AYS Daily Digest 07/07/21 — Rescues and arrivals at Sea: The context behind the numbers
By: Are You Syrious
Tags: Volunteering, Digest, Europe, Human Rights, Refugees

About 35 people landed on Samos. Initially they fled to the woods and contacted Aegean Boat Report for help. Since then, ABR lost contact with the people although most were taken to the quarantine camp.

Updates from Evros

In Alexandropoulis, there is a container for the unidentified bodies of people who die trying to cross the land border at Evros. Most wind up buried in the village of Sidiro.

SERBIA

Daily pushbacks by Croatian police continue

Hamid, a 16-year-old from Afghanistan, testified that Croatian police beat him on the head with a stick, then beat his father as well before pushing them back into Serbia near Šid. Indiscriminate beatings, robbery, and even pepper spray are daily practices by the Croatian police.

FRANCE

Call for volunteers!

If you’re reading and following what’s going on in the north of France and if you’d like to join the groups helping people on the move find out about the rights and options they have while providing the immediate assistance to those lodged around the Grande Synthe area, the Utopia 56 Grande-Synthe team invites you to join them in the field!

As long as you are over 18 years old, available for at least three weeks, with some knowledge of English, they would be happy to have you on board!

For all info, contact: utopia56gs.benevolat@gmail.com

At the same time, Solidarité migrants Wilson distributing meals from friendly restaurants are looking for drivers to fetch the food from a few particular places in the city. If you are in Paris, have a car and are willing to help, don’t wait for the food to get (c)old! Reach out to the team for more info.

GERMANY

Call for protest against Lufthansa’s profitable participation in deportations

Through an upcoming demonstration, the autonomous No Border Assembly group in Berlin is raising awareness of one of many profiteers of the harsh deportation policy, which included thousands of citizens of countries as Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In 2019 alone, Lufthansa and its subsidiaries verifiably carried out the deportation of 5,885 people. That was more than 25% of all deportations from Germany this year.

Since then, Germany has been covering up airlines and other involved actors being used to realize deportations, while there has been no statement from Lufthansa.

UK

More reactions to Tuesdays’ proposed asylum policy shift

The now already infamous „Nationality and Borders Bill“ that Priti Patel introduced to the House of Commons just two days ago, as reported in our last News Digests, still sparks concern and reactions are still arriving from many sides. Until the government publishes its response to the proposals, this will remain a hot topic even at a European level: As Denmark plans to, the UK would move to an offshore asylum processing, leaving people outsourced in countries outside Europe, in exchange for developmental support. Rwanda just started to join the discussion about reception centers. The law would include people who are already in their application process in the UK.

“What you could end up with is the majority of people fleeing persecution, being detained or housed in developing countries that don’t have the infrastructure. That really undermines our global refugee protection system and the principle of responsibility sharing.” — Hewett, Refugee Council

Rights advocates state that the proposals are, additionally to unconscionable, basically contradicting international law: According to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951, any policy involving the expulsion of asylum seekers would be illegal. The Bill would be yet another act of the current Conservative Party to attract voters and „institutionalizing inhumanity“, especially regarding the fact that UK’s migration levels have been falling again since 2016 and backlog / failing organisation to examine asylum processes in shorter than a year in the UK up to now.

The bill also includes proposals to punish illegal entry into the UK with imprisonment of up to four years instead of six months. This would facilitate arrests and “to remove someone to a safe country while their asylum claim is processed”, as Patel says.

Another cause for concern is that the planned law changes will make it harder for UASC to appeal decisions and to be identified as a victim of human trafficking. Age assessments will become tougher, under the legislation which will make it harder for children to prove their age.

“There is nothing in this legislation that increases protection, despite ministers pledging to create new routes to safety” — Hilton, “Refugee Action”

The Refugee Council is calling on UK residents to contact their MPs and demand they stand against what they describe as an “anti-refugee” Bill, and a new coalition, Together With Refugees, has been set up to oppose the plans.

FRONTEX

HRW’s clear demands regarding the Agency’s implications in human rights violations

As Frontex releases their annual risk analysis for 2020, and as they expand their border work to the “pre-frontier area” funded, bizarrely enough, through pre-accession aid, without much problem, their work does not go unnoticed by everyone, and questions are raised, critique is clear and demands are out.

Citing Border Violence Monitoring Network’s work, the Human Rights Watch reminds us that the EU border guard agency’s oversight mechanisms have failed to safeguard people against serious human rights violations at the EU’s external borders.

Although under Article 46 of the Frontex Regulation, the agency also has a duty to suspend or terminate operations in case of serious abuses, but has only done so once, in Hungary, after a European court ruling.

Running the role play of Hungary as the only “bad guy” in the Union, many human rights abuses and misuse of funds by other Member States go practically unnoticed or continue with impunity. One such example is Croatia. In Croatia, Frontex maintains its presence despite credible and consistent reports by Human Rights Watch and others of pushbacks, often violent, of migrants and asylum seekers into Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia since 2016, HRW says.

Find their clear recommendations directed at Frontex and its Management Board, The European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the EU, as well as the EU member states participating in Frontex activities:

GENERAL

Online event — Wednesday, 8 September 2021–5:00am to 8:30am

The Evolution of the Principle of Non-Refoulement in International Law: What Role for New Types of International Law-Making?