AYS Weekend Digest 06–07/06/2020: Families of the victims find shortcomings in the inquiry over April push-backs and deaths at sea
3 men sentenced in Italy for abuses in Libya // Updates on arrivals and push backs in the Aegean // False news about the Greek/Turkish border at Evros continues // Captain Morgan detainees brought to shore in Malta // Missing man in Croatia and more…
FEATURE: Families of the victims find shortcomings in the inquiry over April’s push-backs and deaths at sea
Last week, an inquiry found no grounds for criminal action against Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela, AFM commander Jeffrey Curmi or the crew of the Maltese Army’s P52 patrol vessel in relation to the death of at least 5 people (7 more have never been found) during Easter.
Magistrate Joe Mifsud consumed pages of his inquiry lamenting the fact that he could not imprison Repubblika officials for daring to demand an inquiry into the conduct of state officials. In the weighing scales of his courtroom there was Robert Abela on one side and 12 dead migrants on the other. But the migrants were black, weightless in the eyes of the law. — Repubblika
Over this weekend two different requests have been filed with the General Attorney to return the evidence presented to the inquiry for further investigation.
One was filed by two relatives of the victims, and the second by the NGO Repubblika, who originally requested the inquiry, Maltese media report.
The family members’ requests notes that while the inquiry was 419 pages long, “the scope of such extensive volume was nothing more than to give a false impression of a thorough investigation.”
“The report lacks legal substance, is void of reference to crucial material evidence at hand and abdicates, in part, of the Magistrate’s duty to collect and preserve further evidence related to the complaints filed by Repubblika.”
Malta’s last Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, was also accused of murder and as a result resigned in December 2019. Daphne Caruana Galizia, the journalist who was killed by a car bomb, spent her career exposing state corruption in Malta and paid with her life.
The truth seems a difficult thing to hold on to in Malta. The current Government has just signed a new deal with Libya to prevent people from reaching their shore, despite the ongoing civil war and recent mass shooting of people on the move during which at least 30 people were murdered.
This disregard for human life must stop and this time the Prime Minister must be held accountable.
LIBYA
3 men sentenced in Italy for abuses in Libya
Libyan media report on three men sentenced to 20 years in prison by an Italian court in Messina for running a secret detention site in the city of Al-Zawiya, and for attracting and blackmailing people who were seeking to flee to Europe. People detained by them reported having been raped, tortured and beaten, and that they saw their fellow prisoners die in front of them.
The three man were arrested in September 2019 after having been recognised by people who survived their detention and the crossing and landed in Italy.
This is just the latest of countless pieces of evidence that support for the Libyan coast guard and sending people back to suffer detention and violence in Libya is a criminal policy.
SEA
Updates from Sea Watch
At the same time, “the refit of our SeaWatch4 is also progressing: After the shipyard work in Spain was severely impaired due to Corona measures, a new crew is on its way & the ship will hopefully be ready for action in a few weeks!”
Free Alan Kurdi
The Alan Kurdi vessel, of the rescue organisation Sea Eye, is still impounded by Italian authorities. Solidarity messages asking for the liberation of the ship have arrived from many places, and also from Palermo’s mayor, Leoluca Orlando.
Free Alan Kurdi was one of the messages of the Seebrucke demonstrations that took place in several German cities this weekend.
GREECE
Arrivals
Aegean Boat Report inform that one boat carrying 40 people landed in Gialotsipia, Lesvos north west 08.00 this morning. The new arrivals from Tsonia will be taken to the quarantine camp in Megala Therma, Lesvos north for 14 days quarantine due to the coronavirus.
More proof of pushbacks on the Aegean Sea
Aegean Boat Report published a video from the Turkish coast guard, showing three vessels from the Greek coast guard while they were forcefully putting people in a rubber boat without a engine, and leaving them drifting at sea.
This pushback happened on Friday evening, allegedly outside Lesvos north, location can not be verified from data in the video, but a boat carrying 36 people was picked up by TCG south of Babakale, Turkey. The facts in this video can not be denied, and we can clearly see how people are taken from the bigger vessel, over to the smaller one, and then forced into the rubber boat, some even thrown in to the boat.
To see coast guard, that should be at sea to protect life, deliberately putting people lives in danger, is shocking. How people onboard these vessels can do this, knowing that they are breaking not only international laws, maritime laws but also Greek laws, is a disgrace for anyone working at sea. There is no excuse that they are only following orders from the Greek government, when they know these orders are illegal.
