Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson, in an interview, 155 stated that “[w]hat seems to be in these videos is a deportation”, adding that she had no reason to doubt the footage obtained by the New York Times and called on the Greek authorities to conduct a full and independent investigation into the reported incident. The Greek Prime Minister, in an interview to CNN, 156 had committed to investigating the incident, describing it as an “completely unacceptable practice”. The NTA appears 157 to have been requested by the European Commissioner to activate an investigation into the incident, despite the NTA having repeatedly been criticised for its ineffectiveness in investigating similar incidents. On 21 June 2023, in response to this EU call to the NTA, 21 civil society organisations issued a Joint NGO statement in which they clearly state that there is “[n]o monitoring of fundamental rights violations in Greece without independent and effective mechanisms”.158 On 27 July 2023, in a joint submission to the Prosecutors of the Piraeus Naval Court, the First Instance Court of Mytilene and the Supreme Court Prosecutor, 28 civil society organisations called159 for an effective investigation into potential criminal acts committed in relation to the aforementioned New York Times-released footages. As far as GRC is aware, there has been no update on any criminal investigation allegedly being conducted by the domestic court on this case.160 In November 2023, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) published a report, 161 which “calls on the Greek authorities to investigate reports of hundreds of missing migrants and allegations of people being threatened, abducted, and ill-treated”. MSF based its report on the testimonies of 56 patients and information gathered between August 2021 and July 2023 on Lesbos 162 and Samos. MSF are also reporting that “Since we started providing emergency medical assistance to people arriving by boat to Lesbos in June 2022, we have been unable to find approximately 940 people who were never found at the reported location”. 163 MSF calls for a permanent end to pushbacks at borders, for an independent monitoring system to be set up on the Aegean islands, and for search and rescue operations to be stepped up at sea.164 On 16 January 2024, the ECtHR issued a decision and a press release with the title “When firing several times at a motorboat transporting individuals illegally towards Greece, coastguards used force that was not “absolutely necessary” within the meaning of Article 2 of the Convention”. 165 The case concerned a serious gunshot wound sustained by a member of the applicants’ family on 22 September 2014 near the island of Pserimos, when a vessel was intercepted transporting people illegally to Greece. Under the procedural aspect of Article 2, the Court noted that there had been numerous shortcomings in the investigation conducted by the national authorities; this had led, in particular, to the loss of evidence, and had affected the adequacy of the investigation.166 Among other things, it had been impossible to determine whether or not the use of potentially fatal force was justified in the particular circumstances of the case. Under the substantive aspect of Article 2, the Court noted, firstly, that the respondent State had not complied with its obligation to introduce an adequate legislative framework governing the use of potentially lethal force in the area of maritime surveillance operations. It then considered that the coastguards, who could have presumed that the boat being monitored was transporting passengers, had not exercised the necessary vigilance in minimising any risk to life. The coastguards had thus used excessive force in the context of unclear regulations on the use of firearms. The Court considered that the Government had not demonstrated that the use of force had been “absolutely necessary” within the meaning of paragraph 2 of Article 2 of the Convention. 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 POLITICO, EU’s Johansson slams Greece over “deportation” of migrants”, 24 May 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3TSJ1k1. Greek Government, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ interview on CNN, with journalist Christiane Amanpour, 23 May 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/43PTTDQ. Kathimerini, Μεταναστευτικό: Ερευνα από την Εθνική Αρχή Διαφάνειας για το βίντεο από τη Λέσβο, 25 May 2023, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/3xExAF6. Amnesty Internaitonal, Joint NGO Statement: No monitoring of fundamental rights violations in Greece without independent and effective mechanisms 21 June 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3vJolmI. GCR, Intervention of 28 organisations to competent Prosecutors on the pushback incident published by the New York Times, 27 july 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3xqRLq1. GCR, Third Party Intervention submitted on 14 September 2024 before the ECtHR regarding the case Muhammad v. Greece, Application no. 34331/22, available here, pp 7-8. MSF, Pushbacks, detention and violence towards migrants on Lesbos, 9 November 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/4aNY9WY. See also, Reuters, Asylum-seekers in Greece face violence, pushbacks -aid group MSF, 2 November 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3xrHkme. Ibid. Ibid. ECtHR, Application No. 3566/16, Alkatib and others v. Greece, 16 January 2024, available in French at: https://bit.ly/3PV48RU. See also the ECtHR Press Release of 16 January 2024, available at: https://bit.ly/43OWz4T. Ibid. 50