Later on August the EU Commission blocked payments to the Greek Coastguard due to reports for brutal pushbacks. The EU asked from the Greek government to establish an independent committee that will examine all those accusations. As far as I know this committee was never established. In the article of Spiegel<\/a> about this issues there is also a video where a illegal pushback is documented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just a month ago, in an article again in Spiegel, the EU Commissioner fro Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson<\/a>, was “shocked” by the brutality of the pushbacks in Croatia and Greece<\/a>. It is really funny when a Commissioner is feeling appalled from the brutality of pushbacks, that they are being documented also with video, but at the end nothing happens. A clear indication that they are unofficial sanctioned from EU. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Just ten days ago Greece was accused for the biggest pushback in years. A boat with 382 refugees south of Crete was towed back for four days in the sea. As Guardian says<\/a>, the Turkish-flagged Murat 729 had been heading for Italy when it ran into engine trouble off Crete and issued a mayday call on 28 October. NGO’s got the signal and passed it to Greek Authorities. But the result was not to tow them in the closest port but to have them towed for days around until the NGOs made it public and the Greek coastguard had to bring them to a Greek Port. As Minos Mouzourakis at Refugee Support Aegean, an NGO offering legal assistance to refugees and asylum seekers, said to Guardian: \u201cWhat is of particular concern in this case is that the government was attempting to return people who wanted to seek asylum in Greece before an asylum procedure had taken place,\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The center right government of Greece is denying the pushback and say that its implementing all the necessary measures to defend its borders and the EU borders. But Amnesty International does not agree. In a report of June 2021<\/a> we read :<\/p>\n\n\n\n For years, Greece has failed to take responsibility for or conduct adequate investigations into allegations of pushbacks, instead opting to deny their regular occurrence and Greek authorities\u2019 involvement in them. Greece\u2019s firm, monotonic refutation of pushback allegations is completely untenable in the face of the mounting evidence documenting this practice.<\/a><\/p> On top of the staggering number of incidents reported by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) between 2020-2021, the European Parliament, the CoE CPT and Commissioner for Human Rights, UNHCR, IOM and the Greek Ombudsman have all expressed concern or called for investigations into pushbacks. Yet, in 2020, Greek authorities maintained their denial, dismissing pushbacks as \u201cfake news\u201d fabricated by Turkey and\/or smuggling networks.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n As if this was not enough, on Tuesday 9th of November in a press conference in Athens with the Greek Prime minister and the Dutch counterpart of him the Dutch reporter Ingeborg Beugel asked the Greek Prime minister a question<\/a> that led to an angry answer full of lies. The question was:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPrime minister Mitsotakis, when, at last, will you stop lying? Lying about pushbacks, lying about what is happening with the refugees in Greece?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n But lets see the video from the Greek Public television that we edited with our remarks <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wemigrants.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/20151029_5boats_with_refugees_arriving_to_Skala_Sykamias_Lesvos_Greece.jpg?resize=750%2C215&ssl=1\")
Amnesty International Report<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Failed Press Conference<\/h3>\n\n\n\n