The European Council on Refugees and Exiles is an alliance of 126 NGOs protecting & advancing rights of refugees & asylum seekers. RTs & following ≠ endorsement
📰Editorial: The new Commission: Jobs for the boys and bigger jobs for the girls; an unwanted job for Austria
The big news of the rentrée in Brussels is the new Commission
🖋️ECRE director Catherine Woollard
🔗Read it here:
🔴BREAKING: Danish ex-minister convicted in impeachment case over under-age asylum seekers
🇩🇰 Inger Støjberg has been sentenced to a 60-days in prison for illegally separating under-age asylum-seeking couples.
We hope that it will be written in history books that millions of dollars were spent to find the Titanic submarine mission while distress calls of people attempting to reach safety are intentionally met with delayed assistance & non-response tactics causing tragedies.
A Palestinian young man & a father from Gaza named Mahmoud Bakir wrote a poem in February 2021 about why he is fleeing and expecting his death during the journey by sea.
Mahmoud sank today while attempting to reach🇪🇺. He's not anymore among us. Rest in power, Mahmoud!
THREAD (1/10) A Dark Day for Europe: EU asylum reforms agreed
Byzantine in their complexity and Orban-esque in their cruelty to refugees, the reforms are based on false premises:
1. Those arriving do not have protection needs❌
2. Treating people inhumanely is a deterrent❌
"But I can only be ashamed when I think of the thousands of people who drowned in the Mediterranean that we could have saved. It's our European Values that are drowning there. But it would be so easy to save them!" – Thanks to
@ErikMarquardt
for an inspiring speech in the EP
“It's luck that decides where you're born on this planet”
Powerful speech by our MEP
@ErikMarquardt
calling for an end to deaths in the
#Mediterranean
! We'll keep fighting for search and rescue at sea and for safe and legal ways for
#asylumseekers
and
#migrants
to reach Europe.
BREAKING: Great news - Sweden follows Finland and suspends deportations to Afghanistan given the deteriorating security situation - published today by Migrationsverket:
After many calls out to
@Frontex
to use the correct language, the agency has finally responded and abided by international law by replacing 'illegal' with 'irregular' crossings.
👉Nobody is illegal. People in need have the right to seek asylum.
Dear Comms Team of
#Frontex
,
We've repeatedly told you that people have the right to cross international borders to seek asylum as recognised in the 1951 Geneva Convention. Therefore, NOBODY is ILLEGAL.
We hope you correct your loaded language ASAP.
Best,
@ecre
ECRE condemns the UK-Rwanda dodgy deal. Unlawful, inhumane, unworkable, expensive, based on false premises, an attempt to distract from political challenges (anyone for a party?) and so much more. Here, our first read-out on the content – 10 issues to consider:
Naples court finds that returning people rescued at sea to 🇱🇾 is a crime: the Asso28 captain has been sentenced to a year in prison for returning 101 migrants to Tripoli.
"From now on, any civilian ship involved in pushbacks faces trial & conviction."
32 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, 1,800km of walls & fences have been built or are under construction at 🇪🇺 borders.
That's the equivalent of ~12 new Berlin Walls.
@Telegraph
Thread:
Stay Calm, Stay Human - ECRE Statement on 🇬🇷🇹🇷 Border:
ECRE condemns acts of violence against refugees seeking protection at 🇪🇺 borders and further condemns efforts to deny the right to asylum or to expel people....
- via
Today Sean, Mardini and 23 other humanitarians are facing a trial in Greece and might be charged with over 20 years in prison for doing their moral & legal duty: assisting refugees in distress.
Let's all stand in solidarity with them and say no to crackdown on solidarity! ✊
🧵Editorial: Migration Pact Agreement Point by Point
What was agreed? What are the consequences? Where are we now?
ECRE will analyze detailed texts, when available. Meantime, 48 points can already be made on agreement reached yesterday among the 🇪🇺 MS
🔗
The poem reads:
Tell the sea after the news of my death
that I wasn't that thirsty to fill my lungs with his water
that I am only an extremely exhausted man
who suffered all his life long from poverty
who work all day long
to pursue a dignified life for his children
(TBC)
Quote of the day - right on point!
“I am struck by the alarming level of tolerance to serious human rights violations against refugees, asylum seekers & migrants that has developed across Europe”,
@coe
Commissioner for Human Rights,
@Dunja_Mijatovic
🇧🇪: The Mayor of Mechelen has invited Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to come visit and see how his ethnically diverse town gets along. The town of 90,000 people has 20,000 Muslims - more than Hungary & Slovakia combined.
