R. Becker

The process of seeking asylum is necessarily combined with sharing personal and often traumatic stories and information. Asylum applicants have to demonstrate that they are at risk of persecution for reasons of “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion” (Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951). For people [...]

A newsletter from the communities living in Samos “We are people from different communities living in the Closed Controlled Access Centre in Samos, Greece. In this newsletter, we are raising our voices to whoever is concerned against the difficulties we have in the camp of Samos.” "We realised the need to raise awareness [...]

A Samos Situation Report (March 2022) from the Samos Advocacy Collective and Europe Must Act. In the end of March, the Samos Advocacy Collective and Europe Must Act sent a report to Pietro Bartolo, a member of the European Parliament, to give an overview about the current situation in the Closed Controlled Access Centre [...]

[Press release by Europe Must Act] A correspondence between the Samos Advocacy Collective and the European Commission regarding the current movement restrictions of asylum seekers in the Closed Controlled Access Centre (CCAC) of Samos unveils the inhumanity of the complex asylum system and the worrying lack of accountability from the EU.

Six years ago, on the 18th of March 2016, the EU-Turkey Deal was adopted by the European Council and Turkey. The deal’s goal was clear: to prevent people from coming to Europe to ask for asylum by keeping them in Turkey while compensating Turkey with “development” aid.

18. December 2021 On International Migrants Day the Samos Advocacy Collective and Europe Must Act release a report on life in the Closed Controlled Access Centre of Samos. In September 2021, European and Greek authorities inaugurated the Closed Controlled Access Centre of Samos, the first of the five EU-funded [...]

25 November 2021 – A halt to cash assistance for asylum seekers, and the denial of food support to recognised refugees and rejected asylum seekers is creating a hunger crisis in Greece, 27 NGOs and civil society organisations warn today. For nearly two months, up to 60 per cent of current [...]

The real crime is the border regime - Justice for N. & Hasan After shipwreck, survivor faces more than 230 years for “boat driving” and father charged with the death of his 6-year-old child   On the Greek islands, the politics of criminalization and deterrence of refugees is escalating: in an [...]

Lessons learned and looking ahead. A joint NGO briefing paper. Since 2015, over 25,000 vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers, including unaccompanied children, have been relocated from Greece to other European countries. These relocation programmes – the result of Decisions of the Council of the EU establishing an emergency mandatory relocation scheme, bilateral agreements between [...]