European Tribune - Greek Police: Abu-Graibed again

Greek Police: Abu-Graibed again

by talos
Sat Jun 16th, 2007 at 09:48:50 PM EST

The only facts you need to know to understand the enormity of what the following video shows is this: it was taped on a cell phone in a Central Police station in Athens, approximately a year ago. The two guys in blue and orange shirts are teenage ~~Albanian~~ immigrants (update: one Albanian and one Greek from Kazakhstan) arrested for armed robbery. The guy in black is a police officer. The two detainees are hitting each other because the police officer shown, orders them to do it. When the police officer thinks that they are not slapping each other hard enough, he beats the suspects. At the end the two immigrants are ordered to shout out loud "I'm an asshole", "I'm a big asshole", in Greek before hitting each other. The video is this:

Apparently the video was circulating among police officers for a year, before a Greek blogger saw it on some kid's cell phone and posted it on YouTube and his blog. Indymedia athens then picked up the video and front-paged it. In a matter of hours the story was picked up by a number of Greek TV channels, causing a huge scandal, including a condemnation of the incident by the Prime Minister himself, a criminal inquiry, the suspension of the police officer involved and the station chief, and demands from all the opposition parties (except the far right), for Vyron Polydoras, the Minister of Public Order, to step down. The fact that Polydoras acknowledged the video's authenticity almost immediately, signifies that the police (or indeed the ministry) were already well aware of the incident and did absolutely nothing about it.

This is by no means an isolated incident. It follows numerous and regular reports of police brutality and excessive violence against immigrants, protesters/demonstrators of all stripes, youth in general, Roma and alleged criminals. What makes this exceptional is that it was caught on tape, inside a police station, by idiot police officers who really thought that this sort of thing can circulate widely without ever reaching someone who would be shocked enough to publish it - in this day and age. Only once before was egregious police brutality caught on camera (I mean besides the riot police whose job is brutality), last November when a student in Thessaloniki was beaten to a pulp by police officers who thought (mistakenly as it turned out) that they had captured a "violent anarchist" (zipped download of that video here). This too caused a great uproar, along with promises that the perpetrators would be appropriately punished - a few days ago the top ranking police officer responsible for beating the student was practically left untouched: it cost him 15 days worth of wages and a reprimand.

Polydoras has done nothing but encourage all this police violence and police unaccountability, his protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. It is wildly rumored that he needs the extreme right votes to get elected in Athens and he's doing his best to build his profile among the relevant group. He's certainly succeeding. However in this case it is hard to underestimate the sheer racism combined with the sense of being above the law that is most certainly a huge factor in this despicable behavior. This incident is certainly an exception only in that it was caught on camera and circulated. It is quite certain that similar behavior is not at all uncommon, leading to a question about what the government intends to do about it and whether it is possible to "democratize" this police force at all. At this point I'm not at all hopeful. Police behavior (and police mentality) wasn't that much better under the Socialists after all.

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Greek Police: Abu-Graibed again | 6 comments (6 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Greek Police: Abu-Graibed again (4.00 / 4)

Gosh, that video looks familiar. I haven't seen it before, but except for the clothes and the language, it looks like it could have been filmed here. (Oh, and your cops look much bigger than ours.)

This is very similar to a phenomenon that's happened here in Egypt over the last year or so. There have been a number of videos of police brutality, filmed on cellphones by the police themselves, that have made their way onto the internets. This brave blogger (Arabic) in particular has posted many of them. The videos have included a man being sodomized with a stick, and a woman being tied upside down by her knees to a stick suspended between two chairs.

The authorities' response was naturally to deny everything and to say that the videos were faked, which they weren't. There has never been any serious effort to rein in the police, who operate with total impunity.

The man who was sodomized on video was later sentenced to three months in prison for "resisiting arrest."

It seems that the reason why the police videotaped the assaults was in order to further threaten and humiliate their victims -- they would threaten to distribute or show them to the victim's neighbors, friends and family, to shame the victim. This is an based culture, so that threat of public humiliation is a very effective one, especially in the case of a sexual assault.

After the outcry, we assume that the police are no longer videotaping their assaults, or at least not doing it so often. But nobody believes they're no longer assaulting people.

Anyway, here are the instructions for embedding video; there's a simple macro you can use.

