Greece: Muslim Migrants Protest in Athens, Radicalization

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TAGS: PHUM PTER GR KIRF ASEC ABLD PREF SMIG
SUBJECT: Greece: Muslim Migrants Protest in Athens, Radicalization
Fears Grow

REF: 09 ATHENS 315


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Violent demonstrations and riots involving
Muslim migrants rocked downtown Athens throughout the month of May,
bringing relations between migrants and the Greek government to a
new nadir and fueling fears of Islamic radicalization in Greece.
Muslim community leaders and media reports attributed the
deterioration of relations between Muslim migrants and the
government to a combination of factors: the skyrocketing growth of
the Muslim illegal migrant population, stepped-up police patrols
and enforcement efforts against immigrants, poor prospects for
economic and social integration for migrants, and the lack of an
official mosque in Athens for Muslim worshippers. These May
clashes follow earlier confrontations between migrants and police
at the asylum processing center of Petrou Ralli and in the port
city of Patras, where Muslim immigrants have long-simmering
grievances with authorities over Greece's deficient asylum process
and over police crackdowns (see REFTEL). With Greek policymakers
focused on upcoming European Parliament elections and the governing
conservative New Democracy party unlikely to propose comprehensive
immigration reform measures, violent clashes between Muslim
migrants and police could well continue. END SUMMARY.



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MUSLIM PROTESTS: LINKED TO POLICE CRACKDOWNS

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2. (SBU) Muslim migrants and pro-immigrant groups clashed with
police and right-wing organizations in Athens multiple times during
the month of May. Like previous migrant-related protests in Athens
and the port city of Patras (see REFTEL),the May demonstrations
took place in reaction to police enforcement or eviction efforts.
In early May, after a request from a landlord, police announced a
plan to evict around 600 illegal migrant squatters from the old
site of the Athens Court of Appeals near Omonia square. On May 9,
after an anti-immigrant rally by the Committee of Greek Citizens
and the neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn, pro-communist, human rights,
and pro-immigrant organizations held a counter-demonstration.
Media reported that nine police and three migrants were injured in
subsequent clashes between the two sides, and that there was
significant damage to surrounding buildings and parked cars.
Observers for Doctors Without Borders (MSF),a medical NGO, were
present at the demonstrations and stated that the courthouse site,
lacking plumbing and electricity and filled with trash and human
waste, was an "epidemiological time bomb".




3. (SBU) On May 19, a group of around 30 migrants reportedly threw
stones at and injured a police officer patrolling near the
courthouse site. On May 20, approximately 1,000 Afghan migrants
held a demonstration and occupied Omonia square, protesting against
an incident in which a police officer allegedly damaged a copy of
the Qur'an while performing an identity check on an immigrant. The
crowd scuffled with riot police, who responded with tear gas. The
Greek government promised to investigate the Qur'an incident fully
but condemned the violence, with Deputy Minister for Public Order
Christos Markoyiannakis stating that "economic migrants living in
Greece must respect the law." In what media reports called a
possible right-wing extremist attack on Muslim migrants, on May 24,
an unofficial prayer room was set on fire by unidentified
arsonists. Five Bangladeshis sleeping in the apartment were
rescued by firefighters. Pro-immigrant and anti-immigrant groups
have planned separate follow-up demonstrations on May 29.



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MUSLIM LEADERS FEAR GROWING RADICALIZATION

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3. (SBU) Naim El-Ghadour, President of the Union of Greek Muslims,
told Poloff in February that the risk of radicalization had
increased among Greece's migrant Muslims--especially among the more

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transient and less integrated Pakistani, Afghan, and Somali
communities. (El-Ghadour, an Arab Egyptian, stated that Arab
communities in Greece tended to be more settled and financially
stable--and thus less at-risk for radicalization.) El-Ghadour said
that police crackdowns, discrimination against Muslim migrants, and
persistent delays in the construction of an official mosque and
Muslim cemetery in Athens had embittered Muslim migrants. Imams in
the hundreds of unofficial prayer rooms throughout Greece tended to
minister to and come from ethnic-specific communities, and
El-Ghadour feared that imams from newer Muslim migrant groups
lacked religious education and adhered to more extremist views.
The Greek government, El-Ghadour concluded, was indirectly
fomenting radicalization by continuing to delay the construction of
an official mosque. (NOTE: Government ministries announced in
early May that land set aside for a mosque was occupied by the
Greek Navy, which claimed the cost to relocate its facilities would
be over $100 million. Construction of the mosque was approved by
Parliament in 2002 but has not commenced. END NOTE.)




