VII. Access to Greek Territory:  Apprehensions, Orders to Leave, Deportations, Summary Expulsions and Pushbacks

Greek border controls both in the Evros region (northeastern Greece) and in and around the Greek islands off the coast of Turkey not only make virtually no distinction between people seeking asylum and others, but also generally show a disregard for the basic human rights of third country nationals.  Greek coast guard and police officials violate a host of basic rights, including the right to seek asylum, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the right not to be subjected to refoulement-the forcible return of people to places where they would be subjected to torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, persecution, or other serious harm.   

Apprehensions

Aside from the physical barriers of river or sea, the greatest obstacle for irregular migrants seeking to cross into Greece is being caught by border or coast guard security personnel.[61] When Greek coast guard and police officials first apprehend migrants at the borders, they are often brutal and intimidating.  The most frequently cited rationale for this violence is the identification of smugglers among the migrants.  A 28-year-old Iraqi from Baghdad now living in Holland and interviewed by telephone, gave this account of his experience upon being apprehended on the shores of Lesvos Island October 28, 2007:

The smuggler told us to jump off the boat before landing. We had life vests of shabby quality.  I thought we would drown; there was a woman with a child who almost died. 

The Greek police caught us at 2 am.  They beat everyone except the woman and the child.  The police were dressed in blue.  They kicked and clubbed us with long truncheons.  They were trying to get us to confess who took us there.  There were seven or eight police beating about 20 of us.  The beating went on for about an hour.  Then they put us on a bus and took us to a police station near the beach.

Someone in civilian clothes asked us more questions about who the smuggler was and how we got there.  We gave our names and nationalities.  We all said that we were Palestinians.  We were still in wet clothes.  We spent the night on the bus in our wet clothes.  They gave us no dry clothes, no food, nothing to drink, not even for the children.[62] 

The Greek police at the border can be especially brutal when they suspect a migrant of being a smuggler.  An Iraqi Kurd who the Greek police expelled across the Evros River four times gives this account:

On the fourth time the Greek police beat me so much.  One of the policemen recognized my face [from having been apprehended previously] and beat me so hard.  He thought I was a smuggler.  He beat me with a club and kicked me.  One policeman did all the beating, but the others stood and watched and said nothing as he beat me.  He beat me for 10 minutes.  It was just beating to punish me because he thought I was a smuggler; he didn't ask me any questions or take my money.[63]

Orders to Leave 

Rather than initiate a deportation procedure and enforce the removal of an undocumented migrant, the Greek authorities' usual practice is to detain the migrants and upon release from detention to hand them a paper which tells them to leave the country within 30 days.[64]  This 30-day deadline for departure, commonly known as the "white paper," is written only in Greek, a language few of its recipients understand.  The white paper seems to carry little weight as an enforcement document as individuals who do not comply with the "deadline" are simply provided with another white paper and are not formally removed through a judicially approved deportation proceeding or otherwise.

Undocumented people, by definition, lack the travel documents to leave the country legally, so if they are caught trying to leave they are arrested, detained again, and issued another white paper ordering them to leave the country within 30 days.[65]  This happens repeatedly.  Efthalia Pappa, program supervisor of the Ecumenical Program for Refugees, observed, "The 30-day paper is a paradox: It tells the person to leave the country and then the police arrest that same person for trying to leave the country."[66]

A 24-year-old Iraqi Kurd from Sulaymaniya interviewed while in detention in Petrou Ralli illustrates this paradox:

They arrested me and put me in jail for three months and gave me a paper to leave in 30 days.  I got this paper three times.  I have been in this country for two years and I've spent one year in jail.  Each time [they release me] I'm given a paper to leave the country, but I can't leave because I have no [travel] documents.  I want to leave the country, but I can't.[67]

A 28-year-old Iraqi man, deeply scarred by a bomb attack in Iraq, told about being re-arrested specifically for trying to leave Greece and being repeatedly detained, released, told to leave the country, caught trying to leave the country, and detained again:

After 35 days [of detention], they gave me the paper saying I had to leave the country in one month.  That was October 27, 2007.  Since then I have tried three times to leave from Patras but been arrested and jailed each time, the first time for one day, then for three days, and the third time for three months.  I just got out on May 21, 2008 with another paper telling me I had to leave the country in one month.[68]

Human Rights Watch visited with this man on several occasions during our visit to Greece.  On our last day we learned that he had left again for Patras and was trying once more to leave the country.

