Article from Eleftherotypia newspaper about the Citizens League for Human Rights

Hell sentences for addicts

THEY BURRY THEM IN PRISONS, WHILE THEIR FAMILIES PAY THE SUSPENSION SYSTEM

By IOANNA SOTIRCHOU
"Just like we had witches being burnt in the Middle Age, the same happens today with the kids with drug problems. They are the hounded out of society" George Koskinias is telling us on behalf of the Citizens League for Human Rights, which was set two or three years ago mainly by parents who met each other in the trials of their kids for drug cases, listened to the crushing sentences and decided to do something.

Their compass is the Framework Decision of the European Council (2004/757/JAI-25/10/2004) which brings up, in their opinion, significant changes in the criminal treatment, setting the maximum penalties for possession of drugs depending on the quantity: up to three years for small quantities and up to ten for large. The exact wording is that «Maximum penalties must be at least between 5 and 10 years of deprivation», term that leaves open the possibility for larger prescribed penalties, as our lawyers have indicated.

The CLHR (contact number 6976 835645, more details at http://ctzleague.blogspot.com) intends to appeal to the European Commission for the dealy in implementing these measures. It is a dealy that "has destroyed thousands of lives of young people and has led to thousands of desperate families. Our common common realisation, mainly after the parajudicial network scandal in Greece, was that the tightening in inhumane degreees of the penalties imposed by the courts. It is not logical that in other countries for 5-10 grams for someone to just listen to a reprimand or pay a fee and here to take ten years in prison. This cannot continue. Until now, the the League has collected hundreds of prisoners' proxies for a mass appeal to the European Court and we're trying to collect more", says the father, who speaks under a nick name (his identity details are available to Eleftherotypia), because his student son, who is already for three years in prison, has his Court of Appeal in a few days: "He was found with a total of 12 grams of unprocessed cannabis and was sentenced for more than ten years in prison, and other people are serving the same years for 30 grams".

He narrates his Odyssey, common with that of other parents, who came up to the highest levels of the judiciary to urge lenient treatment: "Everyone ignores us and our demands. We are told that things will become better at the Court of Appeal. There, you usually cut one to two years from the more than ten years penalty that are children are required to serve. We are talking about children of 18, 20, 22 years old, who see their lives be lost in prison. This is great injustice, the machinery of injustice".

They earn money.

What engine of injustice? His talk, like a river: "It's everyone who earns money and lives at the expense of prisoners for drugs and their hope for release. Those who support the zero tolerance, filling the prisons and building new ones constantly. The system of justice, judges, lawyers, all these take advantage of the parent. I, only until the Court of Appeal, have spent more than 25,000 euros. And I'm not talking about greases: through all the years that my kid is in prison we requested 9 times a prison release, which costs 2,000 - 3,000 euros at a time. In the recent years, nearly 400 prisoners have died in greek prisons, mainly by drugs. This is a genocide. If you have a conviction for drugs you are obliged to serve the 4/5 of your sentence, contrary to the 3/5 other prisoners have to. Why such racism among prisoners? According to the police the years 2000 - 2007 12,000 people were convicted for drug cases. Nearly one in a thousand Greeks, within seven years. Consider the turnover of money paid for litigation costs, fees, greases."

"Tragic things"

'What is the court practice?' we asked the lawyer Emmanuel Papadakis: "In our country the statutory penalties are devastating, there are no distinctions, and if someone with drugs gets characterized as 'particularly dangerous' he is finished in the people waste dump. Tragic things happen. We have sick people who take life sentences, while they should receive treatments. There is no distinction of what is a big or small quantity, they do not recognise extenuating circumstances, neither if you are of young age and only occassional user who can be released, the judicial practice in Greece is to characterise everyone as a drug dealer, the life sentences for drug cases have become an every day phenomenon, the law doesn't distinguish between the substances, if you get caught with hard drugs the penalties are crushing, while as 'users' are only characterized the people who have access to the parajudicial circuits. These are not elements of a civilized nation", he says.

ELEFTHEROTYPIA - 06/09/2008

It's a real shame for Greece, what happens so close to us, yet very few see. Greece is considered to be a country of Western and Central Europe with the highest number of detainees in relation to its population. Along with Albania and Turkey they are the countries who impose the heaviest penalties.

It's positive though that the non-application of the european framework concering drugs and the selective justice of the Courts is receiving more publicity in the media.