lack of emphasis placed on how detention centres are run. While the left-wing party, Syriza, was rising and gaining momentum in 2014, it promoted a clear pro-immigration agenda, with references to human rights violations and public denouncements of the practices of previous governments. The question that remained open, however, was whether this stance would lead to the desired change inside the centres. A humanitarian turn (2015) While mainstream political discourse in Greece since the 1990s had been ‘imbued with welfare chauvinism, hate speech, nationalist propaganda, mobilising feelings of insecurity and national pride’ (Triandafyllidou and Kouki, 2014, p. 421), the period leading up to the 2015 elections changed the discourse significantly. During its election campaign, Syriza pledged to make a U-turn from the rather restrictive migration and asylum policies of the previous governments, making the closing of detention centres a flagship pre-election announcement. They promised they would replace them with reception centres, fully staffed by healthcare personnel and interpreters in order to meet migrants’ personalised needs. In the context of Greek immigration politics, their proposals were considered radical. Ιt was the only time that a Greek political party had openly adopted an abolitionist strategy. Syriza formed a human rights committee that visited detention centres to document conditions and make statements about what they described as the ‘modern Dachau of Greece’ in Amygdaleza, where people were stacked in inhumane and degrading conditions.’ (Avgi, 2014). In February 2015, when they came into power, Syriza assured Greek citizens that immigration detention centres belonged to the past, committing to their election pledge to reverse anti-immigrant policies of the previous right-wing government (ECRE, 2015). To this effect, it formed a new Immigration Policy Ministry under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. At a visit to the infamous Amygdaleza pre-removal detention centre,66 following the suicide of a Pakistani detainee,67 then Deputy Minister of Citizen’s Protection, Yannis For more on the Amygdaleza detention centre and the assessment of widespread detention as a costeffective tool see Angeli and Triandafyllidou (2014). 67 The 28-year-old Pakistani man had been held in detention twice for a total of 25 months. See more in ECRE (2015). A few months earlier, in November 2014, another Pakistani national, Muhammad Ashfaq had died in Amygdaleza due to the indifference of the authorities towards his pleas to be taken to the hospital. More on the incident in ThePressProject (2014). 66 112