On January 7, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Greece violated the rights of an asylum seeker (a Turkish woman identified as A. R. E.) as part of “a systematic practice of ‘pushbacks’ of third-country nationals by the Greek authorities, from the Evros region to Türkiye.”
On May 4, 2019, A.R.E. crossed into Greece. Shortly thereafter, Greek border officials apprehended her, confiscated her shoes, money, and phone, and took her to an unidentified police station. Hours later, despite her pleas for asylum, men wearing balaclavas transported her to the Greece-Turkey border and forced her onto an inflatable boat. By 7:30 pm, she had been sent across the river to Turkey.
In Turkey, A.R.E. was arrested, held in Edirne Prison near the Greece border, and subsequently transferred to Gebze Prison, near Izmir.
A.R.E. fled Turkey to escape a six-year prison sentence for alleged association with the movement led by the late Fethullah Gülen, whom Türkiye holds responsible for the 2016 military coup attempt.
The Court noted the “significant number, variety, and concordance of the relevant sources” attesting to Greece’s border pushbacks.
Indeed.
Human Rights Watch is among the many sources that have documented regular, systematic pushbacks by Greek security officials. Unfortunately, we have had cause to do so for years.
As director of our refugee rights work, I first detailed these pushbacks in a 2008,121-page report that concluded, “Summary forcible expulsions across the Evros River by Greek police and security forces are routine and systematic.” In interview after interview, I found a common pattern: People crossing the border were 1) briefly detained at unidentified, dirty, overcrowded border police stations; 2) mistreated, often robbed, sometimes beaten or stripped; and 3) trucked to the river at nightfall, forced onto small boats, and pushed across.
That was 16 years ago.
We issued nearly identical reports in 2018, 2020, and 2022, as well as press releases and updates in the intervening years. Many other human rights organizations, journalists, and UN and Council of Europe officials did the same.
I can’t begin to imagine the thousands of people who have suffered—and continue to suffer—over these years because of the systematic abuse of pushbacks there and on other external EU borders. The European Court of Human Rights has spoken. When will the organs of the EU? And when, at long last, will Greece and other EU member states listen?