Europe EU report: "Impunity" for officials at EU external borders
According to an EU report, human rights violations by border officials against migrants and refugees are too rarely prosecuted. "There is an impression of impunity", says the document from the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union (FRA) in Vienna. The report focused on countries on the EU's external border - from the English Channel across the Mediterranean to the borders in the east, the Balkans and the Aegean Sea.
30.07.2024, 07:21
SDA
Credible reports of violence, mistreatment, failure to help or rejection of people seeking protection - so-called pushbacks - are constantly being brought forward by organizations of the United Nations and the Council of Europe as well as human rights activists, it said.
Many accusations, but hardly any convictions
Between 2020 and 2023, the FRA came across 118 disciplinary investigations against border officials in 16 countries. The FRA is only aware of punitive measures against officials in eight cases - four in Croatia and four in Hungary. In the same period, there were also at least 84 criminal investigations against border guards, but only three convictions. Although Greece has the largest number of alleged cases, according to the FRA, no officials there have been disciplined or prosecuted. Dozens of complaints are also received against the EU border protection agency Frontex every year, the report said.
Demand for cell phone data from border guards
Due to a lack of or inadequate investigations, those affected are more likely to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights than to national courts, the FRA found. In recent years, the Court in Strasbourg has found deficiencies in investigations into a shipwreck with eleven fatalities in Greece and a dead six-year-old Afghan child in Croatia, among other things.
The FRA is now calling on EU states to regularly disclose breaches of the law at borders, to involve victims more closely in investigations and to access GPS and cell phone data from officials in order to investigate allegations.
