This report by ASSEDEL, submitted for the Third Periodic Review of Greece before the United Nations Human Rights Committee, focuses on Greece’s ongoing human rights violations at its borders, specifically the pushbacks of migrants and asylum seekers. Despite previous recommendations by international bodies, Greece continues to violate key international obligations, including the right to seek asylum and the principle of non-refoulement. The report highlights Greece’s binding commitments under international treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). These treaties prohibit collective expulsions, arbitrary detention, and inhumane treatment. However, Greece’s border practices, especially at the Evros land border and in the Aegean Sea, blatantly disregard these obligations. Numerous reports from international monitoring bodies and NGOs, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, document instances where asylum seekers were denied access to procedures, detained unlawfully, and forcibly expelled to Turkey, often with violence.
The report further underscores that international bodies, including the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, have repeatedly raised concerns about Greece’s pushback operations. These reports emphasize the systematic nature of these practices and the lack of accountability for the violence and ill-treatment inflicted on migrants. Despite legal challenges at the Human Rights Committee and the European Court of Human Rights, Greece continues to deny these allegations, even as evidence from third-party interventions, NGO reports, and personal testimonies suggest that these pushbacks are part of a broader, state-sponsored policy of deterring migration at any cost. The report concludes that Greece’s pushback practices represent a severe and ongoing violation of international human rights standards, calling for stronger international oversight and enforcement to ensure compliance with international law.
To read the full report, please click here.