28 FRONTIER EUROPE Human rights abuses on Greece’s border with Turkey GLOSSARY A refugee is a person who has fled from their own country because their human rights have been violated. This means that they have been deprived of their fundamental freedoms, they have been discriminated against or they have suffered violence because of who they are, their beliefs or their opinions, and their government cannot or will not protect them. Asylum procedures are designed to determine whether someone meets the legal definition of a refugee or not. When a country recognizes someone as a refugee, it gives them international protection as a substitute for the protection of their country of origin. An asylum seeker is someone who left their country seeking protection but has yet to be recognized as a refugee. During the time an asylum claim is being examined, the asylum seeker cannot be forced to return to their country of origin. A migrant is someone who leaves their country to live in another country for work, study, or family reasons and does not have international protection needs. A migrant who is authorized to stay in a country, for example by having a valid visa or residency permit, is a regular migrant. An irregular migrant is someone who enters a country without authorization (for example; without travel documents, without a valid visa or at border crossings that are not official entry points) or someone who might have entered the country through regular channels but is no longer authorized to stay there (for example, because their visa has expired). Governments are obligated to respect the rights of all people within their jurisdiction regardless of their status. Irregular migrants must not be mistreated, arbitrarily deprived of their liberty. If they are to be returned to their country of origin, this should be done in a manner consistent with that state’s human rights obligations. Refoulement is the forcible return of an individual to a country where they would be at risk of serious human rights violations (the terms ‘persecution’ and ‘serious harm’ are alternatively used). Individuals in this situation are entitled to international protection; it is prohibited by international law to return refugees and asylum seekers to the country they fled – this is known as the principle of non-refoulement. The principle also applies to other people who risk serious human rights violations such as torture and the death penalty, but do not meet the legal definition of a refugee. Indirect refoulement occurs when one country forcibly sends them to another country that subsequently sends them to a third country where they risk serious harm; this is also prohibited under international law. Collective deportation or collective expulsion is the deportation of a group of people (migrants, asylum seekers and/or refugees) without looking at each case individually and considering the individual circumstances of each person separately. It is prohibited under international law. This report uses the term refugees to refer to those that have fled persecution or conflict, regardless of whether they have been recognized as such. The term ‘migrants’ is used to refer to people who have crossed or attempted to cross the border between Turkey and Greece for economic reasons, regardless of how they entered the country or the legality of their stay. Amnesty International July 2013 Index: 25/008/2013