Today (19.10.2009) at around 3pm, detainees at the migrant prison of Pagani in Mytilini set fire to two of the wings. They were protesting against their continuous detention and in particular for the fact that some detainees are released after a few weeks while others remain imprisoned for a much longer time. They also protest against the horrendous living conditions in their prison.
At this moment around 900 people are detained, including minors. A 12-year old boy from Afghanistan received an order for administrative deportation, while his father remains in prison. And so, the child continues to stay in prison too.
The fire was very strong and the fire brigade launched a large mobilisation in order to bring it under control. Two migrants passed out, while six were beaten so badly by the Riot Police (MAT) that were transferred to hospital.
At around 6pm, while the fire had died out and the injured had been taken to hospital, people in solidarity arrived. The detainees were still in the yard. One of them was saying he has been detained for longer than four months. Others worry about their mothers, wives and sisters that were released earlier and are in Athens already. It looks like the detainees will spend the night in the yard.
We also saw two detainees that had been injured during the revolt and had received no medical help whatsoever.
Following the previous revolt, the police had announced they would pick two demonstrators at random every time this would happen. It would not matter whether those particular detainees would have been involved in the revolt or not. The last time the police did this, they held a migrant in the police station’s detention cells before sending them back to the Pagani prison. Until now, we know nothing about the second migrant taken by the police at that time. We also don’t know whether the police will do the same for today’s revolt or not.
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