Pushed Back: Migrants Forced Out by Greece Given Hope by European Court

Hassan and his family, members of the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi religious minority in Syria, were twice pushed back to Turkey from Greece late last year.

They left their homeland in order to live “without fear and racism”, Hassan [not his real name] told BIRN.

The Yazidis have been subject to decades of repression in Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and face an uncertain future in Syria under the Islamists who took power with the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in December.

Hassan and his family twice reached Greek soil, but he said they were beaten, robbed and sent back to Turkey under an illegal practice known as ‘pushbacks’.