In 2013, Presidential Decree No. 113 (‘2013 Decree’) was issued, regulating the detention of applicants for asylum pursuant to the EU Directive 2008/85/EC, governing the minimum standards on procedures for granting and withdrawing refugee status.54 The Decree, like the Directive, clarified that applicants for international protection could not be held in detention for the sole reason that they were asylum seekers, or that they have entered or stayed illegally in the country, and again provided for a maximum detention period of 18 months.55 However, it was reported that in many cases, Greek authorities continued to detain asylum seekers automatically and arbitrarily.56 In January 2015, the legal grounds for detention in Greece were again expanded with Joint Ministerial Decisions (‘2015 Decisions’) that established multiple pre-removal detention centres in accordance with the EU Returns Directive.57 In 2016, Law 4375/2016 (‘2016 Law’) provided for the pre-removal detention of asylum seekers within the detention areas established in Law 3907/2011 (‘2011 Law’). Still, Law 4375/2016 only provided for the detention of asylum seekers who applied for asylum from detention.58 In practice, however, immigration detention was again far more widely – and often, extra-legally – applied.59 In the immediate aftermath of the March 2016 EU-Turkey Statement (also known as ‘EU-Turkey Deal’), all new arrivals to the Eastern Aegean islands were subjected to a detention measure “either de facto under the pretext of a decision restricting the freedom within the premises of the RIC for a period of 25 days or under a deportation decision together with a detention order”.60 Although this practice has since changed, authorities on the Aegean islands of Lesvos, Kos and Leros began implementing a so-called ‘low profile scheme’ in 2018. This scheme involves the automatic detention of new arrivals belonging to nationalities with low asylum recognition rates, with no prospect of release throughout the entirety of their asylum procedures61 The practice of detaining asylum seekers began to increase dramatically in 2020, following several changes to the asylum and return laws in 2019 and 2020. Those changes, and their consequences, will be explored throughout this report. 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 Art. 12 Presidential Decree No. 113. Ibid. Leonidas K Cheliotis, Behind of the veil of philoxenia: The politics of immigration detention in Greece, 10(6) (1 November 2013) 729. AIDA, Greece: Place of Detention, available at: https://bit.ly/2V90WZE. AIDA, Greece: Grounds for Detention, available at: https://bit.ly/3yzaRFA. Ibid. AIDA, Country Report: Greece (December 2018), 33, available at: https://bit.ly/2YbBYtD. Ibid at 147. See also HIAS, Locked up Without Rights (December 2019), available at: https://bit.ly/3kLZDZe. 4 DETENTION OF MIGRANTS ON THE ISLAND OF KOS