Immigration: Human Rights Watch: EU Should Address Croatia Border Pushbacks – Rule Out Schengen Accession

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The international non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch has criticized an assessment of the European Commission published on October 22 this year, that Croatia is ready to join the borderless Schengen Area.

The organization, headquartered in New York, has released a video to support its claims that Croatia should still not join the Schengen territory due to violent pushbacks of migrants at its borders, calling on the EU to address the issue.

The video features interviews with persons pushed back at the Croatian borders, forced to return to Bosnia by Croatian police last August. Among others, the video shows credible secretly recorded footage of the Croatian police escorting groups of migrants across the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina without following due process.

According to the HRW, EC’s conclusion sends the message that the Schengen Area does not see human rights abuses as problems for countries that wish to join it.

“Croatia’s unlawful and violent summary returns of asylum seekers and migrants should disqualify it from joining the Schengen Area…Ignoring Croatia’s abuses of migrants at its borders makes the notion that Schengen membership is contingent on respect for human rights jus meaningless talk,” says Lydia Gall, HRW senior researchers on Eastern Europe and Balkans.

Human Rights Watch wants the European Council to call for the reassessment of Croatia’s compliance with the EU Schengen Borders code, before approving the report of the Commission.

“It should press Croatia to demonstrate concrete progress by putting in place an independent and effective monitoring mechanism and require evidence of thorough investigations of summary returns of migrants and asylum seekers a its borders and allegations of Croatian guards using violence against them,” HRW says, calling on the commission to initiate legal enforcement action against Croatia for violating EU laws.

The European Commission said that Croatia has taken the necessary measures to ensure that the conditions for the application of all the Schengen rules and standards are met, on October 22 this year.

The decision of the European Commission sparked criticisms among many, including nine Croatian organizations and initiatives working with the victims of border violence, which have called for Croatia to be kept out of the Schengen area until its government stops the illegal and violent pushback of migrants.

These organizations – the civil society organizations and activists from Croatia, the Ombudsperson’s Office, and a variety of international governmental and non-governmental actors as UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Council for Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontiers and Asylum Protection Center – want Croatia’s Schengen membership to become conditional, and let the country out of the borderless zone unless it improves its asylum practices.

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