The announcement by the Minister of Public Protection of a “special operational plan for the Roma camps” is not a security policy, but a revival of the idea of surveillance and targeting entire communities.
According to informations, the police contacted the residents of the settlement of Agia Sofia in Thessaloniki, demanding that they remain indoors, in order to carry out a raid at 06:00 am. In the past, in the settlement of Droseros in Xanthi, residents had protested that police officers had invaded their homes without a warrant, a practice that violates the constitutional rights of citizens.
Population mapping, intimidation as well as creation of “special police units” do not address any social need. On the contrary, they maintain the perception that there are “populations under surveillance”. Such an approach undermines social cohesion, democracy and civil rights, perpetuating stereotypes that have proven to lead at dead-ends for decades.
The New Left denounces the government’s strategy that targets the most vulnerable. We demand an immediate end to the repressive “operations”. Democracy is judged by the way the most vulnerable are treated, not by the way they are monitored and terrorized.