15 seekers detained under the illegal stay scheme and instead transfer people directly to the do not undergo reception and identification CCAC. At the time this report was published, procedures, a critical stage in the asylum everyone in the PRDC was detained under the process. RIS, the authority responsible for police authority rather than ΤΔΜ, and all new conducting the reception and identification arrivals were being placed directly in the procedures, relies on Art. 38 of the Asylum CCAC, regardless of whether they initially Code to exclude this group from the procedure, arrived on Kos or were transferred from a claiming that they are not required to carry it nearby island. out in these cases because the police have already issued a document confirming the person’s identity in the context of their arrest.29 However, the reception and identification procedures are not simply a matter of identification; they also include a medical check and vulnerability assessment that can constitute critical elements of an asylum claim, particularly where a person’s vulnerability is connected to her grounds for persecution, as for survivors of torture and gender-based violence. iii. Rejected Asylum Seekers Transferred from Leros During the period covered by this update, Equal Rights also observed that many people in the PRDC originally arrived on the nearby island of Leros. Between January and December 2022, Equal Rights represented 41 persons detained in the Kos PRDC, 18 of whom were transferred from Leros, while 9/10 persons interviewed for this report originally arrived on Leros. The detention of applicants transferred from the Leros CCAC has brought d. Change of practice and Court to light numerous challenges facing asylum decision seekers there. In June 2022, Equal Rights filed objections a. Detention of vulnerable persons before the Administrative Court of Rhodes due to lack of assessment against the detention of an asylum seeker detained in the Kos PRDC under the illegal stay scheme. The Rhodes Court accepted the objections on the grounds that the client was an asylum seeker and therefore should be accommodated in a reception facility. He was subsequently transferred to the CCAC where he underwent reception and identification procedures and was ultimately found to be vulnerable. Then in November 2022, the authorities on Kos informed Equal Rights that there were plans to end the illegal stay scheme 29 Art. 38 Law 4939/2022 states that “all third country citizens and stateless persons who enter the country without the legal formalities or reside in Greece without the legal formalities and do First, Equal Rights has come across several cases from Leros where the person was detained despite having been certified as vulnerable by Leros RIS. Of the four cases described later in this report, three of them originated on Leros. In all three cases, the police did not have a copy of the person’s RIS file, and in the two of the cases RIS never gave a copy to the applicants themselves. Consequently, they were detained even though the police do not detain vulnerable persons as not prove their citizenship and identity by means of a document issued by a public authority shall be subject to the reception and identification procedures”. ‘Still detained and forgotten’ – Update on Detention Policies, Practices, and Conditions on Kos 2022/23