Official Deportations

The number of official deportations from Greece is small compared to the number of persons arrested for illegal entry or presence, the vast majority of whom are ordered to leave the country.[69]  There are significant challenges to Greece's ability to deport undocumented foreigners.[70]  Many migrants have no identity documents and give false names and nationalities.  Determining their identities and correct nationalities can be time consuming and expensive. 

Because the migrants' home countries are often poor and over-populated, their governments, desperate for remittances from their diasporas, have little capacity-or incentive-to cooperate in the return of their nationals.  Greece, therefore, often finds it impossible to deport nationals of these countries within the three-month limit on administrative detention of migrants. Consequently nationalities that have no prospect for deportation are usually detained for less time than others.  Afghans, Burmese, Palestinians, and Somalis-are held for shorter periods of time than those for whom Greece thinks it might be able to effectuate a deportation, such as Bangladeshis, Egyptians, Iranians, Pakistanis, and Sri Lankans.  This is a primary reason for migrants to lie about their nationality.  Even though Sudanese and Iraqis are not easily deported, they tend to be held for longer periods of time as well, according to testimonies from detainees.[71] 

Despite the widespread fear among Iraqis of being deported, relatively few are officially deported from Greece.  In 2007 Greece deported 405 Iraqis out of the 9,586 Iraqis who were "arrested to be deported."[72]  Since Greece has not been able regularly to deport Iraqis directly to Iraq, this presumably reflects deportations to transit countries, such as air arrivals from Jordan.  Because there are now direct air connections between Athens and Erbil through Viking Airlines, a private Scandinavian company that runs charter flights, it appears that some direct deportations from Greece to Iraq have taken place.  However, since this connection is not permanent and flights are often interrupted, Greece has mainly sought to deport Iraqis to Turkey on the understanding that Turkey would be more likely to accept Iraqis (and Iranians) than other nationalities under its readmission agreement with Greece because of the relatively cheap and easy option of deporting them by bus across its southeastern land border.[73]

Returns under the Greece-Turkey Readmission Agreement

There have been relatively few formal, legal deportations from Greece to Turkey under the terms of the Greece-Turkey readmission agreement of 2001.[74]  Brigadier General Constantinos Kordatos, commander of Hellenic Police Headquarters Aliens' Division, told Human Rights Watch that Greece has presented 38,000 cases to Turkey for readmission since the agreement went into effect in 2002, but that Turkey had only accepted 2,000 returns since that time.[75]  A Turkish government source says that Greece has presented 22,312 requests for readmission between 2002 and 2007 and that Turkey has accepted 4,264.[76]

Even in obvious cases, such as a boat arrival on Lesvos or Samos, which are within eyesight of the Turkish coast, he said that Greece must still prove that the migrant came from Turkey.  Kordatos said that another problem is the three-month limit on detention because Turkey takes longer than three months to decide whether to accept the return of a migrant, by which time the person has already been released from detention and is no longer in the custody of the Greek authorities for return.

