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In an interview with FAZ, #Frontex Director Fabrice Leggeri claims that asylum seekers in the Aegean turn around voluntarily as soon as they see the Greek Coast Guard. (He thus accepts the Greek Government's lie and makes it his own.) Short thread.
Leggeri says the migrants do so because many of them "come from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. These people return because they know they are not entitled to international protection."
(Almost a minor note on this: Apparently the Frontex Director does not know about or acknowledge the need for an individual procedure to determine if people from those countries are entitled to protection.)
The bigger point: It's not true
The bigger point: It's not true
In fact, Frontex stops migrants, hands them over to the Hellenic Coast Guard. The border guards often destroy the engine of the dinghy, sometimes use more violence. Then they put them on inflatable life rafts or back on the dinghy, tow them to Turkish waters, leave them adrift.
No, this is not turning around voluntarily. This is also not inviting a boat to change its course which is no excuse to withhold the right of people in Greek waters to ask for asylum anyways. Those actions are illegal pushbacks. There are videos. https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/pushbacks-im-mittelmeer-wie-frontex-in-verbrechen-verstrickt-ist-a-998c58aa-4015-4fd7-a05e-40b850b13d95
This is just one of many issues with his interview in FAZ. The director of Europe's biggest agency is actively working to undermine the right to asylum.
Our latest investigation shows, among many other things, that Leggeri himself closed down an investigation into a case from April 18th/19th. This case was a clear pushback, he knew, accepted lame excuses, did not inform/misinformed European parliament. https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/missteps-and-mismanagement-at-frontex-scandals-plunge-europe-s-border-agency-into-turmoil-a-d11ae404-5fd4-41a7-b127-eca47a00753f
Our initial investigation in October that showed Frontex' complicity with the systematic pushbacks for the first time. (Including verified videos.) https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/eu-border-agency-frontex-complicit-in-greek-refugee-pushback-campaign-a-4b6cba29-35a3-4d8c-a49f-a12daad450d7
Before that we had documented in detail how the Greek pushback campaign works. By now, there is zero doubt. Here is the initial investigation. https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/videos-and-eyewitness-accounts-greece-apparently-abandoning-refugees-at-sea-a-84c06c61-7f11-4e83-ae70-3905017b49d5
