Greek authorities continue to conduct illegal pushbacks at the country’s land and sea borders, according to a recent report from the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights. Noting ongoing allegations of systematic summary returns, despite the European Court of Human Rights’ condemnation of the practice in January this year, the Commissioner urges Greek authorities to “adopt a zero-tolerance approach” to summary returns and to ensure impartial investigations of allegations. The recommendations follow on several other recent reports and legal rulings detailing abusive treatment of asylum seekers and other migrants in detention centres and during removal procedures.
Following a visit to Greece in February, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights highlights ongoing allegations of summary returns (“pushbacks”) at the country’s land and maritime borders. As well as speaking with legal professionals, representatives of CSOs, national human rights structures, and international organisations–who confirmed that pushbacks to Türkiye continue to take place–the Commissioner also spoke to migrants and asylum seekers, some of whom described being returned multiple times without due process. According to some of the testimonies, members of Greek law enforcement agencies have used excessive force and sexual violence during these operations.
Highlighting these allegations in his latest report on the country, the Commissioner notes the fact that “returning people without carrying out an individual identification procedure prevents member states from establishing whether they may be sending people back to human rights abuses and from assessing the risk of onward refoulement.”
According to data that UNHCR shared with the Commissioner, the agency received information about 248 summary returns incidents which occurred in the first half of 2024–and had so far assessed and documented 166 of them as substantiated (38 at land borders and 128 at sea borders). These affected at least 4,229 people–including unaccompanied children, pregnant women, and persons with medical needs.
In light of this, the Commissioner urges Greece to “adopt a zero-tolerance approach to summary returns” and ensure that all “arguable allegations” of summary returns are “promptly, impartially, thoroughly and effectively investigated, in compliance with the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, by bodies that have a sufficient degree of independence from the authorities that are the subject of the investigation.”
Greek authorities promptly challenged the Commissioner’s report, denying that its agencies conduct illegal pushbacks. In their written response to the Commissioner, Greece states: “The operational action of the Hellenic Police is based on the lawful prevention of illegal border crossings while migrants are still in Turkish territory and have not yet reached Greece. There is no systematic practice or operational planning of informal returns (‘pushbacks’) of third country nationals from Greece to Türkiye across the borders.”
In January 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found that Athens had violated European human rights conventions by systematically expelling migrants without due process. In a “landmark” ruling (A.R.E. v. Greece (Application no. 15783/21)), the ECtHR condemned, for the first time ever, the “systematic practice of pushbacks by the Greek authorities of third-country nationals from the Evros region to Türkiye.” The court found that the applicant, a Turkish national who entered Greece in 2019 with an intention to seek asylum, had been detained without legal basis before being sent back to a country without examining the risks she might face. In its judgement, it held that Greece had, inter alia, violated Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), 13 (right to an effective remedy), and 5 §§ 1, 2 and 4 (right to liberty and security).
Un-Safe “Safe Zones”
Although the Commissioner did not focus on detention and reception conditions during his visit to Greece, he reports receiving updates from different stakeholders about unaccompanied children being “held for prolonged periods in de facto detention in adequate and overcrowded facilities, particularly in Samos.”
While he did not provide further details, this was recently highlighted in an investigation by Soloman, a non-profit journalism outlet in Greece. According to their March 2025 report, unaccompanied children held in “safe zones” (or “safe areas”) within Aegean island Closed Controlled Access Centers (CCACs) are being held in “hyper-congested” facilities with many children forced to sleep on stone floors. According to Soloman, which obtained internal EU documents through FOI requests, “photos obtained from sources inside the Samos camp reveal clogged and unusable toilets, children sleeping on thin mattresses on the floor, trash piling up, broken windows, and a general state of disarray. In February 2025, there were only six toilets for 250 children, and no hot water.” In Samos CCAC, the safe zone–built to house 200 children–was reported to be holding 500 by December 2024.
Minors also describe being unable to leave the zone, arguably subjecting them to de facto detention–something that Amnesty noted in February 2025. They write “UAMs [unaccompanied minors] in the “safe area” are confined for extended periods of time, only allowed to leave under exceptional circumstances and with the supervision of guardians, who are critically low in number. NGOs have raised concerns that the heavy restrictions of movement experienced by UAMs may constitute an undue interference with their right to liberty, security and freedom of movement, and severely impact their physical and mental well-being.”
Using European Commission funding, Greek authorities converted Reception and Identification Centres (RICs) on the Greek islands of Samos, Kos, and Leros into new camps called “Closed Controlled Access Centers [CCACs]” in 2021–and in 2022, on the islands of Lesvos and Chios. Featuring prison-like 24/7 surveillance systems, barbed wire fencing, and entry and exit controls, the CCACs have a heavy emphasis on monitoring and security, and migrants and asylum seekers face extensive movement restrictions–which NGOs argue amount to de facto detention. The CCACs feature segregated “safe areas” for unaccompanied children, but critics maintain that these still subject minors to detention-like conditions. In an open letter to the Greek Ministry of Migration & Asylum, and the Greek Ministry of Health, eight NGOs highlight the inhuman conditions within Samos CCAC, and cite a member of the Hellenic Police who described Samos’ “safe zone” as the “most dangerous area of the camp with the most violent incidents.”
Prolonged Detention in Police Facilities
Greece’s detention practices on the Aegean islands are not the only area to receive international criticism. Recently, the country’s continued use of police facilities for the detention of non-nationals has also been subject to scrutiny.
Greek law provides that police stations should only be used when absolutely necessary and must not serve as places for prolonged detention–either administrative or pre-trial. However, despite longstanding commitments to phasing out the use of police stations for the purposes of migration detention, a recent report by Mobile Info Team, Border Criminologies, and the Border Violence Monitoring Network (“No Beds, No Light, No Rights”) reveals that the use of such sites for prolonged immigration detention persists.
The researchers found that detainees frequently had their detention in police facilities extended, with respondents detained for an average of 29 days–but some up to four months. Testimonies also highlight inhuman and degrading detention conditions in such facilities, with dark, overcrowded, and unhygienic cells; exposure to physical violence and abuse; confiscation of mobile phones; and no access to natural light, outdoor space, or medical care.
- Of the 31 interviewees, only one reported having adequate medical support while in police detention.
- 88 percent of interviewees reported experiencing violence, either when being transported to the police station, or in the police facility itself.
- 100 percent reported that they had no access to information about their rights in detention
Despite being used for extended detentions, the researchers highlight a distinct lack of oversight and accountability–noting that very few bodies are mandated to visit facilities. Statistics, provided by the Hellenic Police, also fail to provide an accurate idea of overall detention numbers. Some statistics are available, but as the report points out, the Hellenic Police only provide end of year statistics ( (1,021 in 2019; 263 in 2023)–“over the course of a year, far more individuals cycle through police detention than end-of-year figures alone can reveal.”