Although by far the largest number of people interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that they had been summarily returned from Greece to Turkey, a few spoke about being returned under what appeared to be a formal procedure.[77]  The common characteristic of these cases is that of naïve honesty:  each person admitted to being an Iraqi national who had entered Greece via Turkey.  An Iraqi Kurd who was deported from Greece to Turkey and from Turkey to Iraq, where he was arrested, jailed, and tortured, told Human Rights Watch, "Many Iraqis said they were Palestinians so they will not return you, but I didn't know this.  I said I was an Iraqi.  That was my mistake."[78]

Another Iraqi deported from Greece to Turkey was a 28-year-old member of the Sabean religious minority from Baghdad who fled following a death threat from the Mahdi Army.  He was caught towards the end of 2006 by the Greek Coast Guard on an old fishing boat carrying about 150 people.  The Coast Guard towed the sinking boat to the port of Lavrio where they held him in a camp for 10 days before transferring him to a jail near the airport in Athens. He said that he initially requested asylum, but that a lawyer told him that he would not be allowed to apply for his family as well, so he decided against applying.  "I refused to ask only asylum for myself," he said.  "I told them everything about being a Sabean and being afraid, but I did not ask for asylum."[79] 

During his stay at the airport jail, he was told that the UN would come to visit, but they never did.  He said that a private lawyer came, but asked for 600 euros to represent him, which the Sabean man could not afford.

Early one morning, the police came and told the Iraqi detainees that they would be taking them to a nice, open camp.  He gave this account of the deportation:

They put about 80 of us on two blue buses.  It was a 14-hour ride to Alexandroupolis.  They wouldn't let us out of the bus the entire 14-hour ride.  We had to urinate in bottles.  During the ride they gave us only water, no food.  When they stopped for the drivers and guards we offered to pay for them to buy us food, but they refused.  We were handcuffed the whole time. 

They took us to the border checkpoint; we saw Greek and Turkish flags.  The Greeks turned us over to the Turkish authorities.  The Turks behaved worse than the Greeks.  They beat us and took our money.  They even beat the women who were on the same bus.  We were in handcuffs.  No one resisted or we would be beaten more.[80]  

The Turkish authorities subsequently bused the Sabean man and 64 other Iraqis to the border with Iraq and turned them over to the Iraqi Kurdish authorities who jailed and questioned them, and dumped them without any identification south of Kirkuk.[81] 

Summary Forced Expulsions from the Evros Region

Summary forcible expulsions across the Evros River by Greek police and security forces are routine and systematic. The Turkish General Staff has reported that Greece "unlawfully deposited at our borders" nearly 12,000 third-country nationals between 2002 and 2007.[82]  This number only indicates those migrants who the Turkish border authorities apprehended and registered; the number that Greece has summarily expelled is very likely to be higher.  Human Rights Watch confirmed the systematic nature of the summary expulsions in 41 testimonies of migrants and asylum seekers interviewed in Greece and Turkey. Many of these individuals told Human Rights Watch of multiple entries into Greece and summary expulsions back to Turkey.  The number and consistency of the accounts makes the presentation appear redundant.  What follows are typical examples among the scores of interviews collected by Human Rights Watch. 

A 29-year–old Moroccan being held at the Gaziosmanpaşa detention center in Kırklareli, Turkey gave an account that includes the main elements in almost all testimonies:  1) making multiple attempts to enter Greece and being caught in Greek territory and returned several or more times before succeeding in getting through; 2) being held for several days to a week at a police station in a border town in dirty, overcrowded conditions, where detainees are often mistreated and sometimes beaten; 3) being trucked in groups of 5o to 100 people to the river at nightfall; and 4) after Greek police officials see no sign of Turkish gendarmes on the other side of the river, being put on small boats in groups of 10 and sent across the river:

I wanted to have a better life and improve my conditions, and so I tried to go to Greece.  I tried 10 times and was always captured and sent back.  The first time was in February 2oo4.  That time I spent 12 or 15 days in Greece and was caught and sent back.  The last time I went I was returned from Greece on April 24, 2008.  I walked four days to Orestiada, was caught and detained for one week by the Greeks.  I was kept in the police station by the village.  It was the border police who caught me.  They don't let you speak.  They just ask your name.  There was no Arabic speaker there and no lawyer.  No written document was given to me.  They removed the sim card and battery from my phone, threw them away and gave the phone back to me. 

