URGENT INTERVENTION FOR THE HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER - PRISONER ON HUNGER STRIKE Mr. VASSILIS DIMAKIS

HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS SUPPORT NETWORK

Athens, March 16, 2018

The Human Rights Defenders Support Network, a joint venture of the organizations “Pleiades” Hellenic Action for Human Rights and Lawyers Without Borders - Greece, was informed through reliable sources of the third consecutive denial to grant educational leave (which constitutes discriminatory treatment and violation of rights of a Defender, precisely because of his human rights defense activities) to a Human Rights Defender and prisoner on hunger strike, Vassilis Dimakis, from the relevant Korydallos Three-member Prison Board.
The Board, having already "cut" his request for leave twice before "because he hasn’t successfully passed in one third of the first semester courses" (sic), whereas Vasilis has successfully passed the lessons, invented a new excuse to cut him from his right to attend classes: being that "the lessons are theoretical and attendance is not mandatory", but also (a lie) that "distance learning is ensured", an even clearer vengeful attitude of the Prison Board’s towards this particular prisoner.
The activity of Vassilis Dimakis as a defender of prisoners’ rights (according to the definition given by the UN for Human Rights Defenders) is of essential importance as it has led to reports of unlawful, even inhumane practices by the relevant Ministry of Justice and relevant Public Bodies and to the improvement of detention conditions and living in general for both himself and his fellow detainees (see herewith at the end of our intervention references to some of a series of hundreds of published actions made by Mr. Dimakis as Defender of Human Rights at the end).
One day after submitting his 3rd request for educational leave, prison officials attempted to take steps to isolate him, citing his life is supposedly being targeted by unknown persons, and that this was allegedly confirmed by the GADA Police Headquarters and the Ministry of Justice. Vassilis Dimakis protested and assured that, since he has not harmed anyone and on the contrary is appreciated by his fellow detainees because of his character and fighting for demands, he doesn’t consider he is at risk from any prisoner, let alone from "unknowns" and informants the guards and Director cite. He stated that he believes the Authorities themselves are endangering him with such practices. Although the Authorities insisted on further isolating him by invoking "invisible enemies" and "contracts against his life", when questioned and invited to specify the danger they claimed as certain danger, they responded that it “is based on information from within the facility” and that "it is not personified", so "the answer to your question does not exist".

