I. Background

Since the early 2000s, Greece has become the major gateway to the European Union for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers from Asia and Africa, in part because it shares a land border with Turkey, a major transit route into Europe. The director of the European Union external borders agency, Frontex, said in August 2012 that Greece accounted for 67 percent of all irregular border crossings into the EU.[2] According to official Greek government data, Afghans comprised by far the largest national group irregularly entering Greece in 2012, followed by Pakistanis.[3] Greek authorities estimated in April 2012 that there were as many as one million undocumented migrants living in Greece.[4]

The failure of successive Greek governments to adopt coherent migration policies, chronic mismanagement of the asylum system, and, most recently, the deep economic crisis and resulting austerity have exacerbated what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) described in late 2010 as a “humanitarian crisis.”[5] Countless undocumented migrants and asylum seekers live in deep destitution, occupying abandoned buildings, town squares, parks, and even forests. The ultimate goal for many, whether they are economic migrants or asylum seekers, is to transit through Greece to other countries in the EU. Hundreds of foreigners congregate in port cities such as Patras and Igoumenitsa looking for a chance to stow away on trucks and ferries heading to Italy, often risking life and limb to do so.[6]

Long-term residents of the center of Athens, in particular, have seen their neighborhoods change dramatically with the increasing numbers of migrants and asylum seekers.  Concerns about rising crime and urban degradation have become a dominant feature of everyday conversations as well as political discourse. Parties across the ideological spectrum regularly and explicitly link irregular immigration to the city’s ills.

Undocumented migration and crime in Athens were high on the agenda in the lead-up to the 2012 national elections. As a candidate, now Prime Minister Antonis Samaras campaigned in part on a pledge to reclaim Greek cities from immigrants: “Greece today has become a center for illegal immigrants. We must take back our cities, where the illegal trade in drugs, prostitution, and counterfeit goods is booming. There are many diseases and I am not only speaking about Athens, but elsewhere too.”[7]  Golden Dawn, a populist, right-wing party has in recent years gained strength and popularity in part because of their exploitation of anti-immigrant sentiment. Golden Dawn secured enough votes in the June 2012 national elections to enter Parliament for the first time in its history with 18 seats.

Moreover, there has been an alarming surge in xenophobic attacks on migrants and asylum seekers in recent years. Human Rights Watch documented 51 serious attacks by vigilante groups, primarily in the center of Athens, between August 2009 and May 2012.[8]

A network of Greek nongovernmental organizations, coordinated by the UNHCR and the Greek National Commission for Human Rights, recorded 217 racist incidents between October 2011 and December 2012.[9] Though the government has taken steps recently to address the problem, including through the creation, in January 2013, of specialized police units across Greece to tackle racist crimes, the attacks continue and no one to date has been convicted under Greece’s 2008 hate crime statute.

Operation Xenios Zeus

The Samaras government launched Operation Xenios Zeus on August 4, 2012, shortly after taking power. The operation has three core aspects: 1) deterring illegal immigrants by sealing the border with Turkey; 2) identifying undocumented migrants, particularly in urban centers, and returning them to their home countries; and 3) remaking Athens a city of law and improving the quality of life for residents and visitors.[10] The operation was extended to Patras in early October 2012.[11]

Announcing the operation, Minister of Public Order Nikos Dendias said that:

[W]hole areas of Athens have become inaccessible and in these areas … delinquent behavior is booming. Drug trafficking, prostitution, trafficking of illegal goods, thefts, robberies, serious injuries, murders, and even crimes for low-value goods.… I want to clarify that victims of this unacceptable situation are first the immigrants themselves, who live in tragic conditions and are forced… to become drug traffickers, pimps, forgers, thieves … to survive.[12]

Dendias stressed that “We do not care about the color, ethnicity, religion of the illegals. The only criterion is the compliance with legality, with full respect for human rights....”[13]

A key tactic of Operation Xenios Zeus is the use of existing general police powers to conduct identity checks to verify the legal status of individuals presumed to be irregular migrants. While such police stops were frequent before the launch of the operation, official statistics indicate a significant intensification since the onset of the operation. By late February 2013, in Athens alone, 84,792  aliens had been brought to police stations for verification of their legal status in Greece; 4,811 had been arrested for illegal entry and stay in Greece—a criminal offense—and detained pending deportation. The Ministry of Public Order and Citizen Protection stopped publishing statistics on the number of aliens brought to police stations in the context of Operation Xenios Zeus on February 23, 2013. By April 8, 2013, 5,194 foreigners had been arrested for lacking a legal basis in the country.[14] It is impossible to know how many people were subjected to immigration stops in the street but not taken to police stations because the police have not published these statistics.

The operation as a general rule does not involve specialized teams but rather mobilizes police officers in different parts of the city, particularly in the downtown area, on a daily basis. Sweeps often involve a particular category of low-ranking and less trained staff called the police guards.[15] According to police officials, foreigners with valid documents proving lawful stay in Greece will be stopped only briefly. The police will detain and transfer to a police station any individuals without papers or with papers the police decide need to be verified.

The operation implies a significant investment of police resources, with countless officers detailed to conduct stops on the street, time spent holding people on the street awaiting transfer, police buses to transfer individuals to police stations, and staff resources at the Aliens Police Division where the authenticity of documents is assessed. Police officials in the Ministry of Public Order and Citizen Protection say the Greek police do not have sufficient capacity and adequate equipment to verify the validity of identity documents on the street, particularly during large-scale sweeps.

However, our research indicates that the police are also checking papers of people on the spot without taking them to the station for further verification of the identity documents. Most of the people who told us they have been taken to police stations for verification of their identity documents have also experienced stops where the police quickly checked their papers on the spot.

While generally positive about the results of Operation Xenios Zeus, all three police unions we contacted noted the burden on police officers. Vassilis Ntoumas, president of the Hellenic Police Guards Union of Attica, which represents the interests of low-ranking patrol officers in the Attica region, said they have received “many complaints” from members about the amount of time spent just doing immigration related stops since the beginning of Operation Xenios Zeus.[16] Spilios Kriketos, secretary general of the Police Officers Union of Attica said he “gets no satisfaction in sending people to the camps [immigration detention centers]. Our satisfaction is in arresting real criminals. [But] we are bound to stop even a Syrian who doesn’t have papers.”[17] Representatives of the Border Guards Union of Attica also complained about increased (unpaid) overtime and heightened risks to their health and safety.[18]

With only one exception, all of the police officers and officials we spoke with said Operation Xenios Zeus has been a success, citing lower rates of crime and increased pedestrian traffic in central Athens (taken as a sign people feel more secure), and better and more accurate records of immigrants living in Athens as key indicators.[19] However, according to police statistics, from August 4, 2012 to February 6, 2013 under Operation Xenios Zeus, police only arrested 59 people (both foreigners and nationals) for possession of illegal weapons, illegal possession of drugs, human trafficking, and other offenses in Athens, a very small number given that they stopped tens of thousands of people.[20]

Improving security on the streets for everyone and helping foreigners in need are legitimate aims. However, the breadth and intensity of immigration sweeps in the context of Operation Xenios Zeus raise serious concerns about whether the means to achieve those aims are necessary and proportionate. The fact that over 94 percent of those taken to police stations to verify their legal status in Greece were found to be in the country lawfully suggests that the police are casting an extraordinarily wide net.

Furthermore, as explained in this report, Human Rights Watch believes that when not based on a reasonable suspicion police stop-and-search procedures are an inappropriate and unlawful tool to control the immigrant population in the city, even if the ultimate goal is legitimate.