The members of the Migration Policy Think Tank were announced today Tuesday by SYRIZA-PS. It is, as the press release states, about people with deep knowledge of immigration issues, with direct knowledge of the situation ‘on the ground’ but also in its legal dimension, while two of its members are refugees themselves with an active role in the defense of rights of refugees and immigrants.

The Migration Policy Think Tank of SYRIZA-PS consists of Vassilis Kerasiotis, Ionous Mouhammadi, Electra Zaponi, Anna Siviloglou, Nikodimos Maina Kinyua and Markos Papakonstantis.

Here are brief biographies:

Vassilis Kerasiotis: He is a lawyer at the Supreme Court, a member of the Athens Bar Association since 2006. He is a graduate of AUTH Law School. He holds a Master’s Degree in International and European Studies from the University of Piraeus. He has specialized in refugee and immigration law, with a particular emphasis on the rights of undocumented immigrants. He handles cases related to the subject in administrative, criminal and civil courts of all levels, as well as in the European Court of Human Rights. At the same time, he collaborates as an expert with NGOs on issues of refugee law and immigration policy.

Yonous Muhammadi: Originally from Afghanistan, he studied medicine in his homeland before being forced to leave and seek asylum in Greece in 2001. Since then, he has been actively involved in asylum and immigration issues, starting from the moment he arrived in Greece. As Co-Founder and Director of the Greek Refugee Forum, he is at the forefront of defending the rights, active participation and effective integration of refugees and immigrants into Greek society. He has been honored with international awards for his efforts in these fields. Elected member of the board of directors of the European Migration Forum in the Economic and Social Committee of the European Union. In addition, he contributes his knowledge and experience as a member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Asylum and Migration.

Electra Japan: Graduate of Paul Valery University, Montpellier III, France, where she studied Applied Foreign Languages, Modern Greek and English.

Her engagement with immigration-refugees began in 2016 at the UN High Commission, where she worked as a recorder in Thessaloniki and Athens. She then worked at the European Asylum Service in Lesvos, initially as a caseworker and then as Team Leader of groups in Lesvos and later in Leros, Kos and Samos. For a short time I was Project Officer in the Helios (Hellenic Integration Support for Beneficiaries of International Protection and Temporary Protection) social integration program. He has also been a guest speaker at the University of Amsterdam in the course “Forced Migration and Development”. For the last 2 years he has been working as a content moderator at the company TaskUs.

Anna Siviloglou: Graduated from the Department of Philology, Faculty of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has been trained in intercultural education and is fluent in Turkish. He has worked in structures for unaccompanied minors as a teacher, in a housing program for families of asylum seekers and in a program for the social and work integration of refugee women funded by the High Commissioner for Refugees and the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum. He has been active in the field of immigration since 2015.

Nicodemus Maina Kinyua: He was born in 1977 in Kenya, and since 1985 he has been in Greece. He grew up in Kalymnos. In the 3rd Lyceum he came to Athens for the first time as an elected member of the First Session of the Youth Parliament, and since 1996 he has been permanently in Athens dealing with the issues of second generation immigrants and human rights. Together with a group of friends, in 2008, they founded the ASANTE Organization, which aims to empower and integrate the second generation and immigrants into an inclusive society, for an inclusive society.

Markos Papakonstantis: He is a lawyer in Athens. Doctor of European law with rich teaching experience in universities in Greece and abroad. He has worked in national ministries as an immigration and asylum associate and European Commission associate in these portfolios. He has an important scientific work in the area of ​​freedom, security and justice of the European Union.