Tag Archives: Detention conditions

by | 04 May 2015 · 05:10

The Detention of Asylum Seekers in the Mediterranean Region – A Global Detention Project Background Paper

The Global Detention Project just released a Background Paper, “The Detention of Asylum Seekers in the Mediterranean Region,” which “is intended to highlight some of the vulnerabilities that people seeking international protection face when they are taken into custody in Mediterranean countries and to underscore the way that European Union-driven policies have impacted the migratory phenomenon in the region.”  GDP Cover-Backgrounder Det of Asy Seekers in Med_April 2015

Summary: “With the recent tragic surge in the number of deaths at sea of asylum seekers and other migrants attempting to reach Europe, enormous public attention is being focused on the treatment of these people across the Mediterranean. An important migration policy employed throughout the region is detention, including widespread deprivation of liberty of asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups. …

The report focuses on eight key countries in Europe and North Africa. While there are clear differences in treatment from one side of the Mediterranean to the next, looked at collectively, the protection environment across all the countries in the region is bleak. Not surprisingly, the conditions of detention asylum seekers face in North African countries are often horrific and inhumane. However, in Europe, there are also serious shortcomings. In fact, as this backgrounder reports, reception and detention conditions in three of Europe’s main asylum receiving countries (Greece, Italy, and Malta) are so inadequate that many of their EU counterparts have been forced to halt returns to these countries under the Dublin III Regulation.”

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by | 19 Jul 2012 · 18:14

European Ombudsman Opens Public Consultation on Frontex and EU Charter of Fundamental Rights; NGOs and Public Invited to Submit Comments

Text of 19 July 2012 press release from the European Ombudsman:  “The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has invited individuals, NGOs, and other organisations active in the area of fundamental rights protection to submit comments in his ongoing inquiry concerning the EU Borders Agency, Frontex. Frontex coordinates the operational cooperation between Member States in the field of border security. In March 2012, the Ombudsman asked Frontex a number of questions about the implementation of its fundamental rights obligations. Frontex replied in May 2012. Comments on Frontex’s response can be submitted to the Ombudsman until 30 September 2012.

Fundamental rights organisations and NGOs invited to submit comments

In 2009, the Charter of Fundamental Rights became legally binding on Frontex, which is based in Warsaw. Since then, a number of civil society organisations have questioned whether Frontex is doing enough to comply with the Charter, for example, in its deployment of EU border guards to Greece where migrant detainees were kept in detention centres under conditions which have been criticised by the European Court of Human Rights.

In October 2011, the European Parliament and the Council adopted a Regulation setting out additional specific fundamental rights obligations for Frontex. In March 2012, the Ombudsman asked Frontex a number of questions about how it is fulfilling these obligations, including the obligation to draw up a fundamental rights strategy, as well as codes of conduct applicable to its operations.

Frontex submitted its opinion in May 2012. It explained that, since 2010, it has developed a fundamental rights strategy, as well as a binding code of conduct for those participating in its activities. Frontex also listed other measures it is currently taking to ensure full respect for fundamental rights.

The Ombudsman considers that, before proceeding further, it would be useful to seek information and views from NGOs and other organisations active in the area of fundamental rights protection. He therefore invites interested parties to make observations on Frontex’s opinion. The Ombudsman has also invited the EU Fundamental Rights Agency to give its views.

All documents related to the inquiry, including Frontex’s opinion, are available at: http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/cases/correspondence.faces/en/11757/html.bookmark ”

From the Ombudsman’s website:

What the Ombudsman is looking for

The present inquiry concerns the implementation by Frontex of its fundamental rights obligations. The Ombudsman would, therefore, be highly interested in receiving feedback from interested parties, such as NGOs and other organisations specialised in the areas covered by his inquiry, on Frontex’s answers to the questions he put to it.

The present inquiry is not intended to examine and solve individual cases involving Frontex’s fundamental rights obligations. Such cases can of course be submitted to the Ombudsman through individual complaints. A complaint form that can be used for this purpose is available on this website.

How to contribute

Comments should be sent to the Ombudsman by 30 September 2012.

Click here for press release.

Click here for all documents related to the inquiry.

Click here for Frontex’s 17 May 2012 response.

