Greece to ditch Xenios Zeus operations, government’s immigration chief says
Alternate Minister for Immigration Policy Tasia Christodoulopoulou has said that Greek authorities plan to ditch the controversial Xenios Zeus sweep operation aimed at cracking down on irregular immigration and crime in Athens.
During an interview with left.gr website that was made available on Wednesday, Christodoulopoulou said that the new SYRIZA-led government will also examine ways to replace Greece’s migrant reception centers.
“These camps are incompatible with humanitarianism, the rule of law, and any sense of reason,” said Christodoulopoulou, a lawyer and activist.
Various human rights bodies have condemned Greek police sweep operations for being based on racial profiling. Immigration detention has also attracted broad international condemnation, as Greece’s detention efforts have received large injections of European funding.
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in a dozen cases that detention conditions in the country – a key transit point for Asian and African immigrants seeking to sneak into the European Union – amount to degrading treatment.
