#how to help refugees in greece

[chterzidislaw]

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💼 We have great experience in Migration Law.

Christos M. Terzidis, a Greek Lawyer with a PhD from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a Former Legal Advisor to the NGO 'ARSIS' on refugee and migrant legal issues, has a great expertise and specializes in Migration / Refugee Law.

[thatpunnyperson]

According to NBC here in the US, the missing titanic sub has been found. As debris. Off the bow of the Titanic wreckage.

And it looks like the sub suffered what we all suspected, and what was undoubtedly the more merciful of the two options: a catastrophic implosion from the pressure.

Also, more info has come to light about the fishing trawler with the hundreds of migrants that sank cataclysmically off the coast of Greece, indicating that the greek coast guard knew about the vessel AND how much trouble the vessel was in, and were towing it at a speed that made it capsize, at which point they unhooked the tow line and watched the trawler sink without helping the passengers to safety. Despite a bunch of other ships trying to help as well throughout the whole ordeal.

So a lot of people are dead, all because of regulations (and the lack thereof) regarding sea-faring vessels and rescue protocols. People shouldnt be allowed to make a business charging a ton of money for a ride on an uncertified, unsafe, un-seaworthy ship going deep into the ocean with no distress beacon or tether to the mothership. People also shouldnt be allowed to enact laws that criminalize the ferrying of refugees, which then force the refugees to hitch rides on fishing trawlers, and which also prevent people from helping those fishing trawlers full of refugees due to fear of legal consequences.

Hopefully BOTH of these events spark changes on an international scale in terms of what is legally allowed to be sailed, who is legally allowed to be the passengers, and what the rescue protocols are in the event of disaster for any seafaring vessel, illegal or not. It shouldnt be just the global 1% who get 24/7 search parties and remote-operated submersibles helping rescue them.

[odinsblog]

Such a good analogy for “privatizing the profits, but socializing the losses.”

Taxpayers, not the wealthy owners of OceanGate, will be paying the millions of dollars in costs for the search and rescue—and I almost wouldn���t have a problem with that (the coastguard rescues hapless people every day, and I don’t think that regular citizens should be forced to pay for their own rescues, because saving people is what a society should come together and do).

But the owners of OceanGate not only knew of the risks, they eschewed any kind of government regulation (like having an emergency location beacon that would have made the search far easier) because they said it would inhibit growth and profits. And I can’t help but believe that the coastguard and the navy and all of the other public agencies, are searching just a little bit longer and a little bit harder, because it’s rich people who are missing.

And don’t even get me started on how Greece’s coastguard is most likely responsible for the murder of hundreds of refugees, or how Italy and much of Europe have made it national policy for their coastguards to not help refugees at sea.

Anyway, it’s well past time for more people to start seriously thinking about how our society always bails out banks and wealthy billionaires, but tells poor people to exercise better judgment and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

[capybaracorn]

Israel’s ‘anti-Zionists’ brave police beatings, smears to demand end to war

Some have been jailed for refusing to serve in the armed forces while others face threats and harassment from right-wing groups.

An antiwar protest in Tel Aviv during municipal elections [Mat Nashed/Al Jazeera]

(9 Mar 2024)

Tel Aviv/West Jerusalem – In 2015, Maya, a Jewish Israeli, travelled to Greece to help Syrian refugees. At the time, she was an exchange student in Germany and she had been deeply moved by the pictures she saw of desperate people arriving there in small boats.

That was where she met Palestinians who had been born in Syria after their parents and grandparents fled there during the founding of her own country in 1948.

They told her about the Nakba – or “catastrophe” – in which 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes to make way for the newly established Israel. Maya, 33, who had been taught that her country was born through “an independence war” against hostile Arab neighbours, decided that she needed to “unlearn” what she had learned.

“I never heard about the right of return, or Palestinian refugees,” she told Al Jazeera.

“I had to get out of Israel to start learning about Israel. It was the only way I could puncture holes in what I was taught.”

Maya, who asked that her full name not be used for fear of reprisals, is one of a small number of Israeli Jewish activists who identify as “anti-Zionists” or “non-Zionists”.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, a pro-Israeli group with a stated mission of fighting anti-Semitism and other forms of racism in the United States, Zionism means supporting a Jewish state established for the protection of Jews worldwide.

However, many anti-Zionists like Maya and the people she works with view Zionism as a Jewish supremacist movement which has ethnically cleansed most of historic Palestine and systematically discriminates against the Palestinians who remain, either as citizens of Israel or residents of the occupied territories.

But since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israeli civilians and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and nearly 250 taken captive, Israeli anti-Zionists have been accused of treason for speaking about Palestinian human rights.

Many have called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to stop what they view as collective punishment and genocide of the Palestinian people.

“I think [anti-Zionists] always claim that Jewish supremacy is not the answer and it is not the answer to the [October 7] killings,” Maya said.

“Israelis don’t understand how the Palestinian story is all about the Nakba, refugees and the right of return. If we are not able to deal with that then we are not going anywhere.”

Perceived as ‘traitors’

Since October 7, Israeli anti-Zionists have described living in a hostile political and social environment. Many say the police have violently cracked down on anti-war protests, while others have received threats from far-right-wing Israelis.

Roee, who, like Maya, did not give his last name for fear of reprisals from Israeli society or authorities, is also a Jewish Israeli activist. In October last year, he attended a small demonstration of a couple of dozen people a few days after Israel began bombing Gaza. The demonstrators were calling on Hamas to free all Israeli captives and on Israel to stop the war.

“The police pushed all of us [out] violently in just two minutes,” Roee, 28, told Al Jazeera at a cafe in West Jerusalem.

Weeks later, Roee and his friend, Noa, who also did not want her full name to be revealed, attended another silent demonstration outside a police station in Jerusalem. They put tape over their mouths to denounce the sweeping arrests of Palestinian citizens of Israel who had also called for an end to the war on Gaza.

But again, police chased down the Israeli protesters and beat them with batons.

“I think it is very clear that the police recognise us. It doesn’t matter the signs we hold. They know us. They know we are leftists and that we are ‘traitors’ or whatever they call us,” Noa told Al Jazeera.

