Lesbos: Decisive days to close Pagani prison for migrants?

Today a press-conference, organised from a new local alliance, was held directly in front of the gates from Pagani, and for tomorrow, friday, a call was launched for a demonstration in Mytilini. The main respective demand is the immediate closure of Pagani (and finally of all other internment/detention-camps). On the backgound of various developments within last days it seems to be really possible, that Pagani will be closed next days! Following you find a short summary what happened last week ( see the more detailled daily reports at http://lesvos09.antira.info/) and the appeal to international solidarity-activities (fax/email-campaign) for tomorrow and in the
next days.

greetings from some noborders and friends in mytilini

Short summary of last week
End of last week the vice-interior-minister from the new government
was in Lesvos. "worse than the inferno from dante" was his public
comment in the medias after his visit in Pagani, where he was
directly confronted with the unbearable conditions and the protests
of the arrested refugees. and he explicitly said, that Pagani must be
closed.
Shortly before this "representative visit" from athens another little
revolt happened in the prison, and in two following evenings fire was
set up in two cells. mainly the young refugees used the fire as a
succesful mean (what is not exactly safe and some people suffered
from light smoke poisoning) in their struggle against the arbitraly
and inhuman internment. the young men of the burned cell could stay
over night in the yard (it was/is still warm enough), and after the
day before yesterday most locks of the cells have been broken by the
inmates. the police left it undone to repair and to lock them up
again: not accidently as they wanted to avoid more conflicts and
perhaps hoped, that the situation would calm down. in the same
evening nearly all cells have been open, the inmates could meet and
gather in the yard, they enforced a sort of permanent yards exercise
(given before even not an hour in a week!), they sang out and
clapping the hands...
anger and the motivation to resist increased in pagani in the weeks
after first achievements during the nobordercamp, and although 100 to
200 refugees have been released every day and could travel with the
ferry to athens, the newcomers follow in the same mood.
in some greek newsletters it was clearly documented, that policemen
had beaten refugees in Pagani (short time after the leave of the vice-
interior minister), and afterwards the police in lesvos seemed to be
in an additional defensive position. reportedly the police want to
get closed pagani too in the meanwhile, they obviously want to escape
from a situation, where they get under increasing pressure from
inside and outside the prison.
finally in the morning of the day before yesterday the bad news came
out, that 8 women and children from afghanistan drowned, when their
boat capsized after crashing on rocks. 8 new victims of the
borderregime, 10 more people could be safed in last minute by a
fisher (who jumped into the water to save a baby).
in the same day a local meeting was held in mytilini, the press-
conference for today was decided and the demonstration for tomorrow/
friday. everybody agreed, that we will not demand for any improvement
of living conditions in pagani, its only about immediate closure!
and if it is possible to continue to make pressure on various levels,
the closure of pagani seems to be realistic for the next days.
on this backgound another proposal came up to get involved the
transnational networks: to start a fax- and/or email-campaign, on one
hand to the vice- interior minister to remember to his promises, and
secondly to the prefect of mytilini with the demand to (re) open the
pikpa-building as a reception center (as interims-solution). so the
remaining arrested refugees and migrants (in moment less than 150)
could be released immediately.
so our immediate demands are:
Shut down Pagani now!
(Re)Installation of an open reception center Pikpa!
Immediate registration-procedures and transferoptions to Athens!

in greek:
na kleisi tora i pagani!
na xananixi to anichto kentro ipodoxis Pikpa!
amesi ekdossi ipiresiakou simiomatos ke xorigissi isitirion gia athina!

and these demands should be send tomorrow/friday or also monday and
tuesday in greek (and english) to the followoing responsible
authorities in athens and mytilini:

NOMARXIA LESVOS
prefekt
mr.Pavlo Bogiatzis
81100 MITILINI

tel 22513-52101 /2/3
fax 22510-46652
nomarchia@lesvos.gr
-------------------------------------------------

IPOURGIO PROSTASIAS TOU POLITI
vice minister Spiros VOUGIAS
P.KANELOPOULOU 4
10177 ATHENS

tel 210-6977505
fax 210-6929764
elasgrty@mopo.gr

that is the title of the local newspaper today. the prefect
confirmed to close pagani until monday, while he announced
renovations for the next time and internement on other aegean islands
for the new arriving refugees and migrants in the meanwhile. but a
great success from our point ov view, last not least through the
nobordercamp dynamics and mainly because of the ongoing struggles of
the arrested refugees.
today will happen the demonstration, and hopefully a first step in
the second round of the struggle, which has to be continued to
achieve open welcome centers and to shut down the whole detention-
system in greece and beyond.... tonight we send out more!
best greetings again from some noborders in mytilini