On a late evening August flight last year from Munich to Afghanistan, an Afghan man seated in the back of the plane struggled to breath as a German escort officer repeatedly squeezed his testicles.
The man, along with another Afghan who had tried to kill himself, was being forcibly removed from Germany and sent back to a country engulfed in war.
The EU’s border agency Frontex coordinated and helped pay for the forced return operation, as part of a broader bid to remove from Europe unwanted migrants and others whose applications for international protection had been rejected.
By then, almost 20 years of war and civil conflict had already ravaged Afghanistan – with 2018 registering its worst-ever civilian death rate since counting had started.
Also seated on the plane for the 14 August flight were independent observers of the anti-torture committee (CPT) of the human rights watchdog, the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe.
In a report, they describe in detail how six escort officers had surrounded the terrified man in an effort to calm him.
The ‘calming’ techniques involved an officer pulling the man’s neck from behind while yanking his nose upwards.
Nikolaj Nielsen