This week’s blog post continues our interview with Samos-based human rights lawyer Dimitris Choulis. Last week, we delved into the role the EU plays in Dimitris’ work, his professional opinion as a legal expert on the current trend of criminalization in immigration policy, and his views as a Samos local on the developments which have taken place on the island over the last six years. In the second part, we share Dimitris’ experiences with the Greek justice system and what fighting for justice in Greek courtrooms looks like.
Alexia : On the subject of Greece: this might be a tough question, but what is your professional opinion as to why there has been an increase in criminalization strategies by Greek authorities and the Greek judicial system? Do you believe that decision makers in Greece and Italy have been trying to please EU legislators by strengthening their grip on displaced peoples through prosecution, since they classify geopolitically as “outer borders?” Of course, this implies a lack of agency on the part of national governments, which is in no way the intention of this question. But do you believe that there may be a general trend of wanting to become “more European” – as tragically ironic as it seems – by acting more in line with EU guidelines? I must add that I’m inspired to ask this question by Nea Dimokratia’s pre-electoral slogan “One Step Closer to Europe,” which is currently plastered all over Athens.
Dimitris: You know, I’d be pleasantly surprised at the organization of our country if criminalizing migrants and refugees was part of a greater political masterplan. Personally, I don’t think that’s the case. Throughout my work as a human rights lawyer, I have not witnessed anyone acting in this manner. Instead, what I’ve witnessed is a general underlying attitude of just letting things happen. It’s something along the lines of: “Well, a boat just arrived. Who was at the steering wheel? Alright, he’s the smuggler! We can now issue a press statement that we as Greek authorities are succeeding in destroying all the trafficking rings.”
Alexia : So, you would describe the general attitude as: “No one can accuse us of not doing our job"?
Dimitris : Yes. “We did our job, there you go, another case closed” – this is what resulted in these shocking reports by Borderline Europe which stated that court cases lasted 28 minutes on average and resulted in average prison sentences of 50 years. But ever since we became involved, court cases now last three or four hours, with defendants getting out of prison after two and a half or three years. And that’s not because we’re incredibly awesome heroes, but because this bureaucratic mess allowed judges to simply approach cases like this: “Case number XY. Smuggling. How many people were on the boat, twenty? What’s twenty times five? A hundred. So, a hundred years sentence, case closed.” And many lawyers contributed to this bureaucratic mess by reading the case file as little as five minutes before the first court hearing, de facto displaying the same attitude. So, ever since we became involved, we spoke about these issues a little more specifically, and we were able to show that you can’t be a smuggler when you’re traveling with your infant child on board. Sure, if a judge sees a supposed trafficker carrying his baby on board for the first time, they might think it’s just something that happens. But if they see it a second and then a third time, and listen to our defense and our analysis of the case, they will also start to understand that there’s something wrong. And that’s why the court on Lesvos, which used to be a tough court, has started issuing good judgements. The same goes for the court here on Samos, where judges come from Syros every three months. The judges on Rhodes have retained quite a strict stance, but even over there we’ve had a few victories lately, as we did on Crete.
Alexia: Speaking of cases you’ve worked on, you recently defended a group of people known in Greece as “the Pylos Nine,” who are survivors of the 2023 shipwreck which claimed at least 700 lives off the coast of Pylos, Peloponnese. The Pylos Nine were brought to court by authorities on the count of human trafficking. This case was tried in Kalamata, a court you haven’t mentioned yet. How was that experience?
Dimitris: The Pylos Nine were defended by my colleagues and I as part of the Human Rights Legal Project which is based here on Samos and usually works in collaboration with an Athens- and a Chios-based lawyer. In preparation of this case, however, we decided to cooperate with even more colleagues and partnered up with Legal Centre Lesvos, as well as two more lawyers from Athens. In short, there were eight of us in court on the day of the first hearing. Not because eight of us were necessary workload-wise, but because we wanted to express to the court and everyone who was there: “We’re not lawyers working for some shady project which makes money off of human trafficking.” We wanted to demonstrate that there are many of us practicing law to fight against severe human rights violations and that we come from different places; that we come here to advocate and tell everyone this is happening constantly, and it’s part of a larger systemic issue called “criminalization.” Criminalization is a political tactic which is targeted at people who are clearly not smugglers. And I can honestly say that this trial went very well. Think about this: at first, our colleague who is based in Kalamata was telling us how strict the judges are and we were pondering if we should request a rescheduling of the trial because we felt afraid. We thought our clients might actually end up in prison. But after many discussions we doubled down on our stance. We decided that if we are afraid, if we stay silent about these things, nothing will change. But if we go to court and explain the situation to the judge, the community, and the media while being backed by a large organization like Amnesty International, something will change – and it will change permanently. It will have a positive effect for the “next ones.”
