Amnesty International | Working to Protect Human Rights

https://www.amnesty.org

  • Global: Health workers silenced, exposed and attacked | Amnesty International
    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/07/health-workers-rights-covid-report
    https://www.amnesty.org:443/remote.axd/aineupstrmediaprd.blob.core.windows.net/media/23609/brazil-nurses-covid-19.jpg?center=0.5,0.5&preset=fixed_1200_630

    Governments must be held accountable for the deaths of health and essential workers who they have failed to protect from COVID-19, Amnesty International said today, as it released a new report documenting the experiences of health workers around the world.

    The organization’s analysis of available data has revealed that more than 3000 health workers are known to have died from COVID-19 worldwide - a figure which is likely to be a significant underestimate.

    Alarmingly, Amnesty International documented cases where health workers who raise safety concerns in the context of the COVID-19 response have faced retaliation, ranging from arrest and detention to threats and dismissal.

    With the pandemic still accelerating around the world, we are urging governments to start taking health and essential workers’ lives seriously.
    Sanhita Ambast, Researcher and Advisor on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

    “With the COVID-19 pandemic still accelerating around the world, we are urging governments to start taking health and essential workers’ lives seriously. Countries yet to see the worst of the pandemic must not repeat the mistakes of governments whose failure to protect workers’ rights has had devastating consequences,” said Sanhita Ambast, Amnesty International’s Researcher and Advisor on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

    “It is especially disturbing to see that some governments are punishing workers who voice their concerns about working conditions that may threaten their lives. Health workers on the frontline are the first to know if government policy is not working, and authorities who silence them cannot seriously claim to be prioritising public health.”

    Thousands have lost their lives

  • Peru: Authorities should regularize Venezuelans’ migratory status in the context of the COVID-19 crisis | Amnesty International
    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#perou#venezuelien#regularisation

    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/06/peru-should-regularize-venezuelans-migratory-status-covid19
    https://www.amnesty.org:443/remote.axd/aineupstrmediaprd.blob.core.windows.net/media/22484/venezuelan-refugees-at-peru-ecuador-border.jpg?center=0.5,0.5&preset=fi

    In response to Peru’s inadequate protection of the human rights of refugees from Venezuela, and given the urgency posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit Peru particularly badly, the Peruvian authorities should regularize the migratory status of all Venezuelan women, men and children in the country, said Amnesty International ahead of World Refugee Day. Peru has the world’s largest population of Venezuelan asylum-seekers, at over 482,000, and is home to 830,000 Venezuelans in total, according to official data.

  • Un journaliste marocain victime d’attaques par injection réseau au moyen d’outils conçus par NSO Group
    https://www.amnesty.org/fr/latest/research/2020/06/moroccan-journalist-targeted-with-network-injection-attacks-using-nso-group

    Résumé En octobre 2019, Amnesty International a publié un premier rapport sur l’utilisation d’un logiciel espion produit par l’entreprise israélienne NSO Group en vue de cibler des défenseurs des droits humains marocains, Maati Monjib et Abdessadak El Bouchattaoui. À l’issue des investigations qu’a continué de mener Security Lab, l’équipe de spécialistes de la sécurité numérique de l’organisation, Amnesty International a mis au jour d’autres éléments similaires révélant qu’Omar Radi, journaliste et (...)

    #NSO #iPhone #Pegasus #smartphone #spyware #journalisme #écoutes #surveillance #Amnesty

  • La technologie israélienne au service de l’espionnage des journalistes marocains • Forbidden Stories
    https://forbiddenstories.org/fr/hacke-la-technologie-israelienne-au-service-de-lespionnage-des-jou


    Le logiciel espion de NSO peut aspirer toutes les données d’un téléphone
    Source : Hacking Team Leak

    Poursuivi pour un tweet critique, le journaliste marocain Omar Radi aurait été surveillé pendant une année grâce à un logiciel de la société NSO Group installé sur son portable. C’est ce que révèle un rapport d’Amnesty International publié le 22 juin 2020. Forbidden Stories revient sur les enquêtes qui font d’Omar Radi une cible pour les autorités de son pays.
     

    La scène, digne d’un film d’espionnage, se déroule près de Casablanca à la fin de l’été 2019. Le journaliste Omar Radi a rendez-vous pour déjeuner avec Maati Monjib, un ami historien qu’il n’a pas vu depuis plusieurs mois. Entre le procès sans fin de l’un et les mésaventures à répétition avec les autorités de l’autre, les deux hommes ont beaucoup de choses à se raconter.

    Maati Monjib se sait sur écoutes depuis plusieurs mois et a pris les précautions nécessaires. Amnesty International lui a fait savoir que son téléphone était régulièrement infecté par un logiciel espion depuis 2018. Cette technologie, développée par la société israélienne NSO Group, permet d’aspirer toutes les données du téléphone ciblé, mais aussi d’en activer la caméra et le microphone. Un scenario orwellien devenu réalité.

    Ce que les deux amis ne savent pas encore, c’est qu’au moment même où ils se parlent, le logiciel a changé de cible. Aux alentours de 13h, Omar Radi prend son téléphone pour aller vérifier une information sur internet. Il n’en faut pas plus pour déclencher l’attaque particulièrement sophistiquée et presque indétectable du logiciel israélien.

    Trois jours plus tôt, NSO vient pourtant de publier ses engagements en matière de droits de l’homme pour répondre aux rapports qui régulièrement dénoncent les utilisations abusives de son logiciel.

    En surfant sur le web, Omar Radi vient probablement, sans le savoir, de donner au régime marocain, que l’on soupçonne d’être client de NSO depuis 2018, le contrôle total et invisible de son téléphone. « C’est l’Etat qui détient ton passé, ton présent, tes photos, tes SMS », s’insurge le journaliste aujourd’hui.

    Cette intrusion fait partie des cinq attaques contre Omar Radi révélées dans un rapport d’Amnesty International, auquel ont eu accès 16 médias internationaux coordonnés par Forbidden Stories. L’ONG démontre, analyses techniques à l’appui, que le journaliste a été victime d’attaques dites par « injection réseau » entre janvier 2019 et janvier 2020.

  • Turkey: Stifling free expression during the COVID-19 pandemic - Amntesy International

    Corona virus is devastating lives worldwide, whether because of the illness itself or the social and economic impact of lockdowns and other government measures.

    Everywhere, the poorest are being hit hardest. In Turkey, the authorities are making the situation worse by using the pandemic as an excuse to further stifle the right to freedom of expression. They are hounding social media users, journalists, doctors and others, and invoking legal provisions that criminalize dissent, in efforts to silence their critics.

    #Covid-19#Turquie#Sociétécivile#Répréssion#Liberté#Amnestyinternational#Confinement#migrant#migration

    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2020/06/turkey-stifling-free-expression-during-the-covid19-pandemic

  • Bahrain, Kuwait and Norway contact tracing apps among most dangerous for privacy
    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/06/bahrain-kuwait-norway-contact-tracing-apps-danger-for-privacy

    Bahrain, Kuwait and Norway have rolled out some of the most invasive COVID-19 contact tracing apps around the world, putting the privacy and security of hundreds of thousands of people at risk, an Amnesty International investigation reveals. Amnesty’s Security Lab reviewed contact tracing apps from Europe, Middle East and North Africa, including a detailed technical analysis of 11 apps in Algeria, Bahrain, France, Iceland, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Norway, Qatar, Tunisia and United Arab (...)

    #algorithme #bracelet #BeAware #Bluetooth #smartphone #GPS #contactTracing #géolocalisation #COVID-19 #hacking #santé #consentement (...)

    ##santé ##Amnesty

  • VICTOIRE DE LA CAMPAGNE BDS SUR LE BOYCOTT DES PRODUITS ISRAÉLIENS : LA FRANCE CONDAMNEE PAR LA CEDH
    La Campagne BDS France, le 11 juin 2020
    https://www.bdsfrance.org/victoire-de-la-campagne-bds-sur-le-boycott-des-produits-israeliens-la-fra

    Condamnation des autorités françaises : selon la CEDH, l’appel au boycott des produits israéliens est protégé par la liberté d’expression.

    La campagne BDS France se réjouit de l’arrêt de la Cour européenne des droits humains (affaire Baldassi et autres c. France, requêtes n°15271/16 et autres) rendu le 11 juin 2020 qui condamne la France pour avoir violé le droit à la liberté d’expression de militant-e-s associatif-ve ayant appelé au boycott de produits israéliens dans des magasins.

