Humanitarian Governance

109 organisations call for the immediate withdrawal of the illegal suspension of access to asylum in Greece.

The new issue of the Greek Asylum Case Law Report released today provides excerpts from 82 decisions by administrative, civil and criminal courts, the Independent Appeals Committees and the Asylum Service, issued in the first half of 2025.

Granting of refugee status to survivors and supplementary criminal investigation. The survivors of the Pylos shipwreck on 14 June 2023, whom we legally represent, along with most other survivors, were finally granted refugee status at the end of 2024, following persistent efforts, and while some of their asylum applications had initially been rejected at the first instance.

Clear evidence of serious criminal liability among senior Coast Guard officers – Unacceptable interference by the Ministry of Shipping

Even asylum interviews are no longer being conducted
Severe deficiencies in interpretation services over recent months have affected both refugee camps in Greece and the Greek Asylum Service. These gaps now hinder the state’s ability to provide essential services.

On Friday, November 1, 2024, the Single-Member Misdemeanor Court of Mytilene issued a verdict on the events of March 1, 2020, at the port of Thermi on the island of Lesvos, concerning the attack on German photojournalist Michael Trammer and the racially motivated acts of violence against newly arrived refugees.

On Friday 4 October 2024 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), in line with the Advocate’s General Opinion, ruled that Member States cannot issue a decision rejecting an asylum application as inadmissible on the basis of the concept of a “safe third country” in cases where they have established that the asylum seeker will not be allowed to enter the territory of a country designated as safe.

Asylum seekers in Greece have once again been denied their legal right to dignified living conditions after months of delay in payments of cash assistance, leaving people without an income and unable to meet their basic needs. Beneficiaries of the cash assistance program have been informed via text message that delays are occurring. However, there has been no public announcement from the Ministry of Migration and Asylum regarding the cause of the delays or how long they will last, leaving people in the dark about when to expect payments to resume.