Appeals Committee on Lesbos stops deportations to Turkey

PRO ASYL calls for an end to the inhu­man lar­ge-sca­le expe­ri­ment in the Aege­an – stop depor­ta­ti­ons to Turkey! 

Yes­ter­day night three posi­ti­ve decis­i­ons by the Admi­nis­tra­ti­ve Appeals Com­mit­tee of Les­bos were published. Lawy­ers of the PRO ASYL pro­ject “Refu­gee Sup­port Pro­gram in the Aege­an (RSPA)” repre­sen­ted nine Syri­an pro­tec­tion see­kers befo­re the second ins­tance on 20 and 21 April. The con­cer­ned asyl­um see­kers were great­ly reli­e­ved to recei­ve the news that their depor­ta­ti­on to Tur­key has now been stop­ped. By now ten decis­i­ons by Appeals Com­mit­tees have been published in which it is asser­ted that Tur­key is no “safe third coun­try” for Syri­an refu­gees. The­re are a num­ber of fur­ther posi­ti­ve decis­i­ons which have not been deli­ver­ed yet. Despi­te of mas­si­ve pres­su­re from the Euro­pean Com­mis­si­on and the respon­si­ble Greek Minis­ter for Migra­ti­on, the mem­bers of the Appeals Com­mit­tee held up and deci­ded in favor of the pro­tec­tion seekers.

“We thank our lawy­ers and the who­le RSPA-team for their work and dedi­ca­ti­on. Sin­ce the com­mence­ment of the cyni­cal deal with Erdo­gan our pro­ject part­ners are working day and night in order to sup­port pro­tec­tion see­kers in exer­cis­ing their rights in spi­te of an unlawful pro­ce­du­re” says Karl Kopp, PRO ASYL Direc­tor of Euro­pean Affairs.

PRO ASYL calls for an end to this cyni­cal lar­ge-sca­le expe­ri­ment. Depor­ta­ti­ons to Tur­key must be stop­ped. Accor­ding to Kopp “The EU-Tur­key Deal has cau­sed a human rights dis­as­ter in the Aegean”.

Thou­sands of pro­tec­tion see­kers have been detai­ned sin­ce 20 March; the­re is a lack of food, medi­cal tre­at­ment is insuf­fi­ci­ent. The detenti­on camps and pro­vi­sio­nal shel­ters are over­c­row­ded, the hygie­nic situa­ti­on is cata­stro­phic. In the so-cal­led “Hot­spots”, pro­tec­tion see­kers can hard­ly get any infor­ma­ti­on regar­ding the pro­ce­du­re. Only a few dona­ti­on fun­ded lawy­ers try to appeal against nega­ti­ve first ins­tance decis­i­ons and have to do so under most dif­fi­cult cir­cum­s­tances. In this situa­ti­on whe­re the pro­vi­si­on of basic needs and secu­ri­ty for refu­gees in the camps can’t be gua­ran­teed, the­re can­not be a pro­ce­du­re in accordance with the rule of law.

From the begin­ning this was clear to the EU, the Ger­man govern­ment and all obser­vers of the situa­ti­on. Sin­ce the respon­si­ble decis­i­on makers in Brussels and Ber­lin do not care about the human rights of refu­gees but only about depor­ta­ti­ons to Tur­key, the resul­ting cha­os was kno­wing­ly accept­ed. PRO ASYL will sup­port appeals up to the hig­hest Euro­pean Courts in order to end the right­less­ness of pro­tec­tion see­kers on the Greek islands.