The Protecting Rights at Borders (PRAB) initiative is formed by protection and legal aid organisations focusing on human rights compliance at the EU’s external and internal borders. The PRAB partners have well established field presence in the countries of operation enabling direct access to victims of pushbacks, as well as longstanding experience in strategic litigation.
Mauro Ujetto
Pushbacks at EU borders
Pushbacks are expulsions without legal justification and procedure, usually employed by border police, law enforcement officials or other authorities. It is being used to push foreigners such as migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers from a state’s territory to the territory of another state without regard for the individual’s circumstances and right to seek asylum.
PRAB partners register and document pushbacks and cover both internal and external EU borders, such as the borders between France-Italy, Greece-Turkey, Croatia-Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary-Serbia, Belarus-Poland, Ukraine-Poland, Greece-North Macedonia, Slovenia-Italy, North Macedonia-Serbia, and Lithuania-Belarus.
Are pushbacks illegal?
Resorting to pushbacks, regardless of whether these involve violence, as a means of protecting states’ borders constitutes an illegal practice.
Pushbacks risk violating the principle of non-refoulement being a cornerstone of international refugee law and of international human rights law - as well as the prohibition of collective expulsion and as it prevents access to procedures for international protection.
States have the right to control movement across their borders. However, this must happen in compliance with their obligations under international and European Human Rights Law.
PRAB work is based on:
Documenting and collecting testimonies of these well-established and systematic rights violations.
Triggering and supporting legal action, when relevant and feasible.
Highlighting accountability issues, as well as the need for Independent Border Monitoring mechanisms.
"It is extremely worrying to see that so many people experience pushbacks and border violence. It goes without saying that states must stop the violence and these illegal practices, and perpetrators must be held accountable.
Human rights compliance must not be an obstacle to migration management, a rights-based approach to border management is indispensable."
/ Charlotte Slente, Secretary General of the Danish Refugee Council
129 civil society organisations call on MEPs to uphold fundamental rights and reject the harmful Schengen borders code recast
31 Jan 2024
New report: “They started beating us, used a stun gun and pepper spray on us and then threw us into the forest. We couldn't walk for three days because of the pain, and we had vision problems.”
02 Oct 2023
Beaten by police, bitten by dogs, and robbed of all rights: New Report Reveals Alarming Pushbacks and Violations at Europe's borders
16 Jun 2023
Joint NGO Statement: The EU must not be complicit in the loss of lives at sea and in rights violations at Europe’s borders
30 May 2023
Protecting Rights at Borders VI: What we do in the shadows
13 Feb 2023
Heaven or hell at Italy’s northern borders
09 Feb 2023
EU migration management: Wilful blindness to evidence of harmful human rights consequences
26 Jan 2023
Protecting Rights at Borders: Beaten, punished, and pushed back
12 Jan 2023
Protecting Rights at Borders (PRAB)
08 Dec 2022
EU admits Croatia to Schengen Without Regard to Abuses at the Border
16 Dec 2021
12,000 pushbacks in 2021 reflects worrying normalization of illegal practice
03 Dec 2021
Need for calm and proportional response at the EUs external borders
26 Nov 2021
Joint Statement: Call on the EU: Restore Rights and Values at Europe’s Borders
Using family separation as deterrent – new report documents alarming illegal push-back methods
12 May 2021
Push back of responsibility: Human Rights Violations as a Welcome Treatment at Europe’s Borders
18 Mar 2021
Open letter: Five years after the EU-Turkey Statement, European Civil Society Demands an End to Containment and Deterrence at the EU’s External Borders
10 Nov 2020
Turning rhetoric into reality: New monitoring mechanism at European borders should ensure fundamental rights and accountability
PRAB Partners
Association for Legal Intervention Poland
Associazione per gli Studi Giuridici sull'Immigrazione
