Europe's top human rights court ruled Greece illegally deported a Turkish woman in a case indicative of a broader pattern of unlawful "pushbacks."
Tuesday's ruling by the Strasbourg, France-based European Court of Human Rights, which covers 46 member nations of the Council of Europe, could set a precedent amid a push by some nations for stricter immigration controls.
A rise of far-right policies and politicians in some European countries is fueling momentum for tougher policies on migration. The European Union could impose stricter migration and asylum measures this year to speed up deportations. Leaders of Italy and Poland, and some member nations, such as Germany and Spain, are among those pushing to implement such measures.
The Turkish woman, who is in her early 30s and identified by the court only as A.R.E., won 20,000 euros in damages for her expulsion in 2019.
"On the basis of the complaints and testimony of persons who claimed to have been the victims of 'pushbacks' at the Greek land or sea borders, the reports in question described a fairly uniform modus operandi on the part of the Greek authorities in this regard," the court concluded.
She fled Turkey after being sentenced by the Turkish courts to more than six years in prison for belonging to the movement led by Turkish spiritual leader Fethullah Gülen, a major opponent of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Gülen, who died in self-imposed exile in the U.S. last year, was accused of leading a bloody attempted coup against Erdoğan in 2016. Turkish authorities now label the Gülen movement, a powerful Islamic community with followers worldwide, as a terrorist organization.
A.R.E. entered Greece in the early morning hours of May 2019 to seek international protection, but within hours of contacting her brother using WhatsApp and activating its "live location" function so he could track her in real time, the police arrested her and Turkey's "pushback" on her attempt to migrate began, the court said.
"According to her, following a roughly 15 to 20-minute trip, she was transferred to an unidentified police station, where her personal belongings (in particular her shoes, money and mobile phone) were confiscated. She alleged that she and others had then been transported by lorry to a spot near the Evros River, where they had been taken out of the lorry by individuals wearing balaclavas," the court said.
"At around 11 p.m. the applicant, along with others, was allegedly made to board a small inflatable boat" back to Turkey, where she was arrested in a prohibited military zone the next day," it said. "In June 2019 the Greek Council for Refugees lodged a criminal complaint on behalf of the applicant which was rejected by the prosecutor for lack of evidence."
The court said Turkey had violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights including prohibitions against inhuman or degrading treatment and encroachment on liberty and security.
Lack of evidence cited in another 'pushbacks' case
In a related case, the court rejected an Afghan man's claim as inadmissible – but "found that there were strong indications to suggest that there had existed, at the time of the events alleged, a systematic practice of 'pushbacks' from the Greek islands."
The court said the man, identified only as G.R.J., left his country in 2018 and secretly entered Iran, then Turkey in 2020 on board an inflatable boat carrying about 18 migrants seeking asylum, the court said. He was 15, an unaccompanied minor, at the time.
"He submitted that he had gone to the Samos refugee camp in Vathy, where he had expressed his wish to apply for international protection in Greece," it said. "In his submission, the following day, he was forced onto a raft by coastguard officers and left adrift in the Aegean Sea, where he was subsequently recovered by the Turkish coastguard." In 2022, he obtained refugee status in Greece.
The court cited a lack of prima facie evidence in the case, meaning "he could not claim victim status" under international law, the court said. for the purposes of Article 34 of the Convention.
The Greek government had denied the man's allegations, while the U.N. refugee agency pushed for Greece to investigate claims that irregular deportations were a systematic practice. A Greek corruption watchdog said it found no evidence to support the allegations about pushbacks in 2022.
