July, 19 2016, 03:15pm EDT
Greece: Migrant Children in Police Cells
Dreadful Conditions; Transfer Them to Open Facilities
ATHENS
Greek authorities regularly detain asylum-seeking and other migrant children traveling on their own in small, crowded, and unsanitary police station cells, Human Rights Watch said today. They are held there for weeks and months, waiting for space in shelter facilities.
Greece should immediately end this practice and find space for unaccompanied children in open facilities with decent living conditions where they can receive care, counseling, legal aid, and other basic services.
"Police cells are no place for children who have fled their countries, endured perilous journeys, and are all alone in Greece," said Rebecca Riddell, Europe fellow at Human Rights Watch. "Locking vulnerable children in cramped and dirty cells for weeks or months is never an acceptable alternative for kids who need and deserve care and protection."
Although detaining children in police stations was originally intended as a short-term protection measure, a lack of shelters and other alternatives has led to arbitrary prolonged detention in places unfit for children, Human Rights Watch said. According to National Center for Social Solidarity (EKKA), as of July 18 an estimated 18 children were locked in police stations awaiting transfer, while hundreds of other unaccompanied children were held in large detention centers, including on the Greek islands, where they were not free to leave.
On visits to two police stations between June 26 and July 1, 2016, Human Rights Watch spoke with 11 children, some as young as 14, who had been detained for up to two months. Human Rights Watch was not allowed to look at the cells.
The children described unsanitary, overcrowded cells, including dirty blankets and bugs, and lack of access to information or services such as counseling and legal aid. At a police station in northeast Greece, children said a broken shower drain was causing water to flood their cell and that they used their clothes to block the water. The station commander said that as many as 23 children had recently been in a cell with a capacity of 10.
"Babrak K.," a 16-year-old boy from Afghanistan, said that before being transferred to the station in northwest Greece where Human Rights Watch spoke to him, he spent five days in a nearby police station in a windowless, vermin-infested basement cell. He said that four people shared three mattresses on the floor, and that the toilet had no door. He said that food was thrown into the cell through a small slot in the door and that because detainees were not provided with cups, he drank water from a discarded food container.
At both police stations, children said they were not allowed to leave their small cells. Some said their meeting with Human Rights Watch was the first time in weeks that they had left their cells.
Records at one police station showed that the eight children held there had been in police custody for an average of one month. "Javed S." a 16-year-old boy from Afghanistan who had been in police custody for 52 days, said: "The situation is very bad...I feel alone here, far from my family, from my friends...I need to get out of this hell."
Senior police officers interviewed acknowledged that the arrangement was undesirable. The head of the Aliens Police Division in Thessaloniki, Brigadier Pantelakis Georgios, said, "This is not what we want. These children are not detainees." The Thesprotia police director, Ntontis Ilias, said, "Apart from being police officers, we are also parents.... Of course we agree children should not be handled by us, but for now it's the best available option."
Human Rights Watch saw children who appeared to be experiencing psychological distress and spoke with two who had attempted to harm themselves. One had used a razor to make small cuts on his arm and another had stopped eating and contemplated suicide. A psychologist at a shelter for unaccompanied children, Fivos Kolovos, stressed that the lack of access to support in detention can be particularly harmful: "Being in detention and having psychological issues is the worst combination. No one can take care of you, not even your friends who are in the cell with you." There was no routine access to psychological care at the police stations visited.
Many of the children interviewed said they had not received information about their rights or about the process for seeking asylum. None had an opportunity to speak with the police with the help of an interpreter. "Houmam B.," a 17-year-old who said he was from Syria and had been in police custody for 10 days, said he had not been able to communicate with the police at all: "I've never spoken to an interpreter, I ask for help from my friends."
Children said they had fled violence, child recruitment, or crushing poverty. Babrak K. said he stopped going to school in Afghanistan when the Taliban executed two of his classmates: "It happened in an instant. The Taliban came and cut off the heads of two boys." He said he finally left Afghanistan after the Taliban sent a written threat to his family.
