Secret Expulsions at the Border

Migrants are often effectively denied the opportunity to seek protection when they fall into the hands of the Greek authorities near the country’s border with Turkey. Police in the northern region of Evros and in and around the Greek islands off the coast of Turkey make virtually no distinction between people seeking asylum and others. Only 6 percent of asylum claims were lodged outside Athens in 2007, even though most asylum seekers arrive through the northern border region or via the Greek islands off the coast of Turkey.

In a November 2008 report, “Stuck in a Revolving Door: Iraqis and Other Asylum Seekers and Migrants at the Greece/Turkey Entrance to the European Union,” Human Rights Watch gathered migrant accounts of illegal police practices. Migrants reported that police in the Evros region apprehended them on Greek territory, detained them for a period of days without registering them, and then systematically expelled them across the Greece-Turkey border. The report included confidential interviews with 41 asylum seekers and migrants, who gave consistent accounts of Greek officials forcing them onto boats and secretly taking them across the Evros River at night. These operations involved considerable logistical preparation and could only have been conducted with at least the acquiescence of the most senior officials in charge.

One migrant told Human Rights Watch about his experience at the Evros River crossing: “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.” The Turkish General Staff has reported that Greece “unlawfully deposited at our borders” nearly 12,000 third-country nationals between 2002 and 2007. Because this number includes only migrants the Turkish border authorities apprehended and registered, the total number of migrants that Greece has summarily expelled is very likely to be higher.