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    Greece Using Other Migrants to Expel Asylum Seekers
    (un article qui date d’avril 2022)

    Stripped, Robbed, and Forced Back to Turkey; No Chance to Seek Asylum.

    Greek security forces are employing third country nationals, men who appear to be of Middle Eastern or South Asian origin, to push asylum seekers back at the Greece-Turkey land border, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

    The 29-page report “‘Their Faces Were Covered’: Greece’s Use of Migrants as Police Auxiliaries in Pushbacks,” found that Greek police are detaining asylum seekers at the Greece-Turkey land border at the Evros River, in many cases stripping them of most of their clothing and stealing their money, phones, and other possessions. They then turn the migrants over to masked men, who force them onto small boats, take them to the middle of the Evros River, and force them into the frigid water, making them wade to the riverbank on the Turkish side. None are apparently being properly registered in Greece or allowed to lodge asylum claims.

    “There can be no denying that the Greek government is responsible for the illegal pushbacks at its borders, and using proxies to carry out these illegal acts does not relieve it of any liability,” said Bill Frelick, refugee and migrant rights director at Human Rights Watch. “The European Commission should urgently open legal proceedings and hold the Greek government accountable for violating EU laws prohibiting collective expulsions.”

    Human Rights Watch interviewed 26 Afghan migrants and asylum seekers, 23 of whom were pushed back from Greece to Turkey across the Evros River between September 2021 and February 2022. The 23 men, 2 women, and a boy said they were detained by men they believed to be Greek authorities, usually for no more than 24 hours with little to no food or drinking water, and pushed back to Turkey. The men and boy provided firsthand victim or witness accounts of Greek police or men they believed to be Greek police beating or otherwise abusing them.
    Sixteen of those interviewed said the boats taking them back to Turkey were piloted by men who spoke Arabic or the South Asian languages common among migrants. They said most of these men wore black or commando-like uniforms and used balaclavas to cover their faces. Three people interviewed were able to talk with the men ferrying the boats. The boat pilots told them they were also migrants who were employed by the Greek police with promises of being provided with documents enabling them to travel onward.

    A 28-year-old former commander in the Afghan army who was pushed back to Turkey in late December, said he had a conversation in Pashto with the Pakistani man ferrying the boat that took him back to Turkey: “The boat driver said, ‘We are … here doing this work for three months and then they give us … a document. With this, we can move freely inside Greece and then we can get a ticket for … another country.’”

    An 18-year-old Afghan youth described his experience after the Greek police transported him from the detention center to the river: “At the border, there were other people waiting for us.… From their language, we could recognize they were Pakistanis and Arabs. These men took our money and beat us. They beat me with sticks. They dropped us in the middle of the river. The water was to my chest, and we waded the rest of the way [to Turkey].”

    Pushbacks violate multiple human rights norms, including the prohibition of collective expulsion under the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to due process in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the right to seek asylum under EU asylum law and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the principle of nonrefoulement under the 1951 Refugee Convention.

    The Greek government routinely denies involvement in pushbacks, labeling such claims “fake news” or “Turkish propaganda” and cracking down, including through the threat of criminal sanctions, against those reporting on such incidents. On March 29, Greece’s independent authority for transparency tasked by the government to investigate pushbacks “found no basis for reports that Greek authorities have illegally turned back asylum-seekers entering the country from Turkey.”

    Major General Dimitrios Mallios, chief of the Aliens & Border Protection Branch in Hellenic Police Headquarters, denied the Human Rights Watch allegations. He said that “police agencies and their staff will continue to operate in a continuous, professional, lawful and prompt way, taking all necessary measures to effectively manage the refugees/migration flows, in a manner that safeguards on the one hand the rights of the aliens and on the other hand the protection of citizens especially in the first line border regions.”

    Greece should immediately halt all pushbacks from Greek territory, and stop using third country nationals for collective expulsions, Human Rights Watch said. The European Commission, which provides financial support to the Greek government for migration control, should require Greece to end all summary returns and collective expulsions of asylum seekers to Turkey, press the authorities to establish an independent and effective border monitoring mechanism that would investigate allegations of violence at borders, and ensure that none of its funding contributes to violations of fundamental rights and EU laws. The European Commission should also open legal proceedings against Greece for violating EU laws prohibiting collective expulsions.

    Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, which is under increased scrutiny for complicity in migrant pushbacks in Greece, should trigger article 46 of its regulation, under which the agency has a duty to suspend or terminate operations in case of serious abuses, if no concrete improvements are made by Greece to end these abuses within three months.

    On March 1, Greece’s migration minister, Notis Mitarachi, declared before the Hellenic Parliament that Ukrainians were the “real refugees,” implying that those on Greece’s border with Turkey are not.

    “At a time when Greece welcomes Ukrainians as ‘real refugees,’ it conducts cruel pushbacks on Afghans and others fleeing similar war and violence,” Frelick said. “The double standard makes a mockery of the purported shared European values of equality, rule of law, and human dignity.”

    ▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/07/greece-using-other-migrants-expel-asylum-seekers

    #Grèce #asile #migrations #réfugiés #pushback_helpers #Evros #frontières

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      Pushback helpers: A new level of violence

      In October 2020, Salam*, together with 15 people from Syria and Afghanistan, crossed the Evros River from #Edirne, Turkey to Greece. They walked until the next morning through the forest on the Greek side of the border area. When they rested for a few hours, they were discovered by the Greek border police.

      “At 10 a.m., after two hours, I was very tired. When I slept, the ’commando’ [Greek border police] told us ’Wake-up! Wake-up!’ They had sticks. One of our group ran away and two ’commandos’ caught him and struck him again and again.”

      The Greek police officers threatened the group, beat them, and robbed them of all their belongings. After an hour all were brought to a prison. There the group was searched again and threatened with being killed if they hid any belongings. There were about 70 to 80 people in the prison none of the detainees was provided with water or food.

      “The prison was not a [real] prison. It was a waiting room. No Food, no water, no beds. There were only two toilets, which were not clean. We stayed there from 1 p.m. and waited until midnight.”

      At midnight, armed officers whom the respondent identified not as police but rather as a private army force, came to the prison. Using brutal violence, the people were forced to undress down to their underwear and all 70 to 80 were crammed into a van without windows. For an hour the group had to wait in the overloaded van until they were taken back to the river Evros.

      Back at the river, the group had to sit in a row, still stripped to their underwear and without shoes, and were not allowed to look up. The officers tortured people for at least one hour.

      „He [the ’commando’] told us: ’If you come back, another time to Greece, I will kill you! We will kill you!’ We were around 80 and there were two [officers] on each side of us. [They struck us] for one hour or two hours, I don’t remember about this.“

      They were then forced back onto a boat driven by two people who did not appear to be members of the Greek police:

      „Two people were talking in Arabic and Turkish languages. They were not from the ’commandos’ or the Greek police. They [drove] the boat across to the other side to Turkey. One took a rope from the trees on the Turkish side to the tree on the Greek side. He didn’t have to row, he could just pull the boat with the rope. […] When we got inside the boat, the ’commando’ struck us and when we were in the boat, this person struck us. Struck, struck, struck us. All the time they struck us. My eye was swollen, and my leg, and my hand all were bad from this. After we crossed the river, he went back to the ’commandos’.“

      Back on the Turkish side, Salam and others of the group were discovered by the Turkish police. The officers chased the group. Fortunately, Salam was able to escape.

      The Pushback Helper System

      Salam’s experience of a pushback by the Greek police assisted by migrants is not an isolated case. The exploitation of the so-called Pushback Helpers, migrants who are coerced to work for the Greek police at the Turkish-Greek border and illegally push back other migrants, has been known for a long time.

      Since 2020, the Border Violence Monitoring Network has been publishing testimonies from people on the move who have had similar experiences to Salam. In April 2022, Human Rights Watch published a report based on the experiences of 16 pushback survivors on the Evros River. They reported that the boats that brought them back to Turkey were steered by non-Greek men who spoke Arabic or South Asian languages common among migrants in this area. They all reported that Greek police were nearby when the men forced the migrants onto small boats. These non-Greek men were often described as wearing black or commando uniforms, as well as balaclavas to disguise their identities. An investigation by Der Spiegel published in June 2022 came to similar findings. The testimonies of six men who reported being forced to participate in pushbacks to Turkey were affirmed with the help of the reporter team.

