Amnesty International condemns illegal detentions, substandard conditions at refugee center on Greece’s Samos island

​​​​​​​By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) - A major rights group on Tuesday condemned illegal detentions and substandard conditions at a refugee center on Greece’s Samos island.

“Greece must urgently repeal the legal rules that are causing people seeking asylum in the EU-funded ‘Closed Controlled Access Centre’ on the island of Samos to be systematically and unlawfully deprived of their liberty,” Amnesty International said in a report.

It urged the EU to hold Greece accountable for human rights violations at the center and maintained that the facility cannot and should not be a model for the EU’s recently adopted Migration and Asylum Pact, which is intended to coordinate member states’ management of irregular arrivals.

“Greece has long been a testing ground for EU migration policies predicated on the racialized exclusion of people on the move at the borders of the region. The results on Samos show that this model is punitive, expensive and rife for abuse,” said Deprose Muchena, a senior director at Amnesty.

The report said specifically, that Greek authorities are de facto detaining all residents upon arrival, including those who are in vulnerable situations.

Refugees and migrants at the center also suffer from insufficient services, including water shortages and the lack of a permanent medical doctor.

“The EU promised these centres would be up to ‘European standards’. Instead, we found a dystopian nightmare: a highly securitized camp lacking in the most basic infrastructure,” said Muchena.​​​​​​​