    L’article 10 protège la liberté d’expression, qui peut être restreinte à certaines conditions. Les militant-e-s BDS affirmaient que ces conditions n’étaient pas remplies et que leur liberté d’expression avait été bafouée par la France. A l’unanimité, la CEDH dit que la France a violé l’article 10 de la Convention.

    La France est donc condamnée pour violation de l’article 10 de la CEDH (qui protège la liberté d’expression) : elle doit verser dans les trois mois 7 380 euros personnellement à chaque militant et 20 000 euros en plus à eux tous en commun.

    La campagne BDS France relève également que la Cour a bien pris en compte les spécificités des appels au boycott des produits israéliens lancés par les militant-e-s associatif-ve-s engagé-e-s contre l’apartheid israélien. L’arrêt énonce que « les propos reprochés aux requérants concernaient un sujet d’intérêt général, celui du respect du droit international public par l’État d’Israël et de la situation des droits humains dans les territoires palestiniens occupés, et s’inscrivaient dans un débat contemporain, ouvert en France comme dans toute la communauté internationale » (§78).

    Ces propos relèvent de la liberté d’expression dans un régime démocratique et sont ainsi protégés. L’appel au boycott des produits d’un régime d’apartheid est bien un droit pour les mouvements mobilisés en faveur du respect du droit international, droit qui avait été exercé par les mouvements pacifiques qui ont lutté en Inde, aux Etats-Unis et en Afrique du Sud contre le colonialisme et la discrimination.

    L’arrêt de la Cour européenne des droits humains prouve, comme nous l’avons toujours dit, que les autorités françaises ont eu tort de vouloir criminaliser un mouvement non violent et responsable comme le nôtre, qui, tout en condamnant toute forme de racisme dont l’antisémitisme, réclame des mesures de boycott contre le régime israélien, ses entreprises et ses institutions, tant que cet Etat ne respecte pas le droit international. Cet arrêt met en lumière le caractère faux et malhonnête des tentatives de diffamation menées contre la campagne BDS, tentatives visant à museler celles et ceux qui demandent à agir contre l’apartheid israélien.

    Conséquemment à l’arrêt de la CEDH, nous demandons aux autorités françaises d’abroger immédiatement les circulaires Alliot-Marie et Mercier afin de reconnaître la légalité et la légitimité de nos modes d’actions non violents et d’entamer un dialogue avec nous afin de contribuer ensemble à exercer une pression sur l’Etat d’Israël en vue d’obtenir que le droit international soit respecté.

    Nous invitons les entreprises françaises à désinvestir d’Israël et aux institutions françaises à cesser toute collaboration avec les institutions publiques israéliennes.

    Nous sommes déterminé-e-s à continuer les actions de boycott des produits israéliens et des entreprises internationales complices de l’apartheid israélien. Nous réclamons également un boycott des universités et des institutions israéliennes complices, ainsi que des manifestations culturelles et sportives faisant la promotion de l’apartheid israélien.

    Israël, pays de l’apartheid, ne pourra pas indéfiniment empêcher la justice et la liberté pour le peuple palestinien de triompher !

    Nous invitons tou-te-s les citoyen-ne-s de bonne volonté et toutes les mouvements attachés au respect des droits humains et de la légalité internationale à rejoindre la campagne BDS. Notre mobilisation est plus que jamais légitime et indispensable au moment où les autorités israéliennes envisagent, en violation du droit international, d’annexer une partie de la Cisjordanie, poursuivant ainsi la dépossession du peuple autochtone palestinien, entérinée par le plan Trump.

    BDS pour la justice, la dignité et l’égalité !

    #France #BDS #Boycott #Palestine #Justice #Criminalisation_des_militants #Liberté_d'expression #CEDH #Cour_européenne_des_droits_humains

  • Qatar : Contact tracing app security flaw exposed sensitive personal details of more than one million
    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/05/qatar-covid19-contact-tracing-app-security-flaw

    Serious security vulnerabilities in Qatar’s mandatory contact tracing app, uncovered by Amnesty International, must act as a wake-up call for governments rolling-out COVID-19 apps to ensure privacy safeguards are central to the technology. An investigation by Amnesty’s Security Lab discovered the critical weakness in the configuration of Qatar’s EHTERAZ contact tracing app. Now fixed, the vulnerability would have allowed cyber attackers to access highly sensitive personal information, (...)

    #algorithme #QRcode #smartphone #contactTracing #géolocalisation #technologisme #consentement #BigData #COVID-19 #hacking #santé #bug (...)

    ##santé ##Amnesty

  • Kuwait: Ensure protection of migrant workers in COVID-19 response: Joint Letter | Amnesty International
    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#Koweit#solidarite
    https://www.amnesty.org/fr/documents/MDE17/2167/2020/fr

    A joint letter from a coalition of civil society organizations and trade unions, urging the Government of Kuwait to ensure that migrant workers receive adequate protection from COVID-19.

  • Le recours aux technologies de surveillance numérique pour combattre la pandémie doit se faire dans le respect des droits humains | Amnesty International
    https://www.amnesty.org/fr/documents/pol30/2081/2020/fr

    La pandémie de COVID-19 est une urgence de santé publique de portée internationale qui requiert une réponse coordonnée et de grande ampleur de la part des gouvernements du monde entier. Cependant, les initiatives des États visant à contenir le virus ne doivent pas servir de prétexte à entrer dans une nouvelle ère de systèmes généralisés de surveillance numérique invasive. Nous, organisations signataires, engageons les gouvernements à faire preuve de leadership dans la lutte contre la pandémie, tout en (...)

    #Amnesty #métadonnées #surveillance #santé #COVID-19 #BigData #géolocalisation #GPS #smartphone (...)

    ##santé ##algorithme

  • Greece/Turkey: Asylum-seekers and migrants killed and abused at borders

    In the midst of violence at the Greek-Turkish border, at least two men were killed and a woman remains missing after Greek border forces reportedly fired live ammunition and tear gas against asylum-seekers and migrants. This occurred after Turkish authorities recklessly encouraged them to travel to Greece under false pretences, new research by Amnesty International has revealed.

    From 27 February onwards, thousands of people headed to the Greek border after Turkish authorities encouraged and facilitated their movement there. Some asylum seekers and their families living in Turkey even gave up their accommodation and spent all their money to make the journey. However, Greek authorities repressed the movement of people attempting to cross by bolstering border control, sending in police and army forces who used tear gas, water cannons, plastic bullets and live ammunition.

    “People travelled from Turkey to Greece to seek safety, yet they were met with violence so serious that at least two were tragically killed. Allegations of violence must be promptly and impartially investigated. Everyone should be treated humanely, shielded from violence and be granted access to protection in the countries where they are seeking safety” said Massimo Moratti, Deputy Director of the Amnesty International Europe Regional Office.

    At least two people killed at the land border with Turkey

    Amnesty International has confirmed the deaths of two men at the Greece/Turkey land border on 2 and 4 March.

    A third person, Fatma (not her real name) from Syria, is missing and presumed dead after she and her husband were separated from their six children while attempting to cross the Evros/Meriç river, south of Edirne, to enter Greece. Ahmed (not his real name) told Amnesty International that his wife has been missing, presumed dead after Greek soldiers fired shots towards her as she attempted to join their children on the Greek side of the river.

    Ahmed told Amnesty International that Greek authorities subsequently detained him and their children for four or five hours, during which they were stripped and had their possessions taken. They were then driven back to the river and put in a wooden boat that took them and others back to the Turkish side. Despite enlisting lawyers in both countries to find out what happened to his wife, Ahmed has been unable to determine her whereabouts or fate.

    Muhammad Gulzari, a 43-year-old man from Pakistan, was shot in the chest as he attempted to cross into Greece at the Pazarkule/Kastanies border crossing point, and pronounced dead in a Turkish hospital on 4 March, in an incident which saw five others injured with gunshot wounds. A 22-year-old Syrian man, Muhammad al-Arab, also died in the area. His killing was documented by Forensic Architecture.

    Other violence against asylum-seekers and migrants at the borders

    Asylum-seekers and migrants told Amnesty International how Greek border forces implemented a government policy to repel them instead of taking their asylum claims even after they had entered Greek territory. This violates international human rights law.

