Greece

GREECE: ‘The criminalisation of solidarity has had a chilling effect’
CIVICUS speaks with Melina Spathari, Director of Strategy and Programmes at HumanRights360 (HR360), about theprosecution of civil society activists working with migrants and refugees in Greece.

HR360 is a Greek human rights civil society organisation (CSO) that seeks toprotect the rights of all people, empowering them to exercise their rights, with a focus on the most disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, including migrants and refugees.

What is the current situation for civil society activists and organisations helping migrants in Greece?

As the United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights defenders stated following her official visit to Greece in June 2022, ‘defenders in the country working to ensure the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are currently under severe pressure… At the tip of the spear are prosecutions, where acts of solidarity are reinterpreted as criminal activity, specifically the crime of people smuggling… The negative impact of such cases is multiplied by smear campaigns perpetuating this false image of defenders’.

Since 2010, Greek ruling parties have demonised CSOs, criticising their use of public funding, to delegitimise their criticism of pushbacks of migrants and their condemnation of the conditions in reception and identification centres and refugee camps. In most cases, the allegations against CSOs later proved to be unfounded. This phenomenon is part of a worrying trend that negatively affects CSOs around the globe, which is why civil society has increasingly organised and developed strategies to resist and respond to the attacks they face from governments.

Why is the Greek government criminalising solidarity with migrants and refugees?

In the case of Greece, the speed and impetus of the ongoing crackdown has been fuelled by current trends in both international and domestic politics, involving hostile relations with Turkey and imminent elections in both countries. Deploying a witch-hunt against CSOs kills many birds with one stone: it helps the government gain votes from the far-right side of the political spectrum and helps it manage the damage caused to its reputation by wrong political decisions and neglectful practices. Last but not least, by vilifying CSOs that are active and vocal in the field of human rights, the authorities aspire to manipulate and silence civil society as a whole.

And to some extent, it has worked. Criminalisation has had a chilling effect. There have been some attempts among civil society to gather, discuss, assess the situation and work on a joint strategy, but these actions didn’t flourish. CSOs are now afraid to raise their voice, and we understand them: they have good reason to be intimidated. Still, some acts of solidarity have taken place, especially when those targeted were respected veteran human rights defenders.

Has HR360 been targeted?

In November 2022, the authorities stepped up an attack against our organisation: they demonised HR360 for receiving foreign funding aimed at regranting and disclosed the personal financial situation of HR360’s founders. The public prosecutor began a preliminary investigation, which hasn’t yet produced any outcomes. No information has been revealed, nor has any criminal process been ordered. HR360 finds itself in limbo, facing huge administrative and financial consequences and experiencing severe impacts on staff morale.

But HR360 is not the only victim of this vile smear campaign. In late 2022, the Prosecutor’s Office criminally charged Panagiotis Dimitras, director of the Greek Helsinki Monitor, and Tommy Olsen, founder and director of Aegean Boat Report, a Norwegian CSO that monitors and shares data about the movement of people in the Aegean Sea, for ‘forming a criminal organisation with the purpose of receiving details of citizens of third countries, who attempt to enter Greece illegally, in order to facilitate their illegal entry and stay’. Following the same pattern applied to HR360, Dimitras has been accused of repeatedly conducting activities aimed at gaining illegal income.

What support does Greek civil society need to resist and continue doing its work?

Greek civil society needs more international support, which is currently quite limited and restricted to its advocacy work – that is, it can be used to help migrants and refugees, but not for CSOs and activists to protect themselves and therefore retain the capacity to continue doing their work.

Right now, what Greek activists and CSOs need the most is legal support, including funding to cover legal fees. And in terms of changing the situation in the long term, what’s also needed is a well-organised European awareness campaign highlighting both the vital work civil society is doing and the attacks the government is subjecting it to. This would be very helpful, since bad publicity at the European level is one of the things Greek authorities fear the most.

Civic space in Greece is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor. Its rating has recently beendowngraded.

Get in touch with HR360 through itswebsite or itsFacebook page, and follow@rights360 and@Melina_Spathari onTwitter.
GREECE: ‘Together we can do more’
CIVICUS speaks about the state of civil society and civic space in Greece with Sotiris Petropoulos, director of Higher Incubator Giving Growth and Sustainability (HIGGS), an initiative that seeks to strengthen Greek civil society organisations (CSOs) through education and support programmes and activities. HIGGS’ purpose is to mobilise the ‘invisible’ forces of the CSO ecosystem, stimulating people and organisations to undertake new, innovative initiatives, and providing the right conditions for their incubation and acceleration.

What are the current conditions for civil society in Greece?

