Submission to the European Commission for the Have Your Say initiative on fighting human trafficking.
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 [...]
Input to the OHCHR Secretary-General Report on the Human Rights of Migrants: Key challenges relating to immigration detention in Greece
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 [...]
Letter from people in the Samos CCAC
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 [...]
Joint Statement: Call for the Closure of the Samos Closed Controlled Access Centre
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 [...]
Newsletter #6 – April 2023
*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|* Updates from Samos Dear supporters of I Have Rights, It has been a few months since the new year started and the situation has been critical. Samos experienced arrival rates much higher than the ones of previous winters, with over six hundred recorded in [...]
Appeals Authority overrule the asylum service’s decision to put a vulnerable person through the accelerated procedure
Case Study In an asylum case where I Have Rights provided legal aid, the Greek Appeals Authority ruled that the Regional Asylum Office of Samos failed to consider an asylum seeker’s vulnerability when subjecting her to the accelerated asylum procedure and rejected her claim on credibility grounds. [...]
Young mother successfully sues the Greek Government for the treatment she suffered as a pregnant woman in the “hotspot” on Samos
Press Release For the first time, the European Court of Human Rights has condemned the living conditions faced by an asylum seeker in a Greek hotspot as inhumane and degrading treatment. It found a violation of Article 3 of the Convention and awarded the applicant 5000 Euro [...]
Samos organisations present evidence of systematic human rights violations against people on the move to Council of Europe in the implementation of the Safi judgement
Press Release Samos organisations, I Have Rights and the Human Rights Legal Project, present evidence to the Council of Europe on systematic human rights violations against people on the move in Greece, including torture, pushbacks and lack of investigations into such violations. VATHY, 24 March 2023 [...]
The EU-Funded Closed Controlled Access Centre – The De Facto Detention of Asylum Seekers on Samos
Press Release In their report out today, I Have Rights demonstrates that the Samos CCAC is a place of unlawful de facto detention which violates people on the move’s legal right to liberty and security as well as the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment under international [...]
Samos Closed Controlled Access Centre breaks EU human rights standards
In our joint contribution to a consultation launched by the EU Ombudsman under an inquiry on how the Commission can ensure human rights compliance in new 260 million euro EU funded reception facilities on the Greek islands, I Have Rights (IHR) and the International Rescue Committee [...]
Follow-up letter to the Ministry of Migration and Asylum
I Have Rights is one of 14 signatory organizations that sent a letter to the Minister of Migration and Asylum in September last year to raise the alarm on the risk of homelessness faced by recognized refugees due to administrative delays. Not only has the Minister not answered said [...]
I Have Rights’ 2022 Annual Report
In 2022, the I Have Rights team worked to uphold the rights of people on the move. Our teams, including our legal team, strategic litigation team, advocacy team, and core group worked together to improve the situation of asylum seekers and migrants on Samos and to advocate for greater [...]