Rob and colleagues,

Over the past two weeks, I was in Greece, visiting our partner organizations that offer the last glimpses of humanity in a world that, for people on the run, is no longer humane.

Because no, Rob, this is not about a single incident where something goes wrong. Human rights are being violated systematically. A sentence in a policy document stating that this should not happen does not mean that it does not happen. Because it does happen. And on a large scale.

I have seen a great deal of suffering in my life across this world. What makes this different is that I am a citizen of a country that supports this suffering. That considers it acceptable.

I would very much like to take you along on my next trip. We would talk to the boy who had to flee his country, who endured a hellish journey filled with horrific experiences, who crossed the sea. Upon arrival, the Greek coast guard tried to push the boat back into the sea (this happens on a very large scale; there is overwhelming evidence—could you address Greece about this?). The boy held up a baby who was also on the boat and said: Don’t do it! They did not, but they arrested him and claimed he was a smuggler. He is not. Thousands of people in Greece are imprisoned on charges of human smuggling when they are not smugglers at all (could you also address the Greek government about this?).

We would also try to speak with the people who, just the night before last, were taken from their beds in one of the camps on the islands by the police and arrested. Their application had been rejected for the second time. They can now be detained for two years, even though their legal term had not yet expired.

And we would visit the organizations working on mental health. Because 50% of the people who come there have suicidal thoughts. After experiencing terrible things, then not being welcomed, being placed in a filthy camp, and then waiting—there is a limit to what people can endure.

I could tire you with an essay about the legal, constitutional, and factual errors that dominate the debate on migration. About numbers that are incorrect, but above all about the ongoing lies used to justify inhumane measures.

I will not do that. I appeal to your humanity. Things are happening at the edges of Europe that cannot bear the light of day. Children arriving on the shores of Greece are sent back out to sea naked in rubber boats. Masked men push boats back or let them sink. With impunity.

Saying that human rights must be respected while holding no one accountable, dismissing kilometers of evidence—I cannot and do not want to understand it. Once, we were a country that held human rights in high regard, that stood up for them internationally. Now we are participating in a European contest to see who can create the harshest asylum policy.

Come with us sometime and listen.

Rob Jetten

“It’s cruel.” X from Syria barely holds back his tears. When I spoke to him in April last year, he had finally made it to Athens after enduring abuse in Turkey, being pushed back from Bulgaria, and making two attempts to reach Greece. He was finally in the right procedure, with a strong chance of obtaining papers. But no—procedural errors delayed the process, and now the decision-making for Syrians has been put on hold.

Every policy you read about has far-reaching consequences for real people. All Syrians currently in the procedure are now stuck in this country, including those on Lesbos. They are not allowed to leave the island. Germany is preparing to start deporting Syrians who traveled through Greece, their first country of arrival. And then what?

This is about X and that five-year-old boy traveling alone. It’s about families who have already endured so much. A single sentence—“decision-making postponed”—suspends people’s lives in limbo, with no one knowing how it will end.

I was in Athens this weekend, visiting some partners and taking a moment to admire everything this city has to offer. “How are things on Lesbos?” was a recurring question. The pastor of the Anglican church, where I briefly stopped yesterday with Cees from the embassy, immediately invited me to speak one evening. “We barely hear about it anymore.” The mainland camps are far from inhabited areas.

I sent a piece to Trouw. The response was that it was very compelling, but they already covered Greece enough.

And of course, a drawn-out issue loses to the language of war and threats. But that rhetoric fuels the silence—not just by making it less newsworthy, but also by increasing its invisibility and that of its consequences.

Every day, I realize more how much we don’t know. And how too little knowledge always leads to bad plans, cruel policies, and a lack of awareness.

Dutch legislative proposals are partly based on Greek procedures, as Greece is the testing ground. But in some ways, Greece does things better than the Netherlands. Two months after arrival, whether or not they have received papers, people are allowed to work. Not in the Netherlands. Every European country is coming up with stricter measures—Minister Faber stacks them on top of each other and ties them up with a bow. And no matter what the Council of State says, it all drowns in Trumpian rhetoric.

“I’ll come back,” I tell X. Not that it helps him in any way. But maybe his story will help people understand what seemingly simple measures do to a person. A young man whose eyes are less hopeful than ten months ago. But who keeps going, refusing to surrender to a cruel system that leaves no room for humanity.