Greece to Impose Strict Controls on Pro-Refugee Activists

Non-governmental organizations helping refugees in Greece will be required to register with the police if they want to carry on their work, the General Secretariat of Aegean and Island Coordinating Committee announced Monday.

The registration forms require organizations to provide information on all their members, their “previous actions” as well as their “affiliation with organizations already active in Greece,” according to official documents obtained by Statewatch, an independent organization monitoring state and civil liberties in Europe.

The move is part of an EU-led strategy that includes processing refugees who land on Greek shores exclusively via EU-run structures known as “hotspots.”

OPINION: Why the UN Meeting Is No Friend to Refugees

An EU document, dated in December, outlined the need to implement "a structured system for disembarkation at official disembarkation points” on Greek ports of entry as well as measures “coordinating all relevant governmental and non-governmental players involved in the hotspot locations."

Following EU directions, at the end of January, the Greek government formally set up a committee to register and monitor human rights groups operating on Lesbos, a small island that saw around 450,000 asylum seekers pass through in 2015.

Statewatch said the measure was “an attack on freedom of expression and action,” recalling that the Council of Europe recommended member states not to monitor non-governmental organizations: They “should not be subject to direction by public authorities,” nor they should require any “special authorization” to operate.

Statewatch Director Tony Bunyan said the measure had “no place in a democracy” and urged civil society groups to challenge the measure, otherwise it “may become the norm across Europe.”