The European Court of Human Rights has found Greece guilty of “systematic” crackdowns on asylum seekers and ordered the country to compensate a woman who was forcibly sent back to Turkey despite her attempts to seek protection in the country.

In what was described as a potentially groundbreaking ruling, the Strasbourg-based court awarded the complainant €20,000 (£16,500) in damages, citing evidence that the EU frontline state was involved in the illegal deportations when she was deported.

“There was strong evidence that at the time of the alleged events there was a systematic practice of ‘pushbacks’ of third-country nationals by the Greek authorities from the Evros (border) region to Turkey,” Tuesday’s decision said completed.

It was the first time Greece was publicly condemned for implementing a policy it had long denied, and the first time the Human Rights Court investigated a complaint about reticence by the country’s authorities.

Activists reacted to the historic verdict with jubilation. The Greek Refugee Council (GCR), which took up the case and legally represented the applicant, described the decision as “a groundbreaking judgment”.

The woman, identified in court documents by her initials as ARE, filed the case with the court in 2021, nearly two years after her expulsion in May 2019. A previous attempt to have the complaint heard in Greece was rejected by an appeals prosecutor rejected the Thrace region on the grounds that the Greek police were “never” involved in such activities.

However, international jurists accepted the claim that the refugee, who fled political persecution as a convicted supporter of the religious Gülen movement, was not only forcibly deported but also illegally detained before his deportation. The rejection took place under the cover of darkness, with the applicant and several other asylum seekers being forced by balaclava-wearing commandos to board a rubber dinghy back to Turkey.

Citing Articles 3 and 13, which prohibit torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, the ruling concluded that the Greek authorities had clearly violated the European Convention on Human Rights. The woman had managed to upload a video documenting her whereabouts in Greece – concrete evidence that she had reached the country, which the judges took into account.

Her expulsion led to her being arrested and detained by Turkish authorities on charges of being a member of the “Fetullahist terrorist organization.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused late preacher Fethullah Gülen, who was living in the US before his death in October last year, of being behind a failed coup attempt in 2016.

Marina Papamina, who coordinates the GCR’s legal department and acted as the woman’s lawyer, said the tribunal’s decision and recognition of the illegal practice was “a vindication for the thousands of victims who have denounced pushbacks by Greek authorities at the Greek-Turkish border have”. .”

“The Greek authorities must put an end to this illegal practice,” she said.

The center-right government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, With setbacks reportedly intensifying, the country has long argued that it pursues a “tough but fair” migration policy.

Like previous governments, officials have angrily denied the allegations, backed by security agencies including the Greek coast guard and police, in what solidarity migrants described as a vast conspiracy of silence. At the hearings, Greek government officials repeated this refrain, questioning the authenticity of the evidence presented and claiming that Greece’s border policy was consistent with international law.

But at a time when regional conflicts and the climate emergency are expected to drive ever-larger flows of migrants into Europe, activists said the ruling sent a very positive message. Human rights groups praised the ruling as it finally exposed a practice that was so widespread that Amnesty International described the illegal pushbacks as de facto border policy in 2021. With numerous similar cases before the Strasbourg court, Lefteris Papagiannakis, the director of the Greek Refugee Council, said Tuesday’s decision would be groundbreaking.

“It is hugely important,” he said, adding that it would set a precedent and serve as a “pilot case” for any pending human rights court cases involving pushback allegations against Greece.