Episode 34: Europe's 'black sites' & secret asylum-seeker pushbacks on commercial ships

In today's episode, we speak with Klaas van Dijken, one of the co-founders of the investigative journalism organisation Lighthouse Reports.  Klaas talks to us about two recent investigations he and his team worked on: • How asylum seekers are held in secret prisons on commercial ships to facilitate illegal pushbacks from Italy to Greece, and • How refugees are being arbitrarily detained and tortured at secret facilities along EU borders before being illegally forced back across borders. ---Get in touch--- Twitter: @FleetCivil Mastodon: @[email protected] [email protected] Support:  ko-fi.com/civilfleet ---Show Notes--- Lighthouse Reports website can be found here: lighthousereports.nl To read the two stories discussed in this episode, see here:  • Detained below deck: bit.ly/3R97fVF • Europe's Black Sites: bit.ly/3HAlY8H  Find Lighthouse Reports on Twitter here: @LHreports Here's a BBC news story from 2014 on the ECHR ruling on Italy's practice of sending people back to Greece: bbc.in/3DjDMT9   What is the Dublin Agreement? Read this explainer by InfoMigrants: bit.ly/3WQj9oI Here's a report from The Brussels Times on the new Frontex chief Hans Leijtens saying the agency needs to "restore trust": bit.ly/408AUlH  Klaas mentions a report Lighthouse published on Frontex's involvement in illegal pushbacks. You can read that here: bit.ly/3XGhtPv  Ben mentions the 200 missing asylum seekers children in Britain. Read about that here: bit.ly/3DjeB3d  Klaas briefly mentions No Name Kitchen. Find out more about them here: nonamekitchen.org and/or check out episode 6 of The Civil Fleet podcast