Coping with a fundamental rights emergency – The situation of people crossing the Greek border in an irregular manner Turkey maintains the geographical limitation to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which means that it does not consider as refugees persons coming from outside of Europe. While Turkey is working on the establishment of an asylum system, the country cannot be considered safe for persons seeking asylum. For individuals returned from Greece, UNHCR reported the risk of onward returns by Turkey to their country of origin without determining whether these persons are in need of international protection or not.24 Respect for the principle of non‐refoulement requires that before returning a person to the country from which he/she has crossed the border in an irregular manner, an individual assessment is made in order to determine if the person seeks or may be in need of international protection or if there are other bars to return. Once a person has crossed the border, he/she cannot be pushed back informally to the other side. Information received from former army conscripts deployed at the border indicated that in the past years informal push backs took place both at the land border as well as at the Evros river. This is confirmed by a number of reports.25 To the knowledge of the FRA, there are no clear instructions or rules of engagement within the Hellenic police in dealing with migrants who have just crossed the border. This may be one of the reasons for past push backs. The FRA has reasons to believe that with the deployment of the RABIT operation, the risk of informal push backs of third‐country nationals to Turkey has decreased. As explained to the FRA by patrolling officers, the current modus operandi at the border is to apprehend and bring to the police station every single individual who has crossed into Greek territory. In the past months, FRONTEX has reacted firmly to individual instances reported by deployed RABIT officers, whereby the Greek police allegedly returned migrants forcibly back to Turkish territory.26 The FRA welcomes considerations by FRONTEX to annex to the Operational Plan, which regulates the follow up to the RABIT operation, clear guidelines in order to prevent informal push‐backs over the border for persons already on Greek soil. Their inclusion in an operational plan would also have a wider effect as it would contribute to foster a common understanding of existing fundamental rights obligations among border guard officers in the European Union. While the presence of border police officers from other countries may in itself discourage the restoration of previous patterns of informal push backs, this is not sufficient to guarantee respect of fundamental rights. There is a need for the Hellenic Police to develop specific rules of engagement as soon as possible clearly prohibiting any informal push back at the border and defining the measures to be taken when persons are already irregularly on Greek soil. 24 UNHCR, Asylum Situation in Greece Including for Dublin II transferees, 31 January 2011, page 2, forthcoming. See also ECtHR, M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece, paras. 192, 334. 25 UNHCR, Observations on Greece as a country of asylum, December 2009, p. 4, available at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/4b4b3fc82.pdf; Human Rights Watch, Stuck in a Revolving Door: Iraqis and Other Asylum Seekers and Migrants at the Greece/Turkey Entrance to the European Union, November 2008, available at http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/11/26/stuck‐revolving‐door‐0; Migreurop, European borders: Controls, detention and deportations, 2009/2010 report, available at http://www.migreurop.org/IMG/pdf/rapport‐migreurop‐2010‐en_‐_2‐121110.pdf, p. 101. 26 See Spiegel Online, 11 December 2010: Grenzpolizisten jagen Flüchtlinge in Minenfeld, available at http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,734123,00.html. 20