Many Israeli antiwar activists have also been smeared or “doxxed” – a term given to people whose identities and addresses are made known on social media by those hoping to intimidate them into silence.

Maya said that a right-wing activist had accused her romantic partner of cooperating with Hamas by informing them of the whereabouts of Israeli positions in Gaza. The activist published photos of her partner on Instagram with captions detailing the fabricated accusations.

“We were afraid that our address would be exposed, but luckily it wasn’t. Even before October 7, [these groups of extreme right-wing people] tried to obtain addresses of people to ‘dox’ them and taunt them. Some of our friends had to leave their apartments. That was our main worry,” Maya said.

Conscientious objectors

While most Israelis are required to enlist in the army after high school, antiwar activists have refused to take part in their country’s continuing occupation of the West Bank, where raids and arrests have been intensified since October, or in the war on Gaza. Two young Israelis who publicly refused to join the army are now serving short sentences in military prison.

Einat Gerlitz, a “non-Zionist” and a member of Mesarvot, a non-profit organisation providing social and legal support to Israeli conscientious objectors, said that more people may have refused military service since the war on Gaza began, because not everyone goes public.

“The army does not release the numbers … because the army’s interest is to make sure [refusing service] is not a topic spoken about in the public sphere. The government and army work really hard to glorify army service, so they want minimal attention on conscientious objectors,” the 20-year-old said.

Einat Gerlitz is a 20-year-old peace activist and a conscientious objector. She spoke about her peace activism in a cafe in Tel Aviv [Al Jazeera/Mat Nashed]

Gerlitz added that the October 7 attack did not make her reconsider her peace activism, but she is very concerned for friends and peers who were quickly deployed to Gaza.

“I was worried for them, but I was also worried about some of the commands that they may need to fulfil,” she told Al Jazeera, referring to her worries that soldiers may be ordered to commit atrocities or violate international law.

Over the past five months, Israeli soldiers have razed entire neighbourhoods in Gaza, bombed universities, hospitals and places of worship, and shot at crowds of starving Palestinians lining up for food aid.

Rights groups say that these attacks amount to war crimes and may collectively amount to a campaign of genocide.

‘We need greater empathy’

Many anti-Zionist Israelis say that their aim is to make fellow Israelis recognise the humanity of the Palestinians.

However, they say it has been difficult to counter the messaging of Israeli politicians, some of whom have called Palestinians in Gaza “animals”, “subhuman” or “barbarians” in order to rally support for the war. Some of these statements were singled out by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which issued an emergency order in January on the genocide case brought against Israel by South Africa.

Israeli society also expresses little empathy for Palestinians in Gaza, several Israeli activists told Al Jazeera. They explained they believe this is partly due to Israeli media rarely reporting on the army’s probable war crimes, nor on the catastrophic humanitarian crisis brought on by Israel’s war.

Maya recalls going to a demonstration in Tel Aviv to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza in late October. About 50 people attended, with many holding up photos of children killed by the Israeli army. But when Israeli children saw the photos, they claimed they were fake.

“[Young Israeli kids] pointed at a photo of a father holding a dead baby in Gaza and said, ‘How can you believe this? It’s not real. He is acting’,” Maya said.

“[Another child] pointed to a different dead baby and said, ‘This is a doll’.”

Addam, an anti-Zionist Israeli and a graffiti artist, who did not disclose his full name, was also at the protest. He said that an Israeli woman called the demonstrators “traitors” and said that her own brother had died fighting for Israel in Gaza.

While Addam was heartbroken to hear about her loss, he said he believes that the government is weaponising Israeli grief to commit atrocities in Gaza. He added that he tries to humanise Palestinians through his art and spoke about one project where he photographed the physical scars that Palestinians and Israelis bore from past conflicts.

“Once there is empathy, it creates an entirely different foundation to begin engaging in reality,” he told Al Jazeera. “It should be a given that people in Gaza are human beings with families, dreams and jobs.

“But, for many factors, there is this ongoing process [in Israel] of dehumanising Palestinians.”

[florenceafternoon]

━。゜✿ jily fic recommendations ✿ ゜。━

Some more AUs I've been loving. I'm trying to alternate between AU and canon verse rec lists so bear with me. Remember that if you like a fic you should definitely let the author know as such.

For reference, anything in italics is taken from the summaries on ao3.

theogony by @clare-with-no-i

The trip that Lily Evans expects to go on is the annual pre-dissertation jaunt to Athens with the rest of her Classical Civilizations PhD program. The trip she does not expect to go on is to 479 BCE, right on the cusp of one of the most important battles in the Greco-Persian war. Now, she has to navigate antiquity as she tries to find her way back to the 21st Century, God—or gods—help her.

James wants to win this war. No, James needs to win this war. He is a man of honor and duty, and even if it means dying a gruesome, bloody death, he will go down in history as one of Athens's great warriors. He will suffer no distractions; not even beautiful ones who speak strangely and refuse to listen to his orders.

 -- OR: The Outlander-Meets-Ancient-Greece Jily AU that no one asked for Maya dreams of.

I can't believe it took me this long to read this fic but OH MY GOD!! Clare's writing is phenomenal, I've known this for a while now, but THE DEDICATION TO HISTORICAL ACCURACY, I'm so impressed. If only I could put even half that amount of effort into my major essays for school. EVERYONE GO READ THIS NOW

Sweathearts' Special by @tinyluminaryzombie

What happens when your coffee shop nemesis, asks you to pretend to be a couple?

Or "I’ve been staring at the stupid cupcakes for the past hour, and they look way too good. Anyways, would you be willing to join forces and pretend to be together for the free cupcake and coffee?”

Welcome to Pettyville by @women-inthe-sequel

When Lily Evans accidentally sends a text to the wrong number, she isn’t expecting to find the right person behind it. She can’t stop talking to Prongs. The only thing is, Prongs can’t stop talking about the girl in his class. What could go wrong, other than the number?

