In a historic ruling, the European Court of Human Rights has found Greece guilty of “systematic” pushbacks of would-be asylum seekers, forcibly returning third-country nationals from Greece’s border region of Evros back to Turkey.
Tuesday’s decision marks the first time that Greece has been publicly condemned for carrying out a policy it has long denied, and the first time the Strasbourg-based court has examined a complaint of a pushback carried out by Greek authorities.
The ruling involves the case of a Turkish woman, identified by her initials A.R.E. in court documents, to whom the tribunal has awarded damages of 20,000 euros ($20,644), citing evidence that Greece, a frontline European country in the migrant crisis, was engaging in the illegal deportations when she was forcibly returned to Turkey.
“There were strong indications to suggest that there had existed, at the time of the events alleged, a systematic practice of ‘pushbacks’ of third-country nationals by the Greek authorities, from the Evros [border] region to Turkey,” the decision concluded.
The complainant had lodged her case before the court in 2021, almost two years after she was pushed back to Turkey. She had attempted to have her case heard before a Greek court earlier, yet her complaint was rejected by an appeals court prosecutor in the region of Thrace, in northern Greece, on the grounds that Greek police “never” engaged in such activity.
Europe’s Court of Human Rights though, accepted her claims. The woman testified that she was fleeing political persecution as a convicted member of the Gulen movement, and had not only been forcibly expelled but also she was illegally detained before being deported. The pushback, the woman said, took place in the darkness of night, with the woman and several other asylum seekers forced by commandos in balaclavas to board an inflatable boat back to Turkey.
Her expulsion from Greece resulted in her arrest and imprisonment by Turkish authorities on the charge of being a member of the “Fettulahist terrorist organization.”
Jubilant reactions to the court ruling slamming Greece on pushback practice
The case had been taken to the European Court of Human Right by the Greek Council for Refugees (CGR), a Greek non-governmental organization supporting asylum and human rights, while providing legal assistance to asylum seekers in Greece. The organizations, which had provided legal representation for the complainant, described the decision as a “landmark judgement.”
“The court saw a pattern and decided to punish these violations (…), it decided that it was not acceptable,” Lefteris Papagiannakis, Director of the Greek Council for Refugees told Euractiv.
Since the early 2010s, Greece has been facing numerous accusations of pushbacks -covert, undocumented operations carried out by Greek authorities, usually at night, that detain and forcibly expel would-be asylum seekers without due process, mainly at the border area of Evros, between Greece and Turkey.
In the past, the UN has also slammed Greece on pushbacks, allegations that the Greek government has consistently denied.
THe United Nation’s refugee agency (UNHCR) called for Greece to stop pushing back migrants who are attempting to seek asylum in the country.
Greek politicians denied the accusations that such pushbacks were taking place, saying that the UNHCR has been misled by Turkish propaganda. Turkey had bolstered its claims that Greece was responsible for deaths of migrants pushed back from its borders.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi spoke out against “the increasing number of incidents of violence and serious human rights violations against refugees and migrants at various European borders,” with multiple deaths. Grandi also called out Greece directly.
“We are alarmed by recurrent and consistent reports coming from Greece’s land and sea borders with Turkey, where UNHCR has recorded almost 540 reported incidents of informal returns by Greece since the beginning of 2020,” Grandi added.
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