Munglik
13 november 2012, 19:40
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/1113/1224326523978.html
But Saturday, November 3rd, was to prove different – the 29-year-old Egyptian migrant disappeared into a maelstrom of beating at the hands of his employer, his son and two accomplices, who chained him up and tortured him for 18 hours in a stable.
That ordeal was followed by indifference by medics, who said he didn’t require hospitalisation after he was found beaten black and blue on a village street, and by police, who detained him in a cell for four nights after the attack.
On that Saturday morning, Walid’s trouble started two hours before the end of his shift, when baker Yiorgos Sgourdos’s son, a 19-year-old just back from his compulsory military service, told the Egyptian to clear off and never come back.
Characterising the attack as one of “striking brutality”, the Athens office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which recently set up a racist violence recording network with a number of non-governmental organisations, said it can be considered a racially motivated act “since it is doubtful that such an act would have been the same had the victim been Greek”.
It added that the response of the authorities in Walid’s case “follows a pattern” noted in a recent report from the network whereby survivors lacking legal documents have been arrested with a view to deportation after going to the police to report racist violence against them.
But Saturday, November 3rd, was to prove different – the 29-year-old Egyptian migrant disappeared into a maelstrom of beating at the hands of his employer, his son and two accomplices, who chained him up and tortured him for 18 hours in a stable.
That ordeal was followed by indifference by medics, who said he didn’t require hospitalisation after he was found beaten black and blue on a village street, and by police, who detained him in a cell for four nights after the attack.
On that Saturday morning, Walid’s trouble started two hours before the end of his shift, when baker Yiorgos Sgourdos’s son, a 19-year-old just back from his compulsory military service, told the Egyptian to clear off and never come back.
Characterising the attack as one of “striking brutality”, the Athens office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which recently set up a racist violence recording network with a number of non-governmental organisations, said it can be considered a racially motivated act “since it is doubtful that such an act would have been the same had the victim been Greek”.
It added that the response of the authorities in Walid’s case “follows a pattern” noted in a recent report from the network whereby survivors lacking legal documents have been arrested with a view to deportation after going to the police to report racist violence against them.