AYS Daily Digest 31/5/2021: Another new bill to further curb rights to asylum in Greece
Jun 1 · 6 min read
More deaths feared in the Central Med in what the Libyan Coast Guard calls a ‘successful rescue’. Further evidence of pushbacks. 3,000 people take to the streets in Paris. Updates from Ceuta. EU accused of complicity in deaths at sea by UN.
(Moria Corona Awareness Team teaching classes in how to make art from what people have thrown away. Photo Credit: Moria Corona Awareness Team)
FEATURED: Another new bill to further curb rights to asylum
According to local media the bill, to be debated in Cabinet on 31.05.21, specifically looks at deportations and returns:
The bill will seek in particular to increase the number of deportations. To that end, when illegal migrants are arrested at the border, authorities will employ deportation procedures rather than those used for returns as the latter are more complex and time consuming.
It will allow for the deportation of individuals without the need for consent from their country of origin or any transit country. Despite claims from the Migration Ministry that these procedures will be carried out within the remit of EU law, it remains to be seen at what point these people will be allowed to stake their claim to asylum and what quality of interview they will receive.
Voluntary departure times will also be decreased from 30 to 25 days. ID cards will only be deemed valid if the full date of birth is visible, yet even with viable ID cards some young people are registered as adults regardless. The claim that unaccompanied children and other people with medical needs will be cared for therefore rings hollow.
SEA
Central Med
More deaths feared, as Alarm Phone reported having been informed on Monday about a boat that had departed from Zliten, carrying 87 people. According to local fishermen who tried to help, in total 16 people are said to have died.
UNHCR Libya report that 274 persons were brought back to Tripoli on Monday afternoon in two different operations by the Libyan Coast Guard.
A Libyan Coast Guard vessel returning people to Tripoli, spotted by MSF’s GeoBarents (Photo: Ed Ou/The Outlaw Ocean Project)
Aita Mari was assigned a safe port, in Augusta, Sicily and arrived in the port on Monday evening, with the 50 people they had rescued over the weekend.
GREECE
Concerns and protests against closed island camps
Local and camp residents have raised concerns over the new closed camp to be built on Leros. Over the weekend we reported on the protests against the closed camp on Samos.
Further evidence of pushbacks (if any were needed…)
Journalist Bram Vermeulen has collected video and testimony from Afghan refugees trying to cross into Greece from Turkey. His footage shows these people with wounds on their arms, legs and faces from being beaten by the Bulgarian police, who also stole their possessions. This activity is consistent with reports from Border Violence Monitoring Network and other groups. On arrival in Greece they were arrested. It is not stated if they were given the option of claiming asylum, a universal right.
Meanwhile Lena K. reports on the difficulties of reporting and documenting the situation in Evros. Journalists and researchers are often followed and questioned by police along with other tactics:
[…]attempts to discredit researchers, journalists, NGOs & activists, or worse criminalise them, charge them with espionage … there seems to be a message there that we shouldn’t really be doing any work that’s critical of the situation at the border. But we have to. — Lena K.
Payoffs to Municipalities hosting camps
(Approval of new funding from the Solidarity Fund of the Ministry, in the context of supporting local communities for immigration management. The municipalities of West Lesvos, Chios and Ziros are funded with 875,000 € , for municipal projects.#ΥΜΑ)
New human rights platform
Curing the Limbo Human Rights seeks to “become an informative digital space for human rights in Greece on issues regarding, mainly, the everyday life of refugees and migrants.”
The basis of this project is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Greek Constitution, along with legislation on specific rights and their exercise in our country.
ITALY
Seventy people arrive from Ethiopia through humanitarian corridors
On Friday, religious organisations welcomed 70 people who were living in refugee camps in Ethiopia. Among them, eight families with 13 minors and 40 single people, most of whom are under 25 years old. They will be hosted in several cities in private houses, associations and parishes.
SPAIN
Arrivals
Between Friday and Sunday, more than 450 people arrived on Spanish coasts. A total of 350 arrived in the Canaries, while around 100 in mainland Spain. On Monday, 19 people were rescued and brought to Malaga by Salvamento Maritimo.
Updates on the situation for minors in Ceuta
According to local media, currently in Ceuta there are 1,159 minors on the move, of whom 886 have arrived since May 17 and are housed between Piniers, the Tarajal ships and the Santa Amelia sports center. The city’s reception structures are far over capacity, and local authorities are seeking help and resources from the central Spanish government. A hot-line set up to help Moroccan families in locating their children received more than 4,000 calls over the past days. According to authorities, only 3% of families have requested for their children to be returned in Morocco.
FRANCE
Paris: 3,000 people take to the streets
Sunday, 30 May 2021 — Paris (Credit: Utopia 56)
On Sunday, a demonstration was held against evictions and expensive housing. More than 3,000 people took to the streets, including 1,000 people exiled without shelter.
EU
EU upset as UN blames it for deaths at sea
This is not a tragic anomaly, but rather a consequence of concrete policy decisions
The reasons stated by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, regarding the EU Commission’s role in deaths at sea are wide raging and include:
Failures to assist migrants in distress and deaths at sea
Dangerous rescue and interception practices
Pushbacks at sea
Targeting of humanitarian organisations and human rights defenders
Delays in safe disembarkation and inadequate reception conditions .
In response, Peter Stano, the EU Commission’s Spokesperson, stated: The European Union is not the cause of this tragedy of irregular migration and the fact that persons are losing their lives.
Well, thanks for clearing that up…
UK
Arrivals
According to media reports, 568 people arrived since Friday: 336 people in 19 boats on Friday, 144 people in seven boats on Saturday, 17 people crossed in one boat on Sunday and 71 people set out in three boats on Monday.
High backlog and waiting times despite numbers falling
Despite recent statistics which revealed that numbers of new asylum and protection applications have fallen, 66,185 are still waiting for their final decision, with 50,084 waiting at least six months.
Anti-migrant protest in Dover
InfoMigrant report that 50 people briefly blocked the port of Dover, holding banners saying “Stop the invasion” and “Defend our borders.” The rhetoric of invasion and border security has been fuelled by years of the hostile environment policy against people on the move in the UK, as in most of the EU. As Daniel Trilling points out in this article, British politicians are increasingly obsessed with borders, but their hardline measures create suffering and insecurity for both people on the move and locals.
WORTH READING
- Identity geopolitics: Nation, faith and the Roma of western Thrace. A piece by Augustine Zenakos and Mariniki Alevizopoulou on how a marginalised Muslim Roma border community is now courted by both Greece and Turkey, seeking to advance their strategic interests.
- Romania: Poor people’s route to Europe? InfoMigrants on the route from Serbia to Romania, which is seen as an easier and cheaper way to reach Europe.
- The Afghan fathers braving beatings to reach family in Croatia — In northwest Bosnia, stranded Afghan fathers are desperate to reunite with their families over the border in Croatia — and risk their own safety in order to do so. By Lucy Papachristou for Aljazeera
- In post-pandemic Europe, migrants will face a digital fortress — Greek border police are firing bursts of deafening noise from an armored truck over the frontier into Turkey. Mounted on the vehicle, the long-range acoustic device, or “sound cannon,” is the size of a small TV set but can match the volume of a jet engine. By Derek Gatopoulos ad Kostas Kantouris
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