      The numerous testimonies of pushback survivors and the published investigations on the topic reveal a very precise pattern. The system behind the so-called pushback helpers is as follows:

      When the Greek authorities arrest a group of people on the move who have just crossed the border into Greece from Turkey, they usually choose young men who speak English, but also Arabic or Turkish. They offer them money, reportedly around $200 per month, sometimes more, and a so-called “exit document” that allows them to stay in Greece or leave for another European country. In exchange, they have to help the Greek border police with illegal pushbacks for about three to six months. For many people on the move, the fear of another pushback to Turkey and the lack of prospects to get Asylum in Greece eventually leads them to cooperate with the Greek authorities. However, most have no choice but to accept, because if migrants refuse this offer, they are reportedly beaten up and deported back to Turkey. Also, not all people receive money for such “deals”, but are forced to work for the Greek border police without payment. There are reports that people cannot move freely because the Greek police is controlling them. Some people are detained by the Greek police almost all the time and were only released at night to carry out pushbacks.

      Their task is to push other migrants who have been caught by the Greek authorities and are detained in Greek security points or -centres back across the border. The pushback helpers drive the boats to cross the river Evros and bring the protection seekers back to Turkey. They are often forced to rob the helpless people and take their money, their mobile phones and their clothes or they get to keep the stolen things that the Greek authorities have taken beforehand. When the helpers are released after a few months, some get the promised papers and make their way to Europe. However, some migrants are reported to work for the Greek border police on a long-term basis. Gangs are formed to take care of the pushback of people on the move. They also serve as a deterrent for people who are still in Turkey and considering crossing the border.

      This is a cruel, but profitable business for the Greek border police. The Greek officers do not have to cross the river Evros themselves. Firstly, it is life-threatening to cross the wide river with a small boat, and secondly, they do not have to go near the Turkish border themselves, which would lead to conflicts with the Turkish military during the pushbacks. The two countries have been in a territorial conflict for a long time.

      Modern slavery of people on the move

      Forcing people seeking protection back over a border is not only inhumane but also illegal. Pushbacks violate numerous human rights norms, such as the prohibition of collective expulsion, the right to asylum, and the principle of non-refoulment. This practice has become a regular pattern of human rights violations against people on the move by the European border regime. Although it has been proven several times in Greece that pushbacks are regularly carried out by the Hellenic Coast Guard and the Greek Border Police, the Greek government categorically denies that pushbacks exist, calling such claims “fake news” or “Turkish propaganda”.

      The fact that people on the move themselves are forced to carry out pushbacks represents a new level of brutality in the Greek pushback campaign. Not only are migrants systematically denied human rights, but they are also forced to participate in these illegal practices. Those seeking protection are exploited by the Greek authorities to carry out illegal operations on other people seeking protection. The dimension of the deployment is unknown. What is clear is that the Greek authorities are using the fear of pushbacks to Turkey by people on the move and the repressive asylum system to force people seeking protection to do their dirty work. This practice is effectively modern slavery and the dreadful reality of migrants trying to seek safety in Europe.

      Since there are no safe and legal corridors into the EU and the asylum system in Greece is extremely restrictive, most people seeking protection have no choice but to try to cross the border between Turkey and Greece clandestinely. This lack of safe and legal corridors thus makes spaces for abuse of power and exploitation of people on the move possible in the first place. Those responsible for these human rights crimes must be held accountable immediately for these human rights crimes.

      *Name changed

      ▻https://mare-liberum.org/en/pushback-helpers-a-new-level-of-violence

      #refoulement #push-backs #refoulements #exploitation

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    • @cdb_77
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      Engineered migration at the Greek–Turkish border: A spectacle of violence and humanitarian space

      In February 2020, Turkey announced that the country would no longer prevent refugees and migrants from crossing into the European Union. The announcement resulted in mass human mobility heading to the Turkish border city of Edirne. Relying on freshly collected data through interviews and field visits, this article argues that the 2020 events were part of a state-led execution of ‘engineered migration’ through a constellation of actors, technologies and practices. Turkey’s performative act of engineered migration created a spectacle in ways that differ from the spectacle’s usual materialization at the EU’s external borders. By breaking from its earlier role as a partner, the Turkish state engaged in a countermove fundamentally altering the dyadic process through which the spectacle routinely materializes at EU external borders around the hypervisibilization of migrant illegality. Reconceptualizing the spectacle through engineered migration, the article identifies two complementary acts by Turkish actors: the spectacularization of European (Greek) violence and the creation of a humanitarian space to showcase Turkey as the ‘benevolent’ actor. The article also discusses how the sort of hypervisibility achieved through the spectacle has displaced violence from its points of emergence and creation and becomes the routinized form of border security in Turkey.

      ▻https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09670106231194911
      #spectacle #violence #engineered_migration #ingénierie_migratoire #technologie #performativité #matérialisation #visibilité #hyper-visibilisation #espace_humanitaire

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    Turkey : Hundreds of Refugees Deported to Syria

    EU Should Recognize Turkey Is Unsafe for Asylum Seekers

    Turkish authorities arbitrarily arrested, detained, and deported hundreds of Syrian refugee men and boys to Syria between February and July 2022, Human Rights Watch said today.

    Deported Syrians told Human Rights Watch that Turkish officials arrested them in their homes, workplaces, and on the street, detained them in poor conditions, beat and abused most of them, forced them to sign voluntary return forms, drove them to border crossing points with northern Syria, and forced them across at gunpoint.

    “In violation of international law Turkish authorities have rounded up hundreds of Syrian refugees, even unaccompanied children, and forced them back to northern Syria,” said Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Although Turkey provided temporary protection to 3.6 million Syrian refugees, it now looks like Turkey is trying to make northern Syria a refugee dumping ground.”

    Recent signs from Turkey and other governments indicate that they are considering normalizing relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In May 2022, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey announced that he intends to resettle one million refugees in northern Syria, in areas not controlled by the government, even though Syria remains unsafe for returning refugees. Many of those returned are from government-controlled areas, but even if they could reach them, the Syrian government is the same one that produced over six million refugees and committed grave human rights violations against its own citizens even before uprisings began.

    The deportations provide a stark counterpoint to Turkey’s record of generosity as host to more refugees than any other country in the world and almost four times as many as the whole European Union (EU), for which the EU has provided billions of Euros in funding for humanitarian support and migration management.

    Between February and August, Human Rights Watch interviewed by phone or in person inside Turkey 37 Syrian men and 2 Syrian boys who had been registered for temporary protection in Turkey. Human Rights Watch also interviewed seven relatives of Syrian refugee men and a refugee woman whom Turkish authorities deported to northern Syria during this time.

    Human Rights Watch sent letters with queries and findings to the European Commission, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs, and the Turkish Interior Ministry. Human Rights Watch received a response from Bernard Brunet, of the EU’s Directorate-General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations. The content of this letter is reflected in the section on removal centers.

    Turkish officials deported 37 of the people interviewed to northern Syria. All said they were deported together with dozens or even hundreds of others. All said they were forced to sign forms either at removal centers or the border with Syria. They said that officials did not allow them to read the forms and did not explain what the forms said, but all said they understood the forms to be allegedly agreeing to voluntary repatriation. Some said that officials covered the part of the form written in Arabic with their hands. Most said they saw authorities at these removal centers processing other Syrians in the same way.

    Many said that they saw Turkish officials beat other men who had initially refused to sign, so they felt they had no choice. Two men detained at a removal center in Adana said they were given the choice of signing a form and going back to Syria or being detained for a year. Both chose to leave because they could not bear the thought of a year in detention and needed to support their families.

    Ten people were not deported. Some were released and warned that if they did not move back to their city of registration they would be deported if found elsewhere. Others managed to contact lawyers through the intervention of family members to help secure their release. Several are still in removal centers waiting for a resolution to their case, unaware why they are being detained and fearing deportation. Those released described life in Turkey as dangerous, saying that they are staying at home with their curtains closed and limiting movement to avoid the Turkish authorities.

    Deportees were driven to the border from removal centers, sometimes in rides lasting up to 21 hours, handcuffed the whole way. They said they were forced to cross border checkpoints at either Öncüpınar/Bab al-Salam or Cilvegözü/Bab al-Hawa, which lead to non-government- controlled areas of Syria. At the checkpoint, a 26-year-old man from Aleppo recalled a Turkish official telling him, “We’ll shoot anyone who tries cross back.”

