“Two weeks after the push back, the respondent was to have an interview for the relocation programme, which he missed as a result of being pushed back.”
The following testimony documents a push back from Greece to Turkey, that took place in early 2017. The respondent believes he was pushed back because he was applying for the relocation programme. He went to the border area because he was visiting a friend in Alexandroupoli. Here, he was caught by the police. He had a white card and was living in the Sindos camp in Thessaloniki. He was pushed back to Turkey and they destroyed his white card.
When he was stopped by the police, they asked for his white card. He handed it to them and they did not return it. The respondent stated that he could not communicate with the police, as he neither spoke English nor Greek. However, the police responded aggressively to him. He was gathered with other asylum-seekers and taken to the Greece-Turkey river border by car, forced out of the car and an officer gave the order to hit them. Women and children were exempt from the beatings, however phones and money were confiscated from the group. The respondent was with four Afghan men and two Iranian families. They were all put on the same boat and pushed back to Turkey.
The respondent claims that it was civilians, hired by the police who were pushing them back to Turkey. Two weeks after the push back, the respondent was to have an interview for the relocation programme, which he missed as a result of being pushed back. During this time, his brother received confirmation to be relocated to Sweden.