Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O'Flaherty lodged a complaint against Poland to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The reason is to proceed the practice of "pushing" asylum seekers into Belarus without examining their applications. The evidence for these actions has been provided by NGOs active in actions for migrants.
In his report, the Commissioner criticised the way Polish leaders present migrants and refugees, justifying the deficiency of respect for asylum rights. He does not like the word "human weapon" utilized in the "hybrid war".
In addition, O’Flaherty accused Belarusian authorities of encouraging, helping and sometimes forcing people to cross the border with Poland. Officers are to commit "bad treatment, sexual force and another abuses".
According to the Commissioner of the Council of Europe, “Poland’s practice of fast-tracking people to Belarus without individual evaluation continues to this day.... In any cases this applies to persons who formally apply for asylum."
Prime Minister Tusk's government is accused of continuing pushbacks. Data from the Council of Europe show that between December 2023 and June 2024 the Polish authorities sent 7,317 people to Belarus. This was more than 6,000 cases reported from July 2023 to mid-January 2024.
Not only those visitors who crossed the border illegally were to be turned around, but besides those who crossed it at authoritative border crossing points. An example of a four-man household from Afghanistan was given.
87 deaths have besides been reported on the Polish-Belarusian border from 2021 until now.
Commenting on the proposal to suspend asylum rights, the Commissioner stated: "The practicality of instrumentalising migration can besides put asylum seekers and migrants in a peculiarly hard situation, which only confirms the request for full protection of their rights in this complex and hard situation."
The Commissioner calls on the ECHR "to reconsider the re-establishment of the work to guarantee real and effective access to protection opportunities, despite the challenges of instrumentalisation of migration" by the Belarusian authorities.
O’Flaherty added that ‘the interpretations of certain elements of the case law of the Court may besides have reduced the protection afforded by the prohibition on collective expulsion under Article 4 of Protocol No 4 of the Convention’. However, in order to ‘help the Court to guarantee that the Convention guarantees rights which are applicable and effective and not theoretical and illusory, and that the national rules governing border controls do not render the rights guaranteed by the Convention inactive or ineffective’, the Commissioner recalled ‘the highest importance that the Court attaches to the protection of Article 3 of the Convention’, prohibiting ‘torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’. This prohibition is absolute and ‘no derogation from it shall be permitted under Article 15(2).) Conventions even in the event of a public threat threatening the lives of a nation or under the most hard circumstances (...)’. Importantly, in the current context, this work for States to comply with the prohibition of treatment contrary to Article 3. The Convention is besides independent of the conduct of the individual concerned.’
The Commissioner besides complained about the actions of Lithuania and Latvia.
Sources: brusselsignals.eu, coe.int
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