VZCZCXRO5909
OO RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA
RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHNP RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSK RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHTH #0901/01 1491303
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O R 291304Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY ATHENS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0236
INFO EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL 0005
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 0001
RUEHTH/AMEMBASSY ATHENS
RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ATHENS 000901 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PTER GR KIRF ASEC ABLD PREF SMIG
SUBJECT: Greece: Muslim Migrants Protest in Athens, Radicalization 
Fears Grow 
 
REF: 09 ATHENS 315 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY: Violent demonstrations and riots involving 
Muslim migrants rocked downtown Athens throughout the month of May, 
bringing relations between migrants and the Greek government to a 
new nadir and fueling fears of Islamic radicalization in Greece. 
Muslim community leaders and media reports attributed the 
deterioration of relations between Muslim migrants and the 
government to a combination of factors: the skyrocketing growth of 
the Muslim illegal migrant population, stepped-up police patrols 
and enforcement efforts against immigrants, poor prospects for 
economic and social integration for migrants, and the lack of an 
official mosque in Athens for Muslim worshippers.  These May 
clashes follow earlier confrontations between migrants and police 
at the asylum processing center of Petrou Ralli and in the port 
city of Patras, where Muslim immigrants have long-simmering 
grievances with authorities over Greece's deficient asylum process 
and over police crackdowns (see REFTEL).  With Greek policymakers 
focused on upcoming European Parliament elections and the governing 
conservative New Democracy party unlikely to propose comprehensive 
immigration reform measures, violent clashes between Muslim 
migrants and police could well continue.  END SUMMARY. 
 
 
 
---------------------------------------- 
 
MUSLIM PROTESTS: LINKED TO POLICE CRACKDOWNS 
 
---------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Muslim migrants and pro-immigrant groups clashed with 
police and right-wing organizations in Athens multiple times during 
the month of May.  Like previous migrant-related protests in Athens 
and the port city of Patras (see REFTEL), the May demonstrations 
took place in reaction to police enforcement or eviction efforts. 
In early May, after a request from a landlord, police announced a 
plan to evict around 600 illegal migrant squatters from the old 
site of the Athens Court of Appeals near Omonia square.  On May 9, 
after an anti-immigrant rally by the Committee of Greek Citizens 
and the neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn, pro-communist, human rights, 
and pro-immigrant organizations held a counter-demonstration. 
Media reported that nine police and three migrants were injured in 
subsequent clashes between the two sides, and that there was 
significant damage to surrounding buildings and parked cars. 
Observers for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), a medical NGO, were 
present at the demonstrations and stated that the courthouse site, 
lacking plumbing and electricity and filled with trash and human 
waste, was an "epidemiological time bomb". 
 
 
 
¶3.  (SBU) On May 19, a group of around 30 migrants reportedly threw 
stones at and injured a police officer patrolling near the 
courthouse site.  On May 20, approximately 1,000 Afghan migrants 
held a demonstration and occupied Omonia square, protesting against 
an incident in which a police officer allegedly damaged a copy of 
the Qur'an while performing an identity check on an immigrant.  The 
crowd scuffled with riot police, who responded with tear gas.  The 
Greek government promised to investigate the Qur'an incident fully 
but condemned the violence, with Deputy Minister for Public Order 
Christos Markoyiannakis stating that "economic migrants living in 
Greece must respect the law."  In what media reports called a 
possible right-wing extremist attack on Muslim migrants, on May 24, 
an unofficial prayer room was set on fire by unidentified 
arsonists.  Five Bangladeshis sleeping in the apartment were 
rescued by firefighters.  Pro-immigrant and anti-immigrant groups 
have planned separate follow-up demonstrations on May 29. 
 
 
 
---------------------------------------- 
 
MUSLIM LEADERS FEAR GROWING RADICALIZATION 
 
---------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Naim El-Ghadour, President of the Union of Greek Muslims, 
told Poloff in February that the risk of radicalization had 
increased among Greece's migrant Muslims--especially among the more 
 
ATHENS 00000901  002 OF 003 
 
 
transient and less integrated Pakistani, Afghan, and Somali 
communities.  (El-Ghadour, an Arab Egyptian, stated that Arab 
communities in Greece tended to be more settled and financially 
stable--and thus less at-risk for radicalization.)  El-Ghadour said 
that police crackdowns, discrimination against Muslim migrants, and 
persistent delays in the construction of an official mosque and 
Muslim cemetery in Athens had embittered Muslim migrants.  Imams in 
the hundreds of unofficial prayer rooms throughout Greece tended to 
minister to and come from ethnic-specific communities, and 
El-Ghadour feared that imams from newer Muslim migrant groups 
lacked religious education and adhered to more extremist views. 
The Greek government, El-Ghadour concluded, was indirectly 
fomenting radicalization by continuing to delay the construction of 
an official mosque.  (NOTE: Government ministries announced in 
early May that land set aside for a mosque was occupied by the 
Greek Navy, which claimed the cost to relocate its facilities would 
be over $100 million.  Construction of the mosque was approved by 
Parliament in 2002 but has not commenced.  END NOTE.) 
 
