A large banner is hung from the occupied university building during the Athens camp in solidarity with Palestine. Photo credit: Assembly in solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance

Comrades face deportation after Palestine camp in Athens

Last week, the Palestine solidarity encampment at Athens Law School was raided, and 9 activists have been detained for deportation back to various European countries. Here is a report of what happened, how it relates to the Greek state’s brutal anti-migrant regime, and what it tells us about university encampments and internationalist solidarity more broadly. 

A version of this report was first published on Indymedia Athens, the statement we quote from the Student Initiative for Palestine was first posted on the Solidarity with Migrants Facebook page. 

IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE DETAINED COMRADES, WITH PALESTINE, AND WITH ALL DETAINEES AND POLITICAL PRISONERS. 

On the evening of 13 May, students of Athens joined the global movement of the student Intifada in solidarity with Palestine and occupied the Athens Law School. They demanded that the Greek universities stop all cooperation in the form of research projects or exchange and funding programs with the Israeli state. The next morning, police raided the occupied space and arrested 28 people. The police confiscated a number of items from the grounds of the university, with no existing evidence to relate these items to any of the arrested individuals.

Following the fatal events in 1973 where the military junta deployed tanks to crush the Athens Polytechnic uprising, Greek universities have been protected by an asylum law barring police from university grounds. In 2023 this asylum law was revoked by the current conservative government, unleashing waves of violence against students on their own campuses. In 2024 the government fast-tracked path to the privatisation of universities. Increased police presence and intimidation tactics in once free and autonomous spaces extend beyond the university walls. Events, activities, and collective gatherings in public spaces – whether political or not – are targeted by police presence, repression and violence. The state’s aggressive stance is an attempt to quash any form of solidarity, of anti-capitalist ways, of free movement and the struggle of migrants.

The 28 arrested in the Athens Law School were immediately transferred to the central police station of Athens (GADA). Lawyers were only allowed access to those detained eight hours after their detainment, with police attempting to force detainees to provide fingerprints prior to the arrival of their lawyers. In the meanwhile, hundreds of solidarians gathered in front of GADA, demanding an immediate release of the people arrested while affirming their support for a free Palestine. After receiving the information that all 28 arrestees would be charged, they were forced to spend the night in GADA.

The following day, the court was scheduled to take place at noon but was deliberately delayed for some hours. Tens of solidarians were present at the court to show their support to the arrested, with chants calling for a free Palestine and for an end to the intimidation tactics. Finally, the 28 were brought before the prosecutor and the decision was to release everyone and postpone the court until the 28th of May with the charges of: vandalism, disruption of the public order, refusal to cooperate with police procedures (fingerprints) and possession of ‘weapons’. 

In spite of the magistrate court’s decision to release all detainees, the police decided otherwise. The state security department registered the nine non-Greek international comrades as ‘unwanted’ and decided to proceed with an administrative detention. The lawyers were then informed of the decision that the detention of the nine international comrades would be continued administratively, and that a deportation order will also be issued; an unprecedented development for European Union citizens. The comrades were first sent to the Foreigners Division of Attica Police and later on, eight of the nine were transferred to Amygdaleza Pre Removal Detention Centre, with the only male comrade remaining alone at the Foreigners Division.

Fortress Europe and the Israeli state

Yanis Varoufakis said of these detainments: ‘The extreme violation of the rights of free movement, political expression and deprivation of liberty in hellholes of foreigners together with the enforced complicit silence on the genocide of the Palestinian people is turning Europe into a dystopian community.’

However, administrative detention and deportations are daily strategies that the Greek state practices as one of the deeply racist components of the murderous Fortress Europe. The state’s blatant racism is evident in the massive-scale arrests, detentions, torture and deportations that happen on a daily basis, and mostly unnoticed by society.

The brazenness with which the Greek state acts is also explained by years of enacting a deadly border policy against refugees, migrants and undocumented people. In Greece, there are four grounds for administrative deportation, which gives the police complete freedom to judge whether a person is a threat to public order, and without a criminal trial, the person can be detained and deported under administrative procedures. The detention and threatened deportation of the nine detainees, with citizenship from Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Britain is a new application of these repressive orders designed to intimidate and target the solidarity movement with Palestine.

The technology used by the Greek state in its violent and deadly pushbacks of asylum seekers rely on research and technologies of containment, surveillance and control that the Israeli state tests on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Dissent against the Israeli state, its military occupation of Palestine and the wars it wages in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, is a threat to the EU and Greece’s military border security complex.

