Activists say group was probably
forced back into Turkey by police as part of campaign of enforced deportation
Helena Smith in Orestiada
Greece's police and coastguard
have an extremely aggressive policy toward refugees attempting to cross the
border. Photograph: STR New/Reuters
Not much
happens in Praggi. So when 150 Syrian refugees arrived in the
village, high in the flatlands of far-flung north-eastern Greece, it was not
something residents were likely to forget.
Some of the
Syrians were huddled against the biting cold in the courtyard of the church;
others had congregated beneath the trees of a nearby forest. All had made the
treacherous journey from Turkey – crossing the
fast-flowing waters of the Evros river – in a bid to flee their country's war.
Then came the white police vans and the Syrian men, women and children were
gone.
"Ever since we have lost all trace of them,"
said Vasillis Papadopoulos, a lawyer who defends the rights of migrants and
refugees. "They just disappeared. Our firm belief is that they were pushed
back into Turkey."
Activists, lawyers, human rights groups, opposition
MPs, immigration experts and international officials are becoming increasingly
concerned about the heavy-handed tactics Greek authorities use to keep
immigrants away.
Enforced deportations – highlighted by an alarming
rise of migrant deaths – have spurred the criticism.
In contravention of international conventions signed
by Athens, coastguard officials and police officers have waged a concerted
campaign to stop thousands from accessing EU territory via Greece. Illegal
pushbacks have been the focus of those efforts, according to human rights
groups.
The drive has intensified as Greece – long seen as the
EU's easiest backdoor entrance – has struggled to keep its economic and social
fabric together in the face of the country's worst crisis in modern times.
Since prime minister Antonis Samaras's conservative-led coalition assumed power
in the midst of the crisis last year, authorities have faced charges of
violently apprehending migrants, beating them and stripping them of their
belongings. Special coastguard units – often masked and dressed in black – have
been accused of dumping migrants, without any consideration for their safety,
in Turkish territorial waters.
"The number and scale of these alleged incidents
raises serious concerns," said Ketty Kehayioylou at the Greek outpost of
the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. "We still don't know what happened to the
two groups in Praggi," she said. "No one was ever registered at the
First Reception Centre as foreseen by national law and we've demanded an
investigation."
The claims come
as Amnesty International urged Greece to
launch an inquiry into comments by the country's police chief, Nikos Papagiannopoulos,
in which it is alleged he ordered his officers to make the lives of immigrants
unbearable.
"If they told me I could go to a country … and
would be detained for three months and then would be free to steal and rob … it
would be great," Papagiannopoulos, the highest security official in the
land after the public order minister, was quoted as telling officers during a
secretly recorded meeting. "We must make their lives unbearable." The
comments were published by the investigative magazine, Hot Doc, on 19 December.
John Dalhuisen,
Amnesty's director for Europe and Central
Asia, said: "If accurate, the deeply shocking statements attributed to the
Greek chief of police would expose a wilful disregard for the rights and
welfare of refugees and migrants seeking shelter and opportunity in the
European Union."
With allegations of torture also on the rise, two
senior coastguard officials were jailed last month after a military court found
them guilty of subjecting an asylum seeker to a mock execution and
water-boarding.
The discovery of ever more bodies – in the Aegean Sea
and around the land border Greece shares with Turkey – have also raised the
alarm. The German NGO, Pro Asyl, recently estimated that 149 people had died
this year – an increase attributed mostly to the enormous risks refugees were
prepared to take since Greece sealed its land border with Turkey in August
2012.
Following the
construction of the fence – a
six-mile barricade topped with thermal and sonar sensors – traffickers
have focused on ferrying their human cargo to Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.
"The shift
of escape routes has led to the deaths of many people … mostly Syrian and
Afghan refugees, among them many children and pregnant women," said Pro
Asyl in a
report documenting the problems faced by those fleeing persecution and war.
(pdf)
"The brutality and extent of violations are
shocking," it claimed. "Refugees are being brutally pushed back by
Greek authorities. This is happening systematically with the complicity of
other European authorities despite the fact that it is against international
law."
According to the EU border agency, Frontex, detections
of illegal immigrants in the Aegean Sea have increased by 912% since the
barbed-wire barrier went up.
"It is a wall of shame, a hair-raising element of
Fortress Europe," said Aphrodite Stambouli MP of the radical left main
opposition Syriza party. "It is outrageous that people in need of
international protection should be obstructed from getting it in this
way."
Last week, she travelled to the remote Evros region –
passing signs emblazoned with the words "danger: mines" and guards
posted at checkpoints – to learn for herself what had happened in Praggi.
"What we know is that 150 Syrians crossed the
border because relatives they called, both in Greece and other European
capitals, have confirmed that that is what happened," she said.
"They told them clearly, 'We are in a village
called Praggi, some of us are in the yard of a church, some of us in a forest.'
The police version of events, that only 13 [refugees] were found that day does
not add up and that is because they were obviously pushed back over the
border."
Immigration
experts say blame lies partly with the rise of xenophobia in Greece, where the
virulently anti-immigrant, neo-fascist Golden Dawn party
is now the country's third biggest political force.
But they add that Greek authorities are under immense
EU pressure to do the "dirty work" of buttressing what is widely seen
as the bloc's most porous border. "From as far back as 1990, northern
Europe's policy has always been that the south has to assume the burden of
stopping irregular migration," said Martin Baldwin-Edwards, who heads the
Mediterranean Migration Observatory in Athens. "That, growing xenophobia,
and the disrespect Turkey and Greece have historically shown for migrants'
human rights account for the push-backs."
Last week Turkey signed a deal with the EU promising
to repatriate immigrants who illegally enter the 28-nation bloc in return for
its citizens being granted visa-free travel across the union.
"It's hugely important," said
Baldwin-Edwards. "Turkey is the main point of entry from Asia and the
Middle East. The more it is brought into the European ambit and assumes the
responsibility of managing Europe's south eastern borders it will lessen the
pressure on Greece."
In the forlorn villages of squat one-story homes that
dot the frontier's heavily militarised zone, the push-backs have caused
consternation even if residents – many hard-bitten nationalists – have welcomed
the erection of the wall.
"The fence may have made us feel safer but we
also know that all these people want is to pass through," said Nikos
Dollis ,who runs a cafe in Nea Vyssa, the last settlement before the frontier
in one of Greece's most secretive corners. "Their intention is never to
stay here. They want to get out, go to other countries in Europe."
Demonstrators recently protested outside the police
headquarters in Orestiada, the gritty town that is the region's biggest
metropolis, in a display of outrage over the incident in Praggi. Among them was
Natasa Gara, a human rights campaigner who edits Orestiada's weekly newspaper,
Methorios.
"We want to know what really happened to the 150
Syrians, whose only crime was to want to escape the war," she said after
spending days investigating the affair.
"Are the police saying that everyone in Praggi is
mad, that they just thought they saw 150 men, women and children? Because if
they are, they are not telling the truth."