The detention of unaccompanied children due to a shortage of sufficient and adequate accommodation is a chronic problem in Greece. According to the National Center for Social Solidarity (EKKA), the government authority responsible for managing the placement of unaccompanied children in shelters, Greece has only 661 shelter spaces for unaccompanied children. As of July 18, all facilities were full, and 1,394 requests for placement were pending. EKKA received more than twice the number of requests for transfers of unaccompanied children to shelters in the first quarter of 2016 than in the first quarter of 2015. According to UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, more than 60,300 children have reached Greece by sea since the beginning of 2016, 38 percent of total sea arrivals. There are no reliable statistics on how many of these children are unaccompanied.
Applicable Greek law, as amended in April, says that detention of children should be avoided and that unaccompanied children should not be detained as a rule, but only in very exceptional cases as a last resort. However, the law still foresees the possibility of detaining unaccompanied children for up to 25 days pending referral to a dedicated reception facility, and an extension of 20 days if the child cannot be transferred due to exceptional circumstances, such as the arrival of a large number of unaccompanied children. According to police records at a station Human Rights Watch visited at the end of June, five children had been in police custody in excess of 25 days and two had been in custody more than 45 days.
The law also calls for all children in detention to be "given the possibility to occupy themselves with activities, including games and recreational activities appropriate for their age." But Human Rights Watch found no evidence that the children in police cells had any such opportunities. While this law improves upon the previous framework, which provided no clear time limit, it falls short of providing adequate protection to prevent prolonged detention of children, or securing appropriate conditions in the child's best interest, if detention occurs.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Greece is a party, says that children can only be detained as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate period. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which oversees states' compliance with the convention, has concluded that "[d]etention cannot be justified solely on the basis of the child being unaccompanied or separated, or on their migratory or residence status, or lack thereof." International standards and the 2010 EU Action Plan on Unaccompanied Minors specify that, in the exceptional cases when unaccompanied children are detained, their best interests must be taken into account. Children in detention have a right to recreation and to education, and should have access to basic necessities, appropriate medical and psychological care, and legal assistance.
Greek authorities should avoid detaining unaccompanied children and should adapt Greek law and practice to ensure that children are detained only in exceptional circumstances and for the shortest appropriate period, Human Rights Watch said. Even before any change in law or the establishment of sufficient dedicated shelters, authorities should not detain children in police cells when facilities with better conditions are available. Authorities should transfer children to transitional facilities, including designated safe spaces in refugee camps and other open facilities.
The Greek government should make it a priority to establish open, dedicated shelters with sufficient capacity, where unaccompanied children can get the care and support they need and to which they are entitled under national and international law. The European Union should provide the necessary resources to support such facilities.
"Children who have fled violence and poverty and encountered danger along the way shouldn't face prolonged detention and neglect when they arrive in Greece," Riddell said. "Greece's goal may well be to try to protect these children, but it can't do that by locking them in dirty, crowded police cells, and making police play caretakers."
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
LATEST NEWS
Privacy Defenders Decry 'Spy Draft' in Section 702 Renewal Advanced by Senate
"It's not about who RISAA allows the government to spy on, it's about who RISAA allows the government to force to spy," explained one critic.
Apr 18, 2024
Civil liberties defenders on Thursday decried the U.S. Senate's advancement of the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, which critics say lawmakers are trying to ram through without protection against warrantless surveillance and with a provision that would effectively make every American a spy whether they like it or not.
Senators voted 67-32 in favor of a cloture motion to begin voting on RISAA, a bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which expires on Friday. FISA—a highly controversial law that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times—allows warrantless surveillance of non-U.S. citizens but also often sweeps up Americans' communication data in the process.
In a 273-147 vote last week, House lawmakers passed RISAA, including an amendment critics say dramatically expands the government's unchecked surveillance authority by compelling a wide range of individuals and organizations—including businesses and the media—to cooperate in government spying operations.
This so-called "Make Everyone a Spy" clause would allow the attorney general or director of national intelligence to force electronic communication service providers to "immediately provide... all information, facilities, or assistance" the government deems necessary.
"This bill would basically allow the government to institute a spy draft," Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, warned Thursday. "It will lead to significant distrust between journalists and sources, not to mention everyone else."
