Two Palestinian men with refugee status in Greece were deported to Egypt from Belgium, where they hoped to seek asylum. Immigration Services, however, defended the decision, stating that it was in line with international law.
The Jesuit Refugee Service Belgium (JRS) criticised Belgium for deporting two men from Gaza to Egypt instead of bringing them to Greece where the two were previously granted protection status. They travelled from the Egyptian capital Cairo on May 18 and May 25, respectively, to apply for asylum in Belgium.
Both told JRS's detention centre visitors that they struggled to find accommodation in Greece, could not work as they did not speak the language and were not receiving the necessary support to integrate.
"Many refugees get protection status in a country and then leave to seek asylum in another country," the Director of the JRS, Jörg Gebhard, told The Brussels Times. JRS has noted an increase in Palestinians seeking asylum in Belgium since the outbreak of war in Gaza.
The two men travelled by plane via Cairo with smugglers who provided them with false papers, necessary to get out of Egypt.
Chicago Convention
Although the law states that a person cannot be detained at the border simply for applying for international protection, most people in this situation are systematically detained in a closed centre while their asylum application is examined. Their applications are prioritised so a decision is made within four weeks. Otherwise, the asylum seeker is let out. Last year, 650 asylum applications were made at the border in this manner.
For Palestinians who already obtained refugee status in another country, a case-by-case assessment looks into whether they received adequate protection. As happens to most, their applications were rejected by the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS) – meaning they cannot stay in Belgium.
Illustration image of the closed centre 127bis in Steenokkerzeel near the airport. Credit: Belga/ Dirk Waem
Yet they were sent to Egypt, not Greece. Immigration Services defended this decision, noting that this was in line with the Chicago Convention, which implies that rejected asylum seekers have to be returned by the airline company that brought them to Belgium, to the place from where their journey commenced – Egypt in this case.
"It should therefore be noted that the term ‘deported’ is incorrect," a spokesperson for the Immigration Services told The Brussels Times. "We are talking about expulsion here, following an asylum application at the airport border."
'Endangering human rights'
However, the Convention also states that the person can be returned "to any other country where they will be admitted entry", which in the case of both Palestinian men, would have been Greece.
This is one of the main points of JRS' criticism. Both individuals said they would rather return to Greece, as they don't have a right of residence in Egypt, meaning they were likely to be detained upon arrival.
The CGRS does not have to examine serious harm risks in countries other than the applicant’s country of origin, so the decision was made without taking into account this risk "or the many worrying reports about the safety of refugees and the treatment of Palestinians in Egypt," said Gebhard. "This endangers their fundamental rights." Earlier this year, Amnesty International, for example, raised the alarm over the country's ‘inhuman’ detention facilities.
The organisation has not received any news from the men since they were sent to Egypt on 22 and 25 July. The NGO regularly visits migrant detention centres for migrants in Belgium, and it is not the first time people from the Gaza Strip – who already have protection status (refugee status) in Greece – are sent to Egypt instead.
"This is just one example of Belgium denouncing human rights violations by regimes but then denying people from these countries protection, either directly or indirectly."
