Border Harms and Everyday Violence: A Prison Island in Europe 9781529212785

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Half-title
Border Harms and Everyday Violence: A Prison Island in Europe
Copyright information
Dedication
Table of Contents
Series Editors’ Preface
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Aims of this book
Painful injustices: understanding violence, social harm and social suffering
A heartfelt ethnography of borders
The metaphor of ‘prison island’
Positionality, power, ethics
The organization of the book
1 The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders
The externalization of EU borders
The harms of externalization
Violence en route
Financial debt
Labour debt
Sexual debt
Other coerced choices
The internalization of EU borders
The hotspot approach
The closure of the Balkan route
The EU–Turkey statement
The geographical restriction regime
Conclusion
2 Intergenerational Harms: Border Memories and Genealogies of Harm
Regimes of border violence and control
Genealogies of immigration detention centres
Special sites of residency for foreigners
First reception centres or screening centres
Conclusion
3 Quarantine Continuum: Medicalization of Borders and the Securitization of Migration and Health
The enemy within
The enemy at the borders
Conclusion
4 Mundane Surrealism: Bureaucratic Deterrence, Violence and Suffering
First stage: screening and identification procedures
Second stage: asylum procedures
Restricted access to asylum procedures
Restricted access to information
Restricted access to legal aid
The fast-track and inadmissibility procedure
Administrative vulnerability
Third stage: Emergency Relocation Scheme
Fourth stage: Family Reunification Scheme
Fifth stage: Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration
Juma
Sixth stage: coerced deportations
Seventh stage: irregular travel
Conclusion
5 Necroharms: Obscene and Grotesque Violence
The politics of abandonment
Necroharms
The Moria camp as a graveyard
Moria as a site of violence
Conclusion
6 Thanatoharms: Governing Migration through Violence and Death
Frozen death
Deterring-killing: the thanatopolitical border regime
Thanatoharms
Violence after death
Conclusion
Conclusion
References
Index

Citation preview

STUDIES IN SOCIAL HARM

STUDIES IN SOCIAL HARM Series editors

Steve Tombs, The Open University, UK

Social harm is an emerging field of study which contributes to contemporary social and political debate. This exciting series moves the debate towards a holistic approach that seeks to understand the production of harm within contemporary society.

“Evgenia Iliadou’s deeply engaged book takes us on a journey to the fringe of Europe through a rich ethnography, to face profound theoretical questions. It is a welcome contribution to the field of border studies.” Shahram Khosravi, Stockholm University

The Greek island of Lesvos is frequently the subject of news reports on the refugee ‘crisis’, but they only occasionally focus on the dire living conditions of asylum seekers already present on the island. Through direct experience as an activist in Lesvos refugee camps and detention centres, Iliadou gives voice to those with lived experiences of state violence. The author considers the escalation of EU border regime and deterrence policies seen in the past decade alongside their present impacts. Asking why the social harm and suffering border crossers experience is normalized and rendered invisible, the book highlights the collective, global responsibility for safeguarding refugees’ human rights. Evgenia Iliadou is an independent researcher with expertise in forced migration, the medicalization of borders, asylum, immigration detention and border-related harms.

BORDER HARMS AND EVERYDAY VIOLENCE • EVGENIA ILIADOU

Pantazis, University of Bristol, UK STUDIES IN SOCIAL HARM | Christina Simon Pemberton, University of Birmingham, UK

BORDER HARMS AND EVERYDAY VIOLENCE

A Prison Island in Europe

ISBN 978-1-5292-1276-1

9 781529 212761

B R I S TO L

@BrisUniPress BristolUniversityPress bristoluniversitypress.co.uk

@policypress

EVGENIA ILIADOU

BORDER HARMS AND EVERYDAY VIOLENCE

Studies in Social Harm series Series editors: Christina Pantazis, University of Bristol and Simon Pemberton, University of Birmingham

The Studies in Social Harms series seeks to understand the production of harm within contemporary society. The series offers comparative and international perspectives to understand the distribution of harm and combines new theory and empirical research.

Forthcoming in the series: Social Harm and Neoliberalism John Gregson, September 2024

Out now in the series: Against Youth Violence Luke Billingham and Keir Irwin-Rogers, October 2022 The Harms of Work Anthony Lloyd, October 2019 Labour Exploitation and Work-Based Harm Sam Scott, April 2018 Harmful Societies Simon A. Pemberton, March 2016 Environmental Harm Rob White, September 2014

Find out more at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/studies-in-social-harm

BORDER HARMS AND EVERYDAY VIOLENCE A Prison Island in Europe Evgenia Iliadou

First published in Great Britain in 2023 by Bristol University Press University of Bristol 1–​9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK t: +​44 (0)117 374 6645 e: bup-​[email protected] Details of international sales and distribution partners are available at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk © Bristol University Press 2023 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-​1-​5292-​1276-​1 hardcover ISBN 978-​1-​5292-​1277-​8 ePub ISBN 978-​1-​5292-​1278-​5 ePdf The right of Evgenia Iliadou to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press. Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If, however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the author and not of the University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Bristol University Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design: Bristol University Press Front cover image: Evgenia Iliadou Bristol University Press use environmentally responsible print partners. Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Sensitive Content in This Book This book explores the brutalities, injustices and harms that border crossers suffer at the hands of a wicked border regime. It shares the stories, voices and experiences of people who crossed multiple borders seeking safety, but only to be crossed by them. The book also shares the experiences and injustices of the people who support them. The author incorporates her own painful lived experiences to illustrate the cruelties and suffering that border crossers face en route, at, within and beyond borders. The book is also a cautionary tale about a country that we are watching stealthily slipping into a dystopia. Therefore, the book explores sensitive topics such as sexual, physical, emotional and verbal violence, racism, deaths, intergenerational trauma. It includes visual material (depiction of conditions in refugee camps, abandoned shipwrecks, disposed life-jackets). This content might be upsetting or triggering for some readers. Please read with care.

Contents Series Editors’ Preface List of Figures Acknowledgements

viii xi xii

Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6

1

The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders Intergenerational Harms: Border Memories and Genealogies of Harm Quarantine Continuum: Medicalization of Borders and the Securitization of Migration and Health Mundane Surrealism: Bureaucratic Deterrence, Violence and Suffering Necroharms: Obscene and Grotesque Violence Thanatoharms: Governing Migration through Violence and Death

23 45 72 88 119 137

Conclusion

155

References Index

164 199

vii

Series Editors’ Preface We are delighted to present the sixth book in the Studies in Social Harm series. The series seeks to contribute to the emerging field of zemiology – a cutting edge approach within the social sciences prioritizing the investigation of the serious harms that take place in society. Individually, and collectively, the books expose how some of the most damaging harms are not necessarily those which are illegal; very often they escape sanction or even moral opprobrium. Too often they are ‘normalized’, seen as part and parcel of the natural fabric or functioning of society that cannot be disturbed or interfered with. Yet, as each of our contributors has uncovered, harms occur not because of individual wickedness or aberrant behaviour but due to the very way societies are organized. As Pemberton (2015) explains in his eloquent exposition of different capitalist formations and their relation to the production of specific harms – structural harms result from avoidable and alterable social arrangements, and are ultimately preventable events. To understand the full panoply of harms that occur in society Studies in Social Harm has encouraged authors from varied disciplinary foci, premised on the idea that we must embrace different disciplines and unify them towards this common goal. Evgenia Iliadou’s book Border Harms and Everyday Violence is an excellent illustration of this endeavour. Bringing together scholarship from migration studies, zemiology and social anthropology, Iliadou’s book provides a unique investigation of the unfolding European ‘refugee crisis’ from 2015 onwards using Lesvos as a case study. In 2015 Lesvos was thrust into the international spotlight becoming both ‘the epicentre and allegory of the one the worst forced displacements in history’. For Iliadou, this ‘crisis’ was far from sudden, isolated or even exceptional. Iliadou provides a fascinating interrogation of border harms and violence on the island, exposing the normalization and routinization of everyday practices of human degradation. By exploring the situation of Lesvos – an island in the Eastern Aegean promoted as a beautiful and scenic travel destination for discerning travellers – Iliadou exposes its janus-faced nature by linking contemporary border harms to a much longer genealogy of border violence towards people migrating to the region. To help us understand the contemporary ‘crisis’, Iliadou convincingly argues that we must appreciate viii

Series Editors’ Preface

how the history of the island and the region has long been connected to the forced displacement of people through war and conflict, and the confinement of border crossers with its inevitable human tragedy. In this way, Iliadou forcefully argues that we should assess the current ‘refugee crisis’ in terms of a continuum of border harms. In doing so we should also accept her metaphorical depiction of Lesvos as a Prison Island where border violence and control extend from the walls of the detention camps to permeate the whole island. Iliadou’s book offers three further distinct features that are worth drawing out for readers. Each points to the book’s unique contribution to the wider field of study on social harms. First, Iliadou’s work expands our imagination of what constitutes harm. As a relatively new disciplinary field contributors are inevitably charged with the responsibility for defining and expanding our understandings of harm. Much effort has already been expended on this endeavour (Hillyard et al., 2004; Pemberton, 2015; Canning and Tombs, 2021). However, Iliadou provides us with further new language and terminology and invites readers to consider harm from an intergenerational perspective. In this respect, harm does not just relate to the present, its impact is long-lasting and transmitted across time, space and significantly across generations through memory and trauma. Moreover, her use of the terms necroharms and thanatoharms directs our attention to the processes of ‘social death’ and ‘physical death’ caused by border management processes and their accompanying violence. In providing readers with new language and terms we can identify, label and challenge the harms that were previously accepted and presented as normal, and therefore invisible. Second, Iliadou deploys what she terms a ‘heartfelt ethnography’ to provide a powerful and insightful account of border harms and the banality of everyday violence, adding to the repertoire of research methods used by social harm scholars to expose state violence. Employing the principles of ethnography and an impressive data collection process spanning seven years involving observation and interviews with border crossers and those involved in the border regime (police, camp guards, Frontex workers, NGOs), we gain rich and detailed insights that conventional social science approaches would not have yielded. Central to Iliadou’s work, drawing on her own lived experiences, is to provide a deep sense of (self-)introspection and writing which exhibits a ‘heartfelt, vulnerably, wounded and intimate mode’. In this way, she produces an unashamedly emotional piece of research, taking research knowledge production away from the illusion of neutrality and impartiality. Third, and relatedly, Iliadou provides a contribution to activist social harm scholarship. Her academic research is intimately connected to her involvement in grassroots organizations providing support to refugees on Lesvos. Both through her activism and in her role as a NGO practitioner, she witnessed the ix

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

routinization and normalization of everyday violence and human degradation induced by the border control regime - but which inevitably were ignored and denied. The desire to document these border harms and everyday violence inspired the research that is presented in the book. In documenting the harms witnessed, Iliadou provides legitimacy and a voice to those suffering at the hands of the border control regime. It allows for the public shaming of state action and inaction and serves as a mechanism for accountability. Finally, and by way of conclusion, Iliadou provides readers with a salutary warning about border control management of ‘crises’ and their increasing infliction of harm. As governments rush to clamp down on migration (legal or otherwise), Iliadou’s book provides us with a disturbing account of the dangers of following through with the similar policies. In the UK, legislation is currently being discussed to stop the entry of people arriving on small boats to seek asylum. Under the new policy, they will be forcibly returned to their country of origin or deported to Rwanda from which they can process their asylum claims. Although cloaked in the language of humanitarianism and protection of people, the new bill is designed to deter and criminalize refugees. As Fallon and Christides (2023) write, the UK Government sees Greek migration policies as a blueprint to follow, but instead they should serve as a stark warning. Christina Pantazis Simon Pemberton References Canning, V. and Tombs, S. (2021) From social harm to zemiology: a critical introduction. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Fallon, K. and Christides, G. (2023) Tories hail Greek migration policies as an example. Instead they should serve as a warning, The Guardian, 12th April. Hillyard, P., Pantazis, C., Tombs, S., and Gordon, D. (Ed.) (2004) Beyond criminology: taking harm seriously. London England: Pluto Press. Pemberton, S. (2015) Harmful societies: understanding social harm. Bristol, UK: Policy Press.

x

List of Figures 1.1 1.2 1.3 2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 4.1

4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 6.1 6.2

Navy border patrols in the Aegean Sea Frontex ships in the port of Mytilene Graffiti on a wall in Mytilene city centre: ‘No camps. Let people free’ Graffiti on a wall in Mytilene city centre: ‘Our grandfathers refugees. Our parents migrants. We racists?’ Lifejacket graveyard The Pagani detention centre A discarded COVID-​19 information leaflet at the Moria camp A sarcastic handwritten note, which is addressed to NGO practitioners, outside the Asylum Service office in the Moria hotspot: ‘The time when I can ask something: 2.30–​3.30’ Living conditions in the Moria hotspot A tent outside the Moria hotspot Graffiti on a wall outside the Moria hotspot: ‘Human rights graveyard’ A mortuary poster on a wall in Mytilene city centre: ‘The death of European solidarity’ A tent in the Moria hotspot: misery funded by the EU A forgotten shipwreck on the northern coast of Lesvos A discarded boat engine on the coast of Lesvos

xi

26 40 42 46 50 64 86 97

110 122 123 125 127 141 146

Acknowledgements The idea for this book originated in my lived experiences in Greece and on the island of Lesvos, where I lived and worked as a nongovernmental organization (NGO) practitioner in immigration detention centres between 2005 and 2015. Also, the idea of the book originated in my lived experiences as a descendant of refugees. This book could not have been written without the support of the Department of Social Policy and Criminology at The Open University, which granted me a full-​time PhD scholarship for the period of 2015 to 2019 to carry out research on Lesvos. A very early version of this book was written at the Walton Hall campus of The Open University in Milton Keynes, and I am really grateful for the support and mentorship I received from colleagues there. I have also been fortunate to work among activist academics and benefit from their critical and cutting-​edge approaches to violence, social harm, forced migration, borders and border crimes. In particular I would like to thank (in alphabetical order) Avi Boukli, Vicky Canning, Marie Gillespie, Karim Murji and Steve Tombs. Their activist work and approach has inspired me and provided the theoretical background for my research and this book. If it had not been for them and their intellectual work, this book would be totally different. This book would not have been possible without the support of the Department of Politics at the University of Surrey. In particular, I would like to thank (in alphabetical order) Theofanis Exadaktylos, Amelia Hadfield, Simon Usherwood, and Alia Middleton for believing in the importance of my work and offering me a place in the department as well as funding –​ through the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research programme PROTECT –​to continue my research on vulnerability and border violence on Lesvos. Both the Department of Politics and PROTECT offered me space for productive intellectual engagement. I am really grateful for the support of my colleagues in the department and at the PROTECT consortium with whom I had the chance to discuss my work at seminars, conferences and other events. Their constructive feedback and insights on my work were valuable and helped me to clarify and conceptualize aspects of the book. Finally, I would like to thank the students in the Department of Politics –​with

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Acknowledgements

whom I had the privilege to engage through various courses, seminars and lectures on migration governance and border violence –​for the inspiration. I am also really indebted to Mary Bosworth for her mentorship and unconditional support in very difficult moments of my life and career when everything seemed futile. I would like to thank her for believing in me and for giving me a space to present my work and intellectually engage with colleagues and activists in the Border Criminologies research group. I would also like to thank Andriani Fili, a profound and critical scholar and a wonderful writer. Her critical work on the Greek immigration detention system and resistance has been of great inspiration. I thank her for giving me a platform to disseminate my work through Border Criminologies and for her encouragement and support while I was making a short film based on my experiences of working in the Pagani detention centre. Christina Pantazis and Simon Pemberton, the series editors of Studies in Social Harm, have been very supportive of this project from the beginning. I am grateful for all their help, patience and insightful comments. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers, since this book has benefited greatly from their insightful and invaluable comments, critiques, recommendations and encouragement. I am deeply indebted to all border crossers who took part in my research and shared with me their lived experiences and stories of violence and humiliation, life and death situations, resistance, dignity and hope. Furthermore, I would like to thank all the humanitarian workers, volunteers and activists who, despite the challenges they were facing, agreed to discuss with me the sensitive issue of border violence. This book would not have been possible without the support, care and encouragement of friends. In particular, I would like to thank (in alphabetical order) Vasiliki Andriadeli, Ioanna Antonoglou, Eleni Delivasaki, Toulina Demeli, Vasilis Dimou, Ehsan Gholami, Evris Kalogridis, Despoina Kampakli, Marikoula Kamperi-​Hatjilampou, Matina Kontoleontos Vaso and Dimitris Koufou, Zoi Leivaditou, Fotini Mitsou, Naiem Mohamedi, Mosaic Support Centre, Dina Mpelteki and Maqboul Sidiqi. I would also like to thank my mother, a working-​class heroine. If it were not for her and her sacrifices, I would not have been able to study in the first place and, therefore, this book would never have been written. I thank Ameriso and Christos Sarantidis’ family, and Nitsa Ralli, for their care and support. Special thanks to Mairi, Thomi, Vasilis, Mairoula, Giotis, Sissy, and Christakis. I thank my partner Dimos for offering support and patience, for listening to my fears and anxieties, and for always being there for me. I am by nature pessimistic, and I thank him for always showing me the bright side of life. As Oscar Wilde said: ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’ Dimos, thank you for your unconditional love. This book is dedicated to you. xiii

Introduction From 2015 onwards, the debates and dominant narratives about the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ put forward by multiple intervening actors and policy makers (at EU, national and local levels) and in the media have been ahistorical misconceptions, as they have routinely represented the refugee situation, human suffering and border violence in the Greek region as new, unforeseen, isolated events or tragic accidents –​that is, as ‘crises’ –​and, thus, not consistent with existing patterns (Freek and Lindblad, 2002). These misconceptions have tended to obscure deep historical roots –​the genealogy of border violence in Greece and its continuum in the present –​as they see the refugee issue, border violence, suffering and border deaths in mainland Greece and on Lesvos as starting explicitly in 2015. Indeed, when I interviewed various professionals who had come from various parts of the world to settle on Lesvos, most of them told me that they had been there only since the beginning of the refugee crisis –​that is, since 2015. Most of the intervening actors I interviewed were not aware of the migration, refugee and detention history of the Greek region as a whole and the island in particular. Similarly, in the academic literature, the debate on the refugee crisis is to a great extent ahistorical as it too focuses on the refugee issue in the period from 2015. However, there are some more recent works that have historicized the refugee crisis and border violence in Greece (Cabot, 2019; Iliadou, 2019a, 2021c; Karamanidou and Kasparek, 2022). Equally, debates on the ‘deterring-​killing’ (see Iliadou, 2021b, 2021c) policies and practices, such as pushback operations, and the criminalization of solidarity in the region, despite their deep historical roots, have either been ignored by the various actors or misrepresented as new or random events. These misconceptions tend to imply that before 2015 the refugee situation in the region –​the detention and asylum system as well as the reception and living conditions –​was good. However, Lesvos, and Greece more broadly, have a long history of forced displacement, border violence and control. People in this area have memories of forced displacements, border crossings, postcolonial violence, and trauma since the beginning of the 20th century. Due to the Greco–​Turkish War of 1919–​22, approximately one million Asia Minor refugees were forcibly displaced from Turkey to Greece and other 1

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

neighbouring countries (Hernadez, 2016). After 1922, many more refugees were settled in Greece due to population exchanges between Greece and Turkey (Green, 2010). In fact, 60 per cent of those now resident in Lesvos are descendants of the Asia Minor refugees of 1922 (Carstensen, 2015; Pantelia, 2016). Also, since the 1990s, mainland Greece and the island of Lesvos have been important border gateways for unauthorized border crossers1 from Albania. In addition, due to war and conflict in Asia, the Middle East and sub-​Saharan Africa, mainland Greece and Lesvos became entry points for thousands of forcibly displaced people from countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Palestine and Somalia. Therefore, it is superficial and one-​dimensional to assert that such violence is a new, unforeseen, temporary and isolated situation. Such an explanation is also ideological given that the historical past, the roots of border violence and controls, past forced displacements and human suffering are either selectively used or strategically forgotten to serve political and ideological agendas (Kidron, 2016). Identified as a ‘crisis’, the 2015 forced displacement on Lesvos produces and passes on to the next generations a history and testimony ‘written by the victors’2 –​ that is, those who possess power. This specific history and testimony then produce a specific genealogy of knowledge and ‘regimes of power and truth’ (Foucault, 1980, p 131) which is transmitted across generations. In turn, this specific knowledge, which strategically overlooks certain facts, produces, on the one hand, ignorance and, on the other hand, epistemic injustice, objectification and oppression. Misconceptions which serve political ends also produce ‘testimonial injustices’ (Fricker, 2013) which inflict harm that continues across generations. In addition, these misconceptions obscure who holds accountability for the misery and violence inflicted as well as for border crimes committed against forcibly displaced people. The lack of accountability perpetuates harm, which is inflicted but also transmitted upon people and whole communities, across time and space, and notably across generations, by forming a new conceptual category of harm that I call intergenerational harm (Chapter 2). From this angle, the refugee issue and border violence which has unfolded in Lesvos since 2015 strategically has been identified as a ‘crisis’ so that violent and exceptional EU border policies and practices can be justified, legitimized and normalized. This fact, as I argue

1

2

I use the term ‘border crossers’ instead of the legal and bureaucratic terms ‘refugees’, ‘asylum seekers’ and ‘irregular migrants’. The border regime generates border controls, visas and passports, ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ mobilities, bureaucratic and legal classifications of people. Therefore, I politically engage with grassroots movements, which condemn the violent border regime and its fatal consequences by emphasizing that the actual problem is the borders and not the people who cross them. The quote ‘history is written by the victors’ is attributed to Winston Churchill. 2

Introduction

throughout this book, produces dehumanization and creates voids which allow abuses and killings –​even by ordinary citizens –​without consequence. This book is about the European refugee crisis and the continuum of border violence across time and space. It problematizes and historicizes the development of the so-​called 2015 refugee crisis and explores the deep historical roots of border violence. The book sets the Greek island of Lesvos as its case study due the region’s long history as a border pathway to Europe. In addition, in 2015 Lesvos became both the epicentre, and allegory, of one of the worst forced displacements in history since World War II –​the ‘refugee crisis’. The book explores the long-​term, cumulative harms across time and space which are produced by the EU border regime upon border crossers’ lives. It makes an argument about the violence continuum in time and space. Through this lens, the refugee crisis is explored in a diachronic sense and placed in a ‘genealogical framework’ (Schulte Nordholt, 2002, p 34). Certain violence and border control patterns of the present overlap and intersect, displaying similarities and continuities with past patterns obscuring the beginning and end of the ‘refugee crisis’. Therefore, this book proposes that the refugee crisis should be perceived as a ‘violence continuum’. Furthermore, the book looks at social harm inflicted by the institutional, structural and everyday violence enforced at, within and beyond borders. It argues that the social harm and social suffering experienced by border crossers are routinely and deliberately naturalized, neutralized and normalized by states (at EU, national and local levels) through the management of the ‘crisis’ as an ‘emergency’. It moves beyond existing approaches that focus on social harm in a specific moment and region and which document different types of harm as though they were distinct. Therefore, it examines harms as they are experienced by border crossers in everyday life in the following ways: (i) as if harms are cumulative –​harms do not just exist historically and ‘unfold over time’, but escalate, and thus their effects intensify, over time; (ii) as if they interact, combine and intersect by producing a constellation of harms –​that is, more and/​or new types of harm (Iliadou, 2019a, 2021b). The book asks why social harm and suffering are normalized, routinized and rendered invisible, and it addresses the question of whether these are deliberate and premeditated. In so doing, the book addresses the issue of human rights violations and the collective, global responsibility for safeguarding them. It concludes with the question of whether these violations consist of ‘banal crimes against humanity’ (Kalpouzos and Mann, 2015).

Aims of this book A main aim of this book is to establish historical continuity. That is, to give prominence to the processes and border policies and practices that are enforced –​routinely, slowly and quietly –​across time and space and which 3

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

initiate and produce social indifference and apathy by rendering border harms and social suffering invisible. Therefore, this book unpacks and challenges the hegemonic narratives which routinely present border crossings, deaths and violence as sudden, unforeseen, isolated events or tragic accidents –​ that is, as ‘crisis’. Through the deployment of metaphorical language and euphemisms (Chapter 3), these hegemonic narratives disorientate public opinion by identifying repression with care and surveillance with kindness, and by naturalizing, normalizing and legitimizing violence. Hence, I focus on discursive historical processes –​that is, the roots, genealogies and legacies of violence –​and their intersection and synergy with time, space and memory. This intersection is evident in Lesvos and the rest of Greece, where past violence continue to unfold and have become embodied and are kept alive through memory and trauma (Rylko-​Bauer et al, 2009). A great concern of this book, then, is the violence continuum and the materiality of borders (Chapter 2). Also, those hegemonic narratives, by making physical harms and pushback operations hypervisible without placing them in their genealogical framework, tend to normalize and naturalize violence by reducing it to a spectacle and initiating the public into voyeurism and indifference. Moreover, they silence and distract focus from other –​more stealthy and silent –​forms of violence which take place routinely beyond (territorial and/​or liquid) borders and the institutional walls of camps/​hotspots/​detention centres. Lesvos, then, is considered a prison island and a border zone and, therefore, a site of border violence (see Chapters 5, 6 and the Conclusion). Another aim of this book is to challenge the mainstream discourses which represent exceptional and violent discriminatory security and COVID-​ 19-​related enforcements at, within and beyond borders as something new and normalize them (Chapter 3). The COVID-​19 pandemic produced a crisis discourse and, as a consequence, enabled emergency and exceptional responses with respect to forcibly displaced people crossing the Greek–​ Turkish border. In addition to being a prison island, Lesvos also became a quarantine zone with devastating consequences for border crossers. The mandatory medical, sanitary and military border enforcements are perceived as part of a continuum rather than a ‘crisis’. Furthermore, this book aims to highlight the human capacity for violence and brutality as well as resilience, solidarity and resistance. A great concern of this book then is the violence inflicted by state officials, border guards, authorities (such as the Asylum Service) and EU actors, such as Frontex. State officials not only enable the violent border regime but also actively kill by producing border deaths. This book documents the violence continuum in death and even beyond the moment of death and the multitude of harms that are inflicted upon the dead, the living and whole communities (Chapter 6). The human capacity for violence inflicted by ordinary citizens is another concern of this book. Since the rise of the far right in Greece, there has been an increase in hate crimes 4

Introduction

and racialized violence, exploitation and profiteering at border crossers’ expense by ordinary citizens and/​or organized members of neo-​Nazi and other far right vigilante groups. In Lesvos, there has been a plethora of such organized acts against border crossers but also against activists, volunteers, nongovernmental organization (NGO) practitioners and journalists. The aim here is to make an argument about the banality of evil and to ask whether or not there are banal crimes against humanity unfolding at Europe’s threshold. Documenting and analyzing the historical continuum of border practices and policies helps us gain a more holistic understanding of the processes that have being shaping contemporary border regime policies. Also, exploration and documentation of the genealogies and legacies of the refugee crisis and border violence serve as border counter-​narratives. This helps us to preserve the memories of borders and how the aftereffects of the past are experienced in the present and the future, and it is an attempt to rewrite the history from below. It is ultimately an act of resistance.

Painful injustices: understanding violence, social harm and social suffering The attempt in this book to fully unpack debates around the issue of violence is limited given that violence is a very slippery concept that is difficult to define and has been studied from various perspectives and different academic fields. In the literature around social harm, the concept of harm is used interchangeably with violence, and when the concept of violence is deployed, it is not distinguished conceptually from social harm. Often in this literature, harm overlaps with institutional violence and structural violence.3 Furthermore, at times in this literature harm encompasses interpersonal violence. This interchange between concepts renders the relationship between harm and violence unclear and/​or taken for granted. Criminological research focuses on the notion of crime and, therefore, on the forms of violence which are defined by criminal law. From the perspective of criminal law, a common understanding of (violent) crime is interpersonal acts, that focus on individuals (perpetrator and victim), take place in close proximity and encompass intent –​that is, the intention to inflict harm on someone.

3

Although these two terms are close and they are often used interchangeably, the term institutional violence is used here to refer to violence that are inflicted by state institutions and the criminal justice system. Institutional violence is endemic due to power, the organizational and occupational culture that promotes silencing and allows impunity. Structural violence is built upon institutional violence and can inflict severe harm to the most marginalized members of the society. It has deep historical roots and is embedded into the structures to such extend that is difficult to discern and identify who the abuser is (for more detailed discussion see p 29). 5

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

However, this perspective excludes many serious incidents and events which, even though they inflict grave harm upon people, are not covered by criminal law or, in practice, are ignored or not handled according to criminal law (Hillyard and Tombs, 2007). These incidents and events can inflict serious life-​changing and long-​term damage and suffering upon people and whole communities throughout the life course (Tombs, 2007; Davies et al, 2014). Even though these harms are not apprehended through the dominant perceptions and definitions of violence and crime, they can be especially coercive and deleterious. The social harm approach originated from a series of debates within criminology which highlighted that the notion of crime is socially constructed and its definition is rather narrow (Hillyard and Tombs, 2007). The social harm approach has been proposed as an alternative to the criminological approach; the former goes beyond the latter to focus on harm rather than legally defined crime. The social harm approach highlights social and structural factors –​which often take the form of exclusion from basic human rights and needs –​as generators of harm and human suffering. It explores harms which are foreseeable, preventable and, therefore, avoidable. The primary focus of the social harm approach is not on whether harms are intended. As Simon Pemberton notes, an emphasis only on intent would turn the focus of the analysis to interpersonal acts and would render invisible a range of harms which often ‘fall outside the parameters of social inquiry’ (2015, p 25). Instead, a focus on foreseeable and avoidable consequences would provide more insight and give prominence to the moral responsibility and culpability for a range of harms produced by structures such as racism, sexism, patriarchy, classism, (neo)colonialism, poverty, inequality and power (as well as state-​initiated indifference). The concept of social harm is not without limitations and problems of definition. Paddy Hillyard and Steve Tombs (2007, p 17) point out that a precise definition of social harm needs elaboration, but the term would ‘embrace a wide range of events and conditions that affect people during their life course’. Through this lens, they suggest that a social harm approach would encompass a range from physical harms to psychological/​emotional harms, financial/​economic harms, cultural harms and sexual harms (Dorling et al, 2008). However, Hillyard and Tombs (2007) argue that the definition of harm is an open-​ended work-​ in-​progress through which the understanding of the range of types of harm will emerge and develop from empirical study. Additionally, they note that harms should be identified and defined primarily by those who have experienced or witnessed them, taking into account peoples’ understandings and experiences. Christina Pantazis and Simon Pemberton’s definition of harm, which utilizes Doyal and Gough’s (1991) human needs approach, is based on 6

Introduction

‘an understanding of what it means to function successfully as a human being’ (Pantazis and Pemberton, 2012, p 43). In his most recent work, Pemberton (2015, pp 28–​31) revises Hillyard and Tombs’ typology by combining physical and mental health harms as one category and expands the typology of harm by encompassing autonomy harms and relational harms. Physical and mental health harms refer to harms which can inflict death or lead to deterioration of people’s physical and mental health by preventing them from ‘lead[ing] an active and successful life’ (Doyal and Gough, 1991, p 59). In this respect, harms range from physical injuries and accidents to exposure to harmful environmental conditions, diseases and conditions which can restrict people in formulating active choices, affect their ability to maintain social relationships or produce feelings of precariousness, helplessness and worthlessness, or even inflict death. Autonomy harms refer to harms inflicted due to inability to take control of one’s life, be active in the decision-​making process, or engage actively in the labour market. All these features affect the self-​esteem and self-​worth of a person and can produce feelings of worthlessness. Autonomy harms are inflicted when people’s achievements and contribution to society are overlooked, misrecognized and unrewarded. Relational harms come in two forms: ‘enforced exclusion from social relationships and harms of misrecognition’ (Pemberton, 2015, p 30). Exclusion from social relationships can prove particularly harmful since people cannot fulfil ordinary emotional needs, such as love. This can lead to feelings of social isolation and loneliness. Harms of misrecognition are inflicted when the cultural identity of people who belong to a specific social group is systematically misrepresented and stigmatized by the members of the dominant social group. Misrecognition prevents people from self-​ representation and self-​actualization and produces exclusion, devaluation, shame, guilt and humiliation (Pemberton, 2015). Further types of harm are gendered harms (Cain and Howe, 2008; Canning, 2017) and cultural harms (Copson, 2018; Iliadou, 2021b). Many of the critical criminological and zemiological empirical studies around borders and migration build their analysis by deploying Johan Galtung’s (1969) concept of structural violence. According to Galtung, with structural violence, ‘here may not be any person who directly harms another person in the structure. Violence is built into the structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently as unequal life chances’ (1969, p 171). Galtung’s work was of great significance as he expanded dominant understandings, which focused on the individualized, interpersonal and intentional nature of violence. He showed that violence is impersonal since it is often hard to identify the perpetrators who commit violent acts. As social anthropologist Akhil Gupta (2012, p 21) notes: ‘In the case of structural violence, although there is a victim –​someone who is injured by the inequities of social arrangements –​it is hard to identify a perpetrator. 7

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

It is not a victimless crime but its opposite: a crime without a criminal’ (2012, p 21). Galtung (1969, p 171) associated structural violence with the uneven distribution of resources. He noted that structural violence is responsible for more premature deaths and suffering than physical violence (Galtung, 1969; see also Rylko-​Bauer and Farmer, 2018). Furthermore, he presented the idea of structural violence as avoidable harm. Later in his work, Galtung (1990) expanded the definition of structural violence by introducing the concept of cultural violence, defined as any aspect of culture which is used to legitimize other types of indirect and structural violence. Although Galtung’s influence in border studies from a social harm perspective is undeniably great, his definition has limited capacity to capture the multiple forms of violence and the grave social harm and social suffering inflicted upon forcibly displaced populations across time and space. Therefore, in this book, I take Galtung’s definition into account but move beyond it. My approach is informed by an important body of literature which explores the concept of structural violence and social suffering from a social anthropological perspective. As a result, I propose an interdisciplinary approach organized around the anthropological approaches on structural violence (Farmer, 2004; Scheper-​Hughes and Bourgois, 2004; Rylko-B ​ auer et al, 2009), social suffering (Kleinman et al, 1997) and social harm (Hillyard and Tombs, 2007) rooted in critical criminology. I suggest that although there is an interesting overlap and synergy between these three concepts, they have never been conceptualized together before. The intersection between these concepts may prove useful for understanding the multitude of harms which are produced and inflicted by those who are in powerful, privileged positions. In addition, such an interdisciplinary approach ‘may have the potential for greater theoretical coherence and imagination and for more political progress’ (Hillyard and Tombs, 2007, p 9). According to social anthropologists Barbara Rylko-​Bauer and Paul Farmer: Structural violence is the violence of injustice and inequity—​ ‘embedded in ubiquitous social structures, normalized by stable institutions and regular experience’ (Winter and Leighton 2001: 99). By structures we mean social relations and arrangements—​economic, political, legal, religious, or cultural—​that shape how individuals and groups interact within a social system. These include broad-​scale cultural and political-​economic structures such as caste, patriarchy, slavery, apartheid, colonialism, and neoliberalism, as well as poverty and discrimination by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and migrant/​refugee status. These structures are violent because they result in avoidable deaths, illness, and injury; and they reproduce violence by marginalizing people and communities, constraining 8

Introduction

their capabilities and agency, assaulting their dignity, and sustaining inequalities. (2018, p 47) Social anthropologists have also pointed out that structural violence is historically grounded. Structural violence has deep historical roots and encompasses the ordinary and mundane processes, practices and acts of normalization, routinization, naturalization and legitimization that render violence misrecognized, invisible and taken for granted (Green, 1994; Scheper-​Hughes, 1997; Duschinski, 2010; Sabo et al, 2014). The concept of continuum of violence (or violence continuum) introduced by Nancy Scheper-​ Hughes and Philippe Bourgois is very important here as it indicates that violence unfolds in ordinary and mundane, everyday social, public and private spaces in visible and invisible, legitimate and illegitimate forms ‘in times that can best be described as neither war nor peacetime’ (2004, p 4). Thus, the concept of continuum of violence includes the everyday organized, legitimized and routinized practices and processes of humiliation, and dehumanization which are not recognized as violence due to familiarity and normalization. The practices and processes of everyday violence are rendered invisible and tolerated, as Scheper-​Hughes emphasizes, ‘not because they are secreted away or hidden from view, but quite the opposite … the things that are hardest to perceive are those which are right before our eyes and therefore taken for granted’ (1997, p 473). Everyday violence refers to practices and processes which render some lives unworthy, inferior and disposable, and it shows ‘the ease with which humans are capable of reducing the socially vulnerable into expendable nonpersons and assuming the license –​even the duty –​to kill, maim, or soul-​murder’ (Scheper-​Hughes and Bourgois, 2004, p 19). The concept of continuum of violence operates synergistically with the concept of everyday violence. The two concepts intersect and overlap, with each encompassing practices, processes and acts of ‘social exclusion, dehumanisation, depersonalisation, pseudo-​speciation, and reification which normalize the atrocious and the otherwise unthinkable’ (Scheper-​Hughes, 1997, p 472). In addition, social anthropologists have pointed out that greater attention must be given to the ways structural violence is understood at the local (micro) level by examining the lived experiences of those affected by multiple injustices as well as their survival strategies, resistance and resilience (Scheper-​Hughes and Bourgois, 2004; Biehl and Moran-​Thomas, 2009; Rylko-​Bauer and Farmer, 2018). Structural violence has an enduring painful legacy. This means that violence is not only historically grounded but also has aftermaths that continue into the future and can extend over generations –​in space, time, memories and myths of people and interpersonal relationships (Rylko-​Bauer et al, 2009). According to Rylko-​Bauer et al, ‘perpetrators, victims, and witnesses alike carry with them the violence 9

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

they have seen and experienced’ (2009, p 4). And as social anthropologist Carolyn Nordstrom argues, ‘some of this violence can affect them, stick with them, like a rash on the soul’ (1998, p 113). Therefore, structural violence has long-​term consequences for people’s lives, and it shapes their subjectivity. This lived experience of pain and the social conditions through which suffering is experienced and expressed are of great significance for this book. According to Singer and Erickson, while the consequences of structural violence are experienced individually, ‘structural violence targets classes of people and subjects them to common forms of lived oppression. Hence, the experience of structural violence and the pain it produces has been called “social suffering” ’ (2011, p 1). Arthur Kleinman, Veena Das and Margaret Lock define social suffering as the lived experience of pain and trauma which results from ‘what political, economic and institutional power does to people and, reciprocally, from how these forms of power themselves influence responses to social problems’ (1997, p ix). The lived experience of pain and trauma is central in this book. As I explain in the following chapters, trauma and violence, either directly experienced or witnessed, have long-​term, enduring embodied impact and are kept alive through memory. By taking into consideration the preceding discussion and the limitations of the social harm typology, I expand the typology by introducing three types of harm: (i) intergenerational harms, which are inflicted and perpetuate across time, space and memory, across generations (Chapter 2); (ii) necroharms, which are harms inflicted due to necropolitical border management –​they are related to humiliation, degradation and destruction of life, liberty and personhood, and lead to social death (Chapter 5); and (iii) thanatoharms, which are inflicted due to thanatopolitical border management and violence –​these are acts of omission or commission that inflict physical death or endanger lives (Chapter 6).

A heartfelt ethnography of borders The book is based on data collected in two periods: between 2015 and 2019 as part of my PhD ethnographic research on the refugee crisis and the violence continuum (at, within and beyond borders); and between 2020 and 2022 as part of my postdoctoral ethnographic research on the region exploring violence, vulnerability and migration governance. During my research, I carried out 102 interviews with border crossers, activists, NGO staff, members of the authorities and Frontex staff,4 and I also collected visual material and made field notes. I conducted fieldwork in the Moria

4

All interviewees’ names used in this book are pseudonyms. 10

Introduction

hotspot, the Kara Tepe camp, Moria 2.0 (known as the Mavrovouni camp), the Pikpa camp and the Mosaic centre. In terms of methodology, the book deploys a heartfelt ethnographic approach. Although my research is essentially ethnographic, it has been greatly inspired by various (auto) ethnographers working on issues of borders, trauma and grief (Khosravi, 2011; Andersson, 2014a; Ellis and Patti, 2014; De León, 2015; Dutta, 2015; Hasselberg, 2016). Through this lens, the book deploys the principles of autoethnography –​that is, ‘personal experience, acknowledging existing research, understanding and critiquing cultural experience, using insider knowledge, breaking silence, and manoeuvring through pain, confusion, anger, and uncertainty’ (Ellis and Adams, 2014, p 49). At the same time, the book deploys (self-​)introspection –​an emerging concept from the subfield of emotional sociology. As Ellis argues, ‘emotional sociology –​consciously and reflectively feeling for ourselves, our subjects and our topics of study and evoking those feeling in our readers –​is necessary for apprehending important aspects of social life, in particular, the lived experiences of emotion’ (1991, p 121). This ultimately means that the book is, at times, written in a heartfelt, vulnerable, wounded and intimate way that draws on empathy with interviewees and my painful lived experiences as an NGO practitioner (2005-​2015), a female, Southern European early career researcher and eyewitness, and a descendant of refugees and survivor of state violence. However, this book is not constructed exclusively around my lived experiences, but rather on those of border crossers –​the oppressed survivors and agents revolting against the cruel border regime. My lived experiences are mainly presented in the form of testimonies, vignettes and/​ or flashbacks, and evocative border narratives within the chapters. According to Sam (2013), ‘[a]‌flashback is a piece of traumatic memory’; in this sense, these border narratives link past with present key traumatic events and support the main argument of the book –​that is, that there is a continuum of violence in time, space and memory and a cumulative dimension of harms. The selected border narratives derive from multiple sources: my lived experiences and witnessing as an NGO practitioner between 2005 and 2015; my ethnographic diary, field notes, and introspective and free writing (Ellis, 2004) throughout my research. The book gains its narrative power from metaphor in testimonial writing, subaltern voices, witnessing and testimony (Warren, 1997; Khosravi, 2011). As social anthropologist Shahram Khosravi notes: the significance of the voice of the witness is that the witness has been there, and has seen what happened. Witnesses have themselves lived the disaster and might themselves be victims. They can retell the story and unfold the event with first-​hand authority. This does not mean that witnesses, just because they are insiders, possess the only authentic 11

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

approach. The witness’s narrative is only one of many, albeit one less heard. (2011, p 6) From this angle, Kay Warren, another social anthropologist, in her work in Latin America, showed how testimonios (testimonies) are deployed by indigenous Mayan communities to expose and denounce state violence, brutality and oppression as well as ‘to demonstrate subaltern resistance’ (1997, p 22). As Warren argues: ‘On the one hand, they [testimonios] represent eyewitness experiences, however mediated, of injustice and violence; on the other hand, they involve the act of witnesses presenting evidence for judgement in the court of public opinion’ (1997, p 22). These testimonios are very important for this book. They are deployed as counter-​narratives against the official narratives and to challenge the deniability of the state for the crimes it commits against forcibly displaced people.

The metaphor of ‘prison island’ The book deploys the metaphor of Lesvos as a ‘prison island’ (Iliadou, 2018). I introduced the metaphor of prison island for the first time in 2018 after completing my fieldwork on Lesvos, having documented various changes and the negative and harmful consequences of the border policies and practices of externalization and internalization of borders (see Chapter 1). Although I had lived, studied and worked on Lesvos in the mid-​2000s until 2015, when I first visited the island in 2016 to conduct fieldwork, the changes that these policies and interventions had brought about became really obvious to me. As discussed in Chapter 1, as a response to the refugee crisis and the misery and suffering unfolding off the coasts of Lesvos, many surveillance, military and humanitarian actors intervened in order to assist by creating a very awkward environment. In addition, exceptional border policies and practices such as the EU–​Turkey statement and the geographical restriction rule indefinitely immobilized border crossers on Lesvos by creating a prison context for them, where the prison was not located only within the Moria camp but everywhere on the island. Throughout my research, I witnessed border crossers wandering around like ‘living dead’, going between the Moria and Kara Tepe camps and the city centre. Many border crossers were languishing outside cafes, in public squares and inside camps. I was really shocked to see women and children begging for money on a daily basis. On one occasion, as I was walking in the street, a little girl stopped me and said: ‘I am from Syria. I am hungry. Please madam, help me.’ I also noticed long queues of young men –​all of them border crossers –​outside banks and cash machines. Following a decision by the Minister of Migration, border crossers were eligible for an allowance ranging from €90 to €400 per month. However, this decision was not received well by the locals, who 12

Introduction

were dealing with the enduring consequences of the refugee situation and the financial crisis. As I stood there, I heard a local man who was passing by say in a belittling tone, ‘We are full of pensioners and loiterers here’ (in Greek: γεμίσαμε συνταξιούχους και χασομέρηδες). In a literal sense, the term ‘pensioner’ refers to older people in retirement, but for the local man, these young border crossers, who were of working age and capable of working, were instead receiving money without having earned, and therefore deserved, it and were just wasting time doing nothing. The man said: “So many Greeks are unemployed for such a long time and are not eligible for any allowance, but migrants are. This is awful.” This was in reference to the fact that due to the financial crisis, many Greeks had been left without any provision from the state, and this had forced many of them into homelessness, poverty or enduring unemployment. But as border crossers were not allowed to work, they became dependant on the NGOs and state financial aid, and so throughout my research, I saw this scene unfolding multiple times a day. The port of Mytilene –​a place where I used to walk around –​was turned into a big cage as high fences were raised and police came to guard them. Due to the lack of reception facilities in the main camp, Moria, the port had turned into an unofficial camp for approximately 300 border crossers. A former navy ship anchored at the port was utilized as a peculiar ‘reception centre’, but even though border crossers were kept inside this floating ship within the port, they were not allowed to sail to the Greek mainland. As I stood outside this ‘cage port’, I saw the ferry to Athens getting ready to sail and the last passengers running to board. I witnessed a small group of male border crossers show their ‘papers’ to the coastguard, only to be banned from entering the port and boarding the ferry. On the far side of the port, in the shadow of a statue ironically called the Statue of Liberty, another small group of border crossers was left outside the ‘cage port’, gazing at the ferry travelling to Athens. They too were not allowed to travel, like so many other border crossers who have been immobilized within an enormous geographical, physical and existential prison –​a prison island –​for months or even years without being able to move forward to the Greek mainland and, thus, to Northern Europe. Without being able to move forward or go back, by being restricted to a piece of earth surrounded by the deep blue sea, border crossers’ rights were systematically suspended or violated, the autonomy of their movement was restricted, and they experienced multiple states of ‘stuckedness’ (Hage, 2009) and multiple forms of harm by the Greek authorities, the EU border agents, far right groups and even ordinary citizens (see the Conclusion). Apart from their physical confinement, border crossers also experienced the confinement of their dreams and desires to settle in another place (Tazzioli and Garelli, 2018, p 3). The implementation of deterrence policies and practices to prevent border crossers from entering Greece or moving forward to Northern Europe turned Lesvos into a prison island where control, surveillance, monitoring and violence 13

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

were not limited to within the institutional walls of the camp/​detention centre/​ hotspot, but expanded across the island. The metaphor of Lesvos as a prison island reflects the ultimate manifestation of border crossers’ spatial and temporal confinement beyond detention (see Chapter 1 and the Conclusion). In the next section, I discuss positionality, power, and ethical dilemmas that made the research and writing process of the book interesting but at the same time challenging.

