Recommendations

To the Government of Greece

• Ensure that all measures to identify irregular migrants are conducted in full compliance with national and international law prohibiting discrimination, including ethnic profiling and arbitrary deprivation of liberty;
• Publicly condemn ethnic profiling and other instances of discrimination and abuse by the police, send a clear and unambiguous message that such acts are unacceptable,  and pledge to take concrete measures to address these problems, including by holding abusers accountable; and
• Develop a national strategy on combating racial discrimination by law enforcement officials that sets out concrete measures and a timetable for implementation, and designates the government institution responsible for monitoring implementation.

To the Ministry of Public Order and Citizen Protection

• Ensure that all operations to identify, apprehend, and detain irregular migrants are conducted in a manner consistent with Greece’s international human rights obligations. The use of force during such operations should be strictly limited to what is necessary and proportionate. Excessive use of force should be subject to disciplinary sanctions and, as appropriate, criminal prosecution;
• Ensure, either in law or through binding circulars, clear guidelines for law enforcement officers with respect to immigration stops, including:
  • Permissible grounds for conducting an immigration stop;
  • Permissible grounds for conducting a pat-down and a search of personal belongings;
  • The circumstances and manner in which law enforcement officers may stop and search children;
  • Provide clear guidance to police officers to limit deprivation of liberty in the context of immigration stops. This guidance should include, at a minimum:
    • Permissible grounds for bringing a person to the police station for further verification of their documents;
    • A requirement that any deprivation of liberty, even for a brief period of time, in the context of a stop, is based on a reasonable and individualized suspicion that a person’s identification documents are not authentic;
    • The circumstances and manner in which law enforcement officers may detain children in the context of an immigration stop;
    • Appropriate procedures for the care of children accompanying the individual subject to an immigration stop;
    • A requirement to provide all individuals deprived of their liberty with information about their rights in a language they can understand;
    • A requirement to inform all individuals deprived of their liberty of the legal basis for their detention;
    • A requirement that all people detained in the context of an immigration stop, are given the free assistance of an interpreter, and are able to request the assistance of a lawyer or other individual who can advocate on their behalf;
    • Ensure that each police patrol deployed for an immigration control operation has at least one officer with advanced specialized training in immigration and asylum issues, and on how to detect forged documents;
    • To avoid unjustified deprivation of liberty, develop and implement the necessary technical capacity to allow police patrols to check the validity of identity documents in the street;
    • Ensure that police officers conducting immigration stops accept notarized copies of identity documents; and
    • Ensure diligent and independent investigation and accountability for all complaints of police abuse.

To the European Union, including the Commission and the Council Member States)

• Affirm, either through adoption of a new legal instrument or interpretation of existing binding EU legislation, that ethnic profiling in policing is unlawful and has no place in the European Union. The European Commission should formulate an inclusive definition of ethnic profiling, taking as its starting point the one adopted by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, which captures the intentional and unintentional aspects of ethnic profiling, the range of law enforcement activities where there is risk of illegitimate profiling, and emphasizes the need for objective and individualized suspicion;
• The European Commission’s Directorate General for Justice and Directorate General for Home Affairs should carefully monitor the Greek authorities’ continued implementation of Operation Xenios Zeus and communicate effectively with the government about violations of fundamental rights in the course of immigration sweeps;
• The European Commission should assist the Greek government in ensuring that immigration stops respect fundamental rights, including non-discrimination. For example the commission should allocate funds and technical support for specialized human rights training for law enforcement officers on immigration and asylum issues. The commission should also allocate funds technical equipment necessary for remote verification of identity papers by officers on patrol.
• The European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) should, in the context of its periodic reports on fundamental rights in the European Union as well as through other initiatives, assess Greece’s compliance with EU law and standards with respect to the concerns raised in this report; and
• The EU Fundamental Rights Agency should thoroughly investigate human rights violations in the context of immigration control operations in Greece with a view to providing decision-making institutions such as the European Commission and the Council of the European Union with information and analysis relevant to assessing Greece’s compliance with its obligations to counter racism and discrimination.

To the Council of Europe

• The Commissioner for Human Rights should continue to press the Greek government to address the serious concerns about discriminatory police practices he raised in his April 2013 report.
• The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) should follow up on the concerns highlighted in 2003 and 2009 about discrimination and racially motivated misconduct by the police in its monitoring and future reporting on Greece.

To the United Nations

• The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention should ensure that its final report, pursuant to its country visit to Greece in January 2013, highlights concerns about arbitrary deprivation of liberty in immigration sweep operations, and recommend appropriate action to address these concerns.
• The Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism should conduct a country visit to Greece to monitor closely and draw attention to the impact of ongoing immigration control operations on migrants, asylum seekers, and visible minorities in Greece and communicate concerns about specific cases or general patterns in a timely fashion.
• Member states should question the Greek government about steps taken to address racism, discrimination, and other abuses by law enforcement, including through implementation of the recommendations in this report, during Greece’s second cycle review under the Universal Periodic Review before the Human Rights Council in 2016.