Out of the spotlight: The rights of foreigners and minorities are still a grey area 23 2. DETENTION AND ILL-TREATMENT OF MIGRANTS “Each State Party shall keep under systematic review interrogation rules, instructions, methods and practices as well as arrangements for the custody and treatment of persons subjected to any form of arrest, detention or imprisonment in any territory under its jurisdiction, with a view to preventing any cases of torture.” Article 11, Convention against Torture “States Parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of… the right to security of person and protection by the State against violence or bodily harm, whether inflicted by government officials or by any individual group or institution.” Article 5, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 2.1 Background Irregular migrants - also known as “undocumented” migrants or “illegal” immigrants - are people who enter and are present in a country of which they are not nationals, without the legal authorization to enter or remain there. Some are people who are working or looking for work in that country but who do not have a valid work permit for the country; others are victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation or forced labour; some are people who once had a permit to reside in the country, but whose residence permit is no longer valid; some are rejected asylum-seekers who have not left the country, although they are legally obliged to do so. Migrants should enjoy the full range of human rights, including the right to be free from arbitrary detention and from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, as well as some specific rights outlined in some international legal instruments, including treaties of the International Labour Organization. The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Family, which entered into force on 1 July 2003, represents an important milestone in the recognition of migrants’ rights. Greece had, by September 2005, neither signed nor ratified the Convention. The practices of the authorities outlined in the previous chapter were scrutinized in terms of their failure to adhere to the principle of nonrefoulement and to protect refugees from the risk of serious human rights violations, including torture and other ill-treatment, if returned to their countries of origin. This chapter focuses particularly on human rights violations arising from the conditions under which irregular migrants are detained, the treatment of particularly vulnerable detainees such as women and minors, alleged illtreatment of migrants by police outside Amnesty International 5 October 2005 detention centres, and the access to justice available to migrants who have suffered such ill-treatment. The data contained in this chapter has been obtained by Amnesty International in the last three years, through sustained contact with local NGOs and activists, as well as during the organization’s visit to Greece in January 2005 and interviews with migrants who have been victims of human rights violations, detainees at border detention centres, lawyers, and NGOs representing migrants. As in the previous chapter, the concerns outlined here are not exhaustive of AI Index: EUR 25/016/2005