World Refugee Day: Exposing the myth of « safe » countries in EU Return Policy

On the occasion of the World Refugee Day, on 20 June, EuroMed Rights is publishing three fact-sheets highlighting the alarming conditions in Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey, where the security and rights of citizens and people on the move alike are under serious threat. On this symbolic day, we salute and pay tribute to the resilience of all those forced to flee their country, their family, their environment, to escape conflicts, precariousness, political persecution, or climate disasters. But this solidarity cannot be reduced to a single date. It must be constant, active, and concrete.

The European Commission’s legislative proposal, last April, to list Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey as "safe countries of origin" poses a serious threat to the rights of people on the move. It paves the way for fast-tracked asylum procedures for nationals of these countries, often at border or transit zones, that lead to limited procedural safeguards and impose a higher burden of proof on applicants to refute the presumption of safety. In line with this, the Commission is proposing a revision of the “safe third country” concept. If these proposed legislative changes are implemented, people on the move could then be deported to countries where they have simply transited, or never even stayed at all, as long as there is an agreement, even an informal one, obliging the country in question to assess protection and asylum claims. Appeals against these return decisions will no longer have an automatic suspensive effect. All together, these measures increase the risk of deportation without a full, individual, and meaningful assessment of asylum claims or protection measures.

To denounce these latest anti-immigration and criminalizing proposals, EuroMed Rights, in partnership with the Association Marocaine des Droits Humains (AMDH), the Association Tunisienne des Femmes Démocrates (ATFD), ARCI, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIHRS),CNCD-11.11.11, the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR), İnsan Hakları Derneği (IHD), La Cimade, theLigue des droits de l’Homme (LDH), Migreurop, OMCT and Refugees Platform in Egypt, publish three country-specific fact sheets documenting violence and human rights violations suffered in Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey. While the Commission proposes to designate them as “safe” on paper, we show how these countries violate rights and are, in reality, unsafe for their citizens and people on the move alike.

Faced with this reality, EuroMed Rights and its members and partners reaffirm their firm opposition to the notions of "safe countries of origin" and "safe third countries," which run counter to the fundamental rights and values proclaimed and supposedly defended by the European Union. If the EU is serious about defending human rights, it must renounce policies that violate rights, are dangerous and discriminatory, whether it be a
list of "safe countries", flawed concepts of "safety”, or any instrument aimed at externalizing its responsibilities for international protection.