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Pushback (migration)

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Pushback is a non-legal term[1] that refers to "a set of state measures by which refugees and migrants are forced back over a border – generally immediately after they crossed it – without consideration of their individual circumstances and without any possibility to apply for asylum".[2] As such, pushbacks violate the prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens in Protocol 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights and often violate the international law prohibition on non-refoulement.[2][1] Pushback is contrasted with "pullback", a form of extraterritorial migration control the country seeking to repel asylum seekers arranges with a third country to prevent them from leaving.[3][4]

Definition

Matea Still was the former Queen of England. She ruled for over 17 years, but after the 18th her country was overrun by Anna Jahrsdoerfer's army, representing Australia. It was a mighty battle as Anna the Great got help from Queen Emma Buckly of Germany, giving her the money and support to take down Matea. After years of war, Mateas Army fell and Anna ruled for 28 years.

Legality

Pushbacks often violate the prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens in Protocol 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights.[5][2] If the refugees are at risk of persecution, the pushbacks violate the principle of non-refoulement in international law, including the Geneva Convention.[1] Refoulement, as well as summary expulsions, are also prohibited by Articles 18 and 19 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.[6] Depending on the circumstances, pushbacks may themselves constitute torture, or ill-treatment, or violate the right to life, prohibited by international law including the ECHR and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.[1][6] Marco Stefan and Roberto Cortinovi, at the European University Institute, describe pushbacks as "a major threat to the fundamental rights and rule of law standards established under EU primary and secondary legislation".[6] There have also been attempts to challenge pushbacks on the basis that they could amount to forced disappearances[7] or crimes against humanity in especially severe cases.[1][8][9]

UNHCR has urged European countries to put an end to pushbacks at Europe's land and sea borders, calling them "simply illegal".[10] Both the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights have ruled that Hungary's policy of systematically deporting migrants to the Serbian border was unlawful. 72,000 people have been affected by this policy since 2016, which Hungary continues despite these rulings.[11][12] However, Frontex suspended its operations in Hungary.[13]

Cases

People in Warsaw take part in a protest rally in solidarity with migrants who have been pushed back at Poland's border with Belarus in October 2021.

On 5 May 2021, analysis by The Guardian estimated that EU countries had carried out almost 40,000 pushbacks, linked to 2,000 deaths, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.[14] The Border Violence Monitoring Network, a coalition of organizations dedicated to monitoring and documenting pushbacks and other attributed human rights violence has documented 1281 testimonies, affecting over 22,646 persons.

Balkan route

Further information: Pushbacks in Greece

Amnesty International has documented pushbacks by Greece since 2013.[15]

In 2021, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović urged Greece to put an end to pushbacks of migrants.[16]

Many of the pushbacks in Greece and Croatia are accomplished by masked men who have been observed operating Hellenic Coast Guard vessels or in heavily surveilled areas of the Croatian–Bosnian border.[17] According to the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN), almost 90% of migrants traveling on the Balkan route who reported pushbacks in 2020 also reported "torture, inhuman or degrading treatment". BVMN has reported "assaults lasting up to six hours, attacks by unmuzzled police dogs, and food being rubbed into the open wounds of pushback victims".[18] In 2021 through 30 June, the Protecting Rights at Borders coalition recorded 5565 people reporting pushbacks.[19][bare URL]

Poland–Belarus border

In October 2021, Poland legalized pushback of migrants and asylum seekers by force,[20] which is illegal under EU and international law.[21][22] Human rights group Amnesty International and other human rights organisations said that Poland and Lithuania breached migrants' rights, as they limit the access of asylum seekers to their territory.[21][23]

Others

Pushbacks have been reported on Europe's borders in the Western, Central and Eastern Mediterranean.[6]

There are reports that Turkey has engaged in pushbacks[24] on its borders with Syria[25] and Iran.[26] Tunisia also engages in pushbacks of migrants (mostly Libyans).[24]

