Immigrants want authorities to give them evenhanded treatment

By Khaled Shawkat, IOL Correspondent

ATHENS, October 19 (IslamOnline.net) – Around 1,000 immigrants and human rights activists, including many Muslims and Arabs, took to the streets of Athens Saturday, October 18, to protest the stringent residency rules in the southern European country.

Calling for integration into the Greek society and settling the problem of immigrants, the protesters voiced anti-racism slogans and asked Greek authorities to put them on equal footing with the natives.

"Settle the problems of all foreign labor…Immigrants are not troublemakers but victims of troubles," reads one banner.

The demonstrators, including many Pakistani and Albanian Muslims, denounced the policies of "social marginalization and racism" adopted by the government, requiring also charge-free residency permits.

Greek residency, in effect, has become a far-fetched dream as immigrants are running through stringent rules tailored to put a curb on the number of immigrants to this southern European country.   

"Muslims have been really experiencing hard times to get residency over the past few years," Abol Qassim Mohammad, a Muslim activist and editor-in-chief of the Arabic-language Panorama, told IslamOnline.net.

"Greek authorities also slam the door of political asylum on immigrants and grant residency to only 1.2 percent of asylum seekers," he added.

Mohammad underlined that obtaining the citizenship was not only more difficult, but "almost impossible."

"The Greek law lays 13 preconditions to getting citizenship, to mention but a few, living in the country for up to 10 consecutive years, having excellent command of the Greek language and providing great services for the country.

"That's why Muslim and Arab immigrants are lagging behind economically, socially and culturally. More than that, they are subject to arbitrary measures and exploitation by employers," asserted the activist.

Mohammad further said that even the new green-card system - adopted in 1997 – provided not panacea for immigrants, but helped employers to make the most of their employees.

"After the new system, employers became unwilling to employ foreign labor, because this system forces them to cover insurances. They spare themselves the trouble and employ natives and those with legal residency," he elaborated.

Daily Drudgery 

Maher Ahmad, an Egyptian immigrant who works as a waiter in an Athens restaurant, said illegal residents are waking up to their daily drudgery, let alone they are underpaid.

"Some Arab and Muslim immigrants are working for a meager 25 or 35 euros per day, which can by no means help them meet their basic needs.

"At the end of the day, they are forced either to leave their job for another or to immigrate for another European country," Ahmad told IOL.

He regretted that some Muslims unfortunately opt for prostitution, robbery, hired killing and drugs trafficking to eke out a living.

Greek anti-racism organizations and human rights watch-dog have recently joined hands with Muslim activists in standing up to the right-wing plans targeting immigrants and frequently thwarted cases of mass expulsion.

Greece has a foreign community of some two million people, half of them Muslims hailing from Albanian descent.