Alexia: This is a really hopeful message, but I imagine it still took a lot of courage to walk into the courtroom that day – even as a group of eight people. Was your decision informed by a previous experience, specifically?
Dimitris: While this message does reflect our general attitude, persistence is something that especially our younger team members have to learn first and foremost. However, they learn it pretty early on during their time with us. I remember when my colleague Ioanna Begiazi had just joined us fresh out of her traineeship, during a period where we had taken on a case of three young men who were brought to court on trafficking charges by Lesvos authorities. Among them was Mohammad Hanad Abdi, who ended up receiving a 142-year long prison sentence. After the judgment was issued, Ioanna went practically a whole week without speaking to anyone – that’s how defeated and disappointed she felt. I understood why she felt this way, but immediately afterwards while still filing for an appeal, I told her: “Don’t worry, don’t be sad. Because 142 years is such an extreme verdict, because it sounds as extreme as it is, it will end up helping our case!” Of course, I couldn’t have known the outcome of the appeal, but I truly believed what I was telling her, and I ended up being right. So, these monstrously strict judgments, this bureaucracy, this nonchalant attitude of the justice system – they are all visible phenomena. Sometimes, that’s how you’re able to fight them in the first place. But you have to fight.
Alexia: So, Mohammad did not end up in prison for 142 years?
Dimitris: Mohammad and his co-defendants actually had a documentary made about their case. It’s called 142 years, directed by MEP Stelios Kouloglou. This confirmed my prediction to Ioanna: The 142-year long sentence sounded so unbelievable that it made for a great movie title! As you can expect, this documentary ended up bringing a lot of attention to their case, but also to the larger issue at hand. And indeed, the appeals court reduced this outrageous sentence to eight years and Mohammad was released, since they recognized the time served and his good behavior. So, this is what I can say: even our losses can become wins, as long as we persist. This case which seemed like a colossal defeat suddenly turned into something which was backed by politicians, something that gained international media traction. To come back to your previous question: the state is not that well-organized as to act in this way on purpose, at least not the legal system. I say this with confidence because we can see when things happen because of tight organization, because of well-planned cover-ups, for instance with spying scandals. But in our experience, that’s not the case. Of course, the draconian laws these sentences are based on are state-issued, the legislature is in the hands of the national government which is in turn ruled by Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ Nea Dimokratia and integrated into the EU and its guidelines. But there is room to fight the ways in which laws are applied to actual cases.
Alexia : Okay, so the laws are there, and obviously, it’s in the power of every judge to enforce them in any way they find appropriate. We as activists – and you as a lawyer specifically – can’t assume that every single judge out there will be easily convinced to join some type of highly politicized “fight for human rights.” But, judges are humans as well. On a human level, how would you describe your experience with the changes you have seen in the justice system? How has the view of decision-makers changed into a more three-dimensional perspective since you have become actively involved with these cases? For example, are you able to mobilize the power of personal stories to show the complicated situations your clients find themselves in on their way to find a better life in Europe?
Dimitris: As you said, we should never forget that every authority figure we encounter is a person as well. There is always a personal component to every case, every trial. Sure, some judges or district attorneys might be more left-leaning, which can become palpable when you look at their track record and observe they always use the leeway they have to give a less strict verdict. But other than that, we can influence this human perspective through carefully choosing how we present the story behind each indictment. Unfortunately, the story is pretty simple to begin with: we are not actually clamping down on smuggling or human trafficking networks when we enforce these EU and state laws. We are not putting criminals behind bars, we are not sentencing the people profiting off of this harmful system – the people who live in their villas in Libya, Egypt, and Turkey and have never set foot on a dinghy.
