ATHENS – The necessity of establishing a Muslim cemetery in Athens was raised in a press conference held jointly by the Afghani and Pakistani communities in the Greek capital on Thursday.

SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance party MPs and Movement United Against Racism & the Fascist Threat (KEERFA) also participated in the press conference.

Their request was highlighted by the experience of a family of refugees by the surname of Fagiri, whose five-year-old child died in a road accident in January 2021 at the accommodation facility in Malakasa, north of Athens, and was buried in the cemetery in the town of Schistos, southwest of Athens.

The parents have demanded that justice is served over their child’s death, that it be reburied at the Muslim cemetery in Thrace, and that a Muslim cemetery be created in Attica. The family’s lawyer Nikos Papadatos, who was present at the news conference, noted that “the Church of Greece itself has stood in favor of the creation of a Muslim cemetery, but the request is mired down in bureaucracy,” and he called for a political decision that would simplify the relevant procedures.