The Council of Europe denounces the refoulementgeneralizedof refugees at European borders, and asks its Member States to put an end to what it calls “human rights violations“, in a report published Thursday, April 7.
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Number of “refugees, asylum seekers and migrantsturned back at Europe’s land and sea borders has increased, according to this report, which speaks of a phenomenon that has become a “systematic pan-European problem“. Croatia, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Bulgaria or even France and Spain are strongly criticized for sending back to neighboring countries migrants trying to enter their territory.
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Castigation of the legalization of the measures
The document is based on NGO reports which, for example, counted between 50 and 130 deportation procedures per day during the summer of 2020, and up to 170 in October of the same year, from France to Italy. in the Alpes-Maritimes department. This report also highlights that in some countries, “the use of violencetowards refugees isserious and systematic“.
He criticizes the tendency of certain states to want to adopt laws legalizing refoulement measures. “The current situation shows that serious human rights violations, which have become an essential part of Member States’ border control methods, are cruel, contradictory and counterproductive.said the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, in the introduction to the report.
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The commissioner pointed out the double standard with the reception “warm» reserved for Ukrainians fleeing the war: the European countries which have opened their arms to them continue to push refugees of other nationalities outside their borders, «by creating false divisionsbetween different groups, she said.
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“Human rights exist to protect us all equally, no matter where we come from.“, recalled Dunja Mijatovic. The Council of Europe, watchdog of human rights on the continent, therefore calls on member states to put an end to these refoulements and to “comply with their legal obligations“vis-à-vis the refugees by not sending them back to the other side of the border”without an individualized procedure“nor without”right to an effective remedy“.
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It also requires states to put in placerules of conduct» and «clear and mandatory standardized procedures“for the authorities in charge of border control in order to process refugees”in a manner consistent with human rights“.
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