"It's not about who RISAA allows the government to spy on, it's about who RISAA allows the government to force to spy," he added. "Regardless of whether the end target of the surveillance is a foreigner, it's indisputable that the people the government can enlist to conduct the surveillance are Americans. And what's more, these civilians ordered to spy would be gagged and sworn to secrecy under the law."
In addition to the "Make Everyone a Spy" provision, civil libertarians have sounded the alarm over the House lawmakers' rejection of an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the legislation.
Critics accuse Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and colleagues including Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) of trying to rush a vote on RISAA while disingenuously claiming Section 702's powers will expire with the law on Friday. That's a misleading claim, as a national security court earlier this month approved the government's request to continue a disputed surveillance program even if Section 702 lapses.
"There is simply no defense of Majority Leader Schumer and Sen. Warner's duplicity," Sean Vitka, policy director at the progressive advocacy group Demand Progress, said in a statement. "House Intelligence Committee leaders poisoned this bill with one of the most repugnant surveillance expansions in history, and apparently the administration was too busy attacking commonsense privacy protections to notice. They know it, we know it, and now the American people know it."
"There can be no mistake: Sens. Schumer and Warner just helped hand the next president an unspeakably dangerous weapon that will be used against their own constituents," Vitka added. "And there is only one vote left to stop it."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)—who
said earlier this week that the bill would dragoon the American people into becoming "an agent for Big Brother"—on Thursday argued that "this issue demands a debate about meaningful reforms, not a rushed vote to rubber-stamp more warrantless government surveillance powers."
In an attempt to tackle the warrantless surveillance issue, Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) on Thursday proposed a RISAA amendment that would require the government to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before accessing Americans' private communications.
However, the amendment contains exceptions to the warrant requirement in the event of unspecified emergencies and cyberattacks.
"If the government wants to spy on the private communications of Americans, they should be required to get approval from a judge—just as our Founders intended," Durbin said in a statement. "Congress has a responsibility to the American people to get this right."
The Biden administration and U.S. intelligence agencies vehemently oppose the Durbin-Cramer amendment. The White House called the measure "a reckless policy choice contrary to the key lessons of 9/11 and not grounded in any constitutional requirement or statute."
"The amendment outright bars the government from gaining access to lawfully collected information using terms associated with U.S. persons," the administration added. "Exceptions to that prohibition are narrow and unworkable. They are insufficient to protect our national security."
On Wednesday, the House also passed the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act, which would prohibit the government from buying Americans' information from data brokers if it would otherwise need a warrant to obtain the data, which includes location and internet records. The Senate will now take up FANFSA.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'The Opposite of Leadership': US Vetoes Palestine's UN Membership
Palestine's permanent observer at the United Nations said the resolution's failure "will not break our will, and it will not defeat our determination."
Apr 18, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration on Thursday used the country's veto power at the United Nations Security Council to block Palestine's bid to become a full member of the U.N.
While 12 nations voted in favor of Palestinian membership and two abstained, the United States is one of five countries—along with China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom—who have veto authority at the Security Council.
Since Israel launched what the International Court of Justice has said is a "plausibly" genocidal assault of the Gaza Strip in response to a Hamas-led October attack, the Biden administration has blocked three cease-fire resolutions at the Security Council. Under mounting global pressure, the U.S. finally abstained last month, allowing a cease-fire measure to pass.
In the lead-up to Thursday's vote, the Biden administration was pressuring other countries to oppose the Palestinian Authority's renewed membership effort so it could possibly avoid a veto, according to leaked cables obtained by The Intercept.
"Take a moment to ponder how isolated Biden has made the U.S.," said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, after the veto. "Biden lobbied Japan, South Korea, and Ecuador HARD to oppose the Palestine resolution so that the U.S. wouldn't have to veto. They refused. So Biden cast his fourth veto in seven months (!!) This is the opposite of leadership."
In addition to the nations Parsi highlighted, Algeria, China, France, Guyana, Malta, Mozambique, Russia, Sierra Leone, and Slovenia voted for giving Palestine full U.N. membership while Switzerland and the United Kingdom abstained.
