Hunger Strike In Greece Enters Second Month

Hamid Saddeqi, a 36-year-old Iranian refugee, has entered the second month of a hunger strike protest outside the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Athens. He has sewn his lips shut and is refusing food to highlight the fact that he is still waiting for his application for political asylum to be processed after his papers were first submitted 8 years ago.

Since the protest began, the hunger strikers have suffered harassment and arrest at the hands of the Greek police. But that has not stopped the number of hunger strikers and supporters protesting outside the UNHCR offices swelling to twenty and all are in the same boat, victims of the fact that Greece only grants 0.04% of all asylum applications it receives each year.