The release of the footage came two days before a general election in Greece in which conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis faces a tough challenge from left-wing former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
The Greek government came under pressure Friday over its immigration policies following the release of a video showing Greek coast guards forcibly removing migrants in the Aegean Sea.
The clip, published by the New York Times, sparked calls by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for an independent investigation.
And he came Post the footage Two days ahead of a general election in Greece, in which conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis faces a tough challenge from former left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
A tough stance against immigration is one of the main pillars of Mitsotakis’ electoral platform.
Earlier, Mitsotakis visited the land border with Turkey as part of his campaign and pledged to expand a five-meter-high steel fence to contain the influx of migrants.
A human rights activist filmed the video on the island of Lesbos last month.
In the clip, a group of asylum seekers, including a child, appears as they are being transported by bus to an area in the south of the island, before being placed on a speedboat in the Aegean Sea.
The New York Times reported that the migrants were then put on a “black rubber lifeboat and launched into the sea,” adding that after about an hour, Turkish coast guard boats arrived to rescue them.
The report added that this rescue operation took place on April 11 to extract “12 irregular migrants from a lifeboat that was returned by the Greek services to Turkish territorial waters,” which was documented by the Turkish Coast Guard in a statement.
The New York Times reported that it tracked down the migrants in the Izmir detention center, where they recounted what happened to them. In contact with Agence France-Presse, the Greek Ministry of Immigration refused to comment.
But the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights described the video as “disturbing” and requires closer investigation and monitoring of the border area.
“Everyone has the right to be protected from such treatment,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the High Commissioner, adding that an “independent and effective investigation” was needed.
“We remain deeply concerned about the ongoing and systematic pushbacks at the Greek-Turkish border, which violate the prohibition of collective expulsion and the principle of non-refoulement,” she added.
The commission endorsed the “establishment of an independent and effective border control mechanism that would investigate allegations of violence in cooperation with civil society.”
