1. INTRODUCTION Recent years have seen countless reports of pushbacks at Greece’s land and sea borders with Turkey. The Greek state continuously fails to launch adequate investigations or accept responsibility despite their complicity in these illegal operations being well-documented. The findings of this report demonstrate that pushback operations and the concomitant targeting of those working to defend the rights of victims in Greece are not isolated incidents, but an unofficial migration and border policy implemented by Greek state actors and their auxiliaries. To shed light on this systematic state policy, the report firstly recounts pushback cases in the Evros border region, brought before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) between March 2022 and October 2022. The report then presents two pushback cases that occurred in the Eastern Aegean islands, that are significant as in both cases some of the pushback victims managed to re-enter Greece and file official complaints before the Public Prosecutor. All of the cases included in this report are legally represented by GCR and submitted before the ECtHR and/or the Public Prosecutor. The details presented herein are based on the testimonies of the pushback victims. By detailing the multiple similar testimonies of pushback victims in Greece, combined with evidence of pushbacks outlined in relevant reports and publications, this report aims to firstly 4 demonstrate that said illegal practices constitute a systematic, meticulously planned and comprehensive policy of the Greek state, involving multiple actors and operational steps. Moreover, this report aims to counteract the argument perpetuated by Greek and EU authorities, that there is a lack of evidence on the existence and/ or perpetrators of pushbacks, which has led to a situation of chronic impunity for the perpetrators and a lack of access to justice for victims of these rights violations at Europe’s borders. Furthermore, this report sheds light on the Turkish authorities’ involvement in the violent management of asylum seekers in the Evros region, leading to the conclusion that the policies of multiple EU and non-EU state authorities are at play in these rights violations at the EU’s external border. Lastly, this report also highlights another aspect of the Greek state’s policy of deterrence and violence against those seeking protection at its borders, i.e. the systematic targeting of human rights defenders (HRDs), by presenting in detail the intimidation and attempted criminalisation of HRDs involved in legal actions to support the pushback victims of the cases presented in the report. We hope that this report will contribute to ending the ongoing impunity of those perpetrating grave human rights violations against migrants and refugees seeking protection in Europe, as well as the increasing attempts to silence and intimidate human rights defenders. AT EUROPE’S BORDERS: BETWEEN IMPUNITY AND CRIMINALIZATION