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 [...]

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 [...]

The lack of access to justice, medical care and dignified living circumstances: Fighting systematic human rights violations on the EU’s external border with legal means 🗓️ 24.10.2022, 7 - 8 pm CEST An online panel talk with: Ella Dodd, legal coordinator of I Have Right’s legal [...]

Press release IT IS THE GREEK GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSIBILITY TO IMMEDIATELY PUT A STOP TO INFORMAL FORCED RETURNS (PUSHBACKS): THEY ENDANGER HUMAN LIVES AND BREACH THE STATE’S INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS  Greek version here Athens, 5 October 2022 The way in which the Ministry of Migration [...]

Press release GREECE: FRONTEX FAILS TO REPORT POTENTIAL VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS Seven civil society organizations from Samos island presented their allegation briefing to MEPs, ahead of LIBE Committee meeting on October 10th. VATHY, October 4th, 2022 - [...]

I HAVE RIGHTS’ Strategic Litigation Taskforce submitted feedback to the European Commission regarding the founding Regulation of Frontex (Regulation (EU) 2019/1896  on the European Border and Coast Guard/Frontex). In our submission, we focus on Article 46 of the Regulation, which obliges Frontex’s executive director to leave an operational [...]

Prison-like conditions in Closed Controlled Access Centres (CCAC) on Samos and other Greek islands have devastating impacts on asylum seekers. People living in the CCAC on Samos report of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts as results of detention, isolation and inadequate medical and psychological treatment. Together with 20 other [...]

Cet article peut être lu en français. يمكن قراءة هذه المقالة باللغة العربية. As an organisation based on Samos, I HAVE RIGHTS (IHR) has witnessed to the shift from open camps to Closed Control Access Centres (CCAC), which by design detain, control and dehumanise people seeking safety. An [...]

Human rights defenders on Samos are demanding the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex, terminate its operations on the Greek island of Samos. This comes after mounting evidence that Greek authorities and Frontex are violating international law by illegally pushing back to Turkey people seeking [...]

In its most recent evaluative report on Greece, released on June 9, 2022, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has demanded that Greece cease its detention of refugee youth and reform its policies towards refugee children, which violate their rights as per the UN [...]

20th of June 2022 Today marks WORLD REFUGEE DAY, but it's no reason to celebrate. It's a day to raise awareness of the fact that not all refugees are safe in Europe and there are many people who came to Europe to seek protection but are now locked inside [...]

The criminalisation of asylum seekers is a systematic practice in Greece and is part of a wider effort to prevent people seeking safety in Europe. For the majority of people seeking asylum, there are no direct or regular routes to reach Europe. Instead, people are forced to take irregular [...]

This blogpost is based on the report "Naming and Shaming - Harmful asylum procedures for sexual orientation and gender identity claims on Lesvos" by Fenix Humanitarian Legal Aid. We want to give an overview of the important findings from their research on sexual orientation and gender identity claims [...]

Additional Submission to the Committee of the Rights of the Child regarding Greece’s non-compliance with the Convention. 3rd of May 2022 Still I Rise, an international non-profit organisation providing education and safety to refugee children in their Mazi Centre on Samos, and I HAVE RIGHTS., a non-profit refugee [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

[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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

The new Refugee Camp on Samos officially opened on the 18th of September 2021. Greek authorities and several high-ranking politicians such as Notis Mitarakis, Greek Minister of Migration & Asylum and Beate Gminder, Head of the "Task Force Migration Management" for the European Commission 'inaugurated' the new Closed [...]

The Refugee Law Clinic Berlin (RLCB) started the legal information project on Samos in 2018. The organisation provided legal support in the form of interview preparations, legal information and workshops. As the project on Samos started to grow over the last years, the organisation of RLCB decided to [...]