Since then, however, Vasilis Dimakis has not been allowed to see a lawyer and despite his explicit and written refusal to be subjected to any "protective" regime, the Office has subjected him to a particular hostage regime in his ward, because of its self-proclaimed, totally vague, target on his life.
It is not the first time that a Correctional Office and its agents attempt to weaken the prisoners' rights to justify themselves by isolating them allegedly for security reasons with the same baseless mention to being imminent victims, while there’s also no lack of reports to human rights institutions that correctional officials “assign” detainees with the “task” of beating up their fellow detainees.
In this light, the DYYAD expresses its deep concern at the “phenomenon” invoking “invisible enemies” supposedly targeting the life of the Defender, a practice which, given the Authorities' "replies", takes place in order to –in the least- further pressure and terrorize him, something which is certainly not in line with the country’s international obligations and its democratic nature.
This totally and significantly undermining stance of the Authorities is due to the actions of Vasilis Dimakis, which concern the claiming of prisoners’ rights through the submission of requests by him and the coordination of the collective claim for better detention conditions and more substantial educational opportunities.
The case of Vassilis Dimakis is special because he is not only a Human Rights Defender (in the sense given by the UN and EU Recommendations to the term), but the first prisoner to which the Greek state refuses to grant education leave after the adoption of the possibility to provide this with a "bracelet", which was also a result of struggles on the part of prisoners.
This “coincidence” of the above properties is not accidental!
The "bracelet" was legislated in 2014 on the occasion of the Romanos-Kostaris case. At this point, it is worth mentioning the position of the educational community in 2014 in a similar case (Romanos-Kostaris case) through a support text bearing the signatures of 51 primary school teachers, 80 secondary school teachers and 79 academics in which they stated they considered "unacceptable for two people to claim such a basic and self-evident right, such as access to education, using their body as a last resort and endangering their lives and their health." The legislation of the possibility of a "bracelet" followed to provide educational leaves to detainees in a secure manner. The bracelet resisted any objections that had arisen.
And in the case of Vasilis Dimakis, the educational community has taken a clear position with a written statement by the Department of Political Sciences faculty of University of Athens, which is in direct contrast to the position of the prison board.
For the first time since the legislation of 2014, a prisoner is deprived of his right to educational leave with the scandalous reasoning that "it is not necessary to attend lectures" and the (false) statement that distant learning is guaranteed, while it is well known that guarantees of the legislation (Κ.Υ.Α. 29809) for distance learning have not yet been implemented in the Korydallos Correctional Centre.
In order to "cut" his previous request for leave, he was, also vengefully, disciplinary punished for "contempt", but which was canceled by the Penitentiary Court to which the prisoner had appealed, and ordered the removal of the disciplinary penalty.
In this way, the prison authorities' tendency to undermine the prisoner's education is evident. On the aforementioned avenging attitude argues as well the report that the prison social worker (member of the Prison Board, together with the Prosecutor and Director) in order to "cut" the educational leave, asked the secretary of the faculty to "add" to the certificate of studies the clarification that " presence is not compulsory", resulting in Vasilis Dimakis’ Student Qualification Certificate appearing with a distinction in relation to the corresponding certificates of his fellow students. And in the view of the Social Worker, the access of visiting the computer for an hour weekly "is enough" to consider the right of prisoners to distance learning “guaranteed”. Attitudes such as this, which constitute a horizontal violation of the rights of prisoners, should among others also be controlled by the scientific institutions in which the State Officials are registered, in order to ascertain whether they are compatible with the Principles of these Functions.
It is critical to state that in the last rejection decision of the Prison Board, the reason cited for not granting this particular prisoner leave is that the prison ensures the possibility of distance learning, whereas in fact this particular right is not exercised as stipulated by the relevant provision (Joint Ministerial Decision 29809) , because in general, the relevant legislation is not applied to the Korydallos prisons, for which Mr. Dimakis has repeatedly complained in writing, calling for respect -at least- to his right to distance education, as it is specified in the Joint Ministerial Decision.
With regard to the last claim, he has filed for administrative appeals at the Korydallos Detention Centre, in which the detainee "reminds" how many times and how analytically he has requested to apply for distance education to be applied to him, and how many times he has complained about the tacit denial of the right he is "assured" to by the Board, requesting also the disappearance and/or amendment of that decision and its minutes, with regard to the false point, claiming that the State must stop lying through its organs and immediately admit that the law on prison distance learning is not applied, that it is in force "only on paper".
Rather than immediately accepting his request, he was summoned to receive the "correct repetition" of the minutes of the decision, which contained as a only correction the change of prosecutors’ status (from "appeals" to "first instance") without further modification or disappearance of the false reference.
This move was perceived by the student prison hunger-striker as a de facto rejection of his appeal and requested the immediate transmission of this text characterized as a “complaint report” to the Supreme Court, that oversees the Piraeus Appeals Prosecutor, which oversees the respect of the prisoners' rights in this prison. 

With regard to exercising the right to education, the Council argues that... providing one hour a week of computer access is sufficient to cover the educational needs of each prison student, while within that one hour he must research online resources, carry out the tasks assigned to him, carry out bureaucratic procedures related to enrollment in semester courses, etc.

The prisoner declares that despite the degrading and inhumane detention conditions and the continuous obstacles throughout his academic process, such as his transfer shortly before the examination period, the non-beneficial calculation of his days of lyceum education, the prohibition of his entry into the library, "because he can study in his cell," forcing him to periodically lack even a table and a chair to enable him to sit and study and of course the constant rejections of righteous requests for educational leave and attendance of his courses as prescribed by the law, will not stop him in his course for self-improvement and knowledge. This attitude of the state, the deprivation of his statutory right to attend university lessons for which he has labored as few have, will not stop him.

Furthermore, in his struggle, Vasilis is not alone. 