-via
@euobs
BREAKING 🧵:
#ECRE
Reaction: No Majority for Instrumentalisation Regulation
"This demonstrates that, while the right to asylum in 🇪🇺 is under threat, a sizeable group of Member States are ready to step up to defend it".
🔗
I wanted to flee like all poor people
I went to you, sea
to pull me out of the darkness
to take me to a brighter trajectory
You misunderstood me, sea
I told you that I wasn't thirsty
While populists call this day a "historic" day for EU migration and asylum, people with a conscience are noting the horrifying consequences of the
#MigrationPact
that will speed up deportations, expand "safe country concept" and see "solidarity" in building fences and walls.
Today is a dramatic day for the rights of people seeking protection in Europe: a dream of the right-wing populists in the EU coming true. In the negotiations on the
#MigrationPact
, the European Parliament has become the doormat of the Member States.
100+ organisations sign
@ecre
joint statement on the situation at the 🇵🇱-🇧🇾 border, calling for:
▶️ Access to asylum
▶️ Humanitarian access
▶️ Withdrawal of rights-violating laws
▶️ End civil society repression
▶️ Human rights above all
Read & share:
How often do you hear the good guys say "We're gonna get as close to committing crimes against humanity as possible"?
#IllegalMigrationBill
(spoiler: seeking asylum isn't illegal)
🇩🇰 Frontex staff refused orders to drag 33 rescued people outside 🇬🇷 territorial waters and has started to document episodes where 🇬🇷 patrol boats are putting peoples life's at risk
-via
@DRkoncern
:
Dear Comms Team of
#Frontex
,
We've repeatedly told you that people have the right to cross international borders to seek asylum as recognised in the 1951 Geneva Convention. Therefore, NOBODY is ILLEGAL.
We hope you correct your loaded language ASAP.
Best,
@ecre
From the city of love, Paris: Undocumented people are taking to the streets demanding regularisation and protection.
'We are in danger. We are not dangerous' is the main chant raised.
🧵A survivor of
#Pylos
shipwreck shared harrowing details:
➡️Two people died from thirst and hunger on the 4th and 5th days of the journey
➡️On the 4th day, people started drinking from the boat engine's water. On the 5th day, a state of "slow death" was announced
Polish border guard violated law when pushing people back into Belarus, rules Warsaw court in case brought by ECRE member
@SIP_interwencja
via
@notesfrompoland
:
🇬🇷: The Council of State has annulled the geographical restrictions on asylum seekers freedom of movement, imposed on people arriving on islands of Lesvos, Rhodes, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kos. via
#AIDA
Congrats to
@GCRefugees
who brought the action.
🧵
@Europarl_EN
has approved the new Migration and Asylum Pact.
👉We consistently opposed it and will continue to work to promote the rights of refugees and migrants in Europe.
👉Monitoring, guidance, and legal challenges will now be pivotal.
💔Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does.
"They started with the [other] Cameroonian. They threw him in the water. The Ivorian man said: ‘Save me, I don’t want to die…then eventually only his hand was above water, and his body was below."
Far-right leader won Italy's elections. This will have implications on EU migration policy:
➡Weaponizing migrants for political interests;
➡Disagreement between EU &
@GiorgiaMeloni
➡Increase of violence against migrants
➡Fear 4 rise in deaths at sea
➡Hostility towards SAR
EU countries are already hosting >300,000 Ukrainian refugees: soon they will likely host millions.
But if this welcome doesn't extend to people of colour, it's not a welcome worth it's name...
#Breaking
: France to welcome 750 asylum seekers from Greece, including 350 unaccompanied minors - but also announces cooperation on returns...
#LeaveNoOneBehind
-via:
They're happy about signing a "strategic" agreement with the country that
⚫️deported hundreds of migrants to the desert just last week
⚫️left hundreds of people in distress adrift or drowning in the sea without assistance
⚫️triggered racist violence against black migrants
Tunisia just signed a deal with EU on migration, negotiated by the Italian far-right. 150m + 900m to prevent illegal immigration to Europe.
The same country that was deporting migrants to no man’s lands near the borders last week.
"I urge all countries to receive Afghan refugees, and refrain for any deportations" —
#UN
chief
@antonioguterres
at an emergency Security Council meeting on
#Afghanistan
.
For the first time in a 🇬🇷 pushback case,
@ECHR_CEDH
have granted interim measures ordering that a pushback from the Greek islands should not take place.
Yesterday was a bad day for people seeking protection in 🇪🇺 and for Europe's commitment to asylum.
@EU_Commission
proposed measures that weaken asylum rights in an over-reaction to a small number of arrivals at the 🇪🇺-🇧🇾 border.