    People reported being beaten by border guards with truncheons, being detained at sites in the border area for periods of time ranging from hours to several days and being returned to Turkey in boats across the Evros/Meriç river in groups. Asylum-seekers and migrants told Amnesty International that border forces also took their money - in some cases thousands of dollars and their only savings - with which they had hoped to start a new life in Europe.

    This violent response was not limited to the border areas. One man from Deir ez-Zor, Syria, told Amnesty International about his experience of crossing into Greece on 4 March “I crossed the river and walked inside Greece for four days and four nights before I was caught. They drove me to a place where they beat me and took my phone and money, 2000 Lira [approx. 275 euros], it was all I have. They took me back across the river to Turkey and left me there without a coat or shoes.”

    Arbitrary detention and suspension of asylum

    In response to Turkey’s actions, Greece also reinforced its patrol capacity at sea, with 52 additional vessels employed to prevent people from arriving to the islands and additional Frontex resources, the EU’s border and coast guard agency. In parallel, emergency legislation suspended all new asylum applications across the country for a month, in brazen violation of international and EU law. While the act ceased to have effects on 2 April, people seeking safety continue to be prevented from accessing asylum as the Greek Asylum Service operations have been suspended since 13 March due to Covid-19.

    Across the Aegean islands, everybody who had arrived after 1 March 2020 was arbitrarily held in port facilities and other areas, unable to claim asylum and at risk of return to Turkey or to countries of ‘origin or transit’. In Lesvos alone, around 500 people – including over 200 children – who arrived by sea were held for over 10 days on a Greek Navy ship normally used to transport tanks and other military vehicles. Hundreds more asylum-seekers and migrants were held in other port facilities across the Aegean.

    All of those detained on the islands were eventually transferred to bigger detention centres on mainland Greece on 20 March where they are currently held pending return decisions and unable to claim asylum.

    “Greece must now quickly change course and allow all new arrivals to access asylum procedures and basic services. They must move people from detention facilities and unsanitary camps to safe and adequate accommodation. The rapid spread of COVID-19 has only made that more urgent,” said Massimo Moratti.

    “European countries should effectively and meaningfully relocate asylum seekers from Greece and resettle refugees from Turkey. With the correct public health checks and quarantines in place, COVID-19 need not be a barrier to providing safety to people forced to flee their homes.”

    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/04/greece-turkey-asylum-seekers-and-migrants-killed-and-abused-at-borders

    #Covid-19 #Migration #Migrant #Balkans #Grèce #Turquie #Frontière #Asile #Suspensionasile #Détention #Camp

    • Refoulés, détenus, tués…. Quand la Turquie a annoncé l’ouverture de ses frontières, la réponse de la Grèce a été sanglante. Retour sur des violences terribles aux frontières de l’Union européenne.

      Depuis le 27 février, des milliers de personnes se sont dirigées vers la frontière gréco-turque sur l’incitation des autorités turques qui ont même facilité leurs déplacements. Certains demandeurs d’asile et leurs familles vivant en Turquie ont même abandonné leur logement et dépensé tout leur argent pour entreprendre ce périple.

      Cependant, les autorités grecques ont entravé les personnes tentant de franchir la frontière en renforçant les contrôles et en faisant intervenir la police et l’armée qui ont utilisé des gaz lacrymogènes, des canons à eau, des balles en caoutchouc et des balles réelles.
      Deux morts, une disparue

      Dans le cadre de ces violences, au moins deux hommes ont été tués et une femme est portée disparue.

      Muhammad Gulzari, un Pakistanais de 43 ans, a été touché à la poitrine alors qu’il tentait de passer en Grèce au point de passage de la frontière de Pazarkule/Kastanies, et a été déclaré mort dans un hôpital turc le 4 mars. Au cours de ce même événement, cinq autres personnes ont été blessées par balles. Un Syrien de 22 ans, Muhammad al Arab, est également mort dans le secteur.

      Une troisième personne, Fatma [N.D.L.R : nom modifié] originaire de Syrie, est portée disparue et présumée morte. Fatma et son époux ont été séparés de leurs six enfants alors qu’ils tentaient de traverser le fleuve Evros/Meriç, pour entrer en Grèce. Ahmed [N.D.L.R : nom modifié] témoigne que son épouse a disparu et est présumée morte : des soldats grecs ont tiré dans sa direction alors qu’elle tentait de rejoindre leurs enfants, sur la rive grecque du fleuve.

      Selon le témoignage d’Ahmed, il a ensuite été détenu par les autorités grecques, tout comme leurs enfants, pendant quatre ou cinq heures. Pendant leur détention, ils ont été déshabillés et dépouillés de leurs affaires. Ils ont ensuite été ramenés au fleuve et placés dans une embarcation en bois qui les a reconduits, avec d’autres, sur la rive turque. Bien qu’il ait engagé des avocats dans les deux pays pour découvrir ce qui était arrivé à sa femme, Ahmed ne sait toujours pas ce qui s’est passé.

      Coups de matraques, détentions, vols

      Des réfugiés et migrants ont témoigné que les gardes-frontières les ont frappés à coups de matraques, détenus sur des sites dans la zone frontalière pendant des périodes allant de quelques heures à plusieurs jours et renvoyés en Turquie à bord d’embarcations, sur le fleuve Evros/Meriç, par groupes. Ils ont aussi pris leur argent – dans certains cas des milliers de dollars, soit toutes leurs économies – et leur seul espoir de démarrer une nouvelle vie en Europe.

      J’ai traversé le fleuve et ai marché sur le territoire grec pendant quatre jours et quatre nuits, avant de me faire attraper. Ils m’ont conduit dans un endroit où ils m’ont frappé et ont pris mon téléphone et mon argent, 2 000 Lires [environ 275 euros], c’est tout ce que j’avais. Ils m’ont ramené en Turquie en me faisant traverser le fleuve et m’ont laissé là, sans manteau ni chaussures.

      Toujours aucune possibilité de demander l’asile

      En réaction aux actions de la Turquie, la Grèce a renforcé ses capacités de patrouille en mer, avec 52 vaisseaux supplémentaires chargés d’empêcher les arrivées sur les îles et des ressources supplémentaires de Frontex (l’Agence européenne de garde-frontières et de garde-côtes).

      En parallèle, la Grèce a suspendu la possibilité de demander l’asile pendant un mois, en violation flagrante du droit international et européen. Si cette mesure a cessé d’être en vigueur le 2 avril, les personnes en quête de sécurité ne peuvent toujours pas solliciter l’asile. En effet, les activités du Service d’asile grec sont suspendues jusqu’au 13 mars en raison du COVID-19.

      Dans les îles de la mer Égée, toutes les personnes arrivées après le 1er mars 2020 étaient détenues de manière arbitraire dans des installations portuaires et d’autres zones, sans pouvoir demander l’asile et risquant d’être renvoyées en Turquie ou vers des pays « d’origine ou de transit ».

      Sur la seule île de Lesbos, environ 500 personnes arrivées par la mer, dont plus de 200 mineurs, ont été retenues pendant plus de 10 jours sur un navire de la marine grecque, habituellement utilisé pour transporter des tanks et autres véhicules militaires.

      Toutes les personnes détenues sur les îles ont finalement été transférées vers des centres de rétention plus grands, en Grèce continentale, le 20 mars, où elles sont détenues dans l’attente des décisions de renvoi et sans pouvoir demander l’asile.

      La Grèce doit changer rapidement de cap et autoriser tous les nouveaux arrivants à bénéficier de procédures d’asile et de services élémentaires. Elle doit transférer les personnes qui se trouvent dans les centres de rétention et les camps insalubres vers des structures sûres et adaptées. La propagation rapide du COVID-19 ne fait qu’en souligner l’urgence.

