Cyprus-Forum.com

[Capt J Sparrow]

Sharing Greece's asylum shame

The EU's border agency should not be sending migrants to camps deemed abusive by Europe's top human-rights court.
Greece's appalling treatment of asylum seekers and migrants was, until recently, a blot on its reputation alone. But in November, the European Union and its member states became complicit in Greece's shameful conduct when Frontex, which manages migration at the EU's external borders, began deploying a multinational team of border guards along Greece's north-eastern border with Turkey.

Just as the “guest officers”, in Frontex-speak, were arriving from across the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights barred Belgium from returning an Afghan asylum-seeker to Greece because it would subject him to inhuman and degrading conditions in migrant detention centres there and leave him unprotected in Greece's dysfunctional asylum system.

So, while Europe's top human-rights court, whose rulings bind EU states, banned border guards in Belgium from sending asylum-seekers to Greek detention because of abusive conditions there, Frontex was asking Belgium (and other states) to send their border guards to Greece to participate in a mission to apprehend irregular migrants and help Greece detain them in those same detention centres.

As justice and home affairs ministers meet in Brussels this week (22-23 September) to consider expanding Frontex's mandate, by giving it more operational power and a more explicit duty to respect human rights (changes agreed by the European Parliament last week), they should reflect on whether they really want to share Greece's shame.

In December 2010, during the Frontex deployment, Human Rights Watch visited detention centres in north-eastern Greece and found the authorities were holding migrants, including vulnerable groups such as unaccompanied children, for weeks or months in filthy and grossly overcrowded conditions.

The police station at Feres, with a capacity for 30, held 97 detainees in squalid and dangerous conditions. “You cannot imagine how dirty and difficult it is for me here,” a 50-year-old Georgian woman detained there said. “It's not appropriate to be with these men. I don't sleep at night. I just sit on a mattress.”

In the Fylakio migrant detention centre unaccompanied children were held with unrelated adults in overcrowded cells. Sewage was running on the floors, and the smell was hard to bear. Greek guards wore surgical masks when they entered the passageway between the large barred cells. And conditions have not improved. This month, detainees in Fylakio put their own lives at risk by burning mattresses to protest against their treatment.

Member states and EU agencies such as Frontex are barred under European and international human-rights law from knowingly exposing anyone to inhuman and degrading treatment. Right now, co-operation with the Greek detention system means doing just that.

But this does not mean the EU should wash its hands and turn away. It should instead make Frontex's engagement in border-enforcement operations in Greece – and anywhere else – contingent on placing apprehended migrants in decent facilities.

This week, as it takes its hardest and most significant look at Frontex in years, the Council of Ministers should demand that the Greek government immediately transfer migrants to areas of Greece where detention standards meet human-rights requirements. Without a positive response from Greece, the ministers should exercise their sovereign discretion by immediately making detention spaces available in their countries where conditions meet international and EU standards, or they should withdraw their border guards and direct Frontex to suspend its activities in Greece.

And as it amends the regulation that created Frontex, the Council should ensure that Frontex never again places European border guards in a position where they expose migrants and asylum-seekers to inhuman and degrading treatment.

Bill Frelick is the director of Human Rights Watch's refugee programme and the editor of a report entitled “The EU's dirty hands: Frontex involvement in ill-treatment of migrant detainees in Greece”.

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/im ... 72076.aspx

[LouiePoll]

This is really disturbing

In the Fylakio migrant detention centre unaccompanied children were held with unrelated adults in overcrowded cells. Sewage was running on the floors, and the smell was hard to bear. Greek guards wore surgical masks when they entered the passageway between the large barred cells. And conditions have not improved. This month, detainees in Fylakio put their own lives at risk by burning mattresses to protest against their treatment.

I hope the government step up there involvement. A change must be needed....

[kimon07]

Very touching, indeed….

Now let us see the facts.

Greece receives about 150.000 illegal immigrants through Turkey per year.

Turkey, not only does not do anything to stop them but, on the contrary, it assists them. There have been several reports by Frontex that Turkish military border patrols opened fire against Greek and Frontex patrols which were trying to stop illegal immigrants from entering Greece.
Additionally, Turkey denies to honor its agreements with the EU, to readmit in Turkey immigrants who entered Greece through Turkey. Turkey’s purpose is obvious here. Overflow the EU (and especially Greece) with masses of starving and miserable Asian Muslim crowds (Turks, Kurds, Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis etc.).

Furthermore, according to “Dublin II” convention, Greece is not entitled to allow these immigrants to move on to West Europe which was there destination in the first place.

Thus, Greece has to deal with them literary alone, since the EU is not willing to spend what is needed for Greece to face the problem i.e., to control effectively the in flow of immigrants and to construct the necessary and proper receiving and detaining stations until their applications for political asylum are processed. Greece can simply not afford to accomplish this task on its own, especially under the present crisis. And it can not afford to keep 2.000.000 Muslim immigrants in the country either.

So, what is the solution? Here are my alternatives:

1. The Greek Army blasts to smithereens anyone trying to cross its border illegally, or:
2. The Greek government opens its west borders and allows them to poor into the rest of Europe where Mr. Bill F.. Frelic will receive them with open arms, no doubt, and he will offer them “humane” treatment (like in Italy where they sank their boats and let them drown) or:
3. The EU does the following:
(a) Allocates to Greece the funds, personnel and means, such as patrol boats, vehicles, planes etc, which will help stop the wave of immigrants entering the country and to treat properly those who manage to enter and
(b) The EU allows the immigrants to move to whichever other EU country they please and
(c) The EU imposes against Turkey severe junctions (including the suspension of accession talks) until Turkey stops allowing and encouraging immigrants from entering Greece through its borders and also until Turkey starts readmitting those arrested having entered Greece through Turkey.

