After the catastrophic fire in Moria which left thousands of refugees homeless and unprotected, the relocation of people to safety is now more urgent than ever.  SolidarityNow, together with other organisations, calls on the governments of EU Member States, to urgently relocate displaced individuals from Greece to their territory. The recent relocation of unaccompanied children from the Greekisland hotspots to other countries shows that there where there is a will there is a way.

Read our statement below:

Urgent Call to Action from Civil Society Organisations across Europe

 MORIA FIRES: European Governments must urgently relocate displaced individuals

from Greece

Over the past days devastating fires burnt down the Moria Registration and Identification

Center and surrounding areas, the EU Hotspot on the Greek island Lesvos. The fires have left

thousands of vulnerable individuals homeless and traumatised, among them over 4,000

children.  The undersigned organisations reiterate their call on the governments of EU Member

States, with support from the European Commission, to urgently relocate displaced

individuals from Greece.

While we are shocked and saddened at these developments, they come as no surprise.

Lesvos and the other EU Hotspots on the Aegean islands have reached breaking point long

ago. Moria camp is currently hosting roughly 12-13,000 displaced individuals, with an official

capacity of only 2,800. These severely overcrowded camps are characterised by squalid living

conditions and a severe lack of adequate sanitation or hygiene facilities, even amid the

heightened health risks due to Covid-19.vii The situation in the other Greek Hotspots is similarly

untenable and repeated warnings have remained unanswered for over four years.

Relocation urgently needed

We welcome the transfer of 406 unaccompanied children from Lesvos to the Greek mainland,

with financial support from the European Commission.

This demonstrates how swiftly transfers can be co-ordinated when the political will exists. We commend the Norwegian and Dutch governments’ commitments to relocating 50x and 100 individuals respectively, as well as the French and German governments’ willingness to transfer 400 children. We urge further European governments to follow with concrete commitments and action without delay.

The positive example set by relocations carried out by the coalition of willing Member States

since March 2020xiii shows that relocations can be carried out safely and successfully for

everyone involved. Member States, EU institutions, relevant EU and UN agencies with support

from civil society should now share experiences, expertise and resources to ensure further

states join the coalition. The undersigned organisations stand ready to support these efforts,

to bring the men, women and children stranded in Greece to safety, and thereby uphold our

European values of human rights and human dignity.

The EU Hotspots as an EU Migration Management Approach

The latest events prove once again the failure of the Hotspots as the default EU migration

management approach. We call on the European Parliament to investigate the role that the

EU and Member States played in the failed management of Moria. Moreover, we urge the

European Commission, the German EU Council Presidency and Member States to treat the

horrifying images of Moria burning as unequivocal proof of the tragic human cost of an EU

asylum and migration system based on containment and deterrence policies. We strongly

recommend the European Commission to take these events into account with a view to the

New Pact on Migration and Asylum, and ensure the same policies do not inform the extremely

concerning proposals for ‘processing centres’ at EU borders. It is vital that the New Pact is

taken as an opportunity to present a new start rather than a replication of past errors.

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Signed by:

• Action Aid Hellas (Faces of Migration partner)
• Ambrela Slovakia (Faces of Migration partner)
• ASGI
• Better Days
• BPID Bulgaria (Faces of Migration partner)
• Caritas Europa
• Caritas Hellas
• Caritas Slovakia
• Češi Pomáhají (Czech Republic)
• Child Circle
• Consortium of Migrants Assissting NGOs (Czech Republic)
• COSPE Onlus
• Danish Refugee Council (DRC)
• Defence for Children International
• Defence for Children International – Belgium
• Defence for Children International – Greece
• Defence for Children International – Italia
• Defence for Children – The Netherlands
• Destination Unknown
• Diaconia ECCB (Faces of Migration partner)
• Diakonie Austria
• Dutch Council for Refugees
• Dynamo International – Street Workers Network
• Echo100Plus
• Eurochild
• Eurodiaconia
• Europe Must Act
• European Lawyers in Lesvos
• European Network on Statelessness
• Fenix Humanitarian Legal Aid
• FOCSIV – Italian Federation of Christian NGOs Italy (Faces of Migration partner)
• Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) (Faces of Migration partner)
• Greek Council for Refugees (GCR)
• Help Refugees
• Human Rights League Slovakia
• ICMC Europe
• Immigrant Council of Ireland
• International Child Development Initiatives (NL)
• International Rescue Committee (IRC)
• INTERSOS
• Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)
• Kopin
• Lighthouse Relief (LHR)
• LUMOS Foundation
• Mareena Country Slovakia
• Médecins du Monde Belgique
• Médecins du Monde – France
• Minority Rights Group International
• Missing Children Europe
• Mokosha NGO Centre
• Movimento per l’Autosviluppo, l’Interscambio e la Solidarietà (MAIS) (Italy)
• Nadácia Milana Šimečku (Slovakia)
• Network for Children’s Rights (Greece)
• One Happy Family Lesvos
• Organization Mondiale pour l’Éducation Préscolaire/ World Organization for Early Childhood
• Education
• Oxfam
• PAX
• Pax Christi Vlaanderen
• PICUM
• Plate-Forme Mineurs en Exil – Platform Kinderen op de Vlucht
• Plataforma Portuguesa das ONGD – Portuguese NGDO Platform
• Povod Slovenia (Faces of Migration partner)
• Refugee Legal Support (RLS)
• Refugee Rights Europe
• Refugee Youth Service
• Slovak Humanitarian Council PRAKIS
• Solidarity Now
• SOS Villages Greece
• Still I Rise
• Terre des Hommes Hellas
• Terre des Hommes International Federation
• Velos Youth
• Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen
• Women’s Refugee Commission

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References

i Al Jazeera, 9 September 2020

ii CNN, 9 September 2020

iii UNCHR and Council of Europe, 9 September 2020

iv Together with relevant EU and UN agencies and in cooperation with civil society organisations.

v UNHCR, 31 August 2018

vi Amnesty International, 6 December 2018 ; see also: Call to Action by Civil society organisations, March 2020

vii MSF, 30 July 2020

viii HRW, 19 March 2016

ix Ekathimerini, 9 September 2020

x Dpa-international, 9 September 2020

xi NLTimes.NL, 11 September 2020

xii France 24, 10 Septembre 2020

xiii European Commission, 15 April 2020 ; PubAffairsBruxelles, 8 July 2020

xiv MSF, 11 March 2020

The first COVID-19 case was identified earlier last week in Moria, spiraling concerns about the health and safety of the overcrowded Reception Center’s population. According to media reports,^[i] the 40-year old refugee left Lesvos on 17 July, after being requested to exit the Center, and as per his right to move went to Athens. Unable to remain in the city, where refugees are at increased risk of homelessness and destitution, due to the lack of an integration policy, in late August he returned to Moria, so as to reportedly secure some food and shelter.^[ii]

The chronic lack of integration measures, coupled with complicated administrative barriers, put many refugees in Greece in the same position. Forced to leave hosting facilities, after receiving a positive asylum decision, many refugees end up homeless, frequently in Athenian squares, and are thus forced to choose to return to places like Moria.

Taking into consideration the press release issued by the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum following the incident,^[iii] as well as the deteriorating situation for recognized refugees in Greece, we, the undersigned civil society organisations, once more stress the following concerns about the inhuman treatment of asylum seekers and refugees and the violation of their rights:

• The Moria Center, which can host 2,800 people, currently hosts more than 12.000 asylum seekers and refugees. The Center’s residents, including more than 4,000 children, remain in highly crammed conditions, while more than half live in tents and makeshift shelters in the olive grove, outside the Center. They lack the means to safeguard their health, as no relevant provisions have been implemented by the state either before^[iv] or during the lockdown under which the facility has been for the past six months. Therefore the Ministry’s announcement that the Center will be put in quarantine neither solves nor answers health concerns and chronic problems. It rather further undermines asylum seekers’ fragile (mental and physical) health, while exposing them to an increased risk of Covid- 19.^[v]
• The announcement that the facility’s surveillance will be enhanced, through an increased police presence, bears no consequences for the spread of the virus and does not guarantee the safety of refugees or employees. Instead it leads to unequal access to fundamental human rights (health, protection, hygiene, etc.), posing grave danger for their lives.
• The Ministry promotes the construction of “Closed-Controlled” refugee Centres as a “one-size-fits-all” solution. Linking the creation of these Centres with limiting the spread of COVID-19 is ungrounded and amounts to instrumentalising the pandemic to solidify detention and stricter restrictions on asylum seekers as policy tools. As noted by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control,^[vi] “[w]hilst there is no evidence to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 transmission is higher amongst migrants and refugees, environmental factors such as overcrowding in reception and detention centres may increase their exposure to the disease. Outbreaks in reception and detention centres can also spread quickly in the absence of adequate prevention measures.”

• The highly publicized “decongestion” process of the islands, which has largely amounted to refugees being requested to exit the island camps, without the means to survive, has already proven its inadequacy, intensifying social dumping and exclusion. The starkest examples of this failed policy are the hundreds of people, including mothers with infants, survivors of gender-based violence and families with children, desperately seeking shelter in public spaces in Athens and other mainland/island cities (e.g. Leros and Kos), without state support for even food and water. The 40-year-old refugee who returned to the horrendous conditions in Moria is just one indicative example, vividly depicting the current policy’s effects, while underlining the need for concerted actions at the EU level, based on the principle of responsibility-sharing.

The protection of refugees is an absolute necessity for an effective COVID-19 response in Greece. This should include increased protective measures, the evacuation of the population at high risk from overcrowded facilities

and their transfer to safe and adequate accommodation.

Yet it needs to be fully understood that the only comprehensive, human-rights-compliant and long-term solution is the implementation of a concrete and sustainable integration policy in Greece, and a genuine responsibility sharing mechanism in the EU that will include a strong commitment to relocation on the basis of intra-EU solidarity.

Signatories

ACTION FOR EDUCATION

ARE YOU SERIOUS

DIOTIMA – CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON WOMEN’S ISSUES

ECHO100PLUS

ELIX

FENIX – HUMANITARIAN LEGAL AID

GREEK COUNCIL FOR REFUGEES (GCR)

HELLENIC LEAGUE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

HELP REFUGEES

HIAS HELLAS

INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE

INTERSOS HELLAS

LEGAL CENTER LESVOS

LESVOS SOLIDARITY

MELISSA

MOBILE INFO TEAM (MIT)

REFUGEE LEGAL SUPPORT (RLS)

SOLIDARITYNOW

SYMBIOSIS – SCHOOL OF POLITICAL STUDIES IN GREECE

TERRE DES HOMME HELLAS

^[i] Kathimerini, “Moria in quarantine after first coronavirus case”, 2 September 2020, https://www.kathimerini.gr/society/1094269/se-karantina-i-moria-meta-to-proto-kroysma-koronoioy/.

^[ii] Skai, “Alarm in Moria: First coronavirus case in the facility”, 2 September 2020, https://www.skai.gr/news/greece/synagermos-sti-moria-proto-krousma-koronoiou-sti-domi.

^[iii] Ministry of Migration and Asylum, “Positive coronavirus case at Moria RIC – Medical quarantine of the facility”, 2 September 2020, https://migration.gov.gr/thetiko-kroysma-sto-kyt-morias/.

^[iv] For instance, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, Greece must urgently transfer asylum seekers from the Aegean islands and improve living conditions in reception facilities, ATHENS 31/10/2019, https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/-/greece-must-urgently-transfer-asylum-seekers-from-the-aegean-islands-and-improve-living-conditions-in-reception-facilities.

^[v] MsF, Greek police enforce unwarranted and cruel quarantine of Moria camp on Lesbos, 3 September 2020, https://www.msf.org/greek-police-enforce-unwarranted-and-cruel-quarantine-moria-camp.

^[vi] ECDC, Guidance on infection prevention and control of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in migrant and refugee reception and detention centres in the EU/EEA and the United Kingdom, 15 June 2020, https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/COVID-19-%20guidance-refugee-asylum-seekers-migrants-EU.pdf

Sorry, this entry is only available in Ελληνικά.

by Salma Mohamed,

Intern at the Advocacy Unit, SolidarityNow 

The killing of George Floyd, a black man detained for allegedly using a counterfeit bill, by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, impelled by the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, led to protests of widespread, systemic, and historic racial inequities across the world. Many of these inequities are produced by reincarnations of centuries-old practices. Coded rhetoric and de facto discriminatory legal customs have permitted and promoted state-sanctioned racial inequality in the 21st century with near impunity. While the United States is a pernicious and well-known perpetrator of this practice, the European Union, although it claims otherwise, has employed very similar techniques to oppress people of color.

On May 25th, 2020, Minneapolis police responded to a call reporting the use of a counterfeit $20 bill. Upon arriving at the scene, Officer Thomas Lane approaches George Floyd, a 46-year-old Minneapolis resident, proceeds to draw his weapon, and instructs him to show his hands. Officer Lane then grabs Mr. Floyd and pulls him out of the car, at which point Mr. Floyd resists arrest. After being handcuffed, Mr. Floyd ceased resisting and began apologizing to the officers several times. Then, the officers attempt to place Mr. Floyd in their police vehicle. Mr. Floyd proceeds to fall and states that he is claustrophobic. As they continue to attempt to place him in the vehicle, Officer Derek Chauvin pulls Mr. Floyd, who, as a result, falls to the ground again. As the handcuffed Mr. Floyd is face down on the floor, Officer Chauvin proceeds to place his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck. Officer Chauvin keeps his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for a total of 8 minutes and 46 seconds, during which, according to bystander-captured videos and court records, Mr. Floyd exclaimed more than 20 times that he could not breathe, said “you’re going to kill me, man,” and called out for his mother. About 6 minutes into Officer Chauvin placing his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck, Mr. Floyd became unresponsive. Despite this, Officer Chauvin did not remove his knee off the motionless Mr. Floyd for almost three more minutes. An hour later, Mr. Floyd was pronounced dead.

In the United States, black people are 3 times more likely to be killed by police compared to white people despite being 1.3 times more likely to be unarmed according to Mapping Police Violence.

The tragic killing of Mr. Floyd, Breonna Taylor (an unarmed black woman who was shot at least eight times and killed inside her own apartment by police), and Ahmaud Arbery (an unarmed black man who was shot and killed by a white ex-police officer while jogging), along with COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on people of color, primarily because of underlying disparities in healthcare, housing, and accessibility, impelled protests across the U.S. and then the world.

While much of what is happening in the U.S., especially under the Trump administration is unprecedented, the U.S. has a heinous history of racial violence and inequality. Many of the issues plaguing people of color today, as numerous scholars have argued, are morphed from centuries-old ideologies and practices to become more acceptable to modern ears. While these contemporary customs claim racial neutrality or justify discrepancies by erroneously shifting blame onto people of color, in effect, they are often anything but neutral.

Ideologies such as “law and order,” used by American presidents, and other politicians, instill a sense of fear and allow government officials to use the infamous pretext of national security to infringe on civil rights and liberties of marginalized communities; these infringements go virtually unpunished. This has allowed, and continues to allow, law enforcement sweeping authority, in essence, licensing police harassment and murder of people of color under the guise of racial neutrality, as evidenced by the war on drugs and stop-and-frisk laws in the U.S.

The U.S., in particular, does have a unique and pervasive history of racism, but, contrary to the assertion of Margaritas Schinas, a European Commission vice-president, the E.U. is also guilty of using covert tactics to maintain and promulgate systems of racial violence and disparity. In the wake of global race protests, Mr. Schinas discounts the existence of police brutality and systemic racism in the E.U. in an attempt to distance it from the U.S.

The mysterious death of Adama Traoré, a black man, who was in French custody, in 2016, and the more recent shooting of Muhammad Gulzar, a Pakistani man, at the Greek-Turkey border, in March of this year, are just two examples of racial violence in the E.U. Νumerous studies have found that racial and ethnic minorities are not only more likely to be stopped by police in the E.U. but also, as a United Kingdom report found, more than twice as likely to die in custody as a result of police force in the U.K.

The killing of George Floyd has raised a magnifying glass to the actions of states and state actors, depicting the repetitive use of concealed tactics to obfuscate the disproportionate treatment of people of color. Under the auspices of racial neutrality, governments get away with perpetrating various human rights violations, many of which have been transpiring for centuries. As such, while convicting the officers involved in the killing of George Floyd is a step in the right direction, we need to reconfigure our law enforcement systems and recognize the pervasive use of rhetoric to gaslight people of color around the world.