Around 60 people seeking protection from Turkey are attacked by armed men on the Greek side of the Evros. A practice that is not uncommon.
Thessaloniki – The message is clear. “We have been unlawfully tried in Turkey, tortured and experienced all kinds of tyranny,” one said Video. “We have our indictment files and arrest warrants with us. We are applying for asylum from the Greek authorities because of this torture.” The Turkish native begins his appeal with the words: “Today is June 22, 2023, it is Thursday.”
The man is one of a group of around 60 people seeking protection from Turkey who fled across the border river Evros to Greek Orestiada in the morning. There are also around a dozen children and many women.
Pushbacks at the border: masked men attack those seeking protection
Another video shows men in ski masks attacking the groups. You can hear loud screams from children. A woman says in Turkish: “We are being attacked with knives.” A man can be heard: “They are attacking, they are attacking us!” Another video clearly shows a group of masked people running towards the group. Some are armed with knives. FR.de from IPPEN.MEDIA had last year exclusively about the Outsourcing of pushbacks in Greece to criminal groups reported.
Experts comment on the pushbacks on the Greek border
Human rights activists are outraged by the images. “It is a scandal that criminals are being used by Greek authorities on Europe’s external borders to harass, scare and rob people so that they no longer come and continue to seek protection via Greece,” says Kamal Sido, the Middle East Speaker at the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) in conversation with FR.de.
It is similar to Dr. Kerem Schamberger, consultant for flight and migration at the human rights organization medico international. “Together with our local partner organizations, we have been observing massive brutalization at the EU’s external borders for several years, especially at the border between Turkey and Greece,” he says in an interview with our editors. There is even information that promises are made to lure refugees into engaging in violent pushbacks against newcomers. In return, they would be promised residence permits. “This is the most despicable form of exploiting the suffering of all these people and a direct consequence of the EU’s policy of isolation,” said Schamberger.
“These images should not be known in Europe itself and also affect societies that largely ignore these human rights violations. But people who are still outside the EU and are considering coming should be deterred by the knowledge of what kind of violence they can encounter at the borders,” says Schamberger.
Pushbacks are state measures in which people fleeing and migrating are pushed back – usually immediately after crossing the border – without the possibility of submitting an application for asylum or having their legality checked by a court. Pushbacks violate, among other things, the ban on collective expulsion laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights.
Clearly illegal pushbacks at Greek border
ProAsyl is also reacting to the pushbacks with outrage. “If hooded men attack people seeking protection and bring them back to Turkey from Greece, then that is clearly illegal. This brutal practice of Greek pushbacks must end. These have been known for years, especially in the Evros region,” says Pro Asyl’s legal policy spokesperson, Wiebke Judith, in an interview with IPPEN.MEDIA.
Although the practice of pushbacks has been known for a long time, and it is also known that these are “outsouced” to criminal groups in Greece, they are tacitly accepted by the EU. At the same time, the The federal government also approved the so-called EU asylum compromise, despite protesters from its own rankst. Asylum applications from migrants who come from countries of origin with a recognition rate of less than 20 percent are to be examined within twelve weeks at the EU’s external borders. During this time, they want to oblige those seeking protection to stay in strictly controlled reception facilities. Those who have no chance of asylum should be deported immediately. (Erkan Pehlivan)
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