Summary Between November 2, 2010 and March 2, 2011, nearly 12,000 migrants entering Greece at its land border with Turkey were arrested and detained. The detention facilities where they were held did not meet minimal human rights standards. Though their treatment varied from place to place, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that migrant detention in Greece generally constitutes “inhuman and degrading treatment.” During this same period, the European Union’s (EU) agency for the management of operational cooperation at external borders, Frontex, provided Greece with both manpower and material support, made available by participating states, which facilitated the detention of those migrants in sub-human conditions in Greece’s overcrowded migrant detention centers. This report addresses this disturbing contradiction. Although the ECtHR categorically ruled that the transfer of migrants to detention in Greece would expose them to prohibited abuse, an executive agency of the EU and border guards from EU member states knowingly facilitate such transfers. The focus of this report is the period of Frontex’s “RABIT 2010” deployment in Greece. With RABIT (“Rapid Border Intervention Team”), Frontex deployed 175 border guards contributed by Norway and EU member states to the Greek government’s efforts to manage the influx of migrants into the northeastern region of Greece along the Evros River bordering Turkey. The “guest officers,” chosen from a pool provided by participating EU member states and other non-EU European states, operated in Greece in their respective national uniforms but not under the operational control of their home authorities. Frontex describes its mission as one of coordination, research, and surveillance. But Frontex sent equipment such as vans, buses, patrol cars, and a helicopter, provided by participating states, and covered the expenses incurred by the RABIT operation. Frontex also operated in close proximity to the four detention centers where human rights violations have consistently been recorded. During the RABIT operation, guest officers from participating states who went out on patrols with at least one Greek officer were authorized to apprehend migrants and then transfer them to Greek counterparts who ran the detention facilities. 1 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | SEPTEMBER 2011