Detention Landscapes

In April 2024 Border Criminologies, Mobile Info Team and the Border Violence Monitoring Network launched a database which is the first interactive, open access platform providing evidence about human rights violations inside detention facilities in Greece. The database, which draws on more than ten years of research, three years of close collaboration between the three organisations, and testimony collection from people with experience of detention in the country, documents both the active and insidious forms of violence people on the move face within diverse spaces of containment in Greece. It is a tool for lawyers, researchers, and civil society actors. It aims to support litigation efforts and provide a model that can be replicated across different localities. 

Detention Landscapes includes:

• 57 Detention Site Profiles documenting the locations, functions and ownership of facilities where foreign nationals are held under administrative detention The platform includes a historical overview of key facilities being used, as well as basic information about the spaces, including the provision of services. Adopting a historical approach, we show the continuum of human rights violations over the years. The overview presents the centres as they are experienced and shaped by migrants’ presence and their struggles, with information about ongoing resistance inside them. 
• 87 Testimonies from people who were previously detained in Greece, attesting to severe lack of access to services and support and appalling living conditions 
• 78 Photos and Videos revealing dire physical conditions inside secretive detention sites 
• 101 Incidents of violent human rights violations inside detention facilities 
• 362 Resources including academic literature reports, media articles and contracts with useful information on immigration detention practices 

Testimonies gathered by researchers affiliated with BVMN, Mobile Info Team and Border Criminologies between 2020 and 2024 attest to asylum seekers and undocumented people being detained in appalling conditions in prison-like facilities and overcrowded police stations. Individuals have reported brutal violence after long periods of arbitrary detention in degrading living conditions such as insect-infested cells and limited access to hot water, sufficient food, and medical care - even in emergency situations. These reports aren’t limited to individual facilities, but are endemic across the country in closed camps and pre-removal detention centres alike. 

While this is a collaborative effort that draws on extensive research and brings together a wide range of resources, we acknowledge that this is a non-exhaustive and evolutional tool. Legislative changes, both on the domestic and European level, fluctuations of international mobility affected by wars, climate change and destitution, arbitrary practices of law enforcement depending on the political party in power, and hidden facilities and practices make research and providing evidence around detention a daunting task. For this reason, the database seeks to generate a community of users and contributors to make the platform sustainable in the long-run. We encourage activists, volunteers, migrants and their families and friends, researchers, practitioners and the wider public to document hidden facilities and practices, through our detention submission form (anonymously if they wish). The information provided will be rigorously reviewed by senior researchers. Moreover, there will soon be a testimony submission form available, in different languages. People will be able to share their experience in any format, written, audio or video. For now, individuals who have relevant information about human rights violations inside immigration detention facilities in Greece are welcome to contact us and discuss how this information can be included in the platform.

The database was funded by the ESRC-IAA, Open Society Foundations, and Wellcome Trust, and was set up by HURIDOCS.