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Left-wing groups demonstrate in Athens for migrant rights
Feb 6, 2010, 13:28 GMT
Athens - Hundreds of anarchist and left-wing activists took to the streets of Athens Saturday, to demonstrate for a reform of Greece's controversial rules on immigrants and asylum.
Local television reports showed protestors with banners reading 'Citizenship for all children,' and 'legalization for all migrants.'
On Friday the Greek government presented a revised bill on immigrants' rights, which would leave asylum seekers and immigrants with tougher conditions than first thought.
The government of Prime Minister George Papandreou had promised to give citizenship rights to all children of immigrants, and that asylum procedures would in future be decided by civil authorities, and not police.
But under the new provisions a child born in Greece to immigrants parents will need to have both immigrants parents be legal residents for five years before he or she can apply for citizenship.
Originally, only one parent would have had to have been a legal resident.
More than a million people, or around ten per cent, of the Greek population is a non-EU foreigner.
Police in Athens had to separate the pro-immigrant demonstration from right-wing and extremist religious groups attempting to mount a nearby counter-demonstration. Reports said that anarchists had thrown stones at police.
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