NGOs, which performed more rescues in the central Mediterranean in the first half of 2017 than any others, were discredited and attacked by public commentators and politicians, and faced restrictions on their activities by a new code of conduct imposed by the Italian authorities. Russia continued to return asylum-seekers and refugees to countries where they were at risk of torture and other ill-treatment, as did other countries in Europe and Central Asia. EUROPEAN COLLABORATION WITH LIBYA With most refugees and migrants crossing the sea into Europe embarking from Libya, the EU and European governments, with Italy at the forefront, sought to close down this route by cooperating with the Libyan coastguard and other actors in the country. They entered into a string of co-operation agreements with Libyan authorities responsible for grave human rights violations, in particular the Libyan Coast Guard and Libya’s General Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM). Italy and other governments failed to include key human rights guarantees in these agreements and turned a blind eye to the abuses, including torture and extortion, against refugees and migrants by the very institutions they were co-operating with. The actions of European countries were leading to increasing numbers of people being stopped or intercepted. In so doing, European governments, and Italy in particular, were breaching their own international obligations and becoming complicit in the violations committed by the Libyan authorities they were sponsoring and co-operating with. EU-TURKEY MIGRATION DEAL, CONDITIONS IN GREECE The March 2016 EU-Turkey migration deal remained in place and continued to restrict access to territory and asylum in the EU. The deal aimed at returning asylum-seekers to Turkey, on the pretence of it being a “safe country” of transit. European leaders maintained the fiction that Turkey provided protection equivalent to that of the EU, even though Turkey had become even more unsafe for refugees since the 2016 coup attempt. The removal of procedural safeguards under Turkey’s state of emergency put refugees there at heightened risk of refoulement, the forcible return to countries where they were at risk of facing serious human rights violations. Throughout 2017, the deal left thousands exposed to overcrowded, squalid and unsafe conditions on Greek islands that were transformed into de facto holding pens and condemned them to extended asylum procedures. Some suffered violent hate crimes. Compared to 2016, arrivals on the Greek islands dropped sharply, mainly due to the deal,but a relative increase in arrivals during the summer stretched the islands’ already insufficient reception capacity once again. In December, around 13,000 asylum-seekers remained in limbo, stranded on the islands. Reception conditions both on the islands and in mainland Greece, meanwhile, continued to be inadequate, with many still forced to sleep in tents unfit for winter and women and girls particularly vulnerable in unsafe camp facilities. In September, Greece’s highest administrative court paved the way for forcible returns of Syrian asylum-seekers under the EU-Turkey migration deal by endorsing decisions by the Greek asylum authorities that deemed Turkey safe for two Syrian nationals. RELOCATION SCHEMES Solidarity with frontline countries receiving the majority of arrivals continued to be in short supply. European countries failed to relocate their committed numbers of asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy under the emergency relocation scheme adopted in September 2015. As of November, European states had fulfilled just 32% of their legal commitment. At the end of 50 Amnesty International Report 2017/18