AYS News Digest 27/5/22: Greek police shot with rubber bullets at two people — report
Increasing violence at EU’s external borders with pushbacks, racist treatment and violation of international laws and court rulings
Greece
Greek police forces are accused of having shot with rubber bullets at two Afghans trying to cross the border from Turkey. As Daily Sabah reports, they have not been treated at a hospital.
Reporter Giorgos Christides writes that 94 people were stranded on an islet on Evros river between Turkey and Greece. Authorities neglected the orders of the European Court of Human Rights and the local prosecutor for more than five days. Relatives stated that the group is now back in Turkey. While the police said they did not find the group, the army showed a video with them.
He further quoted a talk on Greek TV when deputy migration minister Sophia Voultepsi criticized the reporter for asking her about pushbacks and denied there had been any. She added that the government does not care about what Brussels is saying.
The EU Commission has confirmed that Turkey is refusing to accept returns from Greece under the so-called EU-Turkey deal from 2016. Turkey is demanding that Greece stop pushbacks along the border and Greece plans to revoke its decision to consider Turkey a Safe Third Country. Minos Mouzourakis highlighted the statement on Twitter.
Meanwhile, Europe Must Act shared the story of two people who claim to have been pushed back twice. The first time, one of them was pregnant.
The Racist Violence Recording Network (RVRN) recorded 72 incidents of racist violence. In 20 of these cases the perpetrators were law enforcement officials. “Racially motivated police violence sees a growing trend in recent years”, the organization concludes. It also demands constant vigilance on the part of competent authorities, as cases also appeared for example in schools. Any trend of organized violence should be combatted.
According to NoNameKitchen, eight people in Patras have been arrested by police. They do not know when they will get out and fear being transferred to the Korinthos detention centre.
Worth reading:
- The case of the Paros 3: How Greece is criminalising asylum seekers
Sea
For almost two months, the aircraft of Sea Watch has not been allowed to fly. The NGO demands authorities stop harassment and let them continue their work, which includes documenting pull-backs by the so-called Libyan Coast Guard and operations of Frontex.
The Ocean Viking is still waiting for a response from maritime authorities concerning 296 survivors, including 49 minors. The Red Cross has warned that insomnia and signs of exhaustion are becoming more prevalent. According to IOM (via Infomigrants), up to 700 people have died already this year while attempting to reach European shores, which is the highest figure since 2014. More than 4,000 have been returned to Libya.
Spain
Twenty minors from Piniers IV have organized themselves this morning to go to the Minors’ Area of the Autonomous City of Ceuta with the aim of speaking with the person in charge of the area. Users want to avoid closing the resource because, they say, this is now their home, according to El Foro de Ceuta (https://elforodeceuta.es/la-policia-nacional-dispersa-a-una-veintena-de-menores-de-piniers-iv-que-querian-concentrarse-para-impedir-el-cierre-del-recurso)
Meanwhile, “The Secretary of State for Migration, Jesús Perea, has advocated this Friday for looking with a “very long-term” horizon in regard to the migratory phenomenon, since we must be prepared because it will be increasingly “less conjunctural” and “ more structural”, Europapress reports.
Belarus
The Border Committee of Belarus reacted to a video showing Lukashenko’s security forces beating people. The agency explained that Polish border guards allegedly sent a group of migrants to Belarus, arming them with gas canisters, stones and sticks. In the footage it can be seen that they are the same people who were beaten up by the border guards.
The No Borders Team reports on the 24th day of a hunger strike by ten Kurdish people in Lesznowola.
Balkan Insight has published an interactive long read about the situation in Polish forests near the Belarus borders.
One more corpse was discovered in the Bialowieska forest. Journalists managed to identify the man and talk about their investigation.
In another investigation, The New Humanitarian observes that the number of crossing attempts is increasing again, as hundreds of people have been expelled from a temporary shelter near the border and want to try to get into the European Union as temperatures rise and the crossing seems safer.
Bulgaria
Human Rights Watch has documented 19 cases of pushbacks from Bulgaria to Turkey, despite the clear rulings of International Courts. “Bulgarian authorities are brutally and summarily pushing back migrants and asylum seekers across the land border with Turkey,” said Michelle Randhawa, refugee and migrant rights officer at Human Rights Watch. Beating, robbing, stripping and the use of police dogs have been reported. The Helsinki Committee documented 2,500 pushbacks from Bulgaria involving almost 45,000 people in 2021, which is a rapid increase compared to the 15,000 people in 2020. Frontex has deployed officers at the border.
Serbia
NoNameKitchen reports on police violence at the Serbian — Hungarian border near Sombor. Even dogs were used to bite, hurt and catch people trying to cross there. A group of four people they found had bad injuries and wounds on almost all body parts.
Italy
Father Zerai, who inspired the Alarm Phone project, has been freed of accusations of aiding illegal migration. He was investigated for five years.
With more than 3,500 children who have disappeared so far this year, more than 30 minors go missing every day in Italy. Two-thirds of them are foreign nationals, InfoMigrants reports. When it comes to finding them, more than 72 percent of the tracked children were Italians, for foreign citizens the success rate was just 31,17 percent; although this is a strong improvement from the 26,35 percent in 2021. Authorities urge the public to call the emergency hotline (112), the hotline for missing persons (in Italy: 116000) or use the YouPol app immediately, as the first hours after the disappearance are crucial for tracking the cases.
With a budget of 38 million euros per year, Italy received the third biggest sum for research in artificial intelligence for border protection. The scheme was implemented 15 years ago. In a document entitled “A clear and present danger,” researchers from Statewatch have now concluded that the AI act does not provide adequate safeguards on the use of the technology in this field.
In Ventimiglia a new permanent center for migrants is set to open near the border with France, InfoMigrants writes. In the recent weeks about 90 people arrived in the town every day, hoping to reach French territory.
France
Volunteers of the Calais Food Collective have reported new cases of intimidation by police forces. Controls, fines, insults and manipulation are daily business for them, they write. However, they want to continue their work.
InfoMigrants has published a glossary of terms and acronyms asylum seekers in France should know to understand the complex system and the bureaucracy behind it.
Some 200 people waited in detention rooms at the Marseille airport in 2021. Le Monde is describing them as non-compliant with current requirements and focuses on the dire conditions of the rooms, which have been reported several times in the recent years.
Denmark
With its racist asylum policy, the Danish government is putting Syrian women at risk of deportation, as it considers the capital Damascus as safe. While young men face being drafted for military service and therefore are often not deported, this does not apply to elderly people and women. The Guardian accompanied one young woman, who has managed to avoid deportation and extend her residency permit for two more years now.
UK
Under the resettlement scheme, evacuees from Afghanistan remain stranded in hotels. The Big Issue states that housing more than 10,000 people this way costs the government around 1.2 million pounds every day. Humanitarian NGOs criticize this as unacceptable and not suitable to the situation of the families. One problem is that some of the hotels are far away from infrastructure and people cannot look for jobs or go to appointments with only one bus driving per day.
Blogger Colin Yeo checked the migration transparency data, highlighting that only 5.3% of cases were decided within six months — in 2019 it was 26.4%. 36,000 have been waiting for more than one year.
EU
Asgi recorded almost 2,000 pushbacks in Europe in 2022 so far at the EU’s external borders.
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