Greece is a democracy with a relatively open civic space. The 2010 socioeconomic crisis enhanced a trend towards increasingly active CSOs playing an important role in covering societal needs. Nevertheless, we are witnessing a regression in the freedoms enjoyed by organised civil society in the form of barriers, mostly of a legal nature, that make CSO work more difficult.

A first indication of this trend was seen when the government elected in July 2019 started gradually creating a more strict and formal oversight system of Greek CSOs, mainly through the introduction of new official registries under relevant ministries, such as a register of CSOs working with migrants and refugees, and so on.

Then in October 2021 draft legislation on CSOs proposed by the Ministry of Interior was put out for public consultation. The initiative was aimed at establishing a single registry of CSOs to replace the existing nine separate databases, so as to enhance transparency about their activities and fundraising activities.

At first, many CSOs welcomed this initiative as an opportunity to strengthen civil society, abolish complicated and bureaucratic procedures, unify all existing registries and ensure a safe and independent environment for CSOs to operate.

However, it soon became clear that the proposed legislation was aimed in a different direction: it would establish mechanisms to monitor rather than support CSOs, enhancing bureaucratic procedures, adding new limitations – such as a requirement for all CSO board members to have a clean criminal record – and increasing their overall operational costs. Moreover, it included some points that were quite problematic, especially for new or small organisations. For instance, to access the registry CSOs would need to have their accounts assessed by certified auditors, a rather costly service, especially for many small-to-medium CSOs with fluctuating budgets. But even those that could afford it probably wouldn’t prioritise this expense and would rather use the funds on their substantive work – say, for buying 1,000 meals to distribute among homeless people.

Another problematic point was the so-called ‘three-year limitation’, a provision that CSOs must have been legally established for at least three years to be eligible to enter the new registry, creating another barrier for some organisations. These points, among others, would widen the gap between big and small organisations and, overall, would create new obstacles for civil society work. In retrospect, the proposed legal framework mirrored the government’s view that only big organisations are and can be transparent and efficient, which in fact runs counter to existing evidence.

In addition, the government’s proposal seemed to be part of an overall ‘policing approach’ towards the segment of civil society it cannot understand or control – a continuation of a measure that had been introduced a year earlier, establishing an even more problematic registry exclusively for CSOs operating in the field of migration and refugees.

How did society respond to the proposed initiative?

The draft law was published in October 2021, just five weeks before the parliamentary vote on the proposal. The timeline for public consultation was short, but the civil society response was fast and massive.

Major CSO networks established a task force to coordinate a joint strategy to respond collectively with specific proposals to improve the draft law.

The first step was to inform all CSOs about the draft law. HIGGS sent emails, posted the proposal on social media and held online public events. In the meantime, we started to draft and share a joint public statement and called on all CSOs to support it by co-signing it and sharing it. This public statement collected 303 signatures, an impressive number by Greek standards. It was one of the biggest collective actions of Greek civil society ever recorded.

Taking advantage of this momentum, we made targeted calls for action to motivate all CSOs to work, both together and individually, to put pressure on members of parliament by calling them on the phone, sending them emails and sharing briefing papers with them.

During the public consultation process, HIGGS put together a policy proposal that contained improvements to the draft law, which was supported by over 45 organisations.

We encouraged all networks to be loud about the draft bill. We all communicated every single development through our media channels, published joint press releases and created social media campaigns.

What did the campaign achieve?

In response to all these actions, the Minister of Interior, Makis Voridis, invited some organisations to working meetings and eventually included some of our policy proposals in the final version of the law.

Law 4873/2021 was passed in December and introduced a new registration procedure for CSOs that seek to access government funding and receive various tax and economic privileges. The process is clear and has clear timeframe. In addition, in the area of volunteerism, specific provisions for emergency situations that were missing were added.

We value the sense of unity, solidarity and power of joint forces as the greatest legacy of this process. This approach is something that most CSOs agreed was missing in Greek civil society, and there is much space to work towards this direction in the future.

What about the restrictions targeting CSOs that work with migrants and refugees?

Over the past few years, several measures were implemented that were meant to discourage or restrict the work of CSOs working in the field of human rights and migration.

In September 2020, the government introduced a ministerial decision that established that Greek and foreign CSOs working in the field of migration, asylum, and social inclusion in Greece must fulfil an exhaustive list of formal and substantive requirements to register with the Ministry of Migration and Asylum. The required documentation targets both the organisation and its staff, members and volunteers, and non-registration would automatically lead to operations being ceased. Moreover, the Ministry of Migration and Asylum was granted complete discretion to accept or reject a CSO’s application.

Among a huge amount of bureaucratic documentation, these CSOs were required to submit audit reports for the previous two years, entailing costs that may be too much of a burden for small grassroots CSOs. For staff, members and volunteers, CSOs must provide criminal records and proof of permanent residence in Greece. If an individual does not meet the requirements, not just the individual concerned but also the CSO may be withdrawn from the registration process.