There were 20 people in the room in the police station where I was held.  It was crowded and the blankets were very dirty. There were mattresses on the floor.  They behaved to us as though we weren't human.  When you needed something and insisted a lot, they beat you really badly.  This didn't happen to me, but the time before this when I was detained in Greece, there was a Tunisian guy who was sick and when he tried to say he was sick they beat him so badly he bled from the mouth and nose.  I saw this happen.

At around 6 pm [April 23 or 24, 2008], we were put in a truck and taken at the border to the river.  They slowly got us down from the truck and told us to be quiet and put us in a row.  They were observing the other side of the river bank to see if there were any soldiers there.  When there was none, they put us in a small boat driven by one person with another man standing in the front with a gun.  It was around 10 persons to a boat and the boat was wooden with a motor.  The person standing was in a uniform and the driver was a civilian.  The driver spoke Turkish.  Around 40 people were waiting by the river to be put into the boat that went back and forth carrying groups of ten.  We crossed around 7 pm as it was getting dark.[83]

When forcibly returning migrants at the Evros River border, Greek police sometimes hit and kick them.  A 34-year-old Turkoman from Kirkuk, who said that he made about 10 attempts to cross into Greece before succeeding, spoke about one of those episodes:

One time I crossed the river into Greece and arrived in Komotini.  They put us in jail for five days and then took us to the river and pushed us back.  We were 60 persons.  They put us in a small river boat with a motor in groups of ten.  They did it in the middle of the night.  It was raining hard and the Greek police started beating us to make us move more quickly.  I saw one man who tried to refuse to go on the boat, and they beat him and threw him in the river.  They beat us with police clubs to get us to go on the boat.[84]

Similar summary expulsions have been reported from Greece to Bulgaria.  In Embracing the Infidel:  Stories of Muslim Migrants on the Journey West, Behzad Yaghmaian recounts the story of Purya, an Iranian migrant who entered Greek territory and wanted to seek asylum in Greece.[85] Purya thought the Greek police were taking him to Athens, only to discover that they were heading back to Bulgaria, where he was turned over to Bulgarian soldiers who beat him and subjected him to forced labor. On another attempt, the Bulgarians and their guard dogs caught Purya trying to leave, after which he was taken to a "torture room 'for those with multiple arrests,'" where he was severely beaten.[86]  On a third attempt, he crossed into Greece and got as far as Thessaloniki, but the Greeks again returned him to the Bulgarian border.  This time, however, the Bulgarians refused to accept him:

Not wishing to allow him in the country, and not able to deport him to Bulgaria, the Greeks had to find another country for him.  Turkey was a natural candidate.  Saved from the dogs and the beatings by the Bulgarians, Purya was returned to the beginning of his long journey.  The Greeks took Purya to the border with Turkey, kept him in jail for two nights, and sent him to the Turkish side of the Meriç River[87] one evening in absolute darkness, without alarming the Turkish gendarmes.[88]

 

Greek Coast Guard Pushbacks 

Migrant being rescued by the Hellenic Coast Guard in the Aegean Sea.  Photo courtesy of the Hellenic Coast Guard/Intelligence Directorate 

Although Human Rights Watch interviewed five migrants who were rescued and brought ashore by the Greek Coast Guard (some, but not all of those rescued also said that they were beaten or threatened with being shot), 10 other migrants told Human Rights Watch about uniformed guardsmen pushing them back into Turkish waters, puncturing their inflatable boats, as well as beating and robbing them.  Another two migrants who the Greek Coast Guard returned to Turkish waters said that they had disabled their own boat. 

While the testimonies do not provide the overwhelming picture of systemic summary returns of the kind seen on the land border with Turkey at the Evros River, these testimonies, together with testimonies gathered in July and August 2007 by the German NGO Pro Asyl and the Greek Group of Lawyers for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants and published in the October 2007 report "The truth may be bitter, but it must be told:"  The Situation of Refugees in the Aegean and the Practices of the Greek Coast Guard,"[89] demonstrate that elements within the Greek Coast Guard do abuse and push back migrants, putting their lives at risk and denying asylum seekers among them even the possibility of asking for protection.[90]  In a November 22, 2007 letter to the Ministry of Mercantile Marine, the Greek Ombudsman wrote:

The regularity of the complaints, the cross-reference and relevance of witnesses' reports of the incidents suggest, at the very least, that the prevention-containment-of illegal entry of foreigners occurring at the country's borders, particularly by sea, consists of one of the most controversial activities of the Greek authorities with regard to…human rights.[91]

The testimonies about Greek Coast Guard pushbacks vary in their details, but are consistent in telling how the actions of the Coast Guard, including puncturing of inflatable boats, removal of motors, and taking away oars before setting migrant vessels back in the water, sometimes without life vests, put their lives in danger.[92]  A 28-year-old man from Baghdad who fled Iraq after his brother, who worked as a translator for the Americans, was kidnapped and killed by the slitting of his throat, told Human Rights Watch about his near-death experience after the Greek Coast Guard put him on a rubber boat, towed it towards the Turkish shore, and punctured it:

In August 2007, I went on a boat from Izmir.  This was the first time I passed to Greek territory.  We left from Ayvalık.  The Greek navy stopped us. [93]   They took away my mobile phone.  They took my money.  They beat me.  They stripped me of my clothes except my underpants.  There were about 20 of us on the boat.  They did the same to the others that they did to me.

The navy took us to a small island.  The island had one small building.  There was one guy there, a shepherd.  The building had a Greek flag.  They didn't keep us there.  About 5 am they took all our things. They took our telephones.  They then divided us into two groups.  There were two groups of 10 and 10.  They took us from their big boat and put us in small Greek coast guard boats.  They were rubber boats.  They put us in the boats and then put little holes in the boat and left us alone.

I had had a life jacket when I came on the boat from Turkey, but the Greek navy men cut up that life jacket.  They were looking for money inside it.  They cut it with a knife searching for money.  They gave us a new life jacket when they put us in the rubber boat. The life jacket had no identification showing it was from Greece.

This was not the boat we came in.  They put us in a rubber boat that belonged to the navy.  They removed our clothes.  They took us out about one hour to a place near Dikili. They took us close enough so we could see the Turkish coast.  We could see a Turkish flag on the coast.

They gave us oars to row the boat that they put small holes in.  The boat could stay afloat for about one hour.  When they put us out, we could see the Turkish flag on the shore.  We could actually see a Turkish flag.

We did not see the other group of 10 people in the other rubber boat.  They arrived in Turkey before us and asked the Turkish coast guard to save us.  By the time the Turkish coast guard got to us the boat had already sunk.  One guy, Mustafa, had already died.  I almost drowned. I had a life jacket but I couldn't swim. [94]

This account shows a premeditated process that involves bringing the interdicted migrants to one of Greece's many tiny unpopulated islands, robbing them, putting them on different inflatable boats than they had been traveling in, putting them in new life jackets, towing the boats out to sea, and puncturing them.[95]  A process of this sort could not be executed by one or two guardsmen operating on their own, but would require much wider cooperation.

A 14-year-old Afghan boy described in considerable detail how the Greek Coast Guard interdicted his boat, beat some of the migrants, took off the engine and the oars, punctured the boat, and set it adrift to sink:

We were at sea when the Greek Coast Guard caught us.  This was the second month of 1386.[96]  I forget the exact day.  There were 20 of us, all men, 12 children and eight adults. They took us all onto their ship.  When the police[97] pulled us from our small boat, two of us fell down.  Others from the small boat rescued them.  We didn't have swim vests.  When they put us into the big boat, the police beat all of us.  They told us not to come back.  One man they mistakenly thought was the smuggler they beat very badly.

There were about 10 coast guardsmen.  I did not understand which one was the captain.  The boat had Greek letters.  There were four lines of letters where the cabin was.  That was where they took us and beat us.  They kicked me in the head. I was dizzy.  I fell down.  I felt the first kick to my head and then I lost consciousness.  The first kick was to the side of my head.  I couldn't see how the police kicked the others; three of them were my age and one was a year younger.

