the new law is voted that will reduce the period to eight years all of the 300 immigrants can have documents after a few years," said the representative of immigrants Ahmed Haji. As to the other parties comments on the government's decision, he said that "obviously the other parties wanted a victim. Those who say the government has bent to the demands of illegal immigrants are unfair because they were close to death and this solution was needed. The strikers managed to get some of the things they demanded but the struggle will continue until there is none undocumented immigrant."
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