article 4 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment) and article 18 (right to asylum) of the EU Charter. The ECtHR has recognized the same core principle, namely under article 3 (prohibition of torture, and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment) of the European Convention of Human Rights. Furthermore, pushback operations in Greece include arbitrary arrest and detention, theft and damage of personal items, abduction, verbal, psychological and/or physical violence, sexual violence, torture, exposure to risk likely to cause harm or death, all criminal offenses under the Greek Penal Code. 2.2. Documented pushbacks in Greece Pushbacks of asylum seekers take place mostly in the Evros region and the Aegean islands. There have also been reports regarding incidents including informal arrests of persons in Greek territory, mainland and islands, who have been pushed back, even though some possessed documents proving their le- gal presence in Greece. 5 In recent years, reports of pushback operations both at the land and the sea border of Greece with Turkey have been increasing.6 During 2020-2021, UNHCR recorded 539 incidents of ‘informal enforced return’ at land and sea borders (referred to as pushback or driftback), involving at least 17,000 people, during which potential violations of a number of rights were reported.7 Between early 2020 and February 2022, UNHCR formally submitted 59 cases of informal enforced returns at land and sea borders through 17 official letters addressed to the Greek authorities, requesting investigations. 8 Moreover, in December 2021, 32 applications of pushback incidents from Evros, Crete, Kos, Kalymnos, Lesvos, Samos or the sea before the victims reached any island were communicated by the ECtHR to the Greek Government.9 However, pushbacks at the borders is not a recent phenomenon. On the contrary, such operations have been reported for a long time.10 A milestone ECtHR case concerns the tragic ship- 5 One of the most characteristic cases of such an operation concerns an Afghan national, legally residing in the European Union and employed by the E.U. border agency, Frontex as an interpreter. He has reported how Greek border guards mistook him for an asylum seeker and forcibly and illegally expelled him to Turkey: The New York Times, E.U. Interpreter Says Greece Expelled Him to Turkey in Migrant Roundup, 1 December, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/world/europe/greece-migrants-interpreter-expelled.html See indicatively: Joint Statement on pushback practices in Greece, 1 February 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3GZOr8d, The Greek Ombudsman, Alleged pushbacks to Turkey of foreign nationals who had arrived in Greece seeking international protection- Interim report (updated up to 31 December 2020), https://bit. ly/3GGZLnQ, EU Agency for Fundamental Right (FRA), Migration: Fundamental rights issues at land borders, 8 December 2020, https://bit.ly/3kfkZBA 6 UNHCR, Submission by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the case of S.A.A. and Others v. Greece (No. 22146/21) before the European Court of Human Rights, available at: https:// www.refworld.org/pdfid/62f39cb44.pdf 7 8 Ibid. ECRE, AIDA Report - Greece 2021, p.33, available at: https://asylumineurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/AIDA-GR_2021update.pdf 9 10 See indicatively past reports of previous years on the issue of pushbacks in Greece: Human Rights Watch, Greece: Investigate Pushbacks, Summary Expulsions, 30 January 2014, http://bit.ly/3khSinW,PICUM,EU Migration Policy: A Push Back for Migrants’ Rights in Greece?, June 2014, https://bit.ly/3w22Gm6, ECRE, AIDA Country Report- Greece, November 2015, p. 30-33 https://bit.ly/3CIHp4A, GCR, Reports of systematic push- 6 AT EUROPE’S BORDERS: BETWEEN IMPUNITY AND CRIMINALIZATION