ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday in a landmark ruling that Greece illegally returned a woman to neighboring Turkey and described the use of summary expulsions or “pushbacks” as systematic.
The decision by the court in Strasbourg, France, could affect how Europe deals with migrants at its borders, at a time when Greece and several European Union member states are seeking tighter immigration controls.
A Turkish woman – identified only by her initials ARE – was awarded 20,000 euros ($21,000) in damages after a court ruled she was wrongfully deported in 2019 after crossing the Greek-Turkish border because she was not given a chance to to submit an asylum application. .
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“The court considered that there were strong indications that at the time of the alleged events there was a systematic practice of ‘pushbacks’ of third-country nationals by the Greek authorities, from the Evros region (to the Greek border). ) to Turkey,” the decision said.
Based on a lack of evidence, the court rejected a second claim by an Afghan man, who said he was illegally returned to Turkey from the Greek island of Samos in 2020, when he was 15.
Representatives of the Greek government had denied the allegations during the hearings, disputing the authenticity of the evidence presented and claiming that Greece’s border policy complied with international law.
The UN refugee agency has urged Greece to more thoroughly investigate several pushback allegations, while several major human rights groups have described the alleged irregular deportations as a systematic practice.
Greece’s National Transparency Authority, a government-funded corruption watchdog, said it found no evidence to support the pushback allegations after a four-month investigation in 2022.
The European Court of Human Rights is an international court based in Strasbourg, France, that adjudicates human rights violations by 46 member states of the Council of Europe, a body older than the European Union and its predecessor, the European Economic Community.
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