Concerns over the transparency of the registration process soon increased, as a former political group affiliated with the ruling party turned into a CSO working in the field of asylum: it was approved to receive over €5 million (approx. US$5.5 million) in funding within a week.

Another initiative – the Deportations and Returns Bill – that was submitted to parliament in August 2021 contained provisions to restrict the operation of CSOs through criminal and financial sanctions for individuals and institutions.

On top of the ongoing criminalisation of solidarity towards migrant and refugees, we observed the first effects of these laws and regulations, such as the rejection of Refugee Support Aegean’s application for registration with the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum.

What’s next for Greek civil society?

The task force of civil society networks that was formed in response to the draft bill on the CSO registry did not dissolve after the bill was passed. It remains active and continues monitoring the implementation of the new legislation, pushing for changes to those articles that are found to create obstacles to the exercise of the right to freedom to association, and keeping all CSOs informed of any new developments.

In HIGGS we believe in joint actions, teamwork, and cooperation within civil society. We encourage various forms of networking – one of our mottos is ‘together we can do more’. This is our philosophy and to live up to it. Our programmes offer a variety of perspectives and promote unity and solidarity within the diversity of Greek civil society. The ecosystem of Greek CSOs is gradually entering its mature age. We expect advocacy to become a more core activity of CSOs, and we are working on it.

We view our experience of collaboration in the face of potentially damaging legislation as the beginning of a new area for Greek civil society – one in which the culture of cooperation makes all of us stronger.

Civic space in Greece is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with HIGGS through itswebsite or itsFacebook andInstagram pages, and follow@HIGGS3HIGGS on Twitter.
GREECE: ‘We fought until same-sex marriage stopped being impossible and became a necessary change’
CIVICUS speaks about Greece’s recent legalisation of same-sex marriage with Giorgos Keratsas, Communications Officer of Positive Voice-Greek Association of People Living with HIV.

Founded in 2009, Positive Voice is a civil society organisation focused on tackling the spread of HIV/AIDS, defending the rights of HIV-positive people and more broadly advocating for LGBTQI+ rights in Greece.

What was civil society’s role in achieving the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Greece?

Greek LGBTQI+ groups have advocated for marriage equality and the legal recognition of all families for many years. In 2015, civil partnership arrangements were made available to same-sex couples. This marked a historic victory for LGBTQI+ and human rights in Greece but left a large part of the LGBTQI+ community unsatisfied, because there were several important issues the law didn’t cover, including adoption rights. As a result, LGBTQI+ activism has continued to demand true equality in all laws and regulations concerning interpersonal relations.

Our main argument concerns the discriminatory character of laws that exclude LGBTQI+ people, same-sex couples and diverse families from access to the rights that are afforded to cisgender straight people and heterosexual families. The fact that citizens don’t have the same rights and obligations is proof that we are not truly equal, and a state cannot be considered fully democratic when it has first-class and second-class citizens.

LGBTQI+ organisations have therefore urged legal change, pointing to the example of so many European countries that have recognised marriage equality. The road hasn’t been easy. It involved a lot of struggle, disappointments and persistence. We fought for many years until the change we demanded – initially viewed as impossible, and therefore ignored – was eventually deemed necessary. The recent passage of this law was a civil society victory that proves, once again, that when we take action together, change can happen.

How has Positive Voice contributed to the campaign?

Positive Voice was consistently dedicated for years to the sometimes frustrating work of increasing the visibility of LGBTQI+ people and educating the public on LGBTQI+ rights when the state wasn’t doing anything about it. On the basis of the recognition of the strong association of HIV with social vulnerability, we have focused on the social rather than purely medical side of things.

For over a decade, Positive Voice has been a staunch advocate of LGBTQI+ rights. We have continuously raised the urgent need for equality with government officials. We have been active participants of Pride festivals, consistently supported the demands of LGBTQI+ people, co-signed advocacy letters and statements, endorsed campaigns such as ‘Say Yes’ and hosted impactful exhibitions. A recent one was ‘Where Love is Illegal – Exhibition in a Box’, which shares real stories of LGBTQI+ people in countries where they are not allowed to be themselves or love freely.

We can proudly say that Positive Voice has been one of the strongest advocates for social change in Greece. The building that accommodates Athens Checkpoint, a sexual health and prevention centre that offers free rapid HIV and hepatitis B and C testing and is our project that’s made the biggest impact, is one of the very few in Athens flying the rainbow flag. The flag has stayed despite the fact that in 2019 the building suffered an arson attack motivated by homophobia and transphobia.

Have you encountered backlash?

