The Greek immigration minister does not mince his words. He may be new to the job but his message to the millions of young men waiting in North Africa to come to his country for a life in Europe is clear: ‘Don’t come here. We will put you in jail or send you back home.’
In an exclusive interview with the Mail, Thanos Plevris said: ‘The Greeks, like the rest of Europe, want to help real refugees, but we will not be taken for fools. It is the end of the fairy tale that those coming to Greece and Europe in incredible numbers are all women and children. They are mainly men aged between 18 and 30 who are economic migrants. We are not a hotel any more.
‘Many are from safe countries, such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Now we are telling them that if you sail in illegally by boat to Greece, do not expect asylum but get ready for five years in jail or a ticket home instead.’
Greece is on the frontline of Europe’s out-of-control migration crisis that, as Britons know well, has reached northern France where trafficking gangs are using fleets of small boats to send tens of thousands of migrants to Dover.
Greece, on the other side of the continent, has its own relentless wave of newcomers.
This year, at least 10,000 migrants have reached its biggest island, Crete, from lawless Libya a few hundred miles away across the Mediterranean Sea.
In the first week of this month alone, just after Mr Plevris was appointed immigration minister, a surge of 4,000 arrived illegally on the island, which is struggling to cope.
The coastguard and police are holding the uninvited foreigners in emergency camps in empty warehouses where they get a chilly welcome, basic rations and sleep on concrete floors. As we witnessed, they are young men growing dangerously angry while incarcerated against their will in the stifling summer heat.
The Greek immigration minister Thanos Plevris (above) has issued a message to the millions of young men waiting in North Africa to come to his country: ‘Don’t come here. We will put you in jail or send you back home’
Migrants from Libya are guarded by armed police as they wait in stifling heat and sit on concrete floors at a warehouse in Chania town, Crete
A coast guard office holding a stick is seen handling a migrant after a row at the the camp which threatened to run out of control
‘Our big problem today is with Libya and who they are sending over,’ the plain-speaking and unapologetic Mr Plevris told me as he promised to stifle the migration flow for ever.
‘Libya is using big vessels carrying 200, even 300, people. Of all those who have arrived, 85 per cent are male, and the majority of them are young. They are using Greece to enter Europe illegally for a new life.
‘If we just continue to sit and watch, it will never end. Three million migrants are today massing in Libya.
‘Now I plan to deter them from setting off for here.’
Ten days ago, the Greek parliament passed a new law to help Mr Plevris get his wish. It suspended all asylum applications from those arriving illegally from North Africa for ‘at least three months’ due to the ‘extraordinary’ migration emergency. The European Union has sided with Athens, saying the Greek crisis is ‘exceptional’.
Under the legislation, due to be introduced within days, most of the illegal arrivals will have two choices: a five-year prison spell or deportation to their home country, at Greece’s expense. ‘We will no longer tolerate an invasion from North Africa,’ Mr Plevris said.
Migrant camps with prison-like accommodation are being prepared on the mainland to house future arrivals.
‘Our immigration ministry is not a hotel service,’ Mr Plevris added in a headline-grabbing television soundbite after the law won overwhelming support in parliament.
The Kitrenosi emergency camp outside Rethymnon in Crete is holding hundreds of migrants as they wait for a ferry to Athens
The Greek Coast Guard oversee the shipping out of Hundreds of migrants at Kitrenosi emergency camp which is stationed outside Rethymnon in Crete
The migrants were shipped out on buses to the Knossos Palace ferry to Athens on Thursday evening
He is also reviewing the ‘current situation’ where migrants are placed, sometimes for years, in welcoming reception centres with ‘menu-style’ meals and state benefits, while it is decided if they are genuine refugees or not.
Greece’s revolutionary agenda is backed by the country’s prime minister.
A key aide said: ‘This is an urgent situation. We are taking extraordinary steps that are difficult and strict. Our government can no longer accept the migration flows from North Africa. People there need to think twice before they pay a large sum of money [to traffickers] to come to this country.’
It is anybody’s guess if the thousands of young men who have reached Crete in the new surge realise what a bleak future lies ahead. But in the few days since the law was voted in, no boats have arrived from Libya.
When the Mail visited two of Crete’s emergency holding camps, we were allowed to walk inside among the migrants but not permitted to speak to them.
‘Be careful,’ I was warned by an armed police officer guarding 400 migrants at a camp on the outskirts of Chania, two hours from the Crete capital of Heraklion. ‘These are dangerous people. They all want something from you, even just a cigarette, and they get angry if you don’t hand it over.’
Inside the warehouse camp, the smell of unwashed men and urine made my eyes smart. As we walked in, the migrants shouted for help, putting up their hands to show ten fingers, the number of days they have been incarcerated here.
There was a tinderbox atmosphere and the conditions were unpalatable, to say the least. Some migrants were lying on mattresses, resorting to sharing because there are so few. For the unlucky ones, it was a concrete floor with a T-shirt for a pillow. ‘They all sit with their own nationalities, the Egyptians together, the Palestinians together, and so on,’ said one female guard at the door of the warehouse.