A 🧵with
@ecre
initial comments.👇
BREAKING 🇬🇷
40 survivors of the
#Pylos
shipwreck file a criminal complaint before the Naval Court of Piraeus.
Survivors demand an effective investigation
Via
@rspaegean
:
Smugglers are not the main perpetrators of violence against migrants according to a UN report.
Guess who is?
(hint: includes security forces, police, military, immigration officers, and border guards)👇
After 3 years of uncertainty, 108 days in detention & many procedural failings by 🇬🇷,
@FrHumanitarians
face trial next month.
They face 25 yrs in prison for saving lives at sea & providing aid to asylum seekers on Lesbos.
RT to call on 🇬🇷:
#dropthecharges
&
#freehumanitarians
!
Following the Melilla tragedy,
#Morocco
sentenced:
🔴13 migrants to 2.5 years in prison on 18 August
🔴14 migrants to 8 months in prison on 5 August
🔴33 migrants to 11 months on 20 July
60 migrants are detained by a country considered a "strategic & committed partner of 🇪🇺"
🇮🇹: Palermo Mayor defies orders from interior minister, Matteo Salvini, to not allow NGO SAR ship w/ 629 on board to dock in Italy. Mayor said "We have always welcomed rescue boats and vessels who saved lives at sea. We will not stop now" via
@guardian
Portugal wants to take 500 of 5000 unaccompanied children from Greek Islands! If other member states would take the same amount per capita, half of the people in camps on 🇬🇷islands could be evacuated from inhumane conditions!🇵🇹
Greece Says It Doesn’t Ditch Migrants at Sea. It Was Caught in the Act
Video evidence shows asylum seekers, among them young children, being rounded up, taken to sea and abandoned on a raft by the Greek Coast Guard
Another horrific video shared by 🇱🇾 border guard from their border with 🇹🇳 to whom the EU paid multi-million euros to "manage migration" & Tunisia chose to collectively deport migrants to a burning desert
#TeamEurope
, the suffering of vulnerable people is facilitated by you!
539 migrants were rescued off Lampedusa yesterday in 'one of the biggest ever rescues': at least 20 people bore scars from torture in Libya 🇱🇾
via
@Independent
:
Q. Are pushbacks legal?
A. NO. Pushbacks violate fundamental rights under 🇪🇺 law, including effective access to an asylum procedure & nonrefoulement.
Yet, 'legalised' pushbacks by 🇱🇹 & 🇵🇱 are on the rise:
🧵ECRE has published its first comments on the EU Pact on Asylum and Migration. More comments on the Pact are going to be published in the next couple of weeks.
To begin with,
🟣Here is everything you ever wanted to know about the Regulation on asylum and migration management
Ursula von der Leyen said in
#SOTEU2023
speech: "Let's show that Europe can manage migration effectively with compassion"
Can anybody find "compassion" in
🤝EU partnerships with abusive 🇱🇾🇹🇳
📑Pact that expands safe third concept & put people in detention
🆘Lack of safe routes
8/ How did we get here?
1. Commission proposed bad legislation
2. Council made it much worse
3. Parliament conceded
Defenders of right to asylum, including ECRE, had little impact
Years of work, 1000s of meetings, 100s pages of analysis: the outcomes are still a chilling read
💥 BREAKING: Europäischer Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte
#EGMR
erteilt Einstweilige Verfügung und stoppt somit von #Österreich für heute geplant
#Abschiebung
nach
#Afghanistan
!
Watsche für
@karlnehammer
, danke an großartige Deserteurs- und Flüchtlingsberatung
#Dessi
!
#Frontex
official on Leggeri resignation: "It was impossible to resist the pressure from PRO-MIGRANT politicians as well as NGOs in Brussels, which were leading the attack on the Leggeri line"... PRO-HUMAN NGOs and politicians please...
👉
Horrific videos continue to come out from the hot boiling desert on the Libyan-Tunisian border, where hundreds of Sub-Saharan migrants were expelled by Tunisian authorities.
And yet,
#TeamEurope
continues to be "proud" of its dodgy deal with the Tunisian president...
Team
@Frontex
,
We're correcting your loaded and incorrect language once again to remind you that crossing international borders to seek asylum is NOT illegal.
Best,
@ecre
Latest from 🇪🇺 external borders:
⬆️The number of detections of irregular border crossings up 18% in the first 8 months of 2023 to 232 350, the highest total for the January-August period since 2016
⬆️The increase was mainly driven by the number of arrivals in the Central
1/ Frontex has had €90m of its 2022 budget frozen untill it makes progress on fundamental rights & financial, recruitment & procurement issues 💸💸
The 🇪🇺 agency is currently subject to 10+ investigations, as well as much scrutiny from NGOs & journalists.
