All the eyewitnesses already said that the coastguard caused this, yet there is no shred of outcry from the Western countries.
The Greek coastguard drowned 500 refugees and immigrants. Let that sink in for a moment.
The Greek coastguard drowned 500 refugees and immigrants. Let that sink in for a moment.
awkward phrasing choice
It’s covered in both American and UK national news. The Guardian is a UK news media org.
Did this have good enough coverage in the EU, especially the conclusion?
In this case, they murdered children so it would be strange if this was ignored on the continent.
From the Guardian report:
> "The joint investigation by the Guardian, German public broadcaster ARD/NDR/Funk and Greek investigative outlet Solomon, in collaboration with Forensi" (Forensis is a Berlin-based research agency which investigates human rights violations)
Whether this particular incident was intentional or accidental, and whether those responsible will be punished or not, the whole regime has been consciously constructed to produce exactly this kind of result.
To quote the book Necropolitics, by Achille Mbembe:
> In an increasingly Balkanized and isolated world, where are the most deadly migrant routes? It is Europe! Who claims the largest number of skeletons and the largest marine cemetery in this century? Again, it is Europe! The greatest number of deserts, territorial and international waters, channels, islands, straits, enclaves, canals, rivers, ports, and airports transformed into iron curtain technologies? Europe! And to top it all off, in these times of permanent escalation—the camps. The return of camps. A Europe of camps. Samos, Chios, Lesbos, Idomeni, Lampedusa, Vintimille, Sicily, Subotica—the list goes on.
[0]: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNHCR2.png#mw-jump...
Europe has a strong xenophobic streak running through it at the moment, in each and every country there is a right-of-center party either ruling or gaining strength to the point that people are seriously worried they will be able to unite. Most of these campaign on fear-of-the-other and immigrants are obviously a very convenient scapegoat. Housing shortage, the social contract that has become unstable, school quality and so on, each and every problem is traced back to immigration, no matter how ridiculous the link. And it gets lapped up as gospel.
I'm all for getting to the bottom of this and bringing the Greek coastguard leadership as well as anybody that was on that boat to justice. But I cynically doubt that this will happen, and that even if it should happen that something fundamental will change.
Caught many people off guard, but this disease has also spread to Canada. They’re just a lot more subtle about it compared to most Western countries.
Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise to us since one could argue that it likely spread from the US? However, on a whole we still don’t blame immigrants for housing shortages and job losses (yet).
For Europe: not all that long ago many here were refugees, on the run for the Nazis or during other wars. Immigration and refugees are a sign that the world isn't working well, a symptom, not a cause and you can't cure symptoms.
I’m not surprised there’s not significant outcry when hundreds are drowned. Much of the population is already taught to view them as a threat to be eliminated.
https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban - the USA's official policy was banning Syrian refugees
"Without looking at the various polling data," Trump said in a statement, "it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life."
This was in reference to a woman who was the wife of an accomplice from Pakistan.
But in seriousness, these incidents do historically [1] go through the court system. Unfortunately Greece tends to just get in trouble for not following proper procedure since they turn off video and etc which prevents getting enough evidence for a larger crime.
Let me know when Russia agrees to payout any penalty for its invasion of Ukraine.
[1]: https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/41810/european-court-sl...
I think most people have assumptions about EU countries where they just classify any EU country as the Netherlands. The article shows that this is not a case of a rogue coast-guard but that the whole system in Greece is rotten from the inside-out.
But if they had to do it they would. The same attitudes and dynamics that allow this to happen in southern europe are also in place in northern europe.
And funny that you mention the Netherlands, because the Dutch government just resigned because the PM could not pass legislation to further restrict the number of asylum-seekers [1]. If Rutte is so hell-bent for that kind legislation while 2.000km away from the epicenter of the problem, one cannot imagine he would be the paragon of humanism, were the Netherlands closer to it.