Human Rights group criticises conditions for asylum seekers

Описание: (26 Nov 2008) SHOTLIST
FILE: Patras, 7 March 2008
1. Pan, from above, of makeshift camp which houses immigrants and refugees
2. Wide of camp with makeshift houses
3. Mid of men in camp standing in line for bread
Athens, 26 November 2008
4. Close of Human Rights Watch report reading: (English) "Stuck in a Revolving Door"
5. Mid of Bill Frelick, director of refugee policy at Human Rights Watch, giving media interview
6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Bill Frelick, director of refugee policy at Human Rights Watch:
"We also collected testimony about abusive of conditions of detention in Myteline, in Peplos, in Venna, in the police stations that are in the border region and the Evros region, and in the airport, where people who are being returned from other European countries first arrive, treated in a very abusive manner, under unsanitary conditions, overcrowded conditions."
7. Mid of Frelick's hand
8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Bill Frelick, director of refugee policy at Human Rights Watch:
"We're also telling the European states, the other European countries, not to return asylum seekers to Greece because Greece is not meeting the standards of the European Union with respect to detention conditions, with respect to its asylum procedures, and so there is no guarantee that people who genuinely need protection will find protection here in Greece."
9. Wide of Sudanese social centre
10. Mid of Adams Ziad (on right), asylum seeker since 2004
11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Adams Ziad, asylum seeker since 2004:
"This is a big problem. The authorities may be there. They don't distinguish between the asylum seekers and the immigrants, so they accuse everyone of being (in Greek) illegal immigrants."
12. Mid of man smoking water pipe
13. Mid of men sitting in centre
14. SOUNDBITE: (English) Adams Ziad, asylum seeker since 2004:
"The procedures of asylum seekers here, the application, it is not clear yet because I am an asylum seeker. I didn't find any direction for example, or anybody who can tell me my rights and my obligations."
15. Wide of centre
STORYLINE:
A US-based human rights group said Greece is deporting migrants illegally and accused neighbour Turkey of detaining potential asylum seekers indefinitely in "inhuman and degrading" conditions.
In a 120-page report released on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch said summary deportations across the Greek-Turkish border are "systematic".
Based on 173 confidential interviews of illegal immigrants, the report cited accounts of Greek police expelling migrants at night over the Evros River that separates Greece and Turkey.
It also cites alleged cases of coast guards off Greek islands forcing immigrants' boats back into Turkish waters, in some cases after allegedly "disabling" vessels.
The report's author, Bill Frelick, called the expulsions "systematic and routine".
Frelick said the claims made during interviews gathered in Turkey and across Greece were "very consistent" when referring to bad conditions of detention and summary expulsions.
Frelick said he had been told by officials at Greece's Interior Ministry that the acceptance rate for asylum applications was 0.03 percent in the first nine months of 2008.
Greece approved only 140 of the 20,692 asylum applications made in 2007, according to the UN refugee agency. Tens of thousands of illegal migrants enter Greece every year seeking entry into the European Union.
Greek police officials had no immediate comment on the report.
Frelick said police often misled immigrants about their right to apply for asylum in an effort to dissuade them from staying.

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