A love square but it's just the same two idiots

Tall Dark and Glasses by @jamesunderwater

Tall Dark and Glasses (or TDG as he is more affectionately known) is the mysterious, painfully good-looking stranger who has been frequenting Lily's favourite coffee shop for months now. But despite having an embarrassing acronym for him, Lily, a burned-out STEM major, is too comfortable being a wallflower to go up to him herself. Thank god for playing cards, I guess.

coffee shops and copious amounts of sugar by @mystinkysocks

James decides to finally start revising, the coffee shop he attends introduces him to someone new!

As someone who spends an ungodly amount of time studying in public (at cafés and libraries), all I dream of is to one day live out my very own coffee shop AU

Unlicenced by @ohmygodshesinsane

Lily Evans begrudgingly agrees to get in the car with classmate and sometime-foe James Potter and his not-quite-earned P-plates after a particularly rubbish day.

Drop-Off also by @/ ohmygodshesinsane

James Potter takes Lily Evans home, and wants to make something clear.

Disclaimer that they’re Australian in this AU. You guys don't understand how much Lily Evans means to me. I want to give her a hug.

pretty, pretty boy by rosiemary0 (on ao3)

Pretty face, with golden brown eyes and strong cheekbones (one of which is adorned with a smudge of charcoal). Pretty hands—very, very pretty hands, Lily’s thoughts interject—which hold a jar each, one with water and the other paintbrushes.

Or the one where James is an artist and Lily hates socialising.

I'll Manage by @kaymardsa

James and Lily fall in love during the war.

In which Lily runs a refugee camp and James is an ex-sniper

I can't remember if I've recommended this fic already but again I recently re-read it and wanted to share

'Tis the Fucking Season by @thequibblah

Six-year absences. Yearly photograph burnings (figuratively). Low-cut tops. Two nosebleeds. Little red notebooks. The Past, with a capital P. The desire to pour your heart out to strangers (maybe pathologically). The desire to do unspeakably bad things to one James Potter. These are the ingredients that make up Lily Evans's holiday season.

Shelby the cabbie is in for a fucking ride.

I have been searching for this fic for two months and nearly gave up. An absolute classic that everyone should read!!

Two's a Crowd also by @/ thequibblah

Regency AU in which "the only thing Lily Evans can share with the Earl of Devon is a healthy dose of mutual dislike."

In Search of Something More by @kay-elle-cee

In the sunlit garden of her sister’s home, Lord Potter had promised Lily a life of her own design, with minimal expectations—her presence at community events, companionship, and an heir. As the two stumble into the routine of marriage and work to make a life together at Stinchcombe Hall, unsolicited feelings provoke each to start wondering if this is merely a marriage…or if it could be something more.

No, I will not shut up about this fic. Anything that Kelsey writes is bound to be amazing but this one holds a special place in my heart. Note that this is an ongoing fic though. I tend to recommend completed works but this one is too good not to include.

Pinkest Bluestocking of the Ton by @wearingaberetinparis 

Dearest Reader, the ton are abuzz with the latest gossip, and so it is my honour to impart to you the news that the Duke of Peverell has returned to London at last! A year after setting off on his tour of Europe, Lady Peverell's son has returned and rumour has it that his mother is preparing for the most joyous of occasions: a late summer wedding that sees her son wed the next Duchess of Peverell. It is my sincere hope that you have stored a bottle of wine for this most delightful of upcoming events for if ever there were a more determined mama, this writer is Icarus and this society paper has been scorched for flying too close to the sun.

A Jily Regency Romance inspired by Shondaland's "Bridgerton".

Again this is an ongoing fic, but it's too good not to include in this rec list! I haven’t caught up with all the chapters yet but I love the story so far!

A Heart of Coal also by @/ wearingaberetinparis

They say fortune favours the bold, yet Lily Evans was given her death sentence at seventeen. As soon as midnight strikes on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, her heart will turn to coal. Gryffindor knight James Potter, however, is the last to accept such a fate. For while Lily Evans’ curse foretells her death, his foreshadows a life without his unrequited true love at his side.

Fairytale AU in which the love is requited they're just idiots

Three Lemons and a Dragon by @thelighthousestale

Once upon a time, there lived a Prince named James who had to save his father's Kingdom by getting married. One day an older woman gifts him three lemons that will lead him to his true love.

Dillweed in a Fancy Metal Can by @eastwindmlk

When Lily gets dragged to a Renaissance Faire, she reluctantly agreed to go to the jousting event where she is pulled into the show against her will, or is it?

Lily represents me

Queen Foxtail also by @/ eastwindmlk

Once Upon A Time...

There was an arrogant prince who turned down every suitable match and drove his parents to do something drastic. Marry him off to the next merchant that steps through their gates.

across the universe by rcdwings (on ao3)

“So, you’re saying that in these other worlds, James Potter and Lily Evans exist, too?”

She hadn’t expected to hear that, hadn’t even thought about it that way. She was too busy thinking about if in those other worlds, she and her friends could be seventeen and free instead of the war torn teenagers they were. Now that he’d put it that way, she couldn’t help but let her mind wander.

“I would assume so,” she swallowed. “Not sure what we would be like, though.”

A beat, then a soft hum. “Anything,” he smiled at her, “There are countless worlds, right? We could be anything.”

only love can hurt like this by @fireblts 

Lily doesn’t quite know everything, but it feels pretty close.

The main thing she still doesn’t get is soulmates. Love doesn’t seem like something that should be painful. Or rather, love seems like it’s painful enough on its own without any help.

Soulmate AU - whenever your soulmate is hurt or in pain, you can feel it too.

Soulmate AUs are my comfort genre of fics. I haven't been feeling to well lately and rediscovering this fic was a delight

The Librarian of Hogsmeade Village by @ohmygodshesinsane

Lily's work as a librarian in the small village of Hogsmeade has kept her occupied for the past six years, forever keeping the wheels of the town on the track. As the holidays approach, she prepares to settle in with a nice mug of tea and a well-thumbed old book. When a new resident and his son arrive at her weekly story-reading, with cheeky smiles and big hearts, those plans are tossed out the window in favour of chasing love, for once - not escaping it.

Lily living the cozy life of my dreams. I think it's well known by now that I love reading about single parents and well James with his baby boy always puts a smile on my face.

