End Summary Returns, Unchecked Violence
Human Rights Watch
Greek law enforcement officers at the land border with Turkey in the northeastern Evros region routinely summarily return asylum seekers and migrants.
(Athens) – Greek law enforcement officers
at the land border with Turkey in the northeastern
Evros region routinely summarily return asylum seekers and migrants, Human
Rights Watch said today. The officers in some cases use violence and often
confiscate and destroy the migrants’ belongings.
“People who have not committed a crime are detained,
beaten, and thrown out of Greece without any consideration for their rights or
safety,” said Todor Gardos, Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Greek
authorities should immediately investigate the repeated allegations of illegal
pushbacks.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 26 asylum seekers and
other migrants in Greece in May, and in October and November in Turkey. They
are from Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco, Pakistan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen, and
include families traveling with children. They described 24 incidents of
pushbacks across the Evros River from Greece to Turkey.
Most incidents took place between April and November.
All of those interviewed reported hostile or violent behavior by Greek police
and unidentified forces wearing uniforms and masks without recognizable
insignia. Twelve said police or these unidentified forces accompanying the
police stripped them of their possessions, including their money and personal identification,
which were often destroyed. Seven said police or unidentified forces took their
clothes or shoes and forced them back to Turkey in their underwear, sometimes
at night in freezing temperatures.
Abuse included beatings with hands and batons, kicking,
and, in one case, the use of what appeared to be a stun gun. In another case, a
Moroccan man said a masked man dragged him by his hair, forced him to kneel on
the ground, held a knife to his throat, and subjected him to a mock execution.
Others pushed back include a pregnant 19-year-old woman from Afrin, Syria, and
a woman from Afghanistan who said Greek authorities took away her two young
children’s shoes.
Increasing numbers of migrants, including asylum
seekers, have attempted to cross the Evros River, which forms a natural border
between Greece and Turkey, since April. By the end of September, the
International Organization for Migration (IOM) had registered 13,784 arrivals
by land, a nearly fourfold increase over the same period last year.
In early June, Turkey unilaterally suspended all
returns under a bilateral readmission agreement, stopping coordinated returns
over the land border. In a July letter to Human Rights Watch, Hellenic Police Director
Georgios Kossioris acknowledged an “acute problem” related to new arrivals and
migrants arrested in the region, causing the overcrowding in some facilities,
and inhumane conditions in police stations and registration and identification
centers Human Rights Watch had documented.
Accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch are consistent
with the findings of other nongovernmentalgroups, intergovernmental agencies,
and media reports. UNHCR, the
United Nations Refugee Agency, has raised similar concerns. In a June report, the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Committee for the Prevention of
Torture said it has received “several consistent and credible allegations of
pushbacks by boat from Greece to Turkey at the Evros River border by masked
Greek police and border guards or (para-)military commandos.” In November,
the CoE human rights commissioner called
on Greece to investigate allegations, in light of information
pointing to “an established practice.”
Human Rights Watch wrote to the head of border
protection of the Hellenic Police on December 6, 2018, informing them of its
findings. In his reply, Police Director Kossioris categorically denied
that Hellenic Police carry out forced summary returns. He said all procedures
for the detention and identification of migrants entering Greece were carried
out in line with relevant legislation, and that they “thoroughly investigate”
any incidents of misconduct or violation of migrants’ and asylum seekers’
rights. Greek authorities have consistently denied pushback practices,
including a high-ranking Greek police official in a June meeting with Human
Rights Watch. For a decade, Human Rights Watch has documented systematic pushbacks by Greek law enforcement
officials at its land border with Turkey.
Greek authorities should promptly investigate in a
transparent, thorough, and impartial manner repeated allegations that Greek
police and border guards are involved in collective and extrajudicial
expulsions at the Evros region. Authorities should investigate allegations of
violence and excessive use of force. Any officer engaged in such illegal acts,
as well as their commanding officers, should be subject to disciplinary
sanction and, as appropriate, criminal prosecution. Anyone seeking
international protection should have the opportunity to apply for asylum, and
returns should follow a procedure that provides access to effective remedies
and safeguards against refoulement – return to a country where they are likely
to face persecution, and ill-treatment.