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by | 19 Jul 2012 · 05:18

HRW Report on Malta’s Migrant Detention Policy: “Boat Ride to Detention”

Human Rights Watch has issued a report, “Boat Ride to Detention – Adult and Child Migrants in Malta”, documenting the treatment of migrants and asylum seekers arriving by boat in Malta and concluding that the mandatory detention policy violates international law.

Excerpts:

“Summary – Malta routinely detains an average of 1,500 people per year, including children, who arrive in the country by boat without permission, or ‘irregularly.’ These are migrants and asylum seekers, typically from Somalia, Eritrea, and other sub-Saharan African countries, who travel to Europe fleeing persecution or in search of a better life. Many have fled violence and conflict, and almost all have made an arduous journey, taking months to cross the Sahara and travel north through Libya. The last stage of that journey is a perilous, multiday trip across the Mediterranean, typically in overcrowded vessels that are not seaworthy, and without enough food, water, or fuel, before they reach Maltese shores or are intercepted at sea by the Armed Forces of Malta.

Boat migrants arriving in Malta are taken straight to detention if they lack an entry visa (as they virtually all do). This report addresses their arbitrary, indiscriminate, and unfair detention. The report focuses on those who arrive in Malta by boat, as migrants who arrive in Malta by air for the most part are not detained, even if they enter under false pretenses or subsequently claim asylum. Asylum seekers who arrive by boat are detained for up to 12 months, and migrants who do not apply for asylum, or whose asylum claims are rejected, can be detained for up to 18 months. Under international law migrants who do not have permission to enter or stay in a country may be subject to detention, in certain circumstances, and also may be subject to safeguards. However in Malta, the detention policy operates in an automated, indiscriminate, and blanket manner in violation of international law.

In the course of this virtually automated detention policy, Malta routinely detains unaccompanied migrant children whose age is in question. ‘Unaccompanied children’ are migrants under the age of 18 (typically between 14 and 17) who travel without parents or caregivers. Migrants who claim to be unaccompanied children go through an age determination procedure, which relies on interviews and occasional medical testing to establish age. In 2007 and 2008, for example, around 400 children each year arrived in Malta claiming to be unaccompanied.1 While they register for and undergo the age determination procedure, Malta keeps these children in detention. [***]

While Malta justifies its prolonged detention of migrants as a legitimate response to irregular entry, the practice amounts to arbitrary detention prohibited by international law. Prolonged administrative custody, without the possibility of meaningful review, violates the prohibition on arbitrary detention in article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Court of Human Rights has found Malta’s detention policy to violate the European Convention’s provisions on the right to liberty. Children enjoy particular protection under the law: in principle, migrant children should not be detained, and where they are detained it must be as a last resort for the shortest appropriate period of time. [***]

Flawed Maltese and European Migration Policies

Malta’s detention policy is part of flawed approaches to migration, both by Malta itself and by the European Union (EU). The central Mediterranean migration route—typically from Libya to Malta or Italy—is a major entrance point to the EU. Since 2002, approximately 15,000 migrants have reached Malta by this route, some intentionally, many by mistake as they stumble across the small island country while hoping to reach Italy. While the number of migrants arriving in Malta is low in absolute terms, Malta now has the highest number of asylum seekers relative to the national population of any country in the industrialized world. Malta, a country of only 400,000 people, received 20.1 asylum seekers per 1,000 inhabitants in the years 2007-2011, whereas France, the EU member state receiving the largest number of asylum seekers in absolute terms in 2011, received about 3 per 1,000.

Although migrants have been traveling this migration route—in higher or lower numbers— for some ten years, neither Malta nor the EU has developed a sound policy that either respects migrants’ human rights or that addresses the high burden placed on Malta. EU asylum rules mean that member states at EU borders sometimes are forced to assume responsibility for a vastly disproportionate share of migrants and asylum seekers. The Dublin II regulation, promulgated in 2003, mandates that an individual’s asylum application must be processed in the country where the individual first entered the EU. This places an unfair burden on Malta, which must process these asylum applications in-country and which is obliged to accept the return of any asylum seekers whose first port of entry in the EU was Malta.

