Escape as the last solution In this context inter alia consisting of asylum seekers’ ever deteriorating mental health, effective exclusion from a set of basic services (e.g. healthcare), lack of information, detention and restriction of liberty within ever inadequate or inhumane conditions, while increasingly estranged from the local society, it is not to wonder why an increasing number of asylum seekers151 –especially from the islands– choose to once more expose themselves to smugglers. It is similarly no wonder why, throughout the past two years the “smuggling business” has largely started flourishing in Greece as well,152 as desperate asylum seekers strive to flee the islands. Cases of applicants being absolved-justified for having transgressed their imposed restriction of freedom to the islands 1) Decision 94/2018 of the Administrative Court of Piraeus of the 16th of February 2018. The case, which was handled by GCR, regarded a Syrian previously residing at the Lesvos “hotspot”, who had violated his geographical restriction. The Court inter alia accepted that his decision to transgress the restriction was justifiable on the basis of the “threat towards his physical integrity due to prevailing conditions during his stay at the camp”, and subsequently the beneficiary was released. 2) Decision 2617/2017 of the sole-judge District Court of Thessaloniki («Αυτόφωρο Μονομελές Πλημμελειοδικείο Θεσσαλονίκης») of the 6th of February 2017. The case regarded two nationals of Pakistan, who were geographically restricted at the Leros hotspot. Both, and despite their having similarly transgressed their geographical restriction on the island of Leros, were absolved and judged innocent because it was deemed that this transgression was “significantly less severe [both] by type and importance than the threatened damage [towards] their personal health and integrity”, as a result of conditions at the RIC. And indeed, based on GCR’s experience, most frequent cases of bypassing the imposed geographical restriction pertain to medical issues (e.g. physical and mental health issues), the poor quality of living conditions at the RICs (e.g. lack of heating, bed bugs, lack of doctors), verbal, physical and sexual victimization, and lack of information (literally, in some cases they hadn’t been informed that they could not leave the island and, accordingly, just “followed the crowd” and ended up in Athens). 44