acknowledged ‘INGOs have a complex structure, what is raised [as an issue] every time is a matter of choice depending on the circumstances…As an INGO you can’t go and say I’m going to do this, because then you substitute the state. This is national sovereignty. The critical point is if the law has been broken. This is the beginning and end of an intervention’. She then added ‘If this is enough, I don’t know. The field of detention doesn’t allow much room for activism.’ (Interview, Athens, 2018) Indeed, as another former member of an INGO recounted, when their detention team was preparing a report on the conditions in detention facilities in the Evros region, the extent to which they could denounce the detention system as a whole, rather than simply outlining the degrading treatment inside them, was heavily debated. She went further on to explain, ‘it’s a governmental policy, it’s like going out there and saying that prisons are wrong. You cannot challenge a policy’ (Interview, Athens, 2018). While some of those involved in these monitoring missions are aware that what they see may not be the reality that those detained are exposed to on a daily basis, they recognised that the end justified the means, stoically accepting that ‘when we visit them [detention centres], everything looks nice. If this is an excuse to do something, then that’s fine.’ (Interview, Athens, 2018). The fatalistic acceptance of the incorrigibility of detention, though, diverted energy and focus away from building oppositional movements for change. In fact, the findings of observations by international human rights organisations are mainly circulated internally and only if there are glaring cases of human rights violations, will they intervene with a public statement or a letter to the authorities and even more rarely with a report. For example, the International Committee of the Red Cross has for many years conducted monitoring visits to detention centres in Greece. However, as a policy they do not publish any reports afterwards. They instead focus on advocacy with the government and the authorities. 91 The relationship between the organizational form of these international bodies, the politics of knowledge production and the micropolitics of their management limits the nature of political space available for more critical or reflexive views, rendering the interventions of these organisations ‘timid and undecisive’ (Schaub, 2013, p. 10). Frequently disconnected from the struggles of those inside, they emphasise polite reformism and quiet diplomacy. This mechanism of quiet diplomacy, though successful sometimes, has not managed to produce a significant change in the way detention is being implemented in Greece, nor At a meeting I held with a member of ICRC in Greece, in 2016, he refused to share any information on their visits and recommendations to authorities. 91 137