Lockdown measures in Reception and Identification Centres (RICs) extended for 2 more weeks
While throughout the country lockdown measures have been eased and no movement restrictions on individuals are in place, Greece has extended for another two weeks the lockdown for its overcrowded hotspots.
“For residents of the reception and identification centres across the country, measures against the propagation of the COVID-19 virus are extended” until June 21, the official Government Gazette said.
Rumours and fake news on the situation at the Greek/Turkish border
The unashamed use of fake news by Greek media and Greek authorities has been a constant throughout the 2020 reporting on the situation at the Evros border. Barbaric hordes, biological weapons, culture clashes, and the rhetoric of invasion: all these tropes have been evoked in the last few months as scaremongering tactics to elicit support for the progressively more authoritarian migration policies of the government headed by Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Josoor International and Giorgos Christedes have been extremely vocal in debunking some of these fake news items. Over the last week unsubstantiated rumours about 6.000 people being taken by Turkish authorities to the Evros river area have been spread in Greek and international media, but — it’s important to repeat it — there is no evidence for such claims.
Updates from Moria White Helmets
Here in Moria we are sorry to say that we don’t have any access to medical care in night but many people still need treatment. Night after night this happens. And many people need help too. But most times nobody come to help. So we are happy to say we were donated some medical equipment and are being trained by people in our team who have medical education and are experienced people who can help the people who need treatment. Again if we get equipment then we can fix most of our problems. But we are sorry to say that after getting this man on picture to the main entrance of camp and we ask for ambulance no ambulance came to arrive to help man. Again today this child needed help. We help the child we ask for ambulance and to this time ambulance comes like on picture. Life in Moria can be very difficult but it is our duty to try to make it better
Covid-19 clinics in hotspots left unfunded
The three clinics that were set up in March at the entrances of the RICs in Lesvos, Chios and Samos, are now closed since June 3 due to a lack of funding. Despite repeated harassment by the Deputy Regional Health Minister Pantelis Vroulis, the Interior Ministry did not heed the request, local media report. If no new funding arrives within the next 10 days, the region will need to re-start the process of announcing positions and the operation of the clinics, causing further delays.
More than 1000 unaccompanied minors in danger
Updates from The Syrian and Greek Youth Forum (SGYF)
SGYF continued their work in Athens throughout the lockdown.
Solidarity and trust are the keys for community building .
we would like to give a big hug to all of you who stood with us in the COVID — 19 to support our community
Read more about their current projects HERE.
MALTA
425 people finally allowed to disembark from Captain Morgan ships
After 40 days, the 425 people imprisoned on 4 tourist vessels off the Maltese coast have been allowed to disembark. This happened only after a group started a protest on one of the ships. The four vessels were escorted to land on Saturday.
As reported by Maltese media, the island’s authorities haven’t stopped considering people on the move as the greatest threat:
the army was on high alert to intervene if requested, with the participation of the Special Operations Unit and other units which throughout the day, at different times, were waiting in the Port of Marsamxett.
At least according to official statements, the decision was not a response to the widespread criticism that the offshore detention policy attracted in the last month, nor did the wellbeing or the lives of the people detained play any role in this. The ships were allowed to reach shore only because of the perceived risk for the crew.
Could it also be that in Malta not all lives matter in the same way??
SERBIA
GERMANY
Thuringen Regional Parliament votes to welcome 500 people stranded in Greece
Europe Must Act report that Thüringen parliament voted to begin an application process to take in 500 refugees from Greece and provide them with the structural support they are not receiving there.
Other German states have expressed their intention to go ahead with similar proposals.
It is an important message, but to become a real policy this application will have to be accepted by the Federal Ministry of Interior (BMI)
Read more about Thüringen’s decision: https://bit.ly/3dGK7cx
Read more about Relocation Programmes: https://bit.ly/2MCDdsM
German media also report that federal authorities intend to use Germany’s six months presidency of the EU to push for a reform of asylum in Europe, which will further increase the burden of the external border countries. According to migration minister Seehofer, a check should be made at the EU’s external borders to determine whether an entrant was entitled to asylum:
If it is not, it cannot be distributed, but must be returned.
The minister then called for a massive expansion of Frontex.
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