On 4 and 5 September 2025, the Administrative Court of First Instance of Piraeus issued temporary orders prohibiting the removal from Greece of three refugees who were not allowed to apply for asylum following the unlawful suspension of the right to access asylum. The applicants have been detained in the Amygdaleza detention center since July. These decisions follow earlier rulings of the European Court of Human Rights and the Administrative Court of First Instance of Athens.
The three refugees, originating from Yemen and Sudan, are jointly represented by the organizations Equal Rights Beyond Borders (Equal Rights) and HIAS Greece. They have been detained in degrading conditions, without receiving any information from the Greek authorities regarding the reasons and duration of their detention and their rights as detainees, and without access to interpretation. They all submitted applications for international protection, but the Asylum Service explicitly refused to register them, citing recent legislation suspending access to asylum for 3 months. With extremely brief and boilerplate decisions, the police ordered their return to their country of origin or transit, Libya, and rejected their appeals against these decisions with standardized decisions containing no legal reasoning, without taking into account the documented serious risks they would face if removed. Until today, the persons that have managed to gain access to legal assistance are only a fraction of those detained on the grounds of the suspension of access to asylum procedures. Dozens of others remain without legal representation and exposed to the risk of refoulement.
The temporary orders of the Administrative Court of First Instance of Piraeus add to earlier European and national court decisions, as well as numerous interventions by institutional bodies and civil society organizations. Since the three-month suspension of access to asylum procedures for those entering Greece via North African countries came into force, these actors have consistently raised the alarm about the risk of returning war refugees to countries where they face the danger of being killed, tortured, or subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment—actions that would violate Greece’s international obligations.
"Asylum applications have to be registered immediately and the right to asylum has to be restored. These decisions highlight the crucial importance of judicial review as a pillar of democracy and, therefore, the importance of universal access to effective legal assistance for all persons entering Greece. At the same time, amid threats against legal organizations and an all-out attack by the Greek government on human rights defenders, they are vindicating the latters’ role in defending the rule of law and the fundamental rights of asylum seekers.” say Christina Svana, lawyer from Equal Rights, and Efstathia Thanou, lawyer from HIAS Greece.
For more information:
HIAS Greece
Effie Thanou
Equal Rights Beyond Borders