🎊GOOD NEWS:
@EUAsylumAgency
concludes that women and girls are at risk of persecution under the Taliban and, therefore, are in general eligible for refugee status in Europe
🔗
👉Crossing borders to seek asylum are NOT an illegal act.
👉Irregular departures from Egypt is less than 1000.
👉 People in need of protection will always find other ways to seek asylum.
👉EU taxpayers money shouldn't be involved in funding authortrianian regimes.
Illegal migration is one of EU's biggest challenges. The agreement with Egypt to reinforce cooperation is crucial for better relations with North African partners.
Thanks to EPP leadership, Europe addresses people's concerns.
@vonderleyen
We wish for a new year without
❌ Pushbacks
❌ Shipwrecks and deaths
❌More walls and border checks
❌ Criminalisation of people on the move
❌New policies undermining right to protection
Let's continue the fight together to advance and protect refugee rights. See you in 2024!
#BREAKING
: Ombudsman asks EC about fundamental rights in 🇪🇺 agreement with
#Tunisia
➡️Has EC carried out a human rights impact assessment before signing MoU?
➡️Does EC intend to carry out review of the human rights impact during implementation?
🔗
Dear
@BBCNews
,
People fleeing wars, persecution and terror by crossing borders to seek asylum cannot and shouldn't be described as 'crisis'. The 'crisis' is a consequence of political malmanagement.
Best,
@ecre
Remember the migrant women who got shot "accidentally" on 19 April by police the day Frontex 🇲🇰🇬🇷 started❓
Her name is Fatma and was an asylum seeker. She was a volunteer at
@samosvolunteers
.
🔴Let's NEVER forget that police brutality and crackdown on migrants killed her.
At least 24 dead after migrant boat sinks off Tunisia:
🏴We mourn the lives swallowed by the sea
🏴We mourn the dreams that got wiped away
🏴We mourn the hope that was taken away
🏴We mourn their loss with their griefing beloved ones
❗️ New shocking report on a
#pushback
from
#Greece
13 people were forcibly removed from a refugee camp on
#Lesvos
on 17 Feb under the pretext of being tested for COVID. They were locked in an isobox, beaten with batons and forced into the sea on an inflatable life raft
⚠️ Small children left drifting in life rafts! ⚠️
13 people were forcibly removed from a
#refugee
camp on
#Lesvos
on 17 Feb. They were forced into an isobox, beaten with batons and forced into the sea on an inflatable life raft.
For all details, see
‼️ BREAKING
Dopo 7 anni di indagini, la nave civile
#Iuventa
sequestrata e lasciata marcire, 24 vite in ostaggio, a
#Trapani
la maxi montatura giudiziaria contro il soccorso civile in mare finisce nell'ennesima bolla di sapone: TUTTƏ PROSCIOLTƏ perché "il fatto non sussiste."
👏👏Expert Council on NGO Law urges 🇮🇹 to REVOKE SAR decree:
"until adequate & effective steps are taken to ensure that migrants’ lives are not being put at risk by the inability of search and rescue NGOs to work effectively".
Via
@CoE_NGO
:
Wondering if the terrorisation of asylum seekers on the border of Tunisia are the "results" and "respect for human rights"
@ManfredWeber
want to see from EU-Tunisia deal‼️
🔴The video from
#Tunisia
is infuriating!
Helicopters brutally terrorizing
#refugees
is inhumane.
it is chilling evidence of the escalating border violence we've been warning about.
#Europe
's sponsorship of this terror is an absolute disgrace.
#StopBorderViolence
Leaked figures show UK has granted asylum to dozens of Rwandans
"While we are told Rwanda is safe for all, the Home Office recognises that it is not safe for all Rwandans"
🔗
What is "illegal migration"❓ Is it people crossing international borders to seek asylum❓
We hope that the council addressed ongoing tragedies along EU borders.
Agreement!
The European Council delivered on our priorities.
Supporting Ukraine.
Fighting illegal migration.
Supporting European competitiveness.
A good day for Europe.
Fortress Europe spends millions on military tech to prevent people seeking safety. 💰🇪🇺
Is this a normal response to humanitarian crises & people fleeing persecution?
@guardian
on scary new methods to track, deter & repel refugees:
The PACT is OUT!
Now negotiations start and it is time to remind European politicians to play by the rules and ensure human rights compliance – after all… its
#HardlyRocketScience
See the Pact:
9/ What next?
Work to defend the right to asylum continues:
- Analysis of the legislation
- Advocacy for the least damaging interpretation
- Support to implementation in line with international and EU law
- A return to compliance
- Use of the courts
New CJEU ruling: threatening people who assist asylum-seekers to claim asylum with imprisonment violates EU norms👩⚖️
Today, the court found Hungary's 2018 ‘Stop Soros’ law breaches EU law, after the European Commission took 🇭🇺 to court. 👏👏
@hhc_helsinki
🔴
#Italy
failed to protect the right to life of more than 200 migrants who were on board a vessel that shipwrecked in the
#Mediterranean
in October in 2013, the UN Human Rights Committee has found
👇
Mass Killings of Migrants at Yemen Border
Saudi border guards have killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants & asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023.
FINALLY A REACTION!
🇩🇪 end training of the so-called Libyan Coast Guard!
“cannot currently justify the training... in view repeated unacceptable behavior" towards migrants and NGOs via
@APNews
:
Reasons why the EU should STOP considering Turkey a safe third country for refugees:
💡Rising Xenophobia in 🇹🇷
💡Arrests
💡Detention
💡Beatings and Ill-Treatment
💡Forced to Sign “Voluntary Return” Forms
💡Deportations
Read more
@hrw
report:
On
#InternationalWomensDay
, we would like to remind 🇪🇺 and member states that displaced women & young girls face different forms of violence and abuse at EU borders, lands and seas
(THREAD)
"The EU has completely abdicated human rights obligations. The paradigm is to keep migrants out of sight, making sure they don't come to Europe at any cost"
➡️Around sunset, a Greek military ship with masked people wearing black approached, towed them with only one blue robe & increased their ship's speed
➡️That was when the ship capsized. People started shouting as they sink. People on the Greek military ship were just watching
Remember this picture of
#Pylos
shipwreck❓It's outrageous that a wall continues to separate a survivor and his brother, depriving them of hugging and comforting eachother, and crying together.
Let's keep in mind that this wall is a representation of fortress Europe policies.
Human Rights Compliance –
#HardlyRocketScience
BUT… The scenarios envisioned in the European Pact on Migration and Asylum is another story altogether. Here the procedural labyrinth facing an asylum seeker arriving through regular channels:
🔴3 Dutch NGOs are suing the Dutch govt. over the Turkey- EU migration deal
🔴“As a result of this disastrous deal … thousands of asylum seekers were stuck on the Greek islands in appalling conditions in camps and closed reception centres”
@amnestynl
⚠️Two photojournalist documenting migrant crossings at the French-Italian border were detained by French police, had to spend the night in a cell and were questioned twice before being released the next morning.
Coverage of
#pushbacks
from 🇫🇷 not welcome?
While an unprecedented crisis is unfolding in Europe, the global displacement crisis in ongoing.
A short🧵with 3 other refugee-producing crises we must not forget: 🇦🇫 🇸🇾 🇾🇪
👏Strong words from Pope Francis, on collision course with 🇮🇹s upcoming right-wing government.
"The exclusion of migrants is scandalous. Indeed, the exclusion of migrants is criminal. It makes them die in front of us".
Via
@Reuters
:
🚨A sunny afternoon in Brussels but another dark day for the future of asylum in Europe.
🔴We're obviously very disappointed by today's results, but grateful to the MEPs who abstained or voted against the pact.
🔴Want to know what will change? See our previous comments👇
THREAD (1/10) A Dark Day for Europe: EU asylum reforms agreed
Byzantine in their complexity and Orban-esque in their cruelty to refugees, the reforms are based on false premises:
1. Those arriving do not have protection needs❌
2. Treating people inhumanely is a deterrent❌
Joint Statement: The Pact on Migration and Asylum: to provide a fresh start and avoid past mistakes, risky elements need to be addressed and positive aspects need to be expanded
#HardlyRocketScience
Read statement signed by +70 org:
Over 22,500 "Illegal Border Crossings" Detected at EU External Borders in March via
@schengen_info
:
Dear
@schengen_info
,
It's not "illegal" to cross borders to seek asylum. Kindly check your fact & correct your terms.
Best,
@ecre
Questions!
1⃣How bad is it when you see this reaction from a
#Libyan
border guard?
2⃣What kind of regime deports a baby to a 50 degree hot desert without water?
3⃣Why is this
#Tunisian
regime legitimized & funded by 🇪🇺?
Natürlich hat Libyen eigene Probleme. Aber hier fragt zu Recht der libysche Grenzer, warum Migranten, darunter ein 3 Monate altes Baby, in die 50°-Hitze an der libysch-tunesischen Grenze abgeschoben werden. „Eine Schande für Tunis und die Welt“, sagt er.