“I call on the Latvian Parliament to reject the draft amendments to the Law on the State Border and the Law on the State Border Guard, which would legalise current practices at the border with Belarus that place persons in need of international protection at risk of pushbacks and ill-treatment,” says the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović.
“I have previously raised concerns about reports of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants having been violently prevented from entering Latvia and denied access to the asylum procedure, including in the middle of winter, under the state of emergency. As I have set out in my Recommendation on pushbacks, parliamentarians play a key role in establishing a human rights-compliant border management policy. The Latvian Parliament should not anchor illegal practices in national legislation but use its oversight powers to ensure that the legislative framework related to asylum and border control is fully in line with the standards set out in the European Convention on Human Rights, the 1951 Refugee Convention and other relevant international instruments.”