In the wake of a deadly shooting in Crete that left two people dead, Greece’s minister of Migration and Asylum, Thanos Plevris, called for tighter limits on gun ownership and condemned the island’s lingering tradition of vendettas, which he described as “a crime of the worst kind.”
Speaking on MEGA TV, Plevris said that any legal access to firearms should be tightly circumscribed. Gun ownership, he argued, “can exist under very strict rules and only for the home,” adding that he opposes the idea that turning 18 should entitle anyone to purchase a weapon. He praised government efforts to collect illegal firearms and strengthen oversight.
Plevris also addressed recent unrest at a migrant detention facility in northern Greece, where two police officers were injured and 30 people were detained. He attributed the clash to the reaction of detainees whose asylum applications had been rejected under fast-track procedures. According to his account, the group consisted of people from Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh who had arrived during a government-imposed suspension of asylum access. Because they entered while the suspension was in force, he said, they were held in detention while their claims were processed. Once they received official notice that their applications had been rejected and that they would remain in custody for up to 24 months pending deportation, “they reacted,” he said.
The legislation underlying this process has been widely criticized. Greece suspended access to asylum for three months for people arriving by boat from North Africa — a measure that directly affected arrivals on Crete and Gavdos. Numerous international organizations, including the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), have condemned the law as a flagrant violation of international, European and human rights standards.
UNHCR has warned that the suspension undermines the fundamental right to seek asylum and breaches the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning individuals to countries where their lives or freedom may be at risk. While acknowledging the pressures created by recent arrivals, the agency urged Greece to uphold its long tradition of protecting people fleeing conflict and persecution and called on the EU to support frontline states through greater solidarity and responsibility-sharing.
