illegally and forcibly returned to Turkey by the Greek authorities.41 Moreover, the Greek National Commission for Human Rights (GNCHR) intervened by sending a letter to the Ministry of Citizens’ Protection for each case. In this chapter we present the pushback operations of the cases for which GCR has filed applications for violations of the ECHR before the ECtHR. We report the testimonies of the pushback victims as communicated to the ECtHR, chronologically and relative to the location of the pushback operation (sections A. Evros islets and B. Evros mainland, below, pp. 13,26). Subsequently, we present two cases where the Turkish authorities pulled back the asylum seekers from the islets to the Turkish riverbank, indicating the role of the Turkish authorities in the violent “management” of migrants at the Evros border (section C. Pullback Cases, below, pp. 32). A. EVROS ISLETS All cases presented below - except the first - concern the arrival of asylum seekers on Evros islets and subsequent pushback operations. The first case concerns the arrival of different groups of asylum seekers in the Evros mainland and their subsequent gathering, forced transfer and abandonment by the Greek authorities on an Evros islet as part of the pushback operation. We present all cases under the same Chapter “Evros Islets” to underline the shift in the illegal Greek state practice. In 2021, Amnesty International documented incidents of Greek and Turkish authorities forcing asylum seekers onto islets in the river Evros, likely as a tactic to eschew responsibility for them and their safety.42 A similar practice of forced transfer, placement and abandonment of asylum seekers in places with no means of safe escape and survival has been documented in the Aegean Sea, when the Greek coast guard transferred and abandoned the asylum seekers on a rocky islet.43 The first pushback case (to an islet) presented below is indicative of this tactic, while the next pushback cases (from the islets) reveal a change in tactic following the issuance of the first interim measures decision of the ECtHR that ordered the Greek State to immediately rescue the people stranded on the islet, acknowledging its legal responsibility to do so. After this decision, we notice that the Greek authorities push people back to the Turkish riverbank instead of transferring them on Evros islets, which ECtHR decisions in many cases have recognized as areas under the Greek State’s responsibility for search and rescue. I. The emblematic pushback case from the Evros mainland to an islet - before the shift of the pushback practice GCR, Information Note on interventions and on interim measures granted by the ECtHR in cases regarding pushbacks,http://bit.ly/3fmraBB 41 42 Amnesty International, Greece: Violence, Lies and Pushbacks, June 2021, available at: https://bit. ly/3H50G36 Wearesolomon, Dark Water of the Aegean: 1,018 illegal pushbacks carried out by the Greek State, 15 July 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3H4f4Zp 43 AT EUROPE’S BORDERS: BETWEEN IMPUNITY AND CRIMINALIZATION 13