Greece has faced enormous influxes of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. As arrivals have continued, authorities have taken steps to modify the country’s asylum law and restructure reception and detention facilities. During 2020, the country began relocating asylum seekers from island hotspots, banned the detention of children in police stations, and amended asylum detention laws. […]
Greece
Immigration Detention in the European Union
This book offers a unique comparative assessment of the evolution of immigration detention systems in European Union member states since the onset of the “refugee crisis.” By applying an analytical framework premised on international human rights law in assessing domestic detention regimes, the book reveals the extent to which EU legislation has led to the adoption of laws and practices that may disregard fundamental rights and standards. […]

Greece Immigration Detention Data Profile (2020)
Greece Detention Data (2020) The latest detention-related data from Greece, including immigration and detention-related statistics, domestic laws and policies, international law, and institutional indicators. View the Greece Detention Data Profile Related Reading: Greece Country Page Physical Fences and Digital Divides: Final Report of the Global Detention Project Special Investigation into the Uses of Electronic Media […]

Physical Fences and Digital Divides: Final Report of the Global Detention Project Special Investigation into the Uses of Electronic Media in Today’s Migration Journeys
The “refugee crisis” helped spur a “tech turn” in how people travel across borders and how governments and others respond to these movements. Everyone from civil society organisations—including the Global Detention Project—and individual activists to humanitarian technologists, government officials, and international bureaucrats have experimented with social media and other new forms of digital technology to […]

Crossing a Red Line
“Crossing a Red Line” is the final report of the Red Line Project, a collaborative initiative led by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee that was aimed at documenting the shift from “reception” to “detention” in EU border regions and the implications of this shift on asylum seekers. The project also counted on the participation of the Global Detention Project, the Bulgarian Foundation for Access to Rights, the Greek Council for Refugees, and the Italian Council for Refugees. […]

Joint Submission to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention: Greece
Joint Submission to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in Preparation for its Mission to Greece in December 2019 The Global Detention Project (GDP) and the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) are pleased to provide the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) the following submission in preparation for its visit to Greece in December 2019. […]

NEWSLETTER: International Women’s Day – Focusing Attention on the Abuses Women Suffer in Immigration Detention
Last week, reports emerged concerning a 24-year-old Honduran woman’s premature labour and subsequent delivery of a stillborn baby while in custody at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre in Texas. While officials were quick to offer the awkward qualification that “for investigative and reporting purposes, a stillbirth is not considered an in-custody death,” the incident nevertheless added fuel to the growing criticism of the Trump administration’s treatment of vulnerable individuals in detention. […]

“Red Line”: The Rise in Detention of Asylum Seekers at the External Borders of the EU
Led by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC), the “Red Line” project is working to reduce unnecessary and unlawful use of detention as a deterrence measure for asylum-seekers and irregular migrants in Europe, with a particular focus upon four key irregular migrant entry states: Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, and Italy. In many such countries, “reception” has morphed […]
The EU Hotspot Approach: Hotspots and Plethora of Freedom-Restricting Measures
This themed blog series organized by GDP Researcher Izabella Majcher for the Oxford University-based Border Criminologies examines the EU hotspot approach from the perspective of the right to liberty and freedom of movement, highlighting the unclear division of roles and responsibilities between EU agencies and host member states, the blurred line between detention and reception, substandard material conditions, a lack of transparency, and differential treatment based on nationality, among a host of other concerns. […]

Immigration Detention in Greece
Immigration Detention in Greece (2018 Report) Greece is a key focus in Europe’s efforts to halt irregular migration flows. However, the country’s immigration detention laws and practices have been repeatedly denounced by observers, who have pointed to numerous abuses, including the systematic use of detention of vulnerable migrants and asylum seekers, the failure to apply alternatives […]