    In June 2022, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said that 15,149 Syrian refugees had voluntarily returned to Syria so far this year. The local authorities who control Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salam border crossings respectively publish monthly numbers of people crossing through their checkpoints from Turkey to Syria. Between February and August 2022, 11,645 people were returned through Bab al-Hawa and 8,404 through Bab al-Salam.

    Turkey is bound by treaty and customary international law to respect the principle of nonrefoulement, which prohibits the return of anyone to a place where they would face a real risk of persecution, torture or other ill-treatment, or a threat to life. Turkey must not coerce people into returning to places where they face serious harm. Turkey should protect the basic rights of all Syrians, regardless of where they are registered and should not deport refugees who are living and working in a city other than where their temporary protection ID and address are registered.

    On October 21, Dr. Savaş Ünlü, head of the Presidency for Migration Management, responded by letter to Human Rights Watch’s letter of October 3 sharing this report’s findings. Emphasizing that Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees in the world, Dr. Ünlü rejected Human Rights Watch’s findings in their totality, calling the allegations baseless. Setting out the services provided by law to people seeking protection in Turkey, he underscored that Turkey “carries out migration management in accordance with national and international law.”

    “The EU and its member states should acknowledge that Turkey does not meet its criteria for a safe third country and suspend its funding of migration detention and border controls until forced deportations cease,” Hardman said. “Declaring Turkey a ‘safe third country’ is inconsistent with the scale of deportations of Syrian refugees to northern Syria. Member states should not make this determination and should focus on relocating asylum seekers by increasing resettlement numbers.”

    Human Rights Watch focused on the deportation of Syrian refugees who had been recognized by Turkey’s temporary protection regime but whom authorities nevertheless deported or threatened with deportation to Syria in 2022. All 47 Syrian refugees whose cases were examined had been living and working in cities across Turkey, the majority in Istanbul, before they were arrested, detained, and in most cases deported. All detainees are identified with pseudonyms for their protection.

    All but two had a Turkish temporary protection ID permit when they lived in Turkey, commonly called a kimlik, which protects Syrian refugees against forced return to Syria. Several said they had both a temporary protection ID and a work permit.

    Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants in Turkey

    Turkey shelters over 3.6 million Syrians and is the world’s largest refugee-hosting country. Under a geographical limitation that Turkey has applied to its accession to the UN Refugee Convention, Syrians and others coming from countries to the south and east of Turkey’s borders are not granted full refugee status. Syrian refugees are registered under a “temporary protection” regulation, which Turkish authorities say automatically applies to all Syrians seeking asylum.

    Turkey’s Temporary Protection Regulation grants Syrian refugees access to basic services including education and health care but generally requires them to live in the province in which they are registered. Refugees must obtain permission to travel between provinces. In late 2017 and early 2018, Istanbul and nine provinces on the border with Syria suspended registration of newly arriving asylum seekers.

    In February 2022, Turkey’s Deputy Interior Minister Ismail Çataklı said applications for temporary and international protection would not be accepted in 16 provinces: Ankara, Antalya, Aydın, Bursa, Çanakkale, Düzce, Edirne, Hatay, Istanbul, Izmir, Kırklareli, Kocaeli, Muğla, Sakarya, Tekirdağ, and Yalova. He also said residency permit applications by foreigners would not be accepted in any neighborhood in which 25 percent or more of the population consisted of foreigners. He reported that registration had already been closed in 781 neighborhoods throughout Turkey because foreigners in those locations exceeded 25 percent of the population.

    In June, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced that from July 1 onward, the proportion would be reduced to 20 percent and the number of neighborhoods closed to foreigners’ registration increased to 1,200, with cancellation of temporary protection status of Syrians who traveled in the country without applying for permission. Many interviewees explained that they could not find employment in their city of registration and could not survive there but could find work in Istanbul.

    Rising Xenophobia in Turkey

    Over the past two years, there has been an increase in racist and xenophobic attacks against foreigners, notably against Syrians. On August 11, 2021, groups of Turkish residents attacked workplaces and homes of Syrians in a neighborhood in Ankara a day after a Syrian youth stabbed and killed a Turkish youth in a fight.

    In the lead-up to general elections in spring 2023, opposition politicians have made speeches that fuel anti-refugee sentiment and suggest that Syrians should be returned to war-torn Syria. President Erdoğan’s coalition government has responded with pledges to resettle Syrians in Turkish-occupied areas of northern Syria.

    Arrests

    Most of those interviewed were arrested on the streets of Istanbul, and others during raids in their workplaces or homes. The arresting officials sometimes introduced themselves as Turkish police officers, and all demanded to see the refugees’ identification documents.

    Under Turkey’s temporary protection regulation, Syrian refugees are required to live in the province where they first register as refugees. Seventeen of these 47 refugees were living and working in their city of registration, while the rest were living and working in a different province.

    Five refugees said they were arrested because of complaints or spurious allegations from neighbors or employers, ranging from making too much noise to being a terrorist. All refugees said these accusations had no foundation. Four of them were acquitted, released, or deported; one man is still being investigated.

    Detention

    On arrest, Syrian refugees were either taken to local police stations for a short period or directly to a removal center, usually Tuzla Removal Center in Istanbul. Other removal centers included were in Pendik, Adana, Gaziantep, and Urfa. In all cases, Turkish officials confiscated the Syrians’ telephones, wallets, and other personal belongings.

    The authorities refused refugees’ requests to call their family members or lawyers. One man who asked to speak to a lawyer said an officer at the police station said, “‘Did you commit any crime?’ When I said ‘no,’ he said, ‘Then you don’t need to call a lawyer.’”

    All said the Turkish authorities kept them in cramped, unsanitary rooms in various removal centers. Beds were limited and interviewees said they often had to share them. Refugees said they were usually divided according to nationality and were generally held with other Syrians. Boys under 18 were detained with adult men.

    While some removal centers had better conditions than others, all interviewees described a lack of adequate food and access to washroom facilities, as well as other unsanitary conditions. In Tuzla, where the majority of interviewees passed through, Syrians described being held outside in areas described as “basketball courts” for hours on end while waiting to be assigned a space, which was usually inside a cramped metal container.

    “Ahmad” described conditions at Tuzla Removal Center, where he was detained alongside unrelated children in overcrowded metal containers:

    There were six beds in my cell and two or three people had to share each bed, and in my cell, one kid was 16 and one was 17. At first there were 15 of us [in the cell] but then they added more people. We stayed 12 days without taking a shower because they didn’t have one.

    Beatings and Ill-Treatment

    All interviewees said Turkish officials in the removal centers either assaulted them or they witnessed officials kicking or beating other Syrians with their hands or wooden or plastic batons. “Fahad,” a 22-year-old man from Aleppo, described the beatings in Tuzla Removal Center:

    I was beaten in Tuzla…. I dropped my bread by accident and I tried to pick it up from the floor. An officer kicked me and I fell down. He started to beat me with a wooden stick. I couldn’t defend myself. I witnessed beatings of other people. In the evening if people smoked they were beaten. They [the guards] were always humiliating us. One man was smoking … and five guards started to beat him very hard and they made his eye black and blue and beat his back with a stick. And everyone who tried to intervene was beaten.

    “Ahmad,” a 26-year-old man from Aleppo, said Turkish police arrested him at his workplace, a tailor shop in Istanbul, and took him to Tuzla Removal Center where he was severely beaten on multiple occasions:

    I was beaten in Tuzla three times; the last time was the harshest for me. I was arguing about the fact that I should be allowed to go out of the doors of the prison, I should have been allowed time for breaks. So they [the guards] cursed me and insulted me and my family. I said I would complain to their director. I was beaten on my face with a wooden stick, and they [the guards] broke my teeth.

    Ahmad was eventually deported to northern Syria through the Bab al-Salam border crossing and is now staying in Azaz city, currently under the control of the Turkey-backed Syrian Interim Government, an opposition group, as he cannot cross into Syrian government-controlled Aleppo city because he is wanted by the Syrian army. “I fled the war [in Syria] because I am against violence,” he said. “Now they [the Turkish authorities] sent me back here. I just want to be in a safe place.”

    “Hassan,” a 27-year-old former political prisoner and survivor of torture from Damascus, was arrested at his house when his neighbors complained about the noise coming from his apartment. He spent a few months being transferred between various removal centers. At the last one, he was told to sign a voluntary return form. When he refused to sign, Hassan said, “I was put inside a cage, like a cage for a dog. It was metal … approximately 1.5 meters by one meter. When the sun hit the cage it was so hot.”

