The Council of Europe and Greece
The last thing that would have excited public opinion, be it in a spontaneous or contrived manner, in early July this past summer, was the announcement from the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) on the actions of various institutional tentacles of the Greek state. Slammed by a fresh heatwave after a June that was so hot even the Acropolis had to be shut down, the Greek public was in no position to ponder such mundane matters as the violations and violence committed by the Hellenic Police and Coast Guard – matters which are, after all, filed in the category of “ordinary” occurrences. And how could anyone even “stumble” upon such a news item later, when so little was said about it and even less written about it? The reflexes of the “serious” media are truly exceptional when it comes to whitewashing anything that can be construed as being harmful to the country.
And the CPT’s announcement definitely belonged in that category. The Council of Europe went so far as to urge – to again urge, actually – the Greek authorities “to improve the conditions in the country’s immigration detention facilities, and especially the newly built and EU-funded centers on the Aegean islands, while ensuring that foreign nationals are treated both with dignity and humanity.” Why? Because during a visit to Greece in November 2023, its delegation “again received several credible and consistent allegations of deliberate physical ill-treatment of detained foreign nationals by police officers in certain police stations in Athens and in pre-removal detention centers,” as well as of “informal, often violent, forcible removals of foreign nationals across the Evros River or at sea to Turkey (pushbacks).”
We can bet that the CPT will be back following the death in police custody, at the downtown Athens precinct of Agios Panteleimonas, of 37-year-old Muhammad Kamran Ashiq, a Pakistani migrant who was in the country legally. It is unlikely to be convinced by the official “explanations” of the photographs of his dead body covered in bruises and abrasions.
There are those who will say, “Enough with the woke hyperbole!” The Council of Europe body may have the weighty title of Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, but it behaves more like a nongovernmental organization. And we all know how much respect the Greek government has NGOs – about as much as it does for all independent authorities that do not bend to its will: a deep and enduring respect.