      #frontex #europe #assassin

      Il y a deux actions faciles de proposées par AI https://www.amnesty.fr/actions-mobilisation/grece-protegeons-les-refugies-du-covid-19-
      un mail et pour celleux qui ont touiter un message sur le réseau

    • La frontière gréco-turque a vu affluer un nombre considérable de migrantEs, du fait d’un chantage du régime turc en direction de l’Union Européenne. Le “coronavirus”, là aussi agit comme un révélateur, en même temps qu’il menace.
      http://www.kedistan.net/2020/03/19/frontiere-europeenne-rester-retourner
      http://www.kedistan.net/2020/03/28/evacuation-migrants-frontiere-grece-turquie
      https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/take-action/greece-refugees-coronavirus-covid-19
      #kedistan

  • Colombie. Les mesures contre l’épidémie de COVID-19 ne doivent pas servir d’excuse pour négliger la protection des défenseur·e·s des droits humains
    Amnesty International, le 26 mars 2020
    https://www.amnesty.org/fr/latest/news/2020/03/colombia-medidas-contra-covid19-desatender-proteccion-personas-defensoras

    Au cours de la semaine dernière, au moins six dirigeant·e·s de la société civile et défenseur·e·s des droits humains ont été tués en Colombie. Le 19 mars, Ivo Humberto Bracamonte Quiroz, conseiller de Puerto Santander et directeur du site d’informations en ligne NPS, a été tué alors qu’il faisait de l’exercice dans le quartier de Beltranía, à Puerto Santander.

    Le 19 mars également, trois hommes armés ont tué Marco Rivadeneira, dirigeant des communautés de petits paysans (campesino) dans le département du Putumayo et membre de la Table ronde nationale de garanties (Mesa Nacional de Garantías). Ils l’ont embarqué lors d’une réunion de petits paysans dans le quartier de Nueva Granada, à Puerto Asís.

    Le même jour, Angel Ovidio Quintero Gonzalez, dirigeant de la société civile et président du conseil de la municipalité de San Francisco, dans le département d’Antioquia, a lui aussi été assassiné. Le maire de San Francisco a annoncé qu’Angel Ovidio Quintero Gonzalez avait été la cible de tirs et, bien qu’il soit parvenu à s’enfuir, son corps a été retrouvé quelques heures plus tard dans un fleuve.

    Le 24 mars, l’Organisation régionale indigène du Valle del Cauca (ORIVAC) a signalé que deux leaders indigènes de la communauté Embera, Omar et Ernesto Guasiruma, ont été tués dans une zone rurale de la municipalité de Bolivar alors qu’ils se trouvaient chez eux, conformément à la quarantaine décrétée par le gouvernement. L’ORIVAC a aussi indiqué que deux membres de la même famille ont été blessés lors de l’attaque.

    Carlota Isabel Salinas Péres, dirigeante de l’ONG Organisation populaire de femmes (Organización Femenina Popular, OFP), a également été assassinée le 24 mars dans la municipalité de San Pablo, dans le département de Bolivar. Vers 20 heures, des hommes armés sont arrivés chez elle, dans le quartier de Guarigua, et l’ont abattue. Son compagnon est porté disparu depuis.

    #Colombie #coronavirus et pendant ce temps là #assassinats #assassinats_politiques #salops #qu'ils_chopent_tous_Ebola

    Voir compile des effets délétères indirects de la pandémie :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/832147

    #fascistovirus #stratégie_du_choc

  • Hidden infrastructures of the European border regime : the #Poros detention facility in Evros, Greece

    This blog post and the research it draws on date before the onset of the current border spectacle in Evros of February/March 2020. Obviously, the situation in Evros region has changed dramatically. Our research however underlines that the Greek state has always resorted to extra-legal methods of border and migration control in the Evros region. Particularly the violent and illegal pushback practices which have persisted for decades in Evros region have now been elevated to official government policy.

    The region of Evros at the Greek-Turkish border was the scene of many changes in the European and Greek border regimes since 2010. The most well-known was the deployment of the Frontex RABIT force in October of that year; while it concluded in 2011, Frontex has had a permanent presence in Evros ever since. In 2011, the then government introduced the ‘Integrated Program for Border Management and Combating Illegal Immigration’ (European Migration Network, 2012), which reflected EU and domestic processes of the Europeanisation of border controls (European Migration Network, 2012; Ilias et al., 2019). The program stipulated a number of measures which impacted the border regime in Evros: the construction of a 12.5km fence along the section of the Greek Turkish border which did not coincide with the Evros river (after which the region takes its name); the expansion of border surveillance technologies and capacities in the area; and the establishment of reception centres where screening procedures would be undertaken (European Migration Network, 2012; Ilias et al., 2019). In this context, one of the measures taken was the establishment of a screening centre in South Evros, near the village of Poros, 46km away from the city of Alexandroupoli – the main urban centre in the area.

    The operation of the Centre for the First Management of Illegal Immigration is documented in Greek (Ministry for Public Order and Citizen Protection, 2013a) and EU official documents (European Parliament, 2012; European Migration Network, 2013), reports by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (2011), NGOs (Pro Asyl, 2012) and activists (CloseTheCamps, 2012), media articles (To Vima, 2012) and research (Düvell, 2012; Schaub, 2013) between 2011 and 2015.

    Yet, during our fieldwork in the area in 2018, none of our respondents mentioned it. Nor could we find any recent research, reports or official documents after 2015 referring to it. It was only a tip from someone we collaborate with that reminded us of the existence of the Poros facility. We found its ‘disappearance’ from public view intriguing. Through fieldwork, document analysis and queries to the Greek authorities, we constructed a genealogy of the Poros centre, from its inception in 2011 to its ambivalent present. Our findings not only highlight the shifting nature of local assemblages of the European border regime, but also raise questions on such ‘hidden’ infrastructures, and the implications of their use for the rights of the people who cross the border.

    A genealogy of Poros

    The Poros centre was originally a military facility, used for border surveillance. In 2012, it was transferred to the Hellenic Police, the civilian authority responsible for migration control and border management, and was formally designated a Centre for the First Management of Illegal Immigration, similar to the more well-known First Reception Centre in Fylakio, in North Evros. The refurbishment and expansion of the old facilities and purchase of necessary equipment were financed through the External borders fund of the European Union (Alexandroupoli Police Directorate, 2011). Visits by the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström (To Vima, 2012), the then executive director of Frontex, Ilkka Laitinen (Ministry for Public Order and Citizen Protection, 2013b), and a delegation of the LIBE committee of the European Parliament (2012) illustrated the embeddedness of the centre in the European border regime. The Commission’s report on the implementation of the Greek National Action Plan on Migration Management and Asylum Reform specifically refers the Poros centre as a facility that could be used for screening procedures and vulnerability assessments (European Commission, 2012).

    The Poros facility was indeed used as a screening and identification centre, activities that fell under both border management and the Greek framework for reception procedures introduced in 2011. While official documents of the Greek Government suggest that the centre started operating in 2012 (Council of Europe, 2012), a media article (Alexandroupoli Online, 2011) and a report by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (2011) provide evidence that it was already operational the year before, as an informal reception centre. When the centre became the main screening facility for South Evros in 2012 (European Parliament, 2012), screening, identification and debriefing procedures at the time were carried out both by Hellenic Police personnel and Frontex officers deployed in the area (Council of Europe, 2012).

    One of the very few research sources referring to Poros, a PhD thesis by Laurence Pillant (2017) provides a detailed description of the space and the activities carried out in the old wooden building and the white containers (image 3), visible in the stills from the video we took in December 2020 (image 4). A mission of Medecins sans frontiers, indicated in Pillant’s diagram, provided health screening in 2012 (European Migration Network, 2013).

    The organisation and function of the centre at the time is also documented in a number of mundane administrative acts which we located through diavgeia.gov.gr, a website storing Greek public administration decisions. Containers were bought to create space for the screening and identification procedures (Regional Police Directorate of Macedonia and Thrace, 2012). A local company was awarded contracts for the cleaning of the facilities (Regional Police Directorate of Macedonia and Thrace, 2013). The last administrative documents we were able to locate concerned the establishment of a committee of local police officers to procure services for emptying the cesspit of the centre (Regional Police Directorate of Macedonia and Thrace, 2015) – not all buildings in the area are linked to the local sewage system. This is the point when the administrative trail for Poros goes cold. No documents were found in diavgeia.gov.gr after January 2015.

    So what happened to the Poros Centre?