Partly thanks to consistent civil society campaigning, in recent years public attitudes towards LGBTQI+ people have started to shift. However, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia remain very strong, and hate speech and violence against LGBTQI+ people, and transgender people in particular, are now on the rise, in a very alarming trend that unfortunately is not limited to Greece. Our recent legal victory is obviously a very positive step in the right direction, but we still have a lot of work to do until we are genuinely equal and fairly treated.

The far-right parties that have significantly grown in recent elections, as well as church representatives, have strongly opposed same-sex marriage. They contend that it infringes upon and destroys the concept of marriage and traditional family values and state that family is by definition the result of a union between a man and a woman. They also argue that the right to marriage should not be regarded as a human right, on the basis of which they claim that the LGBTQI+ community is not being deprived of any fundamental rights. Most importantly, they argue that children raised by same-sex parents will not have a healthy psychosocial development. From their perspective, it is children’s rights that would be violated.

Concerningly, in the months prior to the law being passed, LGBTQI+ people were exposed to incredible amounts of abusive public discourse, particularly on TV. In show after show, for weeks politicians, journalists, artists, influencers and others were asked whether they agreed with marriage equality, as if human rights were to be subjected to the verdict of public opinion. Hundreds of particularly abusive and discriminatory statements were given airspace and therefore heard and absorbed by millions of people. It is hard to even imagine the negative impact this rhetoric has possibly had on young queer kids across the country.

How do you connect with the regional and global LGBTQI+ movements?

We constantly follow their work, participate in events, undertake joint action and take advantage of just about any networking opportunity with other LGBTQI+ organisations. It is a fact that numerous European – and also several non-European – countries are more advanced in claiming respect for LGBTQI+ rights than we are, in terms of legislation and everyday practices and social attitudes. They set an example for the rest of us.

LGBTQI+ organisations worldwide are doing amazing work and they truly inspire us. And when any of us experiences blatant human rights violations, we all stand up for each other regardless of geography. What unites us is much more powerful than anything that could set us apart.

Civic space in Greece is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

Get in touch with Positive Voice through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow it onTwitter andInstagram.
GREECE: ‘We need a change in narratives as well as in policies towards migration’
CIVICUS speaks about the situation of migrants and refugees in Greece and the role of civil society in policymaking with Lefteris Papagiannakis, Head of Advocacy, Policy and Research atSolidarity Now and former Vice Mayor on Migrant and Refugee Affairs for the Municipality of Athens. Solidarity Now is a civil society organisation (CSO) that works with vulnerable groups, with a focus on migrants and refugee communities in Greece in order to help them achieve dignity and a better future.
MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS: ‘Europe instrumentalises human suffering to deter migration’
CIVICUS speaks about the situation of migrants and refugees in Greece with Maya Thomas-Davis, an Advocacy and Communications Officer at the Legal Centre Lesvos AMKE, a Greek civil society organisation that provides free legal information and assistance to migrants who arrive by sea to Lesvos, where the Centre is based. The Legal Centre also documents violations of migrants’ rights, advocates for safe and legal migration routes and engages in advocacy and strategic litigation to hold the Greek government, member states of the European Union (EU) and European institutions accountable for their treatment of migrants.

Photo: Legal Centre Lesvos @Instagram

What kind of work does the Legal Centre Lesvos do, and how have you managed under the pandemic?

The Legal Centre Lesvos (LCL) is a civil non-profit legal and political organisation based on principles of solidarity, not charity. Since August 2016, it has provided access to legal information, assistance and representation to migrants arriving by sea on the Greek island of Lesvos. LCL also works towards collective justice and structural change as part of movements resisting Europe’s border imperialism on many fronts, including through advocacy and strategic litigation. LCL was founded following the March 2016 EU-Turkey statement, an agreement of questionable legality through which the European Union turned people seeking freedom, safety and dignity into commodities and bargaining chips: agreeing to pay 6 billion euros to Erdogan’s authoritarian regime in exchange for Turkey acting as a border guard to fortress Europe. This ‘deal’ transformed the island of Lesvos into a site of indefinite imprisonment for migrants. LCL provides access to legal information and assistance in solidarity with migrants trapped here, without losing sight of the fact that migration to Europe is intimately connected with the continent’s imperialist past and present and the interests of global capitalism; that the brutal violations witnessed here are always political choices; and that the people most affected are the most important political actors in challenging and resisting this.

LCL has an open-door policy, meaning that nobody is turned away or refused legal information or assistance because their case is not ‘strong’ enough, or is unsuitable for strategic litigation. We maintain this position because we believe that, as a bare minimum, everyone has the right to understand the legal framework they are subject to, particularly in the context of asylum law, where consequences can be a matter of life or death.