His fellow students stand by and support him with the unanimous resolutions of the Associations of the Political Sciences Department and the Law Department, as well as of the Athens National Kapodistrian University (EKPA) Department of Economics, and by the Students' Union of Thessaloniki Lawschool, the written support of his co-detainees, the support of institutions and organizations, such as the Human Rights Defenders Support Network.

Vasilis Dimakis began his hunger strike on March 14, 2018 for "until democracy is restored to my person and the rights of detainees to education are respected".

The Human Rights Defenders Support Network:

- Records the discrimination against Defender Vasilis Dimakis and the continued violation of his rights, both as a prisoner and as a human being, which obviously takes place due to his activities in defense of rights, as well as records and highlights the persistent claims of the relevant authorities that "the life of Vasilis Dimakis is endangered by invisible enemies."

- Informs regarding the targeting of Council of Europe Defense advocates, such as the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights and the CPT, as well as of UN agencies whose mission is considered as relevant where appropriate.

- Calls on the Greek Government to guarantee in practice its international commitment to respect the “UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders”.

- In particular, invites each relevant authority: 

i. To guarantee in every circumstance the life, the physical and mental integrity and the unimpeded exercising of the fundamental rights of Vasilis Dimakis, as well as of all the Human Rights Defenders operating on Greek territory.

ii. To ensure that there is a thorough, independent and impartial investigation into the illegal acts and omissions that have occurred, capable of resulting in the identification of all those responsible and to bring them before the relevant independent jurisdiction to impose on them the sanctions provided by Law.

iii. To put an end to any further harassment of Mr. Vasilis Dimakis and to all the Human Resources Services in Greece, and to ensure that in each case they will be able to carry out their legitimate activities without disproportionate obstacles.

iv. To comply with the provisions of the Declaration of Human Rights Defenders, dated December 9, 1998, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and in particular with:

- Article 1, stating that "everyone has the right, individually or in combination with others, to promote the protection and realization of human rights and the fundamental freedoms at a national and international level".

- Article 12.2, which provides that "the State shall take all the necessary measures to ensure that the relevant Authorities protect each individual, individually and in combination with others, against any violence, threat, retaliation, de jure or de facto unfair discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of the lawful exercise of the rights set forth in this Declaration.

v. To ensure in all circumstances the respect for human rights and its fundamental freedoms, aligned with the standards of international human rights and the international legal texts ratified by Greece.

- Furthermore, calls on the Greek Government:

(a) to contribute to the establishment of an appropriate environment for the work of defenders, allowing individuals such as Vasilis Dimakis, to conduct activities freely, on a legal basis, in line with international standards.

(b) to promote and to pursue the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms without restrictions other than those mandated by the European Convention on Human Rights.

(c) to take effective measures for the protection, the promotion and the respect to human rights defenders and to ensure the respect to their activities.

(d) to take effective measures to prevent assaults or harassments in favor of human rights defenders, to ensure the independent and effective investigation into such acts, and to oblige those responsible to be accountable through administrative measures and/or criminal proceedings. In this process, in ensuring the victims are not further victimized by "protective measures restricting rights", that such measures be imposed after exhausting the possibilities in identifying and isolating the source of the danger and that these measures are not imposed unchecked, but only following the security from possible arbitrariness and the establishment of complex victimization mechanisms imposed on by a humanitarian emblem, supposedly "for the benefit of the victims".

(e) to ensure that the relevant authorities carry out rapid and impartial inquiries or investigations in the event of violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, without undue and manipulated delays.

(f) in any event, to ensure in practice the exercising of constitutionally guaranteed freedom in education, as legislated in article 16 of the Constitution, for all prisoners in Greek prisons.

(g) to legislate to incorporate the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, taking advantage of the relevant Civil Society Law Model drawn up by the International Human Rights Commission and endorsed by a large number of UN experts, translated and adapted into Greek, including special provisions for Lawyers, incorporating the Basic Principles of the UN, by the Greek Action for Human Rights "Pleiades".

