Since late September, a Syrian woman seeking asylum in the EU and, particularly, family reunification with her husband in Germany, had been detained in the Kos PRDC under baseless grounds, in conditions incompatible with human dignity, having her procedural rights seriously violated.
Initially, the police deprived her of her right to information in her own language, which led to her being mistakenly registered as a Turkish citizen and prevented her from accessing the asylum procedure. Only after interventions by field actors was her asylum application registered and her Syrian nationality confirmed. Nevertheless, the police continued to detain her in the PRDC on unfounded grounds, pertaining to allegedly unverified data and a purported risk of absconding.
Equal Rights Beyond Borders challenged her detention before the Rhodes Administrative Court of First Instance. According to the Dublin Regulation, detention may be imposed only under specific legal conditions, which did not apply in her case. In particular, this woman could not be reasonably considered a risk of absconding, as doing so would jeopardise her transfer to Germany and the reunification with her husband, a reunification that she – herself – had requested.
Most importantly, Equal Rights brought forward arguments regarding her detention conditions. Alarmingly, there has been a significant increase in the prolonged administrative detention of women in the Kos PRDC under deplorable conditions. Women are held in the same sections as men, exposed to risks of harassment and conditions incompatible with their gender-specific hygiene needs. These circumstances cause them severe psychological distress and constitute a violation of their fundamental rights.
In its decision, the Rhodes Administrative Court found that the fact that the woman’s personal data had indeed been verified was sufficient to render her detention unlawful, without the need for any further examination of her detention conditions.
“This ruling is an important victory, but it also highlights the urgent need to immediately end the detention of women in the PRDC of Kos,” said Christina Balta, Coordinator of the Kos Office of Equal Rights. “We call on the Greek authorities to respect the right to the preservation of human dignity of all displaced persons and to end the use of detention as a default measure.”
Equal Rights Beyond Borders will continue to advocate for an end to arbitrary detention and for the protection of the most vulnerable migrants and refugees.
For more on the inhumane conditions at the Kos PRDC, see our 2024 report: