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By APD writer Aditya Nugraha
ATHENS, Nov. 1 (APD) - Greece government passed a law aimed at curbing migrant arrivals that sparked concerns among rights groups over fundamental human rights for refugees.
The new legislation passed on Thursday allows the authorities to deport those whose applications have been rejected.
"Enough is enough, enough with those people who know that they are not entitled to asylum and yet they attempt to cross into and stay in our country," Greece Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in the parliament prior to the vote on the bill.
Several NGOs and the United Nations’ refugee agency of UNHCR have expressed their concerns about the legislation
The bill was passed as a European human rights watchdog criticized Thursday the living conditions in Greek camps as "horrible" for thousands of asylum seekers which made the refugees waited for several hours for food and toilets and a lack of access to medicine.
Dunja Mijatovic, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, said she had witnessed people queuing for food or to use a bathroom for more than three hours at refugee camps for asylum seekers on two Greek islands.
"The people I have met are living in horrible conditions and an unbearable limbo," she said.
The migrants were struggling to cope with overcrowding, lack of shelter, poor hygiene conditions and substandard access to medical care, she added.
Greece is currently struggling with the biggest resurgence in refugee arrivals since 2015 when more than a million people crossed into Europe from Turkey via Greece.
About 34,000 asylum seekers and refugees are currently being held in camps on the Aegean islands close to Turkey.
The Greek government has broadly blamed the overcrowding on a haphazard approach by the former leftist administration, which lost the election held in July. It plans to move as many as 20,000 asylum seekers to the mainland by the end of the year.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