To facilitate access to information, prior to the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions LCL had been running regular group information sessions about asylum procedures, in multiple languages. This is certainly one aspect of our work where the pandemic has created difficulties. In Lesvos lockdown measures have been in place since March 2020, varying in degrees of intensity. Group information sessions have been impossible due to limitations on office capacity mandated by restrictions. We have managed to keep the open-door policy in place with strict appointment schedules, with many of us working from home at least some of the time, and we are trying to continue to facilitate broader access to information through other means, such as through updates in multiple languages on our website and social media.

How did the situation of migrants and refugees evolve in 2020 as a result of the pandemic?

The Greek state’s unlawful suspension of the right to asylum on 1 March 2020 and its violent border fortification – with the EU praising Greece as Europe’s ‘shield’ and The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex, providing increased material support – coincided with the escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. Although the EU has been perpetrating violence against migrants at its borders for many years, including through pushbacks, it seems Greek and EU officials believed the pandemic would provide the perfect cover to escalate their attack on migrants in the Aegean, with complete impunity.

Since March 2020, the official number of arrivals by sea to Greece has drastically dropped by a reported 85 per cent as compared to 2019. In the same timeframe, numerous reports and investigations have revealed a systematic practice of collective expulsions on the part of Greek authorities, carried out through a consistent modus operandi, with Frontex’s documented complicity. In every account shared with LCL by pushback survivors, Greek authorities have summarily expelled migrants from Greek territory without registering arrival or facilitating access to asylum procedures. Whether in the middle of the sea or following a landing on an Aegean island, Greek authorities forcibly transfer migrants towards Turkish waters before abandoning them at sea on motorless, unseaworthy dinghies or life rafts, with absolute disregard for whether they live or die. Despite numerous reports, statements, investigations and denunciations of this ongoing attack against migrants, pushbacks at the Aegean Sea border continue with impunity, functioning as an unofficial implementation of the EU-Turkey deal’s objectives while the Turkish border remains officially closed.

Meanwhile in Lesvos, pandemic-related restrictions have only compounded the situation of police violence, discrimination and effective mass detention for migrants. COVID-19-related restrictions, including curfews and the requirement to carry a justification for movement, have been applied in an unjustifiably discriminatory manner. Recently, on 15 February 2021, for example, the curfew for the general population of Lesvos was lifted from 6pm to 9pm, yet for migrants living in the camp a separate regime of restrictions remains in place: people are subject to a more stringent curfew starting at 5pm and only one family member can leave the camp once a week except for medical or legal appointments. Even with written justification, permission to leave the camp is often arbitrarily denied. The police disproportionately target racialised people in checking documents and justifications for movement as well as in imposing fines.

Meanwhile changes in the operations of the Regional Asylum Office and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) in Lesvos, which had been conducting remote interviews with applicants for international protection, have led to further procedural violations. These include obstacles in access to legal aid at first instance and to file appeals within deadlines due to pandemic-related movement restrictions and restricted access to EASO offices; failure to ensure the requisite confidentiality of interviews due to remote interviews via telephone or video being held in inadequate facilities; and inability to comprehensively present grounds for applications due to practical and technical disruptions of asylum interviews.

As for the sanitary situation, the state has systematically failed to evacuate individuals at risk from overcrowded, unsanitary camps in Lesvos, where distancing measures are impossible. Like the previous Moria camp, which burned down in September 2020, the new reception and identification centre in Mavrovouni/Karatepe – widely known as ‘Moria 2.0’ – is not fit for human habitation. As if conditions of inadequate shelter, healthcare, privacy, food, electricity, running water, hot showers, toilets and other hygiene facilities were not bad enough, since 1926 and until its hasty transformation into a camp in September 2020, the site of Moria 2.0 had been a military firing range, and the Greek government has admitted that a high concentration of lead has been found in samples taken from the site. Lead poisoning causes organ damage, cancer and developmental harm in foetuses and children. There is no level of lead exposure known to be without harmful effects. In such conditions, the Greek state’s failure to transfer people who are disproportionately exposed to danger and death in the inhumane conditions of Moria 2.0 to appropriate living conditions amounts to an attack on migrants’ lives.

Which would you say are main rights violations that migrants and refugees face in Lesvos?

That hundreds of people have been, and continue to be, forcibly transferred then abandoned in the middle of the sea by Greek authorities without means to call for rescue, on unseaworthy, motorless dinghies and life rafts, constitutes a spectacular form of state violence against migrants. Beyond rights violations, LCL’s position is that the constituent elements of the consistent modus operandi of collective expulsions in the Aegean, along with the widespread and systematic nature of this attack, amount to crimes against humanity. The practice of systematic pushbacks with impunity reveals the extent to which fortress Europe treats migrants’ lives as disposable, in a manner that has historically accompanied the commission of atrocity crimes.