    When he was first arrested, Hassan managed to contact his wife before his phone was confiscated. She found a lawyer who helped secure his release.

    Forced to Sign “Voluntary Return” Forms

    Many deportees said Turkish officials – either removal center guards, or officials they described as “police” or “jandarma” interchangeably – used violence or the threat of violence to force them into signing “voluntary” return forms.

    Human Rights Watch gathered testimony indicating deportees were forced to sign “voluntary return” forms at removal centers in Adana, Tuzla, Gaziantep, and Diyarbakır, and a migration office in Mersin.

    “Mustafa,” a 21-year-old man from Idlib, was arrested on the streets in the Esenyurt neighborhood of Istanbul. After several days in a removal center in Pendik, he was transferred to Adana, where he was put in a small cell with 33 other Syrian men for a night. In the morning, Mustafa said, a jandarma officer came to take detainees separately to another room:

    When my turn came, they took two of us into a room where there were four officials: a jandarma, a plain-clothed man, the [Adana Removal Center] migration director, and a translator. I saw three people sitting on the floor under the table who had been taken earlier from our cell and their faces were swollen.

    The translator asked the man who was with me to sign some papers, but when he saw one was a voluntary return form he didn’t want to sign. The jandarma and the plain-clothed guy started beating him with their hands and their batons and kicked him. After about 10 minutes they tied his hands and moved him next to the men already on the floor under the table. The translator asked me if I wanted to taste what the others had tasted before me. I said no and signed the paper.

    Mustafa was later deported from Cilvegözü/Bab al-Hawa border crossing and is now staying in al-Bab city in northern Aleppo province.

    Syria Remains Unsafe for Returns

    Most people interviewed said they originated from government-controlled areas in Syria. They said they could not cross from the opposition-controlled areas of northern Syria to their places of origin for fear Syrian security agencies would arbitrarily arrest them and otherwise violate their rights. Those deported to northern Syria told Human Rights Watch they felt “stuck” there, unable to go to home or to forge a life amid the instability of clashes in northern Syria.

    “I cannot go back to Damascus because it is too dangerous,” said “Firaz,” 31, in a telephone interview, who is from the Damascus Countryside and was deported from Turkey in July 2022 and is now living in Afrin in northern Syria. “There is fighting and clashes [in Afrin]. What do I do? Where do I go?”

    In October 2021, Human Rights Watch documented that Syrian refugees who returned to Syria between 2017 and 2021 from Lebanon and Jordan faced grave human rights abuses and persecution at the hands of the Syrian government and affiliated militias, demonstrating that Syria is not safe for returns.

    While active hostilities may have decreased in recent years, the Syrian government has continued to inflict the same abuses onto citizens that led them to flee in the first place, including arbitrary detention, mistreatment, and torture. In September, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria once again concluded that Syria is not safe for returns.

    In addition to the fear of arrest and persecution, 10 years of conflict have decimated Syria’s infrastructure and social services, resulting in massive humanitarian needs. Over 13 million Syrians needed humanitarian assistance as of early 2021. Millions of people in northeast and northwest Syria, many of whom are internally displaced, rely on the cross-border flow of food, medicine, and other lifesaving assistance.

    International Law

    Turkey is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the European Convention on Human Rights, both of which prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention and inhuman and degrading treatment. If Turkey detains a person to deport them but there is no realistic prospect of doing so, including because they would face harm in the destination country, or the person is unable to challenge their removal, the detention is arbitrary.

    Turkey’s treaty obligations under the European Convention, the ICCPR, the Convention Against Torture, and the 1951 Refugee Convention also require it to uphold the principle of nonrefoulement, which prohibits the return of anyone to a place where they would face a real risk of persecution, torture or other ill-treatment, or a threat to life.

    Turkey may not use violence or the threat of violence or detention to coerce people to return to places where they face harm. This includes Syrian asylum seekers, who are entitled to automatic protection under Turkish law, including any who have been blocked from registration for temporary protection since late 2017. It is important that it also applies to refugees who have sought employment outside the province in which they are registered. Children should never be detained for reasons solely related to their immigration status, or detained alongside unrelated adults.

    EU Funding of Turkey’s Migration Management

    The implementation of the March 2016 EU-Turkey deal, which aimed to control the number of migrants reaching the EU by sending them back to Turkey, is based on the flawed premise that Turkey would be a safe third country to which to return Syrian asylum seekers. However, Turkey has never met the EU’s safe third country criteria as defined by EU law. The recent violent deportations show that any Syrian forcibly returned from the EU to Turkey would face a risk of onward refoulement to Syria.

    In June 2021, the Greek government adopted a Joint Ministerial Decision determining that Turkey was safe third country for asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Somalia.

    Turkey’s removal centers have been constructed and maintained with significant funding from the European Union. Prior to 2016, under the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA I and IPA II), the EU provided more than €89 million for the construction, renovation, or other support of removal centers in Turkey. Some €54 million of this funding in 2007 and 2008 was for the construction of seven removal centers in six provinces with a capacity for 3,750 people. In 2014, it provided another €6.7 million for renovation and refurbishment of 17 removal centers. In 2015, the EU provided about €29 million for the construction of six new removal centers with a capacity for 2,400 people.

    Following the first €3 billion committed to Turkey as part of the EU-Turkey deal of March 2016, the EU’s Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRiT) provided €60 million to the then-Directorate General for Migration Management to “support Turkey in the management, reception and hosting of migrants, in particular irregular migrants detected in Turkey, as well as migrants returned from EU Member States territories to Turkey.” This funding was used for the construction and refurbishment of the Çankırı removal center and for staffing 22 other removal centers.

    The EU provided another €22.3 million to the DGMM for improving services and physical conditions in removal centers, including funding for “the safe and organized transfer of irregular migrants and refugees within Turkey,” and €3.5 million for “capacity-building assistance aimed at strengthening access to rights and services.”

    On December 21, 2021, the European Commission announced a €30 million financing decision to support the Turkish Interior Ministry’s Presidency of Migration Management’s “capacity building and improving the standards and conditions for migrants in Turkey’s hosting centers … to improve the management of reception and hosting centers in line with human rights standards and gender-sensitive approaches” and to ensure “safe and dignified transfer of irregular migrants.”

    ▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/24/turkey-hundreds-refugees-deported-syria

    #asile #migrations #réfugiés #réfugiés_syriens #Turquie #renvois #expulsions #retour_au_pays #déportation #arrestations #rétention #détention_administrative

    –—

    ajouté à la métaliste Sur le #retour_au_pays / #expulsions de #réfugiés_syriens...
    ►https://seenthis.net/messages/904710

    CDB_77
    • @stephane_m
      Stephane M

      En Turquie entre 3,7 et 5 millions de réfugiés pour 82 à 84 millions d’habitants selon les sources. La Turquie accueille des réfugiés à hauteur de 4 à 6% de sa population.

      En UE 2,9 millions de réfugiés pour une population de 447 millions d’habitants, soit 0,6% de sa population.

      L’UE donne de l’argent à la Turquie mais cet argent doit servir à l’accueil des réfugiés, pas directement au bien être des Turcs...

      Si l’UE prenait sa part de l’accueil des réfugiés (au lieu de mettre tant d’argent dans les expulsions, et dans l’Agence Frontex coupable de crimes ignobles sur les migrants), la Turquie expulserait-elle actuellement une partie de ses réfugiés syriens vers la Syrie ?

      ▻https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/promoting-our-european-way-life/statistics-migration-europe_fr

      ▻https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2021/09/03/en-turquie-l-afflux-de-refugies-crispe-l-opinion_6093220_3232.html

      Stephane M
    • @cdb_77
      CDB_77

      Forcibly deportation | 390 refugees deported from Turkey to Syria through Bab Al-Salama crossing in a week

      SOHR sources have reported that Turkish authorities have forcibly deported 90 Syrian refugees, all carrying the temporary protection cards ”Kimlik,” to Azaz city in “Euphrates Shield” area, which is under the control of Turkish forces and their proxy factions in the northern countryside of Aleppo. The refugees, who were deported under the pretext that “they have not completed data needed for residence documents and do not have ID documents,” crossed into Syria via Bab Al-Salam crossing on the Syria-Turkey border.

      Accordingly, the number of Syrian refugees who have been forcibly deported from Turkey to Syria through Bab Al-Salama crossing in less than a week has reached 390.

