10 GREECE IRREGULAR MIGRANTS AND ASYLUM-SEEKERS ROUTINELY DETAINED IN SUBSTANDARD CONDITIONS The Working Group emphasized that the success of the proposals depended on sufficient funding and the organization of an effective referral system for those leaving the screening centres. This would also require the creation of sufficient reception facilities for asylumseekers, unaccompanied children and other vulnerable groups. In May 2010 the Ministry of Citizens’ Protection and the Ministry of Interior and Decentralization agreed to the immediate creation of an informal legislative committee to draft the legislative framework for the proposed screening centres.21 The draft law is anticipated at the end of July 2010. Amnesty International understands that there are plans for a pilot screening centre to start operating on the island of Samos, prior to the adoption of the relevant legislation, during the summer of 2010.22 While acknowledging that these proposals are a first step towards reforming the existing system, Amnesty International wishes to note that, under international law, the detention of asylum-seekers and irregular migrants should only ever be used as a last resort, when it is proven to be necessary and proportionate in each individual case, and where other less restrictive measures are proven insufficient.23 Detention should always be for the shortest possible time and must not be prolonged or indefinite. Alternative non-custodial measures should always be considered before resorting to any restrictions on the right to liberty and security of the person.24 Furthermore, the protest by irregular migrants and asylum-seekers in Venna in February 2010 over the length and conditions of detention, the hunger strike by irregular migrants held on Samos in April 2010 in protest at the length of their detention, the lack of transparency for procedures determining their ethnicity and lack of guarantees during deportation, and the poor conditions repeatedly identified at the Athens’ airport detention area illustrate the need for immediate changes in the law and practice of immigration-related detention, as well as actual improvements of conditions in places of detention. Amnesty International July 2010 Index: EUR 25/002/2010