Readmission Agreement in case - if not abstain from its applicability at all by denouncing it - of readmission of certain vulnerable groups of people.21 name, surname and nationality of the people to be readmitted by ship. This procedure is very speedy and excludes even the limited formalities provided in the Readmission Agreement24 and the basic legal safeguards against refoulement. (See: chapter 3.1.) During 2011-2012 only two persons were readmitted from Greece back to Italy22 and according to the Greek Ministry of Citizen Protection and Public Order, in total four readmissions have been In such cases the appointed by the Readmission Agreement as the Greek responsible authority, completed since its enactment. Ministry of Citizen Protection and Public Order, keeps no record of these readmissions, as no official request is made by the Italian authorities and no Considering the infringements and the lack of confirmation of the request by the above mentioned safeguards as presented in this report and the Greek authorities is required. Therefore, official current situation in Greece, the utility of such data from the Ministry of Citizens Protection and readmissions in the internal European borders Public Order does not include statistics on this type is to be questioned as, on a secondarily level, its of informal readmissions. Apparently this practice unilateral applicability. in essence legitimizes informal readmissions as there is no official record of them by the competent authority. The only statistics provided for are held by the port authorities of Patras and Igoumenitsa 2.2. Informal Readmissions (as well as Corfu and Corinth in some cases). The persons readmitted from the Italian ports with this procedure are returned to the above-mentioned In the majority of the cases we interviewed, the ports of embarkation. people are apprehended inside the ship or upon arrival inside the Italian ports. In these cases the immediate readmissions to Greece are executed by the Italian border officials simply by giving custody 2.3. Lack of legal safeguards against of the persons to the captain of the ship. The captain arbitrary removals countersigns a basic form with the individual’s name, nationality and sometimes date of birth, without following even the limited formalities provided in the Readmission Agreement.23 Allegedly Almost all of the interviewees told us that no many times the authorities do not record even the information about the procedure followed, their legal status, their rights, any possible legal remedy, 21 See: Pro Asyl in co-operation with GCR and Infomobile the reason for which some of them have been 2012: Walls of Shame. Accounts from the Inside: The Detention fingerprinted was provided to them by the Italian Centres of Evros. p 14-20. http://www.proasyl.de/fileadmin/fmauthorities in written or oral formal. in a language dam/q_PUBLIKATIONEN/2012/Evros-Bericht_12_04_10_BHP.pdf 22 Q.T (23) and V.S (23), are both from Afghanistan and that they could understand. In most of the cases, holders of international protection in Italy. They were readmitted reportedly there was no interpreter during the back to Italy from Greece on April 12, 2012 (Decision of Acceptance removal procedure. of their readmission from the Italian authorities, Protocol Number 400/C/2010/I.6/******). One of the team’s lawyer handled the cases and flew to Italy in order to assist them upon their return and to assess the applicability of the readmission agreement from the Italian counterparts. These two cases make clear that apart from the one-sided application of the Readmission Agreement, the bureaucratic obstacles and the denial of the Italian authorities to facilitate the return of the two Afghans to Italy - their country of legal residence and the state officially offering protection to them the Readmission Agreement is only used as an instrument to deny access to the territory and to prevail the respect and application of it, rather than complying with its national, european and international obligations. 23 See: Written Submission by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Case of Sharifi and others v Italy and Greece (Application No. 16643/09). http://www. unhcr.org/4deccee39.pdf 8 No decision or any removal order was reportedly ever given to any of them. Even in the cases of readmissions from the southern coasts of Italy, where people were detained for almost two weeks, no decision or any information leaflet was handed to them. 24 ibid, 3.3.2