      It is worth noting that Turkish authorities continue forcible deportation of Syrian refugees from Turkey to the so-called “safe zone” in northern Syria.

      ▻https://www.syriahr.com/en/303083

      CDB_77
    • @cdb_77
      CDB_77

      Tägliche Angst vor Abschiebung

      In der Türkei berichten Flüchtlinge von immer größeren Anfeindungen bis hin zu willkürlichen Festnahmen durch die türkische Polizei und Abschiebungen. Das wiederum verstärkt auch die Zahl derer, die nach Europa wollen.

      Wenn Mara in Istanbul aus dem Haus geht, dann hat die Syrerin nicht nur Bauchschmerzen, sondern seit einiger Zeit richtige Angst. Vor mehr als fünf Jahren kam sie mit ihrer Familie in die Türkei. Sie ist offiziell als Flüchtling anerkannt.

      Doch seit einiger Zeit fühlt sie sich nicht mehr sicher. „Ich habe das Gefühl, dass sie jeden Tag irgendwelche neuen Regeln und Schikanen für uns Flüchtlinge aufstellen. Aber das Schlimmste ist: Sie machen uns ganz offen Angst, indem sie uns mit Abschiebungen nach Syrien drohen.“
      Leben in der Fremde

      Mara, Ende 20, heißt eigentlich anders, hat aber große Sorge, Probleme mit den türkischen Behörden zu bekommen, wenn sie hier ihren echten Namen nennt. Sie arbeitet als Übersetzerin, studiert hat sie Physik, doch ihr syrischer Abschluss wurde nicht anerkannt. Dennoch baute sie sich in der Türkei ein Leben in der Fremde auf, fühlte sich akzeptiert - anfangs.

      Denn mittlerweile schlage ihr offener Hass entgegen, sagt sie. „Vor zwei Tagen lief ich mit einer Freundin die Straße entlang. Wir unterhielten uns auf Arabisch. Plötzlich kam eine ältere Frau auf uns zu und rief: ’Ihr Hunde, geht endlich zurück in euer Land!’“

      Hetze gegen Geflüchtete

      Dass Rassismus gegen Syrer und andere Flüchtlinge aus der Region, wie dem Iran oder Afghanistan, in der Türkei in den vergangenen Jahren kontinuierlich zugenommen hat, beobachtet auch Piril Ercoban vom Verein „Mülteci Der“, einer türkischen Flüchtlingsinitiative.

      „Im vergangenen Wahlkampf wurden Flüchtlinge zu einem Instrument der Innenpolitik“, sagt sie. „In so vielen Bereichen ist man sich in der Türkei nicht einig, aber was die negative Sicht auf Flüchtlinge angeht, herrscht Einigkeit.“

      So hetzte auch der vermeintlich sozialdemokratische Oppositionsführer Kemal Kilicdaroglu immer wieder gegen Syrer, sprach von mehr als zehn Millionen Geflüchteten im Land - Zahlen fernab der Realität.

      Großangelegte Rückführungsmaßnahmen

      Das Bündnis um Staatspräsident Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ohnehin rechts-konservativ, stieg auf den Anti-Migrations-Zug auf und kündigte großangelegte Rückführungsmaßnahmen an. Dieses Wahlversprechen scheint nun in Gang gesetzt.

      Mara erzählt, in ihrem Stadtviertel stünden an manchen Tagen an jeder Ecke Polizisten auf der Suche nach Syrern, die illegal im Land sind, oder in einer anderen Stadt in der Türkei gemeldet. „Sie behandeln uns wie Kriminelle“, klagt Mara.

      Flucht weiter nach Europa

      Der türkische Innenminister verkündete Mitte dieser Woche neue Zahlen, die die türkische Bevölkerung beruhigen sollen, Syrer wie Mara dagegen in Angst und Schrecken versetzen. In den vergangenen vier Monaten seien mehr als 105.000 Menschen verschiedenster Nationalitäten ohne gültigen Aufenthalt des Landes verwiesen worden.

      Mara hat zwar einen gültigen Aufenthalt, kennt aber viele Geschichten von Personen, bei denen das keine Rolle gespielt habe und die dennoch festgenommen worden und in Abschiebehaft genommen worden seien.

      Eine Freundin habe diesem Druck und den Anfeindungen nicht mehr standgehalten und die Türkei vor einiger Zeit verlassen. „Sie hat alles zurückgelassen und hat sich in die EU aufgemacht“, erzählt Mara. Seitdem habe sie nichts mehr von ihr gehört. Sie wisse nicht einmal, ob die Freundin noch lebe.

      Milliardenhilfen für Aufnahme

      Ein Blick auf die offiziellen Zahlen der türkischen Regierung zeigt: Die Zahl der registrierten syrischen Flüchtlinge in der Türkei nimmt seit einiger Zeit immer weiter ab. Waren es im März 2020 noch rund 3,6 Millionen, ist der letzte Stand von September 2023 bei unter 3,3 Millionen - das ist der tiefste Stand seit sieben Jahren.

      Damals zeigte das im Frühjahr 2016 geschlossene EU-Türkei-Abkommen Wirkung: Die EU versprach Milliardenhilfen, im Gegenzug verpflichtete sich die Türkei, Fluchtrouten abzuriegeln und die Bürgerkriegsflüchtlinge zu versorgen. Beide Seiten halten sich schon seit mehr als drei Jahren nicht mehr an bestimmte Vereinbarungen.

      Hass und Diskriminierung

      Piril Ercoban vom Flüchtlingsverein erklärt, die türkische Regierung verwehre syrischen Flüchtlingen seit Sommer 2022 die Anerkennung. „Zum anderen treiben sie wirtschaftliche Faktoren, aber auch der Hass ihnen gegenüber und diskriminierende Richtlinien zur Rückkehr in ihr Heimatland oder zur Flucht nach Europa, trotz aller Gefahren.“

      Auch scheint das Recht auf Asyl und Gründe wie Verfolgung im Heimatland keine Rolle mehr zu spielen. „Es gibt Berichte, wo erheblich Druck auf Migranten ausgeübt worden sein soll, Formulare zur freiwilligen Rückkehr zu unterschreiben - in sehr aggressiver Form“, sagt Ercoban.

      „Wir durften niemanden anrufen“

      Davon berichtet auch Hamid aus dem Iran, der aus politischen Gründen nicht dorthin zurück kann. Nach einer Auseinandersetzung mit seinem türkischen Vermieter hätten Polizisten vor seiner Tür gestanden und ihn festgenommen. Er glaubt, er sei denunziert worden. Erst sei er auf eine Polizeiwache gekommen, dann in ein Abschiebezentrum, erzählt er.

      Zwei Tage habe er mit Hunderten anderen Männern im Freien verbracht, auf Beton. „Wir durften niemanden anrufen, weder Familie noch Anwälte. Wir waren da zwei Tage lange eingepfercht in diesem Käfig, es hat immer wieder geregnet und die Polizisten haben uns nur ausgelacht und geflucht.“

      Am dritten Tag sei er in eine überfüllte Zelle gebracht worden. Auf dem Weg dorthin seien ihm EU-Embleme an den Wänden aufgefallen. Im Nachhinein erfährt er: Das Zentrum wurde auch mithilfe von Geldern aus dem EU-Türkei-Abkommen finanziert. Irgendwann sagen ihm Beamte, wenn er ein Formular unterschreibe, komme er sofort raus.

      Das Formular: die Einwilligung zur Abschiebung. Hamid weigert sich. Über die kommenden Tage seien die Drohungen so groß geworden, dass er mit dem Gedanken gespielt habe, zu unterschreiben. Gerade noch rechtzeitig habe ihn seine türkische Freundin ausfindig gemacht und einen Anwalt eingeschaltet. Der habe ihn freibekommen und die Deportation verhindert - vorerst. Die türkische Regierung streitet Fälle wie den von Hamid ab.
      „Türsteher für Europa“

      In der EU, wo es in der Vergangenheit auch wiederholt Berichte über Misshandlungen von Migranten durch Behörden gab, nimmt man die Fälle in der Türkei wahr, mehr nicht. Längst liegen Ideen über ein aktualisiertes Abkommen mit der Türkei auf dem Tisch.

      „Wir sahen diese Vereinbarungen schon immer als unmoralisch an“, sagt Piril Ercoban. „Damals interessierte das niemanden.“ Doch die Zeiten haben sich geändert: Inzwischen lehnen große Teile der türkischen Bevölkerung das Abkommen ab, wenn auch nicht zwangsläufig aus moralischen Gründen.

