ATHENS (Reuters) -Greek lawmakers prepared to vote on legislation on Thursday that would temporarily halt the processing of asylum applications of people coming from North Africa, a move rights groups have called illegal.
The vote comes amid a surge in migrant arrivals to the island of Crete and as talks with Libya’s Benghazi-based government to help stem the flow were cancelled acrimoniously this week.
Greece, one of the main gateways into the European Union for refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, has taken an increasingly tough stance on migration since Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ centre-right party came to power in 2019, building a fence at its northern land borders and boosting sea patrols in the east.
Sea arrivals of migrants travelling from northeastern Libya to its southern islands of Crete and Gavdos, the closest European territory to North Africa, have surged this year.
In response, Mitsotakis’ government proposed legislation on Wednesday stipulating that migrants crossing illegally to Greece from North Africa by sea would not be able to file for an asylum for three months.
A vote on the law, which would also allow authorities to quickly deport those migrants without any prior identification process, was expected later on Thursday or early on Friday.
Human rights groups said the asylum ban would violate international and European law, and called on the Greek government to recall it.
“Seeking refuge is a human right; preventing people from doing so is both illegal and inhumane,” the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said in a statement.
Mitsotakis – whose government controls 155 lawmakers in the 300-seated parliament – said on Wednesday the ban was “an emergency response to an emergency situation”.
Greece has long been accused by aid groups of forcibly ejecting migrants at its sea and land borders, also known as “pushbacks,” an illegal practice.
A Greek naval court has charged 17 coastguard officers over one of the Mediterranean’s worst shipwrecks two years ago, in which hundreds of people are believed to have drowned.
(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Alex Richardson)
