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BRUSSELS (AP) Human rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday that the practice of returning migrants in Greece has become so serious that even people who have applied for asylum and have been in the country for some time are summarily arrested and deported.
Charity groups and the media regularly accuse the Greek authorities and the EU border agency Frontex of denying people their right to seek asylum, which is illegal under EU law and the EU Treaties. often refugees in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and the Greek Islands.
Greece and Frontex vigorously deny having carried out such pushbacks.
But Amnesty said in a new report that the refoulements have become so entrenched that it has documented four cases where those affected had registered protection status in Greece or had been in the country days or weeks before, and were apprehended well inland.
One case concerned a Syrian who registered as an asylum seeker in Greece at the end of 2019. He was arrested in the northwestern port city of Igoumenitsa last July. He said the police confiscated and destroyed his asylum card. He was put on a bus and taken to a detention center before being sent to Turkey.
Amnesty said a young Syrian couple traveling with two young children were also detained at a refugee center near Drama in northern Greece. They were taken to a detention center or police station where their property was confiscated and then returned across the land border between Greece and Turkey.
The rights group said the returns have a huge impact on individuals and the community: they tear people away from each other after finding what they think is safety.
He also heard testimony from some people forced to leave by crossing the Evros River at the Greek-Turkish border that the Turkish authorities, in turn, tried to prevent them from entering Turkish territory.
Amnesty called on the European Commission to initiate infringement proceedings against Greece for its violation of EU asylum and fundamental rights law.
He called on the Turkish authorities to end all practices forcing or pressuring individuals to return to Greece, including through threats or violence, and to conduct prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigations into all of these allegations.
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