      „Wir sind die Türsteher für Europa“, schrieb vor einigen Monaten eine junge Türkin in den sozialen Medien. „Und kommen selbst nicht mal rein.“ Ein Versprechen der EU war die Visafreiheit für türkische Staatsbürger, bis heute gibt es sie aus verschiedenen Gründen nicht.
      Tägliche Angst abgeschoben zu werden

      Hamid und Mara sind die politischen Umstände nicht wichtig. Sie leben derzeit von Tag zu Tag und spielen nun beide mit dem Gedanken, die Türkei zu verlassen. Ihre Heimatländer kommen nicht in Frage, es bleibt derzeit nur Europa, sagt Mara. Dass die Anfeindung auch dort stetig zunehmen, wissen beide.

      Auch die Zustände in den Lagern auf den griechischen Inseln kennen sie. Dennoch wägen sie nun ab: Jeden Tag ins Angst leben, abgeschoben zu werden, oder doch eine aus ihrer Sicht bisher ungenutzte Chance auf Freiheit wagen?

      ▻https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/tuerkei-syrien-migration-100.html

      CDB_77
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  • @cdb_77
    CDB_77
    1
    @simplicissimus
    1

    EU’s Drone Is Another Threat to Migrants and Refugees

    Frontex Aerial Surveillance Facilitates Return to Abuse in Libya

    https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/styles/embed_medium/public/media_2022/07/202207europe_eu_frontex_drone_map.jpg?itok=svbWK6jQ#.jpg

    “We didn’t know it was the Libyans until the boat got close enough and we could see the flag. At that point we started to scream and cry. One man tried to jump into the sea and we had to stop him. We fought off as much as we could to not be taken back, but we couldn’t do anything about it,” Dawit told us. It was July 30, 2021, and Dawit, from Eritrea, his wife, and young daughter were trying to seek refuge in Europe.

    Instead, they were among the more than 32,450 people intercepted by Libyan forces last year and hauled back to arbitrary detention and abuse in Libya.

    Despite overwhelming evidence of torture and exploitation of migrants and refugees in Libya – crimes against humanity, according to the United Nations – over the last few years the European Union has propped up Libyan forces’ efforts to intercept the boats. It has withdrawn its own vessels and installed a network of aerial assets run by private companies. Since May 2021, the EU border agency Frontex has deployed a drone out of Malta, and its flight patterns show the crucial role it plays in detecting boats close to Libyan coasts. Frontex gives the information from the drone to coastal authorities, including Libya.

    Frontex claims the surveillance is to aid rescue, but the information facilitates interceptions and returns to Libya. The day Dawit and his family were caught at sea, Libyan forces intercepted at least two other boats and took at least 228 people back to Libya. One of those boats was intercepted in international waters, inside the Maltese search-and-rescue area. The drone’s flight path suggests it was monitoring the boat’s trajectory, but Frontex never informed the nearby nongovernmental Sea-Watch rescue vessel.

    Human Rights Watch and Border Forensics, a nonprofit that uses innovative visual and spatial analysis to investigate border violence, are examining how the shift from sea to air surveillance contributes to the cycle of extreme abuse in Libya. Frontex’s lack of transparency – they have rejected ours and Sea-Watch’s requests for information about their activities on July 30, 2021 – leaves many questions about their role unanswered.

    Dawit and others panicked when they saw the Libyan boat because they knew what awaited upon return. He and his family ended up in prison for almost two months, released only after paying US$1,800. They are still in Libya, hoping for a chance to reach safety in a country that respects their rights and dignity.

    ▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/08/01/eus-drone-another-threat-migrants-and-refugees
    #Frontex #surveillance_aérienne #Méditerranée #asile #migrations #réfugiés #drones #contrôles_frontaliers #frontières #push-backs #pull-backs #refoulements #Libye #interception

    CDB_77
    • @cdb_77
      CDB_77

      Libia: il drone anti-migranti di Frontex

      https://www.nigrizia.it/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/08/Shaun-Psaila-e1659439732864.jpg

      Frontex, la controversa agenzia di sorveglianza delle frontiere esterne dell’Unione europea, pur avendo smesso la vigilanza marittima delle coste, attraverso l’utilizzo di un drone, sta aiutando la guardia costiera libica a intercettare i barconi dei migranti e rifugiati che tentano di raggiungere le coste italiane. I migranti, perlopiù provenienti dall’Africa subsahariana, sono così ricondotti in Libia dove sono sfruttati e sottoposti a gravi abusi.

      Lo denuncia l’organizzazione internazionale Human Rights Watch. È dal maggio del 2021 che Frontex ha dislocato un drone a Malta: secondo l’ong i piani di volo dimostrerebbero che il velivolo ha un ruolo cruciale nell’individuazione dei battelli in prossimità delle coste libiche; Frontex trasmette infatti i dati raccolti dal drone alle autorità libiche.

      L’agenzia europea sostiene che l’utilizzo del drone ha lo scopo di aiutare il salvataggio dei barconi in difficoltà, ma Human Rights Watch ribatte che questa attività manca di «trasparenza». Il rapporto vuole sottolineare che all’Europa non può bastare che i migranti non arrivino sulle sue coste. E non può nemmeno fingere di non sapere qual è la situazione in Libia.

      L’instabilità politica che caratterizza la Libia dalla caduta di Gheddafi nel 2011 ha fatto del paese nordafricano una via privilegiata per decine di migliaia di migranti che cercano di raggiungere l’Europa attraverso le coste italiane che distano circa 300 km da quelle libiche. Non pochi di questi migranti sono bloccati in Libia, vivono in condizioni deprecabili e in balia di trafficanti di esseri umani.

      ▻https://www.nigrizia.it/notizia/libia-il-drone-anti-migranti-di-frontex

      CDB_77
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  • @loutre
    Loutre
    1
    @stephane_m
    1

    UN Chief Leaves Child Rights Violators Off ‘List of Shame’
    Jo Becker | Advocacy Director, Children’s Rights Division | Human Rights Watch
    ▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/07/12/un-chief-leaves-child-rights-violators-list-shame

    https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/styles/opengraph/public/media_2022/07/202207mena_israel_palestine_child_memorial.jpg?h=f2fcf546&itok=ZaYgyFrY

    In his new annual report on children and armed conflict, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reported that Israeli security forces killed 78 Palestinian children and injured 982 in 2021, more casualties caused by any other armed force or group in the 21 conflict countries covered in his review. Despite this, Guterres failed to include Israeli forces in his annual “list of shame” for violations against children in armed conflict.

    For years, Guterres has employed a double standard by listing some parties on his “list of shame” while omitting others that have often committed far more violations. Israel has never appeared on the list, even though the UN has found its forces responsible for killing or injuring more than 7,000 Palestinian children since 2015. (...)

    Loutre
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  • @grommeleur
    grommeleur

    Governments Harm Children’s Rights in Online Learning

    146 Authorized Products May Have Surveilled Children and Harvested Personal Data
    ▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/25/governments-harm-childrens-rights-online-learning

    Governments of 49 of the world’s most populous countries harmed children’s rights by endorsing online learning products during Covid-19 school closures without adequately protecting children’s privacy, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The report was released simultaneously with publications by media organizations around the world that had early access to the Human Rights Watch findings and engaged in an independent collaborative investigation.

    “‘How Dare They Peep into My Private Life?’: Children’s Rights Violations by Governments that Endorsed Online Learning during the Covid-19 Pandemic,” is grounded in technical and policy analysis conducted by Human Rights Watch on 164 education technology (EdTech) products endorsed by 49 countries. It includes an examination of 290 companies found to have collected, processed, or received children’s data since March 2021, and calls on governments to adopt modern child data protection laws to protect children online.

    ▻https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/05/25/how-dare-they-peep-my-private-life/childrens-rights-violations-governments
    #surveillance #edtech

    grommeleur
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  • @cdb_77
    CDB_77

    Migrants, Asylum Seekers Locked Up in Ukraine

    https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/styles/embed_medium/public/media_2022/04/202204RMR_Ukraine_zhuravychi_main.jpg?itok=XfowFT9D#.jpg

    Scores of migrants who had been arbitrarily detained in Ukraine remain locked up there and are at heightened risk amid the hostilities, including military activity in the vicinity, Human Rights Watch said today. Ukrainian authorities should immediately release migrants and asylum seekers detained due to their migration status and allow them to reach safety in Poland.

