In 1999, following a surge of migrant arrivals from the Middle East through the Greece-Turkey land border, two Transitional Police Detachments, in Alexandroupolis and Orestiada, were set up for arresting and delivering to the relevant police station those irregularly entering Greece. In practice, people arrested crossing the border were detained for indeterminate periods in facilities resembling ‘human dumps’. Such places can hardly be described as official detention centres. People detained there were often not formally registered. As the police officer in charge of the transitional detachments told the CPT delegation, he reported orally all information to the Police Directorate in Alexandroupolis. Such deliberate ‘informality’ laid the ground for practices of refoulement and push-backs of particular nationalities in the years to come.

For many years, the Evros region was the locus of pre-emptive and improvised measures, such as illegal push-backs, which became routine, systematic and brutal (e.g. see here, here and here). Interviews with border police officers revealed an entrenched practice: ‘In the past [before 2005] we were more effective. The Greek government used to hire fishermen at the border to illegally transfer migrants back to Turkey’. 'Now that Europe’s eyes are on us, we can’t keep our country secure by doing the same good quality work', the border officer continued referring to push-backs. While this strategy may not have been an official one, border authorities did not do much to hide it. Refoulement by the Greek coast guard was occurring on such a systematic scale that border guard officers admitted in 2005 that they were under no obligation to inform persons subject to immediate readmission procedures of their rights and more particularly that such persons did not have the rights of notification of custody and access to lawyer. Based on interviews with migrants, Amnesty International argued that in 2013 there was at least once incident of pushback per week.

Outcry against these practices, led the authorities to adopt another set of border control policies, with the assistance of generous contributions from the European Border Fund. These included, increased Frontex operations, aimed at stopping the mass arrival and entry of migrants and enhanced border patrols through new technological means and more personnel. In line with the militarization plans of the Greek government, in 2012, the Greek government completed a 10.5km long fence along the most transited part of its land border with Turkey. Given the European Commission’s rejection of funding such a venture as ‘pointless’ and a ‘short-term measure’, Greece bore the brunt of its erection, 3,16 million euros, during its worst economic crisis that had plagued Greece since 2008. ‘It sends a clear message to the international community and the EU too that Greece is capable of securing its borders and that it won’t in the future allow immigration flows to pass.’ said the Minister of Public Protection when it was announced in 2011.

The special holding facility for irregular migrants in Filakio opened in 2007 with an official capacity of 374 (the CPT concluded in 2013 that it was not constructed for more than 188 detainees). It has seven large cells, each with floor to ceiling bars, allowing no privacy. Each cell contains several sets of bunk beds. While first reports of the centre painted a picture of a well-maintained facility the future could only be described as a humanitarian crisis. The dramatic upsurge in border crossings in the region in 2010 and the Greek state’s documented deficiencies in reception and protection conditions led to inhuman living conditions in a prison-like environment.On October 28, 2010, two other Iranians went on a hunger strike while in detention in Evros. They sewed their lips together with shoelaces, protesting against their readmission and for their right to seek asylum. In an interview, the then responsible Minister of Citizens’ Protection reported his personal shame over the conditions for the detention of irregular migrants, adding, however, that possibilities [for improvement] were limited. Despite such open and unreserved agreement that such conditions constitute a flagrant violation of fundamental rights, little or nothing has been done to improve them.

In 2011, the CPT delegation found 83 juveniles (most unaccompanied) crammed into a room of less than 100m². The children had to share beds or sleep on the floor. The cell was dirty, exposed to the cold temperatures, which sometimes reached to below 16 degrees and the sanitary facilities were flooded with water and sewage. When the National Committee for Human Rights and the Greek Ombudsman visited the centre in 2011, unaccompanied minors detained there had been in the facility in such conditions for more than five months. Similarly, the sanitary facilities in the cell holding the families, baby and young children were in an execrable state: toilets filled with faeces as the flush systems were broken; floors flooded with water and sewage. As M.S. from Iran claimed ‘Sometimes we try not to eat for a few days just in order to avoid using the toilets’. In any case, meals were distributed only twice a day. According to the authorities, a break in funding the operational costs of the centre was cited as the cause for the abhorrent situation.