The Student Initiative for Palestine released the following analysis of how this case is being used to bolster Greek’s border regime and support of Israel:

‘On the one hand, New Democracy and Mitsotakis are using this case to reinforce the position that Greece is the top cop of the European Union, in view of the European elections. On the other hand, it is nothing but the deep politics of the Greek state, its participation in the racist, classist war against the poor. From the murderous racist guards of the sea and land borders to the expansion of concentration camps, detention centres, war bases, and the persecution of the survivors of the Pylos shipwreck as ‘traffickers’, the Greek state is taking a clear stand.

‘However, by increasing the repression now, the Greek state is showing at the same time how afraid it is of the possibility of a truly internationalist meeting and organisation of struggles in solidarity with Palestine, against the collaboration of Greece-Israel-USA-Egypt and the other European states in the genocidal war.

‘The reality is that what we are opposing now in the genocidal war, which is the central choice of the foreign policy of support of the Greek state and other states, we look like a “public danger for national security”.’

The University is not a neutral space

The Student Initiative for Palestine continue: 

‘The universities of the West are not standing idly by while the bombing of the universities of Gaza is going on. The university is not a ‘pure temple of knowledge’ as it is presented, but as a state and capitalist institution it reproduces the demands of the state and capital. As such, it promotes the interests of the nation, local and international capital, as can be seen from the latest laws on educational restructuring and the attempt to marry the national interest with curricula, research programmes and vocational training oriented only to the demands of the labour market. In the research programmes, the involvement of the police, the army, the secret services, the ministries of national defence and private capital is expressed in many ways. 

‘Israel is not only content to kill the Palestinians, but for those who escape, it predestines their future to the murderous anti-immigration policies of the Greek state and the European Union. The cooperation of Greek universities with imperialist interests is not limited to the level of research programmes but is often expressed through events and seminars, as we have recently seen in the case of the National Academy of Sciences with the event ‘Career Day in Space Technologies, Applications and Services Made in Greece.’ The direct partner and sponsor was the private company Lockheed Martin which is also based in Israel and is taking over part of its air force. It is clear that the Greek university is participating in the genocide of the Palestinian people and in the war, for these reasons it must be confronted.

‘Communication with fellow groups in New York and the Netherlands helped us to realise the power of internationalist solidarity, despite the personal costs, and the importance of specific goals, such as forcing university and state administrations to divest from the Israeli war economy and military machine. 

‘For us, silence is complicity, so we are not going to continue our lives according to the imposed dictates of normality, careerism, competitiveness. We have not and will not stop talking and shouting about Palestine in our schools, in the squats and in the streets. We will not allow any state to suppress internationalist solidarity. We are with Palestine for all the reasons of the world, until the genocide stops, until the Palestinian people are truly free!’

What now?      

The Greek right-wing media released information about the detention and deportation of the nine individuals before any of them or their lawyers were informed, saying the ‘foreigners […] are being deported as a public danger to the security of the country’. This move underscores the state’s use of media as a tool for psychological warfare and their allegiance to the media over formal legal processes. By learning about their fate through the media rather than through legal channels, the detainees were stripped of their agency and plunged into uncertainty. These penalties and legal reactions are severe and unprecedented responses to allegations of misdemeanour charges. 

Migrants and those without papers who exercise their right to free speech by being politically active, are now at an increased risk of deportation and violent legal actions. This is exemplified in the case of our Egyptian comrade who, having attended pro-Palestine demonstrations, has been threatened with deportation by the Egyptian embassy. Governments and media outlets collaborate to criminalise and delegitimise efforts to support the Palestinian struggle, portraying individuals as threats to national security. These actions reveal the state’s desperation to maintain control and suppress resistance. It underscores the need for alternative media and solidarity networks to counteract these intimidation tactics. By standing in solidarity with those targeted, we can expose the state’s oppressive mechanisms and continue the struggle for true liberation, from Palestinians to those incarcerated. There is a need to make our solidarity practical, to act, to escalate, to make clear and loud that neither intimidation nor imprisonments and deportations weaken the struggle. Resistance will never die, Palestine will never die!

These intimidation and repressive tactics cannot and will not silence our rage, or stop our solidarity with Palestine.

We demand the following:

• No deportations for the 9 internationals – we call for their immediate release with no restrictions until their court date.
• We demand the complete abolition of administrative detention for people without papers, migrants, asylum seekers in Greece – together with the racist law of administrative deportation. The whole mechanism is a racist practice which incarcerates people of colour with no access to basic human rights.
• We are against media collaborators with the police, who try to spread terror against the people who struggle and raise their voices for a free Palestine.

The struggle continues to stop the genocide!

End the occupation of Palestine!

All eyes on Rafah!

You can contribute to the solidarity fund to raise legal fees here: https://gogetfunding.com/support-for-the-9-detained-internationals-in-greece/

If the call reaches its target then organisers request that donations are redirected to Gazan fundraising appeals, a selection can be found here: https://linktr.ee/rosolsal