AYS Daily Digest 25/11/2020: Frontex and its human rights violations, Part x
New evidence shows that Frontex is covering up human rights violations // Updates from Legal Centre Lesvos on asylum interviews during the pandemic // Legal steps taken against Greece by victims of pushbacks // Updates from Ventimiglia // Protests in Paris against violent evictions // Research from Uppsalla University condemns European asylum governance
FEATURE: New evidence against Frontex: Agency covers up human right violations
Frontex’s involvement in the violation of human rights is finally getting more attention. After a group of international journalists reported on how Frontex was directly involved in at least one pushback and was at the scene of at least four more, EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson summoned an extraordinary meeting of the management board, in order to obtain information from Frontex head Fabrice Leggeri about the allegations. The meeting took place on 10 November. At the meeting, Leggeri confirmed that Frontex assets were in close vicinity to pushbacks, however since no Serious Incident Report (SIR) was filed, there was no evidence of the pushbacks. SIRs are the first step of Frontex internal mechanism to obtain information about human rights violations. As Leggeri puts it in a letter to the EU LIBE Committee:
“Every participant shall report immediately serious incidents (SI) to Frontex, in case he/she witnesses, is involved, or has grounds to suspect the occurrence of an incident representing a possible violation of fundamental rights or international protection obligations (Category 4 of SI Catalogue).”
(published by Tineke Strik)
In practice, however, it seems like these reports are hardly filed in cases of human rights violations. For example there was no such a report in an incident on 2 March, when a Danish Frontex crew was ordered by Greece to conduct a pushback by placing already rescued people back on a boat. The crew refused, the case became public. Frontex headquarters however only heard of it via the media, not through a SIR. In another incident that took place on 30 October, a Swedish Frontex crew wanted to file an SIR, but was advised not to do so by the Frontex officer in charge. When thousands of people were stranded in March at the Turkish-Greek land border in the Evros region and at least two people were shot to death, presumably by the Greek authorities, Frontex sent more units instead of considering deployment, as advised by its own Fundamental Rights Office.
And these are just the instances with enough hard evidence to actually reach public interest. In any case they provide enough evidence to prove that Frontex is not able to be its own watchdog.
Very interesting in this whole debate is a letter from Leggeri to European Parliament’s president David Sassoli, informing the latter of the 10 November meeting. Here, Leggeri explains once again that “the preliminary findings of the inquiry conclude that there is no evidence of a direct or indirect participation of Frontex staff or officers deployed by Member States under Frontex operations in alleged “pushbacks” in the Aegean Sea.”
He further states pretty plainly that there is a need for clarification concerning the interception of people on the move at sea, in order to be clear about what actually constitutes a pushback and what does not. In the Annex to the letter responding to LIBE Committee’s questions, he does not “definitely exclude” that pushbacks were undertaken or observed by Frontex staff.
The Border Violence Monitoring Network, of which AYS is a founding member, sent a letter to Frontex head Fabrice Leggeri and Frontex fundamental rights office head Annegret Kohler, compiling the evidence collected over the years of pushbacks at the Albanian-Greek border and Greek-Turkish border. In many cases, Frontex staff was involved or present. The letter that was originally send on 9 November remains unanswered to date.
Frontex’s failure in asserting human rights cannot be emphasized enough, as Frontex is a steadily growing agency with an expanding budget, competences, and forces. According to Giorgos Christides from DER SPIEGEL, Frontex could receive more than one billion Euros in 2021. The militarization of Frontex is well-documented. The Frontex expansion plans also include the installation of a 10,000-man strong standing corps by 2027. The first 700 will start their duty beginning in the year 2021, according to Frontex. Until now, member states would send staff to be employed with Frontex. The new standing forces will be Europe’s first uniformed service, wearing weapons and have executive power.
In this light, the failure to assert human rights is outrageous, although not surprising. The EU is currently creating a strong armed force with executive powers that cares nothing at all about human rights.
More on the standing corps here.
For more information on Leggeris letter to Sassoli, see this thread:
This is the original newspaper article published in DER SPIEGEL.