Positionality, power, ethics Since 2005, I have worked as an NGO practitioner in refugee camps and detention centres, providing social support to forcibly displaced persons. I worked in many different sites of confinement in border zones in the Greek mainland and on the Aegean Islands. I was also actively involved for many years in grassroots movements supporting refugees who reached Lesvos. These experiences were often shocking, traumatic and life-​changing, as over time and through my different positionalities, I witnessed the continuum of institutional and structural violence, the insult and violation of human dignity, the pain and suffering, and the death of people seeking international protection in the hands of the Greek authorities and, more broadly, the proliferating thanatopolitical and necropolitical border regimes. The systematic insult and violation of human dignity I witnessed was inflicted upon border crossers even in death and beyond the moment of death (Iliadou, 2019a, 2021b). Over time, I heard and recorded numerous accounts and testimonies of border crossers related to border violence, including torture, sexual violence, human trafficking, state violence and pushback operations. Among the questions I was routinely asked by various professionals was: Do police physically abuse border crossers? What is going on in the Aegean Sea? Are the authorities drowning border crossers? Do they carry out pushback operations? These were reasonable questions. The Aegean Sea and Evros river –​the liquid borders between Turkey and Greece –​have been sites of banal and silent violence since the 1990s (Pro Asyl, 2014). On land, detention centres –​like Pagani on Lesvos, Fylakio in Evros and other similar sites on the Greek mainland –​were closed to professionals and access to them was monitored and approved or prohibited by the police headquarters. As a result, until 2015 detention centres were operating as ‘black holes’ wherein a few professionals/​civil society organizations/​activists acted as eyewitnesses of the state violence which was routinely unfolding 5. State violence was 5

Apart from a few articles in the (inter)national and local press and reports from human rights organizations, until 2014, the issue of border violence on Lesvos was significantly under-r​ esearched. Stratos Georgoulas and Dimos Sarantidis’ (2013) research on the Pagani detention centre on Lesvos is one of the few studies that expose and denounce state crimes against people on the move. 14

Introduction

inadequately reported and cases of police brutality were systematically denied by the Greek authorities or reduced to ‘isolated incidents’ (Karamanidou, 2015a). However, when speaking with some of these professionals, what struck me most was that they expected me to confirm lurid details of abuse and state brutality against border crossers. It was very shocking to see some level of disappointment, disapproval and even disbelief when I could not serve out the ‘spectacle of refugee suffering’ (Cabot, 2019, p 270).6 In addition, some (not all) of these professionals showed particular interest in direct and more visible forms of state violence exercised by the authorities –​the police, the Hellenic Coast Guard and Frontex –​and in self-​directed forms of harm, such as suicide attempts, hunger strikes or other acts of despair. They showed no interest in other, more implicit forms of violence, which went unacknowledged and unaddressed even though they were inflicting grave harm and suffering upon people. I refer here to various forms of institutional and structural violence which were taking place quietly, routinely and slowly inside and even outside the detention centres and refugee camps and were rendered invisible. I also refer to the widespread banal acts of everyday violence, negligence and indifference, actions and inactions by some professionals –​public servants and administrators, medical staff, social workers, coordinators, staff in NGOs and international organizations –​and ordinary citizens. These banal acts of everyday violence, negligence and indifference took place in the day-​to-​day encounters between border crossers and locals –​in the hospital and medical clinics, in public services and in the local community of Lesvos. I refer as well to cases of invisible violence –​such as human and labour trafficking, profiteering and exploitation, and commodification of border crossers by ordinary citizens. I also refer to the epistemic violence and injustices inflicted by academics, journalists and other professionals at border crossers’ expense. As mentioned, the immigration detention centres on mainland Greece and Lesvos were operating as ‘black holes’. I was the only female NGO

6

My intention here is not to mock or belittle other professionals who work to expose state violence. Also, I do not mean to suggest that all professionals who do research on violence are unethical. However, there are two ethical concerns here. One has to do with the lurking unintended harms that some of these professionals can, at times, inflict on interviewees, eyewitnesses and survivors of state violence, such as border crossers and NGO practitioners. The other has to do with the commodification of suffering (Chouliaraki, 2006; Chouliaraki and Stolic, 2017) and knowledge production in times of (border) ‘crisis’ (Rigo, 2018). Together, these can violate the ‘do no harm’ principle and (re)traumatize informants and research participants. 15

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

practitioner working in the Pagani detention centre and one of the few practitioners that had access to other detention centres on the Greek mainland and on the other islands. Although there was no non-​disclosure agreement or similar clause in my contract, the act of whistleblowing –​ providing information about the centres to journalists, researchers or civil society organizations –​was difficult if not impossible. On the one hand, this was because I was systematically monitored by the coordinator of the NGO I was working for and threatened about talking or told to be very cautious about what kind of information I shared with other professionals as this could endanger the organization’s access to the centres, implementation of its programmes and, consequently, my job. On the other hand, Ι was suffocatingly monitored by the authorities and so I would have been easily identified as a whistleblower if I had passed on information. This, in turn, would have activated a circle of intimidation and retaliation inside and even outside the detention centre, as any public denouncement of state violence was perceived by the Greek authorities as vilification and whistleblowers were perceived as ‘anti-​Hellene’ (similar to traitors). The forms of intimidation, abuse and retaliation that I experienced because of my work included rape threats and sexual harassment, verbal and psychological violence in the form of screaming and shouting, symbolic violence through everyday acts of humiliation, devaluation and intimidation inside and even beyond the institutional walls of the immigration detention centres and refugee camps; this made my life unliveable. I was systematically watched, stalked and harassed, accused of smuggling or espionage, and photographed without my consent in the public spaces of Lesvos by the Greek authorities. I lived for years in a chronic state of fear. In the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis, this culture of terror has frequently been referred to as the ‘criminalisation of solidarity’ (Fekete, 2018), but back then it was not perceived as such and, therefore, this violence was rendered invisible. Therefore, my silence –​ though not institutionally enforced through security clearance processes and non-​disclosure clauses –​was actually enforced implicitly. Following the 2015 refugee crisis, when I began my research on Lesvos, I witnessed the escalation and exacerbation of the aforementioned direct and indirect forms of violence unfolding with multiple long-​term consequences for border crossers’ lives. Yet, although those banal acts of everyday violence had harmful consequences for people’s lives, those acts were not counted as violence and/​or crime. My first-​hand experiences and observations led me to focus my attention on the multiple and overlapping visible and invisible forms of violence and harm which I had witnessed unfolding in a continuum in time and space, and this shaped my research and this book. I concentrated on making sense of the violence, social harm and social suffering I witnessed on Lesvos. My attention was drawn to the various processes which rendered this violence invisible or unacknowledged –​that is, the social production of 16

Introduction

indifference and apathy (Herzfeld, 1992). These lived experiences played a crucial role in my decision to join academia and denounce state violence both from a position of power and academic authority and as an eyewitness and survivor of state violence (Pavlásek, 2022). However, when I joined academia, I found myself in an incongruous’position. On the one hand, my experiences, testimony, findings and knowledge were devalued as being not validated and were frequently reduced by others to the level of assumption or speculation. Despite the long history of Lesvos as a site of border violence and my long-​term engagement and activism in the field, in 2015 when I moved to the UK to begin my PhD research, many of the people I spoke to had never heard of Lesvos. I was frequently asked: “Lesvos? Where is that? Is it in Malta?” Also, a common response to my research was: “So what?” On the other hand, these misconceptions about the refugee issue in Greece as well as the misrecognition of Lesvos as an important region and border gateway to Europe gradually shifted from 2015 onwards. During 2015, more than 800,000 border crossers came to Greece via the Aegean Sea and Turkey, and of these, approximately 500,000 arrived at Lesvos. This large-​scale forced displacement, the suffering and border deaths in the region, and the humanitarian intervention and solidarity which unfolded turned Lesvos into a theatrical border spectacle (De Genova and Tazzioli, 2016; Cabot, 2019). Lesvos became the epicentre of what is predominantly referred to as the ‘refugee crisis’. As social anthropologist Katerina Rozakou notes, the ‘migration crisis’ turned ‘migration governance in Greece into a popular research field’ (2019, p 68). Gradually, I found myself in the position of research participant, interviewee or informant, and even local fixer (due to my familiarity with the field: I had been living and working on Lesvos in the mid-​2000s until 2015), but not in the position of academic, knower and transmitter of knowledge. In other words, I was someone who could help others and facilitate interactions with the authorities and other stakeholders, gain access to people and places, offer insights, help with interviews by providing names, phone numbers and emails from my contacts and established network (NGO practitioners, activists, former colleagues and friends), and guide others through the hotspots and sites of interest on the island. I soon experienced ‘research fatigue’ (Clark, 2008, p 955) without actually being a research participant myself and even before I even started my fieldwork on Lesvos. I also experienced some sort of trauma and moral injury, as I felt that my voice as an early career, female, Southern European, working-​class researcher, knower and transmitter of knowledge, former NGO practitioner, activist and survivor of state violence across time and space was not valued. The spectacle of suffering and death at Lesvos and the media representation of solidarity as exotic mobilized a whole ‘illegality industry’ (Andersson, 2014a). Lesvos suddenly became so famous that even Skala Sykamnias –​a small 17

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

fishing village on Lesvos –​was named the most popular holiday destination by AFAR travel magazine due to the spectacle of border crossing and solidarity of the local people (Cosgrove, 2016; economy65, 2017). Lesvos became a popular destination, attracting celebrities, volunteers and voluntourists, journalists, filmmakers, researchers and academics, NGOs and even profiteers (Rozakou, 2016; Cabot, 2019; Iliadou, 2019b). The scale of intervention by various actors was so mammoth that even I, throughout the research process, was repeatedly asked by local people, “Are you working for an NGO?” or “Are you a volunteer?” At the same time, the intervention of all these actors was frequently experienced by my local interlocutors as an invasion of their privacy. Indeed, one of my local interviewees narrated to me the following incident: ‘One day, I was sitting in a cafe in which NGO staff and volunteers were regular customers. That day the cafe was packed with people. As we were sitting and enjoying our time, suddenly a guy entered the cafe carrying a huge camera on his shoulder, shouting at us: “I am a filmmaker and I am producing a documentary film on Lesvos. I am looking for interviewees. Come and talk to me!” We were all surprised and immediately burst into laughter.’ This intervention, invasion and migration industry produced a difficult everyday reality for forcibly displaced people, local people and afterwards for NGO practitioners and solidarity networks, as they became objects of systematic attention, broadcast and observation, documentation, scientific research and knowledge production and, therefore, commodification (Rigo, 2018; Rozakou, 2019; Stierl, 2022). Gradually, Lesvos and the refugee issue, from being relatively unknown, misrecognized and under-​ researched, became shockingly familiar, over-​researched and hypervisible. When I started my fieldwork in 2016, I felt overwhelmed by the ‘illegality industry’ I encountered on Lesvos, a place I knew very well and where I had lived for more than a decade. Matt’s words, a border crosser from Morocco, have stuck with me since then: “Forget the Mytilene that you used to know. Mytilene has become a huge corporation.” NGO practitioners, other professionals, activists and volunteers, local people and of course border crossers themselves found themselves in a difficult and uncomfortable situation. They had to cope with fatigue caused by the overload of professional and media attention, and border crossers also had to cope with their ongoing wait in appalling and degrading living conditions. Local people had to cope with the shock of witnessing thousands of people being washed ashore (dead as well as alive) on the whole island. Many of the people I talked to during my research would say to me: ‘The situation here is beyond imagination.’ In addition, they all had to deal with 18

Introduction

research fatigue, as they were systematically interviewed, photographed and filmed, sometimes without being asked beforehand or having their anonymity protected. Sukarieh and Tannock (2013) argue that the issue of over-​research can arise anywhere. However it is marginalized communities that are more likely to become over-​researched; this is because they are in the epicentre of a crisis, such as a natural disaster, war or genocide, and are accessible to researchers due to their geographical location. For instance, the Pikpa camp was one of the most over-​researched communities on Lesvos as it was accessible to professionals and the volunteers and residents themselves were very keen to talk in order to raise awareness and denounce the harmful consequences of the EU border regime. However, when I interviewed Mohammad, a border crosser from Syria who was then in Pikpa, he expressed his doubts about the impact or social change that professionals like me could bring to his life. According to Mohammad: ‘Initially, I volunteered and I added my name to the list for people wishing to be interviewed by journalists, but I have stopped doing this now. One of the journalists I talked to publicized my personal information, even though I had asked them not to do so. Also, I have been interviewed so many times and was promised that I will get help, but my situation remains the same. I am still stuck in the camp.’ The failure of those professionals to live up to their promises (see Sukarieh and Tannock, 2013), overwhelmed me with feelings of guilt and shame. It was clear in some circumstances that the interviewees in my study positioned me with those other professionals who made promises that they did not keep or exposed participants to risk by disclosing their names. Apart from guilt and shame, I also felt that I had to carry an inappropriate burden of responsibility due to the failures, irresponsibility and false promises of other professionals. Similarly, when I asked for permission to conduct research in Pikpa in 2016, I was told by one of the volunteers that I was the first researcher to ask permission, even though Pikpa was one of the most over-​researched camps on the island. I realized then that many professionals achieved access without revealing their true identities as researchers, but rather by saying that they were volunteers who wanted to help. This fact was shocking and upsetting for the activist network too, and I was told that they were mentioned in publications without their informed consent being given. In addition, when I was interviewing NGO staff, I sensed fear, suspicion, mistrust and, in many cases, unwillingness to discuss some specific issues. In one interview, a female NGO practitioner told me that if I had not been introduced to her by a mutual friend, she would not have spoken to me. And some of the NGO practitioners I interviewed openly admitted that they had received strict orders from their managers not to talk to other professionals 19

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such as journalists and researchers. Also, they told me that they were legally bound by non-​disclosure agreements or clauses within their contracts not to share information about what was going on inside the Moria hotspot. As one interviewee said: “I am going to lose my job and there are penal consequences.” One NGO coordinator working in Moria said, in front of me, to a male project worker before he took part in an interview: “Be careful what you are going to disclose! She writes about us.” On several occasions, I had to repeat to NGO staff –​both individuals who did not know me and people from my established network –​that I was not a journalist or a ‘spy’. One spokesperson of a well-​known international organization underlined how futile my claim was. He said, “Do you know how many journalists requested an interview from us by pretending to be students?” All of this made me consider that NGO interviewees, practitioners and border crossers themselves, by disclosing information, doubting and criticizing researchers out of fear or mistrust, were undermining my research. After reflecting and thinking a lot, I realized that this barrier had provided me with useful insights about the processes of silencing. All the aforementioned also made me consider that within research, participants’ silences are equally important as their voices. Furthermore, there were cases of local interviewees, NGO practitioners, volunteers or activists expressing concerns about their safety now that the refugee issue is not considered an ‘emergency’ and Lesvos is no longer in the headlines. As discussed in the Conclusion, the work and identities of local activists, border crossers, volunteers and NGO practitioners have been overexposed through the mass media, documentary films and other materials, turning them into easy targets of the violence of far right groups and the state (for instance, through the overwhelming criminalization of solidarity). From this perspective, as Noor, an Afghan border crosser, long-​term resident and activist pointed out during an interview in 2021: “All these volunteers, NGOs, journalists and other professionals arrived on Lesvos to help but they created a mess. They consumed the place and now they are gone, abandoning the place and leaving all of us behind to bear the consequences alone.” The aforementioned concerns and critical discussions with my interviewees generated even more ethical dilemmas, guilt and shame on my part. On the one hand, I have been exposed to similar kinds of situation as my research participants. I could relate to their situation as I had lived on Lesvos for many years and worked as an NGO practitioner; also I was familiar with what it meant to be an interviewee and/​or a whistleblower and to have my identity exposed and be intimidated and threatened. On the other hand, I had left Lesvos in 2015 and had been working in the UK. This fact automatically granted me a privilege that my interlocutors could not enjoy. I was relatively safe. Lesvos was not my permanent place of residence anymore, and I knew that I had an ‘escape plan’ or somewhere to go to if things went wrong. I was able to be critical and denounce state violence, as I was doing so from 20

Introduction

a distance while living in the UK. All these circumstances challenged the belief I had that I was a ‘native anthropologist’ and an ‘insider’ (Narayan, 1993; Kempny, 2012). My privilege had granted me an ‘insider/​outsider status’ (Kempny, 2012) and, with this, a constant feeling of shame and guilt, which at times was unbearable. In order to deal with the ethical dilemmas as well as the feeling of guilt and shame, I decided to be open and honest with my research participants, especially those who were very critical on the situation and professionals like myself. Throughout the research, I respected participants’ boundaries and tried to build rapport by disclosing lived experiences from the time I worked for an NGO on Lesvos. In order to mitigate the feeling of guilt and shame, I deployed self-​reflexivity and raised issues of positionality and power throughout my research and in the writing of the book.

The organization of the book The remainder of this book consists of six chapters -​that are structured around the theme: debris of trauma, past border policies and practices and their continuation to the present, and into the future -​ and a conclusion. Chapter 1 explores externalization, internalization and deterrence policies and how they have been proliferated in the aftermath of the so-​called refugee crisis. The chapter provides an account of the range of harms that EU policies inflict upon border crossers in order to make their lives unliveable and deter them from coming to Greece and staying there or moving forward to Northern Europe. Chapter 2 considers the legacies and memories of forced migration, borders and violence, focusing on Greece and, specifically, Lesvos. The chapter argues that past developments, ‘crimmigration’ and militarized responses to unauthorized border crossings across time and space have generated a ‘border harm’ precedent and its debris has been passed on to the present. This border harm precedent operates as part of a ‘generational’ effect (Arango, 2012) from preceding border regimes which have affected migration policies and practices across generations. The deficiencies, bureaucracy, inconsistency and chaos surrounding policies and practices of migration governance in each phase of the unauthorized border crossing in Greece were inherited, from one phase to the next, through a genealogy, routine and ritual of cumulative misery, violence and harm in time and space. Following on from this, Chapter 3 addresses the medicalization of borders and analyses the connection between health and violence. The chapter is also constructed around the theme of debris and the continuum of the quarantine discriminatory border policies and practices across time and space. Chapter 4 explores bureaucratic deterrence –​the bureaucratic procedures surrounding registration, identification and asylum that are implemented 21

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upon arrival and are designed to make people’s lives unliveable, as they are designed to always fail. Chapter 5 explores the harmful and structurally violent degrading living conditions within the Moria hotspot that border crossers must endure while waiting to complete various bureaucratic and asylum procedures. It shows the ways in which necropolitical governance inflicts dehumanization, humiliation and destruction of life, liberty and personhood and leads to social death. Chapter 6 examines governance of the unwanted human mobility through violence, abandonment and death. It examines deterring-​killing policies and practices and the continuum of violence in death and even beyond the moment of death. The Conclusion explores the everyday violence on the prison island and focuses on the human capacity for violence.

22

1

The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders This chapter focuses on the politics of closed borders and deterrence that has been enforced since the Schengen Agreement 1985 but which have greatly proliferated and intensified in the aftermath of the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ through the establishment of a dystopic landscape of border controls and violence. In the first section of this chapter, I argue that various exceptional externalization border policies and practices have been enforced (at EU, national and local levels) as a response to the 2015 refugee crisis. Externalization policies and practices target people who are en route to Europe by immobilizing or intercepting them in non-​EU countries and, therefore, pre-​emptively deterring them and preventing them from reaching Europe. In the second section, I argue that although externalization is justified, legitimized and enforced allegedly to alleviate human suffering, prevent border deaths and protect border crossers from smuggling and trafficking networks, externalization has brought about the exact opposite results. Externalization made border crossings and transit routes more securitized, fragmented, perilous, expensive and dependent on smugglers and traffickers. In the third section, I focus on the internalization of border policies and practices that target people who manage to reach Greece and other parts of Europe (alive). The section examines the operationalization of the Greek Aegean Islands as filtering, screening and deportation mechanisms. I deploy the metaphor of Lesvos as a ‘prison island’ wherein deterrence is materialized by exhausting and discouraging border crossers from moving further into Europe.

The externalization of EU borders In 2003, a UK government policy paper titled A New Vision for Refugees emerged, which included Prime Minister Tony Blair’s vision for the management of irregular migration in Europe (Travis, 2003). This policy 23

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paper proposed the establishment of a regime of regional protection areas, protection zones or safe havens as well as transit processing centres for irregular migrants on transit routes to Europe (Amnesty International, 2003; Noll, 2015). Blair’s vision involved denial of entry to ‘asylum seekers’ and ‘economic migrants’ by returning them to ‘safe havens’, meaning countries outside the EU and closer to migrants’ homelands (Johnston, 2003). According to the policy paper, safe haven countries would provide a form of containment for: (i) border crossers arriving for the first time there; (ii) deportees from other EU countries; (iii) possible returnees, who would be resettled in the EU (Kuster and Tsianos, 2016). The concept of ‘safe zone’ is not new. It is a post-​Cold War phenomenon which has been enforced in 1991 in Northern Iraq, Haiti and Rwanda (Hyndman, 2003; Long, 2013; FitzGerald, 2020) as well as in 2017 in Syria. In October 2019, a 30-​kilometre safe zone was meant to be implemented along the Turkish borders with Northern Syria. According to the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW, 2017), safe zones or ‘safe areas’ are: areas designated by agreement of parties to an armed conflict in which military forces will not deploy or carry out attacks. Such areas have also been created by UN Security Council resolutions. They can include ‘no-​fly’ zones, in which some or all parties to the conflict are barred from conducting air operations. Such areas are intended to protect civilians fleeing from the hostilities and make it easier for them to access humanitarian aid. They may be defended by UN peacekeepers or other forces. Safe zones or safe havens are allegedly protection areas established in order to host and protect unarmed civilians fleeing wars. Within the safe zones, unarmed civilians fleeing conflict would have access to humanitarian aid and security. The main argument here is that displaced people are better protected within the safe zones within their country of origin, where ‘they are familiar with the culture, language and social norms’ (Nevett, 2019). However, Human Rights Watch has documented cases of abuse of unarmed civilians in safe zones (Human Rights Watch, 2019b). Safe havens epitomize what Jennifer Hyndman calls ‘preventive protection’ (2003, p 168), meaning the provision of humanitarian relief as far away from receiving countries as possible, within or closer to displaced populations’ home countries (Long, 2013). This also demonstrates the determination of policy makers ‘to bring safety to people rather than people to safety, by force if necessary’ (Hyndman, 2003, p 169). The EU responses to the 2015 refugee crisis, particularly as demonstrated by the Greece/​Lesvos case, echo Blair’s vision of safe havens. From this perspective, the increased deaths at the Mediterranean Sea and the Aegean Sea and the suffering and violence at the Greek–​Macedonian 24

The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders

border (particularly from 2015 onwards) triggered and legitimized an awkward and incongruous’ response from EU, national and local levels: on the one hand, there were humanitarian interventions; on the other, there were securitization and militarized responses at the EU borders, specifically on mainland Greece and the island of Lesvos (the epicentre of the refugee crisis) (Figure 1.1). In November 2015, during the Valletta Summit on Migration, the European Council agreed a joint statement that noted: We are deeply concerned by the sharp increase in flows of refugees and irregular migrants, which entails suffering, abuse and exploitation, particularly for children and women, and unacceptable loss of life in the desert or at sea. Such an increase places the most affected countries under severe pressure, with serious humanitarian consequences and security challenges. (2015, p 1) Using the language of crisis and emergency (De Genova and Tazzioli, 2016) along with that of humanitarianism and care (Ticktin, 2016), the European Council went on to express its intentions to: protect the lives of irregular migrants from the ‘criminal’ trafficking networks culpable for the border-​related deaths; prevent more deaths within the land and sea border crossroads; and alleviate human suffering and restore public order. This oxymoronic, suffocating symbiosis and intersection between oppression (surveillance) and care (humanitarian aid), prevention and protection –​has been aptly enunciated by social anthropologist Miriam Ticktin as ‘armed love’ (2016, p 257). The responses encompassed policies and practices of externalization and internalization, that were pushing the EU borders both outwards (externalization) and inwards (internalization) (Vaughan-​Williams, 2015a; Ruhrmann and FitzGerald, 2016; Hess and Kasparek, 2017). The case of Greece/​Lesvos is an indicative example of the simultaneous outwards and inwards shifting of borders. The outward shift and expansion of borders and border controls beyond the physical borders of the EU is not new. It has been unfolding since the Schengen Agreement in 1985 (Collyer, 2007; Jones, 2016), when the project of Fortress Europe and, therefore, the politics of closed borders was orchestrated and materialized through ‘fortifying borders, developing ever more sophisticated surveillance and tracking of people, and increasing deportations while providing ever fewer legal options for residency despite ever greater need’ (Akkerman, 2018, p 2). Externalization policies and practices proliferated in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis as they were enforced, allegedly, to protect but mainly to deter and pre-​emptively intercept border crossers far from Europe’s shores and media attention so that the collateral casualties and other human costs would be almost completely invisible to EU citizens (Akkerman, 2018). This was because 25

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the logic that underpins the politics of deterrence is that ‘migrants are better protected by being deterred from undertaking the journey in the first place’ (Triandafyllidou and Dimitriadi, 2014, p 149). The toolkit of externalization, deterrence and remote control involved: (i) the expansion of border controls and policing beyond the EU; (ii) enhanced maritime patrol operations within the Mediterranean Sea and the Aegean Sea (that is, by Frontex and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization –​ NATO) as well as the establishment of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency –​that is, ‘an enhanced FRONTEX and the national border authorities, which are to share responsibility for European integrated border management’ (Ruhrmann and FitzGerald, 2016, p 25); (iii) agreements with non-​EU countries to manage asylum procedures outside EU borders. Through these agreements, non-​EU countries, such as Turkey, Afghanistan and Libya, are designated a ‘safe country of origin’, a ‘safe third country’ or a ‘first country of asylum’ (European Council, 2016; European Union, 2016; European Commission, 2017a). These non-​EU countries –​which traditionally served as ‘transit’ countries in exchange for financial aid, capacity building and technical support for building infrastructures –​have been turned into destination countries and buffer zones by keeping border crossers stranded there. In this regard, buffer states are turned into the watchdogs of Europe (Fekete, 2001; FitzGerald, 2020) with no safeguards or promises of ‘protection of the human rights of migrants’ (UN General Assembly, 2013). The logic of these externalization policies is to shift responsibility to non-​EU

Figure 1.1: Navy border patrols in the Aegean Sea

26

The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders

countries for intercepting and controlling border crossers trying to enter the EU (OHCHR, 2013; UN General Assembly, 2013).

The harms of externalization However, in practice, externalization has generated an enormous rise in death tolls, given that the militarization of the EU borders made border crossings more perilous and risky (Médecins Sans Frontières, 2015; Akkerman, 2018). For example, for border crossers to avoid arrest and expulsion at border controls, they are forced to follow more risky and perilous routes to Europe –​often in overcrowded boats barely fit for purpose. At the same time, fences and walls have been gradually erected within Europe by making the act of seeking sanctuary and international protection almost impossible. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, which was a symbol of the Cold War era, Greece was one of the first EU countries to erect a wall to deter and prevent people from seeking asylum (Baczynska and Ledwith, 2016; Reuters, 2016). As Bill Frelick, Ian M. Kysel and Jeniffer Podkul argue: One of the cruel ironies in recent years is that a number of countries that have developed rights-​sensitive standards and procedures for assessing protection claims of border crossers within their jurisdictions have simultaneously established barriers that prevent border crossers from setting foot on their territories or otherwise triggering protection obligations. (2016, p 191) A further harmful aspect of externalization is that in order to deter and prevent border crossers from reaching Europe, EU policy makers have entered into business and reached expedient agreements with authoritarian countries, which systematically violate human rights, while providing them with funding and even selling them weapons in exchange for preventing border crossing. As Mark Akkerman, an independent researcher at Stop Wapenhandel and the Transnational Institute, argues: The European Union in all its policies has a fine rhetoric on the importance of human rights, democracy and rule of law, but there seems to be no limits to the EU’s willingness to embrace dictatorial regimes as long as they commit to preventing ‘irregular migration’ reaching Europe’s shores. As a result, there have been EU agreements and funding provided to regimes as infamous as Chad, Niger, Belarus, Libya and Sudan. (2018, p 3) Therefore, the EU is culpable for the emergence of more conflict and violence as well as the production of more forcibly displaced populations 27

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since, according to Akkerman: ‘the same industry selling arms to the Middle East and North Africa, fuelling the conflicts, repression and human rights abuses that have led refugees to flee their homes is also the key winner of EU border security contracts’ (2016, p 1). Multinational corporations such as Airbus, Finmeccanica (now Leonardo), Thales and Safran have benefited from the increased militarization and securitization of EU borders but have also been actively lobbying to influence the development of policies and practices (Andersson, 2014a; Vaughan-​Williams, 2015a; Akkerman, 2018). Military and security corporations which manufacture and provide arms and equipment to border guards, private security corporations and intelligence and surveillance multinationals have made profits from EU militarization and securitization policies (Andersson, 2014a; Loewenstein, 2016; O’Donnell, 2016). For example, Frontex’s role on the surveillance of EU borders has been extensively enhanced and so has its budget. Frontex started with a budget of €6 million in 2005, and this increased to €19 million in 2006 and €118 million in 2011. Although its budget decreased significantly in 2012, to €85 million, it has since increased progressively, reaching €142 million in 2015, €254 million in 2016, €302 million in 2017, €320 million in 2018, €333 million in 2019, €460 million in 2020 and €543 million in 2021 (Frontex, no date). Externalization policies have led to results that are exactly the opposite of those initially promised. Instead of protecting border crossers’ lives, ending the human suffering and tackling the trafficking networks, as policy makers had claimed, they have in fact made the land and sea border pathways more violent, risky, perilous and fatal. As noted by Médecins Sans Frontières: These policies have turned a foreseeable and manageable influx of refugees into a humanitarian crisis on Europe’s beaches, borders, train stations and motorways. The current approach of ‘non-​reception’ and closed borders has caused death, injury, and chaos. … The only way Europe can stop this misery is to replace the smugglers with a safe, legal, and free alternative. (2015, p 1) Apart from becoming more dangerous, border crossings, have also grown more expensive, and border crossers have been forced to resort to smuggling and trafficking networks in order to cross the borders. These illicit businesses have been boosted at the expense of border crossers’ lives. In the next section, I argue that the politics of externalization and the militarization of the EU borders have produced thresholds of liminality, judicial voids and ‘zones of exception’ by creating the conditions for various illicit activities to flourish and for violence to be inflicted. These gaps have enabled a profitable and demanding neoliberal border market to prosper, wherein border crossers’ bodies, lives and labour have become tokens 28

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or objects of economic exchange, transaction and exploitation that may both gain and lose value within local conditions (Vogt, 2013). Within this neoliberal border market, ‘the ultimate fetish is the idea of life itself as an object of endless manipulation’ (Scheper-​Hughes, 2003, p 4). Therefore, I discuss the issue of commodification of border crossers as one of the gravest harmful consequences of externalization.

Violence en route According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR, 2014, p 2): ‘Policies aimed not at governing migration but rather at curtailing it at any cost, serve only to exacerbate risks posed to migrants, to create zones of lawlessness and impunity at borders, and, ultimately, to be ineffective.’ The politics of deterrence, externalization and closed borders created liminal geographical spaces –​‘zones of exception’ and ‘thresholds’ –​of violence and exploitation (Agamben, 1998) (see also Chapter 6). As feminist geographer Roxanne Lynn Dotty (2011, p 599) argues, ‘geographical border areas are the prototypical “margins of the state”, i.e., spaces where law and order are simultaneously rigorously enforced and elided and where tensions are often the most obvious and the most extreme’. The proliferation, securitization and militarization of border controls beyond EU territory made border crossings even more ‘fragmented’ (Collyer, 2007; Vogt, 2013), complex, nonlinear and lengthy, as border crossers move, get stuck, wait and move again. As social anthropologist Wendy Vogt argues, ‘migrants occupy a liminal space as they attempt to cross national borders, earn cash, secure shelter, eat, and make incremental movements toward their destination’ (2013, p 766). Within this fragmented spatial and temporal liminality, violence is endemic and becomes exacerbated by frequently taking grotesque and obscene forms. Hence, violence or the fear of violence becomes a ‘central mechanism through which vulnerabilities are produced and profits are derived’ (Vogt, 2013, p 765). Various actors ‘work’ at the borders and the liminal spaces, including the police, state officials, border guards, military and paramilitary groups, gangs, smuggling and trafficking networks, travel agents and hotel owners (Shelley, 2014; Europol, 2016; Akkerman, 2018). Sometimes these actors work independently, but very often they collaborate to make border crossings even more expensive, agonizing and dangerous –​a profitable trade at border crossers’ expense. According to Keita, a border crosser from Syria who I met on Lesvos: ‘We lived in a smuggler’s house, and we were robbed twice there by people who pretended to be the police. They threatened us that if we would not give them our money, they would deport us. From fear that 29

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we were going to be deported, we gave them all our money. One guy, from fear that he was going to be deported, jumped from the window and broke his waist and legs. I was about to do the same thing, but they did not let me do it. They grabbed me. And these people were not the police. They were the mafia who were collaborating with the smuggler.’ As noted by Amnesty International, ‘refugees and migrants have become a resource to be exploited –​a commodity around which an entire industry has grown’ (2017c, p 6). Smugglers and traffickers are key actors within this border market because without them facilitating the journey, the journey cannot be fulfilled. Smugglers and traffickers are key actors who play a pivotal role in enabling the border regime, as due to the lack of safe passages and alternative legal routes to Europe, they have become a ‘necessary evil’ for border crossers. Smugglers and traffickers know the tricks, they have the ‘know-​how’, they know the pathways through the mountains and the ‘safe houses’ along the way (Shelley, 2014). They also know the ‘right’ people –​particularly police officers, customs officials and border guards –​who are keen to turn a blind eye and allow border crossers to continue their journey in exchange for labour, money or sex, often through rape (Falcón, 2001; Khosravi, 2011). I deploy the term ‘border mafia’ here to refer to these key actors, both metaphorically and as part of a border vocabulary used among border crossers. ‘Mafia’ is a term often used among border crossers, like Keita, to describe the various border actors who often engage in illicit activities, organized crime and exploitation. Many of the stories border crossers shared with me were lurid stories of border lawlessness, violence and exploitation that they experienced while en route to Europe; these acts were carried out by various agents, including the police, border guards and other state officials. Paradoxically, border crossers also use the term ‘mafia’ to refer to border guards and state officials who brutally exploit and abuse them. In doing so, border crossers challenge the discourses of mainstream policy makers –​who label the smugglers and traffickers ‘mafia’ and ‘ruthless criminal networks’ (Andersson, 2014b, p 14) –​by also unearthing border corruption which, similar to border violence, is endemic and often state sanctioned and state involved. Smugglers and traffickers are not always referred to as mafia by border crossers, but they are often called dal lals (Khosravi, 2011), ‘coyotes’ (Papadopoulos and Tsianos, 2007, p 225), qachaqbar (smugglers) (Afghanistan Research Evaluation Unit, 2005, p i). Qachaqbar was one of the first Persian words I learned when I started working as an NGO practitioner in the Pagani detention centre on Lesvos. This word was also used by Soltan, a border crosser from Afghanistan, who told me that he had to spend several days sleeping in the mountains in the cold, risking death from hypothermia, dehydration and starvation. He said: 30

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‘You know, I came with a qacaqbar from Afghanistan. I was travelling from Afghanistan to Turkey for five days. All this time, I was living on the mountains in the cold, without water and food. For five days! The qacaqbar did not allow us to light [a]‌fire. We said: “Why we cannot light any fire? We will die from cold!” And he said: “It is not my problem if you are going to die. You must wait here until I find a track to transfer you to another place.” We were waiting for five days on the mountains, and after that the tracker came and transferred us to another place near the Turkish borders.’ Similarly, Mokhtar, a border crosser from Syria, told me that a smuggler left him and his group at a ‘safe house’ without food and water for days. He told me: ‘The smuggler took us to a house, and we stayed there for one week. It was an abandoned place with holes in the walls. You know, in these places you might find yourself sleeping where sheep are living. In this house, there was no water to drink, and the smuggler gave us just Coca-​Cola. No food, just Coca-​Cola. And you know how bad Coca-​Cola is for an empty stomach, particularly if you have not eaten anything for days. I have never drunk Coca-​Cola again since then.’ Testimonies about the corruption and involvement of state officials in the exploitation of border crossers within border zones and transit countries were reported by activist groups and the border crossers themselves. Amnesty International has reported the corruption of Libyan police officers who abuse and detain border crossers and extort money from them in exchange for freedom (Amnesty International, 2017c). State corruption plays a pivotal role within this industry. According to Louise Shelley, ‘corruption is deeply connected to the problem of trafficking in Europe: travel agencies, border guards, customs officers, and other diplomatic personnel must be bribed or extorted for trafficking to be successful’ (2014, p 10). Abbas, who had come to Lesvos from Syria, told me that he had to bribe border guards in exchange for his freedom. According to Abbas: ‘Once, police came in one of the smuggler’s houses. I was sleeping on the first floor when late in the night, 7 to 8, police officers entered the house. I immediately informed all the guys who were living in the same house with me. The police officers arrested us and told us that we were going to be deported. We offered them 500 dollars in exchange for our freedom. This is how we got away from danger.’ 31

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Sams, a border crosser from Afghanistan, told me that he was exploited and robbed by Iranian police officers: ‘We were arrested by the police at the borders, who took us into a small room. They put spray in our eyes and as a result we were unable to see. After that, they stole our belongings. Some guys had money on them. Police officers took the money and then they let us go.’ Border crossers have been confronted with multiple visible and invisible, hard and closed borders all throughout their journey to Europe. Those borders were constantly being erected by the violent and harmful deterrence and externalization policies implemented in the name of saving lives. Without having any option to follow safe passages which lead to Europe, border crossers have resorted to smuggling and trafficking networks, made unbearable coerced choices and were eventually exposed to further harms and violence. When I use the term ‘unbearable coerced choices’ (Iliadou, 2019a), I do not mean that border crossers were powerless, passive victims, lacking agency and free will. All human beings have agency to formulate choices. The survival strategies border crossers adopted throughout their border trajectories, as well as their defiance against the border regime, show agency and autonomy. Coerced choices refers to the role of consent and coercion, extortion, bondage and debt (O’Connell Davidson, 2013; Moskoff and Serafeim, 2022) as dominant features of the unauthorized border crossing. Due to overpriced border journeys, debt is a means for border crossers to finance and secure places within cars, lorries or boats, which leads to Europe. Debt, however, generates obligation to pay it off. Therefore, extortion, debt and the obligation to pay it off play a crucial role in the formulation of border crossers’ autonomous choices and, thus, their consent. Furthermore, becoming indebted to finance their journey and then being obliged to pay this off epitomizes the asymmetrical power relations, extortion and dependency which exist between border crossers and the people who facilitate their journeys. As Julia O’Connell Davidson argues: ‘Financing migration through debt can be an active choice without also being a “voluntary” or “autonomous” choice, and migrants’ decisions to take on debts that will imply heavy restrictions on their freedom are taken in the context of migration and other policies that severely constrain their alternatives’ (2013, p 176). The concept of coerced choices thus highlights the oxymoron that while border crossers are not victims and powerless, their autonomy is restricted and their choices are not entirely free (Martins and O’Connell-​Davidson, 2022). The concept is deployed here through a social harm perspective, and these choices are considered to be ‘autonomy harms’ (Pemberton, 2015). Poverty, need and being indebted can lead to manipulation, extortion and 32

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exploitation, limiting border crossers’ autonomous choices by coercing them to engage in harmful criminal activities which otherwise they would not be involved in. During my research, I found various forms of debt which border crossers were extorted to pay off with various forms of economic transaction so as to be allowed to cross borders. As academic research shows, due to the flourishing of the illicit human trade market, the multiple forms of ‘clandestine migration services can lead [to] a number of different forms [of] debt to a variety of different third parties’ (O’Connell Davidson, 2013, p 179). Three dominant types of transaction and extortion based on debt and the obligation to pay it off are financial debt, labour debt and sexual debt. Here, border crossers’ bodies and lives play a crucial role as objects, commodities or tokens of economic transaction and manipulation. Scheper-​ Hughes proposes ‘a broad concept of commodification, encompassing all capitalized economic relations between humans in which human bodies are the token of economic exchanges’ (2003, p 2). Due to the fact that this unauthorized human mobility is classed it is mainly the poor who suffer more exploitation and agonizing mobility. As Khosravi notes, the ones ‘who have nothing more to sell advertise their organs for sale’ (2017, p 176). Border crossers’ bodies –​through their labour, organs or sexual ‘services’ (often in the form of rape) –​are used as tokens or vouchers in economic transactions within this inhumane trade. These features are related to the boosting of this profitable and demanding neoliberal capitalist market which uses border crossers’ bodies, in whole or in parts, as commodities. The oxymoronic term ‘coerced choices’ is linked with the mobility of the poorest because, due to their structural and marginal position, they are more likely to be indebted, extorted and make unbearable coerced choices. Also, at the altar of profit of obscene neoliberal capitalism, some lives, mainly those of the poor and marginalized, ‘can both gain and lose value during their journeys in material and embodied ways’ (Vogt, 2013, p 765).

Financial debt Border crossings are fragmented, expensive and not always successful, which means one might have to repeat the perilous journey several times in order to reach one’s destination. Frequently, border crossers are coerced to sell all their belongings, their land and homes in order to finance their journeys. Arzoo, an Afghan interviewee, told me that in order to gather the amount of money needed for their journey to Europe, her family had to sell all of their belongings in Afghanistan. This debt burdens not only the travellers but also those who are left behind –​family and friends (Chu, 2010). Therefore, failing to pay off the debt is not an option. Due to the fact that border crossings are lengthy and fragmented, many of the border crossers I interviewed had to work for days, months and even years in border zones and transit countries 33

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in order to gather enough money to pay off their debt to smugglers. Many of them faced more exploitation. Adam, a border crosser from Ghana, told me that he had to stay in Turkey for six months to work for money to pay a smuggler, but he was exploited and attacked by gangs: “I stayed in Turkey for six months. I worked in a restaurant there, but I never got paid. They were always saying ‘next week, next week’. They are still holding my money. In Turkey, I was attacked and robbed twice by a gang after returning from work.” Many border crossers were not able to pay the tariff to smugglers and commit to pay off their debt when they reached Europe. Paying off the debt is inevitable. Smugglers and traffickers, by the use or threat of violence against border crossers themselves and their family members –​and even with the threat of voodoo, as often was the case for women from various parts of West Africa (Deutsche Welle, 2010; Independent Advisory Group on Country Information, 2016) –​secure the collection of the debts. Javid, a border crosser from Afghanistan, was not able to pay his smuggler in advance, so he had to make a deal with him and pay in instalments. He said: ‘I paid the smuggler half of the money in cash and the other half was paid by both my parents and me when I found work. I paid, myself, €400 to the smugglers when I reached Greece. You cannot avoid paying the smugglers, because they can keep you hostage and they might even cut your fingers, nails or ears. Smugglers are capable of doing anything. They have people everywhere, and they can find you and harm you or members of your family.’ The financial harms inflicted upon border crossers as they undertake their journeys to Europe cannot easily be measured, estimated and known. Border crossers might sell their houses in cases where they do not have cash to pay the smugglers and traffickers. They may sell their houses at any price because of the high cost of border crossing. Their property losses depend on the real value of properties and the price for which they eventually sell. A related issue is that selling the family home might lead to homelessness among the family members who are left behind. Lands are frequently sold too, and this also might lead to destitution and precariousness for family left behind, since the allotment may be their only means of making a living. Cash loss varies too. The most common type, described earlier, is related to the fact that border crossers are engaging with an informal economy and are often exploited by their employers.

Labour debt A common feature of labour debt is that many border crossers are coerced to work as recruiters or facilitators of migration (Sanchez, 2020; Martins and 34

The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders

O’Connell-D ​ avidson, 2022) and even as navigators on the boats in exchange for a free pass on the boats to Europe. According to Khosravi: ‘many smugglers were themselves migrants or refugees who engaged in the business for a few years before going to the West. In addition, there was a number of dealers, middlemen and lackeys who worked for the smugglers’ (2010, p 39). Aarash, an Afghan border crosser, was coerced to engage in smuggler businesses in Turkey in exchange for a free pass to Greece. As Aarash noted: ‘I worked for days in Turkey, but I could not gather the money I needed for the journey. I started then working as a recruiter for the smuggler. I had agreed with a smuggler to recruit ten people for him, and he promised that if I did this, he would send me to Greece for free. I did that, but he did not send me to Greece as he had promised. Then the smuggler told me to find five more people. I managed to find three. The smuggler found one more and the fifth person was me. Thus, he finally sent me to Greece.’ Similarly, Kamran, an Iranian interviewee, observed: ‘This is something usual, because there are people, like me, in need who do not have money. And this is beneficial for the smuggler because he does not want to risk his life in order to recruit people and, thus, he uses refugees as recruiters of other refugees. The smuggler, in order to convince refugees to collaborate with him, asks the refugee recruiter to advertise him to others, [saying] that he is a good businessman whose clients were sent to Greece without being deported or arrested by the police. In exchange, the smuggler guarantees a free pass on the boat.’ Other border crossers agreed to navigate the boat during the unauthorized crossings, risking arrest by the authorities and many years of incarceration for trafficking or, in cases of shipwreck, for endangering lives. Kamran noted: ‘Often, the smugglers ask the refugees to drive the boat from Turkey to Greece in order to be allowed to travel for free. The boat usually operates with an engine and the only condition is that the refugee touches with his own hands the boat’s steering wheel. However, refugees who are arrested by the police driving the boat are punished. They are arrested and sent to jail as traffickers. These persons are going to prison for nothing, as they are not smugglers; they are refugees who simply do not have money to pay the smuggler and they are desperate to enter Europe.’ Indeed, the Abdallah, Mohamad and Kheiraldin (the Paros 3) case is an example of this situation; although they survived a fatal shipwreck near the 35

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

Greek island of Paros, they were sentenced to a total of 439 years in prison, having been arrested for operating the boat, facilitating unauthorized entry, criminal association and causing a shipwreck in which 18 people died (CPT Aegean Migrant Solidarity, 2022).

