Wednesday June 23, 2021
Allegations against Greece
Amnesty: “Illegal pushbacks are standard”
Amnesty International is investigating the actions of the Greek border troops – and comes to alarming results: people who have long since reached European soil are being illegally brought back to Turkey, the approach is systematic. Violence is the order of the day.
The human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) accuses the Greek border troops of continuing illegal deportations of people seeking protection in the border area with Turkey. Before the publication of a new report by AI, Franziska Vilmar, asylum expert at Amnesty International in Germany, said the new research had shown “that violent push-backs have de facto become Greek border policy in the Evros region”.
Asylum seekers would be picked up up to 700 kilometers from the Greek-Turkish border and deported to Turkey, said AI. According to the documented cases, the Greek authorities are carrying out so-called push-backs – direct deportations without examining an asylum application – on land and at sea. The English-language report “Greece: Violence, lies and pushbacks” focuses on actions by the border police between June and December 2020 in the Evros region and on the river of the same name, which forms the Greek-Turkish border.
In February and March 2020, Greece forcibly pushed back asylum seekers in response to a unilateral opening of the land border by Turkey. According to the AI, the new investigation shows that human rights violations continue to be committed and have “become an established practice”. Vilmar said it was “shocking that several Greek authorities are working closely together to brutally arrest and detain those seeking protection”.
In the cases documented by AI, up to a thousand people are affected, some several times and sometimes using unofficial detention centers. “The level of organization of these deportations shows how far Greece is going to send people back illegally and to cover this up,” criticizes Amnesty.
Criticism of Frontex
The vast majority of people Amnesty spoke to said they had witnessed or seen violence from suspected Greek officials and men in civilian clothes. This would have included blows with sticks or clubs, kicks, punches, slaps and knocks, which sometimes led to serious injuries.
Amnesty also criticizes the EU border protection agency Frontex in this context. Since this is not fulfilling its duty to prevent human rights violations, it must suspend its operations in Greece, the human rights organization demands. “All the people we spoke to have been pushed back from areas where Frontex has a large number of employees,” said Vilmar. The agency cannot therefore claim that it is unaware of the mistreatment “that we and many other organizations have documented”.
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