Frontexit
Europe is at war against an imaginary enemy
Frontexit
Europe is at war against an imaginary enemy
JOINT PRESS RELEASE
Tighter controls at the border between Greece and Turkey are forcing many people fleeing conflict to use increasingly dangerous routes. Migrants who manage to reach the EU border have been victims of push-backs and those who cross over into Greece are systematically detained on arrival, in inhuman and degrading conditions. The response of the European Union is to strengthen means of surveillance and interception. There is an urgent need to shift the focus away from criminalisation to the conditions of reception of migrants.
These are the conclusions of a fact-finding mission to Greece and Turkey, where our delegation was able to interview refugees and migrants and access several Greek detention centres. The delegation observed widespread violations of human rights at the borders, which cannot be ignored by the various bodies involved in migration control at the Greek-Turkish border.
In Greece, many victims report having been pushed back by Greek coastguards at sea or even upon reaching European soil*. These victims do not find their way into statistics. The delegation was able to meet with some of these invisible people, who gave details of acts of violence perpetrated by coastguards: ill-treatment (including of pregnant women and children), theft (jewellery, money, mobile phones), confiscation of identity papers which are often thrown overboard and boats pushed back towards Turkish coasts.
Reforms to migration and asylum laws are under-way, aimed at addressing systemic failures which have been repeatedly condemned by European courts. Yet, confusion reigns over responsibility for intercepted migrants. Those who manage to remain on Greek territory are systematically detained by the authorities, including unaccompanied minors awaiting identification – a practice for which Greece has recently been condemned. Migrants who are released are given an order to leave within 30 days. They have no rights on Greek territory. The rate of acceptance of asylum claims is very low and racist attacks are steadily increasing.
Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis, Sudanese, Eritreans, Syrians, Palestinians are trapped between Greece and Turkey. Both countries, with Europe's support, use the presence of these populations as a justification for increasingly repressive border control policies.
In Turkey, the adoption of a new law on immigration and international protection, which will come into force in April 2014, has done little to alleviate concerns regarding violations of migrants' human rights. Turkey maintains geographical reservations to the 1951 Geneva Convention on the status of refugees, which exclude non-Europeans from asylum claims. Although it has been heralded as a sign progress, the new law reproduces many of the legal shortcomings of European law (increased use of accelerated procedures for asylum claims; detention of persons pending return for up to 12 months). These reforms are a sign that Turkey is taking a 'European turn', without meeting international human rights obligations. Among the most serious violations: difficulty in accessing asylum procedures in particular for persons in detention centres, absence of laws on the protection of personal data, detention of minors and families, lack of access to legal aid. Since the first arrivals, the Turkish authorities have forcibly returned hundreds of Syrian refugees to Syria. The impact of the reform has been limited by structural failures to meet international obligations, but also by the fact that Turkey is forced to bear final responsibility for people who have no legal possibilities to enter the EU.
What is Europe doing? What is the position of the European Agency for border management, Frontex, and the European institutions behind it, as they witness and participate, at least indirectly, in these violations?
The EU's support to Greece over the past several years on migration issues has been primarily focused on strengthening the presence of Frontex, at the sea and land borders between Greece and Turkey. However, the presence of Frontex has made no difference to the reception conditions of migrants. Nor has it addressed the risks for migrants taking this route, while human rights violations persist at the border.
The gravity of the situation of migrants in Turkey appears to be no obstacle to the EU's negotiation of a readmission agreement with Turkey, the funding of detention centres, or future cooperation opportunities between Turkish authorities and Frontex.
Over the past few weeks, the tragedy that took place at the shores of Lampedusa seems to have raised awareness about the distress faced by migrants trying to reach the European continent. To address this situation, the EU is now considering increasing the capacity of Frontex. However, our organizations have tirelessly warned that the misery of migrants and the risky nature of the routes they take are linked to the lack of alternatives to access EU territory and to unsatisfactory reception conditions within European borders.
Increased border control does not save lives but leads instead to grave human rights violations and even deaths of women, men and children.
The mission report will be released in the first quarter of 2014.
FIDH, EMHRN, Migreurop.
NGOs supporting this press release: ABCDS Oujda (Morocco), AMDH (Mauritania), AMDH (Morocco), AME (Mali), ARACEM (Mali), ARCI (Italy), CIRÉ (Belgium), CNCD 11.11.11. (Belgium), Fasti (France), GADEM (Morocco), GISTI (France), GRAMI AC (network based in Cameroun), Justice Without Borders for Migrants (Euro african network), La Cimade (France), LDH Belgium, Progress Lawyer Network (Belgium)
* « Pushed back, systematic human rights violations against refugees in the Aegean sea and at the Greek Turkish borders”, Pro Asyl, November 2013
http://www.proasyl.de/fileadmin/fm-dam/l_EU_Fluechtlingspolitik/pushed_back_web_01.pdf
Six days after the “tragedy of Lampedusa”, while the search for the shipwrecked continues and the number of recovered bodies rises daily, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, is sending out a misleading message: the solution to prevent the deaths at sea would be to speed up the installation of Eurosur so as to better detect the boats of refugees at sea, and invest additional resources to launch a large scale search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean, coordinated by Frontex.
But of what use is Frontex? Why was the boat that sank on the 3rd of October while it was located barely 1 km from Lampedusa not rescued? How is it possible that with 9 patrol boats of the Guardia Costiera, several boats of the Guardia di Finanza, military boats and surveillance aircrafts operating in the area, the boat was not detected in time to avert the fate of the passengers? Up to the 1st of October, a boat of the Spanish Guardia Civil was anchored in the port of Lampedusa. Was it part of the Hermes operation coordinated by Frontex on the morning of the tragedy? And if so, what was it doing while the refugees were drowning?
Instead of asking these questions, Italy and European institutions consider that the time has come to re-evaluate the role of Frontex and to grant it further means. We should not be fooled! The mandate of Frontex is combating so called “clandestine” migration and not saving lives at sea. Intensifying its operations in the Sicily Strait will not diminish the number of deaths at sea: 3300 people have lost their lives near the island of Lampedusa since 2002 (1), while Frontex is in operation since 2005 and its means have grown from 19 million Euros in 2006 to 85 million Euros in 2013.
Even if Frontex’s interception operations at sea are frequently linked to rescue operations, the lack of transparency concerning the activities of the agency do not allow to know if its patrols have truly saved lives, or if they have limited them selves to signal to the nearest authorities the presence of boats in distress. Beyond this, the division of responsibilities in these operations between the European Union and the Member States remains opaque. Who should take over the intercepted or rescued migrants? Who is responsible for guarantying the respect of refugee law and the international principle of non-refoulement? These uncertainties and the absence of clearly defined procedures weaken rescue operations and leave the question of responsibility unanswered.
The proposition of reinforcing the presence of Frontex in the Mediterranean and to intensify the cooperation with Libya, reveals the will to deploy more Frontex patrols of the Libyan coast all the while further externalising the management of the EU’s borders. This policy will lead to the indirect refoulement of refugees towards Libya, where the rights of migrants are notoriously violated. Rather than saving lives, the aim is to keep the future “tragedies of migration” far from the eyes and ears of the European public.
At the time when, once more, the politicians of the Member states of the European Union consider that the only lesson that can be learned from the 3rd of October wreck in Lampedusa is the need to strengthen the surveillance of its borders, it is high time to stand up against this escalation and say, high and loud that surveillance is not the equivalent of watching over. It is impossible to simultaneously aim to block the “flows” of migrants and watch over them as human lives in need of protection. Never a policy geared at combating “clandestine” migration will be a policy that respects the rights of people.
9 October 2013
(1) Source : « 3300 migrants sont morts à Lampedusa depuis 2002 », Jean-Marc Manach, october 2013, article based on a cross check of United Against Racism and Fortress Europe datas.
(2) « Libya: The hounding of migrants must stop », Migreurop, FIDH, JSFM, June 2012 ; « Scapegoat of fear : Rights of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants abused in Libya », Amnesty International, 20 June 2013.
Deux articles sur Frontexit à lire dans le dernier numéro de Demain le monde (CNCD-11.11.11):
Contrôler les frontières: un business très rentable. Entretien avec Claire Rodier, par Frédéric Lévêque. p. 4
Frontexit, c'est parti ! p. 20
