Enlarge image
Refugees show their wounds on the Bosnian-Croatian border
Photo: DER SPIEGEL / Lighthouse Reports / media partner
The investigators of the Anti-Torture Committee are not used to resistance.
When the delegation inspects police stations and prisons on behalf of the Council of Europe, most of the officers trace it.
But in Croatia, in the small town of Korenica on the EU's external border, it was different.
The inspectors visited a police station there in August 2020.
They discovered sensitive handwritten notes in a notebook.
It read that 2,373 refugees had been "intercepted" or "diverted" to Bosnia by the Croatian border police in the period between July 25 and August 12 alone.
This did not coincide with the official information provided by the guard - only ten foreign nationals were arrested during the same period.
The refugees were evidently unofficially deported from the EU across the green border.
And the border officials had handwritten down every single one of these illegal pushbacks in the little booklet.
When the police saw what the inspectors were holding, there appeared to be a scuffle.
The officers tried to "forcibly take the notebook away" from the inspectors, they later wrote.
The chief of the police station had to apologize.
The episode with the notebook is part of a detailed report released by the Anti-Torture Committee on Friday.
The delegation spent five days on the border to check how the Croatian state is treating refugees and migrants moving north via Bosnia and Croatia to apply for asylum there.
The report is like an indictment.
Kicked, beaten, thrown into the river
The Anti-Torture Committee writes of numerous "credible" and "convincing" reports of "serious mistreatment" by police officers.
According to their statements, the officials intercepted the refugees on Croatian territory, sometimes drove them back to the Bosnian border for hours and deported them illegally from the EU - without the people being able to apply for asylum.
The police officers beat the asylum seekers with batons and other hard objects, kicked them or threw them into the border river, even though their hands were tied.
Refugees also reported that the officers fired their weapons close to their bodies and sent them back naked across the border into Bosnia.
The anti-torture committee had the wounds of the interviewed asylum seekers examined by forensic doctors.
According to them, the wounds match the reports of ill-treatment by police officers.
Among other things, they are the result of blows with batons.
The report by the Anti-Torture Committee confirms the research carried out by SPIEGEL and other research partners.
They revealed in October that masked Croatian intervention police officers were beating asylum seekers on the border with Bosnia and forcing them out of the EU by force.
The Croatians call this operation "Corridor".
Both the intervention police and the "Corridor" operation are explicitly mentioned in the report.
In response to the research, Croatia's Interior Minister Davor Božinović suspended three police officers from duty.
However, he did not respond to reports from insiders that the orders for the pushbacks had come from his ministry.
He ruled out a resignation.
Croatian government dismissed the committee's report
The report of the Anti-Torture Committee now makes it clear again that the pushbacks are carried out systematically - and that it is not individual misconduct by individual officers. Apparently there is "a well-established illegal modus operandi for dealing with migrants," the authors write. The government was unable to explain the many injuries suffered by the refugees and is not holding the beating policemen responsible. The results of the investigation have been presented to the government. However, they were "dismissed".
The government's stance is causing unrest even within its own ranks. A former Croatian police officer told SPIEGEL and its research partners Lighthouse Reports, ARD and SRF that he had been banned from preparing official reports on the detention of migrants. "Every time I tried to do that, my boss got very angry," says the man, who wants to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. However, unofficial notebooks with details of the clandestine operations are in several police stations. Another official confirmed that the Ministry of the Interior was informed of the pushbacks daily through unofficial channels.
The fact that not only the media and NGOs denounce the violent pushbacks, but also the Council of Europe is a problem for the Croatian government.
Croatia has been a member of the EU since 2013 and is determined to become a member of the Schengen area.
France supports the country in this, the illegal pushbacks obviously do not bother President Emmanuel Macron.
Will the traffic light prevent Croatia's entry into Schengen?
The new German government might see it differently.
In the coalition agreement, the traffic light parties warn Croatia indirectly: When expanding the Schengen area, they want to "pay special attention to compliance with the rule of law and humanitarian standards." The decision to admit Croatia to the Schengen area must be made unanimously.
A German veto would mean the end of Croatian plans.
This is probably one of the reasons why Croatia tried for months to prevent the report of the Anti-Torture Committee from being published.
According to the rules of the Council of Europe, Croatia has to consent to the publication.
This is a matter of course among EU countries.
In recent years, autocratically governed states such as Turkey and Russia in particular have prevented critical reports.
more on the subject
Access to asylum procedures: Europe is about to abolish refugee protectionA comment by Steffen Lüdke
Exclusive videos and insider reports: The shadow army that beats refugees from the EU
Secretly recorded pushback videos: Croatian police illegally deport babies, pregnant women and children with disabilitiesBy Steffen Lüdke and Nicole Vögele
The fact that the Anti-Torture Committee was finally able to publish the report is due to a negligence.
The State Secretary of the Croatian Ministry of Interior commented on the investigation in a letter to an NGO, which was subsequently quoted in the Croatian media.
In doing so, it violated the regulations of the Council of Europe - and enabled the committee to publish it.
Despite public pressure, the Croatian authorities appear to be continuing as before.
Residents of the border area and refugees reported to SPIEGEL that the pushbacks were still taking place.
Afghan refugees tell of blows and kicks.
And the anti-torture committee also draws a sobering conclusion.
Reports of serious abuse were also received after the visit.
