26 FRONTIER EUROPE Human rights abuses on Greece’s border with Turkey RECOMMENDATIONS To the Government of Greece: n Ensure that all those intercepted in the Aegean or apprehended at the land border with Turkey have access to individualized procedures to seek international protection or raise other protection needs; n Ensure that all those intercepted in the Aegean or apprehended at the land border with Turkey have access to an effective remedy against any deportation decision; n Investigate allegations of collective expulsions (push-backs) and ill-treatment at Greece’s land border with Turkey and in the Aegean and prosecute officials involved; n End indiscriminate and automatic detention of irregular migrants; and instead use alternatives to detention; n End systematic prolonged detention of those who apply for asylum while in detention; and increase reception capacity for asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups; n Prohibit the detention of children by law and end it in practice; and increase shelter capacity for unaccompanied children; n Improve detention conditions by ensuring adequate sanitation of the facilities, access to health care, hygienic materials, and outside space for fresh air and exercise for all detainees; n Improve procedural safeguards in detention by ensuring the availability of necessary interpreters and informing all detainees of the reason for their detention, its duration, their right to have access to a lawyer, to challenge their detention and to seek asylum; n Ensure that all migrants detained are able to contact their families, consular services and a lawyer regularly and free of charge; n Ensure independent monitoring of all facilities where migrants and asylum-seekers are detained; n Ensure that the Initial Reception Service offers effective services to the newly arrived migrants on the Greek islands; providing information on their rights, extending medical services, and identifying international protection needs as well as vulnerabilities to refer them to necessary services. To the Government of Turkey: n Ensure that all those detained in removal centres are informed of their rights in a language they can understand; such as legal remedies against their detention and deportation, and their right to seek asylum; n Ensure that no one with international protection needs is returned to a country where he or she may face persecution or other serious harm; n Allow independent monitoring of all facilities where migrants are detained. To the European Union and its member states: Share responsibility for asylum seekers more equally, taking into account actual protection standards and asylum seekers’ needs; n Support Greece in increasing its open reception capacity for asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups; n Help Greece increase its capacity for sheltering unaccompanied children in ageappropriate facilities; n Assist Greece in providing minimum services to refugees, asylum seekers and irregular migrants in need, such as health care and housing; n Amnesty International July 2013 Index: 25/008/2013