Tag Archives: Aegean Islands

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal

‘Racist and illegal’ fast-track deportations target North African and Asian refugees in Greece

The Greek authorities are deporting migrants on the Greek islands to Turkey in an expedited process – raising concerns over potentially illegal and prejudiced practices, reports Matt Broomfield.

Via The New Arab – Refugees from so-called “undesirable” countries are being jailed upon arrival to the Greek islands, before being put through a summary fast-track asylum procedure and returned to detention in Turkey within a matter of weeks, it has emerged.

Individuals from North Africa and South Asia are being singled out upon arrival, due to a policy that has been described as racist and illegal.

Continue reading ‘Racist and illegal’ fast-track deportations target North African and Asian refugees in Greece →

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal

Refugees in Chios: This is the shame of the VIAL hotspot «expansion»

Tents without electricity, huts, overcrowding, sick and abandoned people: Chios Solidarity publicizes audiovisual material describing the inhumane living conditions in the outdoor campsite-store of people outside the hotspot of the saturated VIAL and calls for immediate action.

Via Chios Solidarity

vial-tentes-nolampa

Continue reading Refugees in Chios: This is the shame of the VIAL hotspot «expansion» →

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal

28 “reasons” for arbitrary detention

Since the EU-Turkey deal was implemented, arbitrary detention of asylum seekers on the Greek Hotspot Islands has been on the rise. On Lesvos Island the police detains – among others – people who they consider as “trouble makers” and asylum seekers who gave up their right to apply for a protection status and agreed to so-called “voluntary return” after months of forcibly staying in terrible living conditions behind barbed wire. Until recently, members of six nationalities were furthermore simply detained on basis of their national belonging. In September, this illegal detention practice has been expanded to 28 nationalities. Affected are nationalities with less than 25% acceptance rate who are sweepingly considered as “economic migrants”. Asylum seekers with the respective national belongings are detained in a pre-removal centre within Moria camp without adequate access to basic goods such as clothes or medical and legal support.  Continue reading 28 “reasons” for arbitrary detention →

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal, News Digest

September Report on Rights Violations and Resistance in Lesvos

Via Legal Centre Lesbos – In September, Mr. Maarten Verwey, EU coordinator for implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement, travelled to Lesvos and met with authorities in the camps, and the Mytilene mayor’s office. He did not, however, meet with any of the individuals best placed to brief him on the impact of the EU-Turkey Statement: the refugees and asylum seekers who know all too well how refugees are treated in Turkey, and as a consequence of the ‘deal’, have been trapped on Lesvos for months and years living in inhumane and degrading conditions in perpetual fear of deportation.

Their situation is constantly deteriorating: The European Commission increases pressure to return even asylum seekers who are classified as vulnerable and individuals applying for family reunification to Turkey. Furthermore, the Greek Council of State Plenary – Greece’s highest administrative court – ruled that Turkey is a safe country, setting dangerous precedent for forcible returns to Turkey under EU-Turkey deal, trampling roughshod over overwhelming evidence that basic human rights of returnees are systematically violated by Erdogan’s repressive authoritarian regime.

However, refugees and supporters on Lesvos keep up resistance. They go on protests marches, occupied the main Square in the town of Mytilene and demand freedom of movement.

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal

JOINT STATEMENT: Open the Greek islands – No more dead from cold

Since the EU-Turkey statement came into force on March 20th 2016, thousands of refugees became trapped on the Greek islands. Some of them will soon experience their second winter on the islands, waiting for the examination of their asylum claims or for their deportation to Turkey.

Last winter, in the European hotspot camp Moria on Lesvos alone, six people died. No one took responsibility for their deaths. This winter, people seeking protection and a decent life will again be forced to sleep on the ground in thin summer tents and behind barbed wire. Given the circumstances, it seems likely that more deaths will follow.

Grassroots initiatives and small organizations from the Greek islands and mainland have joined forces, supported by international solidarity groups calling together to “Open the islands – No more dead from cold”. HarekAct joins this statement, in which we demand the European Union and the Greek government to put an end to the restriction of movement to the islands, and let people move on at last to find safety! Continue reading JOINT STATEMENT: Open the Greek islands – No more dead from cold →

News Digest

More than 630 migrants arrive on Greek islands since Friday

Via Ekathimerini – A total of 633 migrants and refugees have landed on Greece’s Aegean islands in the past three days, authorities said Monday.

Officials reported 256 arrivals on Chios, and 230 on Samos and 147 on Lesvos.

More than 12,000 migrants have crossed from Turkey to Greece this year, according to the IOM, a considerable drop in numbers compared to some 161,000 arrivals during the same period a year before.

News Digest

“Send to their death” – on deportations under the EU-Turkey Deal

Short film on deportations under the EU-Turkey Deal by Joinda Productions, a film collective of three brothers from Afghanistan who arrived in Greece a year ago from Turkey in a rubber dinghy!

In Afghanistan, the three brothers had been prosecuted for their artistic work: making political films. Trapped on the Greek island Lesvos in the barbed wired camp Moria for a year, the three Afghan television artists continue their political work. Continue reading “Send to their death” – on deportations under the EU-Turkey Deal →