The European Court of Human Rights will tomorrow, June 4, hear two cases against the Greek government for illegally forcing people back to Turkiye.
It is the first time the Court will hear cases against pushbacks carried out by the Greek government, and Aegean Boat Report has played a central role in helping to bring the first of them this far.
The first case, in which GRJ, an unaccompanied child, and one other unaccompanied child, were pushed back by the Greek government on 8 September 2020, was first and extensively documented by Aegean Boat Report.
We worked for months to highlight the case, bringing it to the attention of global media and legal practitioners, and persuaded international lawyer and lecturer in international law at Haifa University Itamar Yossef Mann-Kanowitz, to raise it across the legal community.
GRJ, whose case against the Greek government will be heard on Tuesday 4 June, arrived in Greece on 8 September 2020, along with 17 other people.
They arrived in Samos, and the two boys left the group to find help, as some members were injured and one was a pregnant woman, as well as to present themselves to Greek authorities and enter the asylum application process, as the law demands.
Both boys saw the 16 people with whom they had arrived taken on board a Greek Coastguard vessel. They assumed the group had been rescued – though in fact they were beaten and set adrift into Turkish waters, later being rescued by the Turkish Coastguard – and so travelled to Vathy camp to make themselves and their presence known, and apply for asylum.
Instead, having arrived at the camp, the two boys, aged 15 and 16, were taken to the camp police station, where they were told they would be held in isolation and then registered after a few days.
They were not.
In fact, Greek officials put them in a car, told them to hide below the level of the windows, then put them on a Greek Coastguard boat, stripped them of their money and possessions including mobile phones, handcuffed them, slapped them several times in the face, and set them adrift into Turkish waters on an inflatable lifeboat, without engines, and also without even life-jackets.
The boys had to paddle with their hands until they were rescued by the Turkish Coastguard.
We are delighted that GRJ has the opportunity to share his experience, and call for justice for his illegal and brutal treatment at the hands of the Greek government.
The case argues that Greece’s actions violated multiple rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to life, the prohibition of torture and the right to an effective remedy.
He will be represented in court by lawyers from Prakken d’Oliveira, Irish Centre for Human Rights and the Dutch Refugee Council.
To see our original report on this shocking and unacceptable violation of the law and human morality and decency, read the post her, link in picture.
You can also follow the case, and learn its outcome, by visiting the webcast after 2.30pm tomorrow, Tuesday 4 June 2024, link in picture.
We hope, as anyone with any interest in the law and our fellow men, women and children will do, that justice is done, and the Greek government will be held responsible for its despicable and illegal treatment of GRJ.
We also hope the case may set a precedent for the many, many thousands of other people treated similarly barbarically by the Greek government over the last five years, and may finally bring to an end this shameful chapter of Greek national history.