The choice of these locations is purposeful, it's intended to isolate people on the move
from wider society, but also to allow people to kind of forget that people seeking safety
are here.
Whatever, however modern or, you know, technological the structure is presented and looks like,
or how clean and tidy it looks like, the same violation always happens in this kind of structure.
They keep on violating people's rights in the same way.
Hello and welcome to this episode of Easy Meet a Lady.
My name is Toby and in this episode we will go over the history, facts and circumstances
around the construction of the new Vastria facility close to Colony here on Lesbos.
In order to get an overview of the aforementioned I spoke to several people that could shed
light on the facts.
Ozan and Marion from Legal Centre Lesbos and Ella from the organization I Have Rights.
In addition I had the assistance of a local person who did a lot of research into news
articles and bureaucratic papers who was of great support.
The episode will be divided in two distinct parts.
I will start with giving an overview of the background and current status of the facility
and the back half contains excerpts of an interview about the challenges faced by the
inhabitants of the Cantons Samos and the people trying to support them.
So what is Vastria exactly?
Vastria is the colloquial name given to the new migrant facility that is being built in
Platia Vastria, hence the name.
Platia Vastria is a location about 30 kilometers from Itellini, next to a garbage disposal
landfill on a hill in the middle of a forest.
This new facility, a so-called Close Controlled Access Centre, is planned to hold up to 5,000
people with the capacity to scale up if need be.
The facility has been controversial since its announcement and we will dive into this
controversy surrounding both the location, planned facilities and human rights concerns
and discuss expectations for the future.
We will start with some background on Vastria.
It was announced for the first time on the 20th of November 2020.
This first decision for the creation of a closed camp in Vastria was taken by the Ministry
of Migration and at that moment the head of the Ministry of Migration was Notis Micerakis,
jointly with the head of the European Task Force for Lesbos and deputy director of the
European Union's Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs, Piaata Geminder,
after they both visited the island.
Its announcement came after the island went through a period of unrest following the
announcement of a migrant facility in the area of Carava.
Two things are immediately noticeable.
The way they chose the location and the location itself.
The location, Platia Vastria, is about 30 km outside of Mitellini.
It is a plain located in the middle of a forested area with access only through two roads, of
which one is not accessible for larger vehicles.
Therefore, it is only accessible through one road really.
In addition, there are no villages in the facility where for example people could do
groceries.
For contrast, the current facility, the Marovouni camp, is less than 5 km from Mitellini and
right next to a supermarket.
Knowing this, regardless of what is being built there and how, the location itself is
already a clear obstacle for the people who are forced to live there.
The location was first proposed by the then member of the Greek parliament, Charalampou
Astanaisiu and the then mayor of Mitellini, Strati Keteli.
The selected area is private ownership and is known as Eleftherakous area.
It expands up to 600 acres and it will be rented at the price of 70,000 euros a month.
The land is divided over several owners, of which one is a member of the left-wing Andrasia
party, who participate in Lesbos local elections.
But why that location specifically?
It turns out that the migration ministry was very adamant for the camp to be built exactly
there.
It turns out that the ministry played some very dirty tricks in order to make sure that
the camp would be built in Platia Vastia and on Lesbos in general.
According to publicly available descriptions of the procedures involved, the initial meeting
of the representatives of municipalities was not done in a transparent way.
In a shrewd move, the then minister of migration, Notis Mitellakis, withheld the official announcement
of the location in order to remove the need to vote by the municipalities.
Also the presidents of the local council, Dimostensis Sazianis, who did not follow the
normal conduct of the meeting and therefore permitted the exclusion of the local communities
representatives.
In December 2020, the contracts were officially signed, with the announcement of the capacity
of the structure as being 5000 and the inclusion of a pro-KK infrastructure.
This is a detention facility inside the camp.
The idea of Moria is not only to centralise all asylum seekers in the same camp, it's
also to create a massive detention centre inside this already detention centre for deportation.
And this might be the new heart of deportation in the EU, the new platform for deportation
in the EU from the Greek islands.
Like it was in the past inside Moria, there was also a pre-removal detention centre called
Pro-KK, where people were detained under even stricter conditions.
The same is planned inside Vastria for I think it's 3000 people but it could go up to 5000
people's capacity, which means that we are talking about a huge massive prison inside
a huge massive detention centre.
From the moment the announcement was signed and the local media started reporting it,
it was stated that the area of Plataia Vastria is extremely prone to forest fires.
