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The complaint of a migrant against the Greek border guard: "They beat us and threw us into inflatable rafts as if they were littering"

2023-01-09T05:01:07.962Z


Two lawsuits before the European Court of Human Rights accuse Greece of violent push-backs of people trying to reach the EU


On the night of October 20, 2020, hooded men robbed a small fishing boat near the Greek island of Crete.

The boat had set sail from Turkey a day before and her destination was Italy, but a storm forced her to approach the Greek coast due to the danger of being shipwrecked.

As soon as they got on board, the assailants beat part of the 190 men and women on the fishing boat.

Most were Syrians, accompanied by some Iraqis, a few Afghans and four Somali women.

There were more than 20 children.

They intended to request asylum in the European Union.

The one who remembers this night of terror is Fedaa A., one of the occupants of the ship.

His story, by phone from Suwayda, his hometown in Syria, is part of a complaint by a dozen affected before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against Greece for the alleged forced return of refugees (illegal expulsion without guarantees). trying to reach the EU, mistreatment and abandonment in the open sea.

Athens, according to the documentation to which EL PAÍS has had access, rejects the accusations.

For its part, the European border agency (Frontex), to which the complainants have requested information, has not wanted to reveal what it may know about the incident.

“I am a legal person, I do not harm anyone.

I cannot understand how they beat me in such a brutal way,” says Fedaa A, a 38-year-old lawyer.

“We did not resist, we were scared.

They beat us with sticks and they had weapons.

They wanted to terrify us, ”he adds about the group that assaulted the boat, unidentified men but allegedly accompanied by Greek coast guards, according to the complainants.

Fedaa A. and his wife, a pharmacist, had sold their house to pay for the trip with which he planned to reach the EU, obtain asylum and apply for family reunification.

The hooded men also stole all their money, he says.

They beat another passenger's wrist and three fingers and forced an English-speaking passenger to translate a warning to the group: "If you don't cooperate, we'll do the same to you."

Alongside these men were others in Greek coast guard uniforms, according to Fedaa A's account. The patrol boats where they took him up also had the coast guard logo.

It took them several hours to travel more than 300 kilometers, to a point located between the Greek islands of Rhodes and Symi, bordering Turkish territorial waters.

They then used life rafts to set them adrift.

“They threw all of us, men, women and children, into the inflatable rafts as if they were littering,” recalls Fedaa A. One of the people who was traveling with him managed to hide his phone and called 112, the emergency phone, for hours .

“We thought we were going to die until she answered a voice in Turkish,” she says.

They sent their location and were rescued by the Turkish coast guard.

Fedaa A., along with 10 other passengers on that truncated trip, denounced Greece before the European Court of Human Rights.

It is one of the dozens of lawsuits that have been filed against the Hellenic Republic for hot returns or collective expulsions, which have also splashed Frontex for alleged inaction in the face of the incidents.

But Fedaa A.'s is one of the few that has passed the initial process to be examined.

This newspaper has had access to the two files that the Strasbourg court must examine, including Greece's response.

The lawsuit includes documents that try to show that Frontex allegedly covered up the facts.

The plaintiffs' lawyers asked for the official records of the European Border Agency, but it only partially responded to the request.

They requested Frontex to submit to the court two operational reports, dated October 20 and 21, regarding the presence of two groups of people in inflatable life rafts, which they consider could correspond to the plaintiffs' account.

A spokeswoman for the organization has confirmed to EL PAÍS that the agency prepared two documents that it refuses to reveal because "they contain personal data, as well as sensitive operational information, the disclosure of which would not only contravene data protection laws,

The passengers on the fishing boat saw a drone, or military plane, circling overhead while they were still sailing in international waters.

They provide videos, photos and GPS locations to show that they had reached Greek waters.

"We were so close to the coast that I could even see the houses," says Fedaa A. A forensic investigation team proposed by the plaintiffs has drawn up an extensive report that reconstructs the facts in which it concludes that the hot return occurred in territorial waters Greek.

In addition, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Acnur) has sent the court a 12-page brief in which it gives credibility to the claim and,

Deportation of a family in Evros

A second lawsuit to which Greece has responded in Strasbourg also accuses the Athens government of using violence against unarmed asylum seekers.

