About Aegean Migrant Solidarity
The Aegean Migrant Solidarity team has been present on the Greek island of Lesvos since 2014, working on witnessing and documenting the realities of people on the move at the borders of Europe. Ever since the beginning of its work, AMS has focused on working together with networks and organizations whose work is rooted in undoing oppressions. The team’s work has varied throughout the years and the different circumstances.
In the present, the main focus of the AMS team is on the Criminalisation of Migration. By “Criminalisation of Migration”, we refer to the Greek and European policies that treat People on the Move as criminals rather than as individuals seeking refuge or better opportunities.
Key aspects include:
Legal Framework: Migrants often face harsh legal repercussions, including detention and deportation. Laws have been enacted that impose penalties on those who assist migrants or enter the country “illegally”.
Harsh detention Practices: Many migrants are placed in detention centers under poor conditions. These centers often lack adequate healthcare, sanitation, and legal assistance, leading to serious human rights concerns.
Police Enforcement: Increased policing at the borders and within urban areas aims to deter irregular migration.
Political Rhetoric: Political discourse often frames migration as a security threat, which can further stigmatize migrants and justify punitive measures.
Impact on Asylum Seekers: The processing of asylum claims can be slow and fraught with challenges, leading to prolonged uncertainty and vulnerability for many individuals.
Human Rights Concerns: NGOs and human rights organizations have raised alarms about violations of migrant’s rights, including access to asylum procedures, legal representation, and humane treatment.
In the case of Lesvos specifically, we have seen over time the construction and application of all kinds of domestic and European exemption regimes. Detention centres for migrants are built, filled, burned, emptied and rebuilt. Multinational and domestic security forces ‘protect’ the borders from those who try to cross them. At the same time racist practices are overtly implemented at an institutional level, with the courts being no exception.
The role of the law and the courts is central to the maintenance of the border system (and the violence that accompanies it); most of the time they are there to validate and legitimize central anti-migration policy agendas, criminalizing migration and solidarity.
That is why the central focus of the team at the moment is organizing and participating in campaigns and networks, which are supporting people on the move that are getting systematically criminalized, as well as supporting incarcerated people on the move, who have faced the harsh consequences of this punitive criminalization regime.
In this context, one of the most important activities of the AMS Team is Trial Monitoring. More specifically, over the years, the team has attended dozens of trials, with our main objective being to establish a presence inside the courtrooms, in order to monitor and document judicial practices. Our work seeks to highlight and address any arbitrary actions by judicial authorities, ensuring greater transparency and accountability, while advocating for the fairest possible trial processes.
The trials monitored by the AMS team fall into four primary categories, which reflect broader trends into the matter of “Criminalization of Migration”:
Trials of migrants accused of being “smugglers”:
Greek legislation on smuggling, in practice, broadens the scope of criminal responsibility to a troubling extent. Under current law, an individual can be accused as a “smuggler” without any evidence of financial gain. This legal framework effectively criminalizes migration itself, as migrants who cross by boat from Turkey to Greece—or even to Italy—are often charged as “smugglers”.
Our monitoring efforts have exposed numerous violations of the right to a fair trial –as it is defined in national and European legislation-, including inadequate or non-existent translation services, zero preparation time between state-appointed lawyers and defendants, and disproportionately harsh sentences. Some defendants have been sentenced to over 100 years of imprisonment without substantial evidence or credible witnesses.
In recent years, cases of this nature have gained significant attention. International media outlets, human rights organizations, and even the European Parliament have spotlighted these miscarriages of justice. Collaborating with other organizations, we have co-published relevant reports such as “Incarcerating the Marginalized“, analyzing these miscarriages of justice and call for systemic reforms.
Trials of human rights defenders accused of “smuggling” and/or “facilitating illegal entry”:
A particularly alarming phenomenon is the criminalization of solidarity. These trials target members of civil society organizations, search and rescue crews, and volunteers who provide humanitarian aid to migrants. Such cases are less frequent than those targeting migrants directly, but their occurrence reflects a growing trend in countries like Greece and Italy, where restrictive migration policies increasingly equate humanitarian assistance with criminal acts.
By monitoring these cases, we seek to expose the unjust prosecution of individuals and groups who embody the principles of transnational solidarity. Through our involvement in transnational networks, we aim to increase awareness and support the accused.
Trials of migrants accused of participating in protests/mobilizations:
Protest and mobilization among migrants are often met with harsh repression by authorities. Racial profiling and targeted arrests are commonly used by the Greek police to intimidate, disrupt, and suppress protests. Such tactics were especially prevalent in Moria RIC and in the urban areas of Mytilene. Arrests often serve to invisibilize migrants from public spaces and create a chilling effect on collective action.
While fewer new trials of this nature have emerged recently, there remain numerous pending cases, particularly at the level of appeal. We continue to follow these cases, documenting their progression and advocating for justice.
Cases of racist violence against migrants:
Although the law on racist crime in Greece has been in force since 2014, the number of racially motivated cases that have reached the Greek courts is very low, and completely disproportionate to the number of reported racist attacks. In Lesvos in particular, there are several cases of this kind that have not yet been adjudicated, and we are following them closely, both in cooperation with the lawyers who have taken them on, as well as with the support of victims and witnesses. By standing in solidarity with victims of racial violence, we aim to challenge the systemic impunity that too often shields perpetrators.
In addition to court monitoring, our work extends beyond the courtroom. As AMS team, one of our main goals is to report on the realities that people on the move are experiencing on the European borders of Greece.
Our most recently released report is titled “Deadly End” and addresses the migrant deaths that took place in the notorious Moria camp in Lesvos, Greece. By collecting information about the circumstances of those deaths, we intended to light the conditions that many border crossers had to endure.
From our point of view, the way detention centers were built and operated implicitly foretold of the migrant deaths that followed. In other words, according to testimonies of people we spoke to, the distance between life and death becomes dangerously close inside the detention center. It’s precisely this liminal space that we tried to describe.
Moria RIC was a place whose conditions were certainly not designed to sustain life. At its peak, Moria camp constituted the second largest ‘city’ in Lesvos, made up exclusively of those considered “non-citizens”— for whom ambulance services refused to respond, for whom police refused protection, and whose dead were not even given the respect of being remembered.
People’s deaths inside Moria RIC, were-to varying degrees-directly related to living conditions in the camp, thus, to European migration policies. Yet, nobody was charged for them, in some cases no investigation has been conducted around their circumstances. On the contrary, we would argue that the Greek state acted in bad faith regarding migrant’s deaths in Moria RIC, by actively spreading misinformation on many occasions that attempted to redirect blame onto those living in the camp.
You can find and read the full report on our website.
Throughout these years, Lesvos has countless human stories to tell. Stories of struggle and solidarity as well as stories of racism, indifference and pain. A small part of these stories are told through the contribution of the CPT-Aegean Migrant Solidarity team to the mosaic of Lesvos.