|
|
Greece
Read the facts about housing rights violations in Greece
|
Antonis Georgopoulos family post eviction, Patras, Greece |
|
|
GREECE wins Housing Rights Violator Award 2006. Read more...
The Government of Greece has continuously failed to curtail ongoing widespread anti-Romani abuses by local authorities, particularly in the area of housing. Roma in Greece continue to face pervasive and persistent discrimination in access to housing. A majority of Roma in Greece live in extremely poor living conditions lacking access to basic services such as water and electricity, and frequently face segregation and forced eviction by local authorities.
According to data from the Greek Police, between 1 January 1996 and 30 June 2006, police officers took part in 79 forced evictions of Roma ordered by courts (and many more without court orders), and lodged 323 lawsuits against Roma for illegal settlements under the Sanitary Regulations. While authorities are meant to provide some form of alternative accommodation under this law, it rarely occurs and no criminal proceedings have ever been brought against any local authority for failure to provide such suitable accommodation.
Greece continues to forcibly evict Roma families without providing adequate compensation and resettlement despite two rulings of the European Committee of Social Rights in 2005 and 2006, which found Greek policies with respect to housing and accommodation of Roma to clearly violate Article 16 of the European Social Charter. These rulings are among the first in Roma rights to find an entire field of policy and practice by a European government illegal.
Since the beginning of 2006, municipal authorities demolished 68 homes in Patras, leaving nearly 340 Roma homeless. A further 10 Roma families (50 people) in Hania were rendered homeless when an inter-municipal “ecological” company demolished their homes without a court order in their absence. In addition, over 200 Roma households in the Votanikos district of Athens have been threatened with eviction to make way for the construction of a football stadium. Also, at least three Roma families of the Roma community of Aghia Paraskevi have been evicted, while another eight are under threat of eviction.
Patras municipal authorities carried out a “cleaning operation” in August 2004 against Albanian Roma living in Riganokampos, on a plot of land belonging to the University of Patras. The Municipality offered compensation to two Greek Roma families to transfer their sheds to a neighbouring plot of land. However, no such arrangements were made for the 35 Albanian Roma families, a majority of whom were away from their homes for seasonal agricultural work in other parts of Greece. Thus, the Albanian Roma families were forcibly evicted without adequate compensation or notice.
Forty Greek Roma families and 20 Albanian Roma families (with legal residency status in Greece) in the area of Marousi (Greater Athens) were forcibly evicted from their homes in 2002, to make way for the construction of facilities for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, without being provided with effective adequate compensation or resettlement.
Although the Government of Greece launched a number of programmes in the past decade to improve the housing conditions of Roma, a majority of them have been poorly implemented. After failing to implement most of the 1996 National Policy Framework for Greek Gypsies, the Government of Greece launched the Integrated Action Plan in 2001 to tackle issues and hardships encountered by Roma. The 2001 plan was endowed with a budget of 308 million euros and was to provide adequate housing for Roma in Greece. This included 100 new organised Roma settlements with 4,000 new homes, the improvement of 1,100 existing homes, 60 camping sites for itinerant Roma and approximately 80-100 social support centres for Roma. While 90 percent of the budget had been spent by early 2006, only a minimal amount was spent on services, and the housing component was instead transformed into a large loan programme that has benefited few of the informal settlements.
Reports indicate that housing loans were given to persons not living in settlements and seemingly even those who do not identify as Roma. The loans were largely taken up in municipalities where there are no Roma settlements, while there were very few loan approvals in municipalities that were home to settlements with appalling living conditions (such as the Municipality of Attica). Furthermore, no social medical centres were established in sizable and destitute settlements in Aspropyrgos – Attica, or Palatanaki – Lamia.
|
|
Greece: Facts at a glance
- There are approximately 300,000 individuals of Roma origin living in Greece. Tent dwellers account for a large number of Roma who live in some 52 improvised and dangerous encampments throughout Greek territory.
- A study by the Public Urban Planning and Housing Enterprise (DEPOS) of Greece in 1999 revealed that 38 percent of Roma lived in sheds and tents, while the remainder lived in poorly built ‘houses.’
- According to data from the Greek Police, between 1 January 1996 and 30 June 2006, police officers took part in 79 forced evictions of Roma ordered by courts (and many more without court orders), and lodged 323 lawsuits against Roma for illegal settlements under the Sanitary Regulations.
- Since the beginning of 2006, municipal authorities demolished 68 homes in Patras, leaving nearly 340 Roma homeless. A further 10 Roma families (50 people) were rendered homeless when an inter-municipal “ecological” company demolished their homes without a court order in their absence.
- At present, over 200 Roma households in the Votanikos district of Athens are threatened with eviction to make way for the construction of a football stadium.
- Forty Greek Roma families and 20 Albanian Roma families (with legal residency status in Greece) in the area of Marousi (Greater Athens) were forcibly evicted from their homes in 2002, to make way for the construction of facilities for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, without being provided with adequate compensation or resettlement.
|
|
Related Links |
Joint COHRE/Greek Helsinki Monitor Press Release Dec 2006 ( Link )
Greek Helsinki Monitor ( Link )
|
|
Top of Page | Page Contents
| GREECE Housing Rights Fact Sheet (2006) |
Download the complete Fact Sheet here.
 download doc [en]
|
Top of Page | Page Contents
| Greece: Continuing Widespread Violation of Roma Housing Rights (October 2006) |
This report contains additional information on Roma. This report was prepared by Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM), in partnership with the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Minority Rights Group – Greece (MRG-G), the Panhellenic Confederation of Greek Roma (PACONGR) and the Greek Gypsy Union (GGU).
download doc [en]
|
Top of Page | Page Contents
|
|
