28 GREECE IRREGULAR MIGRANTS AND ASYLUM-SEEKERS ROUTINELY DETAINED IN SUBSTANDARD CONDITIONS Article 4(1) of PD 90/2008, stipulates that “every foreign national or stateless person has the right to submit an asylum application. The competent authorities to receive and examine an application shall ensure that each adult is able to exercise the right to request asylum on condition that he/she appears before the said authorities”. Article 4(5) stipulates that “the Central authority shall ensure that the authorities likely to be addressed by asylum applicants are to be informed regarding… the right of the applicant to ask these authorities to forward the application to the competent authority”. Amnesty International has received reports of the police authorities in detention areas at the country’s points of entry delaying or refusing to receive asylum applications as well reports of police refusing to forward asylum applications to the competent authorities. In July 2009, 18 Kurdish asylum-seekers of Turkish nationality, including four unaccompanied minors, were forcibly returned to the Turkish authorities. Their deportation followed the refusal of police officers responsible for their detention in Chania, Crete, to accept the oral request of the four minors to file an asylum application and to forward the 14 adults’ asylum applications, which had been filed in the presence of lawyers, to the competent authorities. Amnesty International has also been told by some asylum-seekers that when they expressed the wish to apply for asylum while in detention, the police authorities gave them documents in Greek to sign, which they did not understand. Amnesty International has also been informed by one of the lawyers who worked in one of the immigration detention centres, of impediments created by police authorities, such as not allowing detained asylum-seekers enough time to file their asylum applications prior to their transfer to Athens. Amnesty International believes that access to a fair and effective refugee status determination procedure should be granted to all asylum-seekers and individuals seeking international protection under a member state’s jurisdiction. This applies to a state within its territory, at its borders and can also apply extra-territorially. This includes ensuring that immigration officials present all asylum applications to the competent central authority. Amnesty International July 2010 Index: EUR 25/002/2010