{"id":12811,"date":"2022-03-01T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/?p=12811"},"modified":"2022-02-28T15:41:41","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T13:41:41","slug":"turkey-safe-third-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/turkey-safe-third-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Greece arbitrarily deems Turkey a \u201csafe third country\u201d in flagrant violation of rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Greece arbitrarily deems Turkey a \u201csafe third country\u201d in flagrant violation of rights<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Greece arbitrarily deems Turkey a \u201csafe third country\u201d in flagrant violation of rights<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Athens\/Frankfurt-am-Main, 01-03-2022:<\/strong> Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) and PRO ASYL call upon the European Commission to immediately launch infringement proceedings against Greece regarding systemic violations of international and EU law, stemming from the arbitrary rejection of asylum applications based on the \u201csafe third country\u201d concept and from the prevention of refugees\u2019 access to asylum procedures.<\/p>

Despite the competent authorities\u2019 official acknowledgment of the demonstrable impossibility to carry out readmissions to Turkey for four years under the Bilateral Readmission Protocol and two years under the EU-Turkey Statement, Greece channels all nationals of Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh throughout the territory into the \u201csafe third country\u201d concept pursuant to Joint Ministerial Decision 42799\/2021 setting out a national list of safe third countries. This has resulted in a sharp increase of dismissals of asylum applications as inadmissible.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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A complaint lodged today with the European Commission alleges systemic breaches of a series of EU law provisions such as Articles 1 and 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, Articles 6(1), 24(3), 38(4) and 46(3) of the Asylum Procedures Directive, Article 4(3) of the Qualification Directive and Article 14 of the Return Directive.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead the story of Khaled\u200b* and the complaint<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The story of Khaled* & the complaint to the European Commission<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The story of Khaled* & the complaint to the European Commission<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Upon entry into Turkey, Khaled was repeatedly pushed back by the Turkish authorities to Syria. He also faced threats to his life and liberty and suffered from inhuman and degrading treatment and detention conditions by the Turkish authorities. Khaled arrived in Greece in August 2019 but his asylum application was only registered in August 2020. His claim was dismissed at first and second instance in application of the \u201csafe third country\u201d concept.<\/p>

As soon as the second-instance negative decision of the Appeals Committee was notified to him in February 2021, Khaled was placed in detention in the pre-removal centre of Kos for more than two months, without his readmission to Turkey being possible and without the authorities\u2019 taking any measures to carry it out. At the end of March, he lodged a subsequent asylum application, processed again in the border procedure and dismissed as inadmissible by the Regional Asylum Office of Kos on the ground that Turkey was a \u201csafe third country\u201d for him.<\/p>

Khaled appealed the rejection of his subsequent application. He explicitly stated that his readmission to Turkey was objectively impossible, on the one hand, and would contravene the principle of non-refoulement<\/i> on the other. He therefore stressed that his application should be examined on its merits in line with Article 38(4) of the Asylum Procedures Directive. Pending the outcome of the appeal, Khaled had already been released and transferred to Athens after his geographical restriction on the island of Kos had been lifted.<\/p>

Nevertheless, the Appeals Committee dismissed the new appeal and ordered anew his readmission to Turkey, fully disregarding his statements relating to Article 38(4) of the Directive. The decision of the Committee was notified to him in Athens in February 2022. Khaled has lodged an application for judicial review of the decision at the Administrative Court of Athens, which has not yet been examined.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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In today\u2019s complaint before the European Commission, Khaled raises systemic violations by Greece of a series of EU law provisions such as Articles 1 and 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, Articles 6(1), 24(3), 38(4) and 46(3) of the Asylum Procedures Directive, Article 4(3) of the Qualification Directive and Article 14 of the Return Directive.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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* Names have been changed for safety reasons<\/small><\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) and PRO ASYL call upon the European Commission to immediately launch infringement proceedings against Greece regarding systemic violations of international and EU law, stemming from the arbitrary rejection of asylum applications based on the \u201csafe third country\u201d concept and from the prevention of refugees\u2019 access to asylum procedures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":12832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,138,6,5,137],"tags":[284,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-12811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-legal-and-case-analysis","8":"category-eu-turkey-statement","9":"category-press-releases","10":"category-publications","11":"category-topics","12":"tag-284","13":"tag-featured"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12811"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12860,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12811\/revisions\/12860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}