|
Greek Police Arrest Kurd Immigrants Dropped by Turkish Vessel
ATHENS, Sept 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - In a crackdown on Kurdish refugees in Europe, Greek police have arrested and detained seven more immigrants who were dropped off at sea earlier this week from a Turkish ship in the Aegean and forced to swim ashore, the merchant marine ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
The new arrests bring to 275 the number of mainly Iraqi Kurdish immigrants found to date, the ministry said.
They were dropped off on Wednesday from the Turkish ship, the Imdat, off the coast of the Aegean island of Evvoia.
Greek officials reported the arrested immigrants as saying the ship was carrying over three hundred people, including Palestinians, Iranians and Afghans, as well as Iraqi Kurds, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"According to the accounts of some of the illegal immigrants, the group included between 310 and 320 people, and we are continuing searches in the region," one official told AFP.
Fourteen women and 13 children have been found to date.
The newly arrested immigrants will join others who are being detained in a holding center in the Greek city of Mandoudi, in the northeast region of Evvoia.
On Wednesday, Greek police arrested three Turkish men whom they accused of transferring illegal immigrants for $1,500 (1,700 euros) per head. The three Turks are set to appear in court on Saturday.
The Greek ministry said no charges had been filed against the latest arrested immigrants.
Immigrants from the Imdat said they spent a week in cramped conditions without food or water and that five or six had died of malnutrition during the journey, according to AFP.
Greek authorities reportedly started registering asylum applications on Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.
Meanwhile, Turkey has agreed with Sweden and Holland to help them deport Kurdish refugees from northern Iraq.
The London-based Arab daily Al Hayat reported - based on information obtained from Swedish radio - that some 4,000 Kurds from northern Iraq, who had taken refuge in Sweden, are to be returned to their homeland via Turkey, the Turkish Daily News online reported.
Al Hayat stated that the European countries chose to negotiate with Turkey regarding the return of thousands of refugees who fled from northern Iraq between 1996-2000.
The agreement reached with Turkey is expected to lead to a drop in the number of refugees flowing to Sweden.
Sweden explained the deportation of the asylum-seekers by saying that northern Iraq allegedly guaranteed security of their lives, and that democratic standards allegedly exist in the region.
The U.S. and Britain have repeatedly announced that their warplanes monitor the "no-fly zone" in northern Iraq, allegedly to protect the Kurdish minority there.
The Turkish paper Ozgur Politika, known for its sympathy for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), condemned the Swedish decision to deport Iraqi Kurds, the Turkish Daily News reported.
"This cannot be the action of a country that sets its own democracy as a role model,"
Ozgur Politika said.
Turkey has also increased cooperation with Holland in the northern Iraq refugee issue, Turkish Daily News reported.
According to reports, asylum-seekers from northern Iraq - whose applications have been turned down by Holland - are to be sent home via Turkey.
Al Hayat wrote that many people from northern Iraq, who had obtained visas from the Belgian and Dutch consulates in Istanbul, were deported despite having visas. Some 16,000 asylum-seekers from northern Iraq have applied to Sweden in the past year.
Meanwhile in Bucharest, some 200 Kurds demonstrated Friday in the center of the Romanian capital to protest against the refusal of Turkish authorities to recognize the Kurdish people.
The demonstrators also called for the release of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who was sentenced to death by the Turkish courts in June 1999.
Ocalan's execution was suspended in January 2000, pending a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
According to one of their representatives, Mustafa Kajuk, the Kurds living in Romania gathered 2,300 signatures calling for Ocalan's freedom, AFP reported.
The demonstrators, under strict police surveillance, dispersed without incident after two hours.
The Kurdish community in Romania numbers at around 8,000.
|
