Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Nils Muižnieks carried out a five-day visit to Greece, where he held meetings with authorities on the subject of racial violence.

After his meeting with deputy FM Kostas Tsiaras, on January 31, Muižnieks welcomed the establishment of 70 anti-racist police units and the appointment of a special prosecutor to deal with racist crime. He also urged the Ministry of Public Order to take measures to create an independent and effective police and coast guard complaints mechanism.

On his part, Tsiaras stated that that at this critical moment, enforcing human rights issues is a global, universal problem, and pointed to the efforts Greece is making to curb illegal migration along with its side-effects.He also stressed that in this critical moment, all agencies must work together so that racism, xenophobia, as well as illegal migration are comprehensively dealt with.


The HR Commissioner also met with Supreme Court Prosecutor Ioannis Tentes and Prosecutor for Intolerance Crimes Nikos Ornerakis. Tentes noted that the Greek justice system shows great sensitivity when trying racially motivated crimes, and underlined that even the arrest of MPs is ordered, if they are involved in such crimes.