Providus, a think tank founded by the Soros Foundation, has come up with misguided advice on how the Republic of Latvia should have acted in the face of last year's hybrid migrant offensive by Russia and Belarus. People who criminally tried to enter our country with the help of the services of countries hostile to Latvia should have been admitted and allowed to start the asylum procedure individually.
It is now common knowledge that the thousands of Iraqis who were brought to the borders of the Baltic States and Poland with the help of criminals and special services were an overture to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the aim was to create resistance in the populations of our countries to the imminent reception of Ukrainian refugees. This failed. But this does not stop the open-door policy supporters from bemoaning the illegal exclusion of economic migrants and spreading fake news about the torture of migrants.
First, the study "Trapped in a lawless zone: humanitarian crisis at the Latvia-Belarus border" was published by a former journalist, Dr Aleksandra Jolkina, a researcher on freedom of movement, migration and asylum law in the European Union. Her work is based on online interviews of people who have allegedly been on the Latvian border and have experienced violence beyond comprehension. Tortured with electric shocks, stuck in freezing temperatures of minus 20 degrees, drowned in a bucket of dirty water. Dozens and hundreds of people have been humiliated and tortured in this way. The episodes mentioned in the study were checked by the Border Guard authorities and no evidence was found to substantiate the Iraqi claims. Not a single episode of torture. For her part, the researcher Jolkina took no responsibility for the falsity of the facts. She wrote down what she was told. She also wrote down that the Belarusian border guards were kind and considerate, whereas ours were worse than ISIS head-cutters. As Neatkarīgā has already reported, "The study on the torture of Iraqis is a complete fabrication." The intensity of violence described would only be possible provided that it is institutionalized and accepted at the highest levels of command, that there is agreement on these crimes and that they are covered up by all the services involved: border guards, soldiers, police and medics. To torture people like that, there would also have to be a protocol, a timetable and a diabolical conspiracy.
Four more researchers have just come out with a new study on alleged human rights violations in Latvia and Lithuania in the context of the migrant crisis - Giedrė Blažytė, Ieva Raubiško, Jurga Mataitytė-Diržienė, Dārta Pelse. The research was commissioned by Providus and the Lithuanian organisation Diversity Development Group. Its title: "Comparative Report on the Influx of Irregular Migrants Across the Border of Belarus: the Response by the Governments of Lithuania and Latvia". Unlike the first study by Jolkina, this one seems to be better developed academically - based on statistics, facts and analysis of the law. But the general conclusion is also contrary to Latvia's interests in fending off a hybrid attack jointly inspired by Russia and Belarus. It should not have been prevented, we should have fallen to the provocation organized via Belarus.
The study found that most migrants have been denied access to the asylum procedure, which is true. But in the authors' view, this violates their right to asylum and the principle of non-refoulement enshrined in various EU laws and the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. The researchers also conclude their report with advice on how to deal with the migration crisis: in principle, all those who wanted to come should have been let in one by one and then looked after on a case-by-case basis. So, tens of thousands. Latvia and Lithuania should not have used push-back tactics and collective expulsions, and it was stressed that migrants belonging to the LGBTQ+ community should have been classified as a particularly vulnerable category of society.
It should be recalled that Latvia has so far rejected the allegations of migrant mismanagement. Everything has been done in accordance with the decisions of the government and the Saeima. In order to prevent an exceptional national threat, a state of emergency was declared in the border area, which allows for emergency measures to be taken. And now, criminals recruited by the aggressor countries hardly try to break into Latvia anymore. Only occasionally. But real refugees - mostly mothers with children fleeing Russia's war in Ukraine - do not have to crawl over barbed wire to get into Latvia. In Latvia, all refugees are welcomed and protected.