-- It also calls on the Greek Government and the relevant Ministry of Justice to take immediate steps into implementing the right to education for prisoners in the country, as provided by the relevant legislation, to beneficially calculate the time served concerning prison Lyceum education (as in the case for gymnasium and university), to beneficially calculate prison education as well as for work (without attributing “less importance”), to take into account, in whole, the European Correctional Rules in any attempt to modify correctional and criminal law, to provide for a periodic review of the need to detain individuals who, following a repeat offense are sentenced under article 108 of the P.C., to provide for a practical and effective legal remedy in the event of any refusal of leave (and not only in the case of a second successive rejection) , to ensure that the conditions of detention and convictions are compatible with human dignity and the protected supranational rights, and to refrain from any case of violating the core right of detainees in education.

Access to education must be guaranteed to all without exception, without any direct or indirect discrimination, and the state’s “margin of appreciation" as to whether an intervention is justified should, in cases of detention, be narrow due to the proven benefit of education both specifically preventative as well as generally preventative, namely for each of its bodies, as well as for society.

-- Finally, given that the detainee Defender is also on a hunger strike, already approaching, very soon, the loss of 10% of his body weight, the relevant authorities are called upon to deal with his obviously fair request, as submitted to the Korydallos Detention Centre (Request for Appeal), the Ministry of Justice (Contentious Appeal) and from 18-3-2018 and previously to the Penal Court (Prosecutor's Office and Piraeus Court of First Instance) with an Appeal against the rejection decision, with due promptness, as urgent, to ensure that there will be no irreversible harm to the health of the Defender Mr. Dimakis.

Some of the interventions of Vasilis Dimakis in favour of the Rights of Detainees are available here:

""It is said that when a school closes a prison opens ... the opposite occurs here

The continuous violation of prisoners' rights due to the unacceptable and third-world detention conditions and abuse of their rights in respect to their education

Letter of complaint by a detainee at the Patras prisons to the Minister of Justice

Honorable Minister,

With this letter I take the opportunity to protest before you, as well as to raise your awareness, by citing the following:

Minister, are you aware that as enrolled self-tutored Lyceum students, we are not benefitting from the calculation of time served? In fact, while we assert tremendous efforts, in studying on our own, without the lectures delivered by teachers.

The truth is, legitimate queries keep arising on the oxymoron unfairness of it all. We fail to understand our exclusion in the beneficial calculation of time served, although Lyceum is a de facto transitional stage in education, and namely the most important. What motivation incites a detainee after the second-chance school to continue on to Lyceum, whereas up to then a recipient of the beneficial calculation of time served? After the second-chance school, few continue on to Lyceum and this is indicative of the situation I describe. This happens because each of us must choose between education and freedom, and whoever is lacking, usually chooses it.

We face abundant obstacles, they do not allot us the necessary space and time to study which is the most important of all. After a long and lasting struggle, prison management allowed us about three hours library time, only on weekdays.

So I ask Υou, is it possible for a student, in the last year of Lyceum while simultaneously taking University entrance exams, to be able to prepare for all the course requirements in three hours?

The Prisoner Rights Initiative contacted the director of the Patra prison and the Ministry to find a solution, but in his statement, this is the best he can do, with the pretext of lack of space and staff. Obviously there are solutions, but done so with no goodwill whatsoever on his part, believe us, because of their own views. The Initiative then issued a Press Release, citing the obstacles created to students on a daily basis and the reluctance of both the sides to resolve an easy situation.

We call on you, Minister, to legislate in order to restore this blatant injustice, to remove us from the difficult position in which we find ourselves. Those of us struggling to enter University are faced with all of the above, plus that winter is coming, predicted to be severe, and we must study sitting still, of course, without any heating.

Thus, we are informing you that in the Patra prison it is considered a luxury to have two hours of hot water a day, and because of this, there is no heating, in an area where winter humidity and cold are unbearable. So, what the Patra management considers a luxury, is the rule for all the prisons in the country. If indeed though, as I heard, he doesn’t pay, allow us to be charged for an air-heater or a radiator, as is the case in all prisons not turning on the central heating.

So we are asking You to inform us if the Patra prison is excluded from heating funds, and if not, it is imperative to locate the "leak". This cannot be called correctional, but torture, we are human, it is a disgrace to freeze during winter. This is a specific torture we adversely experience and a total counterpoint to your predecessor's political announcements and the policy you promised to act on, having promised... to improve detention conditions and to safeguard our human rights.