    “Migrants and asylum seekers are currently locked up in the middle of a war zone and justifiably terrified,” said Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “There is no excuse, over a month into this conflict, for keeping civilians in immigration detention. They should be immediately released and allowed to seek refuge and safety like all other civilians.”

    In early March 2022, Human Rights Watch interviewed four men by telephone who are being held in the Zhuravychi Migrant Accommodation Center in Volyn’ oblast. The detention site is a former military barracks in a pine forest, one hour from Lutsk, a city in northwestern Ukraine. All interviewees said that they had been detained in the months prior to the Russian invasion for irregularly trying to cross the border into Poland.

    The men asked that their nationalities not be disclosed for security reasons but said that people of up to 15 nationalities were being held there, including people from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Syria.

    Zhuravychi and two other migrant detention facilities in Ukraine are supported with EU funding. The Global Detention Project has confirmed that the center in Chernihiv has now been emptied but the center in Mykolaiv is operating. Human Rights Watch has been unable to verify whether anyone is still detained there. The men said that at the time of the interviews more than 100 men and an unknown number of women were detained at the Zhuravychi MAC. Some have since been able to negotiate their release, in some cases with help from their embassies. Lighthouse Reports, which is also investigating the issue, has estimated that up to 45 people remain there. It has not been possible to verify this figure or determine whether this includes men and women.

    Three of the men said they were in Ukraine on student visas that had expired. All four had tried to cross the border into Poland but were intercepted by Polish border guard forces and handed directly to Ukrainian border guards. The men said they were sentenced to between 6 and 18 months for crossing the border irregularly after summary court proceedings for which they were not provided legal counsel or given the right to claim asylum.

    Whatever the original basis for their detention, their continued detention at the center is arbitrary and places them at risk of harm from the hostilities, Human Rights Watch said.

    While interviewees said that conditions in the #Zhuravychi detention center were difficult prior to the conflict, the situation significantly deteriorated after February 24. In the days following the Russian invasion, they said, members of the Ukrainian military moved into the center. The detention center guards moved all migrant and asylum seekers into one of the two buildings in the complex, freeing the second building for Ukrainian soldiers.

    A video, verified and analyzed by Human Rights Watch, shows scores of Ukrainian soldiers standing in the courtyard of the Zhuravychi MAC, corroborating the accounts that the Ukrainian military is actively using the site. Another video, also verified by Human Rights Watch, shows a military vehicle slowly driving on the road outside the detention center. Recorded from the same location, a second video shows a group of approximately 30 men in camouflage uniforms walking on the same road and turning into the compound next door.

    On or around the date after the full-scale invasion, the people interviewed said a group of detainees gathered in the yard of the detention center near the gate to protest the conditions and asked to be allowed leave to go to the Polish border.

    The guards refused to open the gate and instead forcibly quelled the protest and beat the detainees with their batons, they said. Human Rights Watch analyzed a video that appears to show the aftermath of the protest: a group of men crowd around an unconscious man lying on the ground. People interviewed said that a guard had punched him. A group of guards are also visible in the video, in black uniforms standing near the gate.

    “We came out to peacefully protest,” one of those interviewed said. “We want to go. We are terrified.… We tried to walk towards the gate … and after we were marching towards the gate.… They beat us. It was terrible. Some of my friends were injured.”

    Interviewees said that guards said they could leave Zhuravychi if they joined the Ukrainian war effort and added they would all immediately be granted Ukrainian citizenship and documentation. They said that no one accepted the offer.

    On March 18, five men and one woman were released when officials from their embassy intervened and facilitated their evacuation and safe travel to the border with Poland. Ukraine should release all migrants and asylum seekers detained at the Zhuravychi detention center and facilitate their safe travel to the Polish border, Human Rights Watch said.

    The European Union (EU) has long funded Ukraine’s border control and migration management programs and funded the International Center for Migration Policy Development to construct the perimeter security systems at Zhuravychi MAC. The core of the EU’s strategy has been to stop the flow of migrants and asylum seekers into the EU by shifting the burden and responsibility for migrants and refugees to countries neighboring the EU, in this case Ukraine. Now that Ukraine has become a war zone, the EU should do all it can to secure the release and safe passage of people detained in Ukraine because of their migration status. United Nations agencies and other international actors should support this call to release civilians at Zhuravychi and any other operational migrant detention centers and provide assistance where relevant.

    “There is so much suffering in Ukraine right now and so many civilians who still need to reach safety and refuge,” Hardman said. “Efforts to help people flee Ukraine should include foreigners locked up in immigration detention centers.”

    ▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/04/migrants-asylum-seekers-locked-ukraine
    #Ukraine #réfugiés #migrations #asile #détention_administrative #rétention #emprisonnement

    CDB_77
    • @cdb_77
      CDB_77

      Migrants trapped in Ukrainian detention center while war rages on

      Several dozen irregular migrants were reportedly trapped in a detention center in northwestern Ukraine weeks into the Russian invasion, an investigation by several media outlets found. An unconfirmed number of migrants appear to remain in the EU-funded facility, from where migrants are usually deported.

      Imagine you are detained without being accused of a crime and wait to be deported to somewhere while an invading army bombs the neighboring town. This horrific scenario has been the reality for scores of migrants in northwestern Ukraine for weeks.

      A joint investigation between Dutch non-profit Lighthouse Reports, which specializes on transnational investigations, Al Jazeera and German publication Der Spiegel found that over five weeks after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Afghani, Pakistani, Indian, Sudanese and Bangladeshi migrants were still detained in a EU-funded detention center near the northwestern Ukrainian city of #Lutsk.

      Although several people were recently released with the support of their embassies, Der Spiegel reported there were still dozens of who remained there at the end of March.

      According to the wife of one detainee who was released last week, the detention center offered no air raid shelter. Moreover, guards “ran down the street when the siren sounded,” both Der Spiegel and Al Jazeera reported.

      “The guards took away the detainees’ phones,” the woman told reporters. She also said that power outlets in the cells were no longer working and the whole situation was extremely dangerous. In fact, the nearby city of Lutsk has repeatedly come under attack since March 12.

      According to the investigation, the Zhuravychi Migrant Accommodation Centre is located in a pine forest in the Volyn region, near the Belarusian border. Constructed in 1961 as an army barracks, the facility was converted into a migrant detention center in 2007 with EU funds, Al Jazeera reported.

      Reporters involved in the investigation spoke with recently released detainees’ relatives. They also analyzed photos and documents, which “verified the detainees’ presence in Ukraine before being placed in the center,” according to Al Jazeera.
      Calls for release of detainees

      Some detainees have been released since the beginning of the Russian invasion, including several Ethiopian citizens and an Afghan family, Al Jazeera reported. But politicians and NGOs have voice fear over those who remain in the Zhuravychi Migrant Accommodation Center.

      “It is extremely concerning that migrants and refugees are still locked up in detention centers in war zones, with the risk of being attacked without any possibility to flee,” Tineke Strik, a Dutch member of the European Parliament from the Greens/EFA Group told reporters involved in the investigation.

      Human Rights Watch (HRW) also decried the ongoing detention of migrants at the facility during the war. In a report published on Monday (April 4), HRW said its staff interviewed four men by telephone who are being held in that Zhuravychi in early March. According to HRW, all four men said they had been detained in the months prior to the Russian invasion for irregularly trying to cross the border into Poland.

      “Migrants and asylum seekers are currently locked up in the middle of a war zone and justifiably terrified,” said Nadia Hardman, a refugee and migrant rights researcher with HRW. “There is no excuse, over a month into this conflict, for keeping civilians in immigration detention. They should be immediately released and allowed to seek refuge and safety like all other civilians.”

      According to the four interviewees, people from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria and four other nationalities were being held at the facility.

      Michael Flynn from the Global Detention Project told Der Spiegel that the Geneva Conventions (not to be confused with the Geneva Refugee Convention) “obliges all warring parties to protect civilians under their control from the dangers of the conflict.” He stressed that the detainees needed to be released as soon as possible.
      The EU’s bouncer

      According to the investigation, the European Union has funded at least three detention centers in Ukraine “for years,” effectively making the non-EU country a gatekeeper. The facility in question near Lutsk that’s apparently still in operation received EU support “to confine asylum seekers, many of them pushed back from the EU,” according to Lighthouse Reports.

