Updated on
Summary
Hundreds of protesters demonstrated in Athens on Wednesday calling on the government to legalize immigrants and grant asylum to refugees, while an international conference on immigration was taking place in the capital.The protesters, including human rights and anti racist organizations from various countries such as Germany and United States, as well as members of Greek immigrant communities, staged a demonstration outside the hotel of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and then marched holding banners and chanting slogans in an effort to highlight the problems that immigrants face throughout the world. The protest rally coincided with the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) in Athens with the participation of international delegates and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The protesters, who tried to march to the conference venue but were stopped by police forces, criticized countries of hypocrisy for spending funds on hosting conferences instead of on support for immigrants.The newly elected socialist government has set immigration at the top of its agenda, but with many Greeks believing their crisis-hit country cannot take in more migrants, the issue will be one of the government's toughest challenges. The government announced this week the temporary closure of a migrant detention centre on the island of Lesvos, after the UNHCR condemned the conditions at the facility. The new government also said it will grant citizenship to some 250,000 children born to immigrants in the country as a sign of a change of attitude towards migrants. Struggling to cope with a swelling number of migrants who seek a getaway to Europe, Greece has been criticized by human rights groups for its migration and asylum policies and appalling conditions in migrant detention centres. Authorities shelter them in detention centres on the mainland or Greece's islands, where overcrowding is rampant. Greece has often said it cannot cope with the numbers.
