Greece must stop treating migrants as criminals: New Amnesty report

The Greek authorities should immediately review their policy of locking up asylum-seekers and irregular migrants, including many unaccompanied Children's rights, Amnesty International said in a new report today. The report reveals that many are held in poor conditions in border guard stations and immigration detention centres with limited or no access to legal, social and medical aid.

The report, “ Greece: Irregular migrants and asylum-seekers routinely detained in substandard conditions ”, reveals that in the vast majority of detention facilities visited by Amnesty International delegates, conditions ranged from inadequate to very poor. Those detained told Amnesty International of instances of ill-treatment by coastguards and police.

Nicola Duckworth, Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Programme Director, said:

“Asylum-seekers and irregular migrants are not criminals. Yet, the Greek authorities treat them as such disregarding their rights under international law.

“Currently, migrants are detained as a matter of course, without regard whether such measure is necessary. Detention of asylum-seekers and migrants on the grounds of their irregular status should always be a measure of last resort.”

Detention prior to deportation can last for up to six months in Greece for asylum-seekers and irregular migrants.  Greek law also makes irregular entry into and exit out of the country a criminal offence.

Tens of thousands of irregular migrants and asylum-seekers arrive in Greece each year. The vast majority of asylum-seekers and individuals fleeing war-torn countries reach the country through the Greek-Turkish land and sea borders. They are mostly Afghan, Somali, Palestinian, Iraqi and Eritrean.

Nicola Duckworth said:

“After an often-hazardous journey, migrants end up in detention centres without access to a lawyer, interpreters or social workers. As a result, their circumstances are not assessed correctly and many in need of international protection may be sent back to the places they have fled, while others may be deprived of appropriate care and support.”

Irregular migrants and asylum-seekers are not informed about the length of their detention or about their future. They can be kept for long periods of time in overcrowded facilities with unaccompanied minors being detained among the adults. Those detained have limited access to medical assistance and hygiene products.

Few asylum-seekers are recognised as refugees by the Greek authorities. From the over 30,000 asylum applications examined in 2009, only 36 were granted refugee protection status while 128 were granted subsidiary protection status.

The duration and poor conditions of their detention provoked irregular migrants and asylum-seekers to stage protests in Venna, north-east Greece in February 2010. Likewise, in April 2010, irregular migrants went on hunger strike on the island of Samos to protest their length of detention.

Nicola Duckworth said:

“Detention cannot be used as a tool to control migration. The onus is on the authorities to demonstrate in each individual case that such detention is necessary and proportionate to the objective to be achieved and that alternatives will not be effective.”

Amnesty International believes the plans being developed by the Greek authorities to establish screening centres should include alternative approaches, such as those running open or semi-open centres for those arriving in the country. The authorities need to ensure that irregular migrants and asylum-seekers arriving at those centres have access to free legal assistance and interpreters in languages they understand, and medical assistance.

Cases
A family of asylum-seekers from Afghanistan was arrested in December 2008 for attempting to leave Greece with false documents. The criminal court gave the adults a suspended six-month sentence, a €3,000 fine, and ordered their judicial deportation. The family was reported to have been tried in the absence of a lawyer or an interpreter. They were detained for four months under reportedly poor conditions, and the mother and daughter were subsequently separated from the rest of the family. The family did not manage to apply for asylum until their transfer from the border guard station, where they were detained for four months, to the prison facilities. The mother and her daughter remained in detention for 15 months (they were released in March 2010), solely for the purpose of effecting the mother’s judicial deportation.

S., a 16-year-old Afghan unaccompanied minor, arrived in Greece in November 2009. He was arrested in Athens in mid-November and convicted for possession of a weapon after the police reported finding a small knife with him. The police authorities had registered S. as an adult (aged 26) and he was tried as an adult and sentenced to a month’s imprisonment and a fine. He was detained with adults both as part of his prison sentence and later while waiting for deportation until the beginning of January 2010. His country of origin was registered as Iran instead of Afghanistan. S. told Amnesty International that he had told the authorities his real age from the start. S. also said that he had not been provided with a lawyer during his trial, and was unable to contact his family from prison because he had no money to buy a phonecard. S. was released at the end of December 2009 and issued with an official notice requesting him to leave the country within 30 days.

• Download a copy of the report (pdf)