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BVMN Statement on Czech Officers’ Involvement in Fundamental Rights Violations

Date 18 November, 2022
Category Press Release

Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) has requested the initiation of an investigation into potential human rights violations perpetrated by Czech officers deployed in Hungary and in North Macedonia. BVMN recorded instances of pushbacks and violence that could amount to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Article 4 EU Charter and Article 3 ECHR. Czechia currently holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union while not being compliant with European Union Law including the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Since 2020, BVMN has recorded accounts from people on the move who have been intercepted and apprehended in Hungary and North Macedonia and pushed back to Serbia and Greece respectively, without due process. People on the move have reported that Czech officers perpetrated violence against them that would amount to inhuman and degrading treatment or torture. Also, Czech officers have potentially assisted in human rights violations by apprehending people on the move and handing them over to national authorities with knowledge that people would be pushed back, or witnessed as violence was perpetrated against people, behaviour that might amount to aiding and abetting torture or inhuman and degrading treatment.

See the visual investigation into pushbacks involving Czech officers at the Greek-North Macedonian Border