The European Commission, which provides financial
support to the Greek government for migration control, including in the Evros
region, should urge Greece to end all summary returns of asylum seekers to
Turkey, press the authorities to investigate allegations of violence, and open
legal proceedings against Greece for violating European Union laws.
“Despite government denials, it appears that Greece is
intentionally, and with complete impunity, closing the door on many people who
seek to reach the European Union through the Evros border,” Gardos said.
“Greece should cease forced summary returns immediately and treat everyone with
dignity and respect for their basic rights.”
For detailed accounts from asylum seekers and
migrants, please see below. Please note that all names have been changed.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 26 people from
Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco, Pakistan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen, including
seven women, two of whom were pregnant at the time they were summarily returned
to Turkey across the Evros River. In seven cases, families were pushed back,
including children.
In Greece, Human Rights Watch interviewed people who
managed to re-enter Greek territory following a pushback, in the Fylakio
pre-removal detention center and in the Fylakio reception and identification
center, as well as in the Diavata camp for asylum seekers in Thessaloniki. In
Turkey, those interviewed were in the Edirne removal center and in urban
locations in Istanbul.
All names of interviewees have been changed to protect
their privacy and security. Interviews were carried out privately and
confidentially, in the interviewees’ first language, or a language they spoke
fluently, through interpreters. Interviewees shared their accounts voluntarily,
and without remuneration, and have consented to Human Rights Watch collecting
and publishing their accounts.
Pushbacks in Evros
The 24 incidents described demonstrate a pattern that
points to an established and well-coordinated practice of pushbacks. Most of
the incidents share three key features: initial capture by local police
patrols, detention in police stations or informal locations close to the border
with Turkey, and handover from identifiable law enforcement bodies to
unidentifiable paramilitaries who would carry out the pushback to Turkey across
the Evros River, at times violently. In nine cases, migrants said uniformed
police physically mistreated them before or during the pushback.
The accounts suggest close and consistent coordination
between police with unidentified, often masked, men who may or may not be law
enforcement officers. In a May interview with Human Rights Watch, Second
Lieutenant Sofia Lazopoulou at the border police station of Neo Cheimonio said
that police officers wearing dark blue uniforms were in charge of services at
the police station and that those who wear military camouflage uniforms were
patrolling officers, in charge of prevention and deterrence of irregular
migrants crossing into Greece.
Interviewees said that people who looked like police
officers or soldiers, as well as some of the unidentified masked men, carried
equipment such as handguns, handcuffs, radios, spray cans, and batons, while
others carried tactical gear such as armored gloves, binoculars, and knives and
military grade weapons, such as rifles.
The repeated nature of the pushbacks and the fact that
those officers who conduct them were clearly on official duty, indicates that
commanding officers knew, or ought to have known, what was happening.
Ferhat G., a Syrian Kurdish man in his forties, said
two police officers detained him, his wife, and three children, ages 12, 15,
and 19, at an abandoned train station on September 19. They were held in a
large caged area in the backyard of a police station with dozens of other
people for five hours. Ferhat could not say where the train station or police
station were:
We were all put in a van, 60 to 70 people. Commandos
all in black, wearing face masks, drove us back to the river. We were very
afraid… I saw other people there, mainly youths with just shorts, no other
clothes. Our blood froze out of fear. When they opened the van, we started
going out. “Stand in one line, one-by-one,” they said and hit someone. Ten by
10, they put us in a small boat, driven by a Greek soldier. I cried because of
the humiliation.
The modus operandi was largely replicated, with some
variations, in the other cases Human Rights Watch documented.
Capture
Twenty-one of those interviewed said local police
patrols detained them in towns and villages near the border or in open
farmland. Two said that the police took them off a bus or a train shortly after
its departure. Three said they could not identify the men who detained them and
took them directly back to the border. People said they were then transported
in police cars, pick-up trucks, white vans without windows or signs, or larger
trucks painted in green or camouflage that appeared to be military trucks.
Karim L., 25, from Morocco, said that police officers
removed him from a train to Alexandropouli on November 8. Shortly after its
scheduled departure from Orestiada, at 12:37 p.m., police officers began asking
passengers who looked foreign to show their passports and took Karim and five
or six others off the train. The police took him to a nearby police station and
kept him there for two nights. Then four men wearing police uniforms and black
masks took him to the border in a van. He said they subjected him to physical
violence and a mock execution, then pushed him back to Turkey. He was not
photographed, fingerprinted, or given any paper to read or sign, or otherwise
informed of the reasons for his arrest. He said that other people, including
families with children, were also detained in the station’s three cells.
