An inflatable boat appeared at 6 o’ clock in the morning in the sea area off Archangelos on the island of Rhodes. Immediate was the reaction of the Greek Coast Guard that sent a vessel to check what was going on. The ten people on board were neither refugees nor migrants.
They were Turkish citizens fleeing Erdogan’s purge against Gulenists. A total ten people, two couples with their six children – seeking safety in the neighboring country.
The two fathers told Greek authorities that they were civilians working in the private sector in Turkey. Immediately afterwards they added that they were seeking asylum in Greece.
For one more time, this incident set guards at the Greek-Turkish borders on alert. Turkish citizens fleeing Erdogan’s regime is a nightmare for Greece that wants to avoid diplomatic pressure from its neighbor on this issue, especially as the refugees and migrants flow to Greece increase or decrease depending on Turkey’s interests.
On Wednesday, during a meeting between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in New York, the latter raised the issue of the extradition of 8 Turkish military officers right after the official handshake. Tsipras reportedly replied that those involved in the coup “are generally not welcome in Greece.”
Last week, a special meeting on Turkish citizens fleeing to Greece took place in the Greek Ministry for Public Order.
However, the situation looks grim in Turkey with more than 100,000 people to have been purged from state bodies, nearly 43,000 detained and 23,500 arrested since the coup attempt on July 15th. Arrestees include journalists, judges, prosecutors, police and military officers, academics, governors and even a comedian.
On September 16th, a public prosecutor was found to hanged in the bathroom of a prison. According to officials, he had committed suicide. 47-year-old Seyfettin Yiğit, was put behind bars over alleged ties with the Gülen movement. Yigit was a member of a group of prosecutors investigating corruption implications of then-Prime Minister Erdogan’s family in December 2013.
It was exactly this investigation that broke the ties between Erdogan and his former mentor Fetullah Gulen.
“An asylum-seeker is someone whose request for sanctuary has yet to be processed. Every year, around one million people seek asylum.”
The above is a statement of the UNHCR. It then continues to explain that asylum seekers seek refuge ie refugee status.
I realise that the EU has a pact with Turkey ( a dubious pact in my opinion) but the Greek government ought to comply with international law in this instance rather than EU rules that must take secondary place, surely.
The behaviour o the Greek government in this case has nothing to do with the illegal pact agreed with Turkey. It is related to the attempt by the European Commission to deny the right of asylum to a whole range of Balkan non-EU countries — defined as safe countries of origin. This stupid policy comes from the abuse of asylum applications by thousands of Albanians etc going to Germany. However, it will not be accepted by the courts.
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An addititional problem is that there is a potential conflict between seeking asylum when your home country has issued an arrest warrant for alleged crimes. Then, it becomes a political decision as much as a legal one — anything involving politicians is guaranteed to be fucked up. Not that the Greek courts are a lot better…