    After 2015, we found a mere five online references to the centre, despite extensive searches of sources such as official documents, research or reports by human rights bodies and NGOs. A 2016 newspaper article mentioned that arrested migrants were led there for screening (Ta Nea, 2016). A 2018 article in a local online news outlet mentioned a case of malaria in the village of Poros (Evros News, 2018a), while in another article (Evros News, 2018b), the president of the village council blamed a case of malaria in the village on the lack of health screening in the centre. An account of activities of the municipal council of Alexandroupoli referred to fixing an electrical fault in the centre in May 2019 (Municipality of Alexandroupoli, 2019). Τhe Global Detention Project (2019) also refers to Poros as a likely detention place.

    These sources suggested that the centre might be operational in some capacity, yet they raised more questions than they answered. If the centre has been in operation since 2015, why is there such an absence of official sources referring to it? Equally surprising was the absence of administrative acts related to the Poros centre in diavgeia.gov.gr, in contrast to all other facilities in the area where migrants are detained, such as the Fylakio Reception and Identification Centre and the pre-removal centres and police stations. It was conceivable, of course, that the centre fell into disuse. Since the deployment of Frontex and the border control measures taken under the Integrated Plan, entries through the Greek-Turkish land border decreased significantly – from 54,974 in 2011 to 3,784 in 2016 (Hellenic Police, 2020), and screening procedures were transferred to Fylakio, fully operational since 2013 (Reception and Identification Service, 2020).

    Trying to find answers to our questions, we contacted the Hellenic Police. An email we sent in January 2020 was never answered. In early February, following a series of phone calls, we obtained some answers to our questions. The police officer who answered the phone call did not seem to have heard of the centre and wanted to ask other departments for more information, as well as the First Reception and Identification Service, now responsible for screening procedures. The next day, he said it is occasionally used as a detention facility, when there is a high number of apprehended people that cannot be detained in police cells. According to the police officer, they are detained there for one or two days, until they can be transferred to the Reception and Identification Centre of Fylakio for reception procedures, or detention in the pre-removal detention centre adjacent to it. At the same time, he stated that he was told that Poros has been closed for a long time.

    This contradictory information could be down to the distance between the central police directorate in Athens and the area of Evros – it is not unlikely that local arrangements are not known in the central offices. Yet, it was also at odds both with the description of the use of the centre that our informant himself gave us – using the present tense in Greek –, with what the local media articles suggest, and with what we saw on site. Stills from the video taken during fieldwork in December 2020 suggest that the Poros centre is not disused, although no activity could be observed on the day. The cars and vans parked outside did not seem abandoned or rusting. The main building and the containers appeared to be in a good condition. A bright red cloth, maybe a canvas bag, was hanging outside one of them. The rubbish bins were full, but the black bags and other objects in them did not seem as they have been left in the open for a long time (image 4).

    The police officer also asked, however, how we had heard of Poros – a question that alerted us to both the obscure nature of the facility and the sensitivity of our query.
    A hidden infrastructure of pushbacks?

    The Poros centre, at one level, illustrates how the function of such border facilities can change over time, as the local border regime adapts and responds to migratory movements. Fylakio has become the main reception and detention centre in Evros, and between 2015 and 2017, the Aegean islands became the main point of entry into Greece and the European Union. Yet, our findings raised a lot of significant questions regarding the new function of Poros, given the increase in migratory movements in the area since 2018.

    While we obtained official confirmation that the Poros centre is now used for temporary detention and not screening, it remains the case that there are no official documents – including any administrative acts on diavgeia.gov.gr – that confirm its use as a temporary closed detention centre. Equally, we did not manage to obtain any information about how the facility is funded from the Hellenic Police. Our respondent did not know, and another departments we called did not want to share any information about the centre. It also became evident in the course of our research that most of our contacts in Greece – NGOS and journalists – had never heard of the facility or had no recent information about it. We found no evidence to suggest that Greek and European human rights bodies or NGOs which monitor detention facilities have visited the Poros centre after 2015. A mission of the Council of Europe (2019), for example, visited several detention facilities in Evros in April 2018 but the Poros centre was not listed among them. Similarly, the Fundamental Rights Officer of Frontex, in a partly joined mission with the Fundamental Rights Agency, visited detention facilities in South Evros in 2019, the operational area where the Poros centre is located. However, the centre is not mentioned in the report on that visit (Frontex, 2019).

    The dearth of information and absence of monitoring of the facility means that it is unclear whether the facility provides adequate conditions for detention. While our Hellenic police informant stated that detention there lasts for one or two days, there is no outside gate at the Poros centre, just a rather flimsy looking wire fence. Does this mean that detainees are kept inside the main building or containers the whole time they are detained there? We also do not know if detainees have access to phones, legal assistance or healthcare, which the articles in the local press suggest that is absent from the Poros centre. Equally, in the absence of inspections by human rights bodies, we are unaware of the standards of hygiene inside the facilities, or if there is sufficient food available. Administrative acts archived in diavgeia.gov.gr normally offer some answers to such questions but, as we mentioned above, we could find none. In short, it appears that Poros is used as an informal detention centre, hidden from public view.

    The obscurity surrounding the facility, in the context of the local border regime, is extremely worrying. Many NGOs and journalists have documented widespread pushback practices (Arsis et al., 2018; Greek Council for Refugees, 2018; Koçulu, 2019), evidenced through migrant testimonies (Mobile Info Team 2019) and, more recently, videos (Forensic Architecture, 2019a; 2019b). Despite denials by the Hellenic Police and the Greek government, European and international international human rights bodies (Council of Europe, 2019; Committee Against torture 2019) have accepted these testimonies as credible. We have no firm evidence that the Poros facility may be one of the many ‘informal’ detention places migrant testimonies implicated in pushbacks. Yet, the centre is located no further than two kilometres from the Greek-Turkish border, and the layout of the area is similar to the location of a pushback captured on camera and analysed by Forensic Architecture (2019a): near a dirt road with direct access to the Evros River. Black cars and white vans (images 5 and 6), without police insignia and some without number plates, such as those in the Poros centre, have been mentioned in testimonies of pushbacks (Arsis et al., 2018). Objects looking like inflatable boats are visible in our video stills. While there might be other explanations for their presence (used for patrolling the river or confiscated from migrants crossing the river) they are also used during pushbacks operations, and their presence in a detention centre seems odd.

    These uncertainties, and the tendency of security bodies to avoid revealing information on spaces of detention, are not unusual. However, the obscurity surrounding the Poros centre, located in an area of the European border where detention have long attracted criticism and there is considerable evidence of illegal and violent border control practices, should be a concern for all.

    https://www.respondmigration.com/blog-1/border-regime-poros-detention-facility-evros-greece
    #Evros #détention #rétention #détention_administrative #Grèce #refoulement #push-back #push-backs #invisibilité #invisibilisation #Centre_for_the_First_Management_of_Illegal_Immigration #Fylakio #Frontex

    Ce centre, selon ce que le chercheur·es écrivent, est ouvert depuis 2012... or... pas entendu parler de lui avec @albertocampiphoto quand on a été sur place... alors qu’on a vraiment sillonnée la (relativement petite) région pendant 1 mois !

    Donc pas mention de ce centre dans la #carte qu’on a publiée notamment sur @visionscarto :


    https://visionscarto.net/evros-mur-inutile

    ping @reka @karine4

    • En fait, en regardant mieux « notre » carte je me rends compte que peut-être le centre que nous avons identifié comme « #Feres » est en réalité le centre que les auteur·es appellent Poros... les deux localités sont à moins de 5 km l’une de l’autre.
      J’ai écrit aux auteur·es...

      Réponse de Bernd Kasparek, 12.03.2020 :

      Since we have been in front of Poros detention centre, we are certain that it is a distinct entity from the Feres police station, which, as you rightly observe, is also often implicated in reports about push-backs.

      Réponse de Lena Karamanidou le 13.03.2020 :

      Feres is located here: https://goo.gl/maps/gQn15Hdfwo4f3cno6​ , and it’s a much more modern facility (see photo, complete with ubiquitous military van!). However, ​I’m not entirely certain when the new Feres station was built - I think there was an older police station, but then both police and border guard functions were transfered to the new building. Something for me to check in obscure news items and databases!

    • ‘We Are Like Animals’ : Inside Greece’s Secret Site for Migrants

      The extrajudicial center is one of several tactics Greece is using to prevent a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis.


      The Greek government is detaining migrants incommunicado at a secret extrajudicial location before expelling them to Turkey without due process, one of several hard-line measures taken to seal the borders to Europe that experts say violate international law.

      Several migrants said in interviews that they had been captured, stripped of their belongings, beaten and expelled from Greece without being given a chance to claim asylum or speak to a lawyer, in an illegal process known as refoulement. Meanwhile, Turkish officials said that at least three migrants had been shot and killed while trying to enter Greece in the past two weeks.

      The Greek approach is the starkest example of European efforts to prevent a reprise of the 2015 migration crisis in which more than 850,000 undocumented people passed relatively easily through Greece to other parts of Europe, roiling the Continent’s politics and fueling the rise of the far right.

      If thousands more refugees reach Greece, Greek officials fear being left to care for them for years, with little support from other members in the European Union, exacerbating social tensions and further fraying a strained economy. Tens of thousands of migrants already live in squalor on several Greek islands, and many Greeks feel they have been left to shoulder a burden created by wider European indifference.

      The Greek government has defended its actions as a legitimate response to recent provocations by the Turkish authorities, who have transported thousands of migrants to the Greek-Turkish border since late February and have encouraged some to charge and dismantle a border fence.

      The Greek authorities have denied reports of deaths along the border. A spokesman for the Greek government, Stelios Petsas, did not comment on the existence of the site, but said that Greece detained and expelled migrants in accordance with local law. An act passed March 3, by presidential decree, suspended asylum applications for a month and allowed immediate deportations.

      But through a combination of on-the-ground reporting and forensic analysis of satellite imagery, The Times has confirmed the existence of the secret center in northeastern Greece.

      Presented with diagrams of the site and a description of its operations, François Crépeau, a former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, said it was the equivalent of a domestic “black site,” since detainees are kept in secret and without access to legal recourse.

      Using footage supplied to several media outlets, The Times has also established that the Greek Coast Guard, nominally a lifesaving institution, fired shots in the direction of migrants onboard a dinghy that was trying to reach Greek shores early this month, beat them with sticks and sought to repel them by driving past them at high speed, risking tipping them into water.

      Forensic analysis of videos provided by witnesses also confirmed the death of at least one person — a Syrian factory worker — after he was shot on the Greek-Turkish border.
      A Secret Site

      When Turkish officials began to bus migrants to the Greek border on Feb. 28, a Syrian Kurd named Somar al-Hussein had a seat on one of the first coaches.

      Turkey already hosts more refugees than any other country — over four million, mostly Syrians — and fears that it may be forced to admit another million because of a recent surge in fighting in northern Syria. To alleviate this pressure, and to force Europe to do more to help, it has weaponized refugees like Mr. al-Hussein by shunting them toward the Continent.

      Mr. al-Hussein, a trainee software engineer, spent that night in the rain on the bank of the Evros River, which divides western Turkey from eastern Greece. Early the next morning, he reached the Greek side in a rubber dinghy packed with other migrants.

      But his journey ended an hour later, he said in a recent interview. Captured by Greek border guards, he said, he and his group were taken to a detention site. Following the group’s journey on his mobile phone, he determined that the site was a few hundred yards east of the border village of Poros.

      The site consisted principally of three red-roofed warehouses set back from a farm road and arranged in a U-shape. Hundreds of other captured migrants waited outside. Mr. al-Hussein was taken indoors and crammed into a room with dozens of others.

      His phone was confiscated to prevent him from making calls, he said, and his requests to claim asylum and contact United Nations officials were ignored.

      “To them, we are like animals,” Mr. al-Hussein said of the Greek guards.

      After a night without food or drink, on March 1 Mr. al-Hussein and dozens of others were driven back to the Evros River, where Greek police officers ferried them back to the Turkish side in a small speedboat.

      Mr. al-Hussein was one of several migrants to provide similar accounts of extrajudicial detentions and expulsions, but his testimony was the most detailed.

      By cross-referencing drawings, descriptions and satellite coordinates that he provided, The Times was able to locate the detention center — in farmland between Poros and the river.

      A former Greek official familiar with police operations confirmed the existence of the site, which is not classified as a detention facility but is used informally during times of high migration flows.

      On Friday, three Times journalists were stopped at a roadblock near the site by uniformed police officers and masked special forces officers.

      The site’s existence was also later confirmed by Respond, a Sweden-based research group.

      Mr. Crépeau, now a professor of international law at McGill University, said the center represented a violation of the right to seek asylum and “the prohibition of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and of European Union law.”
      Violence at Sea

      Hundreds of miles to the south, in the straits of the Aegean Sea between the Turkish mainland and an archipelago of Greek islands, the Greek Coast Guard is also using force.

      On March 2, a Coast Guard ship violently repelled an inflatable dinghy packed with migrants, in an incident that Turkish officials captured on video, which they then distributed to the press.

      The footage shows the Coast Guard vessel and an unmarked speedboat circling the dinghy. A gunman on one boat shot at least twice into waters by the dinghy, with what appeared to be a rifle, before men from both vessels shoved and struck the dinghy with long black batons.

      It is not clear from the footage whether the man was firing live or non-lethal rounds.

      Mr. Petsas, the government spokesman, did not deny the incident, but said the Coast Guard did not fire live rounds.

      The larger Greek boat also sought to tip the migrants into the water by driving past them at high speed.
      Forensic analysis by The Times shows that the incident took place near the island of Kos after the migrants had clearly entered Greek waters.

      “The action of Greek Coast Guard ships trying to destabilize the refugees’ fragile dinghies, thus putting at risk the life and security of their passengers, is also a violation,” said Mr. Crépeau, the former United Nations official.
      A Killing on Land

      The most contested incident concerns the lethal shooting of Mohammed Yaarub, a 22-year-old Syrian from Aleppo who tried to cross Greece’s northern land border with Turkey last week.

      The Greek government has dismissed his death as “fake news” and denied that anyone has died at the border during the past week.

      An analysis of videos, coupled with interviews with witnesses, confirmed that Mr. Yaarub was killed on the morning of March 2 on the western bank of the Evros River.

      Mr. Yaarub had lived in Turkey for five years, working at a shoe factory, according to Ali Kamal, a friend who was traveling with him. The two friends crossed the Evros on the night of March 1 and camped with a large group of migrants on the western bank of the river.

      By a cartographical quirk, they were still in Turkey: Although the river mostly serves as the border between the two countries, this small patch of land is one of the few parts of the western bank that belongs to Turkey rather than Greece.

      Mr. Kamal last saw his friend alive around 7:30 a.m. the next morning, when the group began walking to the border. The two men were separated, and soon Greek security forces blocked them, according to another Syrian man who filmed the aftermath of the incident and was later interviewed by The Times. He asked to remain anonymous because he feared retribution.

      During the confrontation, Mr. Yaarub began speaking to the men who were blocking their path and held up a white shirt, saying that he came in peace, the Syrian man said.

      Shortly afterward, Mr. Yaarub was shot.

      There is no known video of the moment of impact, but several videos captured his motionless body being carried away from the Greek border and toward the river.

      Several migrants who were with Mr. Yaarub at the time of his death said a Greek security officer had shot him.

      Using video metadata and analyzing the position of the sun, The Times confirmed that he was shot around 8:30 a.m., matching a conclusion reached by Forensic Architecture, an investigative research group.

      Video shows that it took other migrants about five minutes to ferry Mr. Yaarub’s body back across the river and to a car. He was then taken to an ambulance and later a Turkish hospital.

      An analysis of other footage shot elsewhere on the border showed that Greek security forces used lethal and non-lethal ammunition in other incidents that day, likely fired from a mix of semiautomatic and assault rifles.
      E.U. Support for Greece

      Mr. Petsas, the government spokesman, defended Greece’s tough actions as a reasonable response to “an asymmetrical and hybrid attack coming from a foreign country.”

      Besides ferrying migrants to the border, the Turkish police also fired tear-gas canisters in the direction of Greek security forces and stood by as migrants dismantled part of a border fence, footage filmed by a Times journalist showed.

      Before this evidence of violence and secrecy had surfaced, Greece won praise from leaders of the European Union, who visited the border on March 3.

      “We want to express our support for all you did with your security services for the last days,” said Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, the bloc’s top decision-making body.

      The European Commission, the bloc’s administrative branch, said that it was “not in a position to confirm or deny” The Times’s findings, and called on the Greek justice system to investigate.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/world/europe/greece-migrants-secret-site.html

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/world/europe/greece-migrants-secret-site.html

      #Mohammed_Yaarub #décès #mourir_aux_frontières

    • Grécia nega existência de centro de detenção “secreto” onde os migrantes são tratados “como animais”

      New York Times citou vários migrantes que dizem ter sido roubados e agredidos pelos guardas fronteiriços, antes de deportados para a Turquia. Erdogan compara gregos aos nazis.

      Primeiro recusou comentar, mas pouco mais de 24 horas depois o Governo da Grécia refutou totalmente a notícia do New York Times. Foi esta a sequência espaçada da reacção de Atenas ao artigo do jornal norte-americano, publicado na terça-feira, que deu conta da existência de um centro de detenção “secreto”, perto da localidade fronteiriça de Poros, onde muitos dos milhares de migrantes que vieram da Turquia, nos últimos dias, dizem ter sido roubados, despidos e agredidos, impedidos de requerer asilo ou de contactar um advogado, e deportados, logo de seguida, pelos guardas fronteiriços gregos.
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      “Para eles somos como animais”, acusou Somar al-Hussein, sírio, um dos migrantes entrevistados pelo diário nova-iorquino, que entrou na Grécia através do rio Evros e que diz ter sido alvo de tratamento abusivo no centro de detenção “secreto”.

      “Não há nenhum centro de detenção secreto na Grécia”, garantiu, no entanto, esta quarta-feira, Stelios Petsas, porta-voz do executivo grego. “Todas as questões relacionadas com a protecção e a segurança das fronteiras são transparentes. A Constituição está a ser aplicada e não há nada de secreto”, insistiu.

      Com jornalistas no terreno, impedidos de entrar no local por soldados gregos, o New York Times entrevistou diversos migrantes que dizem ter sido ali alvo de tratamento desumano, analisou imagens de satélite, informou-se junto de um centro de estudos sueco sobre migrações que opera na zona e falou com um antigo funcionário grego familiarizado com as operações policiais fronteiriças. Informação que diz ter-lhe permitido confirmar a existência do centro.

      https://www.publico.pt/2020/03/11/mundo/noticia/grecia-nega-existencia-centro-detencao-secreto-onde-migrantes-sao-tratados-a

      #paywall

    • Greece : Rights watchdogs report spike in violent push-backs on border with Turkey

      A Balkans-based network of human rights organizations says that the number of migrants pushed back from Greece into Turkey has spiked in recent weeks. The migrants allegedly reported beatings and violent collective expulsions from inland detention spaces to Turkey on boats across the Evros River.

      Greek officers “forcefully pushed [people] in the van while the policemen were kicking them with their legs and shouting at them.” Then, the migrants were detained, forced to sign untranslated documents and pushed back across the Evros River at night. Over the next few days, Turkish authorities returned them to Greece, but then they were pushed back again.

      This account from 50 Afghans, Pakistanis, Syrians and Algerians aged between 15 and 35 years near the town of Edirne at the Greek-Turkish border was one of at least seven accounts a network of Balkans-based human rights watchdogs says it received from refugees over the course of six weeks, between March and late April.

      The collection of reports (https://www.borderviolence.eu/press-release-documented-pushbacks-from-centres-on-the-greek-mainland), published last week by the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN), with help from its members Mobile Info Team (MIT) and Wave Thessaloniki, consists of “first-hand testimonies and photographic evidence” which the network says shows “violent collective expulsions” of migrants and refugees. According to the network, the number of individuals who were pushed back in groups amount to 194 people.
      https://twitter.com/mobileinfoteam/status/1257632384348020737?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E12

      Without exception, according to the report, all accounts come from people staying in the refugee camp in Diavata and the Drama Paranesti pre-removal detention center. They included Afghans, Pakistanis, Algerians and Moroccans, as well as Bangladeshi, Tunisian and Syrian nationals.

      In the case of Diavata, according to the report, migrants said police took them away, telling them they would receive a document known as “Khartia” to regularize their stay temporarily. The Diavata camp is located near the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki.

      Instead, the migrants were “beaten, robbed and detained before being driven to the border area where military personnel used boats to return them to Turkey across the Evros River,” they said. Another large group reported that they were taken from detention in Drama Paranesti, also located in northern Greece, some 80 kilometers from the border with Turkey, and expelled in the same way.

      While such push-backs from Greece into Turkey are not new, the network of NGOs says the latest incidents are somewhat different: “Rarely have groups been removed from inner-city camps halfway across the territory or at such a scale from inland detention spaces,” Simon Campbell of the Border Violence Monitoring Network told InfoMigrants.

      “Within the existing closure of the Greek asylum office and restriction measures due to COVID-19, the repression of asylum seekers and wider transit community looks to have reached a zenith in these cases,” Campbell said.

      Although Greece last month lifted a controversial temporary ban on asylum applications imposed in response to an influx of refugees from Turkey, all administrative services to the public by the Greek Asylum Service were suspended on March 13.

      The suspension, which the Asylum Service said serves to “control the spread of COVID-19” pandemic, will continue at least through May 15.

      https://twitter.com/GreekAsylum/status/1248651007489433600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E12

      Reports of violence and torture

      The accounts in the report by the network of NGOs describe a range of violent actions toward migrants, from electricity tasers and water immersion to beatings with batons.

      According to one account, some 50 people were taken from Diavata camp to a nearby police station, where they were ordered to lie on the ground and told to “sleep here, don’t move.” Then they were beaten with batons, while others were attacked with tasers.

      They were held overnight in a detention space near the border, and beaten further by Greek military officers. The next day, they were boated across the river to Turkey by authorities with ’military uniform, masks, guns, electric [taser].’"

      Another group reported that they were “unloaded in the dark” next to the Evros River and “ordered to strip to their underwear.” Greek authorities allegedly used batons and their fists to hit some members of the group.

      Alexandra Bogos, advocacy officer with the Mobile Info Team, told InfoMigrants they were concerned about the “leeway afforded for these push-backs from the inner mainland to take place.”

      Bogos said they reached out to police departments after they learned about the arrests, but police felt “unencumbered” and continued transporting the people to the Greek-Turkish border. “On one occasion, we reached out and asked specifically for information about one individual. The answer was: ’He does not appear in our system’,” Bogos said.

      https://twitter.com/juliahahntv/status/1246165904406261773?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E12

      An Amnesty report (https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur01/2077/2020/en) from April about unlawful push-backs, beatings and arbitrary detention echoes the accusations in the report by the network of NGOs.

      History of forcible rejections

      Over the past three years, violent push-backs have been documented in several reports. Last November, German news magazine Spiegel reported that between 2017 and 2018 Greece illegally deported 60,000 migrants to Turkey. The process involved returning asylum seekers without assessing their status. Greece dismissed the accusations.

      In 2018, the Greek Refugee Council and other NGOs published a report containing testimonies from people who said they had been beaten, sometimes by masked men, and sent back to Turkey (https://www.gcr.gr/en/news/press-releases-announcements/item/1028-the-new-normality-continuous-push-backs-of-third-country-nationals-on-the-e).

      UN refugee agency UNHCR and the European Human Rights Commissioner called on Greece to investigate the claims. In late 2018, another report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), also based on testimonies of migrants, said that violent push-backs were continuing (https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/12/18/greece-violent-pushbacks-turkey-border).

      It is often unclear who is carrying out the push-backs because they often wear masks and cannot be easily identified. In the HRW report, they are described as paramilitaries. Eyewitnesses interviewed by HRW said the perpetrators “looked like police officers or soldiers, as well as some unidentified masked men.”

      Simon Campbell of the Border Violence Monitoring Network said the reports he receives also regularly describe “military uniforms,” which “suggests it is the Greek army carrying out the push-backs,” he told InfoMigrants.

      Last week, the Spiegel published an investigation into the killing of Pakistani Muhammad Gulzar (https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-turkish-border-the-killing-of-muhammad-gulzar-a-7652ff68-8959-4e0d-910), who was shot at the Greek-Turkish border on March 4. “Evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the bullet came from a Greek firearm,” the authors wrote.

      Violations of EU and international law

      Push-backs are prohibited by Greek and EU law as well as international treaties and agreements. They also violate the principle of non-refoulement, which means the forcible return of a person to a country where they are likely to be subject to persecution.

      In March, Jürgen Bast, professor for European law at the University of Gießen in Germany, called the action of Greek security forces an “open breach of the law” on German TV magazine Monitor.

      Greece is not the only country accused of violating EU laws at the bloc’s external border: On top of the 100 additional border guards the European border and coast guard agency Frontex deployed to the Greek border with Turkey in March, Germany sent 77 police officers to help with border security.
      Professor Bast called Berlin’s involvement a “complete political joint responsibility” of the German government. “All member states of the European Union...including the Commission...have decided to ignore the validity of European law,” he told Monitor.

      In response to a request for comment from InfoMigrants, a spokesperson for EU border and coast guard agency Frontex would confirm neither the reports by the three NGOs nor the existence of systematic push-backs from Greece to Turkey.

      “Frontex has not received any reports of such violations from the officers involved in its activities in Greece,” the spokesperson said, adding that its officers’ job is to “support member states and to ensure the rule of law.”

      Coronavirus used as a pretext?

      On the afternoon of May 5, as the network of NGOs published their report on push-backs, police reportedly rounded up 26-year-old Pakistani national Sheraz Khan outside the Diavata refugee camp. After sending the Mobile Info Team (MIT) a message telling them “Police caught us,” he tried calling the NGO twice, but the connection failed both times.

      MIT’s Alexandra Bogos told InfoMigrants that Khan has not been heard of since and he has not returned to the camp. “We have strong reasons to believe that he may have been pushed back to Turkey,” Bogos said.

      A day later, the police arrived in the morning and “started removing tents and structures set up in an overflow area” outside the Diavata camp.

      Simon Campbell of the Border Violence Monitoring Network said the restrictive measures taken as a response to the coronavirus pandemic have been used to remove those who have crossed the border.

      “COVID-19 has been giving the Greek authorities a blank cheque to act with more impunity,” Campbell told InfoMigrants. “When Covid-19 restrictions lift, will we have already seen this more expansive push-back practice entrenched, and will it persist beyond the lockdown?”

      https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/24620/greece-rights-watchdogs-report-spike-in-violent-push-backs-on-border-w

    • Spaces of Detention at the Greek-Turkish Land Border

      Guest post by Lena Karamanidou, Bernd Kasparek and Simon Campbell. Lena Karamanidou is a researcher at the Department of Economics and Law, Glasgow Caledonian University. Her recent work has focused on the EU border agency Frontex, pushbacks and border violence at the Greek-Turkish land border. Simon Campbell is a field coordinator with the Border Violence Monitoring Network, a collective of organisations and initiatives based in South Eastern Europe documenting pushbacks and violence within state borders. Bernd Kasparek is an undisciplined cultural anthropologist, with a focus on migration and border studies, europeanisation, racism and (digital) infrastructures. His book “Europa als Grenze” (Europe as Border), an ethnography of the European border agency Frontex is forthcoming in Summer 2021.

      The local coach from Alexandroupoli to Orestiada, the two largest towns in Evros, the region of the Greek-Turkish border, passes outside two border guard stations: Tychero and Neo Cheimonio [images 1 & 2]. Their function as detention spaces is barely discernible from the road; without the Hellenic police signs and vehicles outside, the Tychero border guard station could be mistaken for the wheat warehouse it once was. The train between the two cities, though, passes behind the Tychero facility; from there you can see a gated structure at the back of the station, resembling prison railings, which may have been used as a kind of ‘outside space’ for detainees. Reports by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the Greek Council for Refugees criticised the absence of outside space and conditions of detention (described sarcastically as ‘best of the best’ by a police officer interviewed by one of the authors in 2011).

      Although the Greek government announced the closure of the Tychero station in 2013, after several critical reports on conditions of detention there, it continued to be used as a detention space. While detention facilities may be perceived as stable, permanent or at least long-term structures at the core of European border regimes, their histories in Evros suggest temporal, spatial and functional disruptions. The creation of detention facilities since the 1990s appeared to be ad hoc, reflecting the increasing significance of the area as a key entry point to the European Union and the Europeanisation of border management both nationally and locally.

      Spaces for detention were created out of existing facilities such as cells in local police stations and in border guard stations. The latter were established in 1999 - some of which are housed together with police stations, like in the towns of Feres [image 3] and Soufli, and others in separate facilities as in the villages of Tychero, Isaakio and Neo Cheimonio. While it is difficult to find specific information on their history, some detention facilities emerged early in the 2000s, for example in the village of Venna in the Rhodopi prefecture near the boundary with Evros. The Fylakio facility [image 4] was established as a detention centre in 2007 before being renamed a pre-removal centre following legal reforms in 2012. Yet, detention capacity in the area never quite met the needs imposed by the extensive use of detention as an instrument of control. Until the early 2010s, ad hoc, makeshift structures and centres were used at different times in Feres and at the villages of Dikaia, Vrissika [image 5], Elafochori [image 6] and Peplos – all now closed, as well as the one in Venna. The #Venna, #Peplos, #Vrissika, #Elafochori and #Tychero facilities, as well as the temporary Feres structure referred to in the 1999 CPT report, were all repurposed wheat warehouses, formerly property of a state agricultural agency closed down in the early 1990s.

      The facilities mentioned above are official ones. Their function can be traced in official documents – Greek, European and international - as well as in reports by NGOs and human rights organisations and research. However, they are not the only spaces where people may be detained in the area. One example of a ‘quasi-official’ place is the detention facility in Poros [image 7]. Originally a military structure that was converted into a ‘reception’ facility where screening, identification and debriefing procedures took place in 2012, by the late 2010s the centre had fallen into obscurity. From 2015 until 2020, there was little evidence of its use other than a few administrative documents and media reports, and it is unclear when its function switched from a reception to a detention facility. It was only in 2020, through research, investigations and journalism that the Poros facility became ‘known’ again, coinciding with the border spectacle in Evros that year. The government denied that the facility was ‘secret’ – ‘if the New York Times know about it, then I don’t see how such a detention centre can be a secret’, stated the government spokesman. Yet, the CPT described the facility as ‘semi-official’ and supported claims that it was used as a holding facility prior to pushbacks, given ‘the complete absence of any registration of detention’.

      To date, Poros is probably the only facility whose use as a ‘hidden’ detention centre was revealed . Testimonial evidence collected by NGOs and research organisations (for example here, here and here) suggests that detention in informal facilities prior to pushbacks may be a common practice in the area. These sites are used to hold groups captured within the footfall area of the border, but also to receive detainees transferred from across the Greek interior, from urban areas, police stations, and pre-removal detention facilities. Their aggregate role in pooling people-on-the-move prior to pushbacks to Turkey is also intimated by their bare functional layout [image 8]. Several testimonies of people who have been pushed back from Evros to Turkey refer to detention in buildings that did not appear to be police or border guard stations, and were not properly equipped with toilets, running water or beds. The holding cells recounted in these testimonies were composed of fenced yards, portacabins, warehouses, garages, and even animal pens:

      “the room did not look like a normal prison or police station but more like a stable”

      “They drove us to an old room close to the river. It was a stable. It didn’t have a proper floor, but dirt”.

      This unofficial repurposing of agrarian or semi-industrial outbuildings for detention in some senses mirrors the improvised architecture Greek authorities used to expand its official sites in Evros from the 90s onwards. Yet without the formal authorisation, nor the visual signifiers demarcating these sites, the web of new – and possibly old - unofficial detention centres are extremely difficult to locate. People detained there often do not know the exact location because of the way they are transported. Speaking to people who had likely been detained in Tychero, testimonies published by the Border Violence Monitoring Network described how “since the vehicle had no windows, the respondent could not see the building from the outside.” For researchers and investigators, geolocating these sites has become a near impossible task, not only because of the secrecy that characterises the practices of pushbacks and the risks of in situ research, but also because of multiple potential locations and a large number of buildings that could serve as informal detention facilities.

      Detention in Greece has been a core technique for governing migration, reflecting policies of illegalisation and criminalising unauthorised entry, even if deportations, which provided one of the key reasons for detention, were not feasible. However, the linkages between detention and pushbacks at the Greek – Turkish border illustrate how the governance of borders relies on assemblages of both formal and informal practices and infrastructures. The proliferation of these structures, often concealed by their benign outward appearance as farm buildings, fits in with the dispersed geography of pushbacks - and the way detention is increasingly serving as a temporal stage within the execution of violent removals.

      https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2021/05/spaces-detention