My correspondence was tampered with a few days ago, the Ministry has been relevantly informed, can all this be happening in 2016? Guaranteed constitutional rights are being collectively abolished by a handful of those in positions of authority, who consider detention facilities as their personal field of action. You must put an end to the perpetual activities of bought-off public servants and their in-agreement established mafia operating undisturbed in the detention centers, profiteering of course.

If one is not part of this or its sponsor, then excluded, sometimes extorted from years of our acquired rights (leave, work, etc.) or crushed by the grindstone of the system that disintegrates any semblance of an ethical refusal or physical effort of resistance.

The totally reprehensible behavior of the Patra prison director in matters of education, detention conditions and, in general, to the respect of our rights is in no way consistent to the appropriate behavior of a State Official serving in a sensitive and also afflicted part of corrections, but appears to be taken from a time of dictatorship. We hope and wish your presence in the Ministry of Justice to be that of catalyst and synonymous to its cleansing.

The long-time insufferable situation of the barbaric "correctional system" can be easily paralleled with the Augean stables.

Your task is very difficult and we wish you much strength.

Dear Minister, we fervently urge you to re-address, now from a different vantage, the issues briefly mentioned to you, to demonstrate to all that no illegal operations can have solid foundations and that political will is stronger than extreme ideological rigidities that we meet and made to face daily with pretense Democrats within the administrations of some prisons.

In closing, we would like to warmly wish you much strength and good luck in your new tasks.

Sincerely,

Dimakis Vasilios”

24/6/2017 OPEN LETTER OF SELF-TAUGHT STUDENTS AT THE PATRA CORRECTIONAL CENTRE TO THE PRIME MINISTER

RE: Our non-inclusion in the beneficial day calculation

21/9/17 Mobilization at the Patra prisons on legislation and adequate electricity of the Correctional Centre

Protest for a Prosecuting Veto in Disciplinary Boards, Leaves, etc., and for Cumulative Punishment

12/9/17 increased mobilization in the Patra prison

29/7/17 Announcement in support of women in the Korydallos Detention Centre, the right to a dignified death, issues of arbitrariness and non-respect of gender in detention

22/7/17 Complaint - Intervention on the entry of the EKAM Special Anti-Terrorist Unit into Greek Prisons, Transfers-“Abductions" with unprovoked violence, torture of detainees, lack of response of Prosecutor obliged to investigate and protect detainees

20/05/17 Panhellenic and increased security measures for the first time to prisoners in the Patra Detention Centre

20/05/2017 Commencement of mobilization at the Patra Detention Centre for sentence calculations, legislation, detention conditions

Mobilizations in the Patra Detention Centre and a call to fellow detainees for a peaceful mobilization

05/05/2017 Announcement of the prisoners on the refusal of the Patra Detention Centre Doctor to write referrals to prisoners and the increasing cases of tuberculosis in this prison

04/05/17 The public request for the removal of the Detention Centre’s Pathologist

18/4/17 Complaints to the KEELPNO Disease Control & Prevention Centre and to the Media about tuberculosis and the inadequate security measures in prison

30/03/17 Letter of support to Korydallos hunger strikers and public complaint for "targeted and unacceptable" targeting of the educational rights of prisoners

12/03/2017 Letter to the Patra Hospital for operating on a prisoner without removing handcuffs

DECLARATION OF HUNGER STRIKER VASSILIS DIMAKIS, AN HRD PRISONER - STUDENT IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS, AFTER BEING DENIED FOR THE 3RD CONSECUTIVE TIME AN EDUCATIONAL LEAVE TO ATTEND LECTURES BECAUSE "LESSONS ARE THEORETICAL AND THEIR OBSERVANCE IS NOT COMPULSORY".

"After the third rejection of my educational leave from the three-member Disciplinary Board of Korydallos prison, which every time invents new excuses in order to refuse my leave, purely for vengeful reasons, which are affected by my arguments for better detention conditions, in general, but also for improved educational conditions, specifically, I [state that I] have received only denials to all my educational requests that are expressly provided by the law for us, the detainees, leading me to a complete dead-end, although I consistently follow everything I am instructed to do in order to get an educational leave, like all the other detainees who, after their requests, they rightfully took it.

