Greece: The asylum seekers heading Greece in the hope of better life need to be cleared off of the smoke screen they have formed. The Greek Government is trying to tackle the menace of immigrant trafficking in the country while trying the ones involved in immigrant trafficking.
Another asylum seeker, after waiting for almost three years, is going to be tried for the crime of “immigrant trafficking”, with the only alleged aggravating factor being the testimony of port officers that he was driving the boat that transported him and 28 other people. Such cases allow the Greek government to celebrate its so-called war on traffickers, but in reality all they do is facilitate them — placing the blame, along with excruciating prison sentences, on innocent people.
In 2014, shortly before the mass exodus of refugees from Syria began, the Greek government implemented Law 4251/2014 , which imposed harsh penalties on traffickers — the “carriers,” as the law refers to them. 4251/2014 punishes “Masters or captains (…) of a means of transport” with imprisonment
a) up to 10 years (and a fine) for each person transported,
b) with at least 10 years (and a fine) for each person if speculation is proven,
c ) with at least 15 years (and fine) for each person if danger to human life may result from the act, and
d)with life (and fine) if death ensues.
These penalties were slightly modified for the better by the change of the Criminal Code in June 2019, setting maximum limits for only some of the penalties.
The upshot of the law was that if anyone transported, say ten people, they risked a first-trial conviction of up to 100 years in prison—and that was unless it could be proven that they had been paid to do so. A conservative reader might solemnly assume that such heavy penalties would spell the end of trafficking and traffickers.
However, this hypothetical reader would be calculating without understanding the very role of the Greek state. With the closed borders and the non-existence of “legal avenues” to seek asylum in Greece, the state essentially creates the need for the “profession” of traffickers.
And in the way it applies the law, it places the responsibility of “trafficking” on the trafficked themselves. Instead of combating trafficking rings, it criminalizes the people who exploit them. It is enough for a representative of the Authorities to see them behind the wheel — or claim to have seen them.
On Monday, May 8, 2023, an asylum seeker who is accused of “facilitating the illegal entry of 29 people”, was tried in Mytilini.
The asylum seeker arrived in Lesbos on a boat with 29 other people on March 1, 2020, coincidentally the same day Greece suspended for a month the right to apply for asylum under the pretext of the “asymmetric threat” of refugees and migrants trying to cross the Evros border with the encouragement of Turkey.
It should be noted here, in addition to the responsibilities of Greece, and the enormous responsibilities of the European Union, which with the agreement to designate Turkey as a “safe country” in 2016, gave the Erdogan regime the role of border guard to keep refugees and immigrants from outside European territory.
After denying him the right to file an asylum application, the Greek state imprisoned him during that one month in the port of Mytilene and then transferred him to the migrant camp of Malakasa. A year after his arrival, he remembered to press charges against him, based on the testimony of two coastguards who stated that he was driving the boat.
However, he has been perhaps a little lucky. This is because there is video that proves that he was not holding the steering wheel of the boat, destroying the only evidence against him. The video was shown to authorities during the pre-trial hearing, leading to his release pending trial — but, curiously, not enough to get him acquitted.
Many others, in the same fate as did not have the same “luck” as him.
Filling prisons with ‘traffickers’
As Kathimerini revealed in October 2022 , now more than 20% of the people incarcerated in Greek prisons are convicted or accused of migrant smuggling, constituting the second largest group of prisoners by category, with trafficking as the first drugs.
The journalist of Kathimerini, Yiannis Souliotis, called the figures of the Ministry of Defense “impressive”, according to which there was a rapid increase in arrests with this charge. What he did not mention, however, is that among the total of 2,223 prisoners there are also many who are accused in the same way.
Akif Rajuly and Amir Zahiri, both Afghan refugees, had to go to the appeals court to have the former’s 50-year sentence overturned and the latter’s sentence reduced to eight years, so they could both be released.
The two refugees arrived on the same boat in Greek territory, with Zahiri taking with him his minor daughter and his pregnant wife. Who would not take the helm of the boat so that he and his people would not die?
In the case of Mohamed Hanad Abdi, a Somali who took the helm of the ship he was on at gunpoint from the trafficker, the sentence reached 146 years in prison. This is despite the fact that Abdi helped rescue 33 of those on board when the ship capsized — two had drowned. He too had to go to the Court of Appeal to be released after his sentence was reduced to 8 years.
In theory at least, there are exceptions to the heavy charges of trafficking law. After incorporating a European directive, Law 4332/2015 exempted the “cases of rescuing people at sea, the transport of people in need of international protection according to the dictates of international law, as well as in cases of promotion within the country or facilitation of transport, to the purpose of subjection” to international protection.
In essence, however, the Greek justice system takes this provision into account only when it is forced to do so.
As legal and humanitarian organizations complain, the Greek authorities systematically treat asylum seekers as “traffickers”, detaining them for a long period of time (analysis published in 2020 by the organization bordermonitoring.eu, spoke of an average of 279 days of pre-trial detention before the first trial, between the years 2015 and 2019) , and circumvent their right to a fair trial, with extremely short trials (average of 48 trials from the analysis above: 38 minutes) often without adequate legal representation and without adequate interpretation.
In addition, those accused or convicted of migrant smuggling also face the freezing or denial of their asylum application, respectively. And this is because a conviction for “facilitating illegal entry” may not in itself lead to exclusion from the right to apply for asylum, but a prison sentence of more than three years, which “facilitating illegal entry” carries as a penalty, does.
The whip of the “traffickers” invention
The criminalization of asylum seekers by the Greek state as “traffickers” is the second whip with which the Greek government celebrates its supposedly “successful” and ” harsh, but fair” immigration policy.
The first is, of course, the refoulements — illegal under international law, Greece simultaneously denies that it applies to them , but also admits them with the praise of the Ministries of Immigration and Pro.Po. on “preventing the entry of illegal immigrants”.
Similar bilingualism exists in the “war on traffickers”. The Greece authorities are inventing “traffickers” when in fact they are imposing death sentences on the people the traffickers are exploiting — traffickers who would not exist if there was an alternative.
In the same way , after all, it persecutes the Greek state and members of humanitarian, legal and rescue organizations. Even the simple act of notifying the Greek authorities about the whereabouts of asylum seekers can bring the charge of “forming a criminal organization” .
