Asylum

The Royal Court in London is set to deliberate on the future of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, with hearings scheduled today and tomorrow regarding the US extradition request for the Australian journalist.

The UK government's proposed asylum law is "very worrying", the UN refugee agency has warned.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representative in the United Kingdom, Vicky Tennant, commented to the BBC that the measure would violate international law and was not necessary to stop Channel crossings.

Lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange filed a lawsuit Monday against the CIA and its former director Mike Pompeo, alleging it recorded their conversations and copied data from their phones and computers.

Turkish search teams found an asylum seeker on March 21 who had gone missing three days earlier, when the Greek Coast Guard dumped him along with several others in the Aegean Sea.

The Turkish Coast Guard found a life vest during their search around Boğaz Island off the coast of Izmir province, where the teams had earlier rescued two asylum seekers.

The Greek government published on Friday a joint ministerial decision that outlines 12 countries that are considered safe to return failed asylum seekers, state-run news agency ANA-MPA reported.

The past few days saw three distinct interventions that sent out a political signal, raised a barrier against arbitrary behavior and indicated a desire for normality.

The leadership of a high-level council of rectors and the Federation of University Lecturers and Researchers (POSDEP) have approved the government's intention to abolish the so-called university asylum law - which bans police from entering campuses - after a series of meetings with new Education Minister Niki Kerameus.

There were times up until very recently that if someone spoke of the need to "abolish the university asylum law" or even hinted at it, he or she was immediately linked to the dark periods of Greece's political life. This proposal was seen to be almost equivalent to abolishing democracy. 

Greece's Asylum Service is struggling with a backlog of more than 62,000 cases while an estimated 5,500 new applications are submitted every year by people entering the country, Kathimerini understands.

Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno on April 14 defended his decision to overturn Julian Assange's asylum status, claiming in an interview with the Guardian newspaper that the WikiLeaks founder had tried to set up a "center for spying" in Ecuador's London embassy.