We believe that everyone's right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution must always be respected.  

In the summer of 2021, a humanitarian crisis broke out on the border between Belarus and the EU, leading to massive violations of migrants' rights. People, including pregnant women and young children, despite articulated requests for asylum were pushed back by border guards of both sides. Thus they became stranded for many days or even months in the forest by the border without adequate living conditions and nutrition while sometimes being beaten and otherwise abused. They were unable to contact their relatives and unable to ask for help. 

RPF helps migrants seek justice for the treatment suffered at hands of border guards of Belarus, Latvia, and Poland.  Before the UN Human Rights Committee and the European Court of Human Rights we litigate cases against these countries concerning the disregard of asylum applications, collective expulsion, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment of migrants.

Regarding Latvia RPF also submitted communications to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and prepared a shadow report for the UN Committee against Torture. Our work was quoted in Amnesty International's report “Latvia: Return home or never leave the woods”, which describes how Latvia treats migrants, including asylum-seekers, at the border with Belarus.