Spitting Image by @charmsandtealeaves

James Potter always knew he wanted to build a family, he just hadn’t found the right person to build it with - yet. Freezing his sperm at Gringotts Sperm Bank was a no-brainer really. He’d have children when he found the right person, and now he had an insurance policy. Then Lily Evans walked into his place of work with her son - the spitting image of him.

linking this art that the talented @constancezin drew inspired by this fic

Every time I see that Ray has updated, reading the new chapter becomes the highlight of my day

The Stag Prince Across The Sea also by @/ charmsandtealeaves

The realm of Hogwarts had lived for decades in a carefully negotiated harmony between the leaders of the four clans. However, when the time came for son to marry daughter, the Slytherin King refused to offer his daughter's hand to any of the other grand houses’ suitors. As the Slytherin King departed the shore, bound for the ship that would allow him to escape across the Green Sea, he cast a curse on the great families.

“Let ye be marked. Marred by tooth, hoof, and claw. May your sons never be fit for any bride!”

Slytherin invoked an ancient magic, which transformed each family's eldest son into creatures under the light of the full moon. The Kings searched far and wide for a cure to no avail while trying to keep secret the wrong that had been done to them. Years passed and with them grew a sense of unrest, a kingdom on the precipice of collapse...

what love is, I think by @potterandevans-blog-blog

It's James Potter's birthday, his nineteenth to be exact. Some people, if they're lucky, find a tattoo on their back on their nineteenth birthday, a tattoo that can help them discover their soulmate. And if the antlers on his back are anything to go by, James might just have a soulmate of his own out there, somewhere.

oil be there for you by @abby10fanfic

Texting/Social Media AU: Lily and James haven't spoken for 2 years. But that's all about to change thanks to Peter and his involvement in an essential oil pyramid scheme. Featuring boss babes, toxin-free lifestyles, binding contracts, and a very oily journey.

[sarafangirlart]

So because i am not so interested in watching the kaos series. Can you describe how Ariadne and Dionysus are portrayed there?

Dionysus isn’t a drunkard (thank god) but he’s a lot meeker here than he is in mythology, like you’ve seen before, it’s like he’s repeating his arc from mythology all over again except worse, Zeus is physically abusive to him (which tbf is accurate to how he treats his children) Hera bullies him which I feel is a bit ooc bc she’s perfectly capable of moving on from her anger and bury the hatchet, she’s done it with both Heracles and Dionysus. However Dionysus being annoyed at Zeus for calling Hera his mother is pretty in character I think. He has weirdly homoerotic chemistry with Orpheus which is hilarious since I’m pretty sure the maenads killed him in mythology. He carries a kitten around which is adorable, then Zeus kills it to prove a point ig. Don’t the Maenads tear animals to shreds tho? I guess this traumatized Dionysus bc he genuinely liked that cat.

Ok now Ariadne, they make her Glaucus’s twin, for some reason the “Minotaur” isn’t Asterion. Minos tells Ariadne and Pasiphae that as babies, Ariadne fell asleep on top of Glaucus and suffocated him to death. Which obviously traumatized them. Idk why they did that, ig it’s to ease her mind bc she has a prophecy that she would kill her brother? Minos later says it’s to make her stronger which like… ok ig.

Glaucus for some reason isn’t actually a Minotaur but a feral man. Y’know it pisses me off bc making Ariadne and Asterion twins could be hella interesting bc imagine them being linked like real twins and for her to FEEL him getting killed in the Labyrinth by Theseus, that juicy juicy angst. Pasiphae forces Daedalus to make wax figures of her son that she thinks is dead, and makes Ariadne stand in as reference, then complains that Glaucus doesn’t have a big nose like Ariadne, I imagine some girls out there can relate to having mothers being overly critical of their daughters ethnic features (not me tho my mom is great).

She’s in her thirties and helps her father maintain his dictatorship (idk much about modern Greek history but I have to imagine it might be insensitive since Greece was under a dictatorship in the past) but she believes that it’s for good and asks her dad to make Crete a democracy like Athens and that ppl would vote for him bc they love him, obviously Minos shoots this idea down. The Trojans low key feel like stand ins for modern MENA refugees which is HELLA insensitive for a multitude of reasons but the one that stood out to me the most is that they use yt British and American actors for the Trojans which really rubs me the wrong way, to use poc suffering for entertainment. Theseus is Astyanax’s bf (but you already knew that) and sides with the Trojans and he “tricks” Ariadne into coming to “Troy Town” (argh which is segregated btw) and they corner her and ask her to free their Trojan prisoners, otherwise they’d keep her as a hostage, which she does then she has the audacity to be mad at Theseus for this when he is completely justified in what he did. Imagine making Theseus more right than Ariadne lol

I don’t understand making Theseus a bodyguard/ rebel spy and removing him from the context of Athens, and why would you write him as supporting Trojans? Didn’t his sons fight against Troy in the Trojan war? Also I think Theseus was killed by the Minotaur? Idk only 7 corpses were shown and he was supposed to be the eighth of this group but he doesn’t show up again.

[intriguingpeoplebyangelafloyd]

RANA AHMAD

RANA AHMAD

1985

ACTIVIST & ATHEIST

            Rana Ahmad was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia into a strict Islamic family. She and her siblings were taught the Quran from the age of 4 and at school she was educated mostly on the subject of Islam. In her spare time she was permitted to ride her bike to run errands until she turned 10 and her grandfather took it away. Her family forced her to start covering up.

            Aged 19, Ahmad was to be married off, her husband was abusive and they divorced. She attended courses to learn how to speak English and worked in administration in the medical industry. Due to the rules, she had to have a male relative drive her everywhere she needed to go, as she couldn’t travel alone. Ahmad desired freedom.

            Ahmad turned to the internet and discovered philosophy and atheism. She learned online she could educate herself on subjects which was forbidden in her own culture. She found too many contradictions in Islam and started having doubts about her religion.

            She secretly sought help from those online and posed with paper with ‘Atheist Republic’ written on it at Mecca. When the photo was posted online, she planned to escape the country with the help from those behind the website Atheist Republic and Faith to Faithless.

            Ahmad fled Saudi Arabia, her family found out she had escaped to Turkey, so she disguised herself by cutting her hair short and colouring it blonde. She then fled to Greece and then moved to Germany. For the first time she was able to ride a bike again and enjoyed her new freedom.

            Today she is a women’s rights activist and founded the Atheist Refugee Relief.

#ranaahmad #atheism

[hero-israel]

So I'm Christian & I'm Sierra Leonean and Irish & I'm like, the biggest Zionist in my town 😅

Today someone brought up the recent post Bassem Yussef (idk that i spelled that right) (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBIspyMJjZu/?igsh=NzhvOHhkYTA3OHZl) made, about how Jews only tie to the land is religion, but they wanna claim Israel is not a theocratic state. & I sorta blew up at the chick who brought it up & now I'm doubting my accuracy. & since you seem to know your stuff, I figured maybe you could approve or give me a hint, so I can correct my claims before she fact-checks me on it 💀

Basically, my argument was -

He can't be that stupid. History. The answer is history.

In and outside of religion.

It's just like most of Cyprus and Turkey could justifiably be called and claimed by Greece (and has been attempted to do so) (due to historical & archaeological proof, which is based on and revolved around Ancient Greek Religion).

Israel's archaeological history proves the claim and origin of the Jewish people.

Now, no one can really argue that no Arabs today should have any claim to the land, I'm sure Jews converted in Arabic Palestine and when they were slaves in Roman and Christian Europe. & I'm sure at some point genealogy becomes a untraceable mix.

But historical fact also proofs that not many people ever converted to Judaism (it was just not practical, or popular or save to do so.)

So, most Judaism today is the only inherited trait the then slaves taken by the Romans (and possibly refugees) still share.

And genetically, most of them can actually be linked in some way. Judaism is the only/mosy persistent historial tie to the land. The only thing descendants of Roman slaves still have in common.

Black people have skin colour to indicate their heritage and getting rid of melanin takes quite a while.

But take, say native Americans out of the US for 500 years, send them to places like North Korea or Belarus, or Russia or China & allow them to mix with the them - there's not going to be much of a traceable indication of who they were left, except the stories, believes and rituals that past generations pass down them. That doesn't diminish their claim to the land or their history tho.

And it's the same for Jews. I'm sure there's tons of European Christians or Middle Eastern Muslims or Indian Hindus, who have Roman slaves (or Ancient Palestinian/Israeli refugees) as ancestors & have ties to the land.

But we have forgotten our past & let go of our connection, somewhere along the family tree. And that is okay.

We're allowed to forget. We're allowed to accommodate others. But you cannot deny the history or the truth.

Thank you for writing - and for helping to spread the word about our right to live in our homeland in peace!

I try to be patient with Bassem Youssef, I really do. He's very telegenic and he's not at the hatemongering level of a Mehdi Hasan or Mohammed El-Kurd. The question he asked wasn't inherently unfair - it's just that it also wasn't very meaningful and someone who had read a book about Jews and Israel could have firmly answered it in ten seconds.

Yes, as you said - our history links us there. It is very literally the Jewish homeland, you don't have to believe in talking snakes and burning bushes to be able to dig up archeological sites mentioned in the Torah and still bearing Hebrew writing.

Youssef is being disingenuous re: whether the Jews have "more" of a right to the land than Palestinians. Is he talking about in the 1940s, when for decades "Palestinian" had meant Jew and the modern understanding of a Palestinian Arab identity hadn't really formed yet? Or is he talking about today - when Palestinians live under Palestinian governments in Palestinian territories? He can argue for improving Palestinian rights and sovereignty, or he can morally preen and splutter about "how DARE those Jews of all people!" - he really can't do both.

And note that while he's not full hatemonger level, he is pretty explicitly denying that Jews are a people or ethnic group - we can ONLY be a religion, so anyone who is an atheist can't be Jewish and can't press any claim to the land. The concept that Israel is a "theocracy" is in itself laughable, as is the notion that any country with a favored religion must be one; Denmark and the UK certainly aren't. Note that his "all you Zionists in particular are atheists" snotglob is basically a copy-paste from pseudohistorian Ilan Pappe.

[discoizdead]

I have one thing to say !

Calling mariana a stain on greece when you know nothing about MY people and what WE think of her !!!!

It's a big difference between her and eden ( The one who represents israel)

Marina yarned, rolled her eyes, and pretended to be asleep when eden was talking!

Eden wants to join the IDF as soon as eurovisions over

And it seems like the wrong people are getting hate. Marina does not need to be disqualified for this, nor does joost klein!

It is.

Insane to see how many people are dick riding eden right now when she's the one who wants to participate in the genocide Going on Palestine!

Keep my country's name out of your mouths! She is not a stain on Greece.

Thank you for your time!

[ausetkmt]

Video shows migrants waiting before ill-fated migrant boat voyage

03:41 - Source: CNN

CNN  — 

The hull of the fishing trawler lifted out of the water as it sank, catapulting people from the top deck into the black sea below. In the darkness, they grabbed onto whatever they could to stay afloat, pushing each other underwater in a frantic fight for survival. Some were screaming, many began to recite their final prayers.

“I can still hear the voice of a woman calling out for help,” one survivor of the migrant boat disaster off the coast of Greece told CNN. “You’d swim and move floating bodies out of your way.”

With hundreds of people still missing after the overloaded vessel capsized in the Mediterranean on June 14, the testimonies of those who were onboard paint a picture of chaos and desperation. They also call into question the Greek coast guard’s version of events, suggesting more lives could have been saved, and may even point to fault on the part of Greek authorities.

Rights groups allege the tragedy is both further evidence and a result of a new pattern in illegal pushbacks of migrant boats to other nations’ waters, with deadly consequences.

This boat was carrying up to 750 Pakistani, Syrian, Egyptian and Palestinian refugees and migrants. Only 104 people have been rescued alive.

CNN has interviewed multiple survivors of the shipwreck and their relatives, all of whom have wished to remain anonymous for security reasons and the fear of retribution from authorities in both Greece and at home.

One survivor from Syria, whom CNN is identifying as Rami, described how a Greek coast guard vessel approached the trawler multiple times to try to attach a rope to tow the ship, with disastrous results.

“The third time they towed us, the boat swayed to the right and everyone was screaming, people began falling into the sea, and the boat capsized and no one saw anyone anymore,” he said. “Brothers were separated, cousins were separated.”

Another Syrian man, identified as Mostafa, also believes it was the maneuver by the coast guard that caused the disaster. “The Greek captain pulled us too fast, it was extremely fast, this caused our boat to sink,” he said.

The Hellenic Coast Guard has repeatedly denied attempting to tow the vessel. An official investigation into the cause of the tragedy is still ongoing.

Coast guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou told CNN over the phone last week: “When the boat capsized, we were not even next to (the) boat. How could we be towing it?” Instead, he insisted they had only been “observing at a close distance” and that “a shift in weight probably caused by panic” had caused the boat to tip.

The Hellenic Coast Guard has declined to answer CNN’s specific requests for response to the survivor testimonies.

Direct accounts from those who survived the wreck have been limited, due to their concerns about speaking out and the media having little access to the survivors. CNN interviewed Rami and Mostafa outside the Malakasa migrant camp near Athens, where journalists are not permitted entry.

The Syrian men said the conditions on board the migrant boat deteriorated fast in the more than five days after it set off from Tobruk, Libya, in route to Italy. They had run out of water and had resorted to drinking from storage bottles that people had urinated in.

“People were dying. People were fainting. We used a rope to dip clothes into the sea and use that to squeeze water on people who had lost consciousness,” Rami said.

CNN’s analysis of marine traffic data, combined with information from NGOs, merchant vessels and the European Union border patrol agency, Frontex, suggests that Greek authorities were aware of the distressed vessel for at least 13 hours before it eventually sank early on June 14.

The Greek coast guard has maintained that people onboard the trawler had refused rescue and insisted they wanted to continue their journey to Italy. But survivors, relatives and activists say they had asked for help multiple times.

Earlier in the day, other ships tried to help the trawler. Directed by the Greek coast guard, two merchant vessels – Lucky Sailor and Faithful Warrior – approached the boat between 6 and 9 p.m. on June 13 to offer supplies, according to marine traffic data and the logs of those ships. But according to survivors this only caused more havoc onboard.

“Fights broke out over food and water, people were screaming and shouting,” Mostafa said. “If it wasn’t for people trying to calm the situation down, the boat was on the verge of sinking several times.”

By early evening, six people had already died onboard, according to an audio recording reviewed by CNN from Italian activist Nawal Soufi, who took a distress call from the migrant boat at around 7 p.m. Soufi’s communication with the vessel also corroborated Mostafa’s account that people moved from one side of the boat to the other after water bottles were passed from the cargo ships, causing it to sway dangerously.

The haunting final words sent from the migrant boat came just minutes before it capsized. According to a timeline published by NGO Alarm Phone they received a call, at around 1:45 a.m., with the words “Hello my friend… The ship you send is…” Then the call cuts out.

The coast guard says the vessel began to sink at around 2 a.m.

The next known activity in the area, according to marine traffic data, was the arrival of a cluster of vessels starting around 3 a.m. The Mayan Queen superyacht was the first on the scene for what soon became a mass rescue operation.

Human rights groups say the authorities had a duty to act to save lives, regardless of what people on board were saying to the coast guard before the migrant boat capsized.

“The boat was overcrowded, was unseaworthy and should have been rescued and people taken to safety, that’s quite clear,” UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean Vincent Cochetel told CNN in an interview. “There was a responsibility for the Greek authorities to coordinate a rescue to bring those people safely to land.”

Cochetel also pointed to a growing trend by countries, including Greece, to assist migrant boats in leaving their waters. “That’s a practice we’ve seen in recent months. Some coastal states provide food, provide water, sometimes life jackets, sometimes even fuel to allow such boats to continue to only one destination: Italy. And that’s not fair, Italy cannot cope with that responsibility alone.”

Survivors who say the coast guard tried to tow their boat say they don’t know what the aim was.

There have been multiple documented examples in recent years of Greek patrol boats engaging in so-called “pushbacks” of migrant vessels from Greek waters in recent years, including in a CNN investigation in 2020.

“It looks like what the Greeks have been doing since March 2020 as a matter of policy, which is pushbacks and trying to tow a boat to another country’s water in order to avoid the legal responsibility to rescue,” Omer Shatz, legal director of NGO Front-LEX, told CNN. “Because rescue means disembarkation and disembarkation means processing of asylum requests.”

Pushbacks are state measures aimed at forcing refugees and migrants out of their territory, while impeding access to legal and procedural frameworks, according to the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). They are a violation of international law, as well as European regulations.

And such measures do not appear to have deterred human traffickers whose businesses prey on vulnerable and desperate migrants.

In an interview with CNN last month, then Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis denied that his country engaged in intentional pushbacks and described them as a “completely unacceptable practice.” Mitsotakis is widely expected to win a second term in office in Sunday’s election, after failing to get an outright majority in a vote last month.

A series of Greek governments have been criticized for their handling of migration policy, including conditions in migrant camps, particularly following the 2015-16 refugee crisis, when more than 1 million people entered Europe through the country.

For those who lived through last week’s sinking, the harrowing experience will never be forgotten.

Mostafa and Rami both say they wish they had never made the journey, despite the fact they are now in Europe and are able to claim asylum.

Most of all, Mostafa says, he wishes the Greek coast guard had never approached their boat: “If they had left us be, we wouldn’t have drowned.”

[saeed19999]

My family's life became Difficult

Emergency support for my family 👋

I am saed a refugee in Greece. Iwant to help my family and evacuate them from Gaza to safety. My family was attacked in Gaza and I lost my brother in this crazy, merciless war that kills children and adults without mercy.

I want you to help me evacuate my family from Gaza and my sick mother who cannot get medicine and food and has entered a psychological state as a result of my brother’s killing.She is suffering greatly and I cannot do anything for her.

My father is also old and cannot take care of my mother and the rest of my siblings, the children. I do not want to lose anyone else.

