The degree of cynicism in the government's policy against migrants and refugees outrages us, though it no longer comes as a surprise. With an unspeakable Joint Ministerial Decision, the government is bribing the legal profession with 250 euros per person, in order to deter any refugee from pursuing an asylum claim and to compel them to waive the process within 2 months of its initiation.
This is apparently how much the government values the conscience of lawyers, and this is also how much it values the refugees' desire for a humane life. According to the government, the refugee will be "persuaded" through arguments to waive their rights.
According to the Joint Ministerial Decision, for a lawyer to receive the 250 euros, they must be structurally integrated into the state asylum policy's implementation mechanism (Registry of Lawyers). This degrades their role from an independent legal advisor acting in the interest of those seeking international protection to a government accomplice in its wretched anti-migrant policy. They are expected to convince the refugee that they must either return to where they came from or face imprisonment or a concentration camp—essentially, that their life will be made a living hell. This reflects the cynicism and inhumanity characterizing the Minister of Anti-Migration Policy, Plevris, who openly employs racist/fascist rhetoric. Such rhetoric serves to highlight his political origins and nods knowingly to the descendants of collaborationist fascists ahead of the upcoming elections, as well as to those persuaded by government propaganda that refugees—rather than ruling policies—are the enemy.
This is a highly serious, abhorrent, and morbid development. In the most official manner, the defining trait of the legal profession will no longer be the defense of justice and human rights, but rather an ideological and political orientation aligned with the government's anti-migrant policy—a policy that completely serves the agenda of "Fortress Europe" and ratifies European institutional racism. Lawyers will no longer act as legal guides for refugees in claiming their rights, but rather as cogs in the state apparatus that engineers their restriction. The refugees of poverty and war, who even under ancient customary law had the right to seek asylum and protection, will be left at the mercy of arbitrariness and violations of their rights arising from their status, without even having the ability to denounce them.
For us, the protection of the right to asylum is non-negotiable.
We demand:
The immediate and complete abolition/ withdrawal of the Joint Ministerial Decision, alongside the abolition of the wretched EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which forms the basis of this repulsive anti-migrant framework of government policy.
We call upon:
The Athens Bar Association and its Plenary to demand the abolition/withdrawal of this Joint Ministerial Decision by any means necessary. No lawyer should become a mouthpiece or a lackey of the Greek government, or of any warmongering European governments that sow havoc among people—both locals and foreigners—in order to subjugate and continue to exploit them.
Labor unions, alongside migrant and refugee communities and organizations, pro-migrant and anti-racist collectives and initiatives, and cities' movements, to unite to denounce, oppose, and resist these policies, and to support the displaced people of our class in every possible way.
Today the refugees, tomorrow us?!
Signatures of collectives:
Struggle without Borders
Movement expel racism
Sunday School for Immigrants
Network of Social Support for Refugees and Immigrants
Network for Social and Political Rights
KEDDA Movement for Freedoms, Democratic Rights and Solidarity
"Odysseus" Solidarity School
Primary and Secondary Education Teachers' Associations:
Primary Education Teachers' Association "ARISTOTLE"
Primary Education Teachers' Association of AMAROUSSION
Secondary Education Teachers' Association of New SMYRNI - KALLITHEA - MOSCHATO
Β' Secondary Education Teachers' Association of ATHENS
Α' Secondary Education Teachers' Association of WESTERN ATTICA (Eleusis)
Α' Secondary Education Teachers' Association of WESTERN ATTICA (Peristeri)
A' Secondary Education Teachers' Association of CYCLADES
Secondary Education Teachers' Association of ANO LIOSSIA - ZEFYRI - FYLI
Secondary Education Teachers' Association of RETHYMNO
