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EU: GREECE-TURKEY: Joint press release: Greece - Turkey: ‘The route is dangerous, people are dying’ The tragic limits of European migration policies

18 November 2011

"Tighter controls at the border between Greece and Turkey are forcing many people fleeing conflict to use increasingly dangerous routes. Migrants who manage to reach the EU border have been victims of push-backs and those who cross over into Greece are systematically detained on arrival, in inhuman and degrading conditions. The response of the European Union is to strengthen means of surveillance and interception. There is an urgent need to shift the focus away from criminalisation to the conditions of reception of migrants."

See the full text: Joint press release: Greece - Turkey: ‘The route is dangerous, people are dying’ The tragic limits of European migration policies (Migreurop, link), French (link), Greek (link) and Turkish (link)

Report by Pro Asyl: Pushed back, November 2013, pp. 58 (pdf)

This report is the outcome of extensive research by PRO-ASYL into the use of ‘push-backs’ (illegal removals) from Greek land and sea borders with Turkey since August 2012. Based on 90 interviews - which took place in Greece, Germany and Turkey - with people who were pushed back, the report analyses the obstacles they faced in accessing the European Union to seek international protection. It examines the “fatal consequences” of closing the Evros land border and the resulting shift in flight routes to the Aegean Sea route, in the process corroborating reported increases in the number of illegal removals of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Eritrea.

The report attributes blame to the Greek government, border police and coastguard, but it also raises the overriding issue of European Union complicity, particularly through Frontex’s involvement in human rights abuses during Operation Poseidon. Because of “the frequency and severity of human rights violations”, the report argued the agency should “[terminate] its operations.”

In conclusion, PRO ASYL “calls on the Greek authorities to match their justified calls for a greater solidarity from the EU in the reception of refugees, with a commitment to respect refugee and human rights. The illegal practices of pushing-back and mistreating protection seekers must stop immediately,” as must the alarming degree of impunity “where perpetrators of violence remain unpunished, and victims of state violence remain unprotected.”

In relation to the EU, PRO ASYL calls for changes to EU rules governing asylum, pointing out that: “Refugees do not only need safe, unhindered access to Greek and EU territory, they also need the right to legally travel on to the European states where their families live and where they will have a chance of receiving protection and finding a life with dignity.”