Angry immigrants occupy university building in Athens

Jan 24, 2011, 15:48 GMT

Athens - More than 250 North African immigrants seeking political asylum in Greece occupied a university campus in central Athens on Monday ahead of a planned hunger strike.

The immigrants, who have been employed in menial jobs on the southern Mediterranean island of Crete, arrived at the port of Pireaus in the early hours on Sunday and then occupied the first floor of the Law Faculty in central Athens.

In a separate incident, seven Afghan refugees sewed their mouths shut to protest at the slow pace with which their asylum applications were being processed by the Greek authorities.

The Afghani refugees are following in the footsteps of a group of Iranians who managed to secure refugee status after adopting the same extreme tactic.

Last week, the European Court of Human Rights fined Greece and Belgium for their mistreatment of an Afghan asylum seeker who claims to have suffered abuse in both countries.

Greece has been repeatedly criticized for being one of the European Union's countries that grants the smallest number of asylums.

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