State violence against migrants must be investigated and stamped out, say PACE committee heads

Strasbourg, 06.07.2012 – The Chairs of the Migration and Equality Committees of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Giacomo Santini (Italy, EPP/CD) and Tina Acketoft (Sweden, ALDE), have expressed grave concern at an increasing number of incidents of state violence against migrants and refugees.

In a joint statement, they said: “The recent alleged beating to death of an asylum seeker in Malta while being detained by two soldiers last Saturday is an extremely serious incident. Attacks against migrants and refugees are of increasing concern, including in Greece, where there are a worrying number of allegations of police brutality, and failures by them to investigate racist attacks on migrants and refugees.”

Fact Finding Report of the Campaign for the Access to Asylum in Greece

THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE ACCESS TO ASYLUM IN ATTICA AREA

1. The associations, entities, groups and NGOs[1] co-signing the present report carried out from 17 February 2012 until 7 April 2012 a campaign against the unacceptable situation of denial of access to the asylum system in Greece, focusing on the Attica area, where the vast majority of asylum seekers try to apply for international protection. The longstanding practice followed by the Asylum Department of the Attica Aliens Directorate, the competent authority to receive, register and examine asylum applications in Attica, is to allow submission of a small number of asylum applications and only in the early hours of every Saturday morning.