Wow. The video of the Greek official, denying everything during the official interview (whilst seeing video of a migrant woman and her child, forced onto a boat by armed men, who were then left in a dinghy to float towards Turkey), then caught with a hot mic during the break, talking to a colleague, saying:
"I haven't told them much, right? It's very clear, isn't it. It's not nuclear physics. I don't know why they did it in broad daylight… It's… obviously illegal. It's an international crime."
"That's something that happens. The migrants travelling the Aegean Sea, very often they abandon the children. They don't seem to have the same... affection we have for children."
Yes that bit caught me off guard. How this dude just said migrants don't care about their children.... Like, my brother in christ, why do you think they're fighting so hard to migrate somewhere better?
Between 1967 and 1974 a Greek military junta overthrew the government because they didn't like the election results.
20% of the population still approves of it.
19% don't have a strong opinion on a fascist takeover of democracy and the suspension of human rights in Greece.
30% of the population has nostalgia for the period.
Fun history fact. The US and UK bombed Greek partisans who helped fight against the Nazis. This was done to ensure a far right dominance in Greece after the Nazis left.
The 15 incidents we analysed - dated May 2020-23 - resulted in 43 deaths.
I'm not denying they analysed 15 incidents, I'm just saying that the number of deaths presented in this article is far to low, to be close to the actual number.
But in four of these cases we were able to corroborate accounts by speaking with eye witnesses.Our research, which features in a new BBC documentary, Dead Calm: Killing in the Med?, suggested a clear pattern.
"He and two others - another from Cameroon and a man from Ivory Coast - were transferred to a Greek coastguard boat, he said, where events took a terrifying turn.“They started with the [other] Cameroonian.
Dead Calm: Killing in the Med?In June 2023, an overloaded trawler flips in front of a Greek coast guard patrol boat.
Our interviewee made it to land where he was eventually spotted by the Turkish coastguard.In the incident with the highest loss of life - in September 2022 - a boat carrying 85 migrants ran into trouble near the Greek island of Rhodes when its motor cut out.Mohamed, from Syria, told us they rang the Greek coastguard for help - who loaded them onto a boat, returned them to Turkish waters and put them in life rafts.
Human rights groups allege thousands of people seeking asylum in Europe have been illegally forced back from Greece to Turkey and denied the right to seek asylum, which is enshrined in international and EU law.Austrian activist Fayad Mulla told us he discovered for himself how secretive such operations seem to be in February last year, on the Greek island of Lesbos.
He replied that they "drive them back", and said such orders were "from the minister", adding they would be punished if they failed to stop a boat.Greece has always denied so-called “pushbacks” are taking place.Greece is an entryway into Europe for many migrants.
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