Greece Violated Turkish Citizen’s Rights in Illegal Pushback, European Court Rules
Source: Balkan Insight
The European Court of Human Rights, ECHR, ruled on Tuesday that Greece violated the rights of a woman identified by the initials A.R.E, a Turkish citizen when she was illegally pushed back to Turkey in 2019, resulting in her imprisonment for alleged terror ties.
“The court took the view that the applicant’s informal detention had been a preliminary to her ‘pushback’ and lacked any legal basis,” the ECHR said, adding that Greece violated her right to liberty and security.
In March 2019, Turkish courts sentenced the woman named as A.R.E. to six years and three months imprisonment for membership of a terrorist organisation. She was accused of being a member of the so-called Gulen Network which is described by Ankara as the “Fetullahist Terror Organisation” or “FETO” for short.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government accused the late preacher Fethullah Gulen and his network of orchestrating a failed coup attempt in 2016. Gulen denied involvement and died in October 2024 in the US in a self-imposed exile.
A.R.E. then crossed the border in order to seek refuge in Greece on May 4, 2019.
She said she was transferred to an unidentified police station, where her personal belongings, including her shoes, money and mobile phone, were confiscated. She repeatedly told the Greek authorities that she sought asylum.
However, “she alleged that she and others had then been transported by lorry to a spot near the Evros River, where they were taken out of the lorry by individuals wearing balaclavas. At around 11 p.m. the applicant, along with others, was allegedly made to board a small inflatable boat to be sent back to Turkey,” the ECHR said.
“She was arrested by the Turkish authorities on 5 May 2019,” the ECHR said, and was later sent to a prison in Izmir.
With her pushback, the ECHR ruled that Greece violated her right to effective remedy and put her life at risk.
The court underlined that “a great many official reports detailed a systematic practice on the part of the Greek authorities whereby foreign nationals who entered Greek territory unlawfully in order to seek asylum were sent back to Türkiye from the Evros region and the Greek islands”.
The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, CPT, in July 2024 published a report following an ad hoc visit to Greece from November 21 to December 1, 2023.
The CPT reported credible allegations of informal, often violent, forcible removals of foreign nationals across the Evros river or by sea to Turkey.
“There is sufficient information to conclude that pushbacks to Türkiye have taken place and continue to take place, albeit on a smaller scale at present. The focus must now be on ending violent, dangerous and illegal pushback operations once and for all,” the report said.
Greek NGOs have noted that investigations into pushbacks drag on for years and never result in prosecutions.
The Greek Council of Refugees in a report published in November 2024 noted a “systemic issue of ineffective criminal investigations into pushbacks and rights violations in Greece that contribute to an environment of impunity, as the cycle of ill-treatment of people in need of international protection at the EU external borders remains unchallenged”.
The original article: belongs to Balkan Insight .