Mahsa N., an Afghan woman, said uniformed police
officers removed her, her husband, their three children, ages 5, 9, and 11, and
two unrelated Afghan men from a bus 15 minutes after it left Alexandropouli in
mid-September, during their third attempt to enter Greece. They were pushed
back to Turkey the same day, with the police who had detained them taking them
all the way to the Evros River, where others were already being held so they
could be returned on a boat.
Dila E., a 25-year-old Syrian woman, described her
experience shortly after crossing the Evros River in late April. She said she
was with seven other people, including four children, when masked men she could
not identify pushed them back to Turkey as they were walking in a small town
near the border:
They came with a car and took us. They put us in a
white van. You couldn’t see anything from the inside. They took us directly to
the river and made us cross the river with a rubber boat. They took everyone’s
mobile phones, set of clothes, and even the money from some.
Malik N., a 26-year-old Moroccan man, said uniformed
police stopped him along with three other men on November 13 near a gas station
in Didymoteicho, a town two kilometers from the border. He said that one of the
policemen made a phone call, and a white van arrived 15 minutes later. Two men
he could not identify took him and two of his group to a location that he
described as barracks: “They put us in the car, which was very well made, dark
inside, and without seats. There were no signs on it. … There was a terrible
smell [in the barracks], and officials had their masks on… There were 30 people
there.”
Masked men took him to the border the next evening:
After the masked people came, they started to shout at
us, and hit us one by one with batons at the door. There were around eight
people outside the barracks, each with a thick plastic baton. They would hit
you as you walked to the car. They would shout “Fuck Islam.” They put 30 of us
in the van. [There were] no chairs. I felt like I was suffocating, there was no
air. When we arrived at the river, they ordered people to strip to shorts only.
They took my phones, my money, €1,500, and my glasses, and broke them.
Sardar T., 18, from Afghanistan, said that uniformed
police caught him and the group of people he was traveling with at the
Didymoteicho bus station on April 23. He said the police came with a white van
but later brought a big car, similar to a military truck with green camouflage.
Human Rights Watch researchers saw a vehicle matching Sardar’s description
parked in the yard of the border police station of Neo Cheimonio, as well as
numerous white vans, without police signs. Sardar said that the officers who
pushed them back to Turkey were wearing police uniforms and that masks
concealed their faces except for their eyes.
Detention
Thirteen of those interviewed reported that they were
detained in formal and informal locations close to the border, for periods
ranging from a few hours to five days. Five said they were taken to a police
station, while eight described buildings on the outskirts of nearby villages
and towns, or on farmland that they said were used as drop-off points for
detained migrants. None of the interviewees, even those held at police
stations, were duly identified and registered, and their detention appears to
have been arbitrary and incommunicado.
A few dozen to one hundred people were detained at a
time, without food, water, and sanitation, and then taken to the Evros River
and returned to Turkey. Interviewees described the rooms in the unidentified
buildings as “prison-like” and “like a storage room,” with a few mattresses and
a single, filthy toilet. They said women and families with children were
either held together with unrelated men, or sometimes in adjacent
rooms.
Mahsa, the Afghan woman who was summarily returned to
Turkey three times, said she and her family were kept for five days, along with
unrelated men who were also detained, in a dark room with no beds or heat
before the second pushback, in late August. They were not given any food. Their
belongings, including winter coats for her young children, and a cherished backpack
and doll, were never returned. Up to 10 guards, wearing belts with what
appeared to be handguns, batons, and pepper spray, would check on people and
lock the door but not provide any information. She saw guards beating men
staying in the same room: “They had a blue uniform with writing on it in Greek
on the back, with big letters. They called us dirt.”
Azadeh B., a 22-year-old Afghan woman traveling with
her husband and two children, ages 2 and 4, said they were pushed back twice
from Greece – and had spent five days in detention before being returned the
second time, in early October. She said they were taken to a room in a
structure located in the middle of farmland:
We could not see or hear anything. We were not asked
to sign anything or told anything. The guards closed the door and locked it.
