Greece Passes Law Potentially Jailing Rejected Asylum Seekers
Source: Balkan Insight
Greece’s parliament approved a bill toughening the measures for rejected asylum seekers, the Ministry of Migration and Asylum, announced on Wednesday.
“When someone is denied asylum and has violated Greek law by remaining illegally in Greek territory, they will be subject to administrative detention and electronic surveillance and criminal sanctions,” the Minister of Migration and Asylum, Thanos Plevris, said, explaining the terms of the bill.
The bill, which was voted on Tuesday, has been however criticised by opposition and human rights organisations as abusive and racist.
The new law lays down prison sentences of two to five years and a minimum fine of 5,000 euros for illegal migrants and ends the possibility of illegal migrants obtaining a residence permit after seven years. New applications for international protection are restricted.
The list of countries to which failed asylum seekers can be returned is also expanded and entry bans imposed for security reasons will last up to 10 years.
“The message is clear. If you find yourself here and are entitled to international protection, you will be granted asylum. If your asylum is rejected, you have two choices. Either you will go to prison or you will return to your homeland,” Plevris said.
Opposition parties and human rights organisations claimed the new bill undermines basic human rights.
It was “a law of lawlessness and chaos”, and “an antisocial law,” said centre-left PASOK MP Nadia Giannakopoulou. Left-wing SYRIZA MP Giorgos Psychogios called it “an inhuman bill, which introduces institutional racism and violates legality”.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, stressed that some provisions proposed “risk penalizing persons in need of international protection or whose international protection needs have not yet been assessed, including for example asylum-seekers whose claims have not been assessed on the merits but have been rejected as inadmissible on the grounds of the ‘safe third country’ concept.”
The Greek parliament in July suspended asylum applications from migrants arriving by sea from Africa for three months.
The original article: belongs to Balkan Insight .
