21 Μαΐ 2012

The vanishing positions of Dimiourgia Xana on immigration

On 20 May 2012, Stefanos Manos announced that his party Drassi (Action) would be joining forces with Thanos Tzimeros's party Dimiourgia Xana (Recreate Greece) for the upcoming elections in Greece. These two parties secured respectively 1.8% and 2.15% of the vote in the 06 May elections, and can hope together to reach the required 3% to enter parliament. 

Both parties are often described as "centrist" or "liberal" by Greek and international media. However, while Drassi's position on immigration is quite liberal (naturalizing all immigrant children born in Greece, legalizing all long-term residents and granting them the same civil and labour rights and benefits as Greek citizens), the stated position of Dimiourgia Xana on the topic of immigration is rather extreme and xenophobic. It includes:

  • Building a fence with repulsion systems, surveillance cameras and thermal detection along Greece's borders, 
  • Joint border patrols of the army, police, FRONTEX and borderguards, 
  • Satellite monitoring of sea boundaries and patrolling by light vessels of the Coastguard and Navy, 
  • Activation of citizen militias on Greek islands, with voluntary participation, 
  • Immediate deportation of those migrants who are not protected by international treaties (meaning who do not come from warzones and have not applied for political asylum), 
  • Undertaking an international initiative jointly with other countries affected by illegal immigration (Italy, France, Spain) to change relevant international treaties and repel the Dublin II agreement, 
  • Abolishing all regulations (such as health care benefits and pension rights for immigrants) that grant more privileges to immigrants than Greeks, 
  • Using those immigrants who cannot be deported as cheap labour in special economic zones which would also be their area of residence, 
  • Limiting naturalization to second-generation immigrants whose parents have already been legally in Greece for 15 years at the time of their birth. Those children would be eligible for citizenship at age 15 (meaning that their parents have spent at least 30 years in the country). In order to obtain citizenship, they would have to sit for examinations to verify that they have sufficient knowledge of a number of topics, including the Greek language, history and culture. 
The above is not sourced from the Dimiourgia Xana website, but from yourvote.gr, which compiled the various parties' positions before the 06 May elections. Why couldn't we refer directly to Dimiourgia Xana? 

Well, because Dimiourgia Xana's position on immigration vanished from their website last night, just around the time of the announcement of their cooperation with Drassi for the upcoming elections. Here is a screenshot: 



To the right, you can see a screenshot of Dimiourgia Xana's website as it appeared on 16 May 2012 (cached page here). The text reads: "Immigration is the most complex problem in Greece today, and becomes even more difficult if you take into consideration the various points of view about it. It is a wound that was allowed to evolve into gangrene and any operation can only lead to a form of disability."

To the left, you can see a screenshot of Dimiourgia Xana's website as it appears today. It reads: "Our positions about immigration are being developed."

Update: @ThanosPle, who tweeted the screenshot above, and @chas_ir found the full text (in Greek) of Dimiourgia Xana's position on immigration through their Facebook page.

Update 2 (Tuesday 22 May): The vanishing webpage has reappeared on the Dimiourgia Xana website. 

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