It concerns the expulsion of a Syrian couple with three children.

The father, Hassan T., answers questions for this newspaper from Turkey.

Although the lawsuit refers only to one of the hot returns, it was the fourth time that his attempt to reach Greece ran into the methods of the Hellenic security forces, according to his account.

The first three attempts to reach Greece, between March and June 2020, were by sea.

The first time they reached the island of Chios, but the coast guards reportedly took them back by boat and left them adrift in life rafts.

The second time they were towed back into the sea without touching land and the third time they thought they had made it by getting off the boat.

“We were very scared on the journey from Turkey, it's very dangerous,” says Hassan T., and “when we got to Lesbos [Greece] I thought we were safe and we all hugged each other.

The Greek coast guards took us to a barracks and then put us on a small boat with the promise of taking us to [the island's capital] Mytilene.”

But they were left adrift again.

Neither the adults nor the children knew how to swim, so they decided not to try it again by sea.

On July 9, 2020, they went to the land border between Turkey and Greece, to an area of ​​the Evros River.

They crossed it with other families and hid in the vegetation, back in Greece, all night.

By day, they walked through the forest in the hope of reaching Athens by bus, to request asylum there.

After five hours of marching, they stopped to rest.

So policemen with dogs stopped them and took them to a police station.

Before his phone was taken away, Hassan T. sent his location via WhatsApp to members of his family and, the next day, after his deportation to Turkey, he forwarded the location to the phone of Legal Center Lesvos, an NGO made up of female lawyers who attended when filing the claim before the ECtHR.

The lawsuit includes a detailed forensic reconstruction carried out by Legal Center Lesvos to conclude that the arrest took place at the Soufli border guard and police station, near the border with Turkey.

There they held the group of adults and children for approximately eight hours, always according to Hassan's account.

The policemen beat several of the older ones, he says.

And they refused to let them take milk from a bag for the complainant's son who was only one year old.

At sunset they were taken in trucks to the river and forced to board an inflatable raft.

Some of the adults were beaten again on the way to the Turkish side, as a warning not to return.

They had to walk more than 20 kilometers to Edirne, the nearest Turkish city.

The Greek government denies everything in the letters it has sent to Strasbourg in response to the demands.

He maintains that the actions of the police and the coast guard always comply with international law and, to the extent that the claims describe illegal behaviour, "they are not credible".

In its first letter, sent in June 2022, the Hellenic Executive argues that the plaintiffs accuse Greece of the widespread practice of collective expulsions without evidence.

In his last letter, from November of the same year, he considers that the demand responds to political reasons to question the immigration policy of the conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

The EU's external border agency is in the crosshairs of investigations into the passivity or cover-up of forced returns of migrants in the Mediterranean.

Does Frontex confirm the existence of hot returns?

"Since it is an ongoing legal proceeding, we cannot comment," a spokesperson responded to EL PAÍS.

A report by the European Anti-Fraud Agency (OLAF) released last October confirms serious irregularities in the management of Frontex and maintains that high-ranking officers of the agency were aware of illegal and irregular practices on the part of its employees and some States. members —such as Greece— to prevent the entry of migrants irregularly.

The report analyzes hot returns on the high seas, denounced especially since 2020, under the command at Frontex of the Frenchman Fabrice Leggeri, who finally resigned as executive director of the agency.

OLAF highlights a dozen cases in which the Greek border police violently expel boats with dozens of migrants on board into Turkish waters and "abandon" them to their fate, all in the eyes of Frontex agents.

The only time that the ECtHR has condemned Greece for an alleged push back, it took eight years to issue a judgment.

The expulsion from Greece prevented Fedaa A. from seeking asylum in the EU.

Having been ruined in the attempt forces him to continue living in an area of ​​Syria where the war has not ended.

Despite this, this lawyer does not lose hope that justice will be done.

“I respect European laws and the European people, but I think that Europe must change its asylum system, since it is like an obstacle course where you bet all or nothing.

I lost 15,000 euros and almost died ”, he maintains, before adding:“ Greece ended my dreams and those of my children ”.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-09

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