Some migrants were lying on mattresses, resorting to sharing because there are so few available in the Chania town warehouse
Inside the warehouse camp, the smell of unwashed men and urine was overbearing
The migrants shouted for help, with some putting up their hands to show ten fingers, the number of days they have been incarcerated here
At Heraklion, the Crete island’s capital, 270 migrants are guarded in a port building as they wait for a ferry to Athens
‘They are very difficult to control. There are so few of us, just five, and so many of them. We are tired, they are tired. It is not a safe situation.’
One pitiful boy, who whispers to me that he is an Egyptian and 14, is barefoot and wearing just underpants and a shredded T-shirt. In one corner, standing alone, is a tall figure with dark hair and his neck covered in the red and white scarf of Palestine.
‘He will say he is Egyptian, if he is asked,’ a guard told me. ‘But he has come from Gaza.
‘He won’t have an identity document because he will have destroyed it before reaching Greece. It makes our job of finding out who these people are, if they are bad or good, more difficult.’
The police guards, just three men and two women, were under stress. If they open by a crack the giant metal doors to the warehouse to get in and out, throngs of men run to the entrance to try to reach the fresh air and escape the stench for a minute or two. ‘No, no, no,’ shout the inmates in one crescendo of furious male voices as the doors are snapped shut.
Nearer Heraklion, in the mid-Crete town of Rethymno, is a second warehouse camp. If anything, the atmosphere was more tense still. It is on rough land overlooking the sea and a beach, and had nearly 180 men inside when we visited.
Inside, we saw a gruff-looking police officer using a metal baton to control the migrants. One Egyptian who argued with him, after dilly-dallying for a few minutes on a visit to the latrine block in the yard, was chased and hit on the arm by the officer.
‘You can show my stick on your photographs,’ the officer said to me, ‘but not my face.’
Hundreds of migrants were shipped to the Knossos Palace ferry as they look to try and reach Athens from Crete
Migrants from Libya at Chania town, Crete, are seeking to reach the Greek capital in search of a life in Europe
He added: ‘These men are disappointed, angry, and increasingly volatile. They will remember me. They expected to get a free pass into Europe because the Libyan boat traffickers told them that. Now we are keeping them here. They are not getting what they wanted or hoped for. It is difficult to make them stay calm. You must be wary.’
It is at the Rethymno camp that we saw migrants being deported, first to Heraklion port and then to mainland Greece, in an operation resembling the movement of prisoners.
During the afternoon, they were brought out of the warehouse in six nationality groups and made to sit on the ground in the blazing sun for half an hour to wait for buses to take them to the ferry for Athens where migrant camps have already been toughened up.
Some held cardboard from torn-up boxes over their heads to protect themselves from the sun as they sat in the dust. Nearly all were barefoot, some bare-chested, and each carried a blue plastic bag of possessions plus a bottle of water.
We were told that the migrants and the buses would remain in a closed deck area of the ferry away from fee-paying passengers for the night crossing.
It was an operation with little compassion for the migrants, but the country has clearly run out of patience. Mr Plevris, who belongs to the Right-wing faction of Greece’s ruling and increasingly conservative New Democracy party, said: ‘Our prime minister has warned for years of the problems with immigration.
‘We want to support refugees, but we believe it is important for our society that we only take those who want to be part of Europe.’ He pointed out how many of the illegal migrants want to ‘transfer’ their own cultures and religious beliefs to Europe.
‘They want to go on living by their own rules and they want us to accept that. But we will no longer do so,’ he added.
Migrants are seen sitting on the floor of the Kitrenosi facility with water bottles to stay hydrated
Many of the migrants shared the mattresses as comfy space in the Kitrenosi camp is limited
Mr Plevris said the European asylum system was skewed. It encourages migrants who cheat by throwing away their passports (to avoid showing they come from safe countries) or lying about their age to boost their chances of being allowed to stay. Egyptians wanting to escape military service destroy identity papers to disguise the fact they come from a country listed as safe by the United Nations and European Union.
If the words of Mr Plevris, 48, sound like common sense today, his critics have dredged up the fact that he was a political firebrand when first elected to parliament in 2007 as a member of a now defunct hard-Right anti-immigration party.
In 2011, he made a much criticised speech in parliament, which is still on YouTube. He said: ‘In my opinion, the immigration issue can be solved in two ways. The first way is border security, which cannot exist if there are no deaths [to the migrants].
‘The second is that we must understand the logic of disincentives. We must tell the migrants when you come here you will have no social benefits, you will not be able to drink, you will not be able to go to hospital.
‘[The migrant] must tell others in Pakistan that he is having a worse time in Greece than back home. Unless he sees a life of hell and not a paradise, he will come.’
Controversial though his speech was, his appointment is popular with ordinary Greeks today.
As I travelled in Athens to interview Mr Plevris, the taxi driver recognised the address.
‘Ah. Are you going to see the new minister,’ he asked. ‘I would like to send him a message from people like me. Tell him on migrants that enough is enough. No more must come in. We all feel the same. We wish him good luck with his new law.’
