who I interviewed in 2018, was a social worker at an island detention facility back in 2007.
She remembers that she was not allowed to use the only toilet available in the police
container nor enter their space for more than an 8hr shift. ‘You are carrying the viruses of
illegal immigrants (lathrometanastes) so go away because we have families’, they would say
to her as an explanation. At times, the police would let her stand at the centre’s entrance
in the sun for hours, before they let her in, citing administrative issues.
Greece has a long history of violent relations between the policing arm of the state and its
citizens (Amnesty International, 2014). Cabot (2018) remarks that police power emerges
within a larger state apparatus that is often characterised, by Greeks across the political
spectrum, as fearful, corrupt and unlawful. Inside a detention setting this is extenuated.
The anxiety against the ‘other’ does not disappear within detention, but instead becomes
distilled cultivating a climate of fear infused, at times, with extensive abuse and harassment
(Hall, 2010).
In their relationships with a predominantly female NGO workforce, officers drew on sexist
tropes in which women were interpreted as sexually deprived seeking the attention of men.
‘They would come to our offices to flirt…there was the assumption that we liked working with men and
they took advantage of it’ (Interview, Athens, 2018), Joanna, a psychologist, recalled. On other
occasions, the officers played with the dominant idea of policing as resting on violence,
merely to provoke female professionals and create a climate of fear. As a former NGO
worker related to me ‘I remember I was at the airport detention centre. I had just taken my tea from
the canteen. As I was walking back to the office, police officers were hanging out at the cafeteria, watching
TV’ (Interview, Athens, 2018). It was the day Ilias Kasidiaris, a Golden Dawn MP, slapped
a female MP with the communist party (Dominus, 2012). ‘When that happened, they were
cheering ‘Harder! Slap her once more!’, while looking at us anticipating our reaction.’ (Interview,
Athens, 2018), she added with disgust.
Whereas harassment was mainly subtle, in some perilous cases it was much more manifest.
Maria, who worked at a Greek island detention centre some years ago, was scared to be
out on the streets alone because she was threatened and stalked by the police on the island.
‘There was a specific police officer who had taken pictures of me and my boyfriend…Another would call
me, especially after anti-fascist demonstrations on the island, to threaten me ‘you are paying attention to
those in uniform but you should be scared of those who cannot be seen’ (Interview, Athens, 2018).
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