{"id":685,"date":"2017-07-16T09:28:02","date_gmt":"2017-07-16T13:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/?p=685"},"modified":"2017-08-15T16:31:13","modified_gmt":"2017-08-15T20:31:13","slug":"lesbos-the-new-prison-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/lesbos-the-new-prison-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Lesbos, prison island?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/225560658\" width=\"676\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" title=\"Captives on Hunger Strike: Arash Hampay\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>By Andie Ayala and Chiara Ficarelli<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MYTILENE, Greece &#8211;<\/strong>&#8211; As flames engulfed the Moria migrant camp last week, \u00a0Iranian migrant Arash Hampay sat quietly a few miles away in the shade of a bus stop \u00a0in the center of the quaint town of Mytilene.<\/p>\n<p>Next to Hampay was a cardboard sign that read, \u201cHunger Strike for Freedom: Day 14. We came to Europe for protection, but Europe rejects people and puts us in jail. Refugees are not criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Friends called Hampay&#8217;s phone to offer regular updates on events unfolding at \u00a0the inflamed camp. Hampay said he found no happiness in the destruction, vowing to continue his nonviolent, two-week-old protest. He sought the release from Moria of his brother, Amir.<\/p>\n<p>Another activist on the square, Runbir Serkepkani, provided a rough translation of Hampay&#8217;s comments:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI have committed myself to reach . . . \u00a0freedom of [my] brother and the others who are detained. And I am going to continue until they release them or I will die.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To date, officials have been unmoved by the hunger strike.<\/p>\n<p>Although more than 1 million migrants have passed through the island of Lesbos over the last two years, daily life continues at a leisurely pace. As Moria burned, university students smoked in rooftop bars, elderly couples greeted each other on the street and fishing boats docked on the harbor.<\/p>\n<p>Migrants from the Middle East and Africa sat in caf\u00e9s and roamed about among the other residents, but there was an important distinction: Officially, they were denied the right to leave for the mainland.<\/p>\n<p>Mehdi Medo, a migrant from Morocco who sat with Hampay, said he had been living in Moria camp for longer than a year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have two worlds here&#8221; on Lebos, Medo said. &#8220;Refugees who sit here waiting for I-don\u2019t-know-what, and people partying at night,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s a beautiful island, but for the refugees it is a prison.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; By Andie Ayala and Chiara Ficarelli MYTILENE, Greece &#8211;&#8211; As flames engulfed the Moria migrant camp last week, \u00a0Iranian migrant Arash Hampay sat quietly a few miles away in the shade of a bus stop \u00a0in the center of the quaint town of Mytilene. Next to Hampay was a cardboard sign that read, \u201cHunger<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/lesbos-the-new-prison-island\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":745,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}