In Greece, forest fires occur frequently in the summer and are able to destroy large portions
of land, as infamously happened last year in multiple parts of Greece and was in the
international news.
The local resistance, at least on a legal base, coming specially from the nearby villages,
specifically the Komis village, which is a bit north of the area, was that they managed
to stop the construction of the road based on the fact of the environmental effect that
the devastation was not within the limitations that it was given in any sort of environmental
impact assessment that was legislated by EU.
But what that practically meant is that road is quite secondary, I mean surely there is
a logistical aspect to it of in and out and it's the only road that can connect the camp
to any close by road but it also meant that you cannot put up sewage pipes and connect
water sources and also you cannot bring electricity.
Because making a road also means that you can implement the infrastructure as you are
building the road, like putting up the electricity line and the metal plants that will actually
carry the wires and also the pipes that will go underneath often happens when you open
up the road because you cannot dig through the forest otherwise.
So that actually, the reason that Marion mentioned about the construction is almost
really except the electricity and the water system, was also coming from this plan.
The second aspect now about the reason of the blockages, the environmental impact assessment
was not within limitations, was not accepted.
However, if it was not accepted, it shouldn't have been accepted in the first place.
The discrepancy is that A, we were never able to reach this environmental impact assessment
which should have been public and transparent in the first place.
B, it legitimizes the fact that it actually existed and went through certain judicial
procedures conducted by the Greek state and also by the European Council.
Since the site is located in a forest area that is classified as a nature reserve area.
The quote unquote black stork is an extremely endangered species and Platyavastia is one
of the only seven locations in the Mediterranean where this species resides.
It also pertains specifically to the construction of one of two roads leading to the camp.
Regulations would normally not allow a massive new construction of this size to take place
in an area designated such as this.
Mitharakis, the minister of migration, removed from the legislation the obligation of the
state to draw up an environmental impact study for the road construction that accompany
the camp structures and subsequently their authorization by the administrative periphery
of each collection of municipalities.
So in short, he removed from the law the obligation to draw up an environmental impact study.
His responsibility is now transferred to the technical service of the Ministry of Immigration
and Asylum.
So he removed the obligation from the environmental ministry and put it under his own ministry,
the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum.
Afterwards, the ministry argued that there would be no need for a permit relating to
this environmental impact study if they would just reduce the amount of envisioned inhabitants
from 5000 to 3000.
Shortly after being left out of the decision making progress altogether, the municipality
council went to the council of state, which is the supreme administrative court in Greece,
and started a court case about this issue.
They won that court case and it was concluded that the construction of the facility had
to be stopped until such an environmental impact study can be done.
Aside from the legal push and pull and the questionable circumstances surrounding the
construction of the facility, about one year ago I started hearing rumors of migrants being
involved in the construction of the camp.
We are talking specifically about migrants who are in their asylum process and therefore
are not allowed to work via Greek law.
It started with a video that I since have not been able to find anymore and in the weeks
Afterwards, me and others tried to get a better overview of the situation.
It turned out to be impossible.
However, several months ago a Dutch website called One World published an article about
Lesbos where one migrant speaks about being employed to work on the camp's construction.
It is very concerning that the Greek state would illegally hire migrants to build their
own facility.
Also important to understanding the impact of the new camp is the concept of the Closed
Controlled Access Center, a CSEC for short.
It must be said that since November 2022 all camps in Greece are classified as such and
therefore are already practicing policy associated with that classification.
The concept of constructing closed facilities where all asylum seekers would be detained
has already been announced by the Greek government.
Actually at the end of 2019, at least officially, I'm sure the plan is even older than that,
but in the end of 2019 when also the new Greek law on asylum and migration was announced
by the Mitsotakis government, they also announced this plan with already explaining that this
would be backed up by EU funding and the European Commission specifically.
That's when we heard about it the first time.
But back then we were not talking about CCAC or Closed Controlled Access Centers.
We were talking about Multipurpose Reception and Identification Center, Mprick.
It's unpronounceable.
Back in the days it was also mysterious what is behind this name actually.
We now understand since those CCACs were finally opened and managed to be opened on other islands
like Samos for instance, what is meant behind the concept of Closed Controlled Access Centers.
In fact, it's a detention center where people are surveilled and controlled,
cannot always get out and in as they wish to, or constantly under CCTV surveillance and police
or private security company controls.
Yes, do not have a freedom of movement or in a closed facility which definitely amounts to
a detention center.
We believe the same if Pastria is actually finished and at some point opens that the same
will happen.
The same kind of detention center, closed detention center will be implemented in Pastria.
