Olympia

Here's something interesting from the Guardian Unlimited:

Beggars and drug addicts disappear in Athens 'clean-up' before games

Helena Smith in Athens

Wednesday August 11, 2004 Last-ditch efforts to "clean up" Athens before the Olympic games begin on Friday have included removing thousands of immigrants, beggars, drug addicts and homeless people from the capital's streets.
Human rights activists said yesterday that they feared vulnerable people, including asylum seekers from war-torn countries such as Iraq, were falling victim to the campaign.
In the count-down to the games about 70,000 police and military personnel have been drafted to patrol the capital.
"There is a climate of absolute terror on the streets," said Spyros Psychas, a member of Arsis, a charity working with the homeless and underprivileged youth.
"People are afraid. They're ringing in saying how unbearable the police controls have become."
Underlining the concern, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees urged the Greek government to ensure that "international standards", including the Geneva conventions, were not being breached.
The agency's unusual intervention followed reports in the Greek media that mass deportations had soared in advance of the games.
Last weekend the authoritative Ta Nea reported that of the 13,766 immigrants arrested in the first six months of this year about 6,623 had been forced to leave Greece.
Lawyers told the Guardian that they believed growing numbers of foreigners had been banished in recent weeks under fast-track procedures which allowed them no chance to appeal. Asylum seekers in Greece are often forced to wait months before being given proper papers.
"Recent reports regarding the 'clearing' of the streets of Athens ... create concern," the UNHCR's Athens branch said in a statement.
"Many asylum seekers lack proper identification documents and are at risk of arrest, detention and possible deportation in contravention of international standards."
As the organisers have completed the building of venues and other Olympic sites, they have turned their attention to beautifying the capital. The effort has focused on the historic centre, not least the squares where thousands of immigrant street sellers, drug users and homeless people tend to gather.
Partly because of its strategic geographic location and poverty, Greece has a large number of socially excluded people. The European Observatory on Homelessness believes that about 17,000 people are without a roof, not counting the majority of the immigrants who cross the Greek borders daily.
A lot of "undesirables" are thought to have been moved on to less visible districts.
Some people are thought to have been put in psychiatric institutions where doctors have complained of being deluged with sectioning orders from public prosecutors.
In June the staff at the Dromokaition psychiatric hospital, one of Athens' two mental institutions, protested on the streets.
Michalis Yannakos, leader of the hospital's trade union, said at the time: "Following arrests, the prosecutor issues sectioning orders that force us to lock up drug addicts, alcoholics or mentally ill people."
Psychiatrists told the Guardian that many of the capital's burgeoning population of drug users had mysteriously disappeared.
The authorities deny that the police have conducted a sweep, saying that no group had been deliberately targeted.