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Detainees protest against extended incarceration at Xanthi detention centre

28th March 2025

Click here to read the statement in Arabic يرجى النقر هنا لقراءة البيان باللغة العربية

Mobile Info Team has been contacted by people protesting against their extended incarceration in Xanthi pre-removal detention centre, where there are reports of people held in administrative detention for up to 13 months and without an end in sight. MIT took the statement of an individual involved in large demonstrations at the facility in recent weeks, who shared that people detained in Xanthi have reached “breaking point”, with no clear information being provided by the authorities on when they will be released from detention.

The individual we spoke to shared the following testimony: 

“Many people are here for seven or eight months and in some cases up to thirteen months. The main reason for the protests taking place is that people do not know for how long they will be detained and why they’re being detained in the first place. At first it was for six months, then eight, nine months, and then thirteen months and then eighteen months! What have we done for all of this? We don’t deserve that. It’s not about the living conditions. It’s not about the food. It’s not about the place being clean or not. People are at breaking point. [...] There is this general sentiment, general frustration that we’re here. We don’t know why we’re here, for how long we’re here, and people just explode. I am one of the people who every night I think if it’s better to just hang myself. 

We want to be out of here. People have families. [...] I even hired a lawyer. I paid a lot of money. I borrowed money so I’m indebted and I’m still detained. And all of this doesn’t work. 

There is absolutely no need for people to be subject to these conditions and for this place to be like this. 

Generally protests are very frequent in Xanthi, maybe once a week, or once a month. Now people are a little calmer but a while ago everyone was participating, everyone was protesting. We have been refusing food. Some people go on top of buildings and want to throw themselves to commit suicide. They cut themselves with blades. It’s very heated. 

I’ve been here for eight months. I frequently think ‘why am I going through this, and how can I get out of it?’” 

For years, Greece has been detaining large numbers of people in the asylum procedure and those without a legal right to remain in the country for prolonged amounts of time, often without conducting individual assessments to determine if detention is necessary or justified. The current disproportionate use of immigration detention contravenes EU law - both in terms of the grounds for detention and the systematic prolonged detention of people for whom there is a very low prospect of removal from Greece. At the end of June 2024, 2,303 people were detained in pre-removal detention facilities across Greece. 

Organised resistance by detainees at Xanthi detention centre has been documented since the facility opened in 2012, including hunger strikes, self-harm and other forms of protest. In November 2012, a man from Afghanistan detained at the facility sewed his lips together in protest against a change in law allowing people applying for asylum to be detained for up to 12 months. Mass protests followed in 2013, against extended detention in multiple immigration detention centres across Greece, including Xanthi. 

In 2022, MIT conducted interviews with people detained in Xanthi who reported that the physical conditions of the centre were appalling. The dilapidated structures of the centre were reported to be in severe need of renovation, with only two toilets functioning and shared by 100 people. 

We stand in solidarity with detainees protesting in Xanthi detention centre and call on the Greek Government to immediately: 

• Guarantee an individualised assessment is carried out to ensure that all alternative measures are exhausted prior to detaining asylum seekers and third country nationals. 

• End the use of detention for third country nationals in cases where there is no reasonable prospect of removal, in line with EU Directive 2008/115/EC. 

• End the excessive use of detention for third country nationals on grounds of public order and national security.