Amnesty International released a report on Tuesday criticizing the living conditions of the residents of the Samos Closed Controlled Access Centre (CCAC) in Greece. The report stated that the arbitrary detention of the refugees violated European standards and international law. Thus, the NGO urged the EU to hold Greece accountable for human rights violations and warned that the current handling of the EU-funded refugee centre by Greek authorities doesn’t align with the adopted Migration and Asylum Pact.
Amnesty International based Tuesday’s report on research conducted between December 2023 and July 2024 about the human rights situation in the Samos CCAC site. The Samos CCAC is a refugee centre funded by the European Commission in the Greek island Samos to accommodate people, mainly from countries in the Middle East and Africa, who are seeking asylum in Greece.
Amnesty International’s Senior Director Deprose Muchen stated that ” the results on Samos show that this model is punitive, expensive and rife for abuse”. He described the living conditions within the facility as a “dystopian nightmare” and pointed out that the conducted research revealed various human rights violations to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights (ECHR) and the EU pact on Migration and Asylum.
These include inadequate living conditions due to overcrowding, lack of hygiene and sanitation caused by water shortage, lack of access to appropriate medical care, absence of special reception conditions for vulnerable asylum seekers such as children and unlawful restriction of movements of unaccompanied minors.
Furthermore, the NGO expressed its concerns over the systematic use of the restriction of freedom permitted by Greek law which amounts to “unlawful detention”. Article 40 of Greek Law no. 4939 of 2022 permits the detention of residents for a maximum of 25 days since their entry to the centre to conduct administrative procedures. The law also provides that an initial five-day restriction is imposed on all new residents without consideration of less-invasive alternatives.
However, the NGO found out that in practice, this 25-day limit has been exceeded and the detention has mainly affected racialized people. It also added that the detention of asylum seekers was “overwhelmingly” applied to all new arrivals in total disregard to their circumstances, which contrasted with the international standards on the exceptional nature of the detention of asylum seekers and the need to follow a detailed and individualized assessment before ordering the detention. These practices raised concerns about Greece’s compliance with the European principles of non-discrimination and the legality of migration detention.
At the end of its report, Amnesty International called on Greek authorities to align with its obligations under European laws and emphasized the necessity to provide the Samos centre with the required facilities, services and staff to offer adequate living conditions to its residents. The NGO also stressed the role of the EU and its institutions to supervise Greece’s compliance with European standards. It stated that the Samos CCAC is an EU-funded institution, hence it’s the EU’s responsibility to ensure that the European migration and asylum standards and policies are respected. It added that Greece’s government needs to reform the country’s national asylum rules, specifically the ones related to restrictions on freedom. For this purpose, the NGO called on the European Commission to advance its infringement proceedings against Greece and to take all the necessary measures to implement the European Migration and Asylum Pact without committing similar abuses.
