Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
Latest editorial
Greece: refugee camps to migrant prisons
The new right-wing administration has announced the closure of the chaotic, crowded and unsanitary camps on Greece's islands and the creation of closed detention centres. BETHANY RIELLY sounds the alarm
PRECIOUS FREEDOMS: Although life in the camps is hard, inhabitants benefit from being able to leave for walks and activities
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
Born on this day in 1931, the heroic revolutionary faces a dangerous new wave of White House aggression. We must treat his birthday as a rallying cry to resist the illegal siege of Cuba, writes ROGER McKENZIE
RAMZY BAROUD decries the rats of Gaza, the rodent and human type. Both abound as profiteering from tragedy reaches obscene levels
LAST week, the Greek government announced plans to shut down five of the worst refugee camps on the Aegean islands. At first glance this seems like a positive step towards tackling the humanitarian crisis raging on Europe’s doorstep. The camps are bursting at the seams with 30,000 refugees squeezed into five facilities with a combined capacity of just 5,000.
Conditions are unimaginable; in Moria, Greece’s largest refugee camp, there is only one toilet for every 200 people, sewage runs past tents and an unprecedented mental-health crisis has seen children as young as 10 attempt suicide. Something has to be done, and it has to be done now.
Greece’s new right-wing government believes it can tackle the five-year crisis. But its proposals have sparked fears among the island’s NGO workers. As well as closing the camps and transferring 20,000 refugees to the mainland, the administration also plans to create a new border police unit and shut down NGOs that don’t meet certain criteria.
Similar stories
Britain’s proud asylum history, from sheltering the Kindertransport escaping Hitler to Basque children fleeing fascist Spain, required tireless campaigning against persistent opposition — and it’s up to all of us to do our part today, writes SABINA PRICE
RON JACOBS welcomes a book that tells the story of the far right in Greece from the perspective of migrants