What we see already in Mavrovouni, in the meantime Mavrovouni or Karatepe camp was renamed
as a Closed Controlled Access Center.
We've seen that since all the COVID period, the two, three years of COVID period,
people have already been restricted in their freedom of movement in a very, very disproportionate
way that violated their rights in many ways.
The shift to generalized detention centers has happened slowly, slowly thanks to COVID
and yes, now it's finally, it's already there anyway with or without Pastria actually.
Maybe one addition also, I think you summed it up well and this has also been given in our
recent report named a pandemic of abuses where we go through this very specifically
throughout like how this sort of detention, arbitrary detention procedures have taken place
day by day almost.
One, I think the political perspective also about these acronyms, these constant name
changes is to find out also some space and legitimacy of permanent detention.
When you consider like the concept of reception and identification center, it's sole purpose
supposed to be from day one is receiving people and giving them identification for their
procedures, asylum procedures specifically.
Until now, many things are unknown about the upcoming facility in Platia Pastria.
For example, questions like will a bus go from there to Mitelini?
How many people will get access to legal support?
And will people be allowed to go in and out remain unanswered until now?
Of course, if people are put in the camp of Pastria in the middle of the mountain,
even if there is a bus coming, let's say twice a day or three times a day,
it is not sufficient to be able to have a normal free life.
What we do have, however, is a working example of a modern, close controlled access center.
One and a half year ago on Samos Island, a new migrant facility was opened with great fanfare.
It is my opinion that this new facility might give us a good impression of what would be in
store for the people that are forced to live in the facility in Platia Pastria.
And in order to get an overview of the situation in the camp on Samos,
I did an interview with Ella from the organization I Have Rights, a non-profit legal organization.
She will describe for us the work of I Have Rights and give us a description of the conditions
inside the current Samos facility, afterwards referred to as the CSEC.
You will hear excerpts of a longer interview.
Upon arrival to the CSEC, people are default detained. This is in violation of EU law,
which requires that detention always be a measure of last resort and only applied when
strictly necessary. So despite the law, people are default detained. And while I'm speaking to you,
there are hundreds and hundreds of people who are detained within the CSEC,
haven't been provided with any legal documents or formal justifications for their detention,
and have been in this state for a month or longer.
Once people are no longer unlawfully detained, they will be provided accommodation in one of
the sections of the CSEC. There's section A and there's section B.
When you're in the main parts of the CSEC and you're no longer detained, you are still subjected
to a curfew. So the curfew is in place from 8pm to 8am. You must present yourself once or twice
a day, it depends, for food. And if you're not physically present, you will not be fed. So this
also kind of restricts people's freedom to be able to leave because people do not have money to be
able to support themselves and always and to be able to buy food. They also must present themselves
at least once a week for a census. There's also restrictions to what people can bring inside
the closed control access centre. And like I said before, every move is watched.
It's great to read out what the Ministry of Migration writes themselves about the Samos camp,
right? I mean, if it's okay, I can read it out to you. The new closed control centre in Samos is
guarded by the Hellenic police and by private security company 24 hours a day with the presence
of 50 uniformed personnel in each shift. The whole new closed control access centre is surrounded by
a double NATO type security fence, which in combination with the instalment at the entrance
of the necessary control systems, such as turnstiles, magnetic gates, x-rays, two factor
access control systems, including identity cards and fingerprints, ensures secure and controlled
entry and exit from the access centre to whoever is entitled to it. The whole new closed control
access centre is walled by an external NATO type security fence. Additionally, the instalment of
a closed surveillance system is provided throughout the closed control access centre with the use of
smart software in order to alert in time of any emergencies while it is capable of giving
notifications and images to the local event centre, to the centre for management of events
and emergencies and to the control centres of other involved bodies, for instance, the Hellenic
police. Also, fencing along with tourniquets using card readers have been placed in the separate
sections of the new closed control access centre for the protection of their personnel, but also
for the protection of the vulnerable groups such as unaccompanied children and single parent families.
It's a long quote, but I think it really shows how proud they are of taking this highly
securitised approach to people seeking safety. The most common word that people use to hold
in these structures, in the CCAC to describe it, is the prison.
And it doesn't take a lot of imagination to imagine why. There's no shade. The sections of the camp are really just
accommodation containers and almost nothing else. There's a so-called safe zone for unaccompanied children
where they are detained to a subsection of the camp for around 18 hours a day, where they're
then entitled to around seven hours of free time a day where they're allowed to go and play, and I
say that with an inverted commas, in one of the other sections of the closed control access centre
where there's a half-sized football field. The design of the camp, in my opinion, was done to remind people
you are not here for long, you are not welcome, this camp is not for you and your every move is being watched by us.
