A group of Iranian refugees at the border between Greece and Macedonia have sewn their lips shut, going on a hunger strike to protest controversial new immigration policies enacted by several Balkan governments. The new measures passed first by Slovenia, but quickly adopted by Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia, block access to any asylum-seekers that cannot prove citizenship from Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq, classifying asylum-seekers from all other countries as “economic migrants.”
A spokesperson for the refugee advocacy group, Are You Syrious, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday, “[a]t this moment the worst situation is at the Idomeni border crossing in Greece, where at least 2,000 Iranians, Moroccans and other nationals are stranded after the border was closed for everyone except Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi refugees.”
Rados Djurovic, director of the Belgrade-based Asylum Protection Centre, told the Independent, “[t]o classify a whole nation as economic migrants is not a principle recognized in international law.” (link:)
As of mid-November, Human Rights Watch has reported that an unprecedented 800,000 asylum-seekers had reached Italy and Greece, with many of them attempting to continue their journeys to safety through the Balkans.
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