Greek Police: "We Are Sitting on a Time Bomb"

| Posted by Cheradenine Zakalwe

Turkey is using illegal immigration as a weapon against Greece and Europe, islamising the content and exerting pressure to exact political concessions from the EU. This should provoke a devastating response from European governments. Instead, these spineless fools continue their policy of endless appeasement.
Greece now has a million illegal immigrants in a country of 11 million, many warehoused in camps under atrocious conditions.

What's going to become of these people? What will they do when they are released?", asks a French official whose service term is coming to an end. His observation is sombre: "Greece is becoming the prison of Europe."

...The police chief of Orestias [just over the border from Turkey], Giorgos Salamangas, is direct: "Up to 2009, the number of immigrants was still moderate and manageable, he says [3,500 arrests for the sector he is in charge of]. It's in 2010 that things changed [36,000 arrests for the same sector]… »
That year, Turkey, without consulting anyone, decided to suppress visas for nationals of countries like Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia. Revolutionising as it did so migratory flows towards Europe. "Today, from Algeria and other cities in North Africa, you can get to Istanbul with a low cost flight for only 70 euros, says Giorgos Salamangas.

Now, hardly anyone risks the Mediterranean. Too expensive, too long and too dangerous. The illegals from Sahel and the Maghreb, like the Asians, now pass through Turkey and Greece. "Turkey has become the crossroads for illegal immigration towards the countries of the Schengen Area, especially thanks to the opening of low cost air links," confirms the 2012 report of the European agency Frontex, responsible for coordinating surveillance of the external frontiers of the EU.

The Turkish government closes its eyes. In addition to the economic benefits it gains from the transit of thousands of people through its territory, it is using immigration as a means of pressuring the EU. A Europe to which its own citizens only have access with a visa - "unjust", according to the Minister of European Affairs, Egemen Bagis. Ankara demands its abolition, pure and simple.

In the evening, in some streets in Omonia, a district located in the heart of Athens, it's not uncommon to have to step over the bodies of drug addicts to get into a building or even simply to walk past. In this capity city (almost 4 million inhabitants) without suburbs, the squats of the illegal immigrants are concentrated in Omonia. Drugs, prostitution, delinquency, AIDS: the place has become a sort of grey zone. Best not to linger there. Police officers (whose salaries have been cut by 30% compared to the previous year) admit their anxiety: "We are sitting on a time bomb," warns one of them. "As far as crime is concerned, all the indicators are in the red. Home jackings, burglaries, bag snatchings, all the figures have exploded."