State of Nonemergency

In Crete — the location of this so-called state of emergency — life for Greeks continues largely as normal. There are growing anti-immigrant sentiments and a far-right gathering on Saturday that also crowed about an “invasion.” But some Greeks see the absurdity.

In a small shop in the center of the seaside town of Chania, we met Odyseas, who has lived in Crete for thirty-five years. Describing himself as “a refugee in his own country due to economic and cultural reasons,” he noted the fearmongering that falsely alleges that only men are arriving. “Read history again: during the Ottoman oppression, it was mostly men who left Crete first to find safety, so they could later bring their families. Today’s refugees crossing the Mediterranean are doing the very same thing. No one is here to take your land or your money.”

We also met Theodor, a seventy-six-year-old who fled the Greek military junta in the 1970s and sought asylum in Switzerland, sitting with a group of friends at a local market. “I, too, crossed borders without a passport, as a young man with no money, fleeing to Switzerland,” he said. “When I see the young people arriving now, I understand them.”

Theodor noted: “On one hand, we need in this country economically 150,000 people to work in the fields and buildings, etc. The state has no plan to manage this.”

Mitsotakis’s right-wing New Democracy government has instead emphasized that it will henceforth focus on “deterrence” — which seems to indicate more imprisonment and cutting access to basic rights. As an example, Migration Minister Plevris said the government would “reexamine” the food provisions in refugee camps, stating: “They have three meal options, four servings of meat, and one of fish. The Ministry of Migration is not a hotel.”

This was perhaps a throwaway comment — but it is also remarkably false. As journalists who have been reporting on Greek camps for years, almost every single person we have ever spoken to has said they are left hungry. Food provided to the camps is meager and provisions are sometimes rancid.

“I’ve been here for almost a year and a half. I haven’t received any support, not even edible food,” said Mahmud just last month. (Yet the falsehood that supercilious asylum seekers in camps throw away high-quality food has repeatedly ricocheted around far-right websites, notably in 2018.)

In fact, Greece’s refugee camps are infamously inhabitable, in a constant state of emergency: they have been left without running water for weeks at a time; and adults and even children are packed on top of each other in conditions so tight that avoiding illnesses becomes miraculous. Doctors and translators are provided only rarely, if at all.

“A doctor visits the camps only once every five days. One refugee attempted suicide just because there was no doctor available,” said Christina, a resident of Crete who used to work with under-age asylum seekers held in such a facility.

Suicide attempts and suicides have been recorded at camps across Greece. In 2021, a woman set fire to the tent she was forced to live in, with herself inside, when she believed her asylum application was rejected. Doctors Without Borders has reported children self-harming inside the camps.

The Suspension Last Time

Greece has similarly suspended asylum once before, in that case for arrivals along the northern border with Turkey, for one month starting in March 2020. This was also couched as a response to an invasion, shortly after Ankara stated it was opening its borders to refugees as part of a wider diplomatic spat.

Back then, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees stated, “Neither the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees nor EU refugee law provides any legal basis for the suspension of the reception of asylum applications.”

When the pause was enacted, it had a brutal effect on asylum seekers, who simply had to remain in limbo, trapped waiting in camps with no access to legal redress.

“The Greek ban on people arriving from North Africa from claiming asylum is a policy as illegal and failed as its 2020 iteration for refugees arriving from Turkey,” said Minos Mouzourakis, a lawyer at Refugee Support Aegean. “International law allows no derogation from the right to seek asylum. Deportation to countries where people face torture and ill-treatment is never permitted and never realistic. Greece is only unnecessarily delaying access to protection for thousands of people, and dismantling the rule of law in the process.”

The European Union supported the 2020 suspension, funneling €700 million to Greece. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen famously thanked Greece for being Europe’s aspida — the Greek word for shield.

Europe has spent billions over years to enforce this “shield.” The bloc has several agreements with non-EU Mediterranean countries to prevent the arrival of migrants. In 2016, it made a deal with Ankara to stop migrants from reaching Greek islands with the transfer of billions of euros. In 2017, the bloc backed a deal that gave Libya billions to fund its coastguard, with the promise of stopping migrant boats heading to Italy.

On Tuesday, July 8, the interior ministers of Italy, Greece, and Malta, along with the EU migration commissioner, went to push both rival Libyan governments to further curb migrants from reaching Europe. The delegation was rejected and ordered to be deported by the Eastern government based in Benghazi, after the European officials visited the Western government in Tripoli. Greece announced the suspension of asylum applications the following day.

Criminalizing Entry

This pause on examining asylum applications is part of a much larger anti-migrant political platform in Greece, the prime example being the upcoming bill the government has spent the last weeks touting. This proposed overhaul of asylum law will reportedly criminalize entering the country without a visa or while undocumented.

This yet-to-be-tabled bill is existentially perilous for asylum seekers in Greece, almost all of whom, whether arriving by boat or by foot, have indeed reached the country without such documentation.

“It’s kind of a shock for me as a refugee, because they know it is not possible for the people who live in war,” said Mustafa Ahmed, an activist and recognized refugee in Athens. He fled the ongoing war in Sudan. “The Greeks, do they have an embassy in Sudan? No. They cannot open their doors. So, this [bill] is something like, ‘Go to hell.’”

This law may also be in direct conflict with the 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Greece has signed, which stipulates that states “shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees. . .”

Mizanur Rahman is an asylum seeker, originally from Bangladesh, who we met at a protest against the proposed law. He read a statement: “Dear Greek government, we have crossed the Mediterranean from Libya, leaving our lives behind to come to your country, just to make ourselves and our families a little better. In such a situation, please do not be harsh on us.”

Asylum seekers in general have expressed bewilderment: “We didn’t come here for fun; we had no choice,” said Mahmud firmly. “We crossed dangerous roads risking death to get here. I hope these new laws won’t pass. They will put all refugees in a terrible situation.”

If this law is passed too, this would essentially mark the end of asylum in Greece. This country does not have a refugee program that allows people to apply for international protection from beyond its borders. People must arrive in Greece to seek asylum. Most of them cannot get a visa to arrive, and so they board rickety boats or take to their feet. Soon those people will simply be imprisoned and deported. They will not have access to asylum or international protection.

In announcing the bill, Prime Minister Mitsotakis underlined that increasing returns “is not only a national priority [but] a European priority.” He’s right: von der Leyen herself has stated that the EU needs to focus on “effectively streamlin[ing] the process of returns,” and the bloc is considering permitting “deportation hubs” in third countries — that is, immediately sending asylum seekers out of the EU before they are then subjected to removal proceedings.

Greece’s current three-month suspension of asylum is a trial run and another revelation that its government aims to reduce the protected right to asylum to smithereens. It is legislation built on racist rhetoric and a specious state of emergency. It is a dark march toward the end of asylum, vociferously supported by the EU.