When families asked for water, they filled dirty bottles and threw them inside
the room through the door. They took everything from us, even the Quran. We
asked them to give back our kids’ shoes, but they didn’t. They do this because
they don’t want us to come back. If it’s something of value, they keep it,
something they don’t like, they put it in the bin.
She said only the children were given some biscuits
while detained in a room that was about 40 square meters and shared by about 80
people whom she believed were also all migrants.
Hassan I., a Tunisian man in his thirties, said that
before being violently pushed back along with four friends in early August,
they spent a day in detention. He said the location resembled a military base
because they saw military vehicles, including trucks and tanks, parked near the
room in which they were held. It was a 15-minute drive from the town of
Orestiada, where they had been stopped and picked up in the morning by two police
officers in blue uniforms in a civilian car.
The policemen drove them to the location, where guards
violently pushed them against a wall, searched them, and hit them. “First, they
asked for phones, then for money,” Hassan said. They were shouting ‘malaka’
[a Greek insult meaning ‘asshole’]. I was shocked. I felt humiliated. When we
tried to ask for anything, like our sim cards, memory cards, they hit us
immediately.” Hassan and his friends were put in a room that looked like a
storage room. In an adjacent room, they could hear the voices of families with
children. Hassan estimated that by 9 p.m., when they were taken to the border
in trucks, about 80 men were in his room of about 24 square meters, in which
there were only a few chairs, a toilet, and a water tap.
Zara Z., 19 and four-months pregnant, from Afrin,
Syria, said that in mid-May, men wearing camouflage uniforms stopped her and
her husband and detained them overnight in a room without bedding or furniture,
together with other migrant families, and without any food or water. The next
day they were transferred in a van to the Evros River, put on a boat, and
pushed back to Turkey.
Pushbacks across the Evros River
All those interviewed said they were transported to
the border with Turkey in groups of 60 to 80, in military trucks or unmarked
vans. In all but three cases, the agents wore face masks, black pants, or
camouflage, making it impossible to recognize or identify them. In the three
other cases, interviewees said police in regular blue and camouflage uniforms
transported them to the river. Ten out of 26 interviewees said they were
physically abused or witnessed others being ill-treated during the pushback
operation.
Karim, a 25-year-old Moroccan man, said Greek police
handed him over to masked men wearing police uniforms after they caught him in
Greece on November 10 and that he was violently pushed back to Turkey. After
ordering him to take off his clothes and shoes, two of the masked officers
kicked him to the ground and hit him with a baton, then one of them subjected
him to a mock execution. They dragged him by his hair and forced him to kneel
on the ground, while the masked officer held a knife to his throat and said in
broken English, “Whoever returns to Greece, they will die.” Karim said he could
not sleep at night and was experiencing recurrent nightmares.
Hassan, the Tunisian who was pushed back with his four
friends on August 10 or 11, said that masked men wearing black clothes
ill-treated them after taking them to the border in a truck. One of the men
used a stun gun on Hassan’s lower back, causing burns that were still visible
over two months later. He provided video footage of the group’s injuries, which
he said was recorded the day after the incident and was first posted on social
media on August 12, showing several bruises he said resulted from blows to
their upper and lower backs and limbs. “Next time I will see you,” one of the
masked men told him in English, “I will kill you.” At the time of the
interview, Hassan had been sleeping in parks in Istanbul, after all his
belongings were confiscated in Greece.
Amir B., a Tunisian man in his twenties, was pushed
back to Turkey at the end of September after entering Greece and hiding for six
days. He said he was returned from near Alexandropouli to the border in one of
two military trucks, which together took around 80 people to the border,
including about 30 women and a few children. Amir said masked men pushed people
around as they got off the trucks, and then pushed them toward the river,
ordering them to remain silent. The agents then split the group into smaller
groups of 10 and ordered them to take off their shoes. Women had to give up
their coats, while some men had to strip to underwear. Amir’s jeans, where he
also kept his money, were set on fire. When a black pick-up truck arrived with
a small boat, the guards checked the other side of the river with binoculars,
and then used the small boat to take the groups of 10 in turn across the water.
18/12/2018
