The Greek government has been condemned repeatedly by the ECHR for the detention conditions of migrants. Consequently, Greece had to pay some thousands of Euro as fines/ compensation and still did not improve anything. Since 2000 many detention centers have started getting overcrowded. Now, the Greek police in a press conference criticised themselves the inhuman detention conditions of the overcrowded police stations and detention centers in Attica.
While every detainee has the right of 4m2 in detention in many cells, prisons, they have less than 1m2 and in others three persons might even share 1m2! Some police stations do not even have cells and are not equipped for detention. Most of the times, administrative detainees – such as sans-papiers – are detained along with personal arrested for criminal acts in mixed detention. Even worse many times men, women and children have to share cells.
The officers now demand from the Ministry of Citizen Protection and the Police Headquarters to take on their responsibilities and not shorten the staff in a time when one officers has to guard in average 35 detainees. Furthermore, the officers want the detention centers of Parensti in Drama and Alikarnasso to open and the detention center of Trikala to be enforced with more officers so as to use the whole of the capacities.