Your help and assistance in raising money will help them leave Gaza to a safe place. Life there is very difficult. Death is more merciful than the life they are living. 🙏❤️

They live in a tent that does Emergency support for my family protect them from the heat of summer or the cold of winter. Winter has come and they do not have any cover, clothing or warmth. Life is difficult. There is no fuel or firewood.I do not know how they will spend the winter in the war and the cold.

You can donate even a little 10$, and if you cannot, share my campaign with your friends.

https://chuffed.org/project/115769-help-me-evacuate-my-family

[chterzidislaw]

⚖️ JUDICIAL SUCCESS IN MIGRATION LAW!

⚖️ 🏛️ The Administrative Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki orders the Administration to allow our client's temporary stay in Greece until the decision is issued and to refrain from any action that would result in his forced departure from Greece.

✅ In this way, he is not at risk of arrest and deportation !!!

💼 As a greek law office, we provide legal assistance to refugees and migrants in Greece. Christos M. Terzidis, a Greek migration lawyer with a PhD title from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and former legal advisor to the NGO 'ARSIS' on refugee and migrant issues, is greatly experienced and specializes in Migration Law.

⚖️ We protect the human rights of refugees, providing legal assistance to refugees and migrants,undertaking cases that deal with refugee and immigrant residence permits (issuance and renewal) , application for political asylum and support at all stages of the process , appeals , protection from deportation and protection from administrative detention, deposition applications and their presentation and support before the Administrative Courts , presentation and representation before the Appeals Authority and its competent committees , passports (issuance-renewal) , family reunifications, Golden visa cases and so on.

✍ We prepare each case methodically with the outmost care and attention.

🆘 There is a 24-hour service available for emergency cases (like arrests and so on).

📞 You can reach us on 00306977424779 , so that we help you resolve your legal issues!

[vesora]

forgiving yourself and others

this is less of a loa post and more of a personal one. for the sake of this post I will refer to soras life as "i". this is not a cohesive post at all

since things that are happening right now in my family life and personal life that reminded me of some things i said or did in the past i decided to do shadow work

to be honest growing up i was taught to stifle my real personality and go along with what society wants from me because my mother had a mentality that others need to know we are all okay and good in the public eye. This led me to be a perfectionist who can't handle mistakes and wants to please everyone even if it went against what I believed in. Reading back old texts I realised how ashamed I am of who I was back then. I was so stuck in this victim mentality of wanting others to like me that I never asked myself whether I like myself.

I've always wanted to be seen and heard by people. As a desi living in Greece, the most affected minority is us because we are privy to the most migrant attacks. Although I've stopped experiencing racism now due to the law I feel that the "past" me even up to last year was bitter that the desi community wasn't receiving any help by the global media. I always put myself down and that manifested in an outer expression of passive aggression.

To be honest, the past few months have been so transformative for me. I feel completely new and honest. I have a huge time with my own mistakes but have forgiven everyone else in my life and I think that's unfair to me.

Realising that it's okay to make mistakes, it's okay to fuck up, it's okay

I mean even writing this i hate it because I want to ruminate over my mistakes for a lifetime but I've grown so much and I've learned how to be better not only to myself but to others as well.

All I've ever wanted is to make people happy. I'm not saying this because I want to establish a positive image of myself, I genuinely mean it. I have no enemies and all I ever want is to grow as a person and understand different world views and how people operate. My entire life my main goal was to help people because it was never fair how one person could have the world and the other person didn't have a bed to sleep in. All I wanted was for people to be safe and happy. Spending countless nights crying because i felt I couldn't help the world and then I found loa and everything changed. Yet, when I had to stop volunteering and helping refugees from multiple places because of university, I felt like the worst person on earth. If I want to help others, I must first help myself.

Now, I am the most honest I have ever been in my life. LOA helped me a lot because this is exactly what I wanted, to be free. I still have BPD episodes and depressive episodes from time to time but I feel more stable than ever.

Forgive yourself and learn to grow, it's okay. Even though I don't fully believe this yet, I don't feel I deserve this happiness, we are in this journey together. I forgave everyone now it's time to forgive myself.

[mariacallous]

Seeing the children of Gaza under siege brings all of this back. I have spent my whole life coming to terms with growing up in violence, when I was made to learn that children are fodder for war – “collateral damage”, according to the people who talk endlessly about war on TV. My life has been an endless search for the humanity that my granny believed in till the very end. “How terrified and vengeful are the men who kill children?” she would say quietly, as if asking herself. I hear that question today.

Children bear the brunt of war. Working as a humanitarian on the Syrian border in 2014, I saw injuries caused by the barrel bombs that were dropped on civilians day after day. The barrels were packed with nails, shrapnel and oil. The injuries were horrific. Children were killed by nails that pierced their skull or oil that burned them alive. Between 2011 and 2021, a child was killed or injured every eight hours on average in Syria. In Iraq and Ukraine, cluster bombs dropped by the US and Russia kill children long after they have been dropped or fired. These illegal weapons are designed by people who want the bombs to remain dormant until they are ready to kill again, usually children who pick them up. I now know that there are no monsters in the dark. Only adults who are terrified enough to kill.

The feeling that someone wants you dead never quite goes away. It lives in your body as an alarm reminding you that the world is dangerous and unfriendly. It colours every new interaction – you learn forensic vigilance when entering a new place. The question – will this kill me? – is playing on a loop in your subconscious, only sometimes floating to the surface and shocking you out of your day to day existence.

War has the same impact on children, no matter where they are born. I began to understand this after a beloved teacher whose father was one of the first soldiers to liberate Auschwitz gave me Anne Frank’s diary. I recognised the same dialogue in her thoughts as she hid from the people that wanted her dead. She wondered just as I had about who was inflicting such cruel violence and why. Reading her entries, I lived through her bargaining and her attempt to make sense of a world that didn’t value children’s lives, a world that dehumanised her so that she could be killed.

