Author
The law sets out certain special guarantees on detention conditions for asylum seekers. Notably, the authorities must make efforts to ensure that detainees have necessary medical care, and that their right to legal representation is guaranteed.[1] In any event, according to the law, ‘difficulties in ensuring decent living conditions […] shall be taken into account when deciding to detain or to prolong detention.’[2]
However, as it has been consistently reported by a range of actors, detention conditions for third-country nationals, including asylum seekers, do not meet the basic standards in Greece.
Conditions in pre-removal centres
Physical conditions and activities
According to the law, detained asylum seekers shall have outdoor access.[3] Women and men shall be detained separately,[4] unaccompanied children shall be held separately from adults,[5] and families shall be held together to ensure family unity.[6] Moreover, the possibility to engage in leisure activities shall be granted to children.[7]
GCR regularly visits the pre-removal facilities depending on needs and availability of resources. According to GCR findings, as corroborated by national and international bodies, conditions in pre-removal detention centres vary to a great extent and in many cases fail to meet standards[8].
Overall detention conditions in pre-removal detention centres (PRDCs) remain substandard, despite some good practices, which have been adopted in some PRDCs (such as allowing detainees to use their mobile phones). Major concerns include a carceral, prison-like design, the lack of sufficient hygiene and non-food items, including clothes and shoes, clean mattresses and clean blankets, the lack of recreational activities, and overcrowding persisting in some facilities. In March 2020, the CPT acknowledged after its visit that, “[r]egrettably, once again, far too many of the places being used to detain migrants offered conditions of detention which are an affront to human dignity.”[9] The precise observations for each PRDC, included on the previous AIDA report, are still valid.[10]
In June 2021, the Greek Ombudsman pointed in particular to the following main issues:
- Overcrowding in detention, especially in police stations;
- Lack of doctors, nurses, psychologists and social workers;
- Total lack of interpretation services;
- Lack of entertaining activities;
- Poor structures, hygiene conditions and lack of light and heating;
- Inadequate cleaning;
- Lack of clothing; and
- Lack or limited possibility of access to open air spaces.
Poor detention conditions have often been invoked by appeal lawyers during detention reviews, as the court must decide not only on the necessity of detention, but also on its compatibility with certain human rights conditions. The Greek administrative courts have been very reluctant to accept arguments based on the poor detention conditions. In most cases, these arguments have been rejected as ‘vague and inadmissible’, with the justification that ‘direct medical care can be provided […] there is an area available for physical activity and by its nature it is not only intended for short stay’. In other cases, the conditions of detention are not examined at all.[11]
According to GCR’s experience, detention conditions in 2023 remained the same as those described above.
Healthcare in detention
The law states that the authorities shall make efforts to guarantee access to health care for detained asylum seekers.[12] Since 2017, the responsibility for the provision of medical services in pre-removal detention centres was transferred to the Ministry of Health, and in particular the Health Unit SA (Ανώνυμη Εταιρεία Μονάδων Υγείας, AEMY), a public limited company under the supervision of the Ministry of Health.[13]
However, substantial medical staff shortage has been observed in PRDFs already since previous years. The CPT has long urged the Greek authorities to improve the provision of healthcare services in all immigration detention facilities where persons are held for periods of more than a day or two.[14] The general lack of medical screening upon arrival and of access to healthcare have been compounded by the severe shortage of resources, including staffing resources, and the complete lack of integrated management of healthcare services; combined with the lack of hygiene and appalling detention conditions, the Committee considered that they presented a public health risk.
Official statistics demonstrate that the situation has not improved in 2023 and that pre-removal centres continue to face a substantial medical staff shortage. At the end of 2023, there were only six doctors in total in the detention centres on the mainland (2 in Amygdaleza, 1 in Korinthos, 1 in Fylakio and 1 in Xanthi and 1 in Tavros). Moreover, in Kos PRDC, where persons are detained inter alia in order to be subject to readmission within the framework of the EU-Türkiye Statement, there was no doctor.[15]
According to the official data, the coverage (in percentage) of the required staff in 2023 was as follows:
| Provision of medical / health care | Provision of phycological care | Provision of social support services | Provision of interpretation services |
| Doctors: 33.33% | Physiatrists: 0% | Social workers: 42.86% | Interpreters: 25.00% |
| Nurses: 31.71% | Psychologists: 53.85% | ||
| Health visitors: 50.00% | |||
| Administrators: 54.55% |
Source: Information provided by the Directorate of the Hellenic Police, 18 January 2024.
