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The ECRE Weekly Bulletin provides information about the latest European developments in the areas of asylum and refugee protection.ECRE is a pan-European alliance of 90 NGOs protecting and advancing the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and displaced persons.If you would like to know more about ECRE’s advocacy work, policy positions, press releases and projects, please visit our website at www.ecre.org, find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

     
24 November 2017
  
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EDITORIAL

OP-ED

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS

UNITED NATIONS

BEYOND EUROPE
  

EDITORIAL

EU-Africa Summit: migration – the elephant in the room

The EU-Africa Summit of 28 is imminent. This time around, Summit’s agenda is focused on youth but the elephant in the room will be migration.

Migration has to be part of the policies that the EU develops with and towards Africa. It is one of the great global issues of our time, and for two continents so close geographically there will always be complex patterns of two-way mobility, which are entangled with trade, development, and security policies. And the relationship between the two continents will always be tense due to money and history, inter alia, as a recent paper by International Crisis Group described well.

But a new risk to a constructive relationship – and to the wellbeing of the peoples of both continents – develops when Europe approaches migration from the narrow perspective of migration control, defined as prevention of migration from Africa to Europe, full stop.

Since “The Crisis” in too many debates on migration with EU policy-makers, particularly those representing Member States, the discussion rapidly descends into an ominous presentation of birth rates in Africa, with the implicit or explicit suggestion that ALL those as yet unborn Africans will “flood” to Europe. Rarely have demographic trends been so widely studied and cited or been framed in such a narrow and politically charged way. The broader reality of migration and Africa is simply disregarded.

First, most migration of Africans remains within Africa. Those routes across the Sahel lead people to other parts of their own continent, which is where most of them want to go. New research from Clingendael and from Oxfam shows that European efforts to disrupt migration also prevents regional migration and can have a negative economic impact.

Another fact so often disregarded is that many of the migrants arriving from Africa are refugees. The myth prevails that they are all economic migrants “clogging up asylum systems” (a charming expression that seems to be standard usage in DG Home). But there are enough countries in Africa where persecution by repressive regimes and conflict are common enough to mean many people arriving in Europe are entitled to protection.

At the same time, while the facts about the availability of black market work and about Europe’s aging population and the economic challenges it poses are often discussed in Africa, they seem rarely to feature in European decision making and debate. European policy-makers and civil society who try to inject these issues into discussion are shouted down as naïve or dangerous.

But things can be turned around. The African Union is becoming more engaged – it is currently developing its own position – and African civil society’s emerging activism on migration is welcome. Both have a stake in the politics of migration, most notably when Europeans’ panic leads to cooperation with corrupt, repressive or abusive regimes (also exacerbating the reasons why people want to leave).

In Africa the anger is palpable – and unsurprising. The openly racist rhetoric in Europe –from people who should know better as well as the extremists – is reported regularly, along with the stories of people drowning and search and rescue disrupted. For many, analysis of the news is coupled with wide knowledge of Europe’s historical and more recent involvement in generating the reasons for forced and voluntary migration: badly drawn borders that lead to conflict, support for repressive regimes, hosting of stolen assets, arms sales, etc. People in Africa think Europe has gone completely mad – with a political meltdown because of the arrival of manageable numbers of people, whom Europe needs.

We need above all joint work to fight the root causes of forced displacement. The good news is that we have 30+ years of evidence on what works in supporting development and preventing conflict. As well as reading scare stories about birth rates and assuming that every person born in Africa is heading to their house, European leaders would be better off reading some of this work. We need greater involvement of and resistance from development specialists, diplomats, trade officials and the security experts. These are the people who have experience in external affairs and in working with their African counterparts. It doesn’t make for good trade, development or security policy to focus on migration control (but yes, migration is part of all these policies).

The agenda has to be taken out of the hands of the internal affairs people with their migration control obsession and their narrow approach to security (hard borders – like that stops the real threats to Europeans’ security). And, by the way, tackling the “root causes of migration” does not mean paying a corrupt strongman wanted by the ICC to control borders.