I founded a charity, Amna, in 2016, to help children recover from the trauma of war. Working with refugee children in Greece, I saw the same terror and confusion that I felt when living through war. I’ll always remember a little Kurdish girl in one of the play groups that I ran at a camp in northern Greece. She was seven or eight years old – the same age as my sister when we fled from Kabul. She was so scared that she had stopped speaking. She was scared of other children. She was scared of the adults in the room. Even when I offered her a toy she would wince and hide behind her mother. She remained speechless for months, until the care she received in group therapy made her feel safe enough to reach for a toy. Still tentative, still scared, she held the soft toy carefully away from her face as if following instructions of her own.

War confuses people, especially the adults who wage them. They get lost in technicalities and self-deception, the desire to be righteous in their pain and victimhood, no matter what the cost. As a child it was so clear to me what needed to be done. I would get angry after each experience of hiding from the shells. I didn’t understand it then, but there was such intelligence in my anger. It didn’t manifest as a desire for revenge or the need to make me or my family into victims who couldn’t recover our life or our humanity. It came out as a resolute demand that played over and over in my 10-year-old head, and has echoed ever since: stop killing children.

‘I remember the silence between the falling shells’: the terror of living under siege as a child

[thevagueambition]

Currently a prestige drama by Oscar winner Thomas Vinterberg is on TV in Denmark

The premise is thus: Water levels are rising so rapidly that Denmark will soon be under water. After the Netherlands go bankrupt, the Danish government decides to use its funds to evacuate all its citizens rather than on more coastal management

This is an entry in the "white people are now the refugees" genre of speculative/disaster fiction but to the extent that it focuses on the international ramifications of that, it focuses on how this changes the dynamic within Europe, between European nations (as of episode 2, anyway)

A Parisian character makes a comment about Dutch climate refugees filling up Paris after France helped fund the Dutch seawalls in a way I found very reminiscent of how many Western and Northern European tend to talk about e.g. Greece

I hope the series will live up to its premise, I do wonder if it'll be one of these pieces of fiction that are more conceptually interesting than interesting in their execution, but honestly, I'm just relieved to finally see proper Danish speculative fiction on screen

Also, I do really love when the mundane parts of life are highlighted in speculative fiction, especially bureaucracy, and the series has a lot of that (Vinterberg was writing on it when corona began and clearly took inspiration from the lockdown)

A large part of the story so far involves people trying to negotiate which country they'll be evacuated to. People without money or connections are simply assigned another European country that has agreed to take them, while others try to angle their way into work in e.g. France or apply for universities, etc.

Anyway, the impetus of this long post was this: the series doesn't consider that young people have online friends (Vinterberg does an admiral job at understanding young people for his age, but there are limits, lol, and I guess while he clearly does listen to young people in his life, it's very possible none of them are really nerdy ones) so I'm left thinking about how I would incorporate that in the story

I guess this type of fiction inevitably invites us to ask what we would do in the given situation which I think both can be a useful exercise in empathy but also very self-indulgent in the way I suppose a lot of disaster fiction of the "what if white people were the victims" is

I'm really glad this series is on tv, regardless. I hope it'll push some focus back on climate policy (and away from racist fearmongering about crime)

[marinaiguess]

if you wanna know about what happened to that sunken ship carrying 750 immigrants (of which around 100 survived), i can tell you but i cannot promise you i can keep my cool.

i’m gonna start biting ohmygosh okay. 

immigrants. refugees is probably the better word. those people took a ship from libye heading to italy. they were trying to leave their country to go to a better place, right? to live under better conditions. but you cannot do that “legally”. i hope you know how it goes. people from that area would travel on road, from turkey and then from greece to wherever they wanted to go. but as of recently, right at the borders of greece and turkey there was a wall built (wish this was a bad joke) by the greek government. the reason: to deter immigrants to pass the borders (since there are a lot of them in our country but that’s no fucking excuse since the EU literally funds the governement for this). and it worked, unfortunately. 

refugees had to find a different means to leave. so? travel overseas. it’s riskier but when you have no other option left, you take what you have. and it’s not the first time this has happened. it’s not the first time refugees have drowned and their bodies were found in greece’s coasts. we’ve mourned many people, many children. 

this time? this time it was different because this is the biggest ship the greek government has ever found “trespassing” their sea borders. (there could be others that were never found you know). the biggest ship with the most people on it. never before have there been 750 people abroad. and never before has a ship like that sunken. 

so what happened? based on what i know and not what the greek media claims, based on the survivors’ and the residents’ claims, the coastguard sinked that overcrowded fishing boat. yeah you heard me right. they towed their ship to that boat, probably in hopes to get it out of the greek sea borders so that malta would have to deal with it. malta’s sea borders weren’t that far away and keep in mind that towing in this case is illegal because it could be fatal (and it was).

so, the coastguard firstly claimed that they hadnt approached the boat until it was near sinking. after the survivors’ spoke their truth, they had to change their initial statement. and they did that quite fast. they said they approached them hours before it sunk in order to maintain their safety and supply the boat with food and water. according to them, the reason why the boat sunk was due to the people who were moving too much and tried to shake off any help given to them. it was dark and it wasn’t windy, no waves big enough to disrupt the boat. 

the greek authorities have lied, twice now, and their claims oppose those of the survivors’. survivors who lost their parents or their children. because governments make their lives harder and harder and when the people try to escape their fate, they realize they dont have the upper hand on the matter. and those humans who dont deserve to be called that, act like they care, announcing a 3-day national mourning. that happened a week ago. i havent seen any government officials talking abt the matter since then. (and ofc the only reason they pretend they care so much is because it’s elections season)

i am so done with the hypocrisy. we know the truth and we want justice to be served. but i really really wish it hadnt come down to this, i wish we didnt have to mourn for all the lost ones.

it isn’t the first time it happened. it isn’t the first time in this year that we have lost people thanks to our government’s incompetency. im tired of this. and im tired of people who vote for them, who back them up and excuse their actions. my heart hurts. it really does. as a kid of immigrants who had to go through hell to move across countries, who risked their lives to have a chance of living peacefully and under better conditions, it hurts. and it hurts even more to know that even if there’s a very very very slight possibility jsutice will be served, those people will never be the same again. justice wont be enough to bring their loved ones back. it fucking hurts.