that migrants would be fairly processed (Human Rights Watch, 2008).59 As I have argued elsewhere, while the suspension of all transfers back to Greece from European countries would officially take effect in 2011, these early northern European tactics presented an opportunity for Greek authorities to move from a state of official action, wherein they must ‘care for’ and register the people they find on their soil, to one of effective inaction, which enabled onward migrant movements, hardly monitored or captured in formal statistics (Weber et al., 2019). What happened to Greece’s detained population? Amid severe condemnation of detention practices, even from within the police force itself,60 the Greek authorities announced that they would cease employing police stations and border guard spaces for detention purposes. Following the inauguration of the new government in September 2009, a total of 3,200 irregular migrants had been released before the turn of the new year. Following a visit by the deputy minister for Citizen Protection, Spiros Vougias, in November 2009, the first by a politician until then, the infamous centre on the island of Lesvos, Pagani (Iliadou, 2012, 2019a; Sarantidis, 2018), which was associated with extreme violations of human rights, was closed (Medicins Sans Frontieres, 2010). ‘Conditions are abhorrent, inhumane and offend the core of human dignity’ said the Minister after its visit committing to change reception conditions in the country.61 In response to consistent allegations of ill-treatment, certain steps were announced that would improve the quality of the investigations. Despite promises of change, the use of police stations for the purposes of detaining foreign nationals did not end. In fact, police and border guard stations continue to be used up until today in the most arbitrary manner. The closure of Pagani did not bring a change in the reception of irregular migrants. They continued to be detained upon arrival as a rule at other locations. Soon the new government would announce the construction of new preremoval centres across the country. What is more, despite the stated intentions of the A number of judgments by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) have found Greece guilty for violating Articles 3 and 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (SD, AA, Tabesh, MSS, Rahimi, RU against Greece) and have called for an end to transfers of asylum seekers back to Greece under the Dublin II Regulation. 60 In August 2009, the Rodopi Police Union, in Northern Greece, sent a letter to the Rodopi Regional authorities requesting a number of urgent measures to improve the hygiene and material conditions, including regular cleaning of the dormitories, and the provision of medical care. The regional authorities apparently agreed with the requests but were unable to take any action due to a lack of financial means (CPT, 2010). 61 You can see a video from the visit in spyrosvougias (2009). 59 90