 
 
¶4.  (SBU) In May interviews to Al-Jazeera and the internet news 
outlet Islamonline.net, El-Ghadour characterized the Pakistanis, 
Afghans, and Bangladeshis who participated in the recent unrest as 
"young kids, maybe 19, 20 years old, without jobs, and facing 
hunger" everyday.  The slightest religious provocation, according 
to El-Ghadour, could easily trigger a violent reaction--as seen in 
the Qur'an desecration incident.  Scott McCracken, Director for 
Refugee Ministries at Helping Hands, a local faith-based NGO, 
concurred that the risk of radicalization had grown, telling Poloff 
that Pakistani, Afghan, and Somali young men and families who had 
regularly attended faith-based and government-run food kitchens in 
years past had stopped coming--not because the need for food had 
lessened, but because some imams and leaders of certain Muslim 
ethnic groups had instructed followers to avoid associating with 
Christians or Greek authorities. 
 
 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Members of the Muslim minority in Thrace, primarily of 
Turkish and Balkan origin, have taken pains to distinguish 
themselves from Muslim migrants.  In November 2008, Muslim 
religious and community leaders in Thrace told Poloff that the 
Muslim minority was "not like the migrants," did not associate 
socially or religiously with migrant communities, and had "no 
threat of terrorism" in its ranks.  El-Ghadour confirmed that 
Muslim migrants in Athens did not intermingle with Thracian 
Muslims.  In fact, sectarian tensions existed: A mufti (religious 
leader) in Thrace noted that any Pakistani or Afghani migrants who 
died crossing the Greece-Turkey border were buried separate from 
members of the Muslim minority, while El-Ghadour noted that Muslim 
migrants did not want to "be seen as Turks" and resented a lack of 
support from Thracian Muslims on migration-related issues. 
 
 
 
---------------------------------------- 
 
COMMENT: SHORT-TERM SOLUTIONS, LONG-TERM CHALLENGES 
 
---------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶6.  (SBU) The number of general demonstrations and violence in 2009 
involving Muslim migrants is unprecedented for Greece.  Prior to 
this year, Muslim migrant protests were limited to spontaneous and 
localized grievances, such as demonstrations against alleged police 
brutality at the Petrou Ralli asylum processing center.  As the 
waves of migration have increased, however, these minority 
populations have grown and developed increasingly organized 
informal community networks.  In the charged and protest-prone 
atmosphere since the widespread December 2008 Athens riots by Greek 
students and anarchists, the presence of these migrant groups, 
combined with government inaction (or missteps) on issues of 
importance to Muslims, has resulted in some Muslim migrants 
demonstrating publicly and more violently than ever before.  This 
points to a long-term challenge for Greece.  We have reported about 
the overwhelming numbers of illegal immigrants entering Greece 
after transiting Turkey--especially from Pakistan and Afghanistan, 
source countries for which migrant numbers are likely to 
increase--and the Greek government's call for more border resources 
from the EU and more cooperation from Turkey and other countries 
along the migration route to control the flow.  We have also 
 
ATHENS 00000901  003 OF 003 
 
 
proposed re-starting a DS/ATA Anti-Terrorism Assistance program for 
Greek law enforcement.  But in addition to becoming more effective 
on the enforcement side, the Greek government needs more creative 
engagement with and practical actions to address the needs of the 
Muslim migrant community.  Previously, the GOG operated on the 
correct assumption that most migrants were transiting Greece to 
other EU countries.  However, now many are remaining in Greece due 
to a lack of opportunities, or difficulties in resettling, 
elsewhere. 
 
 
 
¶7.  (SBU) In the short term, the GOG could jumpstart the 
construction of the long-delayed official Athens mosque.  Post has 
raised this issue at a ministerial level and reported it in the 
annual Human Rights and International Religious Freedom reports, 
and we will continue to urge GOG action.  Also, Muslim-focused 
cultural sensitivity training for the Hellenic Police will go a 
long way towards reducing on-the-ground tension--whether used in 
operations to evict squatters, or during routine identity checks on 
the street.  We will explore whether EU countries such as the UK 
and the Netherlands, which are also focused on Greece's migration 
challenges, can assist.  Longer-term, Greece faces the daunting 
task of coping with continued waves of migration, governing a more 
multiethnic society in a state founded on a concept of Greek ethnic 
nationalism, and reforming a deficient asylum and outdated legal 
immigration process. 
MCCARTHY