Migrants to stage mass hunger strike
More than 200 immigrants from North African countries, who have been employed in menial jobs on the island of Crete, are to begin a hunger strike in Athens on Tuesday, seeking legal residence status in Greece.
The migrants, who arrived at the port of Piraeus in the early hours of Sunday morning, are to join dozens of other protesters some of whom have been on hunger strike for weeks to demand political asylum. Seven Afghan refugees have sewn their mouths shut to push for the processing of asylum applications they claim to have lodged years ago. They followed the example of a group of Iranians who managed to secure refugee status after adopting the same extreme tactic.
The European Court of Human Rights on Friday fined both Greece and Belgium for the mistreatment of an Afghan asylum seeker who claims to have suffered abuse in both countries.
