In light of the incarceration in detention centres and the planned deportation of European citizens from Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, Secretary of MeRA25 and candidate in the EU elections has released a statement.

Yanis Varoufakis’ statement on Athens Law School detainees

Envious of the recent glory of the German state, Greece is deporting European citizens for their political activity.

Nine European citizens, the vast majority of whom are female, were arrested alongside Greek students for taking part in the brief and symbolic occupation of the National University of Athens Law School, in solidarity with the plight of the Palestinian people. Ahead of summoning important witnesses and interpreters, the court postponed its hearing and ordered that all of the accused be set free. However, Greek Police proceeded to detain the Europeans: a male Spanish citizen is held in the Directorate for Aliens and eight women are held at the closed detention centre of Amygdaleza. All of them are jailed in inhumane conditions ahead of deportation, treated as a threat to public order by decision of the Chief of Police, obviously under instructions by PM Mitsotakis, according to written reports.

It is indeed unprecedented that European citizens are being administratively detained and deported back to their countries – Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK – on the pretext that they pose a danger to public order, after having been accused of mere misdemeanours such as the disruption of the university’s operation for a few hours. And it is astonishing to see Greek authorities bent on quashing every voice resisting the unfolding genocide.

When the German authorities issued a travel ban against me in order to suspend my political activities and thus rendered me persona non grata in Germany, I wondered what could happen in the case of regular citizens. The answer came soon enough, with the administrative incarceration of European citizens in a closed concentration camp in order to deport them.

The extreme violation of the rights of free movement and political expression and the deprivation of liberty in a hellhole for migrants, coupled with the imposition of complicit silence regarding the genocide of the Palestinian people, is turning Europe into a dystopian community.

The European citizens should be set free at once.

Free Palestine! For, as is becoming evident every day, our own rights and liberties are contingent on the rights and liberties of every people who are denied them by the US and the EU.

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