Sexual debt Another harmful feature of the inhumane trading of border crossers lives is sexual debt. Lacking any other option, due to destitution, asymmetrical power relations and dependency, border crossers are coerced or extorted to finance their journey by providing sexual ‘services’ to smugglers and traffickers, border guards and other intermediaries. Given that border crossers have extremely limited options and, thus, coercion and extortion are central and dominant within all aspects of their multiple journeys to Europe, I consider the practice of sex, even when it appears consensual, to be a form of extortion and, therefore, rape. Border rapes were often carried out as part of ‘a border tariff and border transgressors [were] raped to get permission to cross’ (Khosravi, 2011, p 40). Contra to other systematic practices of rape which take place in genocide, ethnic cleansing, armed conflict and war –​as a strategy and military policy in order to terrorize, displace, defeat, ‘feminize’, humiliate and shame whole communities and populations (Falcón, 2001; Reid-​Cunningham, 2008; Amnesty International, 2014) –​border crossers, due to poverty and desperation, are extorted and ‘consent’ to be raped by the smuggler(s), border guards and others in order to be allowed to pass to the boat which leads to Europe (Khosravi, 2007; Andersson, 2014a; Amnesty International, 2016a). It must be noted that border crossers often are not ‘offered’ the option of ‘consenting’ to finance their journey through sexual debt, but are brutally raped from border station to border station. A volunteer on Lesvos, told me: “Raped women were so many that after a point we were distributing abortion pills to almost all refugee women arriving.” Border rapes are a manifestation of the obscene, gendered, sexualized, patriarchal borders which obsessively target single women, LGBTQ+​people, unaccompanied minors and young men.

Other coerced choices The aforementioned forms of debt are not the only coerced choices which border crossers are forced to make due to their hierarchically and structurally marginal position in order to finance their journey to Europe and survive. Another form of debt is organ debt. In order to finance their journeys or to survive generally, border crossers are coerced to ‘consent’ to organ removal; the organs are broadly circulated and sold as commodities in the organ trafficking and transplantation industry (Panjabi, 2010; Budiani-​Saberi and Columb, 2013; Kannan, 2014). Furthermore, border crossers find themselves 36

The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders

indebted and/​or bonded into coerced bonded labour in the agricultural sector and the fishing industry, they are enslaved in forced marriages, and children on the move are enslaved in (sexual) labour, trafficking and forced participation in armed conflicts as child soldiers (Strauss, 2012; Simmons and Burnt, 2013; Adesina, 2014; Murphy, 2014; Lewis et al, 2015; Lowenkron, 2015; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2016; Wright, 2017; Hynes, 2018; Puente Aba, 2018; Reichel and Randa, 2018). Trafficking and smuggling is one of the most profitable organized crimes, along with the illegal trade of weapons and drugs (euro2day, 2013). Paradoxically, however, this trade, as Ruben Andersson notes, ‘grows alongside tougher [border] controls’ (2014a, p 14). And although EU policy makers claim that the securitization and militarization of borders is implemented in order to tackle criminal smuggling and trafficking networks, according to Hein De Haas (2015): While politicians and the media routinely blame ‘smugglers’ for the suffering and dying at Europe’s borders, this diverts the attention away from the fact that smuggling is a reaction to the militarisation of border controls, not the cause of irregular migration. Ironically, policies to ‘combat’ smuggling and irregular migration are bound to fail because they are among the very causes of the phenomenon they claim to ‘fight’. Neither smuggling and trafficking networks nor the border mafia would exist if there were no politics of deterrence, externalization and closed borders. The latter have transformed mobility into a profitable inhumane trade by generating and enforcing a further commodification and devaluation of human lives and of what it means to be human.

The internalization of EU borders In the aftermath of the refugee crisis, with the escalation of violence and suffering against border crossers at the Greek–​North Macedonian border after the shutting down of the Balkan route (Human Rights Watch, 2016) and the increase in border-​related deaths in the Aegean Sea (IOM, 2016), the EU adopted and implemented manifold exceptional border policies and practices in the name of humanitarianism, public order and responsibility to protect (International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, 2001; United Nations, 2005; European Council, 2016). According to the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect (2005): The responsibility to protect embodies a political commitment to end the worst forms of violence and persecution. It seeks to narrow 37

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the gap between Member States’ pre-​existing obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law and the reality faced by populations at risk of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. While still drawing on the paradigm of externalization, the EU enforced border policies and practices this time by pushing borders inwards –​in other words, through ‘internalization’ (Hess and Kasparek, 2017). Therefore, internalization refers to policies which draw on the paradigm of externalization with the aim of shifting the responsibility of keeping, stopping and controlling border crossers to southern EU countries. As a result, border crossers are stranded in countries such as Greece as they are not allowed to continue their journey further to northern EU countries. Internalization of borders, such as those of mainland Greece and Lesvos, vividly echoes Blair’s vision of safe havens. Gradually, due to internalization policies relating to Greece, a traditionally transit country, it has been turned into a destination country for thousands of border crossers. As Aziz, an Afghan interviewee, pointed out: ‘Greece is Europe’s lounge –​a protracted waiting room.’ The exceptional internalization border policies and practices which crucially affected Greece, and particularly Lesvos, were: the 2015 hotspot approach (European Court of Auditors, 2017); the closure of the Balkan route (BBC, 2016); the EU–​Turkey statement (European Council, 2016); and the geographical restriction of refugees’ autonomy of movement (Iliadou, 2019b).

The hotspot approach In May 2015, the Greek government implemented the hotspot approach,1 a policy included in the European Agenda on Migration (European Commission, 2015). The Greek hotspots played a crucial role in the implementation of the EU–​Turkey statement (Danish Refugee Council, 2017). On October 2015, Moria, the first hotspot, was established and started operating on Lesvos, serving initially as an open ‘transit’ site for registering border crossers arriving to Greece (Danish Refugee Council, 2017; Mentzelopoulou and Luyten, 2018). After the implementation of the EU–​Turkey statement in 2016, the Moria hotspot turned into a ‘closed detention facility and all new arrivals were effectively deprived of their liberty’ (Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture,

1

Even though the hotspot approach was included in the European Agenda on Migration 2015, it was only actualized after the implementation of the EU–​Turkey statement in 2016 (European Council, 2016). 38

The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders

2017, p 11). During the time I was conducting my research on Lesvos, Moria served as both a reception and identification centre and a hotspot. Due to the overcrowded facilities, which deteriorated notably after the implementation of the EU–​Turkey statement in 2016, the restriction and confinement of all border crossers within the Moria hotspot proved to be practically impossible, and eventually it was only used for some border crossers (Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture, 2017): the unaccompanied minors who were restricted under ‘protective custody’ in the so-​called safe zone; and the deportable or readmittable border crossers who were detained in a separate detention facility known as Section B (Iliadou and Exadaktylos, 2022). Through the hotspot approach, multiple (Greek, EU, humanitarian and security) actors interfered on Lesvos by assuming a key role in migration, asylum and border governance: The Greek police and the Hellenic Coast Guard; the Greek army; the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol); the European Union Borders and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex); the European Union Judicial Cooperation Unit (Eurojust); the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); the European Union Agency for Asylum (EASO); the Greek Asylum Service; the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and many more international organizations and NGOs. In the light of the EU–​Turkey statement and the intervention of security and military actors –​such as Frontex and the Hellenic Coast Guard –​the Aegean Sea progressively became more securitized and militarized (Figure 1.2). NATO has also been deployed to patrol the Aegean Sea and ‘assist’ the Greek authorities with tackling the ‘criminal trafficking networks’ which were blamed for border-​related deaths (NATO, 2016). In February 2016, at the request of Germany, Greece and Turkey, NATO took over the guarding of the territorial waters of Greece and Turkey, as well as international waters, by conducting reconnaissance, monitoring and surveillance (Sarantidis, 2021). The Aegean Sea was not only militarized but also colonized. According to Garelli and Tazzioli (2016), ‘the NATO fleet has jurisdiction not only in Greek and international waters but also in Turkish territorial waters –​an area EU authorities cannot patrol but the NATO fleet can’. The Aegean Sea became a dystopic maritime carceral space wherein border crossers who cross the border on boats are subjected to extreme surveillance, interception, refoulement, violence and death (see Chapter 6). The Aegean Sea –​the water itself –​has been operationalized as an important maritime carceral space which, similar to prison or other carceral settings, plays a significant role as a means of coercion, management, deterrence and (border) control (Walters, 2008; Mountz and Loyd, 2014 a; Turner and Moran, 2019). The maritime space becomes auspicious site of dehumanization as it 39

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Figure 1.2: Frontex ships in the port of Mytilene

generates ‘thresholds’ –​liminal spaces and zones of ultimate abandonment and exception (Agamben, 2005) –​which are characterized by lawlessness and impunity, both legally and geographically (Prem Kumar and Grundy-​ Warr, 2004). In this sense, nature and the geographic space play a pivotal role in the implementation of violent deterrent policies by promoting and enhancing the capacity of security actors for violence and by providing ‘a moral alibi that enables the policy makers to deny responsibility for the deaths’ (Doty, 2011, p 599).

The closure of the Balkan route The Balkan route was an informal border pathway used by border crossers to seek sanctuary in northern EU countries. The Balkan route began from Turkey and continued through Greece and then through Slovenia or Hungary towards northern EU countries. In 2015 and early 2016, almost a million border crossers moved from Greece to European countries via the Balkan route. However, following several attempts at controlling border crossings along the Balkan corridor with the erection of walls in Hungary and a series of repeated border closures in Austria, Serbia and North Macedonia, the Greek–​North Macedonian border was eventually sealed off on 7 March 2016 via increased surveillance and police brutality against border crossers. Consequently, thousands of border crossers were stranded at Eidomeni village on the Greek side of the border with North Macedonia. 40

The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders

The EU–​Turkey statement One of the most controversial agreements that directly affected Greece is the EU–​Turkey statement, agreed between the European Council and Turkey, which applied to border crossers arriving after 20 March 2016 from Turkey to the Greek islands. The recognition of Turkey as a ‘safe country’ for border crossers meant that their asylum applications could be rejected in Greece and they would face expulsion to Turkey (Gatti, 2016a, 2016b; Peers and Roman, 2016). According to the EU–​Turkey statement, all new border crossers crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands from 20 March 2016 would be returned to Turkey. These returns, according to the statement, would take place in full accordance with EU and international law and, therefore, would exclude any kind of collective expulsion. Thus, border crossers on the Greek islands who did not apply for international protection, or whose requests for international protection were deemed unfounded or inadmissible were to be returned to Turkey by Greece. Moreover, for each Syrian returned to Turkey from the Greek islands, another Syrian was to be resettled from Turkey to the EU. Turkey was also to take all necessary measures to prevent the creation of new sea or land routes from Turkey to the EU; in return, the visa requirements for Turkish citizens would be lifted by the EU and €6 billion of funding from the EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey would be allocated to Turkey. Following the EU–​Turkey statement, ‘a fast-​track border procedure’ has applied on the Greek islands and a different, parallel procedure has applied on the Greek mainland (see Chapter 4). The fast-​track border procedure has applied only to people who were subject to the 2016 EU–​Turkey statement and facilitated, in practice, the immobilization of border crossers to the Greek islands and their readmission to Turkey on the grounds that Turkey is a safe third country (Figure 1.3).

The geographical restriction regime In June 2017, the director of the Greek Asylum Service issued a regulatory decision imposing a geographical restriction on the islands of Lesvos, Rhodes, Samos, Kos, Leros and Chios. As a result, border crossers were obliged to stay on islands, such as Lesvos, until they completed registration, identification and asylum procedures, and expulsions to Turkey were even carried out. The geographical restriction was implemented in compliance with the terms and conditions of the statement, indefinitely immobilizing border crossers on the Aegean Islands. All in all, these policies immobilized border crossers in Greece indefinitely and led to the establishment of an ‘enforcement archipelago’ (Mountz, 2011) targeting, haunting and hunting people seeking sanctuary on the Aegean Islands, including Lesvos. As a consequence of these border policies and practices, Lesvos has turned into a securitized and militarized place –​a ‘prison 41

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Figure 1.3: Graffiti on a wall in Mytilene city centre: ‘No camps. Let people free’

island’ (Iliadou, 2019b) –​where ‘the penal logic and carceral space’ (Massaro and Boyce, 2021, p 571) is not restricted to within the camp, detention centre or hotspot, but is diffused and expanded across the island. Hence, border controls, policing, oppression, intimidation and border violence are not restricted to certain spaces, but dispersed and extended to all parts of the island. As Sariad, an interviewee from Syria, told me: “Lesvos is like a prison. The only difference now is that there are no bars. There is instead the sea.” According to criminologist Katja Franko Aas, ‘one does not need prisons to be, or feel, incarcerated in the locality’ (2007, p 293). The enforcement 42

The Politics of Deterrence and Closed Borders

archipelago also led to the proliferation of official and unofficial sites of confinement (various immigration detention centres, hotspots and refugee camps) across Greece and the Aegean Islands (Iliadou, 2021; Karamanidou and Kasparek, 2021), as well as a whole web of relationships, surveillance mechanisms, border technologies, knowledge systems and networks through which carceral logics and practices operated as part of a continuum. These various layered, material and symbolic carceral spaces and technologies were diffused as they become part of people’s everyday lives.

Conclusion The border policies and interventions in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis reflected the EU’s attempt to support Greece to cope with the increased migration flows and to strategically operationalize the country as a ‘buffer’ zone and as ‘Europe’s shield’ (BBC, 2020). As Mountz and Loyd argue, ‘the European Union set up their own buffer zones with interception at sea and use of islands to detain people closer to regions of origin and sites of interception’ (2014b, p 395). These policies also authorized the EU, through its security actors and allies, to gain jurisdiction in areas where it could not before. In addition, those policies and interventions allowed the EU to teach ‘good’ policing, asylum and border governance to the ‘bad’ Greek state. Greece has, for several years, been the main target for negative criticism in relation to migration, asylum and border mismanagement and for failing to comply and harmonize the country’s asylum policies with EU standards (European Court of Auditors, 2017; Garelli and Tazzioli, 2018). When I first visited Lesvos for fieldwork in October 2016 –​only a few months after the implementation of the EU–​Turkey statement –​there were approximately 6,000 border crossers immobilized indefinitely in a state of precariousness, destitution and limbo within the official, unofficial and makeshift camps of the island.2 The EU responses to the refugee crisis were legitimized in the name of humanitarianism and care, but in essence they were operationalized through deterrence. This chapter has shown that while deterrence, externalization and internalization policies may be successful in regulating and preventing border crossers from entering mainland Europe through Lesvos, they have inflicted a series of cumulative harms and social suffering upon forcibly displaced people. Instead of protecting lives, the policies have exacerbated harm, making the crossing of borders more expensive, risky and often fatal. For instance, the implementation of the EU–​Turkey statement combined with other deterrence policies and practices succeeded in decreasing border crossings through Greece, just as

2

Three years later in 2019 there were more than 20,000 border crossers stranded on Lesvos. 43

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policy makers had hoped (IOM, 2017b). At the same time, it ‘succeeded’ in increasing the death tolls, harms and human suffering, as since then people have been following more risky alternative routes in order to reach safety (IOM, 2017a). Furthermore, harm and suffering has been inflicted upon border crossers who were permanently stranded in a state of limbo within border zones, formal and makeshift camps in Lesvos, mainland Greece and elsewhere. Therefore, even when border crossers reach Europe, as the Lesvos case shows, they have been confronted with a Kafkaesque militarized, securitized, bureaucratized complex which regulates their everyday lives and is enforced by internalization policies. The implementation of deterrent policies in order to prevent border crossers from entering or moving forward to mainland Europe turned Lesvos into a prison island wherein border crossers, without being able to move forward or go back, were confined to a piece of earth surrounded by the deep blue sea, experiencing multiple forms of limbo.

44

2

Intergenerational Harms: Border Memories and Genealogies of Harm The migration and refugee history of mainland Greece and the island of Lesvos is bound to genealogies and legacies of postcolonial violence, forced displacement and social suffering perpetuating across the mists of time (Figure 2.1). One of the darkest pages in the history of forced displacement in the region is the Greek genocide (1914–​23), which was a systematic extermination of Greek populations living in the Ottoman Empire before, during and after World War I. Due to the national ethnic cleansing operations launched by the Young Turks (nationalists), all Christian populations (Armenians, Assyrians, Pontians and other Anatolian Greeks) were forced to leave to escape genocide, massacre and violence (Pontian Greek Society of Chicago ‘Xeniteas’, 2006). The Pontian Greek Society of Chicago ‘Xeniteas’ (2006) offers a few estimates of the deaths that occurred: As a consequence of the deliberate and systematic policy of Turkification of the Ottoman Empire, it is estimated that more than 2.75 million Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks were slaughtered outright or were victims of the ‘white death’ of disease and starvation –​a result of the routine process of deportations, slave labour, and death marches. Many Pontiacs were forcibly deported to inner Asia Minor, Kurdistan and Syria1 while many women and girls were systematically raped by the armed escorts that were supposed to protect them (Pontian Greek Society of

1

A historic irony is that Syria –​a region that has been affected dramatically by an ongoing civil war and which has seen a large-​scale forced displacement to Greece and Europe –​ hosted approximately 17,000 Asia Minor refugees (Perichoresis, no date). 45

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

Figure 2.1: Graffiti on a wall in Mytilene city centre: ‘Our grandfathers refugees. Our parents migrants. We racists?’

Chicago ‘Xeniteas’, 2006). The genocide launched by the Ottoman Turkish state against the Armenian and Pontiac Greek populations remains today denied. This denial inflicts genocidal trauma that continues to be felt across generations through –​a process known as ‘intergenerational transmission of violent memory’ (White, 2017, p 22). One of the major consequences of World War I, the Greco–​Turkish War of 1919–​22 (Salvanou, 2017), produced approximately 1.5 million Anatolian Greek refugees, who fled to Greece and other countries neighbouring with Turkey. After the compulsory exchange of populations, a provision of the Treaty of Lausanne 1923, approximately 1.2 million refugees were settled in Greece (Green, 2010; Hirschon, 2014). According to social anthropologist Renée Hirschon, ‘[b]‌ecause of its proximity to the mainland, the island of Lesvos directly experienced the challenge of receiving vast numbers of displaced persons’ (2007, p 171). Approximately, 45,000 Asia Minor refugees arrived by boat and settled in various parts of the island, like Skala Sykamnias in the north of Lesvos and Epano Skala in Mytilene. Indeed, 60 per cent of people resident in Lesvos now are the descendants of the 1922 Asia Minor refugees (Pantelia, 2016). The area of Epano Skala in Mytilene hosts the statue of the Asia Minor Mother as a border monument of the refugee past of the locals. This statue is dedicated to all Asia Minor mothers who crossed borders and fled to Lesvos in search of sanctuary in the aftermath of the Asia Minor Catastrophe. In 46

Intergenerational Harms

an interview to the online newspaper Foreign Policy, Stratis Balaskas, a local journalist from Lesvos, explained how his own father arrived in Lesvos as a refugee when he was just six years old: ‘My grandparents were dead, and somebody just pushed him into a boat in Smyrna. It came to Lesvos, and he grew up in an orphanage here. ... Many people here have stories like this in their families’ (Carstensen, 2015). The Asia Minor refugees who settled in Lesvos were initially hosted in churches, warehouses and oil pressing factories with very poor conditions, and they were perceived as threats (Carstensen, 2015). Konstantina, a descendant of Asia Minor refugees and volunteer in Lesvos, told to journalist Anna Pantelia about her mother, who was one of those refugees: ‘When they washed up in Lesvos almost a century ago, my mother made tents out of stones and bed sheets; later they started working the fields and staying overnight at olive presses until the refugee settlement commission built houses for newcomers’ (Pantelia, 2016). According to historical data, the resettlement of refugees in Lesvos, and Greece generally, was not easy. The Asia Minor refugees encountered racism, hostility, dehumanization and discrimination (Baldwin-E ​ dwards, 2014). Although the Asia Minor refugees were Christian Orthodox (the dominant religion in Greece), Greek speakers and contributed to the host society’s industry, trade, cultural development and science, they initially faced hostility from Greek society. At the same time, their ‘genuineness’ as Greeks was challenged. This fact is illustrated by a common dehumanizing and degrading name which was attributed to them: Turkseeds2 (in Greek: τουρκόσποροι). During my research on Lesvos, I documented the local term (in Greek: προσφυγάρες)3, used in some parts of Lesvos to belittle Asia Minor refugees. Many Asia Minor refugees died due to the poor living conditions, and many became victims of financial exploitation and profiteering by locals. However, Asia Minor refugees encountered the hostility of the Greek state before even entering Greek territory, as the Greek government had ordered the exercise of violence and even the sinking of boats carrying refugees from Asia Minor to the Greek islands and the mainland (Balaskas, 2021). On 14 July 1922, with a government decision, the Greek state ordered that all foreigners without legal documents would not be permitted to enter the country (Balaskas, 2021). The collective trauma and harm of the genocide and the violent uprooting and forced displacement that Asia Minor refugees experienced were so deep that in modern Greek history, the historic narrative, collective memory and cultural identity of this period is commemorated and predominantly referred to as the Catastrophe. The deep emotional ties to the homeland

2 3

This literally means ‘Turkish seeds’. The etymology of the word stems from the Greek word prοsfyghas, which means ‘refugee’. 47

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

and the trauma of violent uprooting have led to the use of terms like (in Greek: χαμένες πατρίδες and αλησμόνητες πατρίδες)4. Yet the trauma finds its supreme expression in the unutterable –​that is, the embodied memories and silent grief for what was lost –​the objects, family belongings, such as religious icons, and bags of home soil which Asia Minor refugees brought with them when fleeing violence. Based on her work in the Greek region, Renée Hirschon, points out the interplay between history and embodied memory by arguing how the individual is herself a monument (Hirschon, 2014). Personal accounts of the 1922 Asia Minor refugees and their descendants are themselves border ‘monuments’ and ‘embodied memories’ which act as heritage treasures, ‘memory banks of the past’ and bridges between two worlds: the past and the present (Hirschon, 2014, p 47). I grew up in a small municipality in the city of Athens called Kaisariani, which in 1922 became a refugee settlement to accommodate Asia Minor refugees, initially in tents and later in shacks. According to a study carried out by the Greek Ministry of Culture and the National Technical University of Athens between 1922 and 1940: There were also cases of self-​housing, where the government gave sites to people and they built their houses with their own means. There were various types of buildings according to the period that they were built. There were houses made from wood, cob tiles, and others made from stone or brick walls. They consisted of one or two storeys, housing one, two or more families. Later houses were mixed structures, in three storeys, built from stone walls and horizontal elements of reinforced concrete, with multiple apartments. (Papadopoulou and Sariyannis, 2007) There are still refugee houses in the region. The streets carry the names of former regions in Asia Minor. As a descendent of Asia Minor refugees, I remember growing up among objects and memories of forced displacement and violence. My parents’ house in Kaisariani is a two-​storey house that was built by my grandparents. My mother’s family lived in Smyrna (Izmir), and in 1922 they sought sanctuary in Greece. The memories of borders and violence were so deep and traumatic that my mother always becomes tearful when she commemorates the harrowing experience of displacement. One of my grandmother’s memories is that the boats which were carrying them from the Turkish coasts to Greece where overcrowded, and the captain was cutting the hands of those trying to board the congested boats. “The colour of the sea turned red from refugees’ blood”, my mother told me. My father’s

4

The former means ‘lost homelands’and the latter ‘memorable homelands’. 48

Intergenerational Harms

family, on the other hand, lived in Pontus in the Black Sea region. During the genocidal campaign which was launched in 1914, my father’s family sought sanctuary in Russia. Due to the genocidal trauma and grief he felt, my father was never able to articulate memories of his family’s experiences. The genocidal trauma was exacerbated due to the denial of the Turkish state to recognize as genocide the annihilation and atrocities committed against Pontian Greeks. The inability, and even unwillingness, to verbalize these traumatic experiences is common. As social anthropologist Anastasopoulou, in her research with descendants of Asia Minor refugees in Lesvos, points out, ‘refugees of the first generation were not always willing to share their stories for fear of evoking their pain or not being understood’ (2020, p 18). Referring to Gildea’s work, she notes that ‘people usually tell their life stories to their grandchildren towards the end of their lives’ (Anastasopoulou, 2020, p 18). My refugee roots as well as the intergenerational harm that has been transmitted to me has, to a great extent, shaped my choice to work in border zones, refugee camps and immigration detention centres as an NGO practitioner and researcher. Many families in mainland Greece and Lesvos have had similar experiences and keep memories of violence and displacement. This refugee legacy can justify to a large degree the solidarity, philoxenia and overall response that the local community showed in 2015 towards forcibly displaced people. Many local people saw the act of solidarity and care as a ‘moral obligation’ and/​or ‘historical duty’ (Carstensen, 2015), while sites such as the Pagani detention centre and the Moria camp were perceived as an insult to Mytilene. As Maria, a local volunteer, told me: ‘You cannot imagine with how much love people welcomed refugees here, because there are local people here who were refugees, who have experienced the difficulties during the Asia Minor Catastrophe. They put themselves in refugees’ shoes and they opened their arms to welcome and help refugees, to take them out from the boats, to find them accommodation.’ In Lesvos, the legacies of postcolonial violence, forced displacement and historical oppression have left their traces also upon spaces in the locality (Hirschon, 2007). Multiple small and large, historical and contemporary remnants and border monuments still (co)exist today (Auchter, 2013), including the historical monuments and statues of the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe, the Museum of the Memorial of the Refugees of 1922, the refugee neighbourhoods of Lesvos and the multiple Asia Minor associations. In parallel with these historic monuments, the legacies of forced migration and postcolonial violence can be traced in more contemporary border crossing monuments, which have been produced from the late 1990s 49

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

onwards and proliferated in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis. Some of these contemporary border monuments are the lifejacket graveyard, the discarded lifejackets, plastic dinghies and personal belongings on the coasts of Lesvos, the remains of former immigration detention centres, refugee camps and self-​organized structures at the coasts and the illegal cemetery which was established in the border town of Mytilene (Figure 2.2). These border monuments haunt Lesvos and leave their mark on space as well as the collective memory and identity of whole communities by becoming part of the social experience. Also, they are constant reminders of the perpetual interplay between different generations of forced displacements and the border violence, control and harm across time and space. So far, I have explored the legacy of the Greek Genocide, the Asia Minor Catastrophe and forced displacement, finding that its traumatic and harmful consequences remain alive in the space as well as in the memories and experiences of Greek, especially Lesvos, people today. I will now move on to look at more contemporary displacements and patterns of border violence, policies and practices reoccurring in the period between 1980 and 2015 which paved the way for the 2015 refugee crisis. The 2015 refugee crisis will be examined within a ‘genealogical framework’ (Schulte Nordholt, 2002, p 34). As already stated, previous displacements, violence and responses to them are passed on to the next generation, and rather than been seeing as new, unique, isolated events or tragic accidents, they should be examined as part of a ‘generational’ effect (Arango, 2012) –​a continuum of past border regimes

Figure 2.2: Lifejacket graveyard

50

Intergenerational Harms

which have affected policies and practices across generations. In turn, the harms that are inflicted persist and unfold cumulatively, intergenerationally, by forming new types of harm that I call intergenerational harms.

Regimes of border violence and control It is possible to distinguish three genealogical periods of border violence and control that have cumulatively affected Greek reception, asylum and detention policies and practices across time and space. The first phase unfolded after the Greek state’s ratification of the 1951 Geneva Convention (Law 3989/​ 1959) and the New York Protocol of 1967 (Compulsory Law 389/​1968) and up to 2010. As I argue below, in the years following the ratification of the 1951 Geneva Convention, little attention was given to the international refugee protection regime This period overlaps with unauthorized border crossings and forced displacements of mainly Iraqi-​Kurdish and Palestinians in the 1980s, Albanian, Bulgarian and other border crossers mainly from Eastern Bloc in the 1990s. In the second period, between 2010 and 2015, forcibly displaced people from Asia, the Middle East and sub-​Saharan African countries increasingly crossed the Greek–​Turkish liquid and land borders seeking international protection in Greece. As I argue later, the increase of border crossings in Greece alongside various developments at European level greatly affected asylum, reception, detention and border policies and practices. In the third period, from 2015 onwards, approximately one million forcibly displaced people, notably from Syria (but also from other war-​torn countries, such as Afghanistan), sought sanctuary in Greece. Greece is one of the states parties to the 1951 Geneva Convention and its 1967 Protocol of New York. Notably, on 19 September 1959, Greece ratified the 1951 Geneva Convention (Law 3989/​1959) and included a definition of the term ‘refugee’ as well as the general provisions and obligations of the Greek state towards forcibly displaced people. According to Law 3989/​ 1959, a refugee is any individual that is forced to flee as a result of events taking place in Europe or elsewhere before 1 January 1951. On 4 June 1968, Greece passed Compulsory Law 389/​1968 by ratifying the 1967 Protocol of New York and consequently expanded and applied the legal definition of refugee to all individuals falling under the Geneva Convention regardless of the date 1 January 1951, as in the previous law the only forcibly displaced populations that counted as refugees for the Greek state were the 1922 Asia Minor refugees. In the years following the ratification of the 1951 Geneva Convention, little attention was given to the international refugee protection regime even though Greece had been receiving a great number of refugees of Greek origin in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, the Greco–​Turkish War and the two World Wars. However, up to the mid-​1970s, only a few non-​ Greek border crossers sought asylum in Greece (Stavropoulou, 1994). This is 51

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

because after World War II, Greece became an important sending country of migrants to Western countries. According to Charalambos Kasimis and Chryssa Kassimi (2004), between 1950 and 1974, more than one million Greeks migrated to Western Europe, the US, Canada and Australia.5 An indication that Greece was a predominantly sending country was the establishment of the Greek office of the IOM (no date b), which, from the 1950s until the middle of the 1970s, in collaboration with the Greek state, played a significant role in the migration management of Greeks to other Western countries. From 1954, the IOM had provided various support services (such as language courses and professional training) to Greeks who were about to migrate, in order to facilitate their smooth settlement in the receiving countries. It is estimated that during that period, the IOM helped more than 140,000 Greeks to migrate to the US, Canada and Australia (IOM, no date b). According to Ioannis Papageorgiou (2013, p 74), before the 1980s, immigration and asylum were not matters of concern for the European Economic Community as, between the 1950s and 1970s, many Western European states implemented pull factor policies through bilateral agreements with Southern European (for example, Greece, Spain, Portugal) and Mediterranean countries (for example, Turkey) in order to attract migrants to Northern and Western Europe, such as West Germany, France and the Netherlands. The period of the military junta in Greece (1967–​74) played a significant role as well in the poor attention of the Greek state to the international protection regime. Due to the authoritarian practices of the military junta and the restrictions of civil liberties and the imprisonment, torture and exile of political opponents, Greece remained a sending country until the beginning of the 1980s (Kasimis and Kassimi, 2004). As Maria Stavropoulou (1994, p 54) argues, Greece always considered itself a transit country and discouraged the local integration of migrants, and despite the ratification of the 1951 Geneva Convention in 1959, in the period up to the 1990s the responsible authority (that is, the Hellenic Police) did not register all asylum seekers, only Turks. Furthermore, the Greek authorities were very reluctant to amend Article 15 of the 1951 Geneva Convention by excluding border crossers from the right to work and, consequently, pushing them to seek employment in the black market (Stavropoulou, 1994). In the years following the ratification of the Geneva Convention, the branch office of the UNHCR in Athens (established in 1952) played a significant role in the refugee protection regime. According to Stavropoulou, given that the competent authorities were unwilling to

5

Official statistics show that in the period 1955–​73, Germany absorbed 603,300 Greek migrants, Australia took 170,700, the US took 124,000 and Canada took 80,200 (Kasimis and Kassimi, 2004). 52

Intergenerational Harms

register asylum seekers and complete the asylum procedures by granting them protection, ‘asylum seekers were directed to UNHCR and the resettlement agencies in order to regularize somehow their situation and be assisted’ (1994, p 54). However, as Stavropoulou argues, although the Greek state would not grant asylum to the vast majority of persons in need of international protection, it would rarely proceed to their forcible return to their countries of origin. The authorities tolerated the irregular presence and work of border crossers alike and rarely prosecuted them solely on these grounds (Stavropoulou, 1994, p 55). Notably, in the 1980s the UNHCR initiated and financed its own eligibility determination procedure in order to determine those persons falling under its mandate. Mandate refugees were provided with refugee identity documents (Blue cards) with which they could obtain temporary residence permits and were practically protected against refoulement (Stavropoulou, 1994). Even though they were not allowed to work and were excluded from state cash assistance, they had access to free medical care and refugee children were allowed to go to school. The UNHCR played a significant role in advocating on behalf of border crossers on various occasions in relation to problems they encountered with the authorities (that is, detention, deportation orders, family reunification, issuance of travel documents and renewal of residence permits). However, the authorities had expected that mandate refugees would register with the resettlement agencies operating in Greece and consequently, sooner or later, would be asked to leave the country (Stavropoulou, 1994). In addition, despite the UNHCR’s efforts, most mandate refugees were not granted asylum by the authorities, so the UNHCR could not adequately guarantee and safeguard their rights. As Stavropoulou emphasizes, the safeguarding of border crossers’ rights became extremely difficult over time and as the numbers of border crossers in Greece progressively increased. However, from 1980 onwards, Greece moved gradually from being a sending country to become a transit country for ‘ethnic Greeks’ (that is, Pontian Greeks from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and border crossers from East Europe, the Middle East and sub-​Saharan Africa (Triandafyllidou and Veikou, 2002; Kasimis and Kassimi, 2004). This development reflects various improvements in living conditions and the financial situation in the country (Ministry of Migration and Asylum, 2019) –​improvements that took place after Greece’s integration into the European Community in 1981. However, border crossings to Greece peaked in the 1990s when thousands of irregular migrants, notably from Albania (following the collapse of the Communist bloc and the pyramid banking system), Turkey, Iraq, Iran and other countries in the Middle East (IOM, no date b; Baldwin-​Edwards and Fakiolas, 1998; Triandafyllidou and Veikou, 2002; Papageorgiou, 2013), entered Greece. According to the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (1997), during 1996, 1,635 53

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

persons applied for international protection in Greece, 91 per cent of whom came from Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Iraq produced the largest number of asylum seekers (1,037), followed by Turkey (271) and Iran (177) (US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, 1997). Also, following the Yugoslavian Civil War, Greece had offered to shelter 5,000 Bosnian refugees, but due to Greece’s failure to reach an agreement on quotas at the European level, this never really materialized (Kostakos, 2000; Armakolas and Karabairis, 2012). The official statistics of 1999 show that no refugees from Kosovo registered despite the presence of Kosovar Albanians in the country (Armakolas and Karabairis, 2012). As Armakolas and Karabairis argue, the approach towards those fleeing the Yugoslavian Civil War was based on the ‘remain close to home’ policy: In this framework, Greece ran three refugee camps in Albania: the entire camp in Pogradec, a camp close to Tirana ‘the only one with prefabricated houses’, and a small one in the Kukës area, close to the refugee entry points. Apart from these initiatives, Greece offered the Thessaloniki airport for air transportation of several Kosovo refugees to overseas destinations. (2012, p 100) However, between 1992 and 1996 the Greek state implemented temporary hospitality programmes for Bosnian children in Greece, coordinated by the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece, the Ministry of Health, the church, the Red Cross and 20 state and social organizations (Sofianos, 2020). During that period, many Greek families, including families on Lesvos, opened their homes to Bosnian children. The response then was another early precursor of the hospitality and solidarity that local communities –​ especially on Lesvos –​showed later during the so-​called 2015 refugee crisis. Despite the increasing numbers of border crossers arriving in Greece, the policy response has been contradictory and complex, with many shortcomings (Baldwin-​Edwards and Fakiolas, 1998; Sitaropoulos, 2000). The increased arrivals of border crossers caught Greece unprepared and in an awkward position given that the Greek state had never implemented a pull factor migration policy (Triandafyllidou, 2009; Ministry of Migration and Asylum, 2019). Also, the relatively small number of border crossers arriving in the country were not of any particular concern for the Greek government, so it did not trigger any responses or integration programmes (Ministry of Migration and Asylum, 2019). The presence of border crossers in the country and the need for their integration became an issue of concern for the Greek state during the last decade, predominantly from 2014 onwards, due to the increase of border crossers in combination with the ongoing financial crisis and its negative consequences for the Greek society (for example, increasing unemployment rates) (Triandafyllidou, 2009; Ministry of 54

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Migration and Asylum, 2019). Therefore, initially, the Greek state’s response towards border crossings in the 1990s was through the banner of illegality, security, deterrence and public order (Triandafyllidou and Veikou, 2002; Antonopoulos, 2006; Papageorgiou, 2013). In fact, the first law that came into force to regulate immigration was Law 1975/​1991, which was put into effect on 4 June 1992. Before then, Greek policy on immigration had been practically nonexistent. As Papageorgiou notes: the main reason for the almost total absence of immigration until the 1990s was economic. Greece could not sustain its own citizens, let alone attract immigrants; in fact, Greece was a net provider of emigrants until the 1970s. As a result there was no need for any relevant policy or legislation. Furthermore, the small number of refugees and asylum-​seekers coming to the country meant that neither asylum nor migration were a public concern. (2013, p 76) Law 1975/​1991 was meant to amend and replace Law 4310/​1929, which had been in effect for more than 60 years and consisted of the first domestic attempts to regulate entry requirements, work permits, residency requirements, imprisonment for irregular entry, deportations and asylum procedures for border crossers (Baldwin-​Edwards and Fakiolas, 1998; Antonopoulos, 2006; Faist and Ette, 2007; Karamanidou, 2019). It was also one of the first attempts to harmonize domestic legislation with the developments at EU level in respect to migration and asylum: (i) the adoption of the 1990 Dublin Convention (which came into force in 1997) as a biding international instrument that determines ‘the State responsible for examining applications for asylum lodged in one of the Member States of the European Communities’ (Official Journal of the European Communities, 1997);6 (ii) the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty 1991, which includes provisions for the mutual collaboration, coordination and consultation between member states on policies related to migration and asylum (Papageorgiou, 2013); (iii) the accession to the Schengen Agreement and Convention (Greece joined the Schengen Area in 1992) on the gradual abolition of checks at the EU common borders, through Law 2514/​1997 (Sitaropoulos, 2000).

6

For example, Article 25 of Law 1975/​1991 included provisions concerning the 1990 Dublin Convention and the refugee recognition procedures. Also, Law 1996/​1991, which was adopted in the same period as Law 1975/​1991, detailed obligations and provisions for asylum procedures in compliance with the goals determined during the Conclusions of the Presidency of the European Council in Strasburg on 8 and 9 December 1989, regarding the harmonization of asylum procedures. 55

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According to Law 1975/​1 991, the management and control of border crossers in the Greek territory and the asylum procedures were the responsibility of the Ministry of Public Order, and the competent authority for the materialization of these procedures was the Hellenic Police. Articles 24 and 25 of Law 1975/​1991 were the only provisions related to refugees and international protection (UNHCR, 1998). However, they did not include details of any refugee procedure; instead, they consisted of a general framework (Stavropoulou, 1994). Therefore, despite the provisions mentioned in Law 1975/​1991, the procedures related to the determination of refugee status were explained in more detail in Presidential Decree 83/​1993. According to the decree, the Ministry of Public Order was responsible for establishing the criteria for admissibility of asylum applications and determining refugee status, appeal procedures for rejected asylum claims and procedures for revoking refugee status. The decree implemented refugee determination procedures identical in form to those in the rest of Europe –​that is, rejection on the grounds of passing through a safe third country, a manifestly unfounded application and failure to file the application immediately on arrival in Greece (Baldwin-​Edwards and Fakiolas, 1998). Between 1993 and 1996, the number of asylum applications and refugee status determinations were: 810 asylum applications in 1993, of which 43 applications were successful; 1,300 asylum applications in 1994, of which 153 were successful; 1,310 asylum applications in 1995, of which 210 were successful; and 1,640 asylum applications in 1996, of which 200 were successful (Antonopoulos, 2006, p 142). Law 1975/​1991 was amended and replaced by Law 2452/​1996, which was put into effect on 31 December 1996. This reform was deemed necessary for several reasons. First, Law 1975/​1991 was regarded as harsh (UNHCR, 1998; Sitaropoulos, 2000). As Georgios Antonopoulos (2006, p 137) argues: at the beginning of 1990s the phenomenon of migration was considered mainly as a matter of public order and internal security, and … the discussions on migration policies were in essence identified with discussions on crime and crime control. Second, the provisions of articles 24 and 25 did not respond to the contemporary challenges and could not adequately guarantee refugees’ protection. (UNHCR, 1998, p 14) Third, the overall migration policy was ineffective and had many deficiencies, leading to the first regularization process in 1997 (Presidential Decrees 358/​ 1997 and 359/​1997), which emphasized the need for a radical legislative reform (Triandafyllidou and Veikou, 2002). As Baldwin-​Edwards and Fakiolas argue: 56

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it has been claimed by the Minister for the Interior in 1992 that the Law has serious shortcomings and was adopted in a ‘panic situation’ in response to the ‘Albanian crisis’([Commission of the European Communities], 1993, p 40). The passage of the bill was difficult and opposition parties condemned it for xenophobia and a policing philosophy, as well as taking no account of immigrants already present in the country. (1998, p 188) The increased border crossing following the collapse of the former Communist bloc in 1989, the Albanian pyramid banking system and the civil war that followed in that country in 1997 (Baldwin-​Edwards, 2004; Dalakoglou, 2016) were significant challenges for the Greek authorities. According to Kasimis and Kasimi (2004): In the 1990 to 2001 period of mass immigration to Greece, immigrants arrived in two waves. The first was that of the early 1990s, in which Albanians dominated. The second arrived after 1995 and involved much greater participation of immigrants from other Balkan states, the former Soviet Union, Pakistan, and India. Despite the significant arrivals, the immigration policies surrounding border crossing in Greece were inadequate and lacked approximate data on the level and types of immigration and relevant trends (Baldwin-​Edwards, 2004). However, according to academic research, the Albanian border crossers who settled in Greece were predominantly men, who found employment in the informal economy, working in the construction sector, farming and manufacturing, while women were employed in domestic work and tourism (Maroukis, 2005). The participation of the Albanian border crossers in the labour market was so dominant that, as Lisa Tsaliki and Konstantinos Chandrinos note, ‘the notion of the immigrant worker became a synonym to Albanian’ (2008, p 3). Albanian border crossers suffered in Greece as they were not accepted by the Greek society. They experienced multiple forms of everyday violence, such as social exclusion, racism, exploitation, marginalization, abuse, exclusion from citizenship, ill treatment by the police and violations of their fundamental human rights and freedoms (Tsaliki and Chandrinos, 2008). Albanian migrants were managed by the Greek state under the banner of criminality and public order (Baldwin-​Edwards, 2014). Indeed, the Greek state’s main concern was the ‘Albanian problem’ (Commission of the European Communities, 1993, p 20), as their irregular settlement and presence in the country was associated with the ‘soaring crime rate’ (p 7). The criminalization of the Albanian border crossers was further enhanced by their overexposure to negative media representation, degradation and 57

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

dehumanization, resulting in the construction of the stereotype of ‘the criminal Albanian’ (Baldwin-​Edwards, 2014, p 1). This negative media representation and stigmatization was so widespread that the word ‘Albanian’ became a synonym for inferiority, belittlement and criminality (Tsaliki and Chandrinos, 2008, p 5). The demonization of Albanian migrants was so overwhelming that I still remember as a teenager the dehumanizing slogan that Greek football fans and other citizens would commonly shout at them: ‘Albanian, Albanian, you will never become Greek’ The border management and control which was enforced by the Greek authorities against Albanian border crossers during the 1990s involved excessive use of violence at the borders by the police and border guards, including the use of firearms. As the Albanian Helsinki Committee notes: The most severe violations of human rights involve use of force against Albanians living and working in Greece, legally or illegally. Cases of psychological violence exerted against them have emerged as another form of violation of human rights, apart from the use of physical violence. Documented cases speak of incidents involving even the use of firearms against Albanians attempting to cross the border illegally. These cases have often proved fatal for the illegal immigrants. Use of firearms by the Greek police in such incidents is a violation of international standards, which limit the use of firearms to life threatening situations and/​or serious injury or define them as a means of last resort. (No date, p 3) At the same time, strict surveillance, policing and border controls were enforced within the borders, such as ‘sweeping operations’7 and en masse evictions from Greece (Albanian Helsinki Committee, no date, p 3). The en masse evictions and deportations from Greece to Albania were euphemistically framed as ‘readmissions’, and these were arbitrarily expanded even to Albanian border crossers with residency and work permits in Greece. According to the Albanian Helsinki Committee, ‘The rights of Albanian immigrants are violated especially at the moment of their arrest and detention, during the investigations as well as criminal proceedings against them’ (no date, p 13). A very important aspect of that period is the everyday violence, racism and fatal hate crimes against Albanian border crossers by ordinary Greek citizens. In Lesvos, according to local interviewees, Albanian border crossers during the 1990s were mainly employed at local people’s

7

The repressive and harmful surveillance measure of sweeping operations reemerged in 2012 with the name Operation Xenios Zeus, and this included stop and search operations, arrests and deportation by the Greek police. 58