The EU has taken some steps towards mitigating this burden, for instance by relocating recognized refugees from Malta to other EU states and providing limited financial support. But these steps have been insufficient to assist Malta in meeting migrants’ needs. The case of Malta, like that of Greece, shows the need to revise the Dublin II regulation to permit greater burden sharing in processing and hosting asylum seekers, rather than insisting on the country of first arrival as the primary factor in assessing member state responsibility.

Malta’s arbitrary detention policy, in addition to violating international standards, does not work to deter migrants from landing on its shores. Migrants may not intend to travel to Malta, and indeed the boats in which they travel lack navigational equipment that would enable them to choose their destination. Some migrants Human Rights Watch spoke with said they did not even know that Malta existed as a country before they landed there.

Though Malta’s burden is disproportionately large, detention is neither a legal nor a sound response to boat migration in the central Mediterranean. Both Malta and the EU should enact new policies to respond to their legal obligations to uphold migrants’ rights.

  • Malta should allow detention of migrants only in exceptional circumstances, with individualized determinations, and access to procedures to challenge detention.
  • Malta should treat those who claim to be children as such pending the outcome of age determination proceedings, and release all those with pending claims from detention.
  • The EU should reform the Dublin system by having the Dublin regulation take into account equitable burden-sharing among member countries.

[***]

IV. Conclusion

[***] Malta must revise its migrant detention policies for adult and child migrants alike, and end the continued mental stress imposed on migrants kept in prolonged detention. Maltese laws should allow detention of migrants only in exceptional circumstances, with individualized determinations, and access to procedures to challenge detention.”

Click here or here for Report.

Click here for HRW press release.

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by | 05 Oct 2011 · 06:13

PACE Report: Lampedusa Reception Centres Not Suitable Holding Facilities for Migrants

The PACE Ad Hoc Sub-Committee on the large-scale arrival of irregular migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees on Europe’s southern shores has issued a report on the migrant reception centres on Lampedusa.  A delegation of the sub-committee members visited Lampedusa in May of this year.

From the PACE Press Release:  “The reception centres in Lampedusa are not suitable holding facilities for irregular migrants, in particular Tunisians. In practice, they are imprisoned there without access to a judge, according to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Ad Hoc Sub-Committee on the large-scale arrival of irregular migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees on Europe’s southern shores, in its report on its visit to Lampedusa*, which was declassified today [3 October 2011]. ‘The reception centres should remain just that and not be turned into holding centres,’ said Christopher Chope (United Kingdom, EDG), Chair of the ad hoc sub-committee and of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population.  In this context, the ad hoc sub-committee is concerned by the tensions on the island, which have increased exponentially: arson in the main reception centre on 20 September caused serious damage and led to an upsurge in violence, leading the Italian authorities to declare Lampedusa an ‘unsafe port’. ‘These acts of violence are to be strongly condemned. They do not acknowledge the efforts of both the local population of Lampedusa and the Italian coastguards, who day after day do their utmost to rescue people at sea and to offer them temporary shelter on the island,’ declared the members of the ad hoc sub-committee….”

Excerpts from the Report:

“XV. Conclusions and recommendations

82. Much of the work observed by the delegation on Lampedusa warrants admiration, praise and broad support, even if some of the images provided in the media in the past have conveyed a rather more negative image. However some of the underlying problems noted by the delegation during its visit have manifested themselves in recent events, notably the arson attacks on the centre and the rising violence. Unfortunately what happened recently was foreseeable by the authorities and was inherent in the challenges of handling mixed flows of migrants and asylum seekers in the context of detention in a centre designed for reception.

83. What’s done is done, but lessons can usefully be learnt from the episode which has been painful both for Lampedusa and for the migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers who have been subjected to appalling conditions.

84. Lampedusa is still in the front line for arrivals of mixed migration flows by sea, in particular from Libya. The arrivals have not decreased in intensity and Italy and Europe must be ready to face up to a potentially even larger influx.

85. However, if we look at the number of arrivals so far, this is not a crisis for Italy or for Europe, but it is for Lampedusa.

86. In the immediate future, as soon as the situation is settled and the port is again considered safe, Lampedusa must remedy its limited reception capacity as the centres are immediately saturated by the arrival of boats with more and more people on board.