After the vote, U.N. Newsreported on remarks from Riyad Mansour, a U.N. permanent observer for the state of Palestine:
"We came to the Security Council today as an important historic moment, regionally and internationally, so that we could salvage what can be saved. We place you before a historic responsibility to establish the foundations of a just and comprehensive peace in our region."
Council members were given the opportunity "to revive the hope that has been lost among our people" and to translate their commitment towards a two-state solution into firm action "that cannot be maneuvered or retracted," and the majority of council members "have risen to the level of this historic moment, and they have stood on the side of justice and freedom and hope, in line with the ethical and humanitarian and legal principles that must govern our world and in line with simple logic."
"The fact that this resolution did not pass will not break our will, and it will not defeat our determination," Mansour added. "We will not stop in our effort. The state of Palestine is inevitable. It is real. Perhaps they see it as far away, but we see it as near, and we are the faithful."
Parsi said that "a Western-friendly senior Global South diplomat" told him of Biden's veto: "Whatever agonizing claim the U.S. had to lead a self-appointed free world has died a very loud public death on the Security Council horseshoe tonight. YOU CAN'T LEAD IF YOU CAN'T LISTEN."
Biden, a Democrat seeking reelection in November, has faced fierce criticism in the United States and around the world for U.S. complicity in Israel's war on Gaza—which Hamas, not the Palestinian Authority, has controlled for nearly two decades. In under seven months, Israeli forces have killed 33,970 Palestinians, injured another 76,770, displaced most of the besieged enclave's 2.3 million population, devastated civilian infrastructure, and severely limited the flow of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
Israel—which already got $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid before October 7—continues to receive weapons support from the Biden administration, even as a growing chorus of critics, including some Democrats in Congress, argues that the arms transfers violate U.S. and international law.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Shameful': Columbia Greenlights Police Crackdown on Anti-War Encampment
Even after dozens of students were arrested, hundreds "rushed to take the place of their classmates" and continued the protest.
Apr 18, 2024
The arrests of dozens of Columbia University and Barnard College students on Thursday "galvanized" other supporters of Palestinian rights on the campuses, as hundreds of students occupied the school's western lawn after New York City police filled at least two buses with protesters who had been detained for setting up an encampment.
"Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest," chanted hundreds of students as they marched around the area where organizers had set up a tent encampment early Wednesday morning.
Columbia President Minouche Shafik informed the campus community on Thursday that she had authorized the police to clear the encampment.
As it has been in the past, the school has become a center of anti-war protests—and crackdowns by school officials and the police—since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in October.
Pro-Palestinian students and alumni have demanded that Columbia divest from companies that profit from Israel's apartheid policies in the occupied Palestinian territories and cancel its dual degree program with Tel Aviv University.
In response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Columbia in November suspended the campus chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine—an action that pushed the New York Civil Liberties Union and Palestine Legal to file a lawsuit on behalf of the students last month.
On Thursday, police and Columbia employees took down about 50 tents that had been up for more than a day and disposed of them in trash cans and alleyways—but The New York Times reported later that "demonstrators repitched a couple of tents, and ... recovered the main signage from the encampment as well," while hundreds of students were "still gathered and chanting on the south side of the grass."
The arrests came a day after Shafik testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce about antisemitism on campus.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), whose daughter, Isra Hirsi, was among the Barnard students who were suspended on Thursday for participating in the encampment protest, questioned Shafik about whether antisemitic protests have actually taken place at Columbia, prompting the president to say there have not.
"There has been a rise in targeting and harassment against anti-war protesters, because it's been pro-war and anti-war protesters is what it seems, like, correct?" asked Omar.
"Correct," replied Shafik.
On Thursday, Omar posted on social media two images of protesters at Columbia: one from the encampment this week, and one from 1968, when students protested the U.S. war in Vietnam.
New York City Council member Tiffany Cabán was among those who condemned the university's crackdown on the protests on Thursday.
"Suspending and arresting Columbia/Barnard student activists and disbanding student organizations—including Jewish students and organizations—doesn't combat antisemitism or increase safety," said Cabán. "All it does is punish and intimidate those who believe in human rights for Palestinians. Shameful."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular