FRONTIER EUROPE Human rights abuses on Greece’s border with Turkey 9 3. COLLECTIVE EXPULSIONS (PUSHBACKS) ON THE GREECE-TURKEY BORDER Collective expulsions are deportations of a group of people without considering the individual circumstances of each person separately. Collective expulsions are specifically prohibited by EU law and protection from collective expulsion applies to everyone, including irregular migrants. 17 Greece is therefore obliged to examine the situation of each person arriving to its territory if they wish not to be removed and allow them the chance to challenge any deportation decision. Collective expulsions may lead to direct or indirect refoulement (the forced return of individuals to countries in which they are at risk of serious human rights violations). Refoulement, direct or indirect is prohibited under European and international law. 18 Of the 79 migrants and refugees Amnesty International interviewed between March and May 2013, 28 described at least 39 separate instances of collective expulsions from Greece to Turkey, which they claimed to have experienced themselves between August 2012 and May 2013. Seven interviewees claimed they were pushed back more than once. 26 instances concerned push-backs across the land border with Turkey and 13 concerned push-backs on the Aegean. The number of alleged push-backs reported by this small sample size still works out an average of roughly one such incident a week. The alarming number of testimonies collected by Amnesty International alleging collective expulsion suggests that these practices are regularly employed by Greek border guards and coastguards. In April 2013, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, in Greece also reported that “[s]ome testimonies of Syrians received by UNHCR make reference to informal forced returns (push-backs) or attempted informal returns to Turkey.”19 In response to a query by Amnesty International, Frontex also wrote on 6 June 2013 that since 2012, Frontex Headquarters had received 18 reports of alleged violations of fundamental rights which included “unofficial returns (“push-backs”) involving groups of migrants (up to ten people) or single individuals that had allegedly been returned to Turkey by the Hellenic Police.” 20 Frontex informed Amnesty International that it had raised such allegations with the Greek authorities in writing on three separate occasions and received a response denying that such push-backs had taken place. Those who used the land route told Amnesty International that they had been caught by Greek border guards, sometimes hours and sometimes days after arriving in Greece, having crossed the River Evros. In most cases, they were held in a police station until nightfall before being taken back to the Turkish side of the river by boat and dropped on Turkish land or left on one of the small islands in the river. Some of those seeking to reach the EU through a Greek island in the Aegean said that their inflatable boats were towed by the Greek coastguard to Turkish waters; some said that they Index: 25/008/2013 Amnesty International July 2013