Until all the previous are decided and done by the EU, Mr. Bill F… Frelick and all other sensitive soles like him, should shut the f… up and be grateful to Greece and the Greek People for having been left alone to stop (once again in history) the Asian Tsunami from flooding the whole of Europe.

See also
Frontex: Every day 300 illegal immigrants are registered on the Greek-Turkish border

http://www.defencegreece.com/index.php/ ... sh-border/

November 19, 2011 | Filed under: Featured News,Geopolitics
Anastasia Balezdrova
In the first nine months of 2011, the European authorities have registered almost twice as many illegal immigrants than in the same period of 2010. In particular, from January 1 to September 30 this year, 112,844 immigrants arrived in Europe, while last year the number was 76,697. “This jump is due to the mass inflow from North African countries, which was directed mainly at Italy and Malta in the first half of this year,” said deputy director of the European border control agency Frontex, Gil Arias Fernandez, at a press conference in Athens.
The 2011 peak was in March when 20,000 people were registered, 17,000 of whom came from the Maghreb countries. Respectively, the largest number of immigrants in 2010 was recorded on the Greek-Turkish border in September and October. “We are talking about 14,000 immigrants per month; almost 8,000 have crossed the Greek border line.”
“Now, the so-called Mediterranean route is almost closed. This is because the authorities in Tunisia have improved border control and signed a readmission agreement with Italy. From mid-August when the Interim Council in Libya took over the government, immigrant flow from the country decreased. The third reason is that in winter, weather conditions make it difficult to move by sea,” said Fernandez.
He added that many citizens of the countries in the sub-Saharan region, who were working in Libya, have arrived in Europe with the Libyans. “Gaddafi’s regime began to use immigrants as a weapon against Europe after the operations in the country had been launched.”
According to Frontex data, illegal immigrant inflow in Europe through the so-called Eastern-Mediterranean route, i.e. the border between Greece and Turkey, is almost of the same intensity as in 2010. Last year, from January to October 39,000 illegal immigrants were registered, while this year there are 2,000 less.
The majority of immigrants come from Afghanistan, although this year a 25% drop has been recorded. At the same time, the number of Pakistanis has increased and there are five times more than in 2010. Increase was registered in the number of immigrants from Bangladesh too.
Frontex paid attention to the increase in the number of immigrants from the Maghreb countries – Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, who do not arrive in Europe crossing the Spanish maritime borders but prefer the land border between Greece and Turkey. “From 1 January to 30 October, in Greece 1,700 Algerians, 1,000 Moroccans and 300 Tunisians were registered and their number in Spain was respectively 900, 200 and 1.” According to Gil Arias Fernandez, North Africans have turned to the Eastern-Mediterranean route for several reasons, “Their countries have no visa regime with Turkey. Thus, they can travel easily to Istanbul whose airport is located very close to the border with Greece. They cross it with the help of the hundreds of trafficking networks operating in Turkey and at much lower prices.”
The reduction of the immigrant flow to Western Europe was followed by an increase on the Greek-Turkish land border. In October 9,600 immigrants were registered, which is 20% more than in October 2010. This means that the authorities have captured an average of 300 illegal immigrants a day.
“Once the immigrants arrive in Greece, they try to reach Western European countries in two ways. First is the sea route of the Ionian Sea to the Italian border near Calabria and Puglia. Significantly fewer immigrants pass through the Western Balkans, but there is also the route of Macedonia – Serbia – Hungary – Austria and the increase in the desired country is 35%. This year, the number has reached 2,000. The number of immigrants trying to enter Europe by crossing the Turkish-Bulgarian border is insignificant.
Frontex does not expect a drastic change in the large flow of illegal immigrants crossing the Greek-Turkish border. “The reasons are lack of reception centres in both countries, lack of readmission agreements with some countries of origin, the proximity of Istanbul to the border and the low prices of airline flights, the low visa regime to Turkey and the large number of trafficking networks operating in Turkey with Greek staff,” said Fernandez.
Source: grreporter.info
Related News:
1. Border police seek tougher measures to contain migration spike
2. Frontex report: the Greek land border with Turkey remains an area of key concern for irregular migration
3. Frontex seeks aid for Greece
4. Some 36,000 illegal immigrants caught in Evros this year

[kimon07]

Sharing Greece's asylum shame

It would be more effective if EU shared some of the costs involved in stopping illegal immigrants from entering an EU country from Turkey.

Border fence gets green light
December 9, 2011.

An administrative court has approved government plans to build a fence along a section of the Greek-Turkish border, in an effort to curb illegal immigration through the northeast Evros region.

The fence, due built in 2012, would span a 12.5-kilometer section of the border that is not separated by the Evros River and is one of the busiest illegal crossing points in Europe.

The government has said it will go ahead with the venture despite a recent refusal by the European Union to provide any funding for the fence. (Athens News/GW)
http://www.defencegreece.com/index.php/ ... een-light/

Also
"EU will not fund Evros fence."
http://www.defencegreece.com/index.php/ ... ros-fence/