Good luck in your fight against this police brutality.

by the stormy present (stormypresent aaaaaaat gmail etc) on Sun Jun 17th, 2007 at 04:49:57 AM EST

Re: Greek Police: Abu-Graibed again (none / 1)

Sorry, that should say "this is an honor-based culture...."

by the stormy present (stormypresent aaaaaaat gmail etc) on Sun Jun 17th, 2007 at 04:51:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Greek Police: Abu-Graibed again (4.00 / 3)

Thanks for the tip on embedding! - and the comparison with Egypt.

I'm pretty sure that for a while, at least, the policemen will stop videotaping their assaults here too. However even if this time the police officers do get into serious trouble, I don't think that in the long term there can be any result unless there is a series of judicial decisions against violent police officers.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

by talos (mihalis at gmail dot com) on Sun Jun 17th, 2007 at 06:36:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Greek Police: Abu-Graibed again (4.00 / 3)

I'd say that change will only come when the people higher up in the chain of command are held accountable for this as well. Egyptian authorities routinely deny that torture and abuse are policy or even routine, and any time there has been an undeniable case of it, they claim it's an "isolated incident." So you do occasionally see individual officers disciplined, but because the practice is systematic, and is tolerated or even encouraged by those in charge, it will not stop unless and until the people at the top really want it to, or are themselves held accountable for it.

I hope the situation isn't that bad in Greece.

Whenever any human rights groups or foreign governments issue the slightest criticism of Egypt on this issue (or anything else, really) it results in a torrent of angry statements from various government officials about how nobody has the right to interfere in Egyptian internal affairs, sovereignty, etc. But since Greece is a member of the EU, it really is supposed to be meeting certain international standards for humane treatment of prisoners, and so hopefully the pressure to do so won't fall on such deaf ears.

One would expect that European nations would aspire to hold themselves to higher standards than Egypt....

by the stormy present (stormypresent aaaaaaat gmail etc) on Sun Jun 17th, 2007 at 07:18:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Greek Police: Abu-Graibed again (4.00 / 3)

Have a look here:
http://www.worldnewsaustralia.com.au/region.php?id=137773&region=7

A barrister acting for the police officer charged over a north Queensland death in custody has accused prosecutors of being "out to get" him.

Can you believe that? This racist, fascist bastard killed man brutally splitting his liver in half by his knee and is crying loud now that they are "out to get him"

http://www.worldnewsaustralia.com.au/region.php?id=137738&region=7

Asked by prosecutor Peter Davis SC if he had come to terms with the fact that he had caused the death of the 36-year-old man, Hurley responded: "Yes."
Despite earlier telling officers investigating the death he had fallen beside Mulrunji during a scuffle at the doorway of the watchhouse, Hurley today conceded he must have landed on top of him.
However, he described the incident as "a grey area" and said he'd only changed his mind after hearing evidence from medical experts.
Experts have said the fatal injuries suffered by Mulrunji were likely to have been caused by a "complicated fall" in which Hurley landed on top of the deceased with his knee protruding.

Unbelievable shit! And you know what he is not going to be convicted...a a a ...Poor deceased man is Aboriginal and their lives are not of great importance for Ozy police.
I am not sure how we immigrants that they call "wogs" are standing on that list. My friend had terrific experience lately where police actually took side of the crook (Ozy) being called to intervene in friend's house. Didn't help much that my friend is a wealthy dentist ...it actually made him even more unpopular for the policemen.
Things are not rosy here with a police I can tell you. I was actually shocked when I came her how easy it is here for police to simply kill the man on the street. Recently two boys of a wealthy businessman on the Gold Coast were on the run after crime (I think it was murder) and their father just begged them all the time to give their selves up through lawyer that he provided or they'll be killed by the police...

by vbo on Mon Jun 18th, 2007 at 04:05:47 AM EST

Re: Greek Police: Abu-Graibed again (none / 1)

As I said (I could bet on my life for it) he was acquitted of ANY wrong doing.

http://www.worldnewsaustralia.com.au/region.php?id=137836&region=7

A Townsville jury yesterday found Senior Sergeant Hurley not guilty of manslaughter and assault over the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee, 36, in the Palm Island watchhouse in 2004.

And that's not all. Police Union is calling Queensland government Zimbabwe for daring to even put him on trial. I would think of some other countries to compare this situation where white policeman can freely kill black man in custody and be acquitted just because there were no witnesses.
He was the only one in contact with deceased and poor man died of the horrific brutal injury...but nope. No sufficient evidence that he killed him. If the world didn't know about poor Australian human rights record some may be surprised but the world knows...so nothing new here in Australia.

by vbo on Thu Jun 21st, 2007 at 01:55:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Greek Police: Abu-Graibed again | 6 comments (6 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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