More precisely, at the end of 2023, the number of AEMY staff present in each pre-removal detention centre was as follows:
| Category | Amygdaleza | Tavros | Corinth | Paranesti | Xanthi | Kos | Fylakio |
| Doctors | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Psychiatrists | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nurses | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Interpreters | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Psychologists | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Social workers | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Health visitors | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Administrators | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Source: Information provided by the Directorate of the Hellenic Police, 18 January 2024.
Conditions in police stations and other facilities
In 2023, GCR visited various police stations and special holding facilities where third-country nationals were detained, including in Athens, Thessaloniki and Lesvos.
Police stations are by nature ‘totally unsuitable’ for detaining persons for longer than 24 hours.[16] However, they are constantly used for prolonged migration detention. As mentioned above and according to official data, there were 261 persons in administrative detention at the end of 2023 in facilities other than pre-removal centres, of whom 14 were asylum seekers.[17] According to GCR findings, detainees in police stations live in substandard conditions as a rule, with no outdoor access, poor sanitary conditions, lack of sufficient natural light, no provision of clothing or sanitary products, insufficient food, no interpretation services and no medical services; the provision of medical services by AEMY concerns only pre-removal detention centres and does not cover persons detained in police stations.
Special mention should be made of the detention facilities of the Aliens Directorate of Thessaloniki (Μεταγωγών). Although the facility is a former factory warehouse, completely inadequate for detention, it continues to be used systematically for detaining a significant number of persons for prolonged periods.[18]
The ECtHR has consistently held that prolonged detention in police stations per se is not in line with guarantees provided under Article 3 ECHR and has found over the years a violation of said provision on by the Greek Authorities in a number of cases of persons detained in police stations.[19]
[1] Article 51 (7) Asylum Code.
[2] Article 50(2) and 50(3) Asylum Code.
[3] Article 51(7) Asylum Code.
[4] Article 53(4) Asylum Code.
[5] Article 53(2) Asylum Code.
[6] Articles 53(3) Asylum Code.
[7] Article 53(2) Asylum Code.
[8] See also Equal Rights Beyond borders, Still Detained and Forgotten, 28 February 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/yhut82f9 and Mobile Info Team, Prison for Papers, February 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/3tjwazxf.
[9] Council of Europe’s anti-torture Committee calls on Greece to reform its immigration detention system and stop pushbacks, available at: https://bit.ly/39ZNL1h. See also, CPT, Report to the Greek Governmenton the visit to Greece carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhumanor Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT)from 13 to 17 March 2020, CPT/Inf (2020) 35, Strasbourg 19 November 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/3II3jZ1.
[10] AIDA, Country Report: Greece, 2022 Update, June 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/yc5456b2
[11] OXFAM. GCR, Detention as the default, November 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3wpTmtW.
[12] Article 52(1) Asylum Code.
[13] Article 47(1) IPA
[14] For more information on the CPT’s recommendations to Greece, see, The CPT and Greece, available at: https://tinyurl.com/yc7fwrhf.
[15] Information provided by the Directorate of the Hellenic Police, 18 January 2024.
[16] CPT, Report to the Greek Government on the visit to Greece from 13 to 18 April and 19 to 25 July 2016, CPT/Inf (2017) 25, 26 September 2017, available at: https://bit.ly/2g4Y9bU,p. 6.
[17] Information provided by the Directorate of the Hellenic Police, 18 January 2024.
[18] Ombudsman, Συνηγορος του Πολίτη, Εθνικός Μηχανισμός Πρόληψης των Βασανιστηρίων & της Κακομεταχείρισης – Ετήσια Ειδική Έκθεση OPCAT 2017, p. 46, available in Greek at: https://tinyurl.com/yzhmrxuk.
[19] ECtHR, Ahmade v. Greece, Application No 50520/09, Judgment of 25 September 2012; ECtHR, S.Z. v. Greece, Application No 66702/13, 21 June 2018, available at: https://bit.ly/45tcBBL, para 40; ECtHR, H.A. and others v. Greece, Application No 19951/16, Judgment of 28 February 2019; ECtHR, Sh.D. and Others v. Greece, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia, Application no. 14165/16.