At a time when the entire country is suffering from a deep economic recession as a result of a global crisis many people in Greece are quite literally going hungry. Aside from the tens of thousands of homeless peoples in Athens and many other cities across the country, as well as the families who are living without electricity and fresh water, empty state coffers can not even support the welfare state, and therefore funds that once supported the sectors of education and health care, and the prison system have literally frozen.
Financing for many prisons has decreased to a minimum for some months now, resulting in hundreds of detainees being malnutritioned. As such many now survive on the charity of local communities.
One such example involves the prison in Corinth where prisoners are literally at the mercy of God because, as reported by the prison staff, not even one grain of rice has been left in their warehouses to feed the prisoners. The prison has been suffering from cutbacks for some time now, but it was receiving some relief supplies from a nearby military camp.
Unfortunately the camp informed the management of the prison several days ago that supplies were running low, citing a lack of food supplies even for Greek soldiers. The news shocked the prison management and they began to send protest letters to the government, but to no avail. So local communities took over. In fact, the response of some citizens in Corinth was immediate and they took it upon themselves to support the prison with various provisions.
This gave way to more organized groups and they have now organized themselves and have begun collecting food as a small token of solidarity and respect to these prisoners who indeed may be denied their rights because of the crimes they committed, but they should never be denied their human dignity. As such, they have called on the compassion of other local residents from nearby areas to donate anything they can, but at the same time note that they need rice, pasta, frozen meat and eggs.
Original article in Greek - Portothema
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