For a summery in English, see here:
GREECE
Rushed asylum procedures on Lesvos amid Pandemic: Updates from the ground from Legal Centre Lesvos
Legal Centre Lesvos (LCL) provides free legal aid for people undergoing their asylum process on Lesvos. According to them, the quality of the asylum interviews dropped dramatically during this year. At the same time the number of conducted asylum procedures increased by 170% throughout 2020, according to the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) (an EU agency with the aim to increase cooperation of EU members regarding the asylum procedure). Since the partial suspension of the services of the Regional Asylum Service and EASO beginning of September, many people are stuck without legal status. They have been unable to submit appeals or to lodge subsequent applications and are therefore no longer considered asylum seekers by UNHCR or the Greek authorities, which leaves them without assistance. Furthermore, serious concerns about the conducted interviews have been raised, as they have been conducted in a hasty manner and often did not fulfill the required conditions.
At least three people supported by LCL have been taken directly to their interviews when they were merely inquiring about their interview dates. They had no chance to prepare. The interviews are mostly conducted via video call or phone call, and many interviewees reported about bad sound quality and connection, background noise and a lack of privacy. A female survivor of sexual assault was interviewed by a male interviewer, which is in contradiction to EASO’s Practical Guidelines concerning survivors of sexual assault. In order to conduct the interviews, the applicants are often bussed to a special site outside the camp where they have to wait outside and in confined conditions until their turn comes.
EASO has been consulted in the past by the McKinsey & Company consulting agency.
For more details, see LCL website:
27-years old woman died in Ritsona camp
On Tuesday, 24 November, a young mother of three died after suffering a heart attack. The woman was reported to have been positive with coronavirus. It is unclear whether the woman suffered from a serious chronic illness that would mean she should not have been housed in Ritsona camp but in a special accommodation for people in vulnerable groups.
Once again, journalists covering possible pushbacks were detained
On 17 November, three German journalists were detained for several hours without charge, interrogated and photographed. They were on the way to the north of Lesvos, knowing about a landing of refugees there. When arriving at the site, they were detained by officers. No legal basis for the procedure was given upon multiple requests.
This is not the first incident of repression against media by Greek officials. On 20 October it became public that four journalists had been detained and mistreated while trying to shoot a documentary about refugees on Samos.
Legal steps have been taken on behalf of victims of alleged pushbacks
In two separate cases, legal steps have been taken on behalf of victims of pushbacks from Greece to Turkey. The first complainant is a Syrian man living in Germany with asylum status. In November 2016 he went back to Greece to search for his 11-year old brother who was said to have tried to follow him but disappeared somewhere in northern Greece. The man was then detained by Greek authorities, his papers were confiscated and he was placed on a small boat and sent over the Evros River to Turkey.
“Distraught and without his documents, he eventually reached the German embassy in Istanbul a few days later, where he tried to explain how he had ended up there when only days before he had been at home in Germany.
It was three years before his documents were reissued. During this time he attempted to cross back to Greece and was pushed back 11 times. He finally made it to Athens, where he relied on the kindness of strangers to survive. He found a lawyer through Greek NGO Human Rights 360, and he was finally able to return to Germany last year and his residency was reissued in May.”
His case will now be brought before the UN human rights committee by the Global Legal Action Network (Glan) and Human Rights 360.
Another complaint has been filed by a group of lawyers on behalf of A.N., an asylum seeker who was the victim of a violent maritime expulsion by Greek officials near the island of Samos on 13 May 2020. The man was placed on a life raft, a practice frequently implemented by Greek authorities during spring 2020. The complaint has been filed with the European Court for Human Rights.
The lawyers argue that the deliberately cruel actions committed by the Hellenic Coast Guard amount to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, prohibited under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Pushbacks in general further violate the principle of non-refoulement and go hand-in-hand with a violation of the right to an effective remedy, Article 13.
A long article from May 2020 about the practice, written by two of the representatives in this case:
Healthcare crisis at Moria 2.0
Medical staff from MSF and others are getting more and more helpless about the situation regarding access to medical treatment for refugees at Moria 2.0. Franziska Grillmeier reported on this situation. In summer a doctor told her that working at Moria 2.0. feels like treating someone with a burn while the person is still standing in the fire.
ITALY
Updates from Ventimiglia
The Kesha Niya NGO reports from the ground in the Ventimiglia border region where people are pushed back to from France. In the six days from 13–18 November, they met 312 people who had been pushed back from France, amongst them at least 12 unaccompanied minors. They further recall various incidents of illegal action committed by French border police. In various cases, minors had their documents proving their minority taken and not returned by the French police, before being pushed back to Italy. While pushbacks are illegal anyway, there is a special binding procedure when it comes to minors who try to cross the borders. In at least one case, entry to France was refused to a man who is currently undergoing the process of getting papers in France. He had a letter proving he is undergoing immigration procedures with the telephone number of his lawyer on it. In another incident, a woman and her daughter were pepper-sprayed by French police at the police station. People are further held for long hours in containers at the French police station. A video of this container shows a tiny room with a metal floor and benches. It is filthy and seems to be very cold.
