[EN] HUMAN RIGHTS ARE COLLAPSING AT THE EUROPEAN BORDERS

KyriakiKamenou
URBAN TIMES

European Union is spending more money to protect its borders in the Mediterranean sea rather than providing help, security and respect the human rights of the refugees and migrants.

Amnesty International’s latest report states that the EU is investing more money on surveillance technologies, security forces and detention centres, sending back refugees who are trying to escape from the nightmare of poverty and war in their countries. This is a failure to fulfil its obligation to protect their human rights or at least the most fundamental and basic such as the right to life. According to AI between 2007 and 2013 the EU spent nearly 2 billion euros to protect its external borders, but only 700 million euros to improve the situation for asylum-seekers and refugees.

Most of the refugees are coming from Syria

Since the civil war started in 2011 more than 2.8 million Syrians left their homes. By the end of April almost 1 million of them had reached Europe and sought asylum. Other high numbers of refugees who are reaching European borders, are coming from Eritrea, Afghanistan and Somalia.

[EN] "FRONTEX BETWEEN GREECE AND TURKEY: THE BORDER OF DENIAL" - THE DEPLOYMENT OF FRONTEX IS IMPAIRING THE RIGHT OF ASYLUM

FRONTEXIT

At the Greek-Turkish border, the European Agency for controlling the external borders, Frontex, is taking part in a process that prevents refugees from benefitting from international protection. The latest report of the FRONTEXIT Campaign, “Frontex between Greece and Turkey: The Border of Denial”, underlines the dramatic consequences of the intensification of surveillance at that border (push-backs, lack of access to the asylum procedure, physical and verbal violence, etc.), and also the Agency’s lack of accountability. 

On the basis of dozens of testimonies and numerous exchanges with Frontex, the report documents the serious Human Rights violations committed in this centre of gravity of the Agency’s operations. The Council of Europe, the European Union’s Agency for Fundamental Rights and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, as well as numerous civil society organisations have recently expressed their deep concern regarding the violations committed at that border.