The same disregard for migrants’ lives is inherent in the conditions in camps and detention centres people are forced to endure in Lesvos, which are violations of the right to freedom from inhumane and degrading treatment and torture, the rights to liberty and security, to private and family life, to effective remedy, to freedom from discrimination and to life. It is inherent in people being forced to wait in limbo for years, cut off from family, friends, community and purpose, without being able to move forwards or backwards. It is inherent in the EU increasingly prioritising and funding mass effective detention of migrants, through ‘hotspot’ systems, accelerated border procedures, forcible deportations, border militarisation and border externalisation through deals of questionable legality with third countries and by making aid and other financial packages conditional on border fortification.

While the violence of pushbacks in the Aegean is scandalous and should be treated as such, it is by no means an aberration from the logic of Europe’s border regime, which instrumentalises human suffering for the purpose of deterring migration, at any cost. Even if due process and reception standards mandated by the Common European Asylum System were complied with in Lesvos, many people would still be excluded, and the system would remain violent and fundamentally insufficient to secure the conditions of human flourishing that everyone deserves. For this reason, while the LCL will continue to document, denounce and seek redress for the systematic rights violations in Lesvos, we are conscious that we must simultaneously organise for systemic change: Europe’s human rights framework cannot fail people it was never designed to protect.

What is your position regarding refugee protests over living conditions in camps and blockages of asylum requests?

LCL has always acted and organised in solidarity with migrant-led resistance. Over the years this has taken many forms, including protests, hunger strikes, collective publications, assemblies and occupations. The state has responded with attempts to collectively punish organised resistance by migrants in Lesvos. A case in point is that of the Moria 35 a few years ago. But there are many more recent examples of this. Of course, such resistance can be understood as an exercise of human rights such as the rights to the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression, and as a legal organisation, this is always one way of viewing and supporting this kind of action. However, in Lesvos – where rights are systematically violated with complete impunity, where conditions of misery are deliberately imposed, where the situation always seems to get progressively worse just when it already seemed as bad as could be imagined – organised resistance is also in many ways often the only remaining option.

What kind of support would you need from international civil society to continue doing your work?

Over the past year, the Greek state brought in new legislation on the registration of civil society organisations, introducing onerous, complex registration and certification requirements that present unnecessary, disproportionate barriers for organisations working in solidarity with migrants in Greece. This will certainly make the work of LCL harder as, of course, it is designed to. The Expert Council on NGO Law of the Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe has already expressed its concerns on these new requirements, and further challenges to these measures would be a welcome form of support from international civil society.

In general, international support and solidarity is needed in the struggle against the increasingly hostile environment for migrants and those working in solidarity with migrants in Greece. Far-right disinformation campaigns making allegations of criminality against migrants and migrant solidarity organisations are increasingly reflected in Greek state practice, such as in the Greek police’s identification of four human rights and migrant solidarity groups in an investigation that accuses them of espionage, forming and membership of a criminal organisation; the Greek state’s systematic prosecution of migrants for facilitation of illegal entry/exit; its perverse decision to prosecute the father of a six-year-old child who tragically drowned in a shipwreck near Samos in November 2020 for endangering his son’s life; and its decision to bring criminal charges against a woman who set herself on fire in desperation in Moria 2.0 in February 2021. Such measures to frame migrants and those who act in solidarity with them as criminals and threats to the nation is a deliberate and effective tactic to obscure the fact that it is states that possess the monopoly on violence and to distract from their systematic violations of migrants’ rights.

More broadly, it is clear from the legislative proposals contained in the ‘new’ EU migration and asylum pact that the EU will attempt to roll out the model that has been tested in the laboratory of Lesvos and the other Greek ‘hotspot’ islands, across Europe’s external borders – including detention on arrival; accelerated border procedures in detention based on nationality and asylum recognition rates; deportation sponsorship as a form of ‘solidarity’ between member states; and expanded use of migrants’ personal and biometric data. A new ‘controlled’ camp is set to be constructed in Lesvos this year, in a location that is a known forest fire danger zone and is intentionally remote. Internationalist solidarity will always be our best weapon to organise resistance from below to all these measures.

Civic space in Greece is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with the Legal Centre Lesvos through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@lesboslegal on Twitter and@legalcentrelesvos on Instagram.
NORTHERN CYPRUS: ‘Civil society is not involved in decision-making and is considered a nuisance’
CIVICUS speaks with DeryaBeyatlı, Director of the Human Rights Platform,about the space for civil society in Northern Cyprus and the prospects for reunification in the context of the 2023 Cyprus and Turkish presidential elections.

Established in 2021, theHuman Rights Platform isa Turkish-Cypriot civil society umbrella organisation bringing together seven human rights organisations guided by the vision of an egalitarian, democratic and inclusive society where human rights and fundamental freedoms are protected and accessible for everyone.