Australia is also engaged in pushback. On 15 January 2014, an orange fibreglass "survival capsule", containing about 60 asylum seekers, came ashore at Cikepuh in West Java. A second containing 34 people arrived at Pangandaran on 5 February.[27] The Daily Telegraph reported that the Australian government was believed to have purchased eleven of the capsules from Singapore at a cost of around $500,000.[28] In May 2014, Australia was alleged to have placed two persons who had arrived earlier in the year onto a boat with other asylum seekers which was turned back to Indonesia.[29] In January 2015, Minister Dutton announced that 15 vessels, containing 429 asylum seekers in total, had been subject to turnback operations of some kind towards Indonesia or Sri Lanka since the beginning of OSB.[30]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Keady-Tabbal, Niamh (14 April 2021). ""Pushbacks" as Euphemism". EJIL: Talk!. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  2. ^ a b c "Push-back". www.ecchr.eu. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  3. ^ McDonnell, Emilie (27 September 2021). "Realising the Right to Leave during Externalised Migration Control". EJIL: Talk!. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  4. ^ Markard, Nora (2016). "The Right to Leave by Sea: Legal Limits on EU Migration Control by Third Countries". European Journal of International Law. 27 (3): 591–616. doi:10.1093/ejil/chw034.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference BA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b c d "Setting The Right Priorities: Is the New Pact on Migration and Asylum Addressing The Issue of Pushbacks at EU External Borders?" (PDF). The EU pact on migration and asylum in light of the United Nations global compact on refugees. European University Institute. 2021. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
  7. ^ Washington, John (28 February 2021). ""I Didn't Exist": A Syrian Asylum-Seeker's Case Reframes Migrant Abuses as Enforced Disappearances". The Intercept. Retrieved 2 October 2021.
  8. ^ "Crimes against humanity in the Aegean - Greece". ReliefWeb. Legal Centre Lesvos. 1 Feb 2021. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  9. ^ Kalpouzos, Ioannis (2020). "International Criminal Law and the Violence against Migrants". German Law Journal. 21 (3). Cambridge University Press: 571–597. doi:10.1017/glj.2020.24. ISSN 2071-8322.
  10. ^ Rooney, Rosie; Welander, Marta (22 July 2021). "On its 70th Anniversary, the Refugee Convention Faces Unprecedented Threats Across Europe". Oxford Law Faculty. Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  11. ^ Verseck, Keno (8 February 2021). "How Hungary is violating EU law on refugees". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  12. ^ "European Court of Human Rights: Hungarian Push-backs in breach of prohibition of collective expulsions". Hungarian Helsinki Committee. 8 July 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2021.—case Shahzad v. Hungary - 12625/17, Judgment 8.7.2021 [Section I]
  13. ^ "EU border agency suspends operations in Hungary". POLITICO. 27 January 2021. Retrieved 9 November 2021. [author missing]
  14. ^ Tondo, Lorenzo (5 May 2021). "Revealed: 2,000 refugee deaths linked to illegal EU pushbacks". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  15. ^ "Greece: Violence, lies, and pushbacks - Refugees and migrants still denied safety and asylum at Europe's borders". Amnesty International. 10 August 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  16. ^ "Greek authorities should investigate allegations of pushbacks and ill-treatment of migrants, ensure an enabling environment for NGOs and improve reception conditions". Commissioner for Human Rights. 12 May 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  17. ^ Bashar Deeb, Klaas van Dijken, Steffen Lüdke, Jack Sapoch, Nicole Vögele, Leone Hadavi (June 2020). "Masked men". Lighthouse Reports. Retrieved 4 October 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  18. ^ Bathke, Benjamin (5 May 2021). "Vast majority of pushbacks in southeast Europe involve torture, rights watchdogs say". InfoMigrants. Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  19. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20210725081538/https://helsinki.hu/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/07/PRAB-Report-April-to-June-2021.pdf
  20. ^ "Migrants face expulsion at Polish border under new law". BBC News. 15 October 2021.
  21. ^ a b "EU Commission evasive on Polish/Lithuanian pushbacks". EUobserver. 30 September 2021. [author missing]
  22. ^ "'Legal' pushbacks: Lithuania not alone in EU calling for changes". LRT. 30 September 2021. [author missing]
  23. ^ "Poland illegally pushed migrants back into Belarus, Amnesty Int'l says". Reuters. 30 September 2021. [author missing]
  24. ^ a b Kogovšek Šalamon, Neža (2020). "Global Crimmigration Trends". Causes and Consequences of Migrant Criminalization. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-43732-9_1. ISSN 1534-6781.
  25. ^ "Turkey: Mass Deportations of Syrians". Human Rights Watch. 22 March 2018. Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  26. ^ MacGregor, Marion (11 February 2020). "Turkey accused of torture, pushbacks of migrants on Iran border". InfoMigrants. Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  27. ^ Toohey, Paul (7 February 2014). "Inside the Sovereign Borders Turn-back Lifeboat". news.com.au. Retrieved 12 February 2014.
  28. ^ "Second asylum lifeboat sent back to Indonesia under Operation Sovereign Borders". Daily Telegraph. Australia. 7 February 2014. Retrieved 12 February 2014. [author missing] [dead link]
  29. ^ Farrell, Paul (6 May 2014). "Report of extra asylum seekers put on turn-back boat a 'serious development'". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 May 2014.
  30. ^ Medhora, Shalailah; Doherty, Ben (28 January 2015). "Australia confirms 15 boats carrying 429 asylum seekers have been turned back". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 January 2015.

Further reading

  • Graf, Laura (2021). Pushbacks dokumentieren (in German). transcript Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8394-5753-5.
  • Grover, Sonja C. (2018). "'Pushback' and 'Extraterritorial Collective Migration Control Measures' Imposed on Child Refugee Asylum Seekers". Child Refugee Asylum as a Basic Human Right: Selected Case Law on State Resistance. Springer International Publishing. pp. 71–114. ISBN 978-3-319-78013-9.
  • Vladisavljevic, Anja (19 August 2021). "Courts Chip Away at Migrant 'Pushback' Practices in EU". Balkan Insight.
  • Tekin, Beyza Ç. (2019). "A Reappraisal of EUTurkey Cooperation on Migration Management". Refugee Crises and Migration Policies: From Local to Global. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-7936-0209-1.
  • Moreno-Lax, Violeta (2012). "Hirsi Jamaa and Others v Italy or the Strasbourg Court versus Extraterritorial Migration Control?". Human Rights Law Review. 12 (3): 574–598.
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