CCPR/C/126/D/2582/2015 cases.8 The European Committee of Social Rights also considered that legal remedies were not sufficiently accessible, and that due to the special circumstances of Roma families threatened by eviction, special support had to be provided to them, including targeted advice on the availability of legal aid and on appeals. 7.2 The Roma residing in Riganokampos and Makrygianni were lawful residents of those areas, and not unlawful residents as the State party claims. Indeed, the Magistrates’ Court of Patras, through its decisions Nos. 312/2005 and 323/2005, decided that the Roma in those areas were permitted to remain there, because the appropriate State authorities and in particular the municipality of Patras had not designated an area where the Roma of Patras could live in humane conditions. 7.3 In a newspaper interview on 2 February 2007, the then-Deputy Prosecutor to the Greek supreme court indicated that the problem of the Roma living in Makrygianni had been resolved, and stated: “It is not possible that Patras should become a ‘gyp’ town.” The Greek authorities never investigated these racist statements, despite assurances that they would do so. 7.4 The author disputes the State party’s claim that he has not provided sufficient information regarding the eviction. The domestic court concluded that the author’s makeshift home had been torn down on 27 July 2006. Whereas the State party points to the availability of a rent subsidy, the author asserts that this is misleading, because the rent subsidy programme concerned only those Roma who were registered in the Patras municipal population registries. It did not apply to Greek Roma who were residing in Patras but were registered in other municipalities, or Albanian Roma who were residing in Patras. Moreover, although the State party claims that the authorities could not have known that the inhabitants of the settlement would return, during the criminal proceedings the president of the Makrygianni Cultural Association, Spyros Marinis, stated: “Every year in May, the area was being deserted. The Roma were leaving to seek seasonal work elsewhere, and returned in the fall. During the summer, few were staying behind.” Thus, the author’s intention to return to the settlement was well known to the authorities. Whereas the court considered that the author was using the shed “occasionally”, in fact he was using it “seasonally”. The State party’s assertion that the settlement gave a general impression of abandonment is false and misleading. In sworn testimony during the criminal trial, the chief of garbage collection of the municipality of Patras stated: “Roma were present during the operation. We did not touch any of the sheds of the Roma.” Moreover, on 3, 4 and 5 August 2006, all Roma living in the Makrygianni area were served with two summonses each to appear before the first instance court prosecutor on 7 August 2006, in response to two requests for interim measures that had been filed by the State agency that owned the plot of land, and the municipality of Patras. In its request dated 1 August 2006, the municipality of Patras stated that the Roma in the settlement “refused to leave it”. Thus, it is clear that the municipality was aware, during the July 2006 eviction, that the Makrygianni settlement was not in fact abandoned. 7.5 The author provides additional information on the 2004 and 2006 evictions. The author settled in Riganokampos in 2000. In 2004, according to a letter dated 3 September 2004, from the municipality of Patras to Western Greece Region, 35 Albanian Roma families, including the author, were evicted by the municipality of Patras, and their sheds were torn down. When the author returned to the area, he was informed of the eviction by other Roma who had been present at the time. The eviction took place during the Olympic Games of 2004 that were being held in Athens. 7.6 By the end of March 2006, officials had made public statements that evictions would occur in Makrygianni and Riganokampos, and court proceedings had been initiated over the preceding year against “some or all” of the Roma living in those two settlements. Thus, on 30 March 2006, the author’s counsel and two other non-governmental organizations wrote a letter to the relevant municipal and regional authorities to request information on relocation of the Roma families living in Makrygianni and Riganokampos. They never received a 8 8 The author refers to the European Committee of Social Rights decision in International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (INTERIGHTS) v. Greece (complaint No. 49/2008).