Panousis

Government seems to be changing completely the current immigration status, in accordance with Deputy Minister of Citizen Protection Yiannis Panousis order.

Alternate Minister for Citizens? Protection Yiannis Panousis has indicated that Greece could overlook European laws and allow hundreds of thousands of immigrants to leave the country if European member states do not agree to share the burden of migrant influxes.

Alternate Citizens Protection Minister Yiannis Panousis complained on Wednesday that the European Union?s immigration policy has imposed a disproportionately heavy burden on Greece, indicating that Greece?s European peers might feel differently if the country opened its borders and allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to continue their journeys to other EU member states.

Foreign detainees held for deportation burned their clothes and shouted "free-free", according to reports, days after a pair of new ministers promised to close the facility where they are locked up.

Alternate Civil Protection Minister Yiannis Panousis said on Monday that the Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) government is closing the controversial migrant detention center at Amygdalezi in about 100 days. The statement was made following a meeting between mr. Panousis and Alternate Migrant Policy Minister Tasia Christodoulopoulou.

The government has vowed to keep its election pledge to shut down migrant detention centers after a Pakistani man hung himself at one in northern Athens on Friday.

Public Order Alternate Minister Yanis Panousis visited today the Immigration Detention Centre in Amygdaleza, north of Athens, where a 28-year-old Pakistani national was found hanged in his cell on Friday night.

According to media reports, the man was found in a container serving as a holding cell only a day after his arrival at the centre.

Amnesty International and the Greek Council for Refugees have welcomed a government decision to halt the indefinite detention of migrants held under return orders, following an announcement made by Alternate Minister for Citizens? Protection Yiannis Panousis in Parliament earlier in the week.

Alternate Citizens? Protection Minister Yiannis Panousis said on Wednesday that he will allow minorities and migrants to join the Hellenic Police (ELAS) with the aim of making it a multicultural force.

?In a multicultural society, you must have a multicultural police force,? he told the Federation of Greek Police Officers (POASY).

Alternate Minister for Citizens' Protection Yiannis Panousis on Wednesday denied reports he had given an order for irregular migrants arriving in Greece not to be arrested after a controversial circular was leaked to the press the previous day.