CASE STUDY: SAMOS CCAC The Multi-Purpose Reception and Identification Centre (MPRIC) in Samos opened this past September 2021 and has been vehemently critiqued for violations of human rights. Upon its inauguration, external signage labels the institution as ‘Closed Controlled Access Centre of Samos’ (CCAC; KEDN in Greek), which is, in fact, visibly contradictory to promises by the EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson that all new facilities “will not be closed, they will be humane, and allow for areas for families and vulnerable people.” In a later blog post, Johansson assured European constituents that new camps “will also be designed to make the process fair and efficient, including for those who are not allowed to stay,” emphasising the prioritisation of dignity, safety, justice, and transparency. Living conditions in Samos’ CCAC are advertised as wholly ameliorated, compared to its predecessor facility, which hosted 8,000 residents in a camp overlooking the capital city of Vathi designed to accommodate 650 people. The CCAC, located on the hilly area of Zervou in the centre of the mountainous isle, far from the prospect of shade, potable water and the capital city – distanced 7km away – asylum seekers are roomed in isobox containers, which are equipped with amenities (i.e. cooking facilities, refrigeration units, air conditioning, etc.), all illustrative of assured ‘decent living conditions’. Many local and international organisations are acutely sceptical of the new camp’s larger corollaries for the future of migration management in Greece and around the world. Patrick Wieland, of Médecins Sans Frontières, is adamant that the new camp “cannot be sold as an improvement.” Meanwhile, General Secretariat of Reception, Manos Logothetis, welcomed the upgraded conditions, comparing the facilities to the old Vathi Camp: “That’s a big change from the long food lines and mud and filth we had before, but yes it is also going to be more regulated, more controlled.” Otherwise said, upgraded accommodation has, in effect, been exchanged for heightened containment and prison-like conditions. In a report published by Samos Advocacy Collective and Europe Must Act, residents of the CCAC express testimonies of feeling “like a slave… [where] you are never really free,” as well as emotions of detachment from the outside world, the psychological effects of stagnation, the burden of constant surveillance (the omniscient ‘watchdog’), sensations of insecurity and the results of financial destitution caused by restrictions on the right to work coupled with unfulfilled cash assistance benefits. Sae Bosco, Communications and Advocacy Coordinator with Samos Volunteers, shared in a personal correspondence how larger political implications of the new camp can be viewed as ‘a prison within a prison’. She explained how camp residents who do not currently have a valid asylum applicant card are subject to entry and exit restrictions from the CCAC, which is imbibed in murky legal grounding, making it increasingly difficult for individuals to access services and networks of support. While being able to leave the camp for a few hours might bring temporary reprieve, she explains, the compounding pressures of systematic containment, such as the dissolution of the EU-Turkey Deal and heightened investment into techno-centred facilities, leaves far too many people trapped in the camp, on the island and within Greece, with little hope of fluid mobility for the future. Larger implications of the closed and controlled camp are manifold. The injunctions thrust upon camp residents, explains a report by the Greek Council for Refugees, “in a closed structure, in the context of strict planning and control, implies the absence of privacy, the destruction of their identity and dignity, amounting to what is a policy of deprivation of freedom and insult to human dignity.” “A closed structure, in the context of strict planning and control, implies the absence of privacy, the destruction of their identity and dignity, amounting to what is a policy of deprivation of freedom and insult to human dignity.” (More here) 10