For the full report, please check out Kesha Niya’s FB page.
SPAIN
On route to the Canary Islands
Most people who arrive in the Canary Islands depart from Dakhla, Western Sahara. The city, controlled by Morocco, is becoming the main departure point. Many of the people who try to make it to the Canary Islands are from Morocco itself. From Dakhla to the Canary Islands, the journey covers about 450 km. This is the deadliest of all the routes to Europe. In yesterday’s digest we reported on a shipwreck that occurred near the dock of Órzola, Lanzarote, when the boat crashed with a wave breaker. At least eight people died.
More on Dakhla in Spanish:
Spanish far-right party Vox’s members demanded a sea blockade, implemented by the Spanish navy. The head of the Spanish Navy however rejected this proposition sharply.
“If any Spanish warship encounters a dinghy in a situation where the lives of those in it are in danger, its obligation of all kinds, legal, moral, etc., is to rescue them, and that is what it would be doing” (translated with GT)
For more information, see:
FRANCE
Protests in Paris against brutal evictions
On Tuesday, 24 November, a big demonstration took place in Paris, on the Place de la République. On late Monday, a brutal eviction took place in the same spot. Before, activists had raised about 500 tents to house refugees. In the last weeks, several evictions left thousands of people on the street without even a tent to call home. On Monday, the police used tear gas and violence in order to clear the place. Solidarité migrants Wilson, one of the groups that is for years now providing support for the people in the streets of Paris posted on FB about the demonstration on Tuesday:
“We are many and we are together! At the moment, several thousand people are meeting at Place de la République following the call of the March of Solidarity to denounce the police violence to which the exiles and their supporters were victims in this same square and in the streets of Paris yesterday. And above all, the manhunt which continues relentlessly day and night in the streets of the capital and surrounding towns. Rather than the police, housing and papers!”
UK
Appeal trial of Stansted15
Yesterday we mentioned the opening of the appeal of the Stansted15, a group that stopped a deportations flight and were later prosecuted under terrorism related legislation. This thread covers the proceeding:
From the flight that was stopped by the Stansted15, 11 people now live with legal status in the UK. Another mass deportation from UK to Jamaica is scheduled for 2 December.
AFGHANISTAN
In two explosions in the city of Bamiyan in Afghanistan on Tuesday, at least 17 people were killed and over 50 more wounded. The region was considered relatively safe.
Meanwhile, the EU and Afghanistan prolonged a joint way forward agreement that allows for deportation from most EU countries to Afghanistan. A charter plane to Afghanistan is planned for 15 December, with people who will be deported from Austria and Sweden.
GENERAL
A Research Project’s Findings condemn 11 countries asylum governance
The joint research project, Respond, coordinated by Uppsala University, stated in a press release that “deterrence, restriction and return” have become the only solutions fo the migration issue for the EU.
“The empirical insights of RESPOND substantiate existing findings, which pointed to increased securitization of the migration policy field leading to an enormous protection gap, the normalization of violence and a disregard by member states and EU actors (FRONTEX, EASO) of internationally and European enshrined human rights norms and the rule of law.”
The statement further calls the presented Pact on Migration as falling short of ameliorating these negative tendencies. Instead the pact is
“a continuation of the observed trend towards securitization. Offering no alternative to the Dublin-system, the Pact is far from having the potential to deliver any sustainable solutions nor to addressing the immediate migration management crisis and the crisis of intra-EU solidarity.”
The following trends could be detected in all the Migration routes that were included in the research:
· A hyper-complex fragmented legal system jeopardizing transparency and consistency
· Shift from a welcoming approach to a policy of narrowing access
· Towards a policy of deterrence and return
· External dimension: Producing buffer zones and waiting rooms with a high level of legal precarity
· Border and migration policy endangers the life of people in flight — no safe passage to the internationally enshrined asylum protection system
For more, see here:
Greece, Italy, Spain, and Malta, the four countries with the highest numbers of refugees arriving, signed a letter to the chair of the European Council—currently Angela Merkel. The Prime Ministers of the four countries called for more solidarity with other EU-countries when it comes to the hosting and distribution of refugees.
Event recommendation
On Tuesday, 1 December, the Society of Professional Journalists will host a webinar with Stacros Malichudis, member of an Athens-based digital media outlet that provides independent reporting on migration and refugees.
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