Greece rejects report of extrajudicial camp for migrants

ATHENS - The Greek government dismissed on Wednesday a report in The New York Times that it was holding illegal migrants who cross the border from Turkey at a secret "black site" where they are denied access to lawyers and cannot file asylum claims.

"The extrajudicial centre is one of several tactics Greece is using to prevent a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis," the online Times report said.

Tens of thousands of migrants have been trying to get into Greece, a European Union member state, since Turkey said on Feb. 28 it would no longer keep them on its territory as part of a 2016 deal with Brussels in return for EU aid for the refugees.

The EU is desperate to avoid a repeat of the 2015-16 migrant crisis, when more than one million people, mostly fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond, reached the bloc via Turkey and Greece, bolstering support for anti-immigration and far-right parties.

That mass influx ended when Turkey agreed in 2016 to keep migrants on its territory in return for EU aid. Erdogan said Ankara had upheld its side of the deal but that the EU had not, claiming Turkey has received only about half of some 6 billion euros promised by the EU under the 2016 deal.

"Until all expectations are met in a concrete way, we will continue our current practice at our borders," Erdogan said, referring to aspirations that also include updating Turkey's customs union with the EU, reviving its stalled EU accession bid and allowing Turks to visit the bloc without visas.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan's decision to open the border appears designed to put pressure on the EU to provide more aid for some 3.6 million refugees and migrants Turkey is hosting, but Greece and others have accused Erdogan of using the presence of the migrants for political leverage.

Greece says it has a duty to protect the borders of the EU, and has used tear gas and water cannon to deter migrants at its border with Turkey. It says it has stopped more than 42,000 people from entering its territory over the past two weeks.

Secret sites...

On March 3, Greece passed a decree suspending asylum applications for a month and allowing for the immediate deportation of any migrants seized crossing the border.

In its article, The New York Times quoted migrants who said they had been captured by Greek security forces, stripped and beaten and held in a complex of buildings near the border.

Using satellite imagery and mobile phone data, the newspaper said the site was near the village of Poros, in the northeast, not far from the Greek-Turkish border in the Evros river delta.

"There is no secret detention centre in Greece," government spokesman Stelios Petsas told reporters, adding that if an international newspaper knew about the site, it wasn't secret.

"All issues related to guarding the borders or issues of security are transparent. The constitution is being applied... and there is nothing secret."

The Times said it had confirmed the existence of the site through reporting and forensic analysis of satellite imagery. It also interviewed a Syrian man who claimed to have been taken to the site, near the border village of Poros.

AFP news agency correspondents present in the area at the time reported seeing soldiers putting migrants onto military vehicles. They said other unmarked vans were also picking up migrants wandering on the streets.

Asked last week about the fate of migrants caught after crossing the Evros river into Greece, the migration ministry declined to comment; but Greek locals and people who have spent time on the border have confirmed the practice.

"The army used to ask us to carry migrants across. Now they do it themselves," a local man who declined to give his name told AFP.

The European Commission said it was incumbent on the Greek government to investigate the allegations. In Brussels, a European Commission spokesman said: "We do expect the Greek authorities to investigate any allegation of illegal practices or violence."

The spokesman, Adalbert Jahnz, would not be drawn on whether the alleged site and actions by the Greek authorities constituted a violation of EU and asylum laws.

Another commission spokesman, Eric Mamer, added that the EU's response so far "does not preclude that if those contacts fail, other steps can be later taken". He said the EU executive's chief, Ursula von der Leyen, would raise the issue with Greek leaders in a visit to Athens on Thursday.

...or fake news?

The New York Times article, citing video evidence and witness testimony, also alleged that Mohammed Yaarub, a 22-year-old Syrian from Aleppo who was shot dead near the border last week, had been killed by a Greek security officer.

Petsas, the government spokesman, reiterated Greece's previous denials that its forces have killed any migrants.

"As regards deaths and injuries, we have categorically denied this, at least as regards the Greek side. And we will continue to do so," Petsas said Wednesday. "This is orchestrated Turkish propaganda and fake news. Imagine, if there had been victims, would you not have seen them?"

The government over the weekend had also denied a claim by a migrant support group that a Pakistani man had been shot dead by Greek fire at the border.

"Our friend Muhammad (Gulzar) was shot on Wednesday, simply because he was a migrant," the City Plaza support group said in a Facebook post.

"The shot came from a (gun) barrel on the Greek side," it added. 

Turkey had previously accused Greek security forces of shooting dead another four migrants, a claim also rejected by Athens as "fake news".  In Turkey's parliament on Wednesday, Erdogan showed lawmakers of his ruling AK Party video footage of scenes at the Greek border.

"There is no difference between those images on the Greek border and what the Nazis did," he said.

"Opening fire on innocent people, exposing them to all kinds of inhumane treatment... is barbarism in the full sense of the word," he said, repeating his call on Greece to let migrants cross its territory to reach richer western European countries.

"Why are you obstructing them so much and carrying out Nazi tortures on them?" he added.

Responding to Erdogan's latest comments, the Greek government spokesman Petsas said: "He is constantly trying to torpedo the climate with such statements."

"We tell everyone that they shouldn't attempt to get in through the window. There is a door. Whoever is entitled to protection should knock on that door and be entitled to protection based on international law," Petsas added.