For those who care about the future of EU external affairs, it is imperative to keep the broad and multi-faceted approach set out in the Global Strategy. An EU foreign policy that focuses purely on migration control is not serious (although it might suit some Member States). Often, the most useful thing that Europe could do is stop contributing to the causes of displacement. Oxfam’s report on the EU Trust Fund for Africa shows that it is funding good work in line with the SDG as well as problematic projects that are only about prevention of migration. The balance must shift to the former.

The other ways out of this situation are the legal migration routes that are gradually being opened. These are the safe and legal channels to safety for those who need protection and the multiple potential legal options for other forms of migration. African governments and civil society can insist on these positive elements being part of migration cooperation with Europe – the EU’s transactional approach provides them with leverage they can use. And why else should they support Europe’s agenda? The development money offered is in many cases not sufficient to replace the value of remittances provided by migrants.

Of course, there are countries which the EU should not be dealing with and governments it should not be reinforcing. In these cases, European civil society stands ready to work with our counterparts in Africa and with the relevant AU bodies to expose the human rights violations that result from migration control policy.

Some African countries are leading the way globally when it comes to protection of refugees through respect for their rights, such as their right to employment. Others are doing very badly, unable or unwilling to offer even basic protection. Many have a keen eye on developments in Europe. Supporting the rights of refugees in Africa is not an alternative to protection in Europe – it depends on it because if Europe gives it up, others will follow its lead. The migration piece is separate, involving different legal and practical measures. But both must involve getting people out of the hands of smugglers. Tackling the multiple reasons why they use smugglers is the way to do this, rather than supporting corruptible state institutions to tackle smugglers with one hand and take money from them with the other.

We are told that some of these options are “politically impossible”: unfortunately too much that was previously politically impossible or inconceivable (complicity with Libyan militias anyone?) is now happening. The reasonable and positive “impossibilities” should also be made possible through cross-sectoral and cross-continental alliances to resist the counter-productive agenda of migration control at any cost.

 
Catherine Woollard, ECRE Secretary General
 
 


OP-ED

Asylum seekers in Croatia in a human rights vacuum

By Tajana Tadić and Marijana Međugorac from the civil initiative ‘Are You Syrious.’

 
From the arbitrary and unlawful practices of the Ministry of Interior (MOI) and the Security and Intelligence agency (SIA), to the violent pushbacks occurring from its territory, the right to access international protection in Croatia remains precarious at best. Croatian NGOs, namely Are You Syrious and the Centre for Peace Studies, maintain that "there is a visible and planned discouragement policy towards asylum seekers implemented by the state", and the euphemism discouragement is used to refer to the unlawful and arbitrary MOI and SIA practices described in two reports published in April and July respectively, as well as direct border violence, which makes access to territory and the international protection system virtually impossible.
 
The published reports and complaints on pushbacks filed by the NGOs resulted in a criminal investigation for several documented cases, however, these acts of institutional violence seem to continue with impunity.
 
Since August this year, volunteers active in Serbia have collected numerous testimonies from refugees who were violently and unlawfully pushed back from Croatia. The police doesn’t discriminate, in addition to single men (a category systematically overlooked and left to fend for themselves), there are cases of entire families with children who fell victim to this cruel practice.
 
The refugees, majority of them hailing from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria and other countries, are mostly staying in a camp in Šid, which is the location they are regularly returned to by the Croatian police. Many of them testify to being in Croatia and making an application for international protection more than once, after which they were taken to the police station, and then returned to the border with Serbia where they were made to cross the border on foot and were often victims of physical and verbal violence. Additionally, they are reporting that their money and mobile phones - their only connection to home and the life they left behind - are stolen or destroyed by the police.
 
What is especially worrying are continues reports over a long period of time of refugees pushed back after being picked up by the police in front of the SPAZ building hosting many international organizations including IOM and UNICEF in the commercial center of the capital where they came for support and protection. For more than a month, a police van was parked outside the building 24/7, thereby preventing the people from entering, taking them to the police station and then back to the border with Serbia, while telling them that they will get the chance to lodge their asylum claim. Some of the pushbacks even feature elements of collective expulsions - no names or details are taken, and the people are denied the chance to ask for asylum.
 