What do you make of the results of the Cyprus presidential election?

In the latest presidential election, held in February 2023, we saw a rise of nationalist and racist rhetoric. In response to losing ground, the left-wing Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) supported a candidate who was more nationalistic than the party itself, but was still defeated in the runoff by Nicos Christodoulides, who was backed by centrists and right-wing parties.

It is clear to me that over the past few years Cyprus has been affected by the same shift towards radical right-wing politics that we’ve seen elsewhere in Europe.

What does the Human Rights Platform work on?

One of the main objectives of the Human Rights Platform is to document human rights violations committed by the government of Northern Cyprus, which is largely controlled by the Turkish authorities. I have observed that both society and the local authorities are becoming more racist, largely in reaction to the inflow of Black students who are lured with the promise of a job in Europe and trafficked into the northern part of Cyprus. Only in 2020 was human trafficking recognised as a crime in Northern Cyprus, and yet more than two years later, there has been only one court verdict in a case involving this crime. The authorities are unwilling to deal with human trafficking crimes and other human rights violations and keep blaming the victims instead.

What is the current state of reunification talks?

Ever since 1974, Cyprus has been split along ethnic lines, with Greek and Turkish Cypriots living on either side of the Green Line, a buffer zone under United Nations (UN) control. Christodoulides assumed that reunification talks might resume due to Turkey’s rapprochement with the west in search of relief to address damage caused by recent earthquakes and right after being elected said that the reunification of Cyprus is his priority. However, I think neither him nor Ersin Tatar, the current president of Northern Cyprus, who has strongly advocated for a two-state solution for many years, nor the Turkish and Greek guarantors are actually interested in the reunification of Cyprus.

The two-state formula currently advocated by Tatar was put on the table back in 2002 by Rauf Denktash, the founding president of Northern Cyprus, and was widely rejected by UN member states, with the exception of Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeatedly expressed his support for the two-state solution, so I don´t think his re-election changes anything.

Reunification talks are currently on hold and I’m afraid we’re headed towards permanent division. Neither Turkey nor the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) are eager to give up the power they exercise and share it with Turkish Cypriots. We are in a sandwich position, where Turkey interferes with the local matters of Northern Cyprus and the RoC discriminates against Turkish-speaking citizens of the island.

One of the numerous human rights implications of the division of Cyprus is that there are around 30,000 children of mixed marriages who cannot get RoC citizenship and hence become European Union (EU) citizens. Despite Turkish language being an official language of the RoC, official documents and legislation are all in the Greek language, leaving Turkish Cypriots out. Turkish Cypriots cannot open a bank account or establish an association unless they live in government-controlled areas. And the list goes on.

What obstacles does civil society face in Northern Cyprus?

The division of the island creates challenging civic space conditions in Northern Cyprus, where the Human Rights Platform is registered. We face many obstacles due to the fact that we work in areas not under the effective control of the government of RoC. It’s very difficult to make our voices heard and get access to funding available to EU member states because we are not legally registered in a member state. Yet we cannot do so, since we do not reside in the government-controlled areas. Our only funding opportunity is the Financial Aid instrument of the European Commission (EC), which is highly competitive and offers limited funds to civil society.

The local authorities of Northern Cyprus prefer directing EU funds towards infrastructure and economic development, and regard supporting civil society as unnecessary and therefore a complete waste of funds. Turkish Cypriot civil society organisations (CSOs) aren’t involved in decision-making mechanisms and are considered a nuisance. Meanwhile, local public funds are only available to government-sponsored non-governmental organisations, also known as GONGOs, that are under the effective control of the Turkish Embassy and the Turkish Cypriot political leadership.

Perceived by local authorities as a threat, Turkish Cypriot civil society is silenced and sometimes attacked on mainstream media. Public TV, radio and news agencies are almost inaccessible for us. CSOs working to protect human rights and safeguard democracy in Northern Cyprus are systematically marginalised. Since we maintain relationships with the EC, EU member states and the USA, we are often regarded as ‘foreign agents’ and threatened and blackmailed, sometimes openly but mostly discreetly. A widely used tactic is the use of fake social media accounts promoting extremely nationalistic content and blaming Turkish Cypriot civil society activists for trading the country to the Greeks or to imperialistic powers.

What international support do Turkish Cypriot human rights CSOs need?

Most international intergovernmental organisations and their agencies prefer to ignore our presence. Since we are in a place the existence of which they don’t recognise, they refuse to even meet with us, let alone hear us out. We need both political and financial support in order to get stronger and become more effective in our struggle to uphold democracy and human rights in Northern Cyprus.

