Responding to the news that EU leaders have agreed a position on how to deal with sudden increases in arrivals at Europe’s borders, as well as cases of so-called ‘instrumentalisation’ of migrants, that would allow EU members states to deviate from the bloc’s usual asylum and reception standards, Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s EU office said:

Joint NGO statement by Amnesty International, Danish Refugee Council, HIAS Europe, Human Rights Watch, International Rescue Committee, Médecins sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders, Missing Children Europe, Oxfam, Save the Children, SOS Children’s Villages International.

The findings by Europe’s top anti-torture body that authorities across Europe have used practices which amount to torture to target refugees and migrants who tried to cross Europe’s borders, strengthen calls for urgent change, said Amnesty International.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 unleashed numerous war crimes, generated a global energy and food crisis and further disrupted a weak multilateral system. It also laid bare the hypocrisy of European countries, which reacted forcefully to the Kremlin’s aggression but condoned or were complicit in grave violations committed elsewhere. Commendably, they immediately put in place legal protections for Ukrainian refugees fleeing war, whilst simultaneously blocking others fleeing conflict and repression in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, Amnesty International said as it launched Amnesty International Report 2022/23: The State of the World’s Human Rights.

Latvian authorities have violently pushed back refugees and migrants at the country’s borders with Belarus, subjecting many to grave human rights violations, including secret detention and even torture, according to new findings published in a report by Amnesty International.

Asylum-seekers and migrants trying to enter the EU from Belarus and facing pushbacks and other human rights violations on the Polish border, are subjected to horrific torture or other ill-treatment, inhumane conditions, extortion and other abuse at the hands of Belarusian forces, new evidence gathered by Amnesty International reveals.  

Amnesty International would like to express concern over the European Commission’s proposal for a Council Decision on provisional measures for the benefit of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Amnesty International considers the derogations allowed under the instrument unjustifiable and dangerous on many accounts.

In response to today’s proposals from the European Commission which would allow Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to derogate from EU rules, including by holding asylum-seekers and migrants at the border for 16 weeks with minimal safeguards, Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s European Office said:

The Polish government’s declaration of a “state of emergency” at the border with Belarus presents serious risks for asylum-seekers trying to reach Poland and threatens to exacerbate the already dire situation faced by 32 Afghans including four women, 27 men and a 15-year-old girl, who have been held there without adequate food and clean water for over three weeks, after being pushed back from Poland, Amnesty International said.

The COVID-19 pandemic is demonstrating all too well that unequal societies go hand-in-hand with human suffering, fragile economies and delicate democracies.

With homophobic violence a clear and present danger for activists in post-Soviet states, this week’s EuroPride will hopefully send a message that progress is possible and deep-seated discrimination can be uprooted and replaced with tolerance.

Displaced Yezidis fleeing Mount Sinjar. © Amnesty International