Advocacy

In a deeply concerning development, asylum seekers on the Aegean islands of Samos and Lesvos are being placed en mass into unlawful detention in appalling conditions in the EU-funded Closed Controlled Access Centers (CCACs) while awaiting registration of their asylum requests. Following a sharp increase in arriving asylum seekers from Türkiye since July 2023, [...]

Press Release Samos, Greece - I Have Rights (IHR) and The Human Rights Legal Project (HRLP) has submitted a joint report to the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) on the violations of the Istanbul Convention in Greece. The report highlights several [...]

Between 5th May and 7th June 2023, most of the operations of Greek asylum authorities under the umbrella of the Ministry of Migration and Asylum (MoMA) were halted due to an upgrade of the Asylum Service’s database, Alkyoni. During this period, no operations involving the Alkyoni system could be performed, including registration of [...]

Following the video evidence published on May 19th by the New York Times,  I Have Rights (IHR) and the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) sent a joint briefing to Members of Parliament, sharing data and testimonies of survivors of pushbacks in the Aegean recorded over the last two years. [...]

The European Commission recently decided to review the EU Anti-Trafficking directive, and IHR has provided feedback on the proposed revisions. We believe that survivors of trafficking should be given the opportunity to disclose their experiences at all points of the asylum procedure. As the Northern Aegean islands are the entry point to the [...]

Joint submission from I Have Rights and Mobile Info Team, with the support of the Border Violence Monitoring Network. In this submission we present key challenges and recommendations relating to formal immigration detention and de facto detention in Greece. We identify systemic challenges, as well as contextual differences, in the practices of both Pre-Removal [...]

This letter was shared with us from people that are currently protesting in the Samos Closed Controlled Access Center (CCAC). With their permission, we are sharing it here. AGENDA OF THE PROTEST Greetings from the Concern Asylum Seekers of the Samos Camp. For quite too long, we have been going through a lot of [...]

As actors on the island who work to defend the rights of people on the move, we are deeply concerned about the Samos Closed Controlled Access Centre’s (CCAC) compliance with human rights standards and have, since its opening, called for its closure and for people to be accommodated within communities and in housing that [...]