The police stripped us except for our pants.  They took all our possessions.  When someone asked about his possessions, they kicked him.  We were on the Coast Guard boat from 3 am to 5 am.  The Coast Guard boat also carried our rubber boat. At 5 am the police showed us the Turkish shore. 

The police put us back on our rubber boat. We had a small engine, but the police took the engine and the two oars.  The police made a hole in the boat.  When we were at sea before we were caught the boat was okay, but when we were put back in the water, it was punctured.

We tried to paddle with our hands.  Some guys put their hands and feet on the hole.  I couldn't see how many holes there were, but I think there were many holes.  All the boys kept their feet on the holes and scooped water.  We paddled from 5 am to noon.  The water level was up to four fingers below the rim so it was very difficult to move the boat.  The wind was head on and nobody had life vests.[98]

Other migrants gave accounts that suggested Greek Coast Guard officer complicity with beating, robbery, and other illegal, life-threatening acts.   A 17-year-old Afghan told Human Rights Watch that the Greek Coast Guard interdicted his rubber dinghy holding six migrants on April 24, 2008 off the coast of Lesvos; beat the migrants and after the beating, took them to Turkish waters, punctured the dinghy, and set them back to sea:

The police brought us back to the Turkish shore, but not on land.  They gave us back our small boat, but they made a hole.  The dinghy had three air compartments, but in one there was a hole.  They told us to go and not come back again.  We had six oars, but they only gave us two back.  We tried to fix the part of the dinghy they damaged, but couldn't.  The smuggler told us to take a rubber patch with us in case the police made a hole in the boat, but it had gotten wet and didn't stick any more.  Water was entering the dinghy, the weather became very windy and more water entered the dinghy.  We were not sure that we would reach the shore.  I thought I was going to drown.[99]

One notable point in this testimony is that Coast Guard puncturing of inflatable boats is so common that the smugglers are advising migrants to take rubber patches with them to try to repair them.

But the disabling of boats is not always by puncturing. HRW viewed a statement alleging that the Greek Coast Guard took the motor off an interdicted boat, towed it into Turkish waters, and left it in rough seas where it capsized.   This is a signed statement from a man named Yasin, who was released from Samos the day before the Human Rights Watch visit.  It was written in Arabic, and given to Human Rights Watch by another recently released detainee at Samos.  Yasin said that 22 people on the boat drowned and that he was the sole survivor.  Another detainee who befriended Yasin before his release added more details to the story, including that the other passengers were Sudanese, that some of the Sudanese detainees in the camp knew and were mourning for the dead, and that one body washed ashore on Samos:[100]

I survived real death.  At that time we were 22 persons and me.  We tried with a rubber boat to cross from Turkey to Greece.  The Greek Coast Guard caught us and towed it back to Turkey.  They removed our motor.  A huge wind and rain came and big waves hit our boat.  This happened at 2:00 pm on May 16, 2008.  I saw with my own eyes the wind hit the boat and people fell in the sea one by one.  Only two of us were left.  After a while, the waves became big and turned the boat over.  I stayed after the boat was finished and I swam until I arrived here on the island.  Someone saved me and took me to the hospital.  So I escaped from the hell of my country and expected paradise, but found hell here.[101] 

In other accounts, the Greek Coast Guard would tow a boat back into Turkish waters without first damaging it or making it unseaworthy.  An 18-year-old Afghan described such a pushback:

We were six persons in a small rubber boat.  We had six oars and life vests.  We had been inside Turkish waters for four hours and two or three hours in Greek waters when the police caught us.  When they came near they switched on their lights, kept a light on us and told us to stop.  The ship was big, a patrol boat.  They threw a rope and hooked us to their ship.  The police didn't ask any questions.   They didn't treat us well.  They used bad words. They searched us and then brought us back close to the Turkish shore.  They put us back on our rubber boat but only gave us two oars back.  They told us to go back.  We were about 100 meters from shore, but with two oars we became very tired.  We couldn't move fast and we took turns rowing.[102]