Lithuania passes law legalizing push-backs at the border amid criticism from the United Nations and non-governmental organizations

ROME – Lithuania has passed a law legalizing pushbacks despite criticism. With 86 votes in favor, 8 against and 20 abstentions, the parliament adopted the amendments to the law on borders and state protection to be applied in emergency situations. The legislation establishes that migrant people who attempt to cross the border irregularly can be rejected by the head of the local border guard without the possibility of appeal, but ensures the protection of vulnerable people. The approval of these amendments is a further step towards consolidating the already widespread practice of push-backs at the border, initially introduced with an order by the Minister of the Interior Agne Bilotaite in 2021 and subsequently formalized with a government decision.

Criticism of NGOs and European politics. For Amnesty International it is a provision that gives the green light to torture. The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatovic, in a statement, highlighted the reports of violence and other human rights violations committed against migrants, in the context of push-backs at the border between Lithuania and Belarus. Dunja Mijatovic urged Parliament to stop these abuses and ensure independent and effective monitoring of border rights. International law prohibits pushbacks because people must always have the opportunity to seek asylum. And the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees dwells on this point, namely the need to put people in need of international protection in a position to apply for asylum and not be rejected at the border.

The position of Lithuania. For Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite, the country has no alternatives at the moment: we need to protect ourselves from the influx of refugees and tools such as pushbacks are necessary in this geopolitical context. Vilnius accuses Belarus of having deliberately facilitated the passage of migrants to European countries, including Poland and Lithuania.

Dying on the border. Meanwhile, the data tell of continuous incidents on the borders with Belarus. A total of 43 people have lost their lives on the Polish side of the Minsk-Warsaw border since the humanitarian crisis began in September 2021. On 18 April, a body was found in a forest near the town of Janowa by the Narewka River. On 22 April, another body was found by tourists in the vicinity of the village of Istok, near the border with the Bialowieska forest. On 23 April, a 58-year-old Syrian man, who was fighting for his life after falling from a five-metre-high, 186km-long wall built last year by Polish authorities, died. For Piotr Czaban, a volunteer of the Polish Humanitarian Emergency Service, there are many more deaths than those discovered so far on the Polish and Belarusian side. Many of the victims identified by Czaban and his organization ended up due to hypothermia.

When geography complicates the lives of refugees. There Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights denounces that migrants are often forced to return to Belarus through swampy areas and rivers. Unfortunately, the same geographical configuration of the territory on the Polish-Belarusian border and the weather conditions, especially in winter and autumn, pose a threat to the life and health of people on the move.

The European Court of Human Rights. The Court is investigating several cases of pushbacks carried out on the border between Poland and Belarus. One of them concerns the repeated expulsion from Poland of a family with a 10-year-old disabled child, forced together with his parents to remain in the forest, with snow and sub-zero temperatures, for a long time. Another concerns the state of health of an Iraqi refugee continually victim of violence by the Polish border guard, detained for 185 days in an overcrowded center without being able to apply for asylum.