Begüm Başdaş talked with Der Spiegel reporter Giorgos Christides on the human rights violations at the external borders of EU, particularly at the borderlands of Greece and Turkey based on his research findings. Christides first presented the general situation at the land and sea borders of Greece and how people on the move are at risk due to pushback operations. Then, he at length explained the details of Der Spiegel’s most recent reporting in collaboration with Lighthouse and other media organizations that exposes how Greek police are exploiting refugees to engage in illegal pushbacks of other would-be asylum-seekers at the EU’s external border. In this report, witness testimony, satellite images and other documents provide evidence of how officials are taking advantage of people seeking protection. Christides argues for the importance of raising awareness among the public in Greece on how borders are controlled and what is at stake if governments continue these migration policies. He said, “Finally I would like to raise the EU’s responsibility in all this. Nobody in their right mind believes that Greece should shoulder this alone. For a long time, there has been an effort to find a new, viable, humane asylum system in Europe and this is going nowhere at this point. Of course, it is not like either Greece takes everyone in, or we kill them at the sea. This is a false dilemma that people have to see.”
Giorgos Christides is a Greece based reporter for weekly news magazine DER SPIEGEL. He has been reporting from Greece for DER SPIEGEL since 2012, mainly for the magazine’s foreign desk. He has covered the Greek debt and refugee crises and since 2019 has focused on migration and investigative, cross-border, multi-platform reporting. Born in 1976, he studied journalism, politics and international relations at the Universities of Thessaloniki (BA) and Edinburgh (MSc). His work has also appeared in several international media including the BBC, Haaretz and Expresso.
Photo credit: Giorgos Christides