Unfortunately, it “happens” for me to be the first [convict] to be rejected his educational leave, upon the unacceptable excuse that my courses are theoretical and my attendance “is not compulsory”, contrary to what the teaching staff of my University Department declares in writing, exposing the Prosecutor A.S., who, in order to stop my education, ever since I arrived to Korydallos Prison after my transfer here in order to study, did not hesitate to “charge” me with a disciplinary punishment for alleged "disobedience", with fast-track procedures, rendering the relevant legislation obsolete!

After my appeal at the Court of Execution of Sentences of Peiraias, this punishment was ordered to "disappear" as unacceptable and that my sentence should be deleted.

This incident suffices for society to understand why we, the prisoners, are reacting to the promoted legislative provisions of the new and supposedly “innovative” Correctional Code that strengthens the “Prosecutorial veto” inside the prisons and in our lives.

Of course, the Prosecutor does not act on his own: he is in full co-operation with each director of the detention facility and the –unfortunately- (anti)social worker V.F., who, for example, in order to "cut" my educational leave, was asking from the responsible secretary of my Uni, to "add" on my student status certificate [an attestation] that my "presence to the lectures is not compulsory".

The members of the board of Korydallos prison did not even hesitate, on January, to falsely testify on a public document, that I allegedly did not appeal against my disciplinary conviction for "Disobedience" (while my appeal was not only lodged but it was also accepted by the competent Court, exposing in that way their true intentions), but also today they haven’t finished with their lies:

On their yesterday report of the Korydallos Prison's Council, they are mentioning as a supposed “fact” that justifies the rejection of my educational leave that “distance learning is ensured to the above student” while, in fact, I have repeatedly complained in writing over a number of texts to the board that my and my co-detainees' relative right is not exercised, regarding the pertinent legislation (Joint Ministerial Decision - KYA 29809), because, IN GENERAL, the relevant legislation is not enforced in Korydallos prison!

Regarding the "mock", for a university student, to have access to a computer only once a week and only for one hour, as a supposed [exhaustion of the] "implementation of the right to distance learning" (sic), and while, during this time I must get informed and survey, electronically declare and register my semester's lessons, do my assignments etc. I shall not leave any comments on that…

I would like to ask all those managing the prison councils, but also those in the Ministry of Justice:

Do you recommend to your own children, like you do in my case, to not go to the University?

Do you tell them that their presence there is vain?

I am unable to accept a rejection of such a faschist content, respecting the perseverance, the dreams and the effort that I have made during my preparation period, despite the constant barriers that the state has placed upon me by submitting me to inhuman and degrading conditions of detention and decisions of all sorts of "councils", such as transferring me shortly before the examination period, imposing me a prohibition to visit the library "because he can read in his dormitory", subjecting me to not even having neither a table nor a chair to sit down to read, and culminating, of course, during the last six months, with the continuous rejection of my fair requests for an educational leave or, alternatively for real distance learning as exactly the law provides for it).

This refusal is in substance a denial of the Rule of Law and bears " the force of res judicata", only for those who have decided it and who support such practices.

In full consciousness, I hereby declare on March 14, 2018 that I am going on a hunger strike until Democracy is restored upon me and all my lawful claims, as well as respecting all over and at all times, our human right to education, for me as well as for my co-detainees.

Whenever the authoritarianism of the Ministry of Justice,Transparency and Human Rights will attempt to silence my effort towards the most humane for me and for my co-detainees, who are stooped in society's subconscious, which is referred to as prison, my voice will become stronger, amplified from your own injustice and inhumanity, and it will bring me before your civilized consciousness.

For such an important purpose that touches the very heart of my dignity as a human being, kindly know that I will not retreat until the Ministry of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights has been charged for the first dead prisoner in hunger strike (and then thirst strike) , who died while politely claiming the human rights guaranteed by the Laws, the Conventions and the Democratic Regime, as its very basis."