9 procedure.5 represented numerous clients who were In September 2021, the Kos authorities quietly detained for the full 18-month period.6 ended the practice of automatic detention In October 2021, Equal Rights observed that upon arrival. Instead, most asylum seekers the police began releasing people from who arrived on Kos after September 2021 were detention at the 12 rather than 18-month mark, first placed in Covid-19 quarantine and then however they similarly did not announce a transferred to and accommodated in the Kos formal change in practice. Then, in March Reception and Identification Centre (RIC), later 2022, the police informed several of the the Closed Controlled Access Centre (CCAC). lawyers working on Kos that they would The authorities never formally announced this reduce the maximum period of detention from change in policy nor provided a specific reason 12 to six months. Since March 2022, Equal for it. On the one hand, this is a welcome Rights has observed that the police apply a change—asylum seekers accommodated in the maximum detention period of six months for RIC/CCAC have significantly more access to rejected asylum seekers, and we have not UNHCR, legal NGOs, the asylum service, represented any clients since March 2022 who medical care, and psychosocial services than were detained for longer than six months. people detained in the PRDC. However, the Although in some respects a positive change in practice also coincided with the official opening of the CCAC in late 2021. Although not a detention centre by name, the CCAC resembles the physical structure of the PRDC and residents’ movement in and out of it is highly restricted, in many ways replicating the experience of detention upon arrival. development, the six-month detention period is still imposed in an arbitrary and unlawful manner. For this update, Equal Rights reviewed 10 detention orders and administrative files of rejected asylum seekers detained on Kos between the period of May and November 2022. All 10 of them included 2. Reduced Maximum Period of Detention the same template language that “the As described in the first edition to this report, months from the issuance of this decision.” the IPA extended the maximum period of However, Art. 30(3) of Law 3907/2011 provides detention to 18 months. In theory, this allowed that “the conditions of detention shall be the police to detain migrants for a total of 36 reviewed ex officio, every three months, by the months—first as asylum seekers under the IPA institution that issued the detention decision.” and then for an additional 18 months as Since the start of the six-month practice, Equal rejected applicants under Law 3907/2011. Rights has never come across a judicial However, the authorities on Kos historically decision or similar order reviewing a person’s imposed a total maximum detention period of detention after three months. In July 2022, 18 months under both legal frameworks. Equal Rights requested the new detention During the period covered in the November order for a client for whom we were preparing 2021 report, Equal Rights documented and an objections application, as the initial order 5 Detained and Forgotten, supra note 3, at 21. detention of the above shall not exceed six (6) 6 Detained and Forgotten, supra note 3, at 15. ‘Still detained and forgotten’ – Update on Detention Policies, Practices, and Conditions on Kos 2022/23