Alexia : Could you tell us a specific story which showcases how someone in a position of authority experienced a change of heart, or was otherwise able to realize how people are forced into these precarious situations?
Dimitris : I can actually tell you a relatively recent story. It happened during a court hearing here on Samos, involving four co-defendants who had been indicted as alleged smugglers. Two of them received relatively light sentences, and were even released upon appealing. The third person was found innocent due to credible witness statements. However, the fourth accused – an older man from a country that has been officially deemed “safe” – received a long sentence. I assume that the court found his explanation for how he ended up in Turkey, as well as his journey here from his country of origin, not reasonable enough. Keep in mind that all four cases were handled by the same judge, the same district attorney. Throughout the trial, my impression of them was that where they were not able to “help” our case, they didn’t. It was that simple. As the judgment was announced, this sixty-year-old man stood up and immediately collapsed on the ground. I wasn’t particularly taken aback, because I already knew he had been battling some health issues. So, he collapses, we call an ambulance, and then we’re all waiting for the ambulance, the whole courtroom is in disarray. Well, just before everything was about to go down, I had a hunch this man was already not feeling well and that things were about to get worse. That’s why shortly before he fainted, I asked the judge and the district attorney if they would like to leave the room for a while - you could even say I politely advised them to. As it turned out, against their better judgment they decided to stay and ended up being completely rattled by the whole event. For over half an hour they were watching, wide-eyed as we waited for the ambulance to arrive and later when the first responders carried the defendant away. They were in shock. Afterwards, over the next two days at least, they were reaching out to me asking if he was okay, if he was feeling better… Even minutes after the ambulance left, they approached me asking how they could help and what they should do. I could tell they felt awful, even though they hadn’t done anything wrong. Sure, the judge’s sentence had been strict, but because the laws are strict! In the cases of the other three defendants, she had done everything in her power to be fair.
Alexia: Nevertheless, witnessing this man in distress clearly affected both of them on a personal level. Do you believe it might affect them long-term on a professional level as well?
Dimitris: I do. As I said, you can’t always act how you’d like to act when you’re in their position. I believe that this event was the reason why she seemed to be more reluctant to issuing longer verdicts in similar cases since then. Again, we rarely see traffickers brought to our courts, and even when we do, it’s always low-level individuals who are never involved in a position of power with criminal networks.
Alexia: Dimitris, you told us some really compelling stories today. Before we close, I would like to ask you another difficult question: if it weren’t for you and your colleagues, what do you believe the biggest obstacles people on the move being criminalized would face?
Dimitris: I believe that vacuums go against nature. Things will always come together, and empty spaces will always get filled sooner or later. In my case, you could argue it was me who took over this role because I am a local here on Samos. I was already living here and working as a lawyer while all the events between 2015 until 2019 unfolded right outside my door, in my hometown. Of course, there were other lawyers on Samos who had been working on the legal aspects of asylum cases, but the issues of human rights violations and criminalization were underrepresented. Still, we at the Human Rights Legal Project habe embodied many different roles during the last four years. For example, in 2020 when rescue missions were banned, our team went out to the shores which are common arrival points, functioning as witnesses in order to stand in the way of potential pushbacks. This is now something which Medicines Sans Frontiers is doing, a much more widely legitimized organization than our small, local project. So, I believe when there is a vacuum, sooner or later it will be filled. That’s what I’d like to believe. I also want to stress one more thing: even though I am the one you are interviewing today, the question you just asked was addressed to me, and I have been answering based on my personal experiences – it’s not just my work I’ve been talking about. There are a lot of us, more than I could ever have named during this call with you. And many, many of us are working for small, local, and grass-root organizations which are often the pioneers showing the larger, more prestigious institutions what needs to be done. Most of all, I hope I was able to relay one thing today: that all of our fights have an impact. If there is room, and if there are people who want to join, then others will follow; others will show their support, and then really important things can be achieved. We just have to keep fighting.
Alexia: Thank you so much for your time, energy, and empowering message, Dimitris!
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