      Der Spiegel reported that up to 150 foreigners were detained in the facility last year. Most of them tried in vain to reach the European Union irregularly and have to stay in deportation detention for up to 18 months.

      Since the turn of the millennium, according to Der Spiegel, the EU has invested more than €30 million in three detention centers.

      At the facility in Zhuravychi, Der Spiegel reported, the EU provided €1.7 million for electronic door locks and protection elements on the windows. While the EU called it an “accommodation”, Der Spiegel said was a refugee prison in reality.

      The European Commission did not respond to a request for comment about the facility and the detained migrants, Al Jazeera said. Ukrainian authorities also did not answer any questions.

      In early March, InfoMigrants talked to several Bangladeshi migrants who had been given deportation orders and were stuck inside detention centers, including in said Zhuravychi Migrant Accommodation Centre. Around a hundred migrants were staying there back then, according to Bangladeshi and Indian citizens detained there. They were released a few days later.

      “Russia has been particularly bombing military bases. That’s why we have been living in constant fear of getting bombed,” Riadh Malik, a Bangladeshi migrant told InfoMigrants. According to the New York Times, the military airfield in Lutsk was bombed on March 11.

      ▻https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/39678/migrants-trapped-in-ukrainian-detention-center-while-war-rages-on

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      Immigration Detention amidst War: The Case of Ukraine’s Volyn Detention Centre

      A Global Detention Project Special Report

      In early March, shortly into Russia’s war on Ukraine, the Global Detention Project (GDP) began receiving email messages and videos from individuals claiming to know people who remained trapped in an immigration detention centre inside Ukraine, even as the war approached. We also received messages from a representative of the humanitarian group Alight based in Poland, who said that they too were receiving messages from detainees at Volyn, as well as identity documents, photos, and videos.

      The information we received indicated that there were several dozen detainees still at the Volyn detention centre (formally, “#Volyn_PTPI,” but also referred to as the “#Zhuravychi_Migrant_Accommodation_Centre”), including people from Pakistan, India, Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan, among other countries. They had grown particularly desperate after the start of the war and had held a demonstration to demand their release when the nearby town was shelled, which reportedly was violently broken up by detention centre guards.

      The GDP located a webpage on the official website of Ukraine’s State Secretariat of Migration that provided confirmation of the operational status of the Volyn facility as well as of two others. Although the official webpage was subsequently taken down, as of late March it continued to indicate that there were three operational migration-related detention centres in Ukraine, called Temporary Stay for Foreigners or #PTPI (Пункти тимчасового перебування іноземців та осіб без громадянства): Volyn PTPI (#Zhuravychi); #Chernihiv PTPI; and #Nikolaev PTPI (also referred to as the Mykolaiv detention centre).

      We learned that the Chernihiv PTPI, located north of Kyiv, was emptied shortly after the start of the war. However, as of the end of March 2022, it appeared that both the Volyn PTPI and Nikolaev PTPI remained operational and were holding detainees. We understood that the situation at the detention centres had been brought to the attention of relevant authorities in Ukraine and that the embassies of at least some of the detainees—including India—had begun arranging the removal of their nationals. Detainees from some countries, however, reportedly indicated that they did not want assistance from their embassies because they did not wish to return and were seeking asylum.

      In our communications and reporting on this situation, including on social media and through direct outreach to officials and media outlets, the GDP consistently called for the release of all migrants trapped in detention centres in Ukraine and for international efforts to assist migrants to seek safety. We highlighted important international legal standards that underscore the necessity of releasing detainees in administrative detention in situations of ongoing warfare. Important among these is Additional Protocol 1, Article 58C, of the Geneva Conventions, which requires all parties to a conflict to take necessary measures to protect civilians under their control from the effects of the war.

      We also pointed to relevant human rights standards pertaining to administrative detention. For example, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in their seminal Revised Deliberation No. 5 on the deprivation of liberty of migrants, conclude that in “instances when the obstacle for identifying or removal of persons in an irregular situation from the territory is not attributable to them … rendering expulsion impossible … the detainee must be released to avoid potentially indefinite detention from occurring, which would be arbitrary.” Similarly, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has repeatedly found that when the purpose of such detention is no longer possible, detainees must be released (see ECHR, “Guide on Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights: Right to Liberty and Security,” paragraph 149.).

      In April, a consortium of press outlets—including Lighthouse Reports, Al Jazeera English, and Der Spiegel—jointly undertook an investigation into migrants trapped in detention in Ukraine and published separate reports simultaneously on 4 April. Human Rights Watch (HRW) also published their own report on 4 April, which called on authorities to immediately release the detainees. All these reports cited information provided by the GDP and interviewed GDP staff.

      HRW reported that they had spoken to some of the detainees at Volyn (Zhuravychi) and were able to confirm numerous details, including that “people of up to 15 nationalities were being held there, including people from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Syria.” According to HRW, the detainees claimed to have “been detained in the months prior to the Russian invasion for irregularly trying to cross the border into Poland.” They said that there were more than 100 men and women at the facility, though according to Lighthouse Reports only an estimated 45 people remained at the centre as of 21 March.

      The interviewees said that conditions at the detention centre deteriorated after 24 February when members of the Ukrainian military moved into the centre and guards relocated the detainees to one of the two buildings in the complex, freeing the second building for the soldiers. When detainees protested and demanded to be released, the guards refused, forcibly putting an end to the protest and beating detainees. Some detainees claimed to have been told that they could leave the centre if they agreed to fight alongside the Ukrainian military, which they refused.

      An issue addressed in many of these reports is the EU’s role in financing immigration detention centres in Ukraine, which the GDP had previously noted in a report about Ukraine in 2012. According to that report, “In 2011, 30 million Euros were allocated to build nine new detention centres in Ukraine. According to the EU delegation to Ukraine, this project will ‘enable’ the application of the EU-Ukraine readmission by providing detention space for ‘readmitted’ migrants sent back to Ukraine from EU countries.”

      In its report on the situation, Al Jazeera quoted Niamh Ní Bhriain of the Transnational Institute, who said that the EU had allocated 1.7 million euros ($1.8m) for the securitisation of the Volyn centre in 2009. She added, “The EU drove the policies and funded the infrastructure which sees up to 45 people being detained today inside this facility in Ukraine and therefore it must call on Ukraine to immediately release those being held and guarantee them the same protection inside the EU as others fleeing the same war.”

      Efforts to get clarity on EU financing from officials in Brussels were stymied by lack of responsiveness on the part of EU officials. According to Al Jazeera, “The European Commission did not answer questions from Al Jazeera regarding its operation and whether there were plans to help evacuate any remaining people. Ukrainian authorities also did not respond to a request for comment.” The Guardian also reported in mid-April they had “approached the Zhuravychi detention facility and the Ukrainian authorities for comment” but had yet to receive a response as of 12 April.

      However, on 5 April, two MEPs, Tineke Strik and Erik Marquardt, raised the issue during a joint session of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs (LIBE) and the Committee on Development (DEVE). The MEPs urged the EU to take steps to assist the release of the detainees.

      In mid-April, reports emerged that some detainees who had been released from the Volyn PTPI in Zhuravychi were later re-detained in Poland. In its 14 April report, The Guardian reported that “some of those that were released from the centre in the first few days of the war are now being held in a detention centre in Poland, after they were arrested attempting to cross the Polish border, but these claims could not be verified.” On 22 April, Lighthouse Reports cited Tigrayan diaspora representatives as saying that two former detainees at the facility were refugees fleeing Ethiopia’s war in the region, where human rights groups report evidence of a campaign of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Despite being provided documents by Ukraine stipulating that they were stateless persons and being promised safe passage, Polish border guards detained the pair, arguing that there was an “extreme probability of escape.”

      Separately, human rights campaigners following the case informed the GDP in late April that they had evidence of immigration detainees still being locked up in Ukraine’s detention centres, including in particular the Nikolaev (Mykolaiv) PTPI.

      The GDP continues to call for the release of all migrants detained in Ukraine during ongoing warfare and for international efforts to help detainees to find safety, in accordance with international humanitarian and human rights law. Recognizing the huge efforts Poland is making to assist refugees from Ukraine, we nevertheless call on the Polish government to treat all people fleeing Ukraine equally and without discrimination based on race, nationality, or ethnic origin. Everyone fleeing the conflict in Ukraine is entitled to international protection and assistance and no one should be detained on arrival in Poland.

      ▻https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/immigration-detention-amidst-war-the-case-of-ukraines-volyn-

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