One of the testimonies collected by the volunteer groups in Serbia tells a story of a group of seven people, who were in Zagreb, heading to the UNHCR office in order to make an application for international protection. The police caught them in front of the office, took them to the police station where Faisal, a 15-year-old boy from Pakistan asked for asylum in Croatia and declared that he was a minor. He was refused and was forced to stay with the rest of his group for three hours in a cell in the police station without food or water, after which they were driven back to the Serbian border.
 
Volunteers from NGOs sometimes accompany people who express the wish to ask for international protection in Croatia, in an attempt to ensure that they are able to lodge their applications and to monitor the situation and ensure the applicant is given a fair process. Otherwise they are left to navigate a system where they often have to apply for protection without an interpreter, and are sometimes made to sign documents in a language they do not understand.
 
If one would like (legal) information about the process, or someone to accompany them while they attempt to make an application for international protection, they can only do so during office hours – the Croatian Law Center, UNHCR’s implementing partner is open Monday to Friday, from 9am to 5pm. It is unclear what those who find themselves in Croatia on weekends are supposed to do. Cases of unlawful expulsions have been observed not only at the border with Serbia, but with Montenegro and Bosnia as well, for example in the Croatian region of Lika, where witnesses say they regularly see police vans taking migrants and refugees back across the border.
 
The situation in Croatia is just one example of the deeply problematic situation along EU’s external (and the externalized) borders. The right to seek protection is a corner stone of international human rights and so is the principle of non-refoulement. We need to ask ourselves what is the worth of these fundamental principles if they are openly violated by authorities in an EU Member State and in front of the offices of UN agencies with the mandate of protecting them.
 
 
ECRE publishes op-eds by commentators with relevant experience and expertise in the field who want to contribute to the debate on refugee rights in Europe. The views expressed are those of the author and does not necessarily reflect ECRE positions.
 
 


NATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS

Greek judges recommend legal restrictions to accelerate procedure on the islands

On 14 November 2017 the General Commission of the Greek Administrative Courts published a letter to the Ministers of Justice and Migration Policy and Directors of the Asylum Service and the Appeals Authority, containing proposals to accelerate the processing of asylum applications in the appeals procedure affecting the definition of final decision as well as the definition of vulnerable groups. 
 
An “applicant” is defined in Greek law as a person seeking international protection and for whom a final decision has not yet been taken. Since second-instance decisions issued by the Appeals Committees can be annulled by the Administrative Court of Appeal they are not considered final. The General Commission of Administrative Courts notes that this unduly prolongs the status of “applicant” and urges the authorities to amend the definition of “final decision” in the law and clarify that a decision becomes final when it is no longer amenable to an administrative appeal before the Appeals Committee.
 
Further the General Commission of Administrative Courts recommends a more rigid definition of vulnerable groups, who are exempted from the fast-track border procedure on the islands, and suggests that persons with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) a group expressly set out in Greek law as opposed to other countries should be deleted.
 
The European Commission has urged Greece to accelerate the processing of asylum applications on the islands in a Joint Action Plan issued on 8 December 2016. The Action Plan inter alia proposes measures to transfer vulnerable persons to Turkey.


 
For further information:
 
 




Ireland: planned opt-in to recast Reception Conditions Directive

On 21 November 2017, the Irish Minister for Justice and Equality announced that Ireland will be opting into the recast Reception Conditions Directive as part of measures to comply with its Supreme Court ruling of 30 May 2017 which condemned the prohibition on asylum seekers’ access to employment. While welcoming the step ECRE member, Irish Refugee Council finds shortcomings in the government announcement.

The announcement marks the first time EU reception requirements become binding on Ireland; contrary to the United Kingdom, it has so far opted out of both the 2003 Directive and its 2013 recast. EU law obliges Member States to grant asylum seekers access to the labour market no later than 9 months after lodging a claim. While different countries have opted for variable standards – ranging from immediate access to a 9-month waiting period – recent announcements indicate that a 9-month time limit will be introduced in Irish law, coupled with sectoral restrictions on employment opportunities for asylum seekers.

While the Irish Refugee Council welcomes the step of opting into the 2013 Reception Conditions Directive the organisation issued a Press Statement entitled: “