87. In the possibly very near future, if the number and frequency of arrivals increase, reception capacities in Italy will have to be brought into line. At the time of the visit, the Vice-Prefect and the Mayor were optimistic and convinced that the transfer system put in place was working, and that the situation would not deteriorate to the point reached earlier in the year. Furthermore, they considered that the transfer capacity could be increased through the planned provision of an additional boat. The members of the Sub-Committee at the time was confident that the Italian authorities would continue to do everything necessary to manage arrivals, even if their number were to increase. However, these measures – mostly designed for dealing with refugees and asylum-seekers fleeing Libya – have been proved insufficient to handle the challenge of handling the situation of the Tunisian migrants.

88. The Ad Hoc Sub-Committee wishes to voice its concern regarding a new agreement which the Italian authorities are reported to have signed with the authorities in Benghazi in Libya. The situation in Libya is not safe enough for people to be returned there and UNHCR’s position on this question remains unchanged. Furthermore, any attempt to deny access to persons entitled to international protection (and there are many of them in Libya) would be a clear breach of Italy’s international obligations.

89. There remains the issue of minimising loss of lives at sea and the need to ensure that all states fulfill their obligations of rescue at sea and the provision of access to international protection following any intervention.

90. Due to its proximity to North-Africa, Lampedusa is a key island to avoid even greater deaths at sea. If the boat people cannot hope to reach Lampedusa, their already highly dangerous journeys will become longer and therefore even more unsafe. To avoid more tragedies, Lampedusa’s reception capacities must be rebuild and improved as soon as possible.

91. The Ad Hoc Sub-Committee urges the Italian national, regional and local authorities to maintain their co-ordinated effort to manage arrivals of mixed migration flows in Lampedusa while complying with the relevant international standards and in co-operation with the international organisations and NGOs present on the island.

92. On the basis of its observations, the Ad Hoc Sub-Committee calls on the Italian authorities:

  • i. to continue to comply immediately and without exception with their obligation to rescue persons in distress at sea and to guarantee international protection, including the right of asylum and nonrefoulement;
  • ii. to introduce flexible measures for increasing reception capacities on Lampedusa;
  • iii. to improve conditions at the existing centres, and in particular the Loran base, while ensuring as a matter of priority that health and safety conditions meet existing standards – even when the centres are overcrowded – and carrying out strict and frequent checks to ensure that the private company responsible for running the centres is complying with its obligations;
  • iv. to ensure that new arrivals are able to contact their families as quickly as possible, even during their stay on Lampedusa, particularly at the Loran base, where there are problems in this regard;
  • v. to provide appropriate reception facilities for unaccompanied minors, ensuring that they are not detained and are kept separate from adults;
  • vi. to clarify the legal basis for the de facto detention in the reception centres in Lampedusa;
  • vii. where Tunisians in particular are concerned, only to keep irregular migrants in administrative detention under a procedure prescribed by law, authorised by a judicial authority and subject to periodic judicial review;
  • viii. to continue to guarantee the rapid transfer of new arrivals to reception centres elsewhere in Italy, even if their number were to increase;
  • ix. to consider the requests by the population of Lampedusa for support commensurate with the burden it has to bear, particularly in economic terms;
  • x. not to conclude bilateral agreements with the authorities of countries which are not safe and where the fundamental rights of the persons intercepted are not properly guaranteed, as in Libya.

93. Recalling the Assembly’s Resolution 1820 (2011) on “Asylum-seekers and refugees in Europe: sharing responsibilities”, the Ad Hoc Sub-Committee also recommends that all Council of Europe member states, and particularly the European Union member states, display greater solidarity by providing direct assistance to the countries, including Italy, which are currently faced with arrivals from the southern Mediterranean, and by accepting relocations within Europe where appropriate.

94. The Sub-Committee also urges member states to follow the example of the close co-operation between the Italian authorities and the member organisations of the “Praesidium Project” (UNHCR, IOM and the Red Cross) in managing arrivals and reception centres.

95. The Ad Hoc Sub-Committee invites the Italian authorities, through the Italian Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly, to keep the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population, appraised of progress on the 10 specific issues raised above on a six monthly basis.”

Click here for Report.

Click here for PACE Press Release.

Click here for my previous post.

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