detainees were confronted with at the facility, the judge found they were not criminally liability for escaping the facility (Infomobile 2013). Thessaloniki region. The main facility of this region is the detention section of the Thessaloniki Aliens Police Directorate. A male-only facility, it accommodates on average 80 people at a time. In 2010, AI reported overcrowding, lack of beds, and absence of the possibility to exercise as among the main problems of the facility (AI 2010). The conditions at the facility were the focus of Tabesh before the ECtHR. The court ruled that three months in detention without proper meals and insufficient recreational activities qualified as degrading treatment (ECtHR 2009b). Also in the Thessaloniki region are the Kordello and Thermi Border Guard Stations, which are under the supervision of the nearest police station. As reported by the NGOs, in both premises, women and men are held in separate cells and tend to be detained for up to one month (Pappa 2012). In Efremidze, the ECtHR ruled that a three-month detention in Thermi facility without sufficient outdoor activities and inappropriate catering amounted to degrading treatment (ECtHR 2011d). Since September 2012, the small town of Paranesti (Drama), northeast of Thessaloniki, has hosted a new 320-person male-only pre-removal detention centre in a converted a former military base (Pappa 2012). The transfer of some 150 migrants from the overcrowded centre in Komotini spurred protests by residents and extreme right groups, who clashed with riot police (Kathimerini 2012a). Thrace region. Thrace, which borders Turkey and Bulgaria, has hosted a number of detention sites, including the 215-bed detention centre in Venna (Rhodope), which was closed in early 2013 shortly after a European Parliament delegation visited and found the conditions so deplorable that they requested its immediate closure (ELDA 2012; Patsopoulou 2012). As described by one NGO report: “Venna is dirty, humid and dark. Natural light is almost absent. There are no doors in the toilets, no hot water, no hygiene products provided for. During the winter months there is a heating, which is mainly turned on during the night. Beds are made of concrete and supplied with mattresses. Access to the telephone and the yard is restricted” (Pro Asyl et al 2012). Also in Thrace are the Iasmos Border Guard Station (Rhodope) and the Xanthi Police and Border Guard Station (Pappa 2012), as well as two new pre-removal detention centres in Xanthi and Komotini, with the capacities of 440 and 427 respectively, that were created in mid-2012 in former police academies (HCDCP 2012; Infomobile 2012a; Infomobile 2012f). The easternmost Thracian regional unit of Evros has been notorious both for its generally deplorable detention conditions and the high number of reported deaths of migrants attempting to cross the Evros River from Turkey. As of October 2013, the GDP identified nine places used to confine migrants in Evros. In early 2013, authorities established the first out of several planned First Reception Centres in Orestiada, which has a capacity of 60 (Theodoropoulou 2013). 15