Greece they were—and to say no would have been irresponsible. If Frontex had followed the course of action recommended by HRW and let Greece deal with the emergency on its own, how would this have helped the situation? Would the migrants have been in better conditions? Or is HRW suggesting that border controls should simply have been lifted and those wishing to enter the Schengen area irregularly via Greece have been left free to do so?150 While Frontex may have a legal obligation to respond to a request by a member state for a RABIT operation in an emergency, the response should not be “at all costs.” The response must still comply with the binding obligations to respect fundamental rights—whether under the EU Charter or the ECHR. Therefore Frontex cannot lawfully engage in activities which violate the absolute prohibition on torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. As the ECtHR has re-iterated on multiple occasions, no circumstances, no behavior of the victim (such as illegal border crossing), or even an emergency “threatening the life of the nation” (which the migrant emergency was not) justifies resort to use of inhuman and degrading treatment. For migrants who are held in the appalling conditions of Greek detention centers, whether they were initially detained by Frontex patrols or by Greek border guards operating alone is irrelevant. To the extent that the presence of “guest” border guards has curbed any other illegal practices such as unlawful push-backs or physical abuse of detainees by Greek agents, then that monitoring role could have been performed without actual assistance in the apprehension and transfer of migrants to inhuman conditions. Frontex and participating states should have explored other options at the time of Greece’s request for a RABIT deployment. For example they could have considered detaining irregular migrants elsewhere in the Schengen area where conditions were compliant with EU standards, including other areas of Greece where detention standards are acceptable, such as on Samos Island, which Human Rights Watch suggested to Frontex at the time.151 150 Letter to Human Rights Watch, May 19, 2011, p. 2 on file with Human Rights Watch. 151 “We would like to bring to your attention that detention facilities for migrants on Samos and Chios Islands with a total capacity of more than 400 places are currently empty…. We therefore decided to call on Greek authorities to immediately start transferring migrants from the Evros region to the Aegean Islands…. We therefore believe that our proposal is realistic, doable, and would immediately improve the desperate conditions of many migrants. We therefore urge you to press Greek authorities to start transferring migrants as a matter of priority.” Email letter from Simone Troller, senior researcher, Human Rights Watch, to Gil Arias Fernandez, deputy executive director of Frontex, December 7, 2010, on file with Human Rights Watch. 51 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | SEPTEMBER 2011