RISE Up : TEACH US FOR WHAT IS COMING
“Deportations and Returns Bill” – Comments from legal organisations
This paper summarises comments from legal organisations Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR), HIAS Greece and the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) on the bill amending migration and asylum legislation, submitted to public consultation by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum one year after the last migration reform. The organisations offer a detailed analysis of key provisions of the bill and of their impact on refugees and asylum seekers, as well as recommendations to achieve the necessary harmonisation of Greek legislation with EU law.
Read the comments here
GCR & Oxfam Bulletin_ June 2021
Oxfam & GCR press release: Embargoed until 00:01 CEST on 17 June 2021
Jade Tenwick | Brussels | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | mobile +32 473 56 22 60
Alleged pushbacks at Greek border are persistent and systematic
Since 2017, there has been an increase in reported pushbacks ranging in the hundreds to thousands. Despite increased international pressure and outrage, alleged pushbacks continue to persist. They are systematic, and those who speak out against them are criminalised. The latest issue of the Lesbos Bulletin by the Greek Council for Refugees and Oxfam looks at this practice and includes a pushback testimony.
K, a young political refugee, fled her home country to avoid persecution and torture for expressing her political views. In her own words: “We fled in order not to be [unjustly] imprisoned; in order to not be wronged and tortured. I didn’t want to pass my youth in prison because I was unfairly convicted.”
- said the Greek authorities arrested her, despite her asking for asylum and held her, and other people entering Greece, in an old building for nearly a day in the cold without food or water, with ‘nothing’. While waiting, she realised they would be sent back. She commented on how organised and systematic it was: “It’s not the first time. They are doing it [in a] very organized [manner].”
PRAB Report regarding pushbacks at Europe's borders- January-May 2021
PRAB Report January-May 2021 :
Push back of responsibility: Human Rights Violations as a Welcome Treatment at Europe’s Borders
In a new report, DRC in partnership with 10 civil society organisations across six countries, have collected records of thousands of illegal pushbacks of migrants and refugees trying to cross Europe’s borders. Testimonies also reveal unofficial cooperation between authorities in different countries to transfer vulnerable people across borders to avoid responsibility.
During only three months, authorities illegally prevented 2.162 men, women and children from seeking protection. The instances of illegal pushbacks were recorded from January to April 2021 at different border crossings in Italy, Greece, Serbia, Bosnia-and-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Hungary. More than a third of the documented pushbacks involved rights violations such as denial of access to asylum procedure, physical abuse and assault, theft, extortion and destruction of property, at the hands of national border police and law enforcement officials.
GCR-SCI Advocacy Update on the rights of children in Greece, March-April 2021
Under a new cooperation with Save the Children International, GCR is issuing its first bimonthly evidence-based advocacy brief on pertaining child protection issues in Greece. It contains a general overview of the situation of the applicants and beneficiaries of international protection in Greece, as well as major EU developments affecting child rights and protection, while focusing on the impact of the above on children’s’ lives within the particularities of the Greek context.
The full text of this report, covering March and April 2021, can be found here
GCR & Oxfam Bulletin_ April 2021
Read the bulletin here
"TIPPING THE SCALES" : A joint Oxfam & GCR briefing paper
A joint Oxfam & GCR briefing paper about the role of responsibility- and solidarity-sharing in the situation on the Greek islands. Read more
Update: It is noted that following an update made by Eurostat (available here), until 19 February 2020, the rate of recognition of international protection status in Greece during the first three quarters of 2020 stands at 55%, instead of 64% resulting from the diagram on page 3 of the report.
Eurostat’s update concerns the total number of first-instance asylum decisions issued in Greece during the first (14,710 decisions) and the second (21,835 decisions) quarter of 2020, which, according to the statistics previously issued by the same service, stood at 11,210 and 18,275 respectively (currently, previous Eurostat statistics are available here and here). Accordingly, the total number of first-instance asylum decisions for the first three quarters of 2020 stood at 43,020 decisions, instead of 50,080, which is provided until 19 February 2020.
The Workings of the Screening Regulation
Juxtaposing proposed EU rules with the Greek reception and identification procedure
The European Commission proposal for a Screening Regulation is largely modelled on the “reception and identification procedure” (διαδικασία υποδοχής και ταυτοποίησης) applicable to all irregularly arriving persons in Greece. The majority of its provisions correspond to, if not mirror, provisions in Greek legislation which set out key elements of the process such as restrictions on liberty, identification, registration, medical check, vulnerability assessment, and referral to asylum or other procedures. To that end, an in-depth understanding of the procedure is essential to identifying pitfalls and concerns attached to the Screening Regulation proposal at an early stage of negotiations within the Council and the European Parliament, with a view to promoting better law-making and sound reform of EU law.
The correlation table presented in this document provides a point-by-point comparison of the main provisions of the Screening Regulation proposal with relevant domestic legislation, namely L 4375/2016 and L 4636/2019 (IPA). It also offers a detailed analysis of the implementation of the reception and identification procedure in practice, drawing on up-to-date information complemented by observations from the following civil society organisations supporting asylum seekers in the country. The information provided in the correlation table has been collected through a collaborative effort of civil society organisations Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), HIAS Greece, Greek Council for Refugees, Danish Refugee Council, Legal Centre Lesvos, FENIX Humanitarian Legal Aid, ActionAid Hellas and Mobile Info Team, and legal practitioners.
Α Qualitative Impact Study Report for OXFAM's & GCR's program : Humanitarian Response in Greece -Protection and Covid19 Relief in Lesbos island
Read here the Qualitative Impact Study Report
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