Golden Dawn affair is ‘tip of the iceberg’ of Greek police violence according to Amnesty International

The report titled ‘A law unto themselves: A culture of abuse and impunity in the Greek police’ (full pdf) makes clear that rather that one-off incidents, the abuse is the product of a system in which security officers often act with impunity and rarely face consequences for criminal actions.

“Our investigation shows that the Golden Dawn debacle is only the tip of the iceberg. Entrenched racism, excessive use of force and deep-rooted impunity are a blight on the Greek police. Successive Greek governments have so far failed to acknowledge, let alone tackle, these human rights violations by police and on-going impunity,“ said Jezerca Tigani, Europe and Central Asia Deputy Programme Director at Amnesty International.

The report comes just days after the death of Ilya Kareli, a prisoner who died after apparently being brutally beaten and electrocuted by prison officers after the inmate stabbed a prison guard to death. 14 correctional workers are now being investigated over the incident.

The 67 page report makes for thoroughly depressing reading, cataloguing a long list of incidents of brutal treatment of groups including families fleeing the Syrian civil war and peaceful protesters. While many of these incidents, which go back several years, are high profile cases that have been reported in the Greek media and led to investigations, as yet few have led to any officers being convicted or facing disciplinary actions.

Amnesty International also maintains that there is a systematic use of the security forces to disrupt legitimate protests. One such case involves the heavy-handed tactics used to crush the demonstrations against the Skouries gold mines in the north of Greece in October 2012. Indicative is the case of Rania Ververidou, a 63 year-old woman who claims she was the victim of police brutality. After an unknown person through a rock at police during an otherwise peaceful protest, they responded aggressively striking protesters with batons and extensively using tear-gas:

“Rania Ververidou wasn’t spared from the police violence herself. When she, her husband and a friend reached her car, a riot police officer reportedly started banging on their windows and windshield with his baton as if he wanted to break the glass. Fortunately, the glass was shatterproof so it did not break, so the police officer opened her door and dragged her out of the car and ordered her to kneel. She said, “He stepped with his boot on my left leg with force. The pain was excruciating and I let out a terrible scream and cried as a result of the pain.” Injured, and in terrible pain, she and her husband were taken to the local police station.

Throughout the process she asked for medical care but one of the police officers told her to shut up; all she was given was some ice. After two hours at the police station, Rania Ververidou and her husband were released without charge. She suffered serious injuries to her left leg that resulted in severe swelling, and her leg was put in plaster. She told Amnesty International that she continues to suffer from the injury she received. Rania Ververidou filed a complaint against the police officer who injured her but, a year after the incident. Amnesty International has been informed by her lawyer that there has been no progress in the preliminary criminal investigation that has started into the complaint. Furthermore, Amnesty International has been informed by lawyers representing the protesters that the authorities has not opened any other investigation into the numerous allegations of excessive use of force against protesters that day.”

Aside from violence against protesters, push backs of migrants, torture and beatings of arrestees, in some instances the security forces appear to have been complicit in the deaths of individuals in custody.

The report also once again highlights the deep-rooted sympathy many in the police force have for the neo-nazi group Golden Dawn, describing incidents where police failed to intervene or even assisted the group’s paramilitary ‘hit squads’ in violent incidents against migrants and racial minorities. Racism is not only tolerated but ‘entrenched’ in the police force according to the report.

While Amnesty notes some signs of progress such as the establishment of a Special Prosecutor for hate crimes and a hotline to report incidents of racist violence, the group maintains that better legislation is required to combat hate crimes.

Furthermore the culture needs to change in order for the police force to become the public’s ally rather than its enemy. Yet this is something which requires a political will that today’s right-wing government has shown little evidence of.

“Police have been used as an indiscriminate tool by the authorities. Instead of maintaining law and order, all too often they have been tasked with stifling dissent and persecuting members of vulnerable groups. Their actions have been left without independent scrutiny and their transgressions unpunished. This has to change,”  said Jezerca Tigani.

“There is an urgent need for a comprehensive structural reform of law enforcement including the creation of an independent police complaint mechanism to investigate allegations of unlawful police conduct. The Greek authorities must restore the public confidence in Greek law enforcement structures.”