Greek Hunger Strikers – Update

Wednesday 2nd March
78 hunger strikers in hospitals see http://hungerstrike300.espivblogs.net/2011/03/02/232011-78-hunger-strikers-in-hospitals

Last night, March 1, at least 78 immigrants hunger strikers were in hospitals in Athens and Thessaloniki. The medical team responsible to support the hunger strikers decided the transfer to the hospitals because the hunger strikers were suffering from:

a) imminent acute renal failure (that is reversible if treated promptly),
b) severe dehydration with electrolyte deficiencies,
c) cardiac arrhythmias,
d) several other medical problems.

In several hospitals police «visited» the doctors and asked the Ids and data about the medical condition of the hunger strikers. When doctors refused to give any information about their patients, police have written down the names of the doctors. Such incidents in hospitals were taking place in Greece only during the period of the dictatorship.

Yesterday morning, riot police attempted to prevent a press conference in front of the parliament. Several trade unionists, intellectuals, artists and antiracist activists (among them the writer Vassilis Alexakis) were hit and pushed violently by the policemen.
300 undocumented immigrants are now on the 37 day of hunger strike demanding to get papers.

Tuesday, March 1 at 12.00 (Parliament), multi-voiced solidarity with the righteous struggle of the 300 immigrant hunger strikers
Φεβρουαρίου 27, 2011

*The period of tolerance of the Government has expired*

36 days of hunger strike. 36 days fight to the bitter end until the final
vindication of the 300 immigrant workers. 36 days of solidarity with 300 of
our fellowmen (as also with so many ‘others’ unseen) who put their lives on
an irreversible path for a meaningful life, for the right to dignity and
dreams. 36 days of smearing, corruption, criminalizing the only choice for
all those who do not accept the humiliation of their existence and the
evacuation of the vision for a just society: The choice of struggle and
solidarity with those who resist and reject the logic of terror and the
doctrine of ‘all against all’.

36 days, however, of State insensitivity. 36 days unfolding before our eyes,
frame by frame the scenario of an incompetent and degenerate Government
(hence prone to both oppressive measures and ‘royal decrees’) – who confront
the 300 hunger strikers, as well as the total immigrant population, as a
‘necessary evil’ to strengthen the Greek economy, as well as being
disposable in terms of life and their natural rights. 36 days of ridicule
and bookie-treatment of people who exhaust the limits of their natural, but
not ethical, strength, claiming the obvious: The right to have a face.

After 36 days of hunger strike, the Government, through the Mass Media and
without having bothered to speak to the hunger strikers, chooses a forked
tongue, the collapse of the 300 immigrant workers’ health, and proposing a
vague ‘regulation’ of the 300 with ‘State tolerance ‘, whereas they could
very well give a proper solution within the existing institutional
framework.

On our part, we would like to convey to the Government that for years
*it*has been under the established tolerance of immigrants as of us
all, and
that our tolerance deadline has expired.

On Tuesday, March 1 at 12.00 noon in Syntagma (Parliament) we call upon all
collective bodies that have expressed their solidarity with this just
struggle to unite their voices.

– For the vindication of the 300 immigrants on hunger
strike.
– For the vindication of each and every immigrant
– For the vindication of all of us
– For the vindication of life itself.

Solidarity Initiative for the 300 hunger strikers
Tags: press conference, δελτίο τύπου, πρωτοβουλία αλληλεγγύης Αθήνα, συνέντευξη τύπου