Now that we have an overview of the practical meaning of the word CCAC, at least on Samuels,
there are a few topics that I would like to highlight from our conversation,
such as the use of artificial intelligence and digital data gathering in the camp.
It's a long quote but I think it really shows how proud they are of taking this highly
securitized approach to people seeking safety, maybe to interrogate some of them slightly.
This use of this smart software is artificial intelligence systems such as biometric data
processing and emotional recognition technology. The alerts that would be issued to
control sensors would likely be through emotional recognition algorithms deciding whether there is a
risk or not in a particular area. What type of algorithms are being used for this emotional
recognition technology, it's not clear. No one has been given any information about if these
systems are actually in place and how they are used and how people's data is being stored.
As with most government structures designed for tight control and surveillance
of its inhabiting populace, it is inherent in the design of the structure.
And I think again the positioning of the structure being far away means that these
cries for their people's rights to be protected are not heard by wider society or it's harder for them
to penetrate the barbed wire fences of the CCAC. So that's something to also think about especially
knowing that in Samos historically there were protests in the town and in Lesbos as well that
there were protests in Lithuania from members of the community and this might change and mean that
people are mobilizing within the structure. And this is also helpful for the authorities because
the way that the closed control access centers are designed it's not just that there's multiple
layers of barbed wire fences but that also the sections of the CCAC are intersected by roads
which patrol cars can drive through with then gates in the fences where they can drag people out.
So there's also it's a structure that is designed to be able to control people so if there is a
protest it's very easy for the authorities to break it up. What's interesting is that we have not seen
mobilizations from the community take place in
Ba'fee for example. All of the protests are peacefully performed in the closed control access
center and so it's strategic in some way that it's very much speaking to the authorities
responsible for the camp or the CCAC because it's where they are but you would not know about this
unless you were in contact with people already that are in the closed control access center.
One of the biggest questions regarding the upcoming Vastga structure is not only the conditions of the
camp itself but also the possibility people will have to get to the city. I asked Ella how they deal
with it on Samuels. But it's also important to highlight the isolation of the closed control
access center. It's very far away from the nearest town. It's at least a two hour walk to get from
Ba'fee to the closed control access center and there is a bus but the bus costs three euros
sixty which maybe to me and you doesn't seem like so much money but if you understand that people
are only provided with cash assistance around two and a half months after they arrive and this cash
assistance is 70 euros only it means that people are living on less than a euro a day.
In addition during our interview we discussed how the organization on Samuels deals with the
change in location. The majority of NGOs have remained in Ba'fee, in the town because we want
to be able to advocate for people to be able to come to town and be part of society and not be
confined and interned to a remote and isolated area. So there's different reasons why people
why organizations remain outside but for the majority of NGOs on Samuels they have taken a
conscious stance to not work inside the closed control access center mostly because of the fear
that our presence there would be a whitewashing tool for the authorities to make this structure
seem more humane and also because the policies of sorry the practices of detention
that we have seen over the last two years have varied a lot so at the beginning
the authorities were not default detaining people upon arrival then they started default
detaining people but did so in a particular way and then for the last two months it's changed
again that they're not even giving people orders for detention they're detaining them in subsections
and so for us especially as legal actors it's important for us to stay outside because I think
if we went to work inside the authorities would say well why does this person ever have to leave
they're getting legal support inside the camp from these lovely volunteers why do they need to leave?
At the time of the recording there are no further updates with regards to the Vastrija camp
and the
facilities provided by Ella we might have some idea of what this new facility might bring and what challenges it brings with it
and when we know that at the European Union level in Brussels they are also at the moment
restarting discussions around you know how to handle migration and asylum in a faster way and
how to return people in a faster way it seems that you know all the parameters with Vastrija
Vastrija is one of the parameters that is coming into place to actually make this happen and make
this possible in the future. I think this structure is a perfect example of the securitization of
migration and how it's very common that our clients will ask us what have I done wrong to
be treated this way I'm not a criminal. Thanks very much for listening this was another episode
of Radio VC Mittellini we are available on cba.it and on Spotify under VC Mittellini
this episode was edited and produced by me Toby for VC Mittellini and Radio Helsinki
special thanks to Ozan and Marion from Legal Center Lesbos, Ella from I Have Right Samos
and Thomas for his diligent and thorough research thank you again