Solidarity with the
Detained Migrants of Sintiki
Immediate Release of the 30 Prosecuted Migrants
On June 26, the Court of Serres will hear the appeal case of the 30 migrants prosecuted following the mobilization of 235 refugees at the closed detention center of Sintiki, in November 2025. The uprising of migrants transferred there from Crete exposed the brutality of modern detention camps, officially referred to as “controlled detention facilities” under the latest law of the Ministry of Migration. In reality, however, they function as informal prisons. There, around 800 people are confined for months in shipping containers under deplorable conditions, deprived of the right to leave, access to asylum procedures, adequate medical care, and appropriate clothing. A part from that, it also exposed the criminalization of resistance to state violence.
The majority of those prosecuted, mainly migrants from Egypt, were sentenced to three years’ imprisonment without suspension on charges of participation in an uprising and damage to the detention center’s perimeter fence. Some received harsher sentences due to additional charges, including attempted escape, resistance against public authorities, and causing bodily harm.
Following their convictions, the detained migrants were dispersed among prisons across Greece, including those in Drama, Nigrita, and Kassavetia. For a considerable period, neither relatives nor supporters knew where they had been transferred or in what condition they were being held.
This reality reflects the true face of the anti-migrant policies pursued by both the Greek government and the European Union, which trap displaced and persecuted people between criminalization, destitution, and death at the borders. While the government proudly presents Sintiki as a model facility, the refugees themselves demonstrate that state repression cannot impose silence.
Their struggle concerns not only themselves. It is part of a broader resistance against detention centers, against policies of discrimination, exclusion, and repression, and against a system that deprives the most vulnerable of their rights.
We express our full
solidarity with the hundreds of refugees and migrants who remain detained in
camps across Greece, particularly in Sintiki, and we support the 30 migrants
facing prosecution for demanding their fundamental rights. Defending their
dignity and freedom is a responsibility shared by all of us.
«STRUGGLE WITHOUT BORDERS»
Internationalist
Movement of Solidarity and Struggle
with Migrants and
Refugees