Intergenerational Harms

allotments and olive groves. Many of them used to sleep in their employers’ stables, and they were paid less than minimum wage. Individuals were usually referred to by the locals as ‘the Albanian’ rather than by their names. The range of violence that Albanians border crossers experienced, particularly during the first wave of their immigration to Greece, is aptly summarized in the Albanian Helsinki Committee’s report as follows: ‘Albanian immigrants living and working in Greece suffered the majority of human rights violation cases among all Albanian immigrants all over the world’ (no date, p 12). Law 1975/​1991 was amended and replaced by Law 2452/​1996, which was put into effect on 31 December 1996. Law 2452/​1996 is considered the first law specifically on refugee protection, as it introduced normal and accelerated asylum procedures, established the concept of manifestly unfounded applications and reinforced the concept of ‘safe third countries’8 in line with developments in the EU (Karamanidou, 2019). It also included provisions for the establishment, operation and administrative subsumption of temporary accommodation centres for asylum seekers under the responsibility of the ministries of Health and Welfare, and Public Order, the entry procedures of asylum seekers in these sites and the length of their residence there. In addition, Law 2452/​1996 included provision for family reunification, work permits and other healthcare and welfare issues. Presidential Decree 61/​1999 of 6 April 1999 was another important development, as it included provisions on the refugee status determination procedures. More specifically, Article 1 includes provisions related to asylum and the competent authorities to receive and register the asylum claim. Article 2 of Presidential Decree 61/​1999 stated that the competent authorities to examine the asylum claims and manage the asylum procedures were the aliens’ sub-​directorates or departments, the security departments of the state airports and the security sub-​directorates or departments of the police directorates. For the examination of asylum applications, police and civil personnel were assigned, serving at specially established offices of the authorities mentioned. The decree also included provisions for the asylum interview procedure. The interview was to be held by an interrogating policeman with an officer grade in cooperation, if the possibility existed, with another officer or civil employee graded PE (that is, having a higher education degree). The asylum seeker was to be provided, by the competent examining authority, with an asylum seekers card (the pink card), valid for six months (National Legislative Bodies/​National Authorities, 1999; Skordas, 1999). Presidential Decree 61/​1999 provided for the presence of interpretation services and had provisions for victims of torture, the

8

As explained in Chapter 1, the ‘safe third country’ concept plays a significant role in the architecture of exclusion and was actively operationalized in the aftermath of the EU–​Turkey statement. 59

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appeal procedure and the issuing of residency permits to asylum seekers for humanitarian reasons. In addition, Article 4 included provisions to regulate accelerated procedures on refugee status determination. In March 1999, the Greek Parliament ratified the Treaty of Amsterdam 1997 (Law 2691/​1999), amending the Treaty on European Union 1992. Consequently, Greece had to implement EU developments regarding immigration control and refugee protection (asylum) (Triandafyllidou, 2009). However, between 1997 and 1999, various concerns were raised about mismanagement of the asylum system and its negative consequences for border crossers. Serious allegations were raised about the lack of interpretation at entry points, excessive use of prolonged detention of irregular migrants, lack of training for border officials, arbitrary deportations and lack of access to international protection. The mismanagement of the asylum case of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), in early 1999, which ultimately lead to him being handed over to Turkey by the Greek authorities, was very characteristic of the dysfunctional asylum system in Greece (Sitaropoulos, 2000). On 2 May 2001, in combination with other developments at the EU level and the increasing border crossings through Greece to Northern Europe (Human Rights Watch, 2012), the Greek government passed Law 2910/​ 2001, which, similar to the earlier Law 1975/​1991, predominantly focused on controlling and policing irregular entries and residency permits and established the administrative deportation procedure (Skordas, 2002, p 25). This law was also the second regularization process launched by the Greek authorities, after the failed first one, which took place between 1997 and 2000 (Skordas, 2002; Fakiolas, 2003). According to Antonopoulos, Law 2910/​2001, similar to its predecessor, promoted the issue of migration ‘as a public order and national security matter. The ‘Other’ is still seen as the one that carries either insecurity or diseases or, very importantly, of significant levels of criminality’ (2006, p 141). In addition, Law 2910/​2001 had serious gaps and deficiencies as it was drafted hastily and ‘without a complete picture of the migrant situation [and] for this reason it was modified several times afterward (seven times in the five years it was in force)’ (Papageorgiou, 2013, p 79). Similarly, another reform which came into effect on 15 October 2002 (Law 3064/​2002) included provisions for the protection and assistance of survivors of human trafficking as well as safeguards against deportation. However, this law too has been criticized for its many shortcomings. According to Human Rights Watch (2002), the definition of trafficking included in Law 3064/​2002 was narrow and therefore it did not adequately address the issue of human trafficking. Also, vulnerable groups (for example, children) were left unprotected; the right to seek and enjoy asylum was not adequately safeguarded; the fundamental principle of non-​refoulement was not upheld; and Greek law was only partially brought into compliance with international standards (Human Rights Watch, 2002). 60

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At the same time, on 8 November 2001, Greece had signed a bilateral agreement with Turkey, known as the Bilateral Readmission Protocol, which was ratified on 15 July 2002 through Law 3030/​2002 on ‘combating crime, especially terrorism, organized crime, illicit drug trafficking and illegal migration’. The 2002 Bilateral Readmission Protocol inaugurated the readmission of border crossers from Greece to Turkey. However, the protocol had not been considered successful as in 2002 alone, very few border crossers were readmitted to Turkey. According to Aspasia Papadopoulou (2004, p 170), of 5,600 applications to Turkey for readmission, only 100 were accepted in the first instance and 34 after further negotiation. The readmission protocol has also been criticized for focusing almost exclusively on combating ‘illegal’ migration and for failing in safeguarding and respecting human rights and international laws and conventions (for example, in relation to the principles of non-​refoulement or the best interests of the child); due to the obstacles in accessing asylum procedures and identifying other vulnerable groups, there is a serious risk that persons returned under the readmission agreement with Turkey might indeed be in need of protection (Papadopoulou, 2004; UN General Assembly, 2013). However, the 2002 Bilateral Readmission Protocol made a very important development in respect to Greece’s migration governance. Not only did it establish cooperation between the two countries by legitimizing the readmission of border crossers, but it also played a crucial role regarding the implementation of the 2016 EU–​Turkey statement as it constituted its legal basis. In compliance with Council Regulation 1030/​2002 EC of 13 June 2002 on ‘laying down a uniform format for residence permits for third-​country nationals’ (Council of the European Union, 2002), the Greek government passed Law 3386/​2005 regulating various issues related to border crossing, the protection of victims of human trafficking, subsidiary protection and protection for humanitarian reasons. This was an important law as through articles 76–​82, it determined the administrative deportations and expulsions as well the lists of unwanted aliens. Most importantly, through Article 81, Law 3386/​2005 determined: the establishment and operation of special premises for the detention of border crossers by decision of the ministries of the Interior, Public Administration and Decentralisation, Economy and Finance, Health and Social Solidarity, and Public Order; the basis for their operational framework; and the Hellenic Police as the competent authority in guarding these special sites of confinement. In addition, through Circular 38/​2005 on the ‘implementation of the provisions of Law 3386/​2005’, all prefectures on the Greek mainland and the islands were determined as the competent authorities for the day-​to-​day management and operation of these special premises of detention.9 Circular 38/​2005 also set out that 9

More provisions, however, on the operational framework, location and capacity of these special premises were included in the 2008 action plan ‘on the establishment 61

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the containment of border crossers in temporary reception centres was to be applied under the Poseidonion and Balkanion action plans.10 Similar to its predecessors, Law 3386/​2005 failed as it included multiple, complex procedures as well as excessive use of detention and expulsion as measures for the management and removal of border crossers from the Greek territory (Papageorgiou, 2013). The excessive duration of migrant detention was regulated in Article 76(3) of Law 3386/​2005; this was set at 6 months, but the duration could be extended up to 12 months if the person refused to cooperate or if there were delays in obtaining necessary documentation. According to the Special Rapporteur, François Crépeau, ‘[t]‌he long duration of the detention has been justified as a deterrent mechanism for other potential migrants’ (UN General Assembly, 2013, p 12). Law 3386/​2005 was amended at least six times and was eventually abolished in 2014 by Law 4251/​2014, apart from Articles 76–​78, 80–​83 and 89(1)–​(3). However, for people seeking international protection, the excessive use of prolonged detention in inhumane, appalling and life-​threatening conditions has been the norm in migration governance for the last two decades in Greece (Iliadou 2012; Fili, 2013, 2016). Administrative detention is a bureaucratic procedure and not a criminal sentence which might be imposed for multiple purposes, such as identification, national security, public order, expulsion and removal (Welch and Schuster, 2005; Broeders, 2010; Greek Council for Refugees, 2016). It is part of the wider politics of deterrence and ‘culture of control’ (Bosworth and Guild, 2008) that manages unwanted human mobility under the banner of illegality and crime (Aas and Bosworth, 2013). From this angle, the Greek authorities -​through the excessive use of prolonged detention in appalling, and degrading conditions -​ were explicitly turning Greece into an ‘unfriendly destination’ (Cheliotis, 2013) for border crossers and, at the same time, were implicitly coercing them to withdraw their asylum applications and return to their countries of origin. As Nikos Papagiannopoulos, Greece’s former police chief puts it: ‘We must make their lives unliveable, meaning that one should realise that from the moment that one enters within this country one will be detained. Otherwise, we do nothing. We [Greece] consist of an attractive destination place for migrants’ (in Demetis, 2013). Deterrence through prolonged detention

10

of special sites for accommodation of foreigners’ (Ministries of Finance and Citizen Protection, 2010). The Poseidonion action plan was implemented in cases of increased border crossings by sea. The competent authority was the Hellenic Coast Guard, which was supposed to ensure the immediate provision of medical care, meals and housing with good living conditions. The Balkanion action plan was implemented in cases of increased border crossings in the country by land. Border crossers were to be detained in temporary reception centres, whose operation fell under prefectures’ jurisdiction; the centres were to ensure the provision of temporary residence, food and medical care. 62

Intergenerational Harms

was so ingrained’ in the everyday migration governance in Greece that, as Georgoulas and Sarantidis note, after a point the detainees themselves ‘were deriding anyone who decided to make an asylum application’ (2013, p 102).

Genealogies of immigration detention centres The activist network Migreurop (2016) notes that the politics of detention have been routinely deployed within EU and neighbouring countries as a form of migration governance. The network only found an increase in the total known capacity of camps during 2011–​16, with a rise from 32,000 to 47,000 places (Migreurop, 2016). The proliferation of border policies from the 1990s onwards have produced a multitude of (formal and informal) sites of confinement and refugee camps on the Greek mainland and the islands as a response to the increasing unauthorized border crossings, including: detention facilities and waiting zones at airports; police cells; port police stations; and border stations. Other sites that have been operationalized to contain border crossers were monasteries and churches, prisons, former prisons and military bases, repurposed warehouses, grain warehouses, public buildings, hotels and summer camps (Collective Authorship, 2008). In addition, there were makeshift camps, such as the Kurdish camp in Old Penteli in Attica, which was established around 1997 and was operated by the NGO Médecins du Monde. Through Law 1975/​1991, the Greek state introduced the Lavrio temporary accommodation centre in the Attica region, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, to host Kurdish asylum seekers. In Presidential Decree 266/​1999, the Greek state set out its operational framework.

Special sites of residency for foreigners As mentioned earlier, based on Article 81 of Law 3386/​2005, the Greek government introduced a 2008 action plan ‘on the establishment of special sites for accommodation of foreigners’ (hereafter, the sites are referred to as EXPAs), which included provisions on the operational framework, location and capacity of these sites of confinement for border crossers entering Greece. More specifically, these special sites were to be established to: provide humane living and reception conditions for border crossers; provide protection for the detainees and staff from any potential harm; and prevent escape by border crossers living in the sites. Furthermore, the EXPAs would act as registration areas wherein the police were the competent authority not only for safeguarding and monitoring, but also for registering all border crossers being hosted there and maintaining files and archives with their personal data. The action plan determined various EXPAs on the Greek mainland and the islands: Fylakio in Orestiada (operational since April 2007) with 63

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

Figure 2.3: The Pagani detention centre

a capacity of 374; Venna in Rodopi (operational since June 2001) with a capacity of 220; Pagani on the island of Lesvos (operational since September 2003) with a capacity of 300 (Figure 2.3); Mersinidi on the island of Chios (operational since September 2003) with a capacity of 120; Vathy on the island of Samos (operational since December 2007) with a capacity of 285; and Lakonia (operational since August 2008) with a capacity of 42. However, these sites were never formally institutionalized, since the action plan was never issued. Therefore, these premises operated under special administrative status and with ambivalent legal status, with heavy monitoring by the police, who had overwhelming authority, culpability and impunity for the suffering and violence border crossers experienced. In addition, the term ‘special premises’ was a euphemism, as in practice these spaces were operating as closed detention facilities wherein border crossers were systematically deprived of their human rights and liberty; for instance, they were not even allowed to walk outside in the yard (Iliadou, 2012). In line with the action plan, in February 2008 the prefectures of Samos, Chios, Lesvos and Evros, in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Order, the Ministry of Merchant Marine and the UNHCR in Greece, implemented the AEGEAS project, ‘Enhancing reception capacity for migration flows at border areas of Greece (external EU maritime and land borders)’ (Amnesty International, 2010, p 23) which was co-​financed by the 64

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European Community. The main aim of the project was to enhance Greece’s reception capacity at border areas which received very mixed migration flows (Samos and Lesvos, for instance, saw a 120 per cent increase in 2008 compared to 2007). Indeed, in 2008, Lesvos became an important gateway to Europe, with 13,253 border crossers arrested by the Hellenic Coast Guard and the police (Giakoumi, 2009). In May 2008, I was commissioned to provide social support to vulnerable populations (for example, women, young men, members of the LGBTQ+​community, unaccompanied minors, and survivors of torture, human trafficking and sexual violence) in the Pagani EXPA on Lesvos. However, I also had access to the other EXPAs on the Aegean Islands and in the Evros region in northern Greece as well as police departments. EXPAs were closed to professionals (NGOs, volunteers, activists, journalists and academics) and access to them was heavily monitored, with approval or denial of entry determined by the police headquarters. Therefore, having access to these sites was a rare ‘privilege’ given that they were operating as ‘black holes’, and I was one of the few eyewitnesses of the violence unfolding routinely and quietly. The Pagani EXPA is an important site of remembrance of the history of detention, state brutality, migration struggle and resistance in Lesvos. All references to this site in this book reflect my attempt at evidencing the violence continuum, the cumulative harms, and they are also a form of counter-​narrative and, therefore, resistance. The reception and living conditions in these special premises had systematically been condemned for their appalling, inhuman and degrading conditions and for human rights abuses (Amnesty International, 2010). For instance, Pagani was a former warehouse repurposed to host border crossers. In 2004, the NGO Greek Council for Refugees documented an increased number of unaccompanied Afghan minors living in the Lesvos detention centre in degrading and humiliating living conditions (Greek Council for Refugees, 2004). Pagani was condemned as the worst detention centre in Europe in 2009, and it is described as ‘worse than Dante’s inferno’ (Carr, 2015, p 94). Spyros Vougias, the former Greek Deputy Minister for Citizens’ Protection, after a visit in Pagani, stated, ‘What I have seen today is a human tragedy, with conditions in which no human being should be kept’ (UNHCR, 2009). The living conditions there were so appalling that in the judgment of Rahimi v Greece (8687/​08), the European Court of Human Rights (2011) ruled that they ‘violated the very meaning of human dignity’. The main problems surrounding EXPAs included the following: the deliberate and systematic practice of prolonged detention in structurally violent, humiliating, appalling and degrading living conditions; the lack of facilities such as lavatories, bathrooms, beds and mattresses; the detention in overcrowded facilities; the insanitary conditions; the contagious diseases, including skin diseases, related to detention and living conditions; the extended queuing and waiting for hours in order to use the bathroom and 65

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

the toilet; the lack of warm water in winter; the fact that EXPAs were operating as closed detention centres and border crossers were treated as detainees with lack of free access to the yards; the isolation due to lack of access to telephone booths, lack of communication with the outside world and not having the right to have visitors; the restricted access to legal aid and information about international protection; the lack of interpretation services; the humiliating and degrading treatment by the Greek authorities and systematic physical and psychological abuses by the police; the systematic prolonged detention of unaccompanied minors; the systematic violations of human rights and liberty; the inadequate access to healthcare and medical treatment; the lack of shelters for unaccompanied minors, survivors of rape, torture and trafficking, LGBTQ+​people, older people, pregnant women and people with disabilities and families; and the separation of families (Amnesty International, 2010; Médecins Sans Frontières, 2010; Iliadou, 2012; Georgoulas and Sarantidis, 2013). That period was characterized by international organizations and NGOs as ‘a continuing humanitarian crisis’ (Committees on Foreign Relations of the US, 2012, p 1532). During that period, the rate of recognition of border crossers’ legal status in Greece was less than 2 per cent (Human Rights Watch, 2012; Fili, 2013).

First reception centres or screening centres In 2010, in the aftermath of the Pagani disaster and given the deficiencies and mismanagement of the reception and asylum system, the Greek state composed a committee of experts to submit a proposal for the establishment and organization of first reception centres or screening centres for border crossers entering Greece irregularly. The overall aim was to provide first reception services, including determination of legal status and assessment of vulnerability of border crossers upon arrival and their needs for further management by the state. The proposed reform was supposed to replace and amend the deficiencies of the existing system of migration management, which applied the a priori administrative deportation and detention order for all without exception, which meant that individuals’ release, and their legal status, were unclear. The appointed committee consisted of representatives of civil society organizations, international organizations and Greek state representatives, which collaborated in working groups and drafted a proposal that included the institutional framework for the centres and the screening process as well as three annexes on the specific services to be provided in relation to: medical services; unaccompanied minors; and victims of trafficking and victims of torture. The coordination of the meetings and the drafting of the final proposal was undertaken by the UNHCR. 66

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Based on a suggestion of the committee, the Greek state proposed a draft law on the establishment of the Asylum Service and first reception centres for border crossers under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Citizen Protection. The draft law of 14 December 2010 included provisions for: the operational framework of the first reception centres as registering and screening sites; the multiple actors (NGOs, international organizations) that would assist by providing social and legal support to border crossers; the establishment of a central Asylum Service and regional offices on the Greek mainland and the islands; the establishment of the First Reception Service and mobile first reception units. The Asylum Service and First Reception Service were established later by Law 3907/​2011, which was also transposed into Directive 2008/​115/​ EC, and later amended by Law 4249/​2014 (ECRE, 2015). Since 2010 and notably following the MSS v Belgium and Greece judgment in 2011, which lead to the suspension of Dublin Agreement transfers from other EU member states to Greece, Greece has been implementing complex reform of its asylum system. This aim of the reform is to address serious shortcomings underlined in the MSS judgment as well as to ensure a fair and efficient asylum procedure for people seeking international protection in the country (UNHCR, 2018). According to the UNHCR, this reform of the Greek asylum system is based ‘on the Greek Action Plan for Migration Management and Asylum developed by the Greek authorities and supported by a number of actors, including the European Commission, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and UNHCR’ (2018, p 1). This reform came after the significant increase, by approximately 85 per cent, in border crossings to Greece through Turkey in 2009 (IOM, no date b; European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2011). According to Paul McDonough and Evangelia Tsourdi, ‘overall, by the end of 2010, about 90% of people detected irregularly entering the EU arrived first in Greece’ (2012, p 3). Through this lens, Frontex’s Deputy Executive Director described Greece in 2010 as the ‘hottest area of illegal immigration in Europe’ (in Carr, 2015, p 88). In 2010, the migratory pathway which leads to Europe changed and the flows diminished from Lesvos and the Greek islands and dramatically increased in northern Greece. During this period, there were many recorded deaths of border crossers attempting to cross Evros. In this respect, Evros River, the liquid border between Turkey and northern Greece, became an enormous graveyard for hundreds of border crossers (Pro Asyl, 2014). The Fylakio detention centre in the Evros region, which was used to ‘host’ border crossers, was then condemned, similar to the Pagani centre in Lesvos, for the humiliating and degrading conditions, abuses, and violations of human rights (Médecins Sans Frontières, 2010). According to a joint statement by Greek civil society organizations: 67

Border Harms and Everyday Violence

Especially in Evros, both at the organized Fylakio detention centre and the detention facilities of border police stations, there are overcrowding, dire hygiene conditions, lack of access to yards, lack of communication with the outside world, absence of interpretation services, lack of information about rights and obligations while mixed detention (minors and women being held in the same cell with adult men) is a frequent phenomenon. (Greek Helsinki Monitor et al, 2011, p 10) Given the emerging humanitarian crisis in the Evros region, the Greek government built a 10.5-​kilometre fence at the side of the land border with Turkey in 2012 to prevent unauthorized entry into Greece (ECRE, 2015). However, its efficiency as a deterrence measure was challenged. Indeed, all that was accomplished was to make the migration route more militarized, securitized, expensive, dangerous and fatal for border crossers (Pro Asyl, 2014). In the aftermath of the Arab Spring and with the beginning of the war in Syria in 2011, my colleagues on Lesvos and I, even before the so-​ called refugee crisis, became witnesses and documented many testimonies of the border crossers who had started arriving. They told us that there were thousands more waiting at the Turkish coast to come to Greece. During that period, I also remember that police officers were also commenting on the large numbers of border crossers waiting at the other side of the border to enter Greece. In 2012, unauthorized border crossings changed again. The fence set up by Greece and the EU at Evros River as a deterrence had much to do with this relocation of flows from Evros to the Greek Islands. By the end of 2012, border crossers, mainly from Afghanistan and Syria, started entering the Greek mainland through Lesvos. I remember that the Greek authorities (the police and the coastguard) were refusing to arrest border crossers and carry out all the necessary identification, registration and other bureaucratic procedures which would allow the crossers to travel to the mainland. Gradually, Mytilene’s public spaces, parks and streets came to be full of border crossers sleeping rough and, paradoxically, desperately requesting to be arrested by the police. Greek authorities’ deliberate denial and inaction in terms of arresting border crossers and providing them with reception, accommodation and documentation resulted in their violent abandonment to destitution, homelessness and the racialized violence of the local Golden Dawn neo-​Nazi group. In February 2013, I witnessed one of the first cases of serious violence by Golden Dawn members; they were throwing stones at a group of border crossers who were sleeping rough in the port of Mytilene, and a pregnant woman was severely injured as a result of this attack. The redirection of unauthorized border crossings from Evros to Lesvos from 2012 onwards overlapped with two significant developments: the escalation of racialized violence by Golden Dawn (Human Rights Watch, 68

Intergenerational Harms

2012) and the dehumanization, criminalization, xenophobia and extreme institutional violence by Greek policy makers and the police (Karamanidou, 2015a).11 Although Golden Dawn was initially, in the 1990s, a marginalized subgroup (Xenakis, 2012; Fili, 2013; Karamanidou, 2015a), by taking advantage of the ongoing financial crisis and anti-​migration sentiment, it became very popular and managed to be elected to the Greek Parliament (Human Rights Watch, 2012; Papanicolaou and Papageorgiou, 2016). In the May and June 2012 elections, Golden Dawn gained 6.97 per cent of the votes and 21 seats; in the January 2015 election, it gained 6.28 per cent of the votes and 17 seats; and in the September 2015 election, it gained 6.99 per cent of the votes and 18 seats (Ministry of Interior, 2012, 2015). Golden Dawn members committed hate crimes, including racially motivated crimes, and carried out murderous attacks against border crossers who were trapped in Greece for years due to the hostile EU (and national) migration laws, policies and treaties (such as Dublin Regulation I, II and III) –​all enforced by the Greek governments. As noted earlier, Law 3907/​2011, by establishing the Asylum Service, the First Reception Service and the Appeals Authority, introduced significant reforms to the asylum and reception systems. Law 3907/​2011 and the immediate adoption of Presidential Decrees 113/​2013 and 141/​2013 of 2013 established, in practice, a twofold, parallel procedural framework in respect to asylum, managed simultaneously by two different competent authorities: the Hellenic Police and the new Asylum Service (Greek Council for Refugees, 2017; Iliadou, 2019a). The reception procedures passed to the hands of the First Reception Service (Law 3907/​2011, Presidential Decrees 102/​2012 and 104/​2012).12 One procedure, the ‘old procedure’, was established was for all asylum applications lodged before 7 June 2013, as they fell within the scope of Presidential Decree 114/​2010 (modified by Presidential Decrees 113/​2013 and 167/​2014). Under the old procedure, the competent authority for registering and assessing applications for international protection was the Greek police. The other procedure, the

11

12

A term commonly used by both government representatives and the media when referring to border crossers was λαθρομετανάστης (clandestine or illegal migrant), which is a humiliating, degrading term that dehumanizes and objectifies border crossers (Konstantinidou and Michailidou, 2014). See Chapter 5 for discussion of other dehumanizing metaphors. Although the Asylum Service was established in 2011, it was only in June 2013 that it officially started operating, with the main duties being to ‘receive, examine and decide on all applications for international protection lodged in Greece’ (Ministry of Migration and Asylum, no date). Until the formal operation of the Asylum Service in 2013, asylum procedures had been subject to a transitional phase, regulated by Presidential Decree 114/​ 2010 (AIDA, 2015). 69

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‘new procedure’ was for all asylum applications lodged after 7 June 2013 as they fell within the scope of Presidential Decree 113/​2013. Under the new procedure, the competent authority for registering and assessing applications for international protection was the Asylum Service. As a result of this twofold asylum procedure, a large backlog of pending asylum cases, at first instance and even more so at second instance, was produced (Council of the European Union, 2012). By the estimation of the Asylum Information Database (AIDA), at the end of September 2015, approximately 22,656 cases were pending at second instance (AIDA, 2015). In addition, the old procedure perpetuated bureaucratic, legal and existential limbo as well as despair, as in many instances individuals with backlog cases waited in Greece for more than a decade for a decision on their asylum, and some even had their files lost by the police and had to begin the procedure from scratch. The two parallel systems caused a lot of confusion, uncertainty, suffering and discomfort for border crossers, and the new Asylum Service created more problems than it solved. From the start of its formal operation in 2013 until the end of 2015, the Asylum Service could not guarantee the free access of border crossers to international protection (AIDA, 2015). Up to 2015, there were only six regional Asylum Service offices, located in Athens, Lesvos, Rhodes, Thessaloniki, and northern and southern Evros, and three asylum units, located in the cities of Athens, Patras and Xanthis (AIDA, 2015). Border crossers had to go in person to one of the regional Asylum Service offices to seek international protection. This proved challenging for border crossers who could not travel to one of those offices as they did not possess legal travel documents, passports or visas. Thus, they did not have free access to the asylum procedures and were prevented from accessing from international protection. Because of that, they faced risk of arrest, detention and deportation. The lack of interpreters and other staff, even at the headquarters of the Asylum Service in Athens, made asylum procedures slow if not impossible. At the same time, the implementation of Skype services to lodge the intention to seek international protection and book appointments with the Asylum Service made people’s lives (especially those who were living in camps in isolated areas) very difficult, especially since most of the cases did not have positive results (Greek Council for Refugees, 2016a). Queuing and extended waits outside the main regional Asylum Service office, in Athens, led to discomfort, complaints and demonstrations (Campaign for the Access to Asylum, 2015). Even people with serious medical conditions were forced to present themselves repeatedly before finally having their asylum claim registered, despite such cases supposedly being prioritized (Campaign for the Access to Asylum, 2014). As the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) notes, ‘persons in need of international protection who do not manage to lodge their application are not protected from arrest, detention and deportation’ (2015, p 25). This was an unpleasant 70

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time for people desperately seeking international protection but, due to lack of access to the Asylum Service, having to remain without documentation in a situation of precariousness, excluded from international protection, rights and welfare benefits. As a result, many people were arrested by the police and detained for prolonged periods of time.

Conclusion Progressively, the arrival of new forcibly displaced persons in the Greek region affected immigration policies and practices. In the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis and with the escalation of human and social suffering in the region, multiple policies and practices have been implemented at the EU, national and local levels, allegedly to protect vulnerable populations, address their needs and improve asylum procedures and the reception and accommodation system. A new generation of interception, encampment and filtering regimes has been enforced, such as hotspots, pre-​removal centres and refugee camps all over Greece and notably on the Aegean Islands, including Lesvos. A new model of confinement has been established on Lesvos –​the prison island –​wherein border enforcement, panoptic surveillance and violence has expanded to almost all parts of the island. The next chapter continues the discussion on the intergenerational harms and the debris of past border policies into present policies and practices exploring the medicalization of borders. It argues that the security and COVID-​19-​related enforcements (health inspections and quarantines) at, within and beyond the borders are not something new but they unfold as a continuum across time and space. The mandatory surveillance and sanitation border enforcements on mainland Greece and Lesvos are examined in a genealogical framework. Certain patterns of violence, quarantine and border control in the present display similarities with earlier patterns. Therefore, the sanitation and military border enforcements are perceived in a diachronic sense, as a continuum rather than a crisis.

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3

Quarantine Continuum: Medicalization of Borders and the Securitization of Migration and Health Since the outbreak of COVID-​19, there has been increased attention on the ostensibly ‘new’ discriminatory quarantine border policies and practices, which have been enforced upon forcibly displaced people living in refugee camps and detention centres in inhumane, appalling and degrading conditions in Greece. COVID-​19-​related quarantine border practices and health inspections have been enforced within a crisis framework –​that is, as something new and exceptional which justifies and legitimizes extreme border policies and practices in the name of the common good. Despite the mainstream crisis discourses around COVID-​19, militarized border practices, mandatory health inspections and discriminatory treatment of border crossers on the grounds of the protection of public health are not new. Historically, quarantines and health inspections have been an integral part of border controls and surveillance, management and screening, sorting and excluding the unwanted human mobility (Iliadou, 2020). Therefore, they are inextricably part of migration governance, and as such they must be seen as a manifestation of border violence. Historical traces of quarantine border practices can be traced in the multiple border monuments, like Ellis Island in the US, which between 1890 and 1954 operated as an immigration and health inspection site from where border crossers with contagious diseases were systematically banned as a threat to public health (Yew, 1980).1 The Greek state has been enforcing similar 1

Medical inspections contributed to the identification and expulsion of those deemed unfitting. For example, a 1891 federal law excluded certain people: ‘idiots, insane persons, paupers or persons likely to become a public charge, and persons suffering from a loathsome or a dangerous, contagious disease’ (Yew, 1980, p 489). 72

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discriminatory health inspections and quarantine practices, border controls and expulsions of border crossers. Ironically, though, between 1892 and 1924, more than half a million Greeks went through Ellis Island inspection processes –​as migrants seeking a better life –​and many of them were banned from the US. Also ironically, Greek migrants experienced racism and hostility given that they were not accepted at first by American society. Some of the racist and dehumanizing terms used were ‘greaseballs’ and ‘dirty Greeks’, and they were also subjected to racial laws applicable to African American people, as Greeks were not considered ‘white’ (Chrysopoulos, 2018). The operationalization of islands as prisons and sites of confinement in the name of public order and social control also has a very long history. The feminist geographer Alison Mountz has extensively shown how islands, literally, metaphorically and routinely, have been instrumentalized into an ‘architecture or archipelago of exclusion’ wherein people are systematically ‘denied, excluded or minimally given access to rights, care and international protection’ (Mountz, 2011, p 383). According to Mountz, ‘the architecture of exclusionary enforcement captures bodies in trajectories between states: holding people in an open detention facility on an island, where they are suspended in time and space, neither returned home nor allowed to reach their destination’ (2011, p 383). In Greece, islands have a long history of functioning as spatial and temporal confinements, as some of them have been used in the past as prison islands –​ that is, zones of quarantine and isolation, displacement and confinement of undesirables; these include the lepers on the island of Spinalonga in Crete, the mentally ill on Leros, and the exiled leftists from the dictatorship of Colonel Ioannis Metaxas (1936–​41) on the islands of Gavdos, Anafi, Karpathos, Leros and Lesvos (Wolfe, 2017; Christopoulos, 2018). Some of the latter islands continued to operate as prisons during the Metaxas dictatorship, between 1967 and 1974 (Christopoulos, 2018). The islands in the past were used for the isolation and containment of those who were considered dangerous for polluting or intoxicating the population with their illness or political beliefs. However, since the 1985 Schengen Agreement, where progressively the project of Fortress Europe has materialized, strengthened and expanded, islands have systematically been employed as offshore spaces of border control, management, isolation, dispersal, containment and deportation of the ‘undesirables’, sometimes under ambiguous jurisdiction. Some indicative EU and non-​EU examples include the US (Guantanamo Bay, Guam and Tinian), Canada, Australia (Nauru island and Christmas Island), Malta, Italy (Lampedusa island), Greece (Leros, Lesvos, Samos, Chios, Kos and Crete islands) and Denmark (Lindholm island) (Abend, 2019).2 2

Recently, Denmark signed a deal with Rwanda for all asylum seekers to be processed in Rwanda, despite the allegation of human rights abuses in the region (Refugee Action Coalition, 2021). 73

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The Greek island of Lesvos is of particular interest in this analysis as a region and as a terrain of the continuum of humanitarian, military, security and medical border enforcements. Lesvos, the erstwhile idealistic tourist destination, amid the 2015 refugee crisis has been creatively operationalized, to paraphrase Mountz, to undermine access to legal representation, human rights and avenues to asylum (see Mountz, 2015). The enforcement archipelago goes hand in hand with the securitization of migration and often involves detention, isolation and containment on islands. In the sites or islands-​in-​between, border crossers often experience spatial confinement, protracted ‘stuckedness’, isolation and uncertainty. They often struggle without knowing which state’s captives they are. When I was working as an NGO practitioner on Lesvos, I was frequently asked by border crossers: ‘Where am I? Is this Italy?’ Lesvos is, of course, a Greek island. However, the overwhelming enforcement archipelago which has been enforced since 2015 has produced a juridical and sovereign territorial ambiguity by turning Lesvos into a liminal threshold. Within the prison island, border crossers’ rights are routinely suspended or violated; the autonomy of their movement is restricted; and they experience multiple states of limbo and multiple forms of harm and violence even from the local population. The outbreak of COVID-​19 in March 2020 inaugurated a plethora of additional exceptional sanitary and medical border policies and practices in Greece as well as the production of official intersecting discourses associating forced displacement with the threat of communicable diseases, national (in)security and organized crime. This generated a dangerous analogy between (in)security, health and border management. Yet, despite these post-​COVID-​19 developments, the securitization of the health of forcibly displaced people does not begin in a vacuum. The operationalization of the medical interventions and practices at, within and across borders in Greece unfold as a continuum across time and space. They are intertwined with the securitization and militarization of migration, and as Stefan Elbe notes: ‘As health issues and security concerns have become more closely linked in recent years, so too have a growing number of medical and public health experts begun to play a greater role in the analysis, formulation, and execution of security policy’ (2011, p 853). These multiple sanitary, securitization and militarization developments in Greece across time formed a climate that considered the medical examinations and military, securitization enforcements within and across the border both acceptable and necessary. In consequence, these developments led to an overwhelming medicalization of borders –​that is, to an ‘intrusive knowledge production practices that render otherwise “unknown” populations “knowable” and therefore “manageable” via medicalized

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responses’ (Vaughan-​Williams, 2015a, p 95). These past developments generated a medical surveillance precedent which has been passed on to the present by paving the way for the structurally violent situations border crossers experience in border zones, refugee camps and detention centres. In this chapter, I explore the continuum of these overlapping medical, security and military metaphors and their application in terms of policy and practice in Greece across time and space. I explore the genealogies of militar ization, secur itization and medicalization of borders as a response to the overlapping refugee and COVID-​19 ‘crises’ in Greece. In doing so, I challenge the mainstream discourses which represent and normalize exceptional and violent discriminatory security and COVID-​19-​related enforcements at, within and beyond the borders as something new. Instead, I place the mandatory surveillance and sanitation border enforcements on mainland Greece and Lesvos in a genealogical framework. Certain patterns of violence, quarantine and border control in the present display similarities with earlier patterns. Therefore, the sanitation and military border enforcements are perceived in a diachronic sense, as a continuum rather than a crisis. I argue that the health inspections and discriminatory quarantine practices at the borders unfold as a continuum across time and space. The first section, titled ‘The enemy within’, begins with my lived experiences as an NGO practitioner in the Pagani detention centre on Lesvos and an eyewitness of early medicalization border practices (Iliadou, 2012, 2019a). Here, I chronicle the medical and military metaphors/​ discourses around contagious diseases that are deployed at the macro level for the governance of the undesirable human mobility. Also, I explore the construction of border crossers (who are already in Greece) as the ‘enemy within’. That is, as internal, ‘homegrown’ threats, ‘criminals’ and ‘diseased’ who endanger the nation’s vitality and existence. The second section, entitled ‘The enemy at the borders’ continues by exploring ‘the refugee as weapon’ (Greenhill, 2008, p 6) as ‘asymmetric threats’ and ‘hybrid attacks’ in the context of the border ‘crisis’ at the Greek–​Turkish land borders. I also explore how COVID-​19, which unfolded almost at the same time, was also instrumentalized by the Greek authorities as a sanitation threat or attack. Here, I explore the construction of border crossers (who are en route) as the ‘enemy at the border’ –​that is, as external threats, criminals and diseased, the incarnation of the absolute evil lurking to penetrate the borders and harm the Greek state. The chapter concludes that, altogether, these repressive interventions at, within and beyond the borders, ‘whereby normal politics is suspended’ (Karamanidou and Kasparek, 2020, p 6), justify, legitimize and normalize human rights abuses and even killings by making the dystopia of borders possible. Finally, the medicalization of borders, the sanitary and

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militarized border regime enforcements are victimizing and inflict harm and suffering upon people. Despite the repression and harm, border crossers are not passive victims of the border regime but active agents who resist and challenge border controls.

The enemy within Between 2008 and 2010, I worked in the Pagani detention centre on Lesvos for forcibly displaced people arriving through Turkey. At that time, Pagani was the only detention facility operating on Lesvos for the purposes of containment, identification and expulsion, and most of the border crossers were detained there on arrival. One of the first things border crossers went through was a mandatory health inspection at the local hospital, which included blood tests and x-​rays aiming to detect any contagious diseases, such as tuberculosis, HIV or infectious skin diseases. These inspections were conducted without informed consent and the people were not told why they were subjected to them, nor of the results of the medical exams –​whether and what kind of disease they had. Border crossers had no access to their medical files, and their right to medical confidentiality was systematically violated by the staff in the detention centre. I vividly remember a big whiteboard inside the registration office, which was used by state officials, guards and other staff. This whiteboard was regularly updated and indicated who was sick in the rooms/​containers and with what disease. This was allegedly for staff protection, so that they could wear face masks and gloves and keep a physical distance from the detainees. However, this ‘measure of protection’ inflicted more harm on border crossers, as the staff were avoiding any contact with them for fear of being infected. For instance, I remember one of the employees who was always wearing a surgical mask and gloves and who systematically was throwing from a distance toothpaste and soaps to border crossers waiting in the Pagani yard, yelling at them: “Come on, take it, you asshole!” For this reason, the staff would frequently ask me to distribute clothes and other sanitary kits to detainees. Hence, along with the masks and gloves, I was often used as their human shield against communicable disease. At the same time, I was often told by state officials and medical staff that I should always wear a face mask and gloves because, as they used to say: “Illegal migrants carry contagious diseases.” Although there was physical distancing between border crossers (who were locked up in cells) and me (I was outside the cells), the fear of contagious disease was so intense that state officials routinely threatened to deny me access to Pagani unless I wore a face mask. I was often told to wear a surgical uniform, and most of the time I was not allowed to enter the registration office. As the guards would tell me: “You are filthy” or “You are carrying 76

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illegal migrants’ microbes and you will infect us.” Many of the border guards were fleshing these arguments out by adding that they had families and young children and were worried that they would transmit “illegal migrants’ microbes” (and notably tuberculosis) to them. All in all, the disclosure of the medical condition of detainees ended up producing further isolation and quarantine of whole cells, ‘rooms’ and containers. In addition, the disclosure of a medical condition led to the overexposure of border crossers to structural violence and racism, dehumanization and discrimination. For instance, the staff often referred to border crossers by their nationality and disease, and this was overtly displayed on the whiteboard that was regularly updated. The medical information on the whiteboard was capitalized as follows: ‘Container 1: Pakistani, TUBERCULOSIS; Container 2: Afghan, SCABIES’, and border crossers were also referred to as φυματικοί (‘consumptives’) and ψωριάρηδες (‘scabious’). For detainees with tuberculosis symptoms, severe quarantine practices were enforced. However, throughout the time when I worked in the detention centre, I witnessed various oxymoronic, overlapping discriminatory and structurally violent practices being enforced by the medical staff against people with tuberculosis. First, border crossers were treated a priori as ailing with tuberculosis, regardless of whether they had signs and symptoms of active or inactive tuberculosis. The medical staff used to stigmatize most of the border crossers by labelling them ‘suspicion of tuberculosis’ despite lacking medical evidence for this. Second, despite the signs, symptoms or suspicion of looming tuberculosis, border crossers were not hospitalized for further medical examinations and/​or quarantine, but were kept in overcrowded facilities which were lacking sanitary conditions. Similarly, due to the lack of adequate medical facilities inside Pagani, border crossers with tuberculosis were not quarantined alone, but in ‘rooms’ packed with up to 300 people, with no physical distancing or medical treatment. This was in spite of the fact that populations who live in overcrowded conditions which lack sanitary conditions, such as prison settings, and are malnourished are more at risk and, therefore, more vulnerable to catching tuberculosis (NHS, 2006). The quarantine of a whole room could last for weeks. According to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS): TB can only be caught directly from someone with infectious TB in their lungs or throat. Although TB is spread through the air when people who have the disease cough or sneeze, it takes close and lengthy contact with an infectious person to catch the disease. […] Not everyone with TB of the lungs is infectious, and as long as they are taking the proper treatment most people that were infectious become non-​infectious pretty quickly –​generally after about two weeks –​as long as they are taking the proper treatment. (NHS, 2006) 77

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At the same time, there were cases of border crossers with signs and symptoms of tuberculosis who, after spending weeks without treatment in Pagani, were suddenly released without further explanation and allowed to travel from Lesvos to the Greek mainland by public transportation (that is, bus and ship). Sometimes the medical staff distributed handwritten notes urging border crossers to visit any public hospital in Athens if they noticed unusual signs of persistent cough and fever.3 Therefore, the management of health and quarantine practices inside Pagani was enforced by the medical staff and the authorities in the name of a duty of care, ostensibly to protect border crossers. In practice, these procedures systematically endangered border crossers’ lives and health, and they constituted criminal negligence. Despite the increased focus on communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and scabies, it was only after 2010 that the deployment of medical and military metaphors were overtly operationalized in official discourses and border policies and practices. This had to do with the political, social and financial developments and challenges that Greece was confronted with, which progressively led to an increasing securitization of migration and health not only at but also within and across the border. In 2010, in the aftermath of the ongoing financial crisis, there was a progressive proliferation of scapegoating, dehumanization, criminalization, xenophobia and extreme institutional violence against unauthorized border crossers at national and local levels by Greek policy makers and the police (Human Rights Watch, 2012; Pro Asyl, 2012; Karamanidou, 2015a). This xenophobic and violent context escalated due to the increased arrivals of people seeking asylum through the Evros region. In addition, this violent context was also very intense in the Greek mainland in big cities such as Athens and Patras, since most border crossers were moving there from the islands. If the Aegean Islands, such as Lesvos, were entry points to Greece and then other parts of Europe, then cities like Patras signified the exit from Eastern to Western states. For years, due to its port and its connection with Italy, Patras was a waiting zone where many border crossers stayed in limbo until they found ways to hide in lorries and travel by ship to Italy. In Patras, border crossers had formed a makeshift camp where they were living in appalling and degrading conditions, lacking sanitary conditions, while in Athens they were sleeping rough in public parks, squares and abandoned buildings, trying to find a way to continue their journey further to Northern Europe (Pro Asyl, 2012). From 2012 onwards, there has been an escalation and proliferation by the Greek state of (far right) nationalist, militarist, medical discourses and metaphors concerning unauthorized border crossings, such as ‘hygienic

3

Coughs, fever and coughing up blood are some of the serious symptoms of active tuberculosis. Tuberculosis, if not properly treated, can also lead to death. 78

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bomb’ (Pro Asyl, 2012, p 10), ‘invasion’ and ‘re-​occupation of the streets’ (see Human Rights Watch, 2012; Fili, 2013). Particularly, in August 2012, Nikos Dendias, former Minister of Citizen Protection, framed unauthorized border crossings as a security and national threat by claiming that ‘Greece and our existence is under threat […]. It’s a bomb at the foundations of the society and of the state’ (Dabilis, 2012). In addition, during a speech to the press on 4 August 2012, Dendias claimed that Athens has turned into an ‘inaccessible site (άβατο) of anomy’ where criminal gangs manipulate border crossers as tokens to execute unlawful activities on their behalf. In the name of this security threat, various violent and repressive border control enforcements were implemented. An indicative example is ‘Operation Xenios Zeus’, initiated in early August 2012 and still in effect today. Operation Xenios Zeus is a stop and search, arrest and deport practice accompanied by the excessive use of physical violence (Human Rights Watch, 2013, p 4). However, I would argue that Operation Xenios Zeus has incorporated mandatory health surveillance practices and persecution of those deemed dangerous to public health. According to Human Rights Watch, the aims of Operation Xenios Zeus were threefold: ‘1) deterring illegal immigrants by sealing the border with Turkey; 2) identifying undocumented migrants, particularly in urban centres, and returning them to their home countries; and 3) remaking Athens a city of law and improving the quality of life for residents and visitors’ (2013, p 13). The name Xenios Zeus was adapted by the ancient Greek God Zeus who, ironically, is the symbol of (Greek) hospitality and the protector of all guests and foreigners. Zeus as a symbol and the notion of hospitality are deeply rooted in Greek culture and identity. Given that Operation Xenios Zeus –​also known as a ‘sweep operation’ –​involved violence and coerced deportations (‘sweeping’ and ‘cleaning’), the reference to Greek hospitality is just a euphemism if not a cruel irony and obscenity. Dendias (2012) justified Operation Xenios Zeus by claiming that it also aims to restore illegal migrants’ own human dignity. For us, there is not the slightest racial criterion for our actions. We do not care about the colour, the nation, the religion of the illegals. The only criterion is the observance of legality with full respect for human rights and the European acquisition. However, criminologist and activist Lena Karamanidou argues that the specific operation amounts to a ‘racist pogrom’ due to the range of violence which predominantly targeted border crossers (2015a, p 25). Also, as many scholars have aptly noted, racism is embedded in the ideology of the police and racialized violence is deeply rooted in the police’s organizational culture (Antonopoulos et al, 2008; Karamanidou, 2015a). 79

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Parallel with and, to a great extent, part of Operation Xenios Zeus, there has been an operationalization and hypervisibility of irregularized migrants’ diseases, perceived as exotic, dangerous and, most importantly, communicable. Policy makers and the media have stigmatized border crossers for importing diseases (that is, tuberculosis, malaria, West Nile virus or yellow fever) from their countries to Greece (and to EU countries in general) and, therefore, consisting of a security threat to public health and to the nation’s existence and vitality. In this respect, as criminologist Sharon Pickering notes, ‘disease sees asylum seekers constructed not only as problems, but as deadly problems’ (2001, p 182). Also, militaristic metaphors have been used routinely to represent disease by creating a harmful analogy that explicitly equates communicable diseases and mobile populations as security threats. Through this lens, in 2011, Andreas Loverdos, former Minister of Health and Social Solidarity, urged the EU for more logistical and technical support to deal with the sanitation threat caused by the increased numbers of unauthorized border crossers. According to Loverdos: The consequences of the illegal migration upon public health go beyond the capabilities and means available to the country, while the burden on the health system is unbearable. […] The consequences on Public Health cannot be estimated and do not only concern Greece. Until now, the Greek state has managed to keep the problem under control. However, epidemiologically the situation remains precarious. Epidemics know no borders. Any deterioration in conditions in Greece will inevitably affect the rest of Europe. (In iatronet, 2011) The progressive surveillance of health, and therefore medicalization of borders, has been endorsed via other repressive political discourses, decisions, policies and practices. For instance, in 2011, Loverdos requested the establishment of a ‘sanitary Frontex capable of armouring the European population’ (in iatronet, 2011). Τhe operationalization of the metaphor of a sanitary Frontex is neither random nor politically neutral. On the contrary, it explicitly demarcates the strong nexus between surveillance, border security and health given that Frontex’s actual mandate does not include medical surveillance tasks, as it is clearly a border monitoring body. Therefore, this analogy suggests that the issue of securitization of migration goes hand in hand with the issue of securitization of health. Notably, in July 2012, Loverdos stated that border crossers were ‘a ticking time bomb for public health’ (Human Rights Watch, 2012, p 36). For this reason, he launched mandatory health certifications and medical inspections and tests (including blood tests) to all border crossers, under Law 4025/​2012 for the detection and pre-​emption of contagious diseases that can endanger public health. This regulation foresees the enforcement of quarantines and 80

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isolation of cases with signs or symptoms of a communicable disease. Through this lens, doctors employed in the Hellenic Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, accompanied by police officers, began a street-​work intervention where every non-​Greek citizen walking in the streets was stopped and forced to take the aforementioned medical tests. In a sense, these medical operations were in line with Operation Xenios Zeus as they were establishing medical surveillance in urban cities. In addition, these national policies targeted not only border crossers, but also many other marginalized groups, such as drug addicts, HIV carriers, sex workers and homeless people, who were perceived as a security threat to public health. During these operations, in April 2012, 31 female sex workers were arrested and detained after being forced to take medical and blood tests. Some were HIV-​positive and were accused of ‘intentional infliction of serious bodily harm’ –​that is, they were accused of intentionally ‘spreading’ the HIV virus to Greek families and hence to the Greek nation (Mavroudi, 2013). The Greek government revealed their personal data, including their photos, by proceeding with a metaphorical crucifixion and an overwhelming criminalization and victimization in relation to the HIV status.4 This period is significant as we can see a gradual and progressive medicalization of borders and securitization of border crossers’ health in Greece. More and more, the official discourses of ‘screenings’ and the medical surveillance of migrants in border zones, detention facilities and other sites of confinement have proliferated. The need for the contribution of medical experts and other professionals was justified and legitimized as needed. Until 2012, there were no services within the sites of confinement to carry out screening procedures. As I mentioned earlier, screening was taking place in hospitals, while some health checks were carried out by doctors working at sites of confinement. Screening and more formal medical procedures were established in 2012 and these significantly proliferated from 2015 onwards so that various experts –​doctors, psychologists, social workers –​became involved in the assessment and the accreditation of communicable diseases and other embodied experiences to do with vulnerability, age, torture and sexual violence. These multiple migration governance developments across time and space in contemporary Greece have shaped the conditions which made medical inspections and militarized and securitized enforcement within and across the border both acceptable and necessary. In the following section, I explore

4

Even though the court found these women innocent, their reputations were extremely damaged and they never received redress. In 2014 one of these women, not being able to handle the humiliation and stigmatization, committed suicide. Loverdos claimed that he was not culpable for her death and that he had done nothing to be sorry for. 81

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the continuum of these overlapping medical and military metaphors (and their application in terms of policy and practice) in the context of the border ‘crisis’ in February 2020 at the Greek–​Turkish land border.

