THE DUBLIN II TRAP TRANSFERS OF ASYLUM-SEEKERS TO GREECE 13 Article 13(3) provides asylum-seekers with a right to challenge the decision ordering their detention by submitting objections or an appeal against it to the competent administrative court. Moreover, Article 13(4) states that women asylum-seekers should be detained separately from men, that the authorities should refrain from detaining children and pregnant women seeking asylum, and that adequate medical care should be provided to detained asylumseekers. Article 13(4) also requires that the relevant authorities should inform the detained asylum-seekers of the reasons for and expected duration of their detention. However, Amnesty International is concerned that these standards are not being observed in practice. In 2009, the European Court of Human Rights found Greece to be in breach of Article 3 ECHR twice in relation to detention, in the cases of an asylum-seeker and an Afghan irregular migrant respectively in S.D. v. Greece and Tabesh v. Greece.38 In the case of S.D. v. Greece the Court held unanimously that there had been violations of Article 3 and Article 5 (1) and (4) (right to liberty and security). The Court ruled that S.D., while an asylum-seeker, had experienced detention conditions that amounted to degrading treatment, that his detention was unlawful and that he had been unable to have the lawfulness of his detention reviewed by the Greek courts. The European Court found similar violations in the case of Tabesh v. Greece. As this report will show further, lodging a complaint at national or international level is problematic for Dublin II returnees, as access to legal aid is denied to most of them or made difficult.39 Amnesty International is concerned that the vast majority of Dublin II returnees interviewed by the organization were automatically detained, normally for a period of a few days, on arrival at the Athens airport.40 If they are detained they are always held in the main detention facility, guarded by police. The facility is divided into two sectors. The first consists of three rooms, each of which is approximately 7m2. The second includes three rooms, each approximately 50m2. The same facilities are used for the detention of irregular migrants or other asylum-seekers who have been detained after attempting to leave Greece, allegedly with false documents. Amnesty International visited the Athens airport detention facility in October 2009. At that time the detained asylum-seekers included a number of children, held together with their families, and a woman who was clearly in an advanced stage of pregnancy. None of the asylum-seekers interviewed by Amnesty International said that they had been informed of the reasons for their detention, nor of their right to challenge the decision to detain them. A., an Afghan national, was transferred to Greece from Sweden in late 2008. He holds an Afghan birth certificate, which Amnesty International has seen, according to which he was 16 at the time of his return to Greece. He reported that his father had been abducted by Taliban fighters, and subsequently tortured and killed. He told Amnesty International representatives that, immediately upon his arrival in Greece, he was detained at the airport without being informed of the reasons for his detention. He said his detention lasted four days, following which he was given a pink card that is the legal documentation proving that the holder has applied for asylum in Greece,41 without having undergone an asylum interview.42 The pink card records a different date of birth, appearing to show that he was an adult at the time of his first entry into Greece, when he was allegedly 14 years old. In 2009 UNHCR also reported on Dublin II cases of minors returned from Finland who were registered with duplicate data, both as children and as adults.43 Index: EUR 25/001/2010 Amnesty International March 2010