Honorable Prime Minister,
Dear Alexis,
We have never met but allow me to address this letter on a non formal note, since I feel intimate with a person whom I have heard speaking so many times, with emphasis on something so important as the human rights. Last week, I was in Idomeni and once again I feel shame with all I have seen. Women, children, infants, persons on wheel chairs deep in the mud and in despair. They endure everything expecting some good news from Brussels. Last week, to begin with, together with the rest of the European leaders, you signed a dangerous and illegal agreement regarding refugees’ rights. We have been informed that refugees and asylum seekers will be returned to Turkey from Greece and they will be swapped with others, in a plan to relocate them in the EU. But what kind of trade is this, at the expense of refugees?
I absolutely agree that the response to the refugee crisis has to be European and that the help to Greece must be substantial economically and technically, with large scale relocation and fair distribution of responsibility. Besides, the organization which I am representing is leading the efforts to these demands from the EU. The agreement, however which you signed on the 7th of March, constitutes a terrible blow to the asylum system. A system which we have built with hard work and pride, as an international and European community, in order to protect some of the most suffering human beings. This blow in fact comes during the most critical times: when these people are frightened and desperate, with their kids in their arms, knocking on our door and asking us to protect them from war crimes that take away from them everything they love. What will our response be to this human tragedy?
Dear Alexis,
We cannot send back to Turkey human beings when we know in advance that they will not be safe there. Turkey is not a safe state, not even for its own citizens. Iraqis and Afghans, along with Syrians sum up almost for 90% of the arrivals in Greece. Sending them back to Turkey, while knowing that their request for international protection will probably never be heard, proves that European Union allegations’ regarding the respect of refugees’ human rights are only empty words. A family from Syria, for instance, is probably going to be sent back to Syria where they may be wiped out by a barrel bomb, or explosives, or snipers or a targeted attack to a hospital. Will this agreement bear the signature of the Prime Minister of Greece?
Personally, I am confident, along with thousands of our fellow citizens, who, during the past year have struggled to ease the pain and the suffering of the refugees with self-sacrifice, and we will be looking forward to your answer on the European Council chamber on 17th and 18th of March. Depending on that answer, we will know if the refugees and the Greek people can count on a leader that is capable to meet the historical challenges with respect to human rights, or not.
With agonizing concern,
Giorgos Kosmopoulos
Director of the Greek Division of Amnesty International