CoE Anti-torture Committee: Violent Pushbacks Continue on Europe’s Borders

Migrants stand outside a tent at Vucjak refugee camp outside Bihac, northwest Bosnia, 4 December 2019.  Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR

"The CPT has identified … clear patterns of physical ill-treatment deployed against foreign nationals in the context of pushback operations across Council of Europe member states' borders. These consist primarily of foreign nationals being beaten upon their apprehension or at the time of their pushback - punches, slaps, blows with truncheons, other hard objects or non-standard items (such as barrels of automatic weapons, wooden sticks or the branches of trees) - by police or border guards, members of the coast guard, or other law enforcement officials," the report wrote.

The CPT report is based on official visits to Council of Europe member countries and interviews.

The CPT added that it has examined pushback practices along all the main migratory routes towards Europe, namely the so-called Western Balkan route, Western Mediterranean, Central Mediterranean and Eastern Mediterranean routes as well as, more recently, the Eastern Borders route.

Foreign nationals experiencing pushbacks faced numerous forms of inhuman and degrading treatment according to the CPT.

They include firing bullets close to the persons' bodies while they lay on the ground, pushing them into rivers (sometimes with their hands still tied), removal of their clothes and shoes and forcing them to walk barefoot and/or in their underwear and, in some cases, even fully naked across the border.

"The use of unmuzzled dogs to threaten or even chase foreign nationals, seizure and destruction of property, and deprivation of food and water for prolonged periods were frequently reported. These and other actions were generally perceived by the...

Continue reading on: