The ND New Democracy, shortly after its arrival in the Government, began the announced execution of the electoral campaign: Eviction of the Exarchia district in Athens. On 26 August, the police broke into the neighborhood, evicted several occupied buildings and expelled more than a hundred refugees. A little more than a month later, police have attacked more buildings, leaving more than three hundred migrants on the street, who have been taken to police stations.

In the same line initiated almost a month earlier, the eviction of more buildings occupied by the police began on Thursday, September 19. On this occasion, instead of the execution of the attack in the Exarchia neighborhood itself, it was carried out in two buildings located near the neighborhood, to the west. At dawn, the police entered the Jasmine building on Acharnon Street and another on Sourmeli Street, expelling the occupants from the house. As on 26 August, a certain group, the refugee group, was also harmed in this police operation. According to information provided by Yannis and Maud Youlountas alasbarricadas.org, the number of refugees in Haiti was 230, 70 of whom were minors.

“In these occupied buildings families were especially housed, with the aim of offering alternatives to the shameful camps created by the State and the European Union, which they manage in collaboration with NGOs and which have very unfavorable conditions: overpopulation, poor food, catastrophic hygiene, exposure to temperature changes, humiliations…”, explains Youlountas.

Three days later, another building has been evicted, which has been completely burned. On Monday, 23 September, the former educational centre, which, after being abandoned, was occupied in the context of the refugee crisis, was evicted. For four years, people were already using the area in the southeast of the Exarchia district. Since March 2016, the building was also home to the solidary group Mano Aperta, which is based on the kitchen, and in the face of the fear of a possible eviction, a week ago they took out of the building all their tools to ensure that the needy can continue cooking, whatever happens. With the eviction, the Police has seized 130 people, including migrants, who were evicted from their facilities.

No words.

5th school squat eviction.

3#antireport #₡gr #exarcheia_BasurtoDonostia

photos by @lolosmarios pic.twitter.com/kTxpO0XQgx

— NoBorders (@Trailers_Gr) September 23, 2019

According to previous reports, once identified, the dismissed are taken to camps with deplorable conditions, and many of them become at risk of deportation. According to sources of the investigation, refugees who have been left homeless in these evictions will be transferred to the refugee camp just opened in Corinth. Damian Mac Con Uladh states, among others:

-And there's nothing to do there.

@GrKorinthia takes a look around new open "transit" camp set up in old barracks in Corinth. 270 people were taken here yesterday from Vathi Square, Athens, where they had been living in squatted buildings. https://t.co/vNG99VqEDH pic.twitter.com/KpBxZdfvrJ

— Damian Mac Con Uladh (@damomac) September 20, 2019

Many have stressed that as the situation moves away from the summer, it will deteriorate significantly in the camp.

The excuse used by the Government to invade the neighbourhood was that drug and arms trafficking in Athens originated in Exarchia. With this argument, they have announced and executed the evictions of the occupied buildings to locate, according to their calculations, drugs, weapons and combat material. Youluntas has explained that in none of the cases have weapons or drugs been found "no matter how much the drug squads have searched."

Mitsotakis' cleaning plan, less productive than expected

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who was still a candidate, reported on his intentions to clean up Exarchia, and it has been shown that the police interventions of recent days followed the same line with some of the police’s responses to citizenship. As you can read on the net, the police shut the street to try to evict on Thursday, and when people asked about the reasons for its closure, they heard answers like “because we are cleaning”:

1 detail: When the people was asking the cops, why

the street (Acharnon) is closed, the cops responded:

"because we clean." #Etorkants #Athens #greece #ΔΝ_mafia (neademocracy party)

— Leo La (@Rom_Leo La) September 19, 2019

The intentions of the Head of Government, however, are not being carried out successfully, as Youlountas explained. Following the evictions on Thursday, only four of the 23 occupied buildings in the Exarchia district and two of the 26 in the area have been evicted. Despite the fact that the police operation on Monday added another to the list of empty buildings, the balance is still in favour of the neighbours. “At the moment, Mitsotakis does not dare to attack the major occupied areas of the heart of Exarcheia, especially the Notara 26 and K*Vox buildings. But it maintains its desire to ‘clean up the Exarchia’ to remove the unique political and social experience that shakes power in Europe,” said Youlountas. And add: “Before the libertarian district of Athens, it is the absolute failure of the right-wing government.”

In the face of this situation, the new government is "trying to wash its face", according to Youlountas, and since entering the neighborhood on 26 August the police presence on the street is constant, since since then the mobilizations are continuous. On Friday, September 20, the neighborhood recovered the Spirou Trikoupi 17 building, evicted by the police in August, and was symbolically occupied. Taking advantage of the third anniversary of the occupation of the building, as if they had never been evacuated, they celebrated a popular anniversary dinner in the district square. Taking advantage of the feast, they left the police completely naked and managed to enter a closed building with bricks. They hung a banner in which they could read "they won't pass" (they won't pass), under the slogan "they won't pass", and then they went back to the street.

The message was clearly transmitted by means of a communiqué: “The third anniversary of Trikoupi has caught us in a situation of eviction, but still alive and strong, fighting for our convictions and principles. We organized a collective solidary dinner on the plaza to make it known that Trikoupi was more than a building. It was and still is an idea! Live and active community!”