According to a 2012 report by ProAsyl, the detainees in Fylakio were deprived of all their basic rights, such as the right to information, unrestricted access to the outside world, interpretation and translation, access to a lawyer, legal aid and to effective legal remedies while in detention. Due to severe overcrowding, the inhuman detention conditions, the temporariness of the programmes (only the Greek Council of Refugees offered free legal aid in the past) and the obstacles faced by the lawyers in accessing the facility, the legal aid provided was limited to the most urgent legal actions. While doctors and nurses were available, through the Prefecture and other human rights organizations like the MSF (providing services from 2009 until 2014), they were not enough for the number of people detained. Therefore, access to health care (medical and psychological treatment) was not always guaranteed, and sometimes guards arbitrarily discouraged the detainees from calling the medical staff or refused to refer them to the staff, leading to serious mental health problems. Against this environment, humanitarian organisations found their work inside these centres challenging as their independence and access to detainees were constantly jeopardized by the police; opting to leave after denouncing the system.

In general, there were no activities offered nor were they let out in the fresh air for more than 20 minutes at a time. ‘We do not have enough police officers to control the situation in order to let them out,’ the officers repeatedly argued. In fact, as the CPT reported goes on, ‘everyone was treated the same - like caged animals.’ The atmosphere was extremely tense and relations between the migrants and police officers appeared hostile. Incidents of maltreatment, including racist insults and excessive use of force, abounded. Several persons alleged that they were punished with slaps, kicks and blows for making complaints or for committing acts of self-harm or simply to intimidate them.

For example, an unaccompanied minor told the delegation of ProAsyl in Fylakio: ‘The police sometimes beat us. First: When we are brought to the telephone room. We have only once a week access, and we are too many so not everybody has his or her turn. So when we start fighting among ourselves about the telephones, the police beat us. Second: When somebody is sick and we are shouting and making noise in order to call for medical help. Third: When the food is brought to the cell and somebody tries to get an extra portion.’ The CPT delegation even found bloodstains in a room, where the alleged beatings were taking place, which the authorities attributed to self-harm by detainees. Sexual harassment by police officers was also documented. As a result of this carceral and harmful environment, there have been repeated reports of protests in the facility, including minors threatening to commit suicide. The above findings were corroborated by the 2013 CPT visit too.

AITIMA visited the centre in 2016 and found that mixed detention was still the case, the cells were dirty, outdoor time was only allowed for 10-20 minutes at a time and there was a lack of medical services. Two years later, in 2018, a CPT delegation visited the centre and described the conditions as appalling and amounting to inhuman or degrading treatment. Overcrowding was so high, reaching up to 640 detainees, leading the CPT to invoke Article 8, paragraph 5, of the Convention, requesting the Greek authorities to take immediate steps to radically reduce the occupancy levels at the centre.

The cells were filthy; toilets, showers and pipes were in a squalid state of repair, with water overflowing on cell floors; many detainees had to share mattresses; ventilation was insufficient; continuing mixed detention exposed women and girls to sexual and gender based violence; outdoor time was once more scarce, partly explained by extremely low staff numbers (5 officers for more than 400 detainees). While doctors and nurses were available, they were too few compared to the number of detainees. Yet again the situation at the time of the CPT March 2020 visit was no better. The report mentioned the same unhygienic conditions, with dilapidated and leaking pipes, mixed detention with men, pregnata women and children, the absence of a regime, and very limited access to outdoor exercise (15 or 20 minutes per day), deeming the structure beyond repair.

Despite the centre being renovated between September 2020 and May 2021, the conditions reported by respondents we spoke to held in Fylakio PRDC through our research were indeed appalling. In particular, the unsanitary situation of showers and toilets was highlighted, which were often also utterly dysfunctional and only with hot water for a short period of time per day. People explained that bed frames were dilapidated and mattresses so dirty that there were insect infestations, resulting in detainees sleeping on the floor. There is a lack of air conditioning and heating devices in Fylakio PRDC, as well as poor lighting and ventilation. Respondents also described that the quality of food was low, and there was not enough provided - usually just twice a day.

“It was horrible because they have never cared about our hygiene. There was nothing, like, there was a shit bathroom and toilet and we don't have access to hygiene. And also, about food, it was horrible.”