During August and September 2025, multiple announcements and interventions were published by leading domestic and international organisations in response to statements by government officials and sources about legislative measures and restrictions affecting civil society organisations active in the protection of human rights, particularly refugee rights.
On 21 August 2025, Kathimerini reported that the Minister for Migration and Asylum, Thanos Plevris, was promoting the deletion of NGOs from the official registry if they were perceived as opposing government migration policy. According to the report, an NGO could be removed if it “circulates positions to migrants against the official migration policy” or if it “takes legal action against decisions providing for administrative detention or suspension of asylum.”
Deletion from the NGO registry is a severe measure, since it effectively bars an organisation from accessing migrant and refugee facilities.
Earlier, on 14 August, the pro‑government outlet Political published similar leaks from ministry sources, claiming that NGOs filing legal challenges “create constant legal obstacles” to border protection and deterrence measures, and that such litigation “is not simple criticism but a mechanism that questions the core pillars of national migration policy.”
These statements reveal a troubling pattern. The government appears to link the deletion of an NGO not to unlawful conduct, but to the lawful exercise of a protected right, namely the right to seek judicial review of administrative decisions considered unlawful under Greek or EU law, or inconsistent with Greece’s international obligations.
This is despite the fact that the right to judicial protection is guaranteed by Article 20 of the Constitution and by major international instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights, as laid out here:
Greek Constitution Article 20
“1. Every person shall be entitled to receive legal protection by the courts and may plead before them his views concerning his rights or interests, as specified by law. 2. The right of a person to a prior hearing also applies in any administrative action or measure adopted at the expense of his rights or interests.”
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
Article 8: “Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.”
Article 10: “Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.”
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
Article 14 paragraph 1: “All persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals. In the determination of any criminal charge against him, or of his rights and obligations in a suit at law, everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law.”
European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
Article 6 paragraph 1: “In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.”
Article 13: “Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in this Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.”
These developments triggered strong reactions from a wide range of domestic and international human rights organisations.
On 28 August 2025, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Greek National Commission for Human Rights (GNCHR), the independent advisory body to the Greek State on human rights issues, issued a joint statement in which they “express their deep concern about the escalation of negative rhetoric and the hostile climate forming against refugees, migrants and the civil society organizations that support them.”
They added: “Of particular concern are public statements, initiatives or informal leaks that stigmatize civil society actors or propose punitive measures against organizations that may express different views or resort to justice representing the people who have sought their support. This negative rhetoric undermines public trust and the long-standing and mutually beneficial cooperation between the State and civil society. Oversight and accountability are legitimate and necessary functions fully accepted by civil society organizations. However, when presented as a threat or punishment, they risk becoming tools of intimidation and restriction.”
In a letter dated 5 September to the Permanent Representative of Greece to the Council of Europe, the President of the Conference of INGOs and the President of its Expert Council on NGO Law reacted to recent statements by Greece’s Minister of Migration and Asylum commenting adversely on NGOs that legally represent asylum seekers affected by the suspension of the right to asylum in court proceedings and suggesting that they will be subjected to an administrative audit. They noted that “this is particularly concerning as these statements follow the interim measures issued by the European Court of Human Rights to secure the right of eight asylum-seekers to remain in Greece until the examination of their suspension applications at the administrative courts is completed.” The letter also recalled that Recommendation CM/Rec(2007)14 “specifically provides that NGOs should be free to undertake advocacy on issues of public debate, regardless of whether the position taken is in accord with government policy,” and concluded with the hope that the minister’s comments would not be followed by concrete measures against NGOs.
In its own statement on 25 September, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) called for an end to the systematic targeting and undermining of civil society organisations working to protect the rights of migrants and refugees. FIDH noted that “Greek authorities threaten to remove some migrants’ rights NGOs from the official registry of the Ministry of Migration and Asylum, posing serious obstacles to the capacity of civil society actors to operate and defend the rights of migrants and asylum seekers, and thereby shrinking civic space.” It added that the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders “expresses its deep concern over the ongoing restrictions and the Greek government’s systematic shrinking of NGOs’ independence and ability to work on migration issues,” and that it “calls on the Greek government to immediately halt legislative and administrative measures aimed at removing NGOs from the official Ministry of Migration and Asylum registry and rescind any politically motivated allegations that hinder NGOs’ human rights work.” The statement stressed that “the systematic targeting of NGOs defending migrants’ rights through vague allegations, politically motivated accusations, and burdensome financial audits violates the right to freedom of association and severely restricts civil society’s ability to provide vital assistance to migrants and asylum seekers.”
The Hellenic League for Human Rights (HLHR), as a member of FIDH, stated that it “will continue to cooperate with international and domestic organisations to safeguard a free and safe operating space for civil society in Greece.”
Already on 22 August, eighty‑one civil society organisations had sent a joint letter to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, warning that government announcements about conducting “controls” on actors who express disagreement with current policy represent a dangerous shift. They stressed that when oversight is framed as a threat or as a tool of punishment, it becomes a means of coercion, intimidation and silencing. Such practices, they noted, contradict a range of relevant national and international legal standards. In mature democracies, oversight mechanisms are applied according to institutional criteria, not used as political instruments.
The Alternative Intervention of Athens Lawyers added that the government now treats even the filing of legal challenges by organisations and lawyers, and the request for judicial review of government decisions, as an “undermining of state sovereignty.” According to the group, these practices place Greece outside the community of states that claim adherence to the rule of law, since human rights defenders — whether civil society organisations or lawyers — have an inherently independent role vis‑à‑vis the executive branch. Their function is to scrutinise and assess government initiatives where necessary, not to conform to any national or state policy line.
The issue was also addressed by Dr Aikaterini Papanikolaou, lawyer and former member of the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE). She noted that, according to reliable reports, the Greek legislator appears determined to introduce a provision allowing the deletion from the relevant registry of NGOs that convey to migrants positions contrary to the government’s official migration policy. The same sanction would apply to organisations that initiate legal action against decisions providing for administrative detention or suspension of asylum. She observed that such an initiative undermines established national and supranational rule‑of‑law guarantees and represents a striking departure from the dominant jurisprudential tradition that emerged after the traumatic experiences of the major wars of the previous century.
She added that this development amounts to a fundamental distortion of the basic principles of the social and cultural model that forms the minimum foundation for democratic life. Without questioning the political dimension of migration or the disproportionate scale of refugee flows, which have created objectively difficult conditions in many local communities, she argued that legislative interference with the right to judicial protection exceeds any reasonable attempt to balance the contentious issues of the moment.
Across the interventions of domestic and international human rights bodies, a consistent concern emerges. The government appears to link an organisation’s ability to operate not to unlawful conduct, but to the lawful exercise of a protected right, namely the right to seek judicial review of administrative acts. This is incompatible with Article 20 of the Constitution and with key international instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ICCPR, and the ECHR.
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