In regard to the situation in the (greek) police's holding cells, as read by information coming from the country's Ministry of Public Order: More than 1,000,000 people have spent one night or longer in police stations since 2002, while deaths in custody are on a constant rise, reaching 57 in the last decade only. Statistics of those deaths are only available from 1997 onward. Since that year 28 detainees committed suicide (out of these, 26 hanged themselves and two jumped off the buildings they were held in).Another eleven people ostensibly died due to pathological causes. Three suffered heart failure, while two had "lethal accidents in their attempt to escape". Six drug addicts died from pulmonary edema. In the last two years alone there have been 18 deaths, twice as many as in 2003-2004.
Prisons and detention cells are the places where authority shows its true face; when writing even for a fraction of all that take place in there, where people's ? rule and depressing metal bars rise all around you, words seem too poor to describe what happens to the soul and the body of the detained human when s/he has fallen to the hands of authority.
With respect to the memory of the people mentioned in this note, we will remember and remind of their deaths by denouncing the inhumane holding conditions and treatment of our fellow humans in so-called houses of correction and detention cells. We hold the firm belief that the time will come for the crimes of authority against humans to be punished.
Atrocious, horrific incidents in prisons and detention cells are innumerable. Many of these remain unknown and will never be heard, buried under the darkest prison cells.
(athens indymedia)