4. (SBU) In May interviews to Al-Jazeera and the internet news
outlet Islamonline.net, El-Ghadour characterized the Pakistanis,
Afghans, and Bangladeshis who participated in the recent unrest as
"young kids, maybe 19, 20 years old, without jobs, and facing
hunger" everyday. The slightest religious provocation, according
to El-Ghadour, could easily trigger a violent reaction--as seen in
the Qur'an desecration incident. Scott McCracken, Director for
Refugee Ministries at Helping Hands, a local faith-based NGO,
concurred that the risk of radicalization had grown, telling Poloff
that Pakistani, Afghan, and Somali young men and families who had
regularly attended faith-based and government-run food kitchens in
years past had stopped coming--not because the need for food had
lessened, but because some imams and leaders of certain Muslim
ethnic groups had instructed followers to avoid associating with
Christians or Greek authorities.




5. (SBU) Members of the Muslim minority in Thrace, primarily of
Turkish and Balkan origin, have taken pains to distinguish
themselves from Muslim migrants. In November 2008, Muslim
religious and community leaders in Thrace told Poloff that the
Muslim minority was "not like the migrants," did not associate
socially or religiously with migrant communities, and had "no
threat of terrorism" in its ranks. El-Ghadour confirmed that
Muslim migrants in Athens did not intermingle with Thracian
Muslims. In fact, sectarian tensions existed: A mufti (religious
leader) in Thrace noted that any Pakistani or Afghani migrants who
died crossing the Greece-Turkey border were buried separate from
members of the Muslim minority, while El-Ghadour noted that Muslim
migrants did not want to "be seen as Turks" and resented a lack of
support from Thracian Muslims on migration-related issues.



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COMMENT: SHORT-TERM SOLUTIONS, LONG-TERM CHALLENGES

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6. (SBU) The number of general demonstrations and violence in 2009
involving Muslim migrants is unprecedented for Greece. Prior to
this year, Muslim migrant protests were limited to spontaneous and
localized grievances, such as demonstrations against alleged police
brutality at the Petrou Ralli asylum processing center. As the
waves of migration have increased, however, these minority
populations have grown and developed increasingly organized
informal community networks. In the charged and protest-prone
atmosphere since the widespread December 2008 Athens riots by Greek
students and anarchists, the presence of these migrant groups,
combined with government inaction (or missteps) on issues of
importance to Muslims, has resulted in some Muslim migrants
demonstrating publicly and more violently than ever before. This
points to a long-term challenge for Greece. We have reported about
the overwhelming numbers of illegal immigrants entering Greece
after transiting Turkey--especially from Pakistan and Afghanistan,
source countries for which migrant numbers are likely to
increase--and the Greek government's call for more border resources
from the EU and more cooperation from Turkey and other countries
along the migration route to control the flow. We have also

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proposed re-starting a DS/ATA Anti-Terrorism Assistance program for
Greek law enforcement. But in addition to becoming more effective
on the enforcement side, the Greek government needs more creative
engagement with and practical actions to address the needs of the
Muslim migrant community. Previously, the GOG operated on the
correct assumption that most migrants were transiting Greece to
other EU countries. However, now many are remaining in Greece due
to a lack of opportunities, or difficulties in resettling,
elsewhere.




7. (SBU) In the short term, the GOG could jumpstart the
construction of the long-delayed official Athens mosque. Post has
raised this issue at a ministerial level and reported it in the
annual Human Rights and International Religious Freedom reports,
and we will continue to urge GOG action. Also, Muslim-focused
cultural sensitivity training for the Hellenic Police will go a
long way towards reducing on-the-ground tension--whether used in
operations to evict squatters, or during routine identity checks on
the street. We will explore whether EU countries such as the UK
and the Netherlands, which are also focused on Greece's migration
challenges, can assist. Longer-term, Greece faces the daunting
task of coping with continued waves of migration, governing a more
multiethnic society in a state founded on a concept of Greek ethnic
nationalism, and reforming a deficient asylum and outdated legal
immigration process.
MCCARTHY