Civic space in Cyprus is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

Get in touch with the Human Rights Platform through itswebsite or itsFacebook page, and follow@ihp_hrp and@DBeyatli on Twitter.
Resilience in times of shrinking civic space: How Resilient Roots organisations are attempting to strengthen their roots through primary constituent accountability
Soulayma Mardam Bey (CIVICUS) and Isabelle Büchner (Accountable Now)

The systematic crackdown on peaceful protests and demonstrations across the world has shaped our understanding of repression against civil society organisations (CSOs). Yet, less-spectacular restrictions such as increased bureaucratic requirements imposed by governments are not necessarily less threatening to CSO resilience.

While those tactics significantly hamper CSOs’ ability to operate and can reduce primary constituents' trust in CSOs' ability to represent them legitimately, we also need to acknowledge that these symptoms can stem from our own inappropriate approaches to accountability. When CSOs are not accountable to their roots, this can serve as a breeding ground for governments’ and other non-state actors’ anti-CSOs strategies and rhetoric.

The Resilient Roots initiative is aiming to test whether CSOs who are more accountable and responsive to their primary constituents are more resilient against threats to their civic space. 15 organisations from diverse countries and contexts have partnered with us to design and rollout innovative accountability experiments over a 12 month period. These experiments will explore how public support and trust in CSOs can be improved through practising what we call primary constituent accountability, which aims to establish a meaningful dialogue with those groups that organisations exist to support, and increase their engagement in CSO decision-making.

Accountability and resilience are both highly context-specific and vary not just from country to country but also along an organisation’s thematic focus, size and approach. This means that we need to explore the relationship between accountability and resilience on a case by case basis and across a variety of very different contexts. Keeping this in mind - and without further adieu - read on to meet the some of Resilient Roots Accountability Pilot Project organisations:

One of these organisations is the Poverty Reduction Forum Trust (PRFT) from Zimbabwe. In the rural area of Dora, in the district of Mutare, they aim to systematically validate actions and strategies through constituent-led monitoring of programme progress. As a platform for civil society that aims to address the root-causes and diverse manifestations of poverty in Zimbabwe, they may face very different challenges from an organisation that works on more politically polarising topics.

For example, Russian CSO OVD-Info is an independent human rights media project that monitors detentions and other cases of politically motivated harassment, informs media and human rights organisations on the state of political repression in Russia, and provides legal assistance to activists. For the Resilient Roots initiative, OVD-Info seeks to set up a dashboard to serve as a data visualisation tool, which will help evaluate the efficiency of its projects and motivate their constituents to play a stronger role in the organisation’s decision-making.

In contrast to the technology and data-driven approach of OVD-Info, FemPLatz is a women’s rights organisation from Serbia that seeks a more direct and personal approach. They plan to gather feedback from their constituents through focus group discussions, interviews and workshops while also improving their communication with their constituents through the publication of a regular newsletter. This will allow their constituents to monitor their work and get in contact with them to provide feedback.

A newsletter can also contribute to closing the feedback loop. Projet Jeune Leader (PJL) from Madagascar, for example, will engage young adolescents, their parents and school administrations to establish a coordinated and systematic means to collect feedback. They will collect feedback through participatory scorecards, stories from primary constituents around the changes triggered by the project, and an updated youth magazine to get closer to their constituents. PJL works on a comprehensive sexual-reproductive health education and leadership development program integrated into public middle schools.

A particularly creative approach comes from Solidarity Now. Through multimedia productions, their primary constituents will express their daily perceptions, challenges, and dreams through the making and sharing of interactive material like video clips. Solidarity Now consists of a network of organisations and people whose goal is to assist and support the populations affected by the economic and humanitarian crises in Greece. Through the provision of services to both local Greeks and migrant populations, it seeks to restore the vision of a strong Europe based on solidarity and open values.

In Asia, Climate Watch Thailand (CWT) is an organisation working to drive changes in attitudes towards climate change, and trigger action on the topic. As part of the initiative, CWT is going to strengthen how they formulate policy asks, by continuously testing their relevance to their constituents and this gaining wider support.

Unfortunately, not all the organisations we work with in this initiative feel comfortable enough to publicly associate themselves to Resilient Roots, without the fear of inciting further anti-CSO responses in their local context. Such is the case of our Ugandan partner, a reminder of how delicate civic spaces are and how important it is for our sector to better understand how to strengthen CSO resilience in recent times.

These diverse organisations are using a variety of approaches to work on CSO accountability, and we are incredibly excited to be exploring with them how different accountability practices fare in different regional and thematic contexts. What factors will make them successful and where will they need to adjust? In what circumstances does increased accountability actually lead to increased resilience? We are looking forward to sharing this journey with you: how they progress with their projects, the things they are learning, and what you can draw from their experiences to inform the work of your own organisation.