On March 30th a new pre-removal detention center was opened on Kos Island. Similar detention centers are planned on other islands of the Aegean. After the implementation of the EU-Turkey Deal on 20 March 2016, refugees arriving newly to Greece are caught on the islands. News from Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), implementing partner of PRO ASYL.
\nThe first\u00a055 refugees\u00a0were already transferred to the new center on Kos Island. Up to 150 refugees and migrants will be locked up in this closed camp situated\u00a0next door to the overcrowded hotspot of Kos, where\u00a0already\u00a0more than 810 refugees\u00a0are stuck.
\n\u201cDetention centers \u2013 we\u2019re finished with them\u201c, former Deputy Interior Minister Giannis Panousis said back in February 2015, when the newly elected government was still planning to improve the conditions for refugees in Greece.\u00a0In a U-turn, extensive detention and deportation now seemingly becomes a workable solution for the\u00a0government.\u00a0The SYRIZA led government with\u00a0the support of the EU\u00a0opens\u00a0new detention facilities dedicated to deportations on the Greek islands. \u201cWithout closed camps second instance decisions cannot be implemented\u201d, was the cynical statement of Migration Minister Giannis Mouzalas only some hours after a refugee in the Hotspot Vial on the island of Chios set himself\u00a0on fire. Last week refugees in Lesbos Island\u00a0protested\u00a0against the feared start of mass deportations.<\/p>\n
More than\u00a02,194 refugees and migrants\u00a0are already detained in the\u00a0six\u00a0detention and pre-removal centers\u00a0currently existing in mainland Greece (Amygdaleza, Corinth, Paranesti\/Drana, Xanthi, Fylakio \/Orestiada, Petrou Ralli Aliens Directorate)\u00a0sometimes for\u00a0more than six months\u00a0and under\u00a0inhuman and degrading detention conditions.\u00a0\u00a0About 10,000 are being held on the Aegean islands without any possibility to move on to the mainland.
\nARBITRARY DETENTION
\nIn public discourse representatives of the Ministry of Migration describe the future detainees to be mainly \u201ccriminals\u201d or \u201ctroublemakers\u201d trying to justify the further expansion of detention measures with security concerns.\u00a0In fact, in the new detention facilities\u00a0on the Aegean Islands there will be mainly\u00a0those detained, whose asylum claims were declared inadmissible, or which are rejected in first and second instance in order to facilitate and secure the planned fast deportations to Turkey.\u00a0The legal framework defining\u00a0the grounds for detention of refugees and migrant, leaves many options for arbitrary detention, i.e. under the general grounds that\u00a0persons who are alleged of\u00a0\u201claw-breaking conduct\u201d\u00a0or\u00a0\u201cconsidered to apply merely in order to delay or frustrate return\u201c\u00a0can be detained.\u00a0These\u00a0prerequisites\u00a0 open up the possibility to arbitrarily detain almost every protection seeker on the islands.<\/p>\n
Some of these\u00a0administratively detained protection seekers who are to be transferred to the new pre-removal centres in the near future\u00a0have already been imprisoned for weeks or even months in the hotspots or the congested police stations on the island under inhumane conditions, most of them without any court decision. At the same time,\u00a0throughout 2016,\u00a0more than 1,600 protection seekers\u00a0were transferred from the islands to pre-removal detention centers on the mainland.\u00a0After Kos, also on Samos Island a new detention and deportation centre\u00a0will open soon.\u00a0Local\u00a0solidarity groups already\u00a0report of police raids and many arrests. In the meantime, on\u00a0Chios Island a pilot project is running in order to fasten up registration, asylum procedures and detention.
\n\u201cBEYOND ANY REASONABLE LIMIT AND ANY PROPORTIONALITY\u201d
\nThe new Ombudsmen\u00a0Andreas Pottakis\u00a0declared in a recent interview, that the return to a policy of administrative detention is highly problematic in the light of human rights protection. \u201cIn fact,\u00a0in combination with the delay of the examination of asylum applications, we fear that it will lead to an unacceptable extension of detention duration beyond any reasonable limit and any proportionality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Detention conditions in Greece\u00a0have been denounced by international NGOs and the\u00a0European Committee for the Prevention of Torture\u00a0(CPT) as inhumane and inadequate.\u00a0Greece has been condemned dozens of times in the past by the\u00a0European Court for Human Rights\u00a0for the inhuman and degrading conditions in detention centers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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