The enemy at the borders On 27 February 2020, thousands of border crossers fleeing war-​torn countries tried to come to Europe through the Evros region at the Greek–​ Turkish land border after the Turkish authorities encouraged and facilitated their movement there (Amnesty International, 2020a). Instead, they found themselves trapped in a buffer zone between Greece and Turkey, as the Greek authorities attempted to deter and repress their movement with the deployment of increased border and military security as well as the use of extreme violence. On 28 February, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted: ‘Significant numbers of migrants and border crossers have gathered in large groups at the Greek-​Turkish land border and have attempted to enter the country illegally. I want to be clear: no illegal entries into Greece will be tolerated’ (Amnesty International, 2020a, p 4). Consequently, the Greek police and army as well as Frontex were deployed, equipped with tear gas, water cannons, plastic bullets and live ammunition. During this ‘border crisis’, Muhammad Gulzari, a 43-​year-​old man from Pakistan, and Muhammad al-​Arab, a 22-​year-​old Syrian man, were killed by the Greek army. Other forms of torture, such as stripping of border crossers, including women and children, and pushbacks, also took place (International Observatory of Human Rights, 2020). This border crossing was framed by Greek policy makers as an ‘asymmetric threat’ and ‘hybrid attack’. In particular, the Greek Prime Minister stated: ‘Greece is not facing a refugee/​ migration problem but an “asymmetric threat”. It is my duty to defend Greece’s integrity, and this is what I will do. My guideline is the security of Greece and Europe’ (Athens-​Macedonian News Agency, 2020). At the same time, Stellios Petsas, the Greek government’s spokesperson, justified the excessive use of force at the Greek–​Turkish borders as a legitimate reaction ‘to an asymmetrical and hybrid attack coming from a foreign country’ (Stevis-​Gridneff et al, 2020). Following the ‘crisis’ and the escalation of border violence and human suffering in the buffer zone between the Greek and Turkish borders, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, expressed her support to Greece by stating, ‘our first priority is to ensure order is maintained at the Greek external border, which is also a European border’, and calling Greece a ‘European aspida [shield]’ (BBC, 2020). The instrumentalization of Greece as a European shield constructed and legitimized the idea of Europe under attack or at war, and of border crossing as a security threat, and this capitalized on the (pro)active and decisive role that Greece plays geographically and politically in the protection of the 82

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EU’s external borders as well as in the violent interception and deterrence of whatever is hostile or threatening (for example, border crossers). The deployment of military, medical and technocratic metaphors and euphemisms in relation to unauthorized border crossings do not begin in a vacuum and, therefore, are not new (Karamanidou and Kasparek, 2020). However, in the last two decades, these military metaphors have been widely deployed in the policies and practices surrounding migration governance in the Mediterranean as well in the Greek context by establishing a complex ‘military-​humanitarian approach’ (Garelli and Tazzioli, 2018) against people who are actually fleeing war, conflict, violence and persecution. In addition, this military approach is interwoven with ‘the weaponization of migration’ –​that is, ‘the instrumental manipulation of population movements as political and military weapons of war’ (Greenhill, 2008, p 6). As Glenda Garelli and Martina Tazioli put it: ‘Migrants are used as the “human bombs” or “human bullets” through which states threaten to unsettle or actually do unsettle the border security of other states. The migratory “human bomb” tactic is used in order to obtain targeted states’ alignment with the threatening state’s political agenda’ (2018, p 16). In the Greek context, the weaponization of forcibly displaced populations is evident in the troublesome international relations between Greece and Turkey as well as between Turkey and the EU. Specifically, the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan is systematically threatening and blackmailing the EU leaders, saying that he will open the migration routes by allowing to millions of border crossers to come to Europe if he does not get the support of the EU. For instance, during the Turkish military occupation in Northern Syria, Erdoğan announced to the EU leaders: ‘I will say this once again. If you try to label our current operation as an occupation, our job becomes easier, we will open the doors and send the 3.6 million refugees to you’ (Regan and John, 2019). In respect to the management of the thousands of border crossers within the Turkish territory, he demanded EU logistical support: ‘Give us logistical support and we can go build housing at a 30km depth in northern Syria. This way, we can provide them with humanitarian living condition. […] This either happens or otherwise we will have to open the gates’ (in Al Jazeera, 2019). Since the 2015 refugee crisis, there has been an escalation and proliferation of the securitization and militarization of the southern EU borders, with Greece, and Lesvos especially, indicative examples of how this military approach has been operationalized. In the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis, there has been a proliferation of metaphors which are produced in policy and media, and which routinely represent border crossers through contradictory images of empathy and pity, innocence,5 suspicion or hostility 5

The image of Alan Kurdi is an indicative example of how innocence is operationalized in the official language around the 2015 refugee crisis as well as in humanitarian border policies and practices (Iliadou, 2019b). 83

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(Chouliaraki and Stolic, 2017; Georgiou and Zaborowski, 2017). In addition, there has been progressive deployment of technocratic language –​that is, managerial expressions or terminology such as ‘burden sharing’, wherein border crossers are commodified or objectified as burdens which must be ‘shared’, ‘relocated’ or ‘kept’. Parallel to that, there has been a progressive deployment of abstract and degrading metaphors which equate unauthorized border crossings with, on one hand, natural phenomena and numbers, such as ‘massive human waves’, ‘tides’ or ‘flows’ and ‘unprecedented numbers’, and, on the other hand, with animals, parasites, diseases or commodities (Pickering, 2001; Musolff, 2015; Karamanidou and Kasparek, 2020). Furthermore, the metaphorical language of war projects an image of Europe as if it is ‘inundated’ or ‘invaded’ with uncontrolled ‘hordes’ of ‘desperate’ border crossers (Migreurop, 2019). In this respect, border crossing is often presented and managed as a ‘crisis’, ‘invasion’, ‘attack’, ‘war’, or as a hybrid and ‘asymmetric threat’. The metaphor of the invasion or war is powerful as it plays a significant role in the legitimization and normalization of border violence against forcibly displaced people. As Pickering notes: A war is only won or lost and there can only be one just side; only one force can maintain the high moral ground –​the righteousness of one side’s cause so great as to justify violence. The other is derided; impossible for them to assert the justness or legitimacy of their cause. Sides are therefore demarcated, boundaries and lines drawn. (2001, p 174) These are contradictory discourses which nonetheless underline the oxymoronic logic of the humanitarian and securitized interventions and deterrence at the borders –​that is, it handles people both as a ‘problem’ (for example, invader, enemy) and ‘problematic’ (for example, victims) (Pickering, 2001; Nyers, 2006; Judge, 2010), both as ‘both a security “risk” and life in need of “saving” ’ (Vaughan-​Williams, 2015a, p 34). Through this lens, in March 2020 the Greek government, in the name of the ‘state of emergency and asymmetric threat against Greece’s national security’, through a legislative Act announced the one-​month suspension of the right to seek international protection. As a consequence, most of the newly arrived border crossers were arbitrarily held in port facilities, unable to seek asylum (Amnesty International, 2020a). This decision was justified and legitimized in the name of the asymmetric threat to national security and was enabled in breach of EU and international law. People seeking asylum were therefore identified or targeted as absolute evil, the enemy at the borders. The decision was followed by the escalation of pushback operations and left-​to-​die practices, excessive use of force, beatings, use of live ammunition and systematic pushbacks into Turkey via the Aegean Sea. 84

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The outbreak of the COVID-​1 9 pandemic in March 2020 was operationalized as an additional security threat by the Greek government, wherein border crossers were described as ‘a ticking health bomb’ (Kambas, 2020) which would jeopardize Greek society’s integrity and vitality. Communicable diseases were perceived as ‘silent enemies’ given that they are invisible and therefore not easily detectable (Bashford and Hooker, 2001, p 1). Forcibly displaced populations were often victimized by governments as culpable for the transmission of ‘tropical’ diseases (that is, tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS) which either did not exist in or had disappeared from Europe. As the sociologist Renisa Mawani argues, communicable diseases are ‘a symbol of the foreign threat imported to the nation from outside’ (2006, p 138). The disease itself is perceived as an ‘invasion’, ‘alien’ that ‘always comes from somewhere else’ by building a community of outcasts, a risk group (Sontag, 2020). As social anthropologist Susan Sontag has shown, punitive notions of disease have a long history wherein the disease itself becomes a metaphor. ‘Then, in the name of the disease (that is, using it as a metaphor), that horror is imposed on other things. The disease becomes adjectival. Something is said to be disease-​like, meaning that it is disgusting or ugly’ (Sontag, 2020). From this angle, the Greek authorities, in the name of COVID-​19, justified and legitimized further border securitization, militarization and violence at, within and across the border. As a response to COVID-​19, the Greek authorities extended the suspension of asylum procedures by protracting the legal limbo for thousands of border crossers waiting at and even within the Greek territory (Amnesty International, 2020a) inside refugee camps and detention centres. Following the suspension of asylum, border crossers who had reached Lesvos were abandoned in sites such as the Moria camp with inadequate medical care and treatment, and no physical distancing and other hygienic measures (Jauhiainen, 2020). Despite these conditions in refugee camps from March 2020, the Greek authorities have extended the lockdown restrictions for border crossers living in refugee camps during the time of writing (Figure 3.1). Meanwhile, for Greek citizens and tourists from EU countries, COVID-​19-​related restrictions have been lifted. On 9 September, fires destroyed large sectors of the Moria hotspot (also known as the Moria camp), leaving people homeless. The discrimination and racism towards border crossers continued since the authorities did not allow border crossers to move from Moria to Mytilene, the capital of Lesvos, due to concerns about the spread of COVID-​19. On 9 September 2020, following the major fires in the main refugee camp on Lesvos, the Greek Prime Minister stated: ‘What happened there cannot go on any longer, as it is also a matter of public health, humanitarian, and national security. A state of emergency has been declared for the entire island. All national resources will be available to this end’ (Greek City Times, 2020). He stated that Lesvos would be in a state of 85

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Figure 3.1: A discarded COVID-​19 information leaflet at the Moria camp

emergency for four months and that all national resources would be made available to enforce this policy. In the aftermath of the fires in the Moria camp, the Greek authorities, in collaboration with the UNHCR, constructed a new camp known as Moria 2.0 (Iliadou and Exadaktylos, 2020). Despite the attention on these recent developments, the securitization of health through medical examination and surveillance of forcibly displaced people did not begin in a vacuum. The operationalization of the medical, surveillance and military policies and practices at, within and across borders in Greece have unfolded as a continuum since the early 2000s and even before that. As Karamanidou argues: ‘border controls are an integral part of EU policies articulated in the Schengen regime, and FRONTEX, as an independent agency specifically created for enhancing the border control regime of the EU, is an example of how securitisation practices have become normalised’ (2015b, p 45).

Conclusion In this chapter, I argued that despite the mainstream ‘crisis’ discourses around COVID-​1 9, militarized border practices, mandatory health inspections and discriminatory treatment of border crossers in the name of public health are not new. Historically, medical surveillance has been an integral part of border controls, management and screening, sorting and 86

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excluding of the unwanted human mobility. It is inextricably part of the securitization of migration, and as such it must be seen as a form of border violence. There have been multiple sanitary, securitization and militarization developments in Greece across time. They have been routinely enforced on the Greek mainland in cities and on the islands. These developments led to an overwhelming medicalization of borders which, nevertheless, was only made possible with the active involvement of various ‘experts’, such as medical and public health practitioners. These past developments, medical and militarized responses to unauthorized border crossings across time and space, generated a ‘medical surveillance’ precedent which has been passed on to the present. Rather than being seeing as new and unique events –​as ‘crises’ –​they should be viewed as part of a continuum –​that is, as part of a ‘generational’ effect (Arango, 2012) from preceding border and sanitary regimes which have affected migration policies and practices across generations. Altogether, these developments formed the conditions which made the medical surveillance, military and securitization enforcements within and across the border acceptable, normal and necessary. As the social anthropologists Nancy Scheper-​Hughes and Philippe Bourgois have shown, ‘different forms of misery, violence, and chronic social suffering has shown us that the more frequent and ubiquitous the images of sickness, suffering and death, the more likely they are to become invisible’ (2004, p 26). Overall, the spectacle of these policies and practices have not only normalized the abnormal and obscene, but also invisibilized and obscured violence. All in all, the continuum of these interventions has exacerbated the harms border crossers experience in border zones, refugee camps and detention centres. Altogether, these military and sanitary border regimes across time have produced a dystopian border landscape, made to intentionally inflict pain by making border crossers’ lives unliveable. In the next chapter, I explore the intentional infliction of pain through bureaucratic deterrence.

Copyright notice This chapter is a revised version of Evgenia Iliadou, ‘Quarantine Continuum. La medicalizzazione dei confini e la securitizzazione della migrazione e della salute in Grecia’, in Francesca Esposito, Emilio Caja and Giacomo Mattiello (eds) Corpi reclusi in attesa di espulsione: La detenzione amministrativa in Europa al tempo della sindemia, Edizioni SEB27, Torino 2022. It has been reused with permission.

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Mundane Surrealism: Bureaucratic Deterrence, Violence and Suffering The Moria hotspot was located almost a kilometre away from the village of Moria, in a former military camp. Until its total destruction on 9 September 2021, it served as a filtering mechanism at the moment of arrival, with the various intervening actors carrying out screening and sorting of border crossers into bureaucratic and legal ‘categories’, such as economic migrant, asylum seeker, deserving/​non-​deserving and thus deportable/​ non-​deportable. Within Moria, the following procedures took place upon border crossers’ arrival: registration; identification; screening and debriefing by Frontex and the Greek authorities; health inspections; vulnerability and age assessment of unaccompanied minors by NGO medical staff or medical practitioners of the Greek national healthcare system; asylum procedures by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and the Greek Asylum Service; coerced deportations or readmissions of border crossers by the Greek police, the Hellenic Coast Guard and Frontex; and coerced returns (euphemistically called ‘voluntary returns’ or ‘voluntary repatriations’) by the IOM. This chapter explores the bureaucratic procedures surrounding registration, identification and asylum that are implemented upon arrival and which produce uncertainty, protracted waiting and bureaucratic limbo by mentally exhausting people. The chapter argues that the bureaucratic procedures are designed to always fail, so as to make people’s lives unliveable. Furthermore, the procedures are characterized by an overwhelming inconsistency, uncertainty and chaos, which border crossers must adhere to while living in appalling, inhuman, degrading and life-​threatening reception and living conditions. Through this lens, the chapter explores bureaucratic deterrence, and therefore bureaucratic violence –​that is, the intentional, well-​designed policy of deterring by gradually, slowly and silently ‘killing’ those who have sought international protection in Europe. The bureaucratic deterrence is the apotheosis of the ‘politics of discomfort’ (Darling, 2011, p 268). In this 88

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way, border crossers are deterred and indirectly coerced by the authorities to withdraw their asylum claims and either traverse alternative dangerous and illicit migratory pathways to other EU countries or ‘voluntarily’ return to their countries of origin.

First stage: screening and identification procedures The process of registration, identification, screening and debriefing are the first stages of a long and enduring process all border crossers are confronted with immediately after they reach Lesvos and the other Aegean Islands (for example, Chios, Samos). As Efterpi, a female Frontex officer, told me: “Initially border crossers are rescued and welcomed by the Greek Coast Guard or Frontex, who transfer them to the Moria hotspot for the identification or screening procedures to take place.” The verbs rescued and welcomed note a self-​representation of Frontex’s work as humanitarian and not repressive. According to Aas and Gundhus, this ‘shows a growing presence and prominence of human rights and humanitarian ideals in border policing practices’ (2015, p 1). However, this humanitarian ideal is oxymoronic due to the institutional violence manifested via border-​related deaths directly linked with Frontex and Greek Coast Guard’s operations (Aas and Gundhus, 2015; Pallister-​Wilkins, 2015). In this sense, whether border crossers are actually rescued and welcomed, as Efterpi emphasized, is very much a matter of interpretation. Screening, identification and registration include the collection of biometrical data (such as fingerprints and photographs), sorting and storing of the data as well as determining border crossers’ nationality and verifying their identity. As Efterpi repeated several times during her interview: “It’s really important to know where migrants are coming from.” Screening and identification procedures by Frontex staff used to take place within a container inside the Moria hotspot. Frontex’s main missions and tasks are to assist EU member states by providing support within the hotspots in relation to the aforementioned procedures and to fight organized cross-​border crime and terrorism at the external borders in cooperation with Europol and Eurojust (Frontex, no date). Frontex’s role within the procedures would be auxiliary to the Greek authorities, providing them with technical and operational support. However, in practice, Frontex’s role has been much more than auxiliary, as it assumed a leading role in the screening, assessment and determination of border crossers’ nationality by frequently overpowering and shunting the Greek authorities from the process. Frontex’s power over the Greek authorities has been evident in the fact that the Greek authorities have based their decisions exclusively on Frontex assessments, which cannot be challenged. As the NGO Greek Council for Refugees notes: ‘even though the Greek authorities may base their decision concerning the nationality 89

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of a newcomer exclusively on a Frontex assessment, documents issued by the latter are considered to be ‘non-​papers’ and thereby inaccessible to individuals. This renders the challenge of Frontex findings extremely difficult in practice’ (2017, p 29). Many of my interviewees pointed out serious delays and mistakes in the registration, identification and determination of their nationality by Frontex and the Greek authorities. For instance, Kostas, a caseworker, pointed out the drawbacks of the procedure: ‘In 2015, the authorities did not know where to contain refugees in order for the registration and identification procedures to be completed. They gathered them all in the stadium. At some point, the wind blew and carried away all the official documentation. No one knows where these documents have gone. They were lost.’ Katerina Rozakou (2017), in her ethnographic research on bureaucratic procedures on Lesvos, observed a series of errors and omissions in the formal paperwork produced during registration. According to Rozakou, documentations ‘were full of errors and inconsistencies; names were misspelled, families were filed under different surnames, years of birth were inaccurate, and even nationalities were mixed up’ (2017, p 38). These frequent bureaucratic mistakes generated mistrust and confusion among border crossers by undermining their rights and harming them. As Alan, an NGO interpreter who, in 2015, was also involved in the registration procedures, told me: ‘Frontex staff was doing the process of registration between 8 am and 4 or 5 pm by registering 800 people per day, but they were doing many mistakes, especially in the registration of nationalities. On the other hand, my colleague and I were beginning the registration process from 5 pm until 10 in the evening, and we were registering two thousand people per day and no one was complaining that we were doing mistakes in registering the nationalities during the registration. Because we knew from which country refugees are coming from.’ Alan’s account is interesting as it not only highlights the many shortcomings of the registration and identification procedure but also emphasizes the irresponsibility in the way Frontex staff were working and slowing down the registration procedure. As Alan also pointed out: ‘Although mistakes could be changed, sometimes Frontex did whatever they wanted. They were saying “no, we know better”, but they actually did not, and consequently they made mistakes. But we were interpreters 90

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and we spoke the language and we knew refugees’ nationalities. There were many times that together with the UNHCR, we intervened by telling them that they were making mistakes –​for example, saying that this man is from Afghanistan and you said that he is coming from Iran, or this man is from Iran and you say that he is from Afghanistan.’ This inconsistency, inefficiency and bureaucratic mistakes during screening and registration are not new. When I was working in the Pagani detention centre, the registration, identification, bureaucratic and asylum procedures were in the hands of the police. This fact generated a series of problems, delays, uncertainty and confusion for border crossers who were stuck within a system that did not make sense at all. The bureaucratic procedures were taking place simultaneously in several different parts of the island, in different police departments and with different police officers. Depending on the time and the arrival site, the police department responsible for the region was authorized to make arrests and carry out identification, registration and bureaucratic procedures before border crossers were transferred to Pagani. Upon arrival at Pagani, the police officer on shift would handwrite border crossers’ personal data, and these were kept in the one and only logbook. There were no computers, no databases or any digital source of recording, saving and storing the data, and some of the police officers said that even if they did have those resources, they would not know how to use them. The size of the logbook, its colour, mundane appearance, impractically large size –​which made it look like the pages were made from papyrus –​was for me the exemplar image of bureaucracy and inconsistency of the Greek administration. The logbook was often torn apart because of its irregular use and impractical size. Moreover, in reality it was very difficult to use this as a source of data. I could spend hours every day looking for detainees’ personal data. Due to the lack of interpretation, the vast majority of border crossers’ names, and their age and nationality, were either misspelled or incorrect. These bureaucratic mistakes during registration could metamorphose Iranian border crossers into Afghans, Egyptians and Algerians into Syrians, and Africans into Somalians. As police officers cynically used to say: “They all look the same.” Similarly, unaccompanied minors were metamorphosed into adults, and adults into unaccompanied minors. The police were registering the age of all border crossers according to what each individual declared, but also depending on the police officer’s rough estimation as to whether border crossers looked like adults or minors based on their physical appearance. These frequent mistakes could cause extreme delays for individuals, even pushing the process back to the very beginning. Within this bureaucratic inconsistency in Moria, one must also include frequent regulation and policy amendments, which made caseworkers’ mistakes unavoidable and the completion of bureaucratic procedures 91

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dependant on border crossers’ luck. As Hassan, an Afghan refugee, emphasized: “Asylum depends on refugees’ chance.” To this, one must add the exclusionary architecture of the system itself, which is deliberately designed for failure by enabling ‘bureaucratic deterrence’ (Iliadou, 2019a). That is, the system was deliberately designed to exhaust border crossers through the inconsistent and chaotic procedures so as to deter them or force them to withdraw their asylum claims, as well as to legitimize and normalize the Greek authorities’ inaction and impunity for its arbitrariness, violations, institutional violence and infliction of harm. Also, the process of screening and nationality determination itself had many shortcomings, as it was based on assumptions made by Frontex staff after a short –​or long, depending on border crossers’ cooperation –​interview and not on valid, reliable information. As Stefan, a Frontex officer, told me: “We are trying to make assumptions of someone’s identity and nationality, since migrants do not obtain documents. In case they do, they do not always say who they are to help the Greek authorities to complete all the necessary procedures.” Stefan’s quote also confirms what Alan said about the bureaucratic mistakes made by Frontex staff during registration. In addition, despite there being provision for an accountability mechanism to monitor Frontex’s activities, this was never put into effect. As the Danish Refugee Council notes: ‘The regulation includes an accountability mechanism, introducing a complaints mechanism for allegations of breach of fundamental rights by any person directly affected by the actions of Frontex staff. At time of writing, there are no reports of this complaint mechanism being used in the hotspots’ (2017, p 23). Also, academic research in other hotspots, such as Lampedusa, has shown that identification procedures often take place with the use of violence (Tazzioli and Garelli, 2018). Forced fingerprinting implemented systematically by the Greek authorities, and I know from my lived experiences as a former NGO practitioner in the Pagani detention centre that border crossers who were resisting being fingerprinted were physically and verbally abused or punished with prolonged detention for not ‘cooperating’ with the Greek authorities (Iliadou, 2012, 2019a). The process of fingerprinting is not benevolent. It is by nature always coercive, a nonconsensual act that I consider to be a form of border violence. Resistance to micro border controls, such as the process of fingerprinting, is frequently encountered in sites of confinement. When I was working in Pagani, I witnessed border crossers scrapping their palms and fingers on the wall, putting glue on them and even burning them in order to deform their fingerprints and, thus, boycott and/​or resist the process of biometric control. Furthermore, I have witnessed border crossers in Pagani resisting fingerprinting by spitting at the officers who were executing the process, as they were fully aware that their fingerprints would be stored on the 92

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biometric European Asylum Dactyloscopy Database (Eurodac). They were also informed that they would automatically be registered on Greece’s national list of unwanted aliens and that should they manage to reach another EU country through Greece, they would eventually be subjected to the Dublin Regulation. Apart from identification or screening to determine country of origin, Frontex staff also carry out debriefing to enhance the organization’s intelligence and improve joint operations with EU member states. Debriefing involves an in-​depth interview with ‘reliable’ informants, during which Frontex’s debriefing expert conducts systematic extraction and recording of information and data on illicit routes, smuggling and trafficking networks, terrorism and cross-​border crime (Frontex, 2017). According to Stefan: ‘Migrants are a source of information. If we understand that the migrant could give us more information to share with our intelligence in Frontex, I will inform the debriefers. That’s what debriefers are doing. They are trying to understand the trajectories migrants are traversing, the routes they are taking and all the information about the smugglers.’ Debriefing is a crucial aspect of Frontex’s work in mapping border crossers’ trajectories, and they also strategically process and deploy the information extracted for operational responses –​that is, to enable the fortification and expansion of border controls beyond the EU. The process of debriefing and the extraction of information is supposedly benevolent, based on consent and rapport. According to Frontex’s handbook: the collection of information [during debriefing] must be conducted with the consent of the migrant being interviewed on a voluntary basis, built on trust and confidentiality between the Debriefing Experts and the migrants. No negative legal consequences arise with regard to the immigration process as a result of the migrant consenting to being debriefed. (2017, p 6) However, I have witnessed a callous side to debriefing. When I was working in Pagani, border crossers told me that Frontex’s debriefers were presenting themselves as UN staff and making false promises that they were going to help border crossers with their migration matters if they were willing to cooperate by sharing information about their migration trajectories. This shows how border violence can be obscured in the everyday practices of border control and how consent and coercion, violence and benevolence intersect, collude and overlap. After screening, identification and debriefing, border crossers move to the second stage of the long process: asylum procedures. 93

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Second stage: asylum procedures After completing identification and registration procedures, border crossers are given formal ‘options’ and coerced ‘choices’ by the Greek authorities. The first coerced choice border crossers must make when they arrive on Lesvos is to apply for international protection. Border crossers are implicitly extorted to seek international protection from Greece, a country which is only a transit country for them and not their chosen final destination (Tazzioli and Garelli, 2018). They do so under the constant threat of prolonged detention in appalling living conditions; deportation to their country of origin, where they might face persecution or death; or readmission to Turkey (based on the safe third country or first country of asylum concepts –​EU–​Turkey statement –​and the 2002 Bilateral Readmission Protocol between Turkey and Greece).1 Also, all formal options are exclusively linked to international protection, and consequently if border crossers do not seek asylum, they are automatically disqualified from the other options, such as family reunification and the relocation scheme, and face the risk of deportation or readmission. Furthermore, after being extorted to engage with one of these formal ‘options’, border crossers experience an extended bureaucratic limbo which is incomprehensible, inconsistent, chaotic and dysfunctional, characterized by maze-​like and inefficient procedures, bureaucratic fences, symbolic borders, extreme delays, cancellations and mainly frustration throughout all stages.2 In this respect, the formal options that border crossers allegedly have often proved to be futile and coerced. As I found, it was ‘the banal rituals’ (Gupta, 2012, p 6) of bureaucratic procedures in all the in-​between stages and levels which were intensifying –​or producing in the first place –​border crossers’ suffering and pain. The violence that the bureaucratic procedures were inflicting upon border crossers was taking place quietly and silently in routinized and mundane forms of border violence that, in Gupta’s words, ‘disappears from view and cannot be thematized as violence at all’ (2012, p 5). Next, I focus on the bureaucratic procedures surrounding asylum and their ultimate aim, which is to inflict harm and deter border crossers by making their lives unliveable. I explain how the asylum system, procedures

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Activists and NGOs like Amnesty International have criticized and raised serious concerns about inadequate access to international protection, violations of the principle of non-​ refoulement and denial of dignified living conditions for border crossers in Turkey (Amnesty International, 2016b). In Amnesty International’s words, ‘contrary to what is required under EU and international law, Turkey does not provide effective protection to the asylum-​seekers and refugees on its territory’ (2016b, p 5, italics in original). In Greek, we use the expression ‘without beginning, middle and end’ to signify the absurdity and irrationality of processes that ultimately do not lead anywhere. This expression applies here. 94

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and structures inflict violence by perpetuating harm upon border crossers through chaos, uncertainty and inconsistency, disbelief and extended waiting.

Restricted access to asylum procedures Access to the asylum procedure formally includes the stages of registration and lodging an application with the Asylum Service, as well as the interview process. However, as simple as this may sound, it is in reality a Kafkaesque process which includes, as Sophia, a lawyer, told me, ‘enduring waiting, discomfort and sweat [pain]’ in order to get through a full registration, have an asylum interview and receive a (final) decision on one’s life. The bureaucratic process can last months and even years, with many extended waits between each stage of this procedure (Biehl, 2015). Thus, the main problem surrounding the bureaucratic and asylum procedures is, ironically, the procedures per se and their very structure (Galtung, 1969). The existence of complex administrative procedures at and within the borders echoes the state’s anxiety over the governance and control of migration (Torpey, 2000; Rozakou, 2017). The governance of unwanted human mobility through bureaucracy has become a vital aspect of the European border regime (Rozakou, 2017; Dimitriadi, 2022), where identification, documentation and registration practices are, in Rozakou’s words, ‘considered regulatory and classificatory technologies. Numbers, documents, fingerprints, and photographs, among other modes, are essential technologies of state power’ (2017, p 39).The bureaucratic asylum procedures on Lesvos in the aftermath of the hotspot approach were characterized by the operation of an asylum regime, meaning a complex hierarchical structure with different levels of duties and responsibilities, multiple actors managing them, and a procedural formality. The Greek Asylum Service is the main ruling body, with the EASO’s expert international staff assisting with the admissibility interviews (European Ombudsman, 2018). Between 2015 and 2019, lodging of an asylum application had to be done in person at the Asylum Service’s office on Lesvos, which was located inside the Moria hotspot. The Asylum Service, the EASO office and the whole administrative and bureaucratic apparatus was located inside the Moria hotspot, surrounded by material and symbolic walls and fences, surveillance cameras, police, Frontex officers, G4S private security and sometimes the army. Every time border crossers needed to apply for international protection, renew their papers, schedule and/​or complete an asylum interview, or go through the vulnerability assessment, they had to walk in front of the armed riot police (in Greek: MAT), who constantly guarded the hotspot, go through the face control and documentation checks by the police beneath the gates and then cross the threshold of the so-​called Moria ‘camp’, which more resembled a prison than a refugee 95

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camp (Jauhiainen, 2017). After border crossers experience the fear and intimidation of being repeatedly exposed to the various gazes of control, they are coerced to wait in long queues in order to lodge an application or even reach the Asylum Service administration. The Asylum Service, as well as the whole administration section, including NGO offices, is located in a separate section, also surrounded by fences. After observing from the inside and outside the carbuncle that is the Moria hotspot complex, I could not help but ask myself how border crossers could dare to cross the threshold of the hotspot to seek international protection without feeling terrified that they were going to be arrested, detained or even deported. Being inside prisons, the offices and administration of the Asylum Service operated as invisible symbolic, bureaucratic and material borders, standing like obstacles in people’s way. This also connoted the chaos and the unbridgeable chasm between bureaucrats and border crossers; the former felt comfortable within these borders, while the latter were threatened and horrified by them (Figure 4.1). Even the new Asylum Service buildings –​which were established outside the Moria camp (after the former facility was repeatedly burned to the ground) in a remote area four kilometres from the city centre –​looked like a prison. During my postdoctoral research, between 2020 and 2022, I found that access to the Asylum Service was indeed very restricted. The building was surrounded by tall fences and was well monitored by security actors, and in order to access the building, I had to book an appointment beforehand; otherwise, my entry would be refused. After I crossed the threshold of the Asylum Service, I was escorted to the offices and back to the exit by a private security officer. This awkward, prison-​like context challenged the idea of the free access to asylum and generated feelings of intimidation and fear. In addition, although in previous years (before 2013) border crossers would normally renew their documentation every six months at the police department, when the Asylum Service was established in 2013, all documentation renewal procedures changed. Documentation renewals took place differently, according to nationality criteria. For example, renewals for specific nationals who are considered ‘deportable’ (for example, Pakistani nationals) used to take place each month at the Asylum Service in the Moria hotspot. This meant that throughout the long asylum procedure, border crossers were coerced to regularly traverse the threshold of the Moria hotspot and experience the horror of the intimidating gazes of control as well as the fear bred by the thought that entering the hotspot did not necessary meant exiting too. As Imran, an interviewee from Pakistan, noted: ‘I want to renew my asylum card, which expires in a few days, but I am just waiting outside Moria camp because I am afraid to go inside. Sometimes they put you in jail because they tell you that your 96

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procedure has failed. They arrest you, put you in jail and then they send you to Turkey.’ As I witnessed on Lesvos, border crossers felt uncertain, confused and intimidated due to being constantly exposed to the gaze of the Greek authorities, both in a ‘panopticon’ and a ‘myopticon’ way (Whyte, 2011). The myopticon is a technology of power, controlling and knowing, which disciplines people not only through constant surveillance and visibility Figure 4.1: A sarcastic handwritten note, which is addressed to NGO practitioners, outside the Asylum Service office in the Moria hotspot: ‘The time when I can ask something: 2.30–​3.30’

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but also through vagueness and distortion, through uncertainty and fear. The myopticon’s main intention is to distort. The procedures of the asylum and bureaucratic regime, due to their inconsistency and chaotic nature, confuse border crossers and distort their identities, reliability and personal histories of persecution and violence and expose them to further harm. Through inconsistency, uncertainty and vagueness –​the myopia of the central gaze of control –​border crossers’ narratives are distorted, questioned and, thus, easily rejected as counterfeit. For instance, during her interview, Efterpi, a Frontex officer responsible for identification of border crossers, repeatedly referred to some border crossers as “liars”. Efterpi specifically argued: ‘Some migrants insist in their lie during identification. I had many cases of migrants claiming that they were Syrians, but the interpreter and I were sure that they were Algerians. “Are you sure you are Syrian?” I was repeatedly asking him, and until the last minute he was replying “yeah, yeah, I am Syrian”. I finally registered him as Algerian, because he was Algerian for sure! [slightly hits hand on the table].’ Efterpi’s opinion and that of the interpreter were perceived as valid, but border crossers’ narratives were not. When the authorities scrutinize border crossers through the various bureaucratic procedures, they see people who lack ‘credibility’ (Biehl, 2015, p 58). Lack of belief in their credibility and honesty is a common feature border crossers experience when entering into the multiple and different bureaucratic procedures. Both identification and, predominantly, asylum interviews demand consistency, both of the story and the grounds one claims when seeking international protection. Mistakes or inconsistencies in border crossers’ stories, produced by anxiety, PTSD, fear or by inadequate access to information about international protection, will negatively affect their credibility and thus their application. The increasing demand for assessments and evaluations by experts during the various bureaucratic procedures and the production of supporting documentation for proof (Fassin and D’Halluin, 2005; Whyte, 2011) illustrate the institutional disbelief, misrecognition and devaluation of border crossers’ experiences and voices. Notably, they illustrate border crossers failure to turn, as Biehl points out, “their experiential accounts about their displacement and suffering into a language that is legible to dominant Western legal and medical discourses” (2015, p 65). In some cases, if the asylum application is refused in the first instance, the caseworker at the Asylum Service can trace it within the system and has the power to inform the police. The police could then easily arrest the border crosser and detain them in order to readmit or coercively deport them to Turkey. As Simon, an Asylum Service caseworker, noted: 98

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‘The Greek authorities have designed the whole system and process in such a way so no one can escape. Refugees cannot leave the island and they are forced to come by themselves inside Moria, in practice, in order to be arrested. Otherwise the police would have to look for them somewhere in the Greek mainland in order to arrest them and deport them.’ In this sense, the Asylum Service, although consisting of caseworkers (administrative, non-​police staff), serves as a punitive apparatus of persecution and repression by successfully playing the role of the cop. Furthermore, contra to the dominant image of an inconsistent, incomprehensible, maze-​like and chaotic system, Simon’s account emphasizes the fact that when the system desires to, it can indeed be very effective, functional, fast, consistent and orderly. The dominant image of a system and processes full of inconsistency and chaos is meretricious, but only to reenforce bureaucratic deterrence and legitimize the Greek authorities’ inaction and impunity for its arbitrariness, violations, institutional violence and infliction of harm. This peculiar self-​reporting system, which was established by the Greek state and actively enabled by the caseworkers of the Greek Asylum Service, is still in place today. The bureaucratic procedures –​through all their steps and in-​between stages –​were chaotic, inconsistent, confusing, multiple and, in many instances, fragmented, generating many more parallel procedures and sub-​procedures. In this regard, there were different asylum procedures implemented in different places on the Greek mainland and yet other procedures on the eastern Aegean Islands, like Lesvos. There were different procedures for border crossers who arrived on Lesvos before the implementation of the EU–​Turkey statement (the ‘regular asylum procedures’) and those arriving after. The later procedures were truncated and framed as ‘fast-​track’ border procedures. There are different procedures implemented at border zones, like the airports and ports, and in detention centres and police departments. Furthermore, there is a different procedure (the so-​called ‘old’ procedure) for border crossers who lodged an asylum application before 7 June 2013 and a parallel ‘new’ procedure applicable for those who lodged an asylum application from 7 June 2013 onwards (Greek Council for Refugees). The existence of different and parallel procedures and sub-​procedures has led to a multitude of rules and regulations, obligations and prohibitions in an ‘if this, then that’ logic (Antonakaki et al, 2016, p 11). And although, in theory, bureaucracy in Western states is applied through a Weberian lens of rationality, efficiency, regulation and order (Herzfeld, 1992), the bureaucratic procedures border crossers must endure are in practice chaotic, incoherent, inefficient and inconsistent. This ritualistic, repeated, routinized, systematic, patterned domination of the chaotic, maze-​like and inconsistent bureaucratic 99

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procedures and sub-​procedures has shaped a context of ‘mundane surrealism’ (Scheper-​Hughes, 2004, p 182) for border crossers.

Restricted access to information Border crossers have restricted access to information about international protection and to information about the procedures and the estimated wait time (Greek Council for Refugees, 2017). Access to information is restricted due to inadequate interpretation services within the hotspots and police departments (Greek Council for Refugees, 2017). Additionally, due to the nationality-​based assessment which was introduced with the hotspot approach, there has been discriminatory and racialized treatment wherein certain nationals from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt were detained immediately after their arrival. According to a 2016 Police Circular (Ministry of Interior, 2016), these nationalities were classified as ‘migrants with an economic profile’. The moment they reached Lesvos, they were arrested and detained with inadequate access to legal aid. Their personal needs and circumstances were ignored. They were detained for prolonged periods before eventually being deported. With respect to detention in ‘Section B’ of the Moria hotspot, some border crossers were detained because they had the misfortune of having the ‘wrong’ nationality. As Nicola De Genova argues, ‘deportable non-​citizens are pervasively subjected to myriad conditions of social degradation, globally’ (2013, p 1180). Deportable border crossers detained in Section B received limited legal aid and social care, and had restricted access to information about international protection procedures. As I found, deportable border crossers were not the ‘target group’ of some NGOs and, thus, those individuals were disregarded. As Simon noted: “There are discriminations taking place, where NGOs overlook, for example, Pakistanis. They only pay attention to nationalities with a refugee profile. All the others are just ignored.” Furthermore, due to the overcrowded facilities in the Moria hotspot, many of the deportable nationalities were detained in the various police departments on the island, where getting access to NGOs and lawyers was not easy. According to Médecins Sans Frontières: Residents have no idea when or how they will get out of here. Tomorrow they can receive a paper saying, ‘You will be deported’. Or they can be put in detention without any explanation [or] without even a translator to explain to them what is going on. (Médecins Sans Frontières, 2018) During my fieldwork between 2016 and 2017, I witnessed the disregard of deportable detainees when a lawyer working for a UK-​based NGO, who had just arrived on the island, asked me where she could find border crossers 100

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to speak with. When I suggested that she look at the issue of detention of deportable nationalities within Section B and the police departments, she said: “We are not concerned with the issue of detention.”

Restricted access to legal aid The provision of legal aid was also limited, and this varied from site to site and according to geographical region (Greek Council for Refugees, 2017). Although, many NGOs operate on Lesvos, in August 2017 cuts in EU funding for NGOs in Greece resulted in reduced provision of services like legal aid. Sarah, an activist, noted: “There is urgent need for lawyers here because refugees staying on Lesvos are many and their problems are overwhelming. The few lawyers who assist them face work overload and in some degree are burnt out.” The urgent need for lawyers was something that I noticed myself as, often, the first question I was asked during everyday encounters with border crossers was ‘Are you a lawyer?’ Furthermore, legal aid is mainly provided to border crossers who are in an appeal procedure. All the rest are obliged to navigate the system on their own or consult with a private lawyer at their own cost and, as the Greek Council for Refugees (2017) notes, without sufficient information. Limited and inadequate access to legal aid was a constant problem on the Greek mainland and on Lesvos. When I was working in Pagani from 2008 until 2010, there was only one lawyer for approximately 1,500 detainees (Iliadou, 2012; Georgoulas and Sarantidis, 2013; Sarantidis, 2018b). This sort of situation is unfortunately becoming the norm for many border crossers in other EU countries like Germany, France, Sweden, Italy and the UK (for a detailed account of access to legal aid in the EU, see ECRE/​ELENA, 2017).

The fast-​track and inadmissibility procedure Law 4375/​2016 established a twofold parallel border and asylum procedure: (i) a standard procedure for people seeking international protection on the Greek mainland; and (ii) a fast-​track border procedure (Article 60(4)) for people seeking international protection on the Aegean Islands from 20 March 2016 onwards (ECRE, 2017).The fast-​track border procedure is a nationality-​based approach and a special border procedure. It was introduced as an ‘extraordinary’ and ‘temporary’ measure for all border crossers arriving after 20 March 2016 (Greek Council for Refugees, 2016b). The fast-​track border procedure was directly linked to the EU–​Turkey statement and established an exceptional regime applicable within the border and asylum procedures in cases of emergency. Contra to the existing asylum procedures, the fast-​track border procedure and the exceptional measures it entails, are activated in case of large numbers of border crossers arriving and lodging asylum applications at the borders. 101

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As an extraordinary and temporary measure, the fast-​track border procedure was to be enforced for a maximum period of six months after the publication of the law (Law 4375/​2016) and would stop after 3 January 2017 (Greek Council for Refugees, 2016b). However, due to reforms applied in June 2016 and August 2017, the fast-​track procedure remains in force still. In practice, the temporary and exceptional fast-​track border procedures are still applicable because the emergency was changed from an exception into an ‘endless emergency’ (Agier, 2010, p 2), meaning a permanent, routinized and normalized condition. The fast-​track border procedure includes registration of asylum applications with the involvement of the police and the army, notification of decisions and other procedural documents, and receipt of appeals by the Greek police and the army. The fast-​track border procedure is applied only to people who are subject to the EU–​Turkey statement, and it takes place in one of the six reception and identification centres where hotspots are established (Fylakio in northern Greece and the islands of Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kos) (Iliadou, 2019a). However, the fast-​track procedure never worked as it was intended to. The main bodies responsible for completing the asylum procedures (the Asylum Service and the EASO) were obliged through the fast-​track procedure to make decisions on asylum claims within 25 days. However, as I found, in practice, the procedures could last from a few months to years. Another central feature of the fast-​track border procedure is the inadmissibility procedure –​a differential nationality-​based approach within the asylum procedure (AIDA, 2017a). According to the Greek Council for Refugees: The full registration and further examination of the [asylum] applications are prioritized on the basis of nationality where the authorities register and interview Syrian nationals first to assess whether their claims are admissible or whether they could be returned to Turkey, followed by applicants from countries with a relatively low recognition rate, such as Algeria or Pakistan to assess their claims on the merits. (2016b, p 33) The concept of inadmissibility is related to the safe third country and country of first asylum concepts of the EU–​Turkey statement, and it forms the legal basis for returning border crossers back to Turkey (Gkliati, 2017). The (in)admissibility procedure is defined in Article 54 of Law 4375/​2016, according to which an asylum application is considered inadmissible when: 1. Another EU Member State has granted international protection status or has accepted responsibility under the Dublin Regulation; 2. The applicant comes from a ‘safe third country’ or a ‘first country of asylum’; 102

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3. The application is a subsequent application and no ‘new essential elements’ have been presented; 4. A family member has submitted a separate application to the family application without justification for lodging a separate claim. (Greek Council for Refugees, 2017) Under the inadmissibility procedure, border crossers who have applied for international protection are examined in order for an assessment to be made as to whether Turkey can be considered a safe third country or a first country of asylum (Greek Council for Refugees 2016). Those belonging to vulnerable groups and those falling under the Dublin III Regulation concerning family reunification are exempted from these exceptional procedures (Greek Council for Refugees, 2017; ECRE, 2021). However, even these procedures are complex and lengthy. As Giannis, a lawyer, told me: “Without legal aid, it is almost impossible for border crossers to complete the procedures by themselves.” The overall implementation of the EU–​Turkey statement had negative consequences for asylum procedures and, consequently, people. According to the European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE): The unprecedented arrivals in 2015 and 2016 and the implementation of the ‘hotspot’ approach on the Greek islands and the EU-​Turkey statement contributed to issues regarding the quality of asylum procedures. Long processing times, problems in the identification of vulnerabilities, lack of legal aid, weaker appeal procedures, and misapplication of the safe third country concept for Syrian nationals were persisting issues well into 2019. (2021, p 7) The ECRE (2021) also notes the multiple amendments of domestic laws surrounding asylum, which further complicate the asylum framework, as well as the inconsistent transposition of EU law. In 2017, the Greek state introduced amendments to Law 4375/​2016 through Law 4461/​2017. Article 101(2) of Law 4461/​2017 includes provisions for the contribution of EASO rapporteurs in cases of large numbers of appeals to the Appeals Committees (AIDA and ECRE, 2021). The rapporteurs have the following role: (a) to study the applicant’s personal file, in particular the application for international protection, the minutes of the interview, the first instance decision, the content of the appeal and any memorandum submitted, as well as any other information or evidence provided; (b) to conduct research on up-​to-​date and valid sources of information; (c) to prepare a detailed and in-​depth report in the Greek language including the documentation and processing of the facts of the case and the applicant’s claims, as well as cross-​checking these claims with information related to applicant’s country of origin, 103

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which is put before the court of the Independent Appeals Committees. It must be noted that the law on the Appeals Authority was amended multiple times: by Law 4375/​2016 in April 2016 and Law 4399/​2016 in June 2016, in 2017 by Law 4461/​2017 and in 2018 by Law 4540/​2018 (AIDA and ECRE, 2021). Between 2016 and 2018, approximately 1,657 border crossers have been readmitted to Turkey under the EU–​Turkey statement (Ministry of Citizen’s Protection, 2018). During the first months of the implementation of the EU–​Turkey statement, the Greek Appeals Committees prevented the coerced return of border crossers seeking international protection from the Greek islands to Turkey. According to Sarantidis: ‘They overturned the vast majority of the appealed first instance inadmissibility decisions of the Greek Asylum Service, by rejecting the notion that border crossers seeking for international protection can find effective international protection in Turkey’ (2018a, p 4). However, the Greek government, under pressure from the European Commission to speed up and increase returns, approved through the Greek Parliament an amendment of Law 4375 on 16 June 2016 and changed the composition of the Appeals Committees (Amnesty International, 2017a; Sarantidis, 2018a). According to Sophia, a lawyer supporting border crossers: ‘Because of the fact that the first Appeal Committees were not rejecting the appeals but, on the contrary, they were accepting them, there were only two cases which were rejected. The ministry was not happy with that and thus decided to change the composition of the Appeal Committees and assign them to judges.’ The new committees started issuing decisions, all of which upheld the inadmissibility decisions of the Greek Asylum Service for applications falling under the EU–​Turkey statement. The inadmissibility approach also noted the policy maker’s intention, in the words of Myrto, a lawyer supporting border crossers, “to get rid of the nationalities that were falling within the readmission scheme”. From this perspective, Myrto argued that an asylum application was assessed as inadmissible even if a border crosser would have reported that she has been abused or pushed back while in Turkey. As Myrto argued: ‘State policy is to reject almost all cases on the grounds of being unfounded or inadmissible. Very often when a refugee was claiming that she was abused in Turkey and that she was pushed back from Turkey to Syria, it was assessed that there was no danger for her to be readmitted back to Turkey and that she will be safe there. Thus, her asylum application was refused.’ 104

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Both the Asylum Service and the Appeals Committee are playing the role of the rejection and expulsion machine by indicating the wider politics of massive rejections, deportations, closed borders and deterrence enforced in the name of Fortress Europe. As Sophia, like many other activist interviewees, argued: “For me, this demonstrates the political will for massive rejections. Basically, they wanted to establish an organization to massively reject people.” In addition, although initially the refusal on grounds of inadmissibility was targeting Syrian border crossers, as Sophia noted, all border crossers face the risk of being assessed as inadmissible, irrespective of their nationality. She said: ‘Our advice to refugees is that all of you, independently of your nationality, you are in danger because inadmissibility is applied to all and not only to Syrian refugees. Thus, you are in a state in which you are in danger. If you do not have any vulnerability, any medical problem, any special psychiatric condition, you are in danger and you must be very careful of what you are going to say about your living conditions in Turkey.’ Indeed, on 7 June 2021, with a Joint Ministerial Decision (Law 4636/​2019), the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Migration and Asylum designated Turkey a safe third country for forcibly displaced people coming from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia. This decision is a continuation of the EU–​Turkey statement and includes even more nationalities of forcibly displaced people that are liable to readmission to Turkey on the grounds of the ‘safe country’ concept (Iliadou and Exadaktylos, 2021).

Administrative vulnerability Yusuf was a 60-​year-​old border crosser from Syria who, the day we met, had an appointment for vulnerability screening inside the Moria hotspot. As we were speaking, he opened his plastic bag and showed me his papers. He unfolded one of them and, pointing at a small box at the end of the document, told me with a strangled voice: “Do you see this? This is not good, not good at all. It says ‘NO’. This ‘NO’ in this box is not good.” As I looked more carefully at his paper, I realized that he was pointing at a medical assessment. The box on the bottom of his document was titled: ‘vulnerability issue’. Although Yusuf had heart problems, according to his medical certification he had been assessed as non-​vulnerable. “This is not good, not good at all”, Yusuf kept on saying, as vulnerability would have helped him to be recognized as a refugee. Vulnerability would also be his passport, which would allow him to travel to the mainland and break free from the prison island. Vulnerable people are often exempted from the 105

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geographical restriction regime and allowed to travel to the Greek mainland. As Katja, a caseworker for an NGO supporting border crossers, emphasized: ‘This “no” and “yes” has “killed” people. There are even people who are forging the vulnerability assessment by replacing the “no” with a “yes”. I believe that caseworkers can directly check if one is vulnerable in the system, but many refugees are forging “no” to “yes”.’ Although, vulnerability is not a new concept within asylum procedures, in the aftermath of the 2016 EU–​Turkey statement and the geographical restriction regime, it has received overwhelming attention and its application has increased. Vulnerability is an administrative border procedure and assessment approach which is implemented at the same time and in relation to the asylum procedures in order for vulnerable border crossers to be detected, assessed, prioritized and permitted to move from Lesvos to the Greek mainland. The concept of vulnerability is introduced in national legislation with Article 14(8) of Law 4375/​2016. The relevant provision in national law states that all newly arrived persons should be subject to reception and identification procedures, including medical screening and psychosocial assessment (AIDA, 2017b). According to Article 14(8), the definition of vulnerable groups includes: unaccompanied minors; persons who have a disability or suffering from an incurable or serious illness; the elderly; women in pregnancy or having recently given birth; single parents with minor children; victims of torture, rape or other serious forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence or exploitation; persons with a post-​traumatic disorder, in particularly survivors and relatives of victims of shipwrecks; victims of human trafficking. Vulnerability assessment must take place before border crossers apply for international protection. In order for border crossers to be assessed as vulnerable, they must go through a vulnerability screening. Screening, assessment and identification procedures were initially performed by medical and psychosocial staff of the NGOs Médecins du Monde, PRAKSIS and MEDIN, but from mid-​2017 onwards, this task was assigned to staff at the Ministry of Health and the Centre of Disease Control and Prevention (KEELPNO). According to Antonis, an Asylum Service caseworker: ‘With Law 4375/​2016, the Asylum Service was directly involved in the procedures regarding the asylum seekers’ vulnerability. If during the oral interview there were indications of a vulnerability, the caseworker would have stopped the border procedure and referred 106

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the applicant to the standard process –​that is, the applicants would go to the mainland, where [they] would not have to live in camps but in houses, or accommodations that met certain conditions, at least in theory. We could also refer an individual for a medical assessment to verify vulnerability. If, for example, we had indications that someone was a victim of torture, we would refer her for medical and psychological examinations.’ In 2016, a hierarchical classification/​segregation of persons with ‘evident’ and ‘non-​evident’ vulnerabilities was applied during the vulnerability assessment, excluding many people in need from the scheme. Between 2017 and early 2018, KEELPNO was replaced as the medical body responsible for carrying out the vulnerability screening by the National Public Health Organization (EODY). Three hierarchical levels of vulnerability were established –​which defined the support that the person would receive –​through guidelines from the Ministry of Migration Policy (Reception and Identification Service, 2019). The hierarchy of vulnerability which was introduced was: high vulnerability; medium vulnerability; and no vulnerability. In practice, however, there were many problems related to the procedure and an overwhelming number of people waiting to be assessed as vulnerable. According to the Greek Council for Refugees: Due to considerable delays and at times dysfunctional identification processes, a considerable number of asylum seekers were subjected to an asylum interview, including by EASO caseworkers, without their vulnerability having been assessed […] Gaps in the provision of services, coupled with a shortage in human resources, led to a significant reduction in capacity to conduct vulnerability screening in the reception and identification procedure, as well as to provide out-​patient consultations. As reported, on certain occasions e.g. on Lesvos and Samos during March 2017, the RIS completed the procedure without having assessed potential vulnerabilities and only persons with evident vulnerabilities were subject to medical and psychological assessments and offered assistance. The rest received no assessment unless they so requested, and even in such cases newcomers without evident vulnerabilities were not provided assessments due to these gaps. (2017, p 80) Consequently, not only was vulnerability inadequately assessed, but also only persons with ‘evident’ vulnerabilities were given the ‘option’ of an assessment and, thus, care by the Greek authorities. However, the highly problematic nature of the administrative vulnerability assessment was not just to do with the lack of quality and the gaps in the process, but the idea of having a vulnerability assessment in the first place. Vulnerability is ‘universal and 107

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constant, inherent in the human condition’ (Fineman, 2008, p 2; see also Peroni and Timmer, 2013). Also, all border crossers become vulnerable from the moment they were embedded into structurally violent procedures and living conditions. As I witnessed, administrative vulnerability was not a tool of protection and inclusion, as the authorities were claiming, but was instead a tool of segregation, segmentation and exclusion. It was acknowledging that some people were more vulnerable than others and that their needs must be protected and safeguarded by a paternalistic state (Butler et al, 2016). At the same time, the paternalistic state has the power to define who counts as vulnerable or not, to control the forms of protection and, at the same time, to victimize (Iliadou, 2017). In practice, there were cases of vulnerable people who, despite their vulnerability, were not counted as vulnerable. According to Gilson, vulnerability ‘characterizes some and does not pertain to others, and this attribution is accompanied by a hierarchical ascription of value in terms of agency and other desirable capacities and traits’ (2016, p 74). Therefore, as I witnessed, the process itself was resulting in the under-​ identification of all vulnerabilities in general, particularly those non-​evident and non-​visible vulnerabilities. Also, instead of including people in need –​as all kinds of bureaucratic assessments eventually do –​it resulted in a systematic exclusion of those in need by producing divisions, binaries and hierarchies of vulnerability, such as who is/​should be counted as vulnerable. In this sense, administrative vulnerability assessment is an obscene ‘bureaucratised humanitarian intervention’ (Malkki, 1996, p 378). According to social anthropologist Liisa Malkki: ‘one important effect of the bureaucratised humanitarian interventions that are set in motion by large population displacements is to leach out the histories and the politics of specific refugees’ circumstances. Refugees stop being specific persons and become pure victims in general’ (1996, p 378). From this perspective, the administrative vulnerability assessment pushes border crossers into the position of ‘pure victim’, ‘vulnerable’, ‘bare humans’ and lives, powerless, weak, dependant and subordinate. The inadequate vulnerability screening in combination with the increased number of people waiting to be assessed has proved particularly problematic for survivors of torture, rape and trafficking. Due to the aforementioned dysfunctions and gaps and due to the lack of supporting evidence, like the vulnerability assessment, which would validate one’s story, very serious vulnerabilities were under-​identified and treated as undeserving of international protection. As Sotiria, an interviewee working for an international organization, noted: ‘In general, what we see with the vulnerabilities is that a percentage up to 90 per cent of people residing in the Moria hotspot, were not assessed as vulnerable. We had a case of an asylum seeker who was 108

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under very heavy medication, and during a long asylum interview he fell asleep. Then the caseworker asked him “why you are sleeping, are you not interested in your interview?” ’ In addition, single men were excluded from the vulnerability procedure. The hegemonic discourse, as Gilson argues, ‘associates vulnerability with femininity, weakness and dependency’ and dictates that (single) men are stronger (2016, p 71). As a result, men did not enjoy equal treatment within the Moria hotspot. They had to endure longer queues to use the lavatories or to receive food. They were obliged to sleep inside summer tents in the Moria hotspot’s yard or at the nearby olive fields, even during winter and heavy snow, as if single men do not feel cold, get ill or die (Figure 4.2). In January 2017, three single men living in summer tents died within a week from hypothermia. Their lives had not counted as vulnerable, and their deaths were reduced to tragic accidents. As a result of the inadequate vulnerability assessment procedure, there were various cases of people seeking international protection who were coerced to do anything possible to be assessed as vulnerable and get ‘better’ treatment –​for instance, to be able to live in accommodation outside the Moria hotspot or to have the opportunity to travel to the Greek mainland. Petros, a humanitarian worker for a local NGO, argued: ‘A woman who is raped, for example, en route to Europe and is now in a state of unwanted pregnancy, apart from the fact that it is very unlikely to speak to someone [inside Moria], it is also very unlikely that she will have [an] abortion, since pregnancy is a bonus, a ticket in order to be assessed as vulnerable.’ Serafeim, an aid worker supporting survivors of torture, observed, “vulnerability is the royal road which leads to the refugee status”, but as I found, it is paved with misery, suffering and pain. In 2018, Article 20 of Law 4540/​2018 introduced more categories of vulnerability, including persons with mental disorders and victims of female genital mutilation. However, persons with post-​traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were not explicitly mentioned in this list. Article 23 of Law 4540/​2018 has also amended the procedure for certifying persons subject to torture, rape or other serious forms of violence. In January 2020, the International Protection Act (Law 4636/​2019 adopted on 1 November 2019) came into force, amending the definition of vulnerable persons and persons in need of special procedural guarantees. According to Articles 39(5) (d) and 58(1), relating to reception and identification procedures and reception of asylum seekers, persons with PTSD have been excluded from the vulnerability definition. This was an interesting development given that according to most of the NGO practitioners I interviewed, PTSD 109

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has been highlighted as a major factor of vulnerability of forcibly displaced populations whose needs were not addressed and who have not received adequate psychological support. According to Maya, a mental health practitioner working for an NGO: ‘The conditions inside the refugee camp can inflict vulnerability as there is a coerced cohabitation. Especially in Moria, violence was systematically taking place [in] reality. After all, violence is endemic in the camp. For example, queuing for hours in order to get food, to speak with EASO and get updates for your case, queuing outside the health centre in order to get medical treatment, outside [the reception and identification centre] to see if you will be moved. All these create stress, mental health problems and therefore vulnerability.’ In the aftermath of the fires in the Moria camp, the vulnerability assessment and asylum procedures were suspended again (Exadaktylos and Iliadou, 2020; Guild and Allinson, 2020; UNHCR, 2020). In April 2020, the International Protection Act (Law 4636/​2019) was reformed with the draft law titled ‘Improvement of Migration Legislation’ (Ministry of Migration and Asylum, 2020). This reform is significant as it removes the prioritization of vulnerable persons from the fast-​track border procedures implemented on the Greek Aegean Islands, therefore weakening the protection of vulnerable people. According to Rania, an Asylum Service caseworker I interviewed in 2021: Figure 4.2: Living conditions in the Moria hotspot

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‘Vulnerability is no longer linked to the standard procedure. That is, with Law 4636/​2019 we do not have the authority to refer an individual to the mainland if we have indications of vulnerability (for example, post-​traumatic stress, torture). The lifting of the geographical restriction is no longer a matter of concern for the asylum service, but it is instead a matter for the First Reception Service, and only if there is an individual with a medical condition and there are no suitable medical structures on the island. Even in this case, the applicant must return to the island and have her asylum claim examined in Lesvos. Also, with the latest circular, besides Syria there are four other countries that can never be detached from the border procedure and the agreement with Turkey –​that is, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Therefore, in practice, another stage was introduced in the asylum process, which examines whether asylum seekers can return to Turkey. Previously it was registration, interview and first degree decision. Now it is registration, interview for Turkey and, if they pass this stage, substantive interview for the asylum request and then decision. Also, levels of vulnerability no longer exist.’ Even though the vulnerability classification has been revoked on Lesvos, it is applicable on other Aegean Islands. According to the ECRE, ‘the amendments do not simply change the way the cases of vulnerable applicants are handled but has restricted the very definition of a person with special procedural needs’ (2021, p 9). Consequently, vulnerabilities are often under-​ assessed, with individuals going through the asylum procedure without having their vulnerability assessment completed first (Greek Council for Refugees, 2021; Iliadou, 2022). As Giannis, a lawyer, cynically told me: ‘Vulnerability is no longer taken into consideration. If you are vulnerable, you might be given a better tent or you might be placed somewhere that you might have easier access to the toilets and that’s it. Let me also say that if a person is stabbed or raped in the camp, this does not count as vulnerability. The asylum procedure does not take these situations into consideration and continues as if nothing has happened.’ Another controversial example is the age assessment of unaccompanied minors. Border crossers must be assessed under specific medical and psychosocial procedures in order to be assessed as minors; otherwise, they do not count as such. These assessments have been challenged as being unsuitable, lacking credibility and validity to verify and guarantee one’s age (Feltz, 2015) and vulnerability (Greek Council for Refugees, 2017). The cruel irony is that border crossers can at any time be refused as invalid, 111

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unreliable and non-​credible due to procedures and assessments which themselves lack validity, reliability and credibility.

Third stage: Emergency Relocation Scheme Another formal option or coerced choice for border crossers is the process for applying for the Emergency Relocation Scheme (European Commission, 2017b; UNHCR, 2017) –​a two-​year plan which commenced in 2015, aimed at relocating 160,000 asylum seekers in total, including 106,000 from Greece and Italy, to other European countries to ease the pressure on frontline states (UNHCR, 2017). According to the IOM (2017c), ‘relocation is the transfer of border crossers who are in clear need of international protection from one EU Member State to another Member State where their asylum application will be examined once the relocation has taken place’. Although the European Commission had agreed to relocate 63,302 persons from Greece, between 2015 and 2017 the total number of people that were eventually relocated was 20,066 (European Commission, 2017b; UNHCR, 2017; Joint NGO Briefing, 2021). Furthermore, there are certain eligibility criteria making access to relocation impossible. According to the European Commission, until 2017, those eligible for relocation are ‘nationalities with overall asylum recognition rate of 75% or higher in EU Member States. Currently: Eritrea, Syria, Yemen, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bhutan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates’ (European Commission, 2017b). However, this eligibility restriction excludes many more border crossers who need international protection (UNHCR, 2017). It is discriminatory and exclusionary also for the reason that the assessment should be individualized. In 2017 when I was carrying out my PhD research, there were two thousand people in Greece waiting for relocation within the camps and over two thousand in the process of becoming eligible (European Commission, 2017b). As Amnesty International notes, the EU has failed to implement the relocation scheme by depriving people in need of international protection of one of the few formal options to find sanctuary within the EU (Amnesty International, 2017b; Dearden, 2017). And although the European Commission claimed that 20,066 have already been relocated from Greece, the NGO Action Aid notes that the process of relocation is so slow that ‘at this pace, it will take the EU almost 15 years to relocate them’ (2016, p 15). In 2018, countries such as France, Portugal and Germany reached bilateral agreements with Greece to relocate asylum seekers from Greece to the said countries (Joint NGO Briefing, 2021). In March 2020, another relocation scheme was established that included vulnerable cases. Since April 2020, 4,008 individuals have been relocated from Greece –​among them, 1,628 recognized refugees, 1,531 asylum seekers and 849 unaccompanied children (UNHCR, 2021). In September 2020, following the fires in the Moria hotspot, the scope 112

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of the relocation scheme was expanded (UNHCR, 2021). However, the relocation scheme still has many shortcomings.

Fourth stage: Family Reunification Scheme Another coerced choice is the process of applying for the Family Reunification Scheme, which is also linked with the asylum procedures. Border crossers can apply for family reunification when they reach Lesvos. At the same time, they must apply for international protection and wait until the Greek authorities complete the necessary procedures in order to be allowed to be reunited with their families in another EU country. Border crossers are coerced by the Greek authorities to engage with a stressful, lengthy, slow and mainly impenetrable bureaucratic process. Although family reunification, as the UNHCR notes, ‘is a fundamental aspect of bringing normality back to the lives of persons who have fled persecution or serious harm and have lost family during forced displacement’ (2015, p 6), the process has many shortcomings as it is based on a very narrow definition of ‘family’ and there is no appeal or legal mechanism for cases where a reunification application is rejected. An applicant cannot appeal in person in a case of rejection, and an appeal process is at the discretion of the Greek authorities. In practice, this means that when applicants have their application for reunification refused, they have no legal means to appeal directly against this decision. According to Action Aid, ‘[a]‌long administrative legal procedure could be started in the country where they are located, but with uncertain results. Family reunification then can be postponed for years, or never take place at all’ (2016, p 13). As a result, border crossers seeking to reunite with their families are trapped in an enduring bureaucratic limbo, struggling with bureaucratic procedures. As Cleo, a lawyer and activist who had supported many family reunification cases, argued: “The procedures are so complicated and inconsistent that if refugees do not have a lawyer to do the bureaucratic procedures for them, then they will never be able to complete them by themselves.” When I was working in the Pagani detention centre, I witnessed many cases of border crossers who were coerced to choose to travel irregularly again in order to be reunited with their families in another EU country, since, as they were telling me, this way was faster and even easier than the family reunification scheme. As ActionAid (2016) argues: often parents cannot be reunited with their adult children. Siblings over 18 years of age are not provided with an opportunity to reunite, and family ties across generations are broken as asylum-​seekers find themselves in different countries. This causes stress and grief amongst people who are already suffering the loss of their normal life as they have travelled across the world. It also breaks family ties and networks 113

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that are essential not only to the asylum-​seekers themselves, but also to the societies in which they will eventually integrate.

Fifth stage: Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration Another formal option, and at the same time a coerced choice, is the process of applying for the Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration scheme. The IOM, which is the responsible international body performing voluntary returns, states that in its 40 years of operation, it has ‘assisted’ more than four hundred thousand people to voluntarily return to their countries of origin ‘with dignity and safety’ (IOM, no date b). Between June 2016 and July 2018, 11,525 people were returned from Greece (IOM, 2017c). While between September 2019 and August 2022, 16,500 people will be voluntarily returned (IOM, 2020). According to the IOM (2017c), one key feature of the voluntary returns is that people are fully aware and willing to be returned. However, as academic research has shown, voluntary returns often involve use of coercion and violence. As Andrijasevic and Walters argue, ‘when migrants make the decision to return under duress or as an alternative to state-​enforced expulsions, “voluntary” seems to designate an absence of viable options rather than a deliberate option’ (2010, p 993). Border crossers on Lesvos might not be exposed to direct violence in order to voluntarily return, but upon their arrival they are exposed to a ‘stealthy’ form of violence (Li, 2009, p 67) due to the exhausting, slow, confusing and inconsistent bureaucracy, delays, postponements and waits. After mental exhaustion is operationalized (as a deterrent strategy), border crossers are implicitly coerced to withdraw their asylum claim and to voluntarily return home. According to Annie, a practitioner in a well-​known international organization: ‘We are trying to explain to people what their options are according to the EU legislation. Whether they like it or not, these are the options they have. We cannot do something about it. It was their choice to leave and come here. Therefore, the options they are given are specific. What can we do? Not all deserve the refugee protection, and the non-​ deserving must return to their countries.’ As if fleeing poverty, violence, conflict and persecution can indeed be considered a choice, Annie’s quote is very indicative of the attitude that many international organizations and other civil society organizations –​ which have assumed a leading role in migration governance on Lesvos –​ have towards border crossers. In addition, the quote is indicative of how international organizations and civil society organizations can enable harmful 114

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border policies by becoming complicit in state violence (Sarantidis, 2021). Therefore, ‘voluntary’ returns are not ‘options’ being made freely. It is a coerced choice enforced by specific bureaucratic responses and deterrent border policies and practices. Juma’s story, in the next section, is an example of how voluntary return is in essence a coerced choice.

Juma Juma is a border crosser from Afghanistan who entered Greece via Lesvos in 2008. When I first met him, he was detained in the Pagani detention centre as an unaccompanied minor. Juma spent more than a decade waiting for a final decision for his asylum case. While he was waiting, he went to school, learned Greek, worked for various NGOs and made friends. In 2017, his asylum claim was refused in a second instance degree, and the only option left for him was to appeal to the Higher Court. Throughout the research period, I witnessed Juma’s agonizing struggle of searching, requesting and collecting certifications, verification and references from all the organizations, networks and employees he had worked for in the last decade in order to present them to the Higher Court as evidence of his achievements while living in Greece. “This is outrageous. In other EU countries I would have been granted citizenship for all these things I have accomplished here”, Juma told me. I never learned whether he found the courage and money to present himself before the Higher Court to ask for what should have been automatic: for the ten years that he spent in Greece –​the years of his life that were wasted due to Greek state’s backlog –​to be acknowledged and, at the least, returned to him in the form of refugee status or humanitarian protection. I am not sure if his appeal was refused or if he just stopped trying and waiting for something which was never going to happen. This protracted waiting, systematic refusal, precariousness and liminality –​in other words, stuckedness –​exhausted him physically, psychologically and emotionally. One day, I saw a short post with his photo on Facebook. He was holding a plastic IOM bag and standing in front of a plane. He was smiling but his eyes looked sad. The post was accompanied by a short farewell to all of his Facebook friends: ‘This is it. Goodbye Europe, I am going back home.’ In the aftermath of the ‘crisis’ in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s reaccession to power, Juma started sending me desperate messages asking for money and help to evacuate Afghanistan with his family and come again to Europe.

Sixth stage: coerced deportations Coerced deportations are probably the only formal option that EU states offer generously to border crossers. Deportations often take place with the excessive use of violence on behalf of state officials, which in many instances 115

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has proved fatal (European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, 2015). Resisting deportation is a very common reaction of border crossers who consider that their deportation back ‘home’ or to another ‘safe’ country equates to their death penalty. Resisting deportation inaugurates more violence by state officials and inflicts more harm and deaths (Fekete, 2003). Self-​inflicted harms are also very common forms of resistance by border crossers who prefer to die than be deported to their countries of origin or to a safe country (Deportation Monitoring Aegean, 2019). As Weber and Pickering (2011, p 143) argue, deaths due to suicide and self-​ harm count as border-​related deaths. In Lesvos, deportations take place on a regular basis, and border crossers are deported despite serious life-​ threatening health conditions and/​or disabilities (Detention Monitoring Aegean and Legal Centre Lesbos, 2018). The coerced deportation operations are not carried out in secrecy, but are normalized by being executed in public view and by producing a theatrical border spectacle. Coerced deportations are the exemplar of what Nicola De Genova calls ‘waste removal’ –​a state’s perfunctory and mundane act of ‘taking out the trash’ (2018, p 253). As social anthropologist Shahram Khosravi (2018a) argues, deportation is by nature coercive. Who, in the first place, wants to be deported back to a country from which she has fled persecution, war, violence, conflict and destitution? Furthermore, who wants to ‘be expelled from one country but only to find her/​himself an outcast in another’ (Khosravi, 2018a, p 2)? As academic research indicates, after deportation border crossers often face situations of exclusion, precariousness, fear, anxiety and violence worse that those they were confronting prior to their initial departure (Khosravi, 2018a, p 12).

Seventh stage: irregular travel After living and waiting in limbo until they complete the multiple bureaucratic procedures, border crossers are eventually deterred and withdraw their asylum applications, and they are indirectly coerced to continue their journey by following other irregular border crossroads from Lesvos and the Greek mainland to other European countries. Border crossers are coerced to deal with the ‘local’ smuggling and trafficking networks. The smuggling and trafficking networks on Lesvos have rapidly proliferated from individuals and ordinary citizens who ‘offer’ a place within their vehicle to state officials who turn a blind eye and local shopkeepers who forge travel documentations (Greek Reporter, 2015; Alfavita, 2018; Ekathimerini, 2018). The vicious circle of exploitation, violence and commodification of border crossers continues from Lesvos to the Greek mainland (Reuters, 2018), along the Balkan route (Brunovskis and Surtees, 2017), the Bosnian-​Croatian border 116

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(Are You Syrious, 2018b), Calais (France) and the UK (Freedom United, 2017), and Ventimiglia at the French–​Italian border (Giuffrida, 2018).

Conclusion All in all, these intentional policies surrounding the asylum procedures are a form of bureaucratic violence that perpetuate and inflict more harm, since rejection often means deportation or readmission to harmful and life-​ threatening conditions. As Samantha, a lawyer and activist, noted: ‘The violence of bureaucracy is one of the most dominant problems which we are facing here. I do not understand how and why the system operates like this. If the system was just corrupted or dysfunctional, I would find ways of supporting refugees by manoeuvring within the system. However, the problem is that the system is so inconsistent that I cannot manoeuvre within it. I constantly am confronted with multiple symbolic fences.’ As I found on Lesvos, the bureaucratic procedures are intentionally maze-​ like, inconsistent and confusing so that border crossers can enter them but cannot easily exit them. And due to this inconsistency, uncertainty, confusion and chaos, advocates for border crossers do not have enough time and room to (re)act. The procedural chaos and the bureaucratization of the asylum procedures on Lesvos make navigation inside the system almost impossible. As a result of the inconsistent, multiple and parallel procedures, border crossers become even more confused and dependant on lawyers and NGOs, since otherwise their navigation within the system becomes a ‘mission impossible’. Inconsistency and chaos leave many windows open for the authorities to manoeuvre and be arbitrary. However, the inconsistency and uncertainty produced within the bureaucratic procedures, as Zachary Whyte argues, ‘is not so much an unfortunate by-​product of determination procedures, as fundamental to the system’s functioning as a technology of power’ (2011, p 21). As such, it is also part and parcel of bureaucratic deterrence, which aims to make people suffer by making their lives unliveable and indirectly coercing them to withdraw their asylum application and return back to where they came from. Due to the inconsistency and multitude of bureaucratic procedures, border crossers constantly feel uncertainty and fear. The long and slow procedures within all bureaucratic stages become exhausting and torturous and lead to psychological and emotional damage of people who must endure appalling and life-​threatening living conditions in/​outside camps, and of course the threat of coerced deportation to the countries where they were persecuted in the first place. As Sophia, a lawyer, noted: “For me, an investigation must 117

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be done at some point [into] how the psychology and the mental condition of people who live in camps has changed, in particular in the islands.” As demonstrated earlier, the bureaucratic procedures are lengthy, slow, inconsistent and dysfunctional. As a result, from the moment they are embedded into the system, border crossers get stuck and wait in bureaucratic and legal limbo (Cabot, 2012), often for years. To the slow procedures, one must add the systematic postponements and cancellations of appointments and asylum interviews without any prior notice, which push individuals back to the start of the process. Almost all of the border crossers I interviewed had experienced cancellations and postponements of their asylum interviews, not just once but multiple times. Mahdi, an Iranian border crosser, had to cross the threshold of the Moria camp and the intimidating gazes of control seven times because his asylum interview had been postponed and rescheduled –​and therefore he had to experience fear, stress, hope, postponement and hopelessness seven times. In this sense, navigation within the system and the bureaucratic procedures are not only Kafkaesque but Sisyphean too. Although, the range of emotional and psychological harms inflicted upon border crossers as they navigate within the bureaucratic maze is overwhelming, it is not perceived by them as violence. Furthermore, not only is this form of violence invisible, routinized and taken for granted, but also it is tolerated (Scheper-​Hughes, 2004; Gupta, 2012). “Something is better than nothing”, one interviewee commented on the chaos and inconsistency of the bureaucratic procedures. The bureaucratic responses which were enforced in the aftermath of the refugee crisis were aiming to establish orderly, fast, standardized and harmonized procedures in Greece and with the other EU member states. However, as I found, it was the bureaucratic responses which intensified the suffering of border crossers (Kleinman et al, 1997). In the next chapter, I discuss the harmful consequences of the necropolitical border regime upon border crossers inside the camps.

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5

Necroharms: Obscene and Grotesque Violence In the aftermath of the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’, Greece, and Lesvos especially, have attracted much attention due to the escalation of border violence and the infliction of social harm and suffering against forcibly displaced people. Since 2015, there has been a growing body of literature focusing on physical violence, pushback operations and left-​to-​die practices, which routinely take place at the Aegean Sea –​the liquid border between Greece and Turkey. At the same time, activist work/​research at the borders and the testimonies of border crossers themselves have unearthed a plethora of human rights abuses, torture and other violent acts of omission and commission by state officials, which either inflict death or increase the risk of death. This literature is significant as it highlights the way physical violence and deaths at the borders are operationalized in everyday migration governance by becoming the norm (see Chapter 6). However, despite the hypervisibility of border violence while people are en route, less attention has been given to the routinization and normalization of the necropolitical violence as a modus operandi of migration governance. Necropolitical violence routinely and silently unfolds within and beyond the borders. It creeps into detention centres, refugee camps, hotspots and even whole islands by intentionally inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering, violating human dignity and, therefore, implicitly killing/​torturing those who traverse the EU borders without authorization. The chapter explores the human consequences of the ‘necropolitical’ (Mbembe, 2003) border regime upon the lives which are apprehended ‘unliveable’ (Butler, 2004). It focuses on the manifold abandonments (left-​ to-​die practices) of border crossers, inside and beyond the refugee camp, in appalling conditions that not only are tantamount to torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, but also inflict, normalize and naturalize disposability, humiliation, social death and suffering. This chapter builds on Achille Mbembe’s (2003) work on necropolitics to explore the governance of migration through abandonment to death. The paper does not intend 119

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to bring a contribution to the theory of necropolitics as such rather it builds on and is situated in critical migration and border studies literature to understand the production of humiliation and degradation, racialized social death and disposability as a modus operandi of migration governance (Cacho, 2012; Davies et al, 2017; Mayblin et al, 2019; Gordon and Larsen, 2021).The chapter engages with three bodies of literature: the social harm approach (Hillyard and Tombs, 2007; Dorling et al, 2008; Pemberton, 2015), critical migration and border studies (De León, 2015; Squire, 2017) and social anthropology of violence (Scheper-​Hughes and Bourgois, 2004). It provides insights into border crossers’ lived experiences of violence. Finally, the chapter speaks to the debate in the field of border zemiology about the harmful consequences of the necropolitical border regime and introduces a new conceptual category of social harm which is termed necroharms. The first section begins with a discussion on the politics of abandonment –​ that is, migration governance through deterrence, dehumanization, violence and social death. The existing literature indicates a shift from the thanatopolitical border regime to a necropolitical one, applicable in refugee camps, hotspots and detention centres. I argue instead that these two modes of migration governance overlap, intersect, operate and unfold simultaneously and synergistically by implicitly killing and torturing people. The second section discusses the human consequences of the necropolitical border regime which quietly unfolds within and beyond borders and exposes forcibly displaced populations into protracted ‘states of injury’ (Mbembe, 2003, p 21). I introduce a new conceptual category of harm which I term necroharms. The chapter closes by arguing that the violence border crossers are subjected to at, within and beyond borders are ‘obscene, vulgar and grotesque’ (Mbembe, 1992, p 3) and tantamount to torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The manifold left-​to-​die practices in refugee camps violate human rights and the inherent right to dignity by enabling the destruction of personhood, human life and liberty. Resembling landfills and graveyards wherein lives, dignity and rights are routinely wasted, disposed of and ultimately buried, camps form a ‘death world’ (Mbembe, 1992, p 3) that inflicts suffering, disposability and, notably, social death. Through this lens, social death is conceptualized as border-​related deaths.

The politics of abandonment The Critical Migration and Border Studies literature focusing on the politics of death draws on the works of Foucault (1978), Agamben (1998) and Mbembe (2003) to critically explore the violence and brutality which underpin the policies, practices and modes of migration governance. This literature is significant as it indicates the shifting dimensions of the thanatopolitical and necropolitical EU border regime that historically unfolds 120

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in time and space (Vaughan-​Williams, 2015a; Davies et al, 2017; Squire, 2017). On the one hand, this literature indicates that the thanatopolitical border regime is predominantly enforced at the borders while people are en route, through multilayered, deliberate deterring-​killing policies and practices, actions and inactions –​by state officials and border agents –​of exposure and abandonment of border crossers to death or an increased risk of death (De León, 2015; Iliadou, 2021b).1 On the other hand, this literature indicates a shift from a thanatopolitical to a necropolitical border regime that is enforced after the border is crossed, inside refugee camps, hotspots and detention centres (Davies et al, 2017; Gordon and Larsen, 2021). The thanatopolitical violence is now turned into necropolitical violence through border crossers’ disposal in appalling, inhuman and degrading conditions. Here, the deterring-​killing policies and practices slowly, implicitly kill by producing disposability and social death. Contra to the existing literature that indicates the shift from thanatopolitical to necropolitical border management, I argue that these two modes of migration governance coexist, operate and unfold simultaneously and synergistically, overlap, combine and intersect by producing and inflicting a multitude of harms.

Necroharms Necropolitics was conceptualized by Achille Mbembe as a critique of the Eurocentric notion of biopower in order to explain more brutal and oppressive forms of ‘subjugation of life to the power of death’ (2003, p 39). Necropolitics not only is linked with outright death but also defines the power of exposing entire populations through abandonment to a permanent condition of social injury, pain and suffering. As Mbembe argues, necropolitics forms ‘death-​worlds’ –​that is to say, ‘new and unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of living dead’ (2003, p 40). Through this lens, I introduce a new conceptual category of harm, which is termed necroharm, by bringing together Mbembe’s (2003) theory on necropolitics and critical migration and border studies scholars’ work on necropolitics (Davies et al, 2017; Gordon and Larsen, 2021), social death (Cacho, 2012) and the ‘social harm’ approach (Hillyard and Tombs, 2007; Dorling et al, 2008; Pemberton, 2015). Through this lens, I expand the social harm typology by highlighting the necropolitical dimension and consequences of social harm upon forcibly displaced people. Necroharms are related to disposability, humiliation, dehumanization, abandonment and, therefore, social death; they include mental harms, social

1

For a more detailed discussion, see Chapter 6. 121

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injury, pain and suffering which are related to and are an outcome of the necropolitical border regime. Νecroharms are linked to the ascription and denial, devaluation and destruction of life and personhood in racialized, gendered, sexualized, spatialized, legal and moral terms (Cacho, 2012). As Eleanor Gordon and Henrik Kjellmo Larsen put it: ‘there is a profound racial dimension to dehumanization and the subsequent infliction of violence. It is not, after all, white Westerners dying in their thousands in the Mediterranean Sea or trapped in inhumane conditions in official and makeshift camps’ (2021, p 423) (Figure 5.1). Necroharms do not necessarily inflict physical death nor directly endanger life; it is through border crossers’ treatment that their obscenity and brutality make themselves apparent. Through necropolitical border management (within and beyond borders), the Greek authorities have orchestrated a ‘torturing environment’ (Pérez-​Sales et al, 2022) –​that is, an atmosphere of everyday terror, constant uncertainty and humiliation wherein border crossers are forced to live every day in fear of being killed, humiliated, harmed or abused. In this torturing environment, fear is, subsequently, instilled in all persons, and though state policies and practices do not actively kill, they do inflict psychological terror, severe physical or mental suffering and pain. Therefore, border crossers are not actively killed but are ‘being kept “permanently injured” ’ (Davies et al, 2017, p 1267). Necroharms are actualized through: systematic and enduring degrading treatment; negligence, acts of omission and commission; abandonment or exposure to obnoxious

Figure 5.1: A tent outside the Moria hotspot

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Figure 5.2: Graffiti on a wall outside the Moria hotspot: ‘Human rights graveyard’

environmental conditions; forced standing and queuing, and indefinite waiting in refugee camps; precariousness and exclusion from citizenship and rights. All in all, this treatment: inflicts severe mental harm or suffering on persons that is tantamount to torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (United Nations, 1984; Pérez-​Sales et al, 2022); violates human dignity –​the inherent value of all human beings; and reduces racialized populations to being ‘ineligible for personhood’ (Cacho, 2012, p 6). As Cacho argues, ‘to be ineligible is a form of social death’ (2012, p 6). Subsequently, social death is a direct consequence of the violation of dignity and the destruction of life and personhood (Bhatia, 2018). The following sections focus on the various indignities, racisms and devaluations border crossers have been subjected to in the Moria hotspot on Lesvos.

The Moria camp as a graveyard Despite the millions of EU funds that were invested for the construction of a contemporary space of border control and filtering, since 2016, when I have been visiting and conducting research on the site, Moria never felt like an organized official site (Figure 5.2). Despite the surveillance, tall fences and walls, the police, the G4S and other security and humanitarian 123

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actors that allegedly monitor the site, Moria, like all borders, was too permeable. As I realized with a little bit of serendipity, anyone could enter the hotspot. With the assistance of one of my key informants, I entered Moria premises literally from the back door, without being perceived by the Greek authorities. Another researcher told me a similar story: “I just found the gate open and I entered. No one told me anything. I walked inside holding my coffee and then I quietly left. The authorities probably thought that I was an NGO staff.” And yet other professionals trespassed Moria’s threshold through holes and breaks on the border fence. This awkward and unconventional trespassing through holes and breaks on the border literally, but also metaphorically, challenged and rendered the securitization narrative a myth or euphemism. Furthermore, the overcrowded facilities, the inhuman and appalling conditions, as well as the environmental degradation –​within, around and outside Moria –​ blurred any sense of the site as a camp. Moria looked like an active landfill wherein lives were systematically devalued, humiliated and disposed of. From this angle, border crossers, upon arrival, were routinely exposed to dehumanization and the ‘brutal indignity of harmful spatial environments’ (Davies et al, 2017, p 1269). Even after its ‘death’, Moria did not suggest a space suitable for human beings. The abandoned tents, belongings, clothes and shoes produced a dystopic and macabre landscape. The remains of the concrete infrastructures that held the compounds and containers felt like open tombs. In a sense, Moria looked like a graveyard wherein EU values, frayed and disgraced, were buried.

Moria as a site of violence Up to the total destruction of the Moria camp on 9 September 2021, Greek authorities had systematically failed to fulfil their duty of care to forcibly displaced people who found themselves there, but instead inflicted or increased the risk of harm. Through (in)actions, Greek authorities did not provide adequate protection and dignified living conditions to the thousands of border crossers. The living conditions within and around Moria were inhuman, appalling, degrading, and border crossers were coerced to live there for indefinite periods of time (Amnesty International, 2015a; Médecins Sans Frontières, 2017a). There was inadequate access to healthcare and medical services as well as poor infrastructures. Altogether, they constituted an abject violation of the provisions of the Recast Reception Conditions Directive 2013/​33/​EU on dignified standards of living (Figure 5.3). Furthermore, they constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment which was tantamount to torture. As Kevin, a border crosser from Ghana, emphasized: “Moria is not a place for human beings to live. There is no good, proper accommodation, no good healthcare and no education for 124

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Figure 5.3: A mortuary poster on a wall in Mytilene city centre: ‘The death of European solidarity’

children, no good food and no good sanitation. We are just living between the bushes and the forest.” The smell of urine and human excrement spread almost everywhere, as due to the overcrowded facilities, sanitary conditions could not be guaranteed, and access to lavatories and bathrooms required long queuings. According to Amir, a refugee from Iran: “I never use Moria’s lavatories or bathrooms. There is no water, and the bathrooms are filthy. I go to the woods for toilet or bathing even if the water is cold.” During one of my many field trips to Moria, I witnessed male border crossers bathing outside using buckets, even in the winter cold. According to Kevin: 125

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‘Sometimes the pipe will not flow water for a whole day, and therefore we have buckets to reserve water and use. Also, since we arrived in Moria, there is snow, and the water was very cold. So most people were waiting for approximately one month without taking a bath.’ In Moria, border crossers were denied dignified housing, hygienic conditions, clothing, medical treatment and even food. “For how long one can bear to eat only rice or potatoes on a daily basis and within this filthy place?” Khalid, a border crosser from Syria, asked me. Indeed, when I interviewed Stella, a coordinator of an NGO working in Moria, she pointed out the serious issue of malnutrition. According to her: “Another problem is that border crossers are not eating well; they are malnourished. And you will also see the army inside there distributing food. But still they will distribute food to refugees coming from conflict zones.” Wintering within the Moria camp was an additional source of pain and suffering (Figure 5.4). As Hamza, a border crosser from Pakistan, told me: ‘During my first night in Moria, I slept outside in the rain. It was very cold and I did not have a tent. I slept outside because no one gave me any tent and guidance on where to go. I was given later a very small tent, and we were 14 men who were living in there. It was very difficult to sleep in such a small place. Furthermore, the weather was too cold and we did not have any heater, while blankets were not enough.’ Mary, another NGO practitioner, summarized the problems that border crossers experienced in Moria as follows: ‘Currently, the numbers of people that are accommodated on this site are four or five times more than the number that normally should be. Thus, you have overcrowded facilities, which is a problem. Facilities, obviously, are not good and the living conditions are not dignified. Toilets are not enough. There is no warm water. There are some containers, but the tents are myriad. Refugees do not have enough clothes for winter. If you are living in a tent, when it snows outside, you feel cold, because obviously there is no heating. These are the main problems –​the food and in reality the place they are living –​because they are detained inside a detention centre.’ Indeed the cold was unbearable even for me, and I was only visiting Moria for a few hours each day, wearing my warm coat and clothes. I was shivering. While I was conducting fieldwork in January 2017, within a single week three men who were living in summer tents in Moria died from hypothermia (Médecins Sans Frontières, 2017d; Iliadou, 2019a). The men shared the 126

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Figure 5.4: A tent in the Moria hotspot: misery funded by the EU

same tent. Following the death of one of the border crossers from Pakistan, a UNHCR spokesperson told me: ‘This is a tragic and sad event, but this is something which has not yet been confirmed. The autopsy is still in progress, but this is indicative of how the media and also people have in their minds that every incident inside Moria is associated with the awful conditions.’ The results of the autopsy were not disclosed to the public despite the efforts of many NGOs and activist networks to find out the truth. As Morteza, an Afghan NGO interpreter, pointed out: ‘Just before I left Moria, I was told to write a note saying that refugees should not light fires inside their tents because it is dangerous. I was told to hurry up and stick the translated announcement outside their tents. “Now are you in a hurry?”, I asked them. “Now that three people died?” Did you understand? They were rash because they did not want to be accused of omission to inform.’ The structurally violent conditions and the abandonment of border crossers in degrading conditions can either inflict or increase the risk of death. 127

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In November 2016, a 66-​year-​old woman and her 6-​year-​old grandchild died after a gas cylinder they were using for cooking exploded inside her tent (Holmes, 2016). Deb, an NGO practitioner, told me: ‘Refugees use gas cylinders to cook as the food in Moria is not good. Despite the explosion, there are still some gas cylinders inside the tents, and as you can understand, tents are flammable. There are even wires used to provide electricity that go through water. This is also dangerous to cause an explosion and/​or electrocution.’ In addition to the harmful conditions, border crossers were routinely exposed to exhausting and extended waiting and queuing for almost everything: the completion of identification, registration and asylum procedures; to access the lavatories and showers; to receive food and clothes, medical care and treatment. As Mustafa, an Afghan, noted: ‘The minimum you must wait to get food is one hour. Everything here has to do with queuing, but how can older people stand for one hour? They try to go in front of the queue and the police beat them. [People ask:] “Why do you do this? He is an old man! How can he stand in a queue for an hour?” And the police officer says: “This is not my problem, this is your problem. You must wait for one hour.” ’ Also, even though there were various NGOs providing medical treatment, access to medical treatment and healthcare was, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (2017a), restricted since border crossers might wait for up to six months to see a doctor within the hotspot. As Mustafa said: “If you want to go to the doctor, you can go, but there is also queuing there and waiting to give you a paper.” Despite the picture of seeming order which queuing suggests, as Megan Comfort (2008) and Javier Auyero (2011) observe, one should pay attention to the general conditions and context in which waiting and queuing takes place. Moria was not the typical administration or welfare office. There were no waiting rooms there. There were not even offices in general –​just containers transformed into offices. There were no walls to lean on, no chairs to sit on, and all border crossers experienced forced queuing and standing and were simultaneously being exposed to extreme environmental conditions (that is, snow and rain in winter or heat during summer). Forced standing and queuing under these conditions inflicted acute mental harm (besides the bodily pain) and left multiple psychological effects on border crossers. For instance, due to humiliation, despair and anger, border crossers used to run out of patience and fight with each other over priority in the queue. And then the police would intervene with excessive violence. 128

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Forced queuing and standing is a common and systematic practice implemented by states for the underclass and the more marginalized members of humanity. In this regard, queuing, waiting and standing are class structured (Auyero, 2011). However, the practice of forced queuing, similar to forced standing, is a form of torture which aims to humiliate, discipline and punish border crossers. As I witnessed, forced standing through queuing was a dominant form of abuse and torture in Moria, but because it was so normalized and naturalized, it was not perceived as such. It was ‘taken for granted’ (Scheper-​ Hughes, 1997, p 473). Concerning forced standing as a routinized method of torture by the Greek authorities, Thaleia, an activist, told me: ‘There were incidents where refugees living in Moria camp were throwing stones. Some of them were arrested by the police and transferred to the police station. However, the police also arrested some other refugees who just happened to be near the incident. Refugees said that when they were at the police station, they were subjected to repeated beating, slapping, interrogation and forced standing for hours by the police.’ Border crossers not only had to endure long queues for almost everything, but also were routinely treated in degrading ways. The provision of medical care and treatment was either inadequate or denied. For instance, doctors used to prescribe paracetamol to cure all problems and pains. As Mustafa said: ‘If you have a serious health problem, the doctor will give you a medicine. If you have headache, the doctor will you give the same medicine. If you have stomach problem, they will give you the same medicine. All they have is one tablet. For all problems they give one tablet.’ As Sams, an Afghan border crosser, argued: “Doctors do not have medicines for all people. The doctors say: ‘I do not have medicines to give you, you have a paper from me and so go to the pharmacy and buy them.’ ” The systematic denial of medical care and treatment in refugee camps and detention centres is not new. When I was working in the Pagani detention centre, I witnessed multiple cases of people queuing for hours outside the surgery only to be given paracetamol and even placebo pills, which in reality were caramels (Iliadou, 2019a). Furthermore, in cases of skin disease, the doctor did not prescribe any treatment to relieve the symptoms but used to shout at people: “Hamam [take a bath] my friend, hamam!” This humiliating, degrading and racist treatment also undermined border crossers’ intelligence by belittling them as ignorant, dirty and uncivilized, incapable of telling the difference between medicines and placebo pills, caramels and paracetamol. 129

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Within and around Moria, medical care for border crossers with mental health issues and alcohol and drug addiction was also inadequate. Due to the financial crisis and the cutbacks within all sectors, as well as the overwhelming number of border crossers in Lesvos, hospital and medical staff working there were not able to provide adequate medical and mental health consultation, treatment and follow-​up to border crossers. According to Médecins Sans Frontières, ‘between June and September, an average of six to seven new patients per week arrived at MSF’s clinic on Lesvos in acute need of mental health consultations following suicide attempts, incidents of self-​harm, or psychotic episodes’ (Médecins Sans Frontières, 2017b). Children on the move were at great risk of additional suffering. Sexual violence in refugee camps is endemic, and the best interest of the child could not be guaranteed. Also children experienced anxiety, depression, headaches and insomnia (Human Rights Watch, 2019a). Vasilis, an NGO practitioner supporting children on the move, told me: ‘We are all witnesses of the difficult weather conditions, where when you see a child being exposed to these conditions, the picture is brutal and cruel. We witness that on an everyday basis as we are working with children, and we even see their drawings, the way they do things, their everyday routine and their psychology. In Moria there were several fires, which was something dramatic for children and families. There is fear. They are dominated by stress, which is cumulative due to what they have experienced both in their countries and during their journey.’ The mental health of border crossers with new or pre-​existing mental health issues or PTSD dramatically deteriorated and exacerbated to such an extent that Médecins Sans Frontières published a plea to the EU and Greek policy makers ‘to stop inflicting additional suffering on people who are already traumatised’ (Médecins Sans Frontières, 2017c). Border crossers experienced multiple forms of violence before they even reached Greece, in their countries of origin and en route to Europe. Many have survived wars, bombings and massacres; they have witnessed deaths and killings of other people, including their loved ones; many are survivors of torture, sexual violence and physical and psychological abuse. As Maria, a support worker in an international organization, said: ‘Refugees who have been exposed to torture, when they hear people shouting [during riots or fighting], get upset and cannot calm down due to PTSD. The living conditions here are not suitable for abused or tortured people, who have such a violent background and experience. Another problem is that refugees are already victims of violence from their home countries, while they are also exposed to violence while 130

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they wait in Turkey. Mainly women and LGBTQ+​people who are waiting and working in Turkey to gather money to pay the trafficker to travel to Greece are brutally abused.’ The inadequate reception and living conditions in Moria not only retraumatized and exacerbated mental health problems or PTSD, but also inflicted new harms. According to Serafeim, an aid worker supporting survivors of torture, “The range of harm and trauma border crossers experience within camps and detention centres is immense and worse in comparison to the overall violence they experience outside camps.” In addition, witnessing violence, abuse and death of others –​in, outside and around Moria –​had an impact on border crossers’ mental health, manifested via despair, suicide attempts, self-​harm or psychotic episodes (Médecins Sans Frontières, 2017a; Iliadou, 2019a). According to Javid, a refugee NGO practitioner from Afghanistan: ‘Refugees are afraid and many of them have psychological problems and are on medications. I see people who visit the psychiatrist, spend some days at the hospital and then they return to Moria. The psychiatrist has prescribed them anti-​depressants because most of them are dealing with depression. So, these people have a serious problem when they hear yelling, fighting, riots, demonstrations and fires. They are afraid because they relive the trauma of war or torture.’ Survival sex –​in and beyond Moria –​was another form of humiliation and degradation that inflicted grave suffering upon people. As Andriana, an NGO practitioner, told me: “Moria is a miniature of the society. There will be drugs and prostitution and everything inside there.” The Greek state did not provide border crossers with the right to work, and as a result men, women and unaccompanied minors were coerced into prostitution or petty crime to meet their needs (Iliadou, 2019b). A UNHCR spokesperson noted: ‘Apart from the fact that there are many stories of women who were forced into sex to secure their journey here, you have cases where they are forced into survival sex generally and after they have reached here [Greece], to improve their living standards, their life. Unaccompanied minors in Athens, for instance, do this [survival sex] to be able to spend some nights inside a house, take a proper bath, to sleep in a proper bed. All these are things that should have been secured so that no one would be forced to do things like that.’ The issue of survival sex became an issue of concern for the local community as well, as many locals expressed their concerns about sexually transmissible 131

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diseases, such as HIV. According to Giannis, a local volunteer: “There were cases of refugee women who, due to destitution and precariousness, were approaching local men by saying to them in broken Greek to give them a blowjob in exchange for money.” Katerina, another NGO practitioner, noted the increased number of abortion and HIV cases. According to her: “There are many cases of survival sex but there are also many cases of abortion because of that, as we hear from the hospital. Women go to the hospital and they do abortions. They have unprotected sex.” Furthermore,women, men and unaccompanied minors are often raped multiple times, in the country of origin, from border to border, and from transit zone to transit zone, as well as within the so-​called safe havens en route to Europe and Greece. In October 2016, an unaccompanied boy detained under ‘protective custody’ by the Greek state within the Moria hotspot was raped by other minors within the section where minors were detained (Médecins du Monde, 2016). According to one of my interviewees, although there were gatekeepers on shift inside the unit at the time the incident took place, as well as carers from an NGO operating there, none of them heard or saw anything. This incident, which was not an isolated one also brings to the surface the issue of the harms associated with the systematic practice of prolonged detention of unaccompanied minors (Médecins du Monde, 2016). The fear and insecurity of sexual violence was so enormous within the Moria hotspot that even during the day women were afraid to use the bathrooms without being escorted, for fear of being raped (UNHCR, 2018). According to Salif: ‘If my [female] friends want to go to the toilet, I must go with them. I wait for them to finish and then we go back together. There are no lights. When lights are broken, they are not immediately substituted. Thus, women have [a]‌problem. These things can happen because there are so many people in the camps, and you must expect to see unexpected situations taking place which normally would not.’ A study conducted in the Moria hotspot found that the percentage of border crossers that had received sexual humiliation was high (Pérez-​Sales et al, 2022). According to this study, there were even cases of border crossers that had to be evacuated from the camp due to the range of violence they were experiencing related to their LGBTQ+​identity. Furthermore, the authors found other types of violence against girls and women such as the following: ‘In the Afghan population, virginity tests were conducted to arrange marriages within the camp. In some cases, medical services were asked to carry out such tests. The authorities neither encourage nor prohibit

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such practices although in many cases, underage girls are involved’ (Pérez-​ Sales et al, 2022, p 6). Humiliation, racism and verbal abuse by the police occurred systematically inside and outside Moria. Erfan, a Pakistani border crosser, told me: “The police all the time say malakas [wanker]. I do not know why. Malakas is a very famous word in Moria.” However, police very often exercised more subtle and brutal forms of violence. When they used to see border crossers fighting with each other in a queue, they did not react; on the contrary they laughed and amused themselves at the border crossers’ expense. As Mustafa argued: “The police see refugees fighting and they just stay around for the amusement. Some others just stare at how we fight.” This humiliating practice routinely takes place inside camps and immigration detention centres and is not new. I have been witnessing these dehumanizing practices by police, gatekeepers and even non-​police staff since 2008, while working in Pagani (Iliadou, 2019a). In Pagani, police officers not only amused themselves at the expense of border crossers, but would also bet on who would win the fight. Due to the nature of the camps, hotspots and immigration detention per se –​which depersonalizes and dehumanizes people, who are not seen as real persons but as a faceless mass (Bauman, 2004) –​every time border crossers fought, the police and other staff used to say: “These are not people. They are animals.” The ultimate humiliation, dehumanization and animalization of border crossers, which takes place through the anthropocentric hierarchical distinctions between human and animal species, is a condition one routinely encounters within the borders (Haslam, 2006; Vaughan-​Williams, 2015b). I will never forget one gatekeeper in Pagani who, on the very rare occasions when border crossers were allowed to walk for a few minutes in the yard, when he wanted to ask them to get into their cells, would not speak but would make the belittling sound tsaprou (τσαπρού), which is what shepherds usually do to the sheep. I was devalued by the police several times. I remember a police officer mocking me by saying “one day we will confuse you with them and we will lock you in”, while another police officer did indeed confuse me with one of the detainees and started shouting at me: “Hey, you. Get in now!” and grabbed me by my arm, only to then apologize for his ‘mistake’. Georgoulas and Sarantidis offer interesting insights into the everyday racist violence inflicted by the police in Pagani, gained through their conversations with the guards: In May 2009, during a conversation with a police officer at the detention centre we were talking about the overcrowding of detainees and the poor sanitation. At some point, he told us: ‘All those who come from Asia are parasites… What should we (the police) do? Start sinking

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the boats they are coming [on]?’ One of his colleagues listening to our conversation replied: ‘We need a Great Alexander to clean them all, all of them are uncivilized and barbarians.’ (2013, p 97) Excessive abuse and police violence inside the Moria hotspot has also been recorded by border crossers and activists (No Border Kitchen Lesvos, 2017). According to Ari, a human rights’ lawyer: ‘a common form of torture that police exercise against refugees is through random arrests in the street, where refugees are kept at the police station for hours, handcuffed to chairs and beaten very badly. Another common form of torture is that they force refugees to undress and leave them like that, standing for hours. I was also arrested once because I am a foreigner, a lawyer and therefore vulnerable. They had me in an office at the police station and they were asking me various questions. During the interrogation, I noticed that right next to where I was there was a room with closed doors and windows and no light at all. While I was sitting next to it, I heard voices and at one point I heard someone being told in English that they will put him in a boat and send him back. This went on for hours. They kept a refugee in a closed room for hours and kept coming in and out and threatening him.’ Police brutality is endemic in detention centres and refugee camps. Deb, the coordinator of an NGO supporting border crossers and vulnerable groups in Moria, stated: “We are regularly witnessing violent incidents from the police against refugees. You will see refugees waiting in a queue in order to take food and they are beaten by the police for no reason. These things are routinely taking place.” When I was working in Pagani detention centre, I witnessed many instances of violence: border crossers were pushed or pulled, slapped or hit with a baton by police officers; crossers were shouted at and verbally abused; a pregnant woman was pushed down the stairs; unaccompanied minors and other detainees were beaten for requesting supplies, for asking to walk in the yard or to make a phone call. Most of these cases of abuse, although frequent, could not be legally challenged. Often border crossers were intimidated and threatened in order to be deterred from filing a complaint against the police for ill treatment. As Georgoulas and Sarantidis point out: Regarding the cases of physical violence, it was not possible in some cases to obtain sufficient evidence of guilt of the police, and in many other cases the detainees themselves did not wish to bring any legal 134

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action because of the fear that the police would make reprisals. (2013, p 97) Similarly, caseworkers were systematically threatened and intimidated to discourage them from proceeding to any formal complaint. In addition to all the aforementioned, as I found during my research, there were cases of NGOs operating in Moria that were proselytizing border crossers. According to Ari, a coordinator of an international NGO: “One form of violence that refugees experience is the religious violence. The NGO Eurorelief, which by the way is Greek, proselytizes and distributes bibles to Muslims. I consider this to be a great insult to people, beyond violence.” Proselytism does not always involve coercion, given that some border crossers consented to their religious conversion. However, as Eleni, a solicitor working for an NGO, pointed out, there is the element of asymmetrical power relations between the NGO staff and border crossers and, therefore, an element of extortion. Due to border crossers’ precariousness (in Moria and beyond) and their dependency on these actors for the distribution of food, clothes and other forms of humanitarian aid and support, border crossers were indirectly extorted to be proselytized. Eleni told me: “It is a relationship of dependency and power. All organizations are distributing food, so in practice they are in a position of power.”

Conclusion In this chapter, I explored the human consequences of the necropolitical border regime upon border crossers’ lives on the Greek island of Lesvos. I showed that the multiple abandonments (left-​to-​die practices) that border crossers experience, inside and beyond the Moria hotspot, are tantamount to torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and are intelligible as obscene and grotesque violence. I introduced a new conceptual category of harm: necroharms. I argued that necroharms are related to disposability, humiliation, the destruction of personhood, human life and liberty and lead to social death and suffering. Through necropolitical border policies and practices, the Greek state systematically renders and reduces some lives as unworthy, inferior and disposable by assuming ‘the license –​even the duty –​to kill’ (Scheper-​Hughes and Bourgois, 2004, p 19). I showed that this ‘killing’ may not be physical, but it is slow, implicit, normalized, continuous and, therefore, torturous. Through this lens, social deaths are conceptualized as border-​related deaths. Despite the systematic oppression, devaluation and suffering, border crossers are not passive victims of the violent border regimes but have agency and actively resist. 135

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In the next chapter, I discuss the continuum of violence, and degradation in death and even beyond the moment of death.

Copyright notice This chapter is a revised version of the publication: Iliadou, E. (2023) ‘Necroharms: The normalisation and routinisation of social death in refugee camps on the Greek Island of Lesvos’ in Mortality, Journal Special Issue: The New Normal? Marginalised Mortalities and Ordinary Deaths in Extraordinary Times. www.tand​fonl​ine.com/​journ​als/​cmr​t20. It has been reused with permission.

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Thanatoharms: Governing Migration through Violence and Death Since the 1990s, Greece generally and the island of Lesvos specifically have been important gates for unauthorized border crossers who are fleeing violence, conflict, war and persecution. Since then, bodies of dead people have washed ashore –​whole or in parts –​at the threshold of Europe. Although represented as new, random, unforeseen, unpreventable events and ‘tragic’ accidents, border deaths are the outcome of lethal political decisions which have been enforced since the 1985 Schengen Agreement and have greatly proliferated in the aftermath of the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’. This chapter focuses on the continuum of politics of closed borders and the human consequences of the thanatopolitical border regime upon lives which are apprehended ‘unlivable’ (Butler, 2004, p xv). It explores the continuum of border violence and deaths which occur off the coasts of Lesvos –​as people cross the Aegean Sea –​as well as inside the refugee camps on Lesvos. This chapter also addresses the temporal continuum of violence and the state-​and policy-​facilitated stealing of border crossers’ time. It explores stealing time as a form of institutional and structural violence which is inflicted upon the living, the dead and whole communities by producing multiple forms of harm and/​or new types of harm. The IOM estimates that in 2015 alone more than 5,400 border crossers have died or been rendered missing globally (Brian and Laczko, 2016). And over the course of the last two decades, ‘more than 60,000 migrants have embarked on fatal journeys around the world, never to return to their loved ones’ (Brian and Laczko, 2016, p iii). These numbers are a minimum estimates given that deaths are not always recorded by the national authorities and many bodies are never identified or recovered (Singleton et al, 2017). Although represented as random, unforeseen, unpreventable events and ‘tragic’ accidents, border-​related deaths are the outcome of political decisions 137

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and the fatal policies surrounding the EU border regime (Canning, 2017; Iliadou, 2019a). For the EU border regime, enforced since the 1985 Schengen Agreement and proliferated following the so-​called 2015 refugee crisis, some lives –​mainly of the poorest –​have been rendered ‘unliveable’ (Butler, 2004, p xv) and, therefore, can easily be sacrificed on the altar of Fortress Europe. This chapter is about (temporal) violence and state and policy facilitated stealing of time. In the existing academic literature time –​temporality -​is examined as a fundamental feature of the border and migration governance and a border technique (Tazzioli, 2016). As the EU border regime and border controls proliferate and strengthen, temporal border controls multiply. For instance, in light of the 2015 refugee crisis, the deployment of a ‘live governance’ (Walters, 2016) –​real-​time technological surveillance, governing, intelligence reporting and risk assessment, and speedy and instant interventions –​has increasingly been applied to people who are en route to Europe. According to social scientist Martina Tazzioli, ‘the temporality of control and temporal borders are functional to slow down and disrupt migrants’ autonomous temporalities and geographies of movement’ (2018, p 15). In the existing literature, temporal border controls are examined as stealing or usurping people’s time (Andersson, 2014b; Khosravi, 2018b). The EU border regime, by raising barriers and walls and by deploying enhanced border patrols and marine operations, makes the border pathways to Europe more dangerous by increasing the risk of death. In parallel, the temporal borders delay and/​or prevent border crossers from reaching Europe through the enforcement of various forms of stasis and stuckedness in transit zones. As a result, a border crossing can last for months, years or “even a lifetime”, as Mohammad, an activist border crosser from Afghanistan, told me. In this chapter, I explore time and stuckedness as a form of institutional and structural violence that is inflicted upon the living, the dead and whole communities (Iliadou, 2019a). The chapter also examines the cumulative nature of social harm (see also the Introduction and Chapter 2). The first section of this chapter has a self-​reflexive vignette from a fatal shipwreck that took place in 2012 on Lesvos. This vignette is a ‘border narrative’ (Khosravi, 2011, p 5) and derives from more than a decade of activism, professional experience, lived experiences and witnessing of institutional and structural violence, border harms, deaths and dehumanization of border crossers as well as everyday resistance. It shows that there were early ‘warning signs’ (Scheper-​Hughes, 2004, p 224) which indicated that the 2015 refugee crisis and border deaths were about to happen. The vignette also reflects on the harm and violence continuum and, therefore, the historical development and continuum of the ‘crisis’, the border regime and deterrence policies which have significantly escalated from 2015 onwards. The second section explores the thanatopolitical border 138

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regime, characterized by deterrent policies and practices which have been enforced at, within and beyond the borders. These lethal policies have greatly escalated since 2015 by inflicting border deaths. The third section focuses on the continuum of deliberate ‘deterring-​killing’ policies and practices, actions and inactions –​by state officials and border agents –​of exposure and abandonment of border crossers to death or to a high risk of death. Here, I introduce a new conceptual category of harm, which I call thanatoharms. The final section explores the ways in which violence continues in death. Violence continues to be inflicted upon the lifeless bodies which are washed ashore, the unidentified and missing persons, the shipwreck survivors, the families and whole communities who are stuck in a temporal limbo lasting for years and even lifetimes. The chapter closes with an argument on the fundamental right to life and dignity in death and the moral, political and legal responsibility to prevent, document, count and account for border deaths.

Frozen death One cold morning in December 2012 on Lesvos, I woke up from the sudden ring of the phone. The sad voice on the other side of the line was that of one of the members of the local activist network I was involved with, urging me to wake up and go to help. “The sea has washed ashore dead bodies!” the voice said, and suddenly they burst into tears. A fatal shipwreck had taken place in the early hours off the coast of Lesvos. Border crossers’ frozen bodies were found by local people on the pebbles of the coast near Mytilene, the capital of Lesvos. Bodies, shoes, clothes and various objects were scattered here and there, resembling a battlefield but in a time of peace. These were the discarded bodies and belongings of those who were not allowed to belong (Davies and Isakjee, 2015, p 93). That day, a member of the rescue crew told me that from the position in which the dead bodies were found on the shore, one could tell that some of the border crossers reached Lesvos alive but then froze to death. This frozen death found them on the threshold of Europe. In the next few days, the sea washed up more corpses. The number of fatalities from the shipwreck was finalized at 28; there was 1 survivor. The mass media and particularly the local news reproduced over and over again the macabre details and photos of the tragic end of life of these people, who died while fleeing violence, conflict and persecution. The one and only survivor, a boy from Afghanistan, was photographed and interviewed by journalists. He was also interrogated multiple times by the police before eventually being abandoned to silently suffer and mourn his family, who he had witnessed drowning in the shipwreck. Although Lesvos has been an important entry point for border crossers since the early 1990s, there were neither adequate facilities within the 139

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morgue to store the bodies nor enough social services and staff to manage the bureaucratic aspect of the deaths. There was not even enough space within the town’s cemetery for people to carry out the funeral arrangements and rites. All the bureaucratic procedures were performed by activists, like me, and the death rituals were carried out by border crossers who had been living for many years in Lesvos and had, therefore, become experts by experience. The 28 bodies were stored for several days in hospital fridges, since there was no space available within the morgue. The burials were delayed due to the authorities’ indifference and inaction. The authorities’ main concern was to get rid of the corpses, along with their annoying relatives, by relocating the burden of responsibility to activists and volunteers. As a result, the macabre smell of human flesh in a state of sepsis overwhelmed the hospital, disturbed and disgusted the people who were hospitalized or working there. In the light of complaints about the smell, a representative of the local authorities finally suggested to me: “We should bury the dead in the dump so that local Christians will not be offended.” I remember that the funeral took place after an agonizing struggle and discomfort for all people involved. When the burial eventually took place, it was not performed appropriately. Municipality workers, without knowing the correct religious and cultural rituals, buried the dead bodies in the wrong direction, thus violating the border crossers’ religious and cultural doctrine and inflicting cultural harm and shock upon the relatives and their community. As a result, the workers had to exhume the dead bodies and bury them again. Even the process of repatriation of the corpses to EU countries or other countries of origin was mentally harmful and exhausting. I remember that the relatives of some of the dead, who had travelled from Sweden to Lesvos in order to complete the identification and repatriation procedures, confronted misinformation, chaotic bureaucracy and long waits. After some weeks, they also faced the cruelty of the prosecutor, who literally threw the documentation needed for repatriation back in their faces, shouting at them: “Well, here you are! Take your bloody corpses.” That cold December of 2012, I witnessed the deadliest shipwreck in the recent history of Lesvos. Shipwrecks and border deaths had occurred before then, but this particular event caused the most fatalities, which brought a collateral shock to the people of Lesvos. Suddenly, the unauthorized border crossings –​a phenomenon which has been unfolding on Lesvos over the last two decades (Figure 6.1) –​lost its invisibility due to the recovered corpses and, for a while, shocked the indifferent public. This fatal event was the hallmark of what was to come, framed as the ‘refugee crisis’, since it marked the increase in border crossers arriving at Lesvos and the Greek mainland to reach Northern Europe. Although I had buried the traumatic experience of the dreadful event of December 2012 deep in my subconscious, the macabre spectre of 140

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Figure 6.1: A forgotten shipwreck on the northern coast of Lesvos

death –​which was haunting Lesvos and which I confronted later in my research –​evoked the memory of trauma. The spectre of death was creeping all over Lesvos. This fact was vividly portrayed in the numerous discarded life jackets and plastic or wooden boats –​the ‘refugee waste’ (Gillespie, 2018) –​which was scattered all around the coasts. The cruel irony was that the refugee waste had a formal place to be buried –​in a municipal dump known as the ‘life jacket graveyard’ –​while the refugees themselves did not. Due to the lack of facilities and space, border crossers were buried in an allotment illegally operating as a graveyard. In a sense, this illegal site signified a cynical epilogue for the ‘illegal’ lives which even in death were not allowed to belong, even though their waste somehow was.

Deterring-​killing: the thanatopolitical border regime The governing of the undesirable human mobility through violence and death in the name of ‘humanitarian security’ and ‘prevention through deterrence’ has been a common feature of contemporary border politics (Doty, 2011, p 599). According to the logic which underpins deterrent policies, the more border crossers suffer or die en route, by being exposed to abandonment, violence and extreme environmental conditions, the more the ones who anticipate coming to Europe will be deterred from taking the journey in the first place (Squire, 2017). Traces of death through remains of corpses –​whole, in parts or decomposed –​which are washed ashore or 141

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found in anonymous tombs and mass graves along the multiple land and sea border pathways, are pre-​emptive and deterrent ‘messages’ being left for the ones who have not reached Europe yet. According to feminist anthropologist Rita Segato (2014), ‘corpses are being used as messages where the body is actually transmitting something the perpetrators want to say, show or enact’ (in Délano et al, 2016, p 528). Geographic landscape plays a significant role in the ‘fight’ against ‘illegal’ migration. Since the 1990s, the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea have become, in Jason De León’s words, a tool of ‘boundary enforcement and a strategic slayer of border crossers’ (2015, p 67). They have also become enormous graveyards wherein the politics of death has found its ultimate materialization. In the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis, deaths and washed up bodies or remains have become a banality. Local people of Lesvos might not eat fish from fear that they have fed on human flesh from bodies never recovered from the sea. Ali, a Syrian man, asked me: “Do you know how many Syrian people have been fed on by fish?” Fishermen are horrified every time they fish off the coasts of Lesvos since frequently human remains are caught within their nets. “We are just throwing them back to the sea”, a fisherman told me. Anna, a long-​term resident and activist, noted: “I have a very intense feeling that while I swim I will come across a corpse since in most of the beaches that we used to swim corpses were found.” The banality of death is one of the most pernicious and insidious features of the governance of the undesirable human mobility. Governing migration through death and violence has become the Janus face of deterrence, whereas policies of ‘killing’ are masked as policies of ‘deterring’ (De León, 2015, p 67). The deterring-​killing policies and enforcements which routinely expose border crossers’ lives to physical harms and death indicate ‘the lethal or thanatopolitical dimension of biopolitical governance’ (Vaughan-​Williams, 2015a, p 47). The intersection between biopolitical (Foucault, 2002) and thanatopolitical enforcements is very important in the understanding of the contemporary border practices which allow or create the conditions, spaces and ‘juridical voids’ (Doty, 2011, p 600) of ultimate dehumanization, abandonment and death. Those enforcements shed light on the circumstances and processes under which border deaths are naturalized by being presented as random, unpredictable events and tragic accidents even though they are outcomes of political decisions and, therefore, can be better understood as an ‘integral operation of power’ (Squire, 2017, p 517). The biopolitical border management of the undesirable human mobility through processes of militarization, securitization and humanitarian interventions –​wherein border crossers’ bodies, vulnerabilities and basic needs are intensively managed and regulated –​systematically reduce border crossers to ‘both a security “risk” and life in need of “saving” (Vaughan-​ Williams, 2015a, p 34). Therefore, they generate segregations and hierarchies 142

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between ‘livable’ and ‘unlivable’ lives which are ‘worthy’ or ‘unworthy’ to be rescued, protected and, thus, live. As Didier Fassin argues, ‘biopolitics presupposes not only risking others but also selecting those who have priority for being saved’ (2012, p 226). The politics of death as a mode of governance is founded on the existence of such ‘hierarchies of humanity’ (Fassin, 2012, p 226). In order for border crossers’ sacrifice –​in the name of humanitarianism and security –​to be legitimized and justified, their humanity must be denied or devalued as inferior and risky. Through various silent and quiet, interlinked and parallel processes of criminalization, illegalization, commodification, animalization and devaluation (Bosworth and Guild, 2008; Vaughan-​Williams, 2015a), border crossers are stripped of their humanity and reduced to liminal and disposable creatures –​into ‘bare lives’ (Agamben, 1998). According to Agamben, a bare life represents a liminal figure who is depoliticized by being stripped from any social and legal rights and whose life is deemed by the sovereign as unworthy of enjoying rights and the protection of the law; therefore her/​his death is of little consequence (Agamben, 1998). Bare lives are considered exceptions to the norm and are consigned, excluded and abandoned to ‘states of exception’ (Agamben, 2005), wherein the law is suspended and ‘creates a juridical void which permits abuses and killings without punishment’ (Doty, 2011, p 602). Therefore, when a life is devalued as no longer a life,1 and people are reduced and apprehended as ‘no longer humans’ (Prem Kumar and Grundy-​Warr, 2004, p 36), their slaughter within border zones does not count as murder and their deaths ‘are deemed of little consequence’ (Doty, 2011, p 600). Borders and border zones are auspicious places of dehumanization since they generate ‘thresholds’ –​liminal spaces and zones of ultimate abandonment and exception (Agamben, 2005) –​characterized by lawlessness and impunity, legally and geographically (Prem Kumar and Grundy-​Warr, 2004). According to

1

Borders might be ‘zones of exception’, which can potentially reduce border crossers to bare lives, but they are also spaces of possibility where anything can happen (Doty, 2011). Therefore, not all border crossers die or are necessarily reduced to bare lives, since many of them resist and survive border controls. Survival itself is a form of resistance. Despite the increased fortification and militarization of borders, border crossers defy, disobey and, figuratively speaking, mock borders by crossing them. According to the political geographer Reece Jones: ‘By refusing to abide by a wall, map, property line, border, identity document, or legal regime, mobile people upset the state’s schemes of exclusion, control and violence. They do this simply by moving’ (2016, p 180). Regarding Lesvos, agency and resistance is more than evident through the continuous protests and demonstrations by border crossers and locals as well as acts of solidarity in respect to deaths and funerals, as I argue later in this chapter. 143

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De León, ‘border zones become spaces of exception –​physical and political locations where an individual’s rights and protections under law can be stripped away upon entrance’ (2015, p 27). In such thresholds, the legal status of people is ambiguous, while the geographic isolation and remoteness make them hidden from view; ‘violence passes over into law’ (Agamben, 1998, p 25) but also is naturalized and, as such, ‘death becomes a norm’ (Squire, 2017). In this sense, nature and geographic space plays a pivotal role in the implementation of the violent deterrent policies by providing, as Doty argues, ‘a moral alibi that enables the policy makers to deny responsibility for the deaths’ (2011, p 599).

Thanatoharms The thanatopolitical border regime is actualized and enforced through multilayered, deliberate deterring-​killing policies and practices, actions and inactions –​by state officials and border agents –​of exposure and abandonment of border crossers to death or an increased risk of death. According to Doty, ‘after the apparatus of security fabricate and organize a milieu –​that is after physical barriers, increased numbers of border patrol agents, and high-​tech surveillance are put in place –​agents of security can just let things take their “natural course” ’ (2011, p 606). The deterring-​killing policies and practices are outcomes of a continuum of political decisions, acts of omission and commission, which ultimately kill or endanger the very lives they claim to protect. I introduce a new conceptual category of harm: thanatoharms.Thanatoharms include all physical harms which are related to and are an outcome of the thanatopolitical violence enforced at, within and beyond borders. On an institutional level, thanatoharms are outcomes of political decisions which enforce deterrent policies –​instead of safe passages –​in the name of protection and security. Through political decisions, search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea and the Aegean Sea are systematically prohibited. Similarly, everyday acts of solidarity by citizens who transit unauthorized border crossers are prosecuted –​a condition which is predominantly referred to as criminalization of solidarity (Tazzioli, 2018). On a local level, thanatoharms are produced through the actions (acts of commission) and inactions (acts of omission) of border agents and state officials who, in practice, make the deterring-​killing policies possible. Such actions include pushback operations, intimidation, torture and other forms of physical abuse, and such inactions include left-​to-​die practices and abandonment of border crossers in distress to the forces of nature (Weber and Pickering, 2011). Inactions also include the abandonment of border crossers in refugee camps and detention centres in conditions which are tantamount to appalling, inhuman and degrading treatment, and 144

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where either death is inflicted or the risk of death is high. Both actions and inactions often intersect and collude and are actualized: (i) when border crossers are en route and cross the land (at the Evros River) and sea (Aegean Sea) borders; (ii) after the border is crossed, inside sites like the Moria camp. A pushback occurs when border guards arbitrarily coerce border crossers back, across the land or sea border, denying them the right to seek international protection. Pushbacks are common, deliberate and mundane deterrent practices which are enforced at the land and sea border pathways. Since the 1990s, the Mediterranean Sea (InfoMigrants, 2018b), the Sonoran desert between Mexico and the US (Squire, 2015) and the land and sea at Greek–​Turkish borders (Human Rights Watch, 2008) have become the violent geographic spaces where pushbacks, violent and/​or fatal (in)actions unfold silently and quietly. The aforementioned geographic spaces are deadly sites in which border crossers experience extreme violence, abandonment, drowning and fatal injuries, starvation and dehydration and extreme environmental conditions. As De León argues, ‘nature “civilizes” the way the government deals with migrants; it does the dirty work’ (2015, p 68). Greece has repeatedly been accused of systematic illegal pushbacks, human rights violations and state violence (Amnesty International, 2015b). In the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis, evidence of violent pushbacks have become the norm in the Aegean Sea (InfoMigrants, 2018a) (Figure 6.2). Pushbacks often intersect with left-​to-​die and intimidating (in)actions, such as disabling of boats via damaging or removing the engines or the fuel, making puncture holes in boats and abandoning boats in Turkish waters, frequently under the threat of gunfire and physical abuse or torture. These actions and inactions intend to endanger and horrify, to prevent and deter, and very often to kill (Human Rights Watch, 2018). Farhad, an informant from Afghanistan, characteristically noted: ‘I tried to enter Greece by boat four times but I failed. I was arrested twice by the Greek coastguards and twice by the Turkish. We were pushed back. When the Greek coastguards arrested us, they removed our boat’s rows, they punctured holes on our boat, and then they left us at the Turkish territorial waters. We were abandoned in the middle of the sea all night until fishermen found us in the early morning hours.’ Similarly, in Evros, at the northern land border between Greece and Turkey, pushback operations with excessive use of violence, beatings with hands and batons, gunshots and mock executions have been documented (Forensic Architecture, 2020). After the 2015 refugee crisis, border deaths, fatal injuries and accidents continue to take place even after the border has been crossed. Therefore, 145

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Figure 6.2: A discarded boat engine on the coast of Lesvos

although border crossers might reach Lesvos alive, due to the inactions of state officials, they may die or face an increased risk of death. Such inactions include abandonment in life-​threatening conditions within sites like the Moria camp. Within these sites, border crossers might die or face a high risk of death due to the insufficient reception and accommodation, medical and psychological support services (Legal Centre Lesvos, 2020). As I mentioned in the previous chapter, in January 2017, when I was conducting my fieldwork, in the space of one week I documented the deaths of three border crossers because of fumes in their tents. The brutality of this abandonment is epitomized in what Alex, an informant from Afghanistan, told me after a man from Pakistan died in the Moria hotspot: “Poor Pakistani man, he travelled from so far away in order to reach Europe, but only to die alone in his frozen tent. Moria should not be called a refugee camp. It should be called a graveyard.” The thanatopolitical border regime turned border crossings into lengthy spatial and fragmented terrains wherein border crossers move, get stuck, wait and again move (Vogt, 2013). The stealing of border crossers’ time is achieved through these enforced delays and stuckedness given that the perilous journeys can be attempted unsuccessfully multiple times and, thus, last for months, years and even lifetimes. People ultimately waste precious time, grow old waiting or die at or within the borders hoping to reach Northern Europe. Given that life is made up of moments and, thus, time, what the thanatopolitical border regime eventually jeopardizes

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is life itself, by stealing not just time but the time of border crossers’ lives –​ their lifetimes.

Violence after death After the event of death, the living –​ survivors, families and whole communities –​must adhere to the rules of a dysfunctional and Kafkaesque bureaucratic complex which is underpinned by multiple lengthy, inconsistent and parallel procedures and sub-​procedures which exacerbate the feeling of pain and grief. As Ellie, an activist and long-​term resident of Lesvos, noted: “You have your mourning and at the same time you have one million bureaucratic things which are impossible to be done.” There are different procedures implemented in cases where a dead body is recovered. A procedure separate to the criminal investigation takes place. And a different procedure is applied in cases where a person is missing. Additionally, there are different procedures in cases where there are relatives and/​or survivors who can identify the bodies, and other procedures if the bodies are unidentified. Despite the fact that for more than two decades deaths have occurred at the Greek–​Turkish border, there are no standardized procedures, policies and guidelines for the management of bodies after a fatal event. The lack of standardized procedures, policies and guidelines have produced a policy vacuum (Mediterranean Missing Project, 2016), which itself produces more harm for survivors, the families of those who lost their lives and even whole communities, who are stuck in a temporal limbo without knowing what to do. Martha, a social worker supporting survivors of shipwrecks, argued: ‘Sometimes procedures are done and sometimes they [are] not, because there are not any standard procedures. There are no guidelines that one can apply. Thus, from the one port police to the other and even from clerk to clerk, there is a different and conflicting administering of the procedures. The one clerk says something and then the other clerk says the opposite. Many of them have never done this procedure before and, hence, they seek advice from their superiors, who have also never done this before.’ Due to the lack of interpretation services, sociopsychological and legal support for families –​who in many cases are themselves survivors of the same shipwreck as well as witnesses of the deaths of their loved ones –​is poor, and the process of identification and bureaucratic procedures can take considerable time. Also, the identification procedures are carried out by the authorities immediately after the event, without respect for or consideration of survivors’ and families’ grief. Survivors of shipwrecks are often held

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within the Moria hotspot in degrading and life-​threatening conditions. As Ellie argued: ‘The way the whole procedure takes place is a huge form of violence. Imagine that survivors are often held inside the Moria hotspot. It is an enormous violence because losing your loved ones is a very traumatic experience in itself, and even within a very good context, one can be emotionally torn apart. Imagine, now, someone in this psychological condition living inside the Moria hotspot.’ Frequently, identification of the dead is not successful due to lack of evidence and decomposition of bodies or remains, as well as the expensive and lengthy procedures for finding and bringing in the relatives for identification. Also, procedures can become particularly lengthy and time-​consuming due to systematic delays in the identification of the dead through DNA samples, which are sent via the Greek authorities to other countries. As the coroner argued: ‘In countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia where there is war and conflicts, it is very hard to contact the embassies there in order for the DNA samples to be sent and thus to receive an answer. For this reason, the identification procedures can be delayed or are impossible in the first place.’ Due to the dysfunctional bureaucratic system, the policy vacuum and the overall lack of information, the quest of tracing the destiny of border crossers becomes agonizing and is usually impossible for the relatives. Many activists emphasized the difficult collaboration with the authorities as an additional problem in the whole process. According to Ellie: ‘The relatives who will contact the authorities on their own will often be ignored and sent away. If the relatives are not able to identify the dead from the existing evidence [photos, clothes, other personal belongings], they will be ignored and sent away by the authorities. No one will explain to them that they must complete a “missing person’s declaration”, that they must give a DNA sample, that all the Greek authorities must be informed and some supplementary information must be given on the temporal period of death. The authorities will send relatives away without showing them enough evidence or they will do it in a rushed manner. They are indifferent.’ The competent authority to carry out the initial bureaucracy of death at sea is the Hellenic Coast Guard. The Hellenic Coast Guard is responsible for various conflicting tasks wherein policing of borders and humanitarian 148

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practices take place simultaneously (Mediterranean Missing Project, 2016). Foremost, the Coast Guard is, on the one hand, a repressive body whose mandate is the ‘surveillance and control of sea borders’, ‘the prevention of illegal migration’ and ‘the protection of the sea borders’ (Hellenic Coast Guard, no date a). On the other hand, its mandate is also to conduct search and rescue operations for border crossers in distress and to recover the corpses or remains from the sea and coasts (Hellenic Coast Guard, no date b). However, the Coast Guard has been involved in various lethal pushback operations, left-​to-​die practices, attacks on boats and tortures (AlarmPhone, 2020). Therefore, its responsibilities become even more conflicted, if not obscured, since apart from bureaucratic procedures, it must carry out criminal investigations in order to define the causes of border deaths and, simultaneously, detect the perpetrators (in cases of attacks, tortures, pushbacks, left-​to-​die practices) and press charges. Due to the Kafkaesque procedures, relatives are reaching the Greek islands, often by being (mis)informed or deceived by smugglers –​who themselves take advantage of the system’s gaps and inconsistency and profit from relatives’ pain (Kovras and Robins, 2017). The lack of consistency of post-​mortem data, maps and records of the graves in the cemetery prevent the relatives from tracing the graves, exhuming and repatriating the bodies. As an activist on Lesvos, I have witnessed families wasting precious time wandering from island to island and from port police station to port police station, trying to find their loved ones through photos, clothes, shoes, personal belongings, marks on the skin and tattoos. The pain of this quest intensifies and deteriorates in cases where families manage to detect their relatives too late. The body is already buried as ‘unknown’. As Anna, an activist supporting shipwreck survivors, noted: “The whole process inflicts a lot of suffering and discomfort. Sometimes the process is just absurd.” The performance of burials and rituals is another brutalizing process. The cemetery used after 2015 for the dead is an allotment rented by the Lesvos municipality and managed by activists and border crossers, who are also religious leaders. Neither attribute –​‘cemetery’ and ‘religious leader’ –​is formal since the cemetery operates without legal licence and is temporal, while the religious leaders are two volunteers –​border crossers who have become experts through experience of completing the funeral rites and rituals. According to Inam, one of the religious leaders: ‘I started performing the religious rituals in March 2015, when I first came to Lesvos and after I heard about a fatal shipwreck. I went to the funeral for the first time as a visitor. The situation I encountered was that there was not any ritual from Islam applied, that the people who were burying the dead were just taking the dead bodies from the hospital and were throwing them inside a hole, and that was all.’ 149

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The religious protocol and rituals include cleaning and caring for the body before it is buried, positioning the body within the grave, and ensuring the proper direction of the grave. According to the religious leaders, initially these rituals were taking place inappropriately and also being done rashly, due to the limited refrigerator facilities available in the morgue and the limited periods for storing the bodies in them. Tariq, the other religious leader and volunteer in the cemetery, noted: ‘When funerals were taking place inside the old cemetery, no one really knew what to do. We were praying for the dead, but we were not following the ritual protocol. According to the protocol we must clean the dead body and put her/​him inside a clean white bed sheet before burring. Most of the times, we used the same bed sheet from the hospital, which was dirty with blood, and then the municipality workers were placing the dead inside the grave, and they were just throwing soil over them.’ As such, often the performance of culturally appropriate burial procedures and rituals could not be guaranteed, and the dignity and memory of the dead could not be respected. Burial procedures and rituals are of social, cultural, political and emotional significance for the families and whole communities. Inappropriate burial procedures inflict cultural harms2 on the whole community –​that is, harms which: are produced from the post-​mortem corporeal mistreatment; signify the violation of cultural, religious, moral, sacred norms associated with one’s culture, customs and identity; and humiliate and shame the relatives and whole communities and ultimately insult the memory of the dead. According to anthropologist Robert Hertz, funeral rituals are a way of strengthening social bonds (Herz, 1960). Without proper burial, the rite of passage from the world of the living to the world of the dead cannot be fulfilled. Therefore, the soul remains in a liminal temporal threshold between earth and afterlife –​a condition which Hertz’s describes through the metaphor of the ‘unquiet dead’; a soul which can never rest and is condemned, ‘forever impinging on the land of the living’ (in Taussig, 1992, p 48). Anthropologist Mary Douglas (2003) showed that the absence of death rituals signify the disruption of social order –​a danger, pollution and impurity which is

2

The definition of cultural harms I propose builds upon the work of criminologist Lynne Copson (2018) and anthropologist Jason De León and his concept of ‘necroviolence’ (2015, p 69). Copson defines cultural harms as: harms to a culture; harms by a culture; and harms as misrecognition (2018, p 3). De León’s concept refers to the violence inflicted by the post-​mortem treatment of the dead. 150

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transmitted by contaminating the living and the communities. Inam, the religious leader, noted how impurity and shame is transmitted and cultural harms are inflicted on the living and whole communities through the metaphor of ‘sin’: ‘It is a sin for us and not for the dead. It is a sin for us who are alive, and we are here. It is a sin for all the Muslims who know about another Muslim’s death and do not pray and do not perform the rituals. All the living who are aware of the death must take the responsibility. But the dead person, even if she/​he is thrown to the sea or eaten by animals, there is no sin on her/​him. The responsibility and the sin are distributed to the living ones, to those who knew about the death and did not do a ritual. But if someone performs the ritual, the sin eclipses from all. This is an obligation which must be taken by one person. If one person takes this responsibility, then the sin diminishes for all. If no one takes the responsibility, then all Muslims carry the sin. And when we say the whole Muslims, we mean the Muslims from the whole world.’ The temporal violence continuum is exemplified in the figure of the missing and unknown person and the remains of what was previously apprehended as human. Human remains might never be recovered or identified and, therefore, a person is rendered missing or buried as unknown. Until death is actually confirmed, missing persons are not yet dead for the families, who anticipate that their loved ones will reappear. Missing and unidentified persons are stuck within a liminal temporal threshold between life and death. Missing people cannot be grieved for and buried, but also they cannot give relief to the living, who are waiting for news and looking for traces of their loved ones. This quest and hence stuckedness and waiting can last for months, years and even lifetimes. Families and communities cannot perform their rituals and, thus, the last parting words are never told. The rite of passage from mourning to closure cannot be fulfilled and the healing process is temporally frozen. Grief becomes protracted and complicated, and loss remains unclear, unresolved and ‘ambiguous’ (Boss, 2010). According to clinical psychologist Pauline Boss, ambiguous loss is akin to the trauma that causes post-​traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in that it is a painful experience far beyond normal human expectations. But unlike PTSD, it remains in the present; that is, the traumatizing experience (the ambiguity) often continues for years, a lifetime, or even across generations as with slavery or the Holocaust. Because there is no social or religious ritual to deal with such losses, people are stuck alone in a limbo of not knowing, with none of the usual supports for grieving and moving forward with their lives. (2010, p 139) 151

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As such, death itself does not signify the end, but rather the perpetuation of violence and harm upon the dead and the living. The violence and harm one had experienced before, in and beyond the moment of death is transmitted to the families and whole communities and is perpetuated for an indefinite period of time.

Conclusion Since the 1990s, NGOs, scholars and activists have developed long lists in attempts to document border-​related deaths. Such lists are important ongoing timelines of fatal events and other tragic accidents, which otherwise become normalized and rendered invisible. These attempts demonstrate the political demand of ‘bringing the dead back into society’ (Délano and Nienass, 2016a, p 511) by making deaths knowable, visible and recordable. The documenting of border deaths makes a political and moral argument about the dignity and protection of the human rights of the dead and is an active demand for accountability and culpability for those deaths and restoration of justice. The names, data and information encompassed within ‘the hopelessly incomplete lists of dead or disappeared migrants’ (Délano and Nienass, 2016b, p xxii) symbolize the human cost of the thanatopolitical border regime. Therefore such long lists can only be perceived as the long lists of thanatopolitics. In this chapter, I argued that border deaths are not new, random, unforeseen, unpreventable events or ‘tragic’ accidents. They are instead the outcome of lethal political decisions which have been enforced since the 1985 Schengen Agreement and have greatly proliferated in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis. The thanatopolitical border regime is enforced through multilayered, deliberate deterring-​killing policies and practices, actions (acts of commission) and inactions (acts of omission) –​by state officials and border agents –​which expose border crossers to death or increased risk of death. Such policies and practices produce thanatoharms by violating the inherent right to life embodied in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 2, 4 and 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The right to life is the most fundamental human right which is applicable without any discrimination, at all times and in all circumstances. It is the basis of all other rights, since any attempt to safeguard other rights is impossible if the right to life is not protected. According to the European Court of Human Rights (2020), the right to life defines two general obligations for states: (i) the protection by law of the right to life and (ii) the prohibition of intentional deprivation of life. However, the systematic and deliberate disregard of life through pushbacks and left-​to-​die deterrent border practices by state officials violate the right to life itself. They consist of criminal acts and, hence, they are crimes of the 152

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state (Weber and Pickering, 2011). Pushbacks are also arbitrary, according to international law, since they breach Article 33(1) of the 1951 Geneva Convention on the protection against refoulement, which indicates: No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his or her life or freedom would be threatened on account of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Moreover, the duty to rescue persons in distress at sea is a fundamental rule of the international law of the sea, maritime law and international humanitarian law (Papanicolopulu, 2016). The left-​to-​die practices by state officials are arbitrary, consist of infringement of duty and violate the 1974 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Yet, although one might think that death would be the last act of a lethal political game which is played at border crossers’ expense, and death itself would serve as a figurative border beyond which violence would not carry on and inflict harm, my research indicates that violence continues in death and even beyond the moment of death. Violence is inflicted upon the lifeless bodies which are washed ashore, the unidentified and missing persons, the shipwreck survivors, the families and whole communities who are stuck in a bureaucratic and temporal limbo lasting for years and even lifetimes. Violence continues temporally beyond death due to the post-​mortem corporal treatment of the dead, the inappropriate performance of burials, religious doctrines and rituals, and as Alison Mountz argues, ‘those who survive and those who perish both experience lives devalued’ (2015, p 196). The performance of undignified and culturally inappropriate burial procedures and rituals –​including the widespread practice of mass graves –​haven taken place on Lesvos since the 1990s. These mundane practices and policies insult the memory of the dead and inflict cultural harms on the living and whole communities. Everyday violent acts of dehumanizing speech by state officials, vandalism of graves and memorials dedicated to dead border crossers (Keep Talking Greece, 2018) and lack of memorialization further insult the memory of the dead. According to Article 365 of the 4619/​2019 Greek Penal Code, insulting the memory of the dead or missing person with ‘cruel or malicious defamation or libel’ is a criminal offence liable to punishment with up to six months imprisonment. However, such offensive acts remain unpunished by normalizing, legitimizing and perpetuating violence which is inflicted upon the dead, the living and whole communities. The dignified treatment of all missing and dead persons and their families is an undeniable universal human right (Mytilini Declaration, 2018). This right signifies that ‘all human beings have the right not to lose their identities 153

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after death’ (Mytilini Declaration, 2018) and that all lives should be valued, grieved and mourned. As Inam, the religious leader, noted: ‘What we say is that this human thing [burial] is the least that should exist when one dies, even if one is a Muslim, Christian, Jewish. This person must be buried with the specific way that this person believes in. This is the minimum of the rights that one has after death; that is to be buried with dignity.’ Through a continuum of political decisions, policies and practices at EU, national and local levels, states routinely violate the universal right to life and dignity in death. These violations are state crimes and, therefore, states are culpable for the production of border deaths and the infliction and perpetuation of harm upon the living, the dead and whole communities.

Copyright notice This chapter is a revised version of: Iliadou, E. (2021) ‘“Violence continuum”: border crossings, deaths and time in the island of Lesvos’, in M. Bhatia and V. Canning (eds) Stealing Time: Migration, Temporalities and State Violence, Palgrave Macmillan, pp 197–​221. It has been reused with permission.

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Conclusion Despite the political visibility and media attention that the Moria hotspot has attracted as the infamous ‘refugee camp’ for thousands of border crossers, until its formal ‘death’, it was in reality an open site for some, an overnight residence for some others and a closed detention for only a few. Apart from the detainees, including the unaccompanied minors, who were not allowed to move outside the premises of the Moria hotspot, all the rest were authorized to move within Lesvos and outside the Moria hotspot using an official document produced by the Greek authorities. In their everyday encounters with the state, the official document was commonly referred to by border crossers, volunteers and practitioners as the ‘Mytilene paper’. The Mytilene paper was used alongside other official legal documents and technically played the role of identity card or passport, but without allowing its holders to cross borders and travel to the Greek mainland or elsewhere. It was not recognized as an official document outside of the island. It was also an indicator of residency restrictions, showing whether border crossers were obliged to stay overnight in the Moria hotspot, Kara Tepe camp or other formal site or accommodation. Although almost all border crossers obtained the Mytilene paper and had the right to freely move within the prison island, they were repeatedly stopped, controlled, arrested and intimidated. In 2021 the Mytilene paper, being associated with the Moria hotspot, faded away along with the hotspot itself. After the destruction of the Moria camp and the establishment of Moria 2.0, the Mytilene paper was replaced with another informal document –​a registration card –​that regulated border crossers’ autonomy of movement in/​outside the camp. As Omid, an Afghan living in Moria 2.0, told me: “People are allowed to leave the camp only for three hours per week or when there is an emergency –​for example, appointments with doctors or to see a lawyer. Their going out depends on the last three digits of their registration card.” However, even in this case, border crossers who were allowed to get out of the Moria 2.0 camp were frequently stopped and searched by police and many times were forced to return back to the camp. In the aftermath of 2015, Lesvos, particularly the city centre, became a space of border control, policing and surveillance for border crossers, with 155

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the Greek authorities proceeding to an overwhelming (wo)manhunt based on, in Mountz’s words, ‘a racial profiling, routinely approaching people of colour and people with accents’ (2012, p 83). In this respect, as Sophia, an activist, argued: ‘Literally everything which is dark and moves is arrested. Sweep operations are an everyday practice here even during the night. This is extremely violent. Refugees are in constant fear. They do not walk a lot in the streets even at night. They prefer to walk at the sideways in order to be as invisible as possible. Sometimes the police officers, in order to intimidate them, set up blocks and they just sit there with the alarm on, only to horrify people. If this is not violence, then what is?’ In May 2017, during a field trip to Lesvos, I interviewed Sams, an Afghan refugee who had been living for many years in Lesvos and who was stopped, searched and arrested by the port police while he was taking a night walk around the port. Although he had refugee status, he was arrested and detained in a container for many hours before being released without any further explanation. Sams told me: ‘I was just walking around the port and I was arrested and detained for several hours in a container. Since when is walking during the night illegal? They are doing street patrols with cars, and every time they spot refugees, because refugees are visible, they look like refugees, they arrest and detain them and after some hours they let them go on foot. They are doing it frequently, you know.’ The aforementioned examples were only a few of the everyday enforcements that were taking place on the prison island and, as Mountz argues, they were an example of ‘the ways that states have entered into the intimacies of the daily lives on a security continuum’ (2012, p 82). No one on the prison island can really escape from these routinized and everyday violent practices of control, the panoptic surveillance (Foucault, 1991/​1975) being enforced beyond the hotspot, refugee camp and immigration detention centre. This everyday criminalization of border crossers –​through their a priori association with criminal activities and the overall distrust, during transactions with the authorities, that their documentation was genuine –​is racism and, therefore, a form of everyday border violence. Activists I interviewed during my research expressed their concerns on the overwhelming numbers of border crossers being brutally abused and tortured by the Greek authorities during these stop and search ‘sweep’ operations. According to the activist group No Border Kitchen Lesvos (2017): ‘Police 156

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violence is omnipresent in Lesvos. It happens in the day, in the night, in the street, in the police station, in Moria prison and to people with and without papers. Every day on this island, people are controlled, harassed, humiliated, insulted and beaten.’ According to Sophia: “If the police during the stop and search practices see that a refusal is being issued upon one’s asylum application, they immediately arrest her/​him.” For this reason, most border crossers were coerced to adopt survival strategies for coping with this everyday border violence. For example, they adjusted their everyday routine to avoid being arrested and harassed by the police. Invisibility is a common survival strategy border crossers engage to cope with state violence (Coutin, 2005). EU citizens, activists and even researchers conducting fieldwork on Lesvos were likely to be stopped and searched too. As Emily, a volunteer, told me: ‘Here, similar to other countries, the police are more macho and chauvinistic and behave badly. One female activist from Norway had a very bad experience here as some police officers actually stopped her in the street, arrested her and actually sexually harassed her by asking her if she fancies men or women and if she likes to fuck using a condom.’ In addition, one researcher told me that both himself and his team were stopped, searched and asked for identification by the police while conducting fieldwork on Lesvos. These non-​isolated incidents are the so-​called ‘collateral arrests’ (Mountz, 2012, p 83) in which (non-​)Greek activists, volunteers, humanitarian workers and researchers are targeted by the police only because it happens that they are around or present on Lesvos where enforcement is taking place. In addition, these actors might be targeted and criminalized by the Greek authorities only because they offer help to border crossers (see Crimes of Solidarity and Humanitarianism, no date; Amnesty International, 2020b; International Commission of Jurists, 2022). The criminalization of solidarity is not new, but has become exacerbated from 2015 onwards. For instance, Safar, an Afghan border crosser, told me that in 2014 while visiting Lesvos as a tourist, he was arrested by the port police. Although he had refugee status and a German passport, the authorities questioned him and detained him for hours in a container in the port. Safar was interrogated by the Greek authorities and forced to give the names and addresses of the people he was visiting in Mytilene. Also, the legitimacy of his passport was questioned. As Safar argued: ‘Port police did not want to believe that my passport was genuine. They double-​checked it and were constantly saying: “How can this be possible? There is no way this document can be genuine.” Greek 157

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authorities did not want to believe that there are also migrants who can travel legally. For them we all are and will always be illegal.’ Safar was also targeted by the authorities because he was involved in activist networks advocating for border crossers. The port police officers searched Safar’s bag and found political brochures issued by the activist network he was a member of. “You arsehole! Are you involved in these things?” one of the officers yelled at him. “Since when is it illegal to distribute information leaflets”, Safar asked, only to receive the officer’s abusive answer: “Shut up you fucking arsehole.” In 2021, when I was carrying out my postdoctoral ethnographic research, I interviewed Noor, an Afghan border crosser, long-​term resident on Lesvos and activist, who told me that he was stopped and searched by the Greek authorities because he happened to passing by near a spot where a boat with border crossers had just arrived. He said: ‘A boat with refugees had just arrived and I was jogging nearby. The police stopped me and started to question me about what kind of “business” I had, and I was there, near the site where the boat arrived. They searched my cell phone, read all my text messages and checked all the photos. They implied that I was the trafficker who brought these people here. They also asked for my papers even though I have been living in Greece since 2003 and I have papers. Then the police officer told me: “You look irritated.” “How could I not be?” I said. “From all the people who walked by the same spot, you only stopped me, because of my external features, because I am a migrant.” They do not want to believe that a refugee or migrant is not a criminal.’ Between 2008 and 2010 when I was working as an NGO practitioner, I was systematically intimidated by the authorities and accused of smuggling. I remember returning from a holiday trip in Turkey to Lesvos and receiving a phone call from a police officer who questioning me, saying “Did you bring them here?” The arrival at the island of a boat with border crossers had coincided with my return from Turkey. The officer arbitrarily associated the border crossers’ arrival with my arrival from Turkey, my ‘holiday’ trip with activist work across the border, and the activist work with trafficking. The officer laughed at me and continued with a full of promise threat: “You need to be cautious, otherwise you might find yourself in the awkward position of fighting to prove your innocence.” The officer then continued: “Oh, don’t worry! You are not in danger, but your partner might be.” The officer not only implied that both my partner (who was a lawyer) and I were traffickers disguised as NGO workers, but also threatened us by implying that we would pay the price for helping border crossers. In light of the systematic 158

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criminalization and legal persecution of humanitarian workers in the last few years in Greece (Reliefweb, 2021; ECRE, 2022), the police officer’s threat was in essence prophetic. As the crisis turned from a ‘state of exception’ (Agamben, 2005) into a permanent, routinized condition, and as border crossers were trapped on Lesvos in limbo due to the geographical restriction, the island was transformed into a site where the capacity for violence extended to local authorities and ordinary citizens. Thus, border crossers were governed, disciplined and exposed to state violence even in cases where the state appeared absent (Mountz, 2011a, p 119). Through paradoxical and mundane forms of enforcement and social control, everyday acts of (micro)aggression, policing, extreme patriotism and racial pogroms, ordinary citizens actively played the role of the ‘cop’ by enabling, in practice, the violent border regime. For instance, in June 2018, the Tsamakia beach in Mytilene, which is managed by the municipality, allowed access to the beach and facilities to all non-​Schengen nationals only after showing a passport. This decision was announced and translated into English, French and Arabic, immediately targeting border crossers (Lesvos News, 2018). In April 2018, a group of approximately 200 people launched a racist pogrom against border crossers who were peacefully demonstrating at Sappho Square in Mytilene. This racist pogrom was the most violent in the history of the island, with the so-​called ‘patriots’ throwing stones, fireworks and flares at border crossers and shouting ‘burn them alive’ (Are You Syrious, 2018a). These paradoxical enforcements offer a frightening indication of how racist, intolerant and hostile neoliberal political projects and agendas are actualized and normalized with the complicity of ordinary people –​a reminder of Hannah Arendt’s important work on ‘the banality of evil’ (Arendt, 1963, p 287). Also, they offer a frightening indication of the negative consequences for affected communities, since hostile neoliberal political projects and agendas corrode social solidarity and social cohesion by cultivating an unspecified fear and suspicion among people and communities (Yuval-​Davis et al, 2019; Sarantidis, 2021). The ‘illegality’ industry (Andersson, 2014a) that was established in Lesvos in the aftermath of the so-​called refugee crisis consisted of another significant manifestation of the capacity of ordinary people to inflict harm. The refugee issue in Lesvos had been significantly commoditized, leading many of my interlocutors to refer to Lesvos as a ‘corporation’ and to use the phrase ‘supermarket Mytilene’. The solidarity of local people, volunteers and other humanitarian workers towards the unfolding refugee drama has been overwhelmingly reproduced and romanticized in the media. Some locals, on the other hand, saw this booming illegality industry as a good opportunity for profiteering. I do not mean to devalue the solidarity and altruism that local people showed towards forcibly displaced people. After all, 159

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the people of Lesvos were nominated for the Peace Nobel Prize in 2016. Also, a former mayor of Lesvos was rewarded for the solidarity and aid that he provided to border crossers. However, many humanitarian workers and volunteers told me that they were renting extremely overpricing rooms or apartments that were not fit for purpose or did not meet the minimum standards. Restaurants and local shops were overpricing their products depending on whether the customer was a local, a border crosser, a volunteer or an NGO practitioner. Vaggelis, one of my local interviewees, told me that there were instances of local shops owners selling a small bottle of mineral water for €5, and on many occasions border crossers had to pay a small tariff for using the, otherwise free, Wi-​Fi or for charging their mobile phones inside shops. As Vaggelis emphasized, “the refugee crisis became a second tourist period for locals”. Furthermore, there were examples of locals who found the leftover parts from the boats and notably the abandoned engines as a form of income. According to scholar Ioanna Tsoni, who has conducted research on Lesvos: The tons of material leftovers changing hands –​expendable for some while valuable for others –​constitutes another metric system, where one person’s treasure soon becomes trash which then becomes another’s treasure, with the connivance of the local authorities. Deflated rubber dinghies slashed open for anything valuable now lay like gutted sea-​mammal carcasses along the shores. Claims over their cheap made-​in-​China boat engines led bystanding profiteers to get into bloody fistfights. The equally coveted solid wood boat floorboards are sawn into animal pens, household furniture and balcony separators by local farmers calling dibs on the approaching boats on the horizon. (2016, p 43) These examples are part of the everyday border violence that border crossers experienced upon arrival. While these experiences are not new, they greatly proliferated since the 2015 refugee crisis. When I was working in the Pagani detention centre, I heard many cases of fistfights around the boat engines as the profit from selling them was high. I still remember a taxi driver in 2008 who had identified me as ‘the sociologist of Pagani’ and was asking me of how he could find one of these engines from border crossers’ boats, as he could make a profit of around €2,000. Indeed, this profiteering has also been documented in the local news. Local journalist Pelli Giakoumi wrote in February 2008 that there were also formal allegations stating that, ‘there were even fishermen who were doing signals to refugees in the boats with flashlights, to direct them to the shore and take their boat’ (Giakoumi, 2008). The Greek authorities commented that ‘some –​fortunately a few –​went so far as to fight on the 160

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shore before the astonished eyes of the refugees over who saw the boat first and who was going to take it’ (Giakoumi, 2008). In this book, I have argued that the multiple border policies and practices enforced in light of the so-​called ‘refugee crisis’ led to the interference of different actors who semi-​settled and operated in Greece, turning Lesvos into a securitized and militarized place –​a prison island. On the one hand, all these agents not only enabled the border policies and practices, but also made the dystopia of borders possible by becoming complicit in border violence. On the other hand, these border policies and interventions led to a strengthening and expansion of the intervening actors’ power and promoted and expanded, legitimized and normalized their capacity for violence (Massaro and Boyce, 2021). These multiple intervening actors as well as the ordinary citizens who are located within the border, play a significant role in ‘the production and performance of borders’ (Pickering, 2014, p 188). In other words, the violent border policies would not be possible without the complicity of key security actors, professionals and street-​level bureaucrats as well as ‘ordinary citizens’. I have shown that the capacity for violence of each of these actors creeps into the various stages of border crossers’ perilous journeys across borders –​in the registration, identification, asylum and deportation procedures; in the Moria hotspot and beyond; on the island and in the port and the city centre; in the streets through stop and search sweep operations, policing and criminalization. This capacity for violence and impunity has produced a suffocating and intimidating reality from which border crossers cannot escape. Throughout this book, the term ‘refugee crisis’ –​which has been deployed at EU, national and local levels and in the media to describe the large-​ scale forced displacement through Greece to Northern Europe –​has been challenged as ahistorical. The term is deliberately deployed to misrepresent the border harms, misery and deaths –​at, within and beyond borders –​as new, isolated, unpredictable events or tragic accidents in order to justify, normalize and legitimize exceptional thanatopolitical and necropolitical border policies and practices. In this book, I showed that this ‘crisis’ framework only serves to obscure the deep historical roots of border violence and control and the widespread inhuman treatment of border crossers across time and space. Many families in Greece and Lesvos have memories and lived experiences of forced displacements and trauma since they are descendants of the Greek genocide or the Asia Minor Catastrophe. The memory of trauma not only is embodied but has left its mark into the space. Also, the book showed that Greece has been an important entry point for unauthorized border crossers at least since the 1990s and examined the negligence and violence that border crossers experienced that paved the way to the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’. The book argued that certain patterns of border violence and control of the present display similarities and continuities with past patterns by becoming a part of 161

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an intergenerational violence continuum that affects immigration policies and practices, people and communities across time and space. Through this lens, the book made an argument about the cumulative and intergenerational dimension of social harm. Social harm exists historically, unfolds across time and space, and escalates, and thus its effects intensify, deteriorate and become greater over time. Social harm is inflicted upon the living, the dead and whole communities. It is inflicted in death and even beyond the moment of death. From this angle, I argued that the thanatopolitical and necropolitical border policies and practices across time and space have produced ‘torturing environments’ (Pérez-​Sales et al, 2022) enforced through: push-​ backs, degrading reception and living conditions, chaotic and exhausting identification, registration and asylum procedures, prolonged detention, widespread deportation practices, and humiliation in death. I showed that this ‘torturing environment’: inflicts grave suffering, dehumanization, degradation, destruction of life, liberty and personhood; leads to physical and social death; is tantamount to torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment (OHCHR, 1987); consists of state crimes (Green and Ward, 2000; Green and Grewcock, 2002); and may consist of ‘banal crimes against humanity’ (Kalpouzos and Mann, 2015). The book argues that these torturing environments have been deliberately enforced as part of the wider politics of closed borders and deterrence in order to make border crossers’ lives unlivable and implicitly or explicitly deter them from entering Greece, staying there or moving further into Northern Europe. I have shown that deterrence, violence and death have been part of Greece’s wider migration governance, politics, border policy and practice for decades. However, as I argued in previous chapters EU agencies, such as EASO and Frontex, are involved in the identification, screening and asylum procedures. In addition, Frontex’s involvement in violent push-​back operations has been well documented and, sadly, significantly increased. Therefore, ‘individual liability [for degrading treatment] may attach not only to Greek officials, but also to employees of the EU’s border control Agency Frontex [and EASO] deployed in Greek camps’ (Kalpouzos and Mann, 2015, p 3). At the same time, we must not forget that Greece has also been implementing EU policies (see Chapters 1, 2 and 3). The book showed that EU policies, such as the externalization and internalization of EU borders, the EU–​Turkey statement and the designation of Turkey as a ‘safe country’, have inflicted grave suffering and widespread harm to forcibly displaced people during all stages of their perilous journeys. Apart from that, despite the harrowing evidence of the multiple forms of harm and negligence that border crossers experience in Greece €276 millions EU funding has been given to the Greek Government to establish Closed Controlled Access Centres on the islands of Lesvos, Chios, Samos, and Leros. Greece and specifically Lesvos seems that have been used as a ‘laboratory’ where the EU border policies concerning 162

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migration governance are tested and enhanced so as to be enforced in other regions, border zones and in-​between-​places (ASGI, 2017; Sarantidis, 2021). From this angle, the book raises the issue of the EU’s culpability, if not complicity, in the range of border harms that border crossers experience. Throughout the book, I have emphasized the importance of the voice of the witness. From 2015 onwards, many humanitarian workers from around the world who came to Lesvos to volunteer –​many of whom were involved in rescue operations in the Aegean Sea –​currently face overwhelming targeting, criminalization and legal persecution by the Greek authorities for assisting people in distress. This intimidation of humanitarian workers by the Greek officials is not new, and throughout this book I have shared my painful lived experiences as a former NGO practitioner and activist. However, I argue that this criminalization must not be seen only as misrecognition of the work, sacrifices, moral values and ethical challenges (moral injury) that these professionals have faced in order to assist lives in risk; this criminalization must also be seen as form of border violence and, notably, as a form of silencing. This is because many of the humanitarian workers (and other professionals) who work at the frontline have been eyewitnesses of the state crimes unfolding, and some of them have systematically been publicly denouncing and disclosing the (in)actions and state violence of the Greek and EU border agents. These voices and eyewitness accounts are important testimonies –​that is, evidence which can be presented ‘for judgement in the court of public opinion’ (Warren, 1997, p 22). Similarly, academic research and lived experiences play a pivotal role in scrutinizing and exposing the crimes of the state against forcibly displaced people. Often academics and researchers are eye w ​ itnesses and/​or survivors of intimidation, violence and processes of silencing. From this angle, I argue in this book that the testimonies of border crossers, humanitarian workers, researchers and other professionals who work at the frontline and have lived experiences are counter-​narratives which can deconstruct the dominant discourses and the deniability of the state for its crimes. I argue that these counter-​narratives are an ultimate form of resistance. From this perspective, my book, research and lived experiences themselves are also counter-​narratives –​written evidence of the continuum of state crimes and border harms across time and space. My book, ‘my writing is, first and foremost, an act of resistance’ (Boochani and Tazreiter, 2019, p 371).

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Index References to figures and photographs appear in italic type. References to footnotes show both the page number and the note number (231n3).

A Aas, Katja Franko  42, 89 Action Aid  113 administrative detention  62 administrative vulnerability  105–​12 Aegean Islands  14, 41, 43, 65, 71, 78, 89, 99, 101, 111 Aegean Sea  14, 17, 24, 26, 26, 37, 39, 84, 119, 137, 142, 144, 145, 163 AEGEAS project  64 Agamben, G.  120, 143 Akkerman, Mark  27, 28 Albanian border crossers, criminalization of  57 ‘Albanian crisis’  57 Albanian Helsinki Committee  58, 59 Albanian migrants, demonization of  58 ‘Albanian problem’  57 Albanian pyramid banking system  57 ambivalent legal status  64 Amnesty International  30, 31, 94n1, 112 Anastasopoulou  49 Anatolian Greek refugees  46 Andersson, Ruben  37 Andrijasevic, R.  114 anthropocentric hierarchical distinctions  133 ‘anti-​Hellene’  16 Antonopoulos, Georgios  56, 60 Appeals Authority  69, 104 Appeals Committee  103, 105 al-​Arab, Muhammad  82 Arab Spring  68 Arendt, Hannah  159 Armakolas, I.  54 Article 2 of Presidential Decree 61/​1999  59 Articles 2, 4 and 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights  152

Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights  152 Article 14(8) of Law 4375/​2016  106 Article 15 of the 1951 Geneva Convention  52 Article 20 of Law 4540/​2018  109 Article 23 of Law 4540/​2018  109 Article 25 of Law 1975/​1991  55n6 Article 33(1) of the 1951 Geneva Convention  153 Article 54 of Law 4375/​2016  102 Article 76(3) of Law 3386/​2005  62 Article 81 of Law 3386/​2005  63 Article 101(2) of Law 4461/​2017  103 Article 365 of the 4619/​2019 Greek Penal Code  153 Articles 24 and 25 of Law 1975/​1991  56 Asia Minor Catastrophe  46, 49, 50, 161 Asia Minor refugees  2, 46–​9, 51 Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration scheme  114 Asylum Information Database (AIDA)  70 asylum procedures  22, 26, 41, 53, 55, 55n6, 56, 59, 61, 67, 69n12, 70, 71, 85, 88, 91, 94–​113, 117 asylum process  111 asylum seekers  24, 52–​4, 59, 60, 80, 106, 107, 109, 111–​13 Asylum Service  67, 69, 69n12, 70, 71, 95, 96, 98, 99, 105, 106, 110 autoethnography  11 autonomy harms  7, 32 Auyero, Javier  128 B Balaskas, Stratis  47 Baldwin-​Edwards, M.  56 Balkanion action plan  62n10

199

BORDER HARMS AND EVERYDAY VIOLENCE

Balkan route  37, 38, 40, 116 ‘banal crimes against humanity’  3, 162 Bilateral Readmission Protocol  61 biopolitical border management  142 Blair, Tony  23, 24, 38 border rapes  36 border violence  1–​5, 14, 14n5, 17, 30, 42, 50, 87, 92–​4, 119, 157, 160, 161, 163 continuum of  137 and control  51–​63 and human suffering  82 hypervisibility of  119 legitimization and normalization of  84 manifestation of  72 Bosnian refugees  54 Boss, Pauline  151 Bourgois, Philippe  9, 87 bureaucratic assessments  108 bureaucratic deterrence  21, 88, 92, 117 bureaucratic inconsistency  91 bureaucratic violence  88, 117 ‘bureaucratised humanitarian intervention’  108

Davidson, Julia O’Connell  32 decision-​making process  7 De Genova, Nicola  100, 116 De Haas, Hein  37 dehumanization  3, 39 De León, Jason  142, 143, 145, 150n2 Dendias, Nikos  79 deportable nationalities  100 deterrence policies  13, 138 deterrent policies  139 ‘deterring-​killing’ policies  1, 22, 121, 139, 141–​4 differential nationality-​based approach  102 ‘do no harm’ principle  15n6 Dotty, Roxanne Lynn  29, 144 Douglas, Mary  150 Doyal, L.  6 Dublin Agreement  67 Dublin Convention  55, 55n6 Dublin III Regulation  103 Dublin Regulation  93, 102 dysfunctional asylum system  60 dysfunctional bureaucratic system  148

C Cacho, L.M.  123 Caja, Emilio  87 Chandrinos, Konstantinos  57 Churchill, Winston  2n2 civil society organizations  114 clandestine migration services  33 coerced choices  32, 36–​7 coerced deportations  115–​16 ‘collateral arrests’  157 collective trauma  47 Comfort, Megan  128 communicable diseases  78, 85 Compulsory Law 389/​1968  51 continuum of violence  1–​4, 9, 10, 21–​2 heartfelt ethnography of borders  10–​12 metaphor of prison island  12–​21 violence, social harm and social suffering  5–​10 Copson, Lynne  150n2 Council Regulation 1030/​2002 EC  61 Crépeau, François  62 criminalization  163 of solidarity  16, 157 criminal justice system  5n1 criminal law  5, 6 ‘criminal trafficking networks’  25, 39 Critical Migration  120 cross-​border crime  89 cultural harms  7, 140, 150, 150n2, 151, 153 cultural violence  8

E ‘economic migrants’  24 ECRE  111 Elbe, Stefan  74 emergency relocation scheme  112–​13 emotional harms  118 emotional sociology  11 enforcement archipelago  41, 42–​3, 74 environmental degradation  124 epistemic violence and injustices  15 Erdoğan, Tayyip  83 Erickson, P.I.  10 Esposito, Francesca  87 EU borders  externalization of  23–​7 internalization of  37–​43 policies  2, 162 regime  19, 138 EU Facility for Refugees  41 EU funds  123 EU militarization and securitization policies  28 euphemisms  4, 64 EU policies  86 European Agenda on Migration  38 European Asylum Dactyloscopy Database  93 European Asylum Support Office (EASO)  88 European Border and Coast Guard Agency  26 European border regime  95 European Commission  104, 112 European Community  53, 65 European Council  25 European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE)  70, 103

D Danish Refugee Council  92 Das, Veena  10

200

INDEX

European Court of Human Rights  65, 152 European Economic Community  52 European refugee crisis  3 EU–​Turkey statement  12, 38, 39, 41–​3, 59n8, 61, 99, 102–​6, 162 excessive abuse  134 externalization  of EU borders  23–​7 harms of  27–​37 policies  23, 25, 26, 28, 32 F Fakiolas, R.  56 family reunification scheme  113–​14 Farmer, Paul  8 Fassin, Didier  143 fast-​track border procedure  101–​5 financial crisis  54, 130 financial debt  33–​4 financial harms  33–​4 financing migration  32 First Reception Service  67, 69, 111 Foucault, M.  120 Frelick, Bill  27 Frontex assessments  89, 90 Fylakio detention centre  67 G Galtung, Johan  7, 8 Garelli, Glenda  39, 83 gendered harms  7 ‘genealogical framework’  3 ‘generational’ effect  21 Geneva Convention  51, 52 geographical restriction regime  41–​2 Georgoulas, Stratos  14n5, 63, 133, 134 Giakoumi, Pelli  160 Golden Dawn  68, 69 Gordon, Eleanor  122 Gough, I.  6 grassroots movements  2n1, 14 Greco–​Turkish War of 1919–​22  1, 46 Greece  43, 44, 51–​4, 137, 161 Greek Action Plan for Migration Management and Asylum  67 Greek Aegean Islands  110 Greek Appeals Committees  104 Greek Asylum Service  41, 88, 95, 99, 104 Greek asylum system  67 Greek civil society organizations  67 Greek Council for Refugees  101, 102, 107 Greek genocide  45, 50 Greek law  60 Greek national healthcare system  88 Greek policy on immigration  55 Gulzari, Muhammad  82 Gundhus, H.  89 Gupta, Akhil  7

H harmful criminal activities  33 harmful environmental conditions  7 heartfelt ethnographic approach  11 hegemonic narratives  4 Hellenic Centre for Disease Control and Prevention  81 Hertz, Robert  150 Hillyard, Paddy  6, 7 Hirschon, Renée  46, 48 hotspot approach  38–​40 “human bomb” tactic  83 human dignity  14, 123 humanitarian crisis  68 humanitarianism  37, 43 ‘humanitarian security’  141 human mobility  62, 75 human needs approach  6 human rights  abuses  119 organizations  14n5, 24 violations  3 Human Rights Watch (HRW)  24, 60, 79 human trafficking  60, 61, 65 Hyndman, Jennifer  24 I Iliadou, Evgenia  87 illegality industry  17, 18, 159 illicit human trade market  33 immigration detention centres, genealogies of  63 immigration policies  57 ‘Improvement of Migration Legislation’  110 inadequate interpretation services  100 inadequate vulnerability assessment procedure  109 inadequate vulnerability screening  108 inadmissibility procedure  101–​5 Independent Appeals Committees  104 indigenous Mayan communities  12 informal border pathway  40 informal economy  57 institutional disbelief  98 institutional violence  5, 5n1, 14, 15, 89, 92, 137, 138 intergenerational harms  2, 10, 45–​51, 71 first reception centres or screening centres  66–​71 genealogies of immigration detention centres  63 regimes of border violence and control  51–​63 special sites of residency for foreigners  63–​6 ‘intergenerational transmission of violent memory’  46 intergenerational violence continuum  162 internalization  border policies and practices  38

201

BORDER HARMS AND EVERYDAY VIOLENCE

of EU borders  37–​43 policies  38, 44 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea  153 international law  41 International Organization for Migration (IOM)  52, 88, 112, 114, 115, 137 international organizations  114 International Protection Act  109, 110 international protection regime  52 international refugee protection regime  51 interpersonal violence  5 invisible violence  15 ‘irregular migration’  27 irregular travel  116–​17 J Joint Ministerial Decision  105 Jones, Reece  143n1 K Kafkaesque process  95 Karabairis, A.  54 Karamanidou, Lena  79, 86 Kara Tepe camp  12, 155 Kasimis, Charalambos  52, 57 Kassimi, Chryssa  52, 57 KEELPNO  107 Khosravi, Shahram  11, 33, 35, 116 Kleinman, Arthur  10 Kurdish asylum seekers  63 Kurdish camp  63 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)  60 Kysel, Ian M.  27 L labour debt  34–​6 labour market  7, 57 Larsen, Henrik Kjellmo  122 Lavrio temporary accommodation centre  63 lethal policies  139 lethal political decisions  152 lethal political game  153 ‘life jacket graveyard’  141 ‘live governance’  138 Lock, Margaret  10 Loyd, Jenna  43 Loverdos, Andreas  80, 81n4 M Maastricht Treaty 1991  55 Malkki, Liisa  108 mandate refugees  53 marginalized communities  19 Mattiello, Giacomo  87 Mawani, Renisa  85 Mbembe, Achille  119–​21 McDonough, Paul  67 Medecins Sans Frontieres  28, 100, 128, 130

Mediterranean Sea  24, 26, 122, 142, 144, 145 mental health  harm  7 issues  130 problems  131 metaphorical language  4 Metaxas, Ioannis  73 migrant detention  62 ‘migration crisis’  17 migration governance  21, 63, 72, 119–​21 migration policy  56 Migreurop  63 ‘military-​humanitarian approach’  83 misrecognition  7 Mitsotakis, Kyriakos  82 Moria 2.0 camp  155 Moria camp  12, 49, 85, 86, 86, 95, 96, 110, 123–​35, 146 as graveyard  123–​4 as site of violence  124–​35 Moria hotspot  20, 22, 38, 39, 85, 88, 89, 95, 96, 100, 105, 108, 109, 110, 112, 122, 123, 123, 127, 132, 134, 135, 146, 148, 155, 161 Mountz, Alison  43, 73, 74, 153, 156 MSS v Belgium and Greece  67 mundane surrealism  88, 100 assisted voluntary return and reintegration  114–​15 asylum procedures  94–​112 coerced deportations  115–​16 emergency relocation scheme  112–​13 family reunification scheme  113–​14 irregular travel  116–​17 screening and identification procedures  89–​93 Mytilene paper  155 N National Public Health Organization (EODY)  107 necroharms  10, 119, 121–​2 Moria camp  123–​35 politics of abandonment  120–​1 necropolitical border management  121, 122 necropolitical border policies  135 necropolitical border regime  119, 121, 122 necropolitical EU border regime  120 necropolitical violence  118–​21 necropolitics  121 ‘necroviolence’  150n2 neoliberal capitalism  33 neoliberal political projects  159 A New Vision for Refugees  23 New York Protocol of 1967  51 NGO Action Aid  113 NGO Greek Council for Refugees  65

202

INDEX

No Border Kitchen Lesvos  156 non-​disclosure clauses  16, 20 non-​EU countries  26 Nordstrom, Carolyn  10 O Öcalan, Abdullah  60 occupational culture  5n1 Operation Xenios Zeus  58n7, 79–​81 organ debt  36 organizational culture  5n1 Ottoman Empire  45 Ottoman Turkish  46 P Pagani detention centre  64 Pagani EXPA  65 Pantazis, Christina  6 Pantelia, Anna  47 Papadopoulou, Aspasia  61 Papageorgiou, Ioannis  52, 55 Papagiannopoulos, Nikos  62 Pemberton, Simon  6, 7 Petsas, Stellios  82 physical health harm  7 physical violence  8, 58, 79, 119, 134 Pickering, Sharon  80, 84, 116 Pikpa camp  19 Podkul, Jeniffer  27 police violence  134, 156–​7 politics of abandonment  120 ‘politics of discomfort’  88 politics of externalization  28 Poseidonion action plan  62n10 postcolonial violence  1, 45, 49 postdoctoral ethnographic research  158 post-​mortem corporeal mistreatment  150 post-​traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)  109, 131 poverty  32 Presidential Decree 61/​1999  59 Presidential Decree 83/​1993  56 Presidential Decree 113/​2013  69, 70 Presidential Decree 141/​2013  69 ‘prevention through deterrence’  141 ‘preventive protection’  24 prison island  12–​21, 23 Proselytism  135 ‘protective custody’  39 psychological harms  118 psychological violence  16, 58 pull factor migration policy  54 Q Qachaqbar  30 quarantine border practices  72 quarantine continuum  72–​5 enemy at borders  82–​6 enemy within  76–​82

R racist pogrom  79, 159 racist violence  133 Rahimi v Greece  65 Recast Reception Conditions Directive 2013/​33/​EU  124 refugee camps  14, 85, 95–​6, 137, 155 sexual violence in  130 refugee crisis  1, 3, 5, 10, 16, 17, 21, 23–​5, 37, 43, 50, 54, 68, 71, 74, 83, 83n5, 118, 119, 137, 138, 140, 142, 145, 152, 159, 161 refugee issue  1, 2, 18 refugee waste  141 relational harms  7 relocation scheme  94, 112, 113 ‘remain close to home’ policy  54 research fatigue  17, 19 right vigilante groups  5 Rozakou, Katerina  17, 90, 132 Rylko-​Bauer, Barbara  8, 9 S Sam, N.  11 Sarantidis, Dimos  14n5, 63, 104, 133, 134 Schengen Agreement  23, 25, 55, 73, 137, 138, 152 Schengen regime  86 Scheper-​Hughes, Nancy  9, 33, 87 securitization enforcements  74 securitization of migration  87 Segato, Rita  142 self-​actualization  7 self-​inflicted harms  116 self-​representation  7 Serafeim, A.  109, 131 sexual debt  36 sexual humiliation  132 sexual violence  132 in refugee camps  130 Shelley, Louise  31 Singer, M.  10 smuggling  37 social harm  approach  6, 120, 121, 162 typology  10 “social suffering”  10 Sontag, Susan  85 state corruption  31 ‘state of exception’  159 state violence  12, 14–​17, 20 Statue of Liberty  13 Stavropoulou, Maria  49, 52–​3, 130 structural violence  5, 5n1, 7–​10, 14, 15, 137, 138 Sukarieh, M.  19 ‘supermarket Mytilene’  159 survival sex  131 symbolic violence  16 systematic criminalization  158–​9

203

BORDER HARMS AND EVERYDAY VIOLENCE

T Tannock, S.  19 Tazzioli, Martina  39, 83, 138 temporal continuum of violence  137, 151 terrorism  89 ‘testimonial injustices’  2 testimonial writing  11 thanatoharms  10, 137–​9, 144–​6 deterring-​killing policies  141–​4 frozen death  139–​41 violence after death  147–​52 thanatopolitical border regime  120, 137, 138–​9, 141–​4, 146, 152 thanatopolitical EU border regime  120, 121 thanatopolitical violence  121 theory of necropolitics  120 Ticktin, Miriam  25 Tombs, Steve  6, 7 ‘torturing environment’  122, 162 trafficking  37 Treaty of Amsterdam 1997  60 Treaty of Lausanne  46 Treaty on European Union 1992  60 Tsaliki, Lisa  57 Tsoni, Ioanna  160 Tsourdi, Evangelia  67 Turkish territorial waters  39 U UK government policy paper  23 UK’s National Health Service (NHS)  77 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea  153 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)  53, 66, 67, 113 UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect  37 US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants  53 V Valletta Summit on Migration  25 violence  7, 29–​33, 153 after death  147–​52

border (see border violence) bureaucratic  88, 117 continuum of (see continuum of violence) cultural  8 everyday  9, 15 institutional  5, 5n1, 14, 15, 89, 92, 137, 138 interpersonal  5 invisible  15 necropolitical  118–​21 physical  8, 58, 79, 119, 134 police  134, 156–​7 postcolonial  1, 45, 49 psychological  16, 58 racist  133 render  9 sexual (see sexual violence) social harm and social suffering  5–​10 state  12, 14–​17, 20 structural  5, 5n1, 7–​10, 14, 15, 137, 138 symbolic  16 temporal continuum of  137 thanatopolitical  121 violent border policies  161 violent border regime  159 Vogt, Wendy  29 voluntary return and reintegration  114–​15 von der Leyen, Ursula  82 Vougias, Spyros  65 vulnerabilities  111 administrative  105–​12 assessment  106–​8, 110 W Walters, W.  114 Warren, Kay  12 ‘weaponization of migration’  83 Weber, L.  116 Whyte, Zachary  117 Y Yugoslavian Civil War  54 Z ‘zones of exception’  29, 143n1

204