The three-month asylum suspension has shown results and it will be examined whether it needs to be extended, as Thanos Plevris, Minister of Migration and Asylum, stated in Parliament, responding to a current question from KKE MP Emmanuel Syntychakis from Heraklion to the minister “regarding the protection of thousands of refugees and migrants arriving in Crete.” Specifically, regarding migration flows to Crete, Thanos Plevris said that due to diplomacy and the asylum suspension they have been significantly reduced. As he mentioned, the current management will continue until winter, and for next year’s preparation, it is certain that there must be a facility.
Read: Plevris on illegal immigration: The new doctrine is now return or detention (Video)
Furthermore, he noted that this permanent facility will follow the model of the eastern Aegean islands and added that there must be preparation, with two or one (facility), in locations so that the Migration Ministry can fully manage the situation. He even called on the questioning MP, who requests temporary spaces, to say, “this is a nice place (in Heraklion) for them to go.” “You won’t do it. Because what you really want is to pamper people, selling humanitarianism, which ends with one word: come, take them from here,” emphasized Thanos Plevris.
For his part, Mr. Syntychakis predicted that flows to Crete will fluctuate and will be determined by the intensity of geopolitical and weather conditions. Regarding Mr. Plevris’s suggestion that his party propose spaces for facilities in Crete, Mr. Syntychakis emphasized: “The KKE is not accustomed to doing dirty work. We leave that to the government. Besides, what will the government do? Will it pass the buck to the KKE, to search for space for the facilities? Of course not. And much more so, for the closed detention facilities that you have in mind, under inhumane conditions.”
Thanos Plevris on 36 years since the assassination of Pavlos Bakoyannis
Subsequently, on the occasion of 36 years since the assassination of Pavlos Bakoyannis, the Minister of Migration and Asylum stated: “The November 17 terrorist, Dimitris Koufontinas, whose rights some often invoke, is a criminal, a coward, who learned to kill from behind a pistol, without having the courage even to look at his victims, and proved that he is absolutely cowardly because when he blackmailed the Greek state with his supposed hunger strike, as soon as he saw that his demands were not being met, he stopped it. Because these cowardly terrorists know how to kill people, but they don’t dare risk their own lives. And he is where he should be. Like all criminals, who deprive a wife of her husband, children of their father and generally strike at Democracy.”
Also, Mr. Plevris noted that “the time has come now, to say that this man’s place is there and for some to stop pampering him.” In response to a protest from New Left MP Sia Anagnostopoulou, the minister said: “Because I said ‘pampering him’ I see that you were disturbed. Today marks the assassination of Bakoyannis. And he was murdered by Koufontinas, for whom your youth held marches, saying ‘November 17 was born’ to get him released when he went on hunger strike. Who was blackmailing the Greek government. Koufontinas whom you gave leave to, whom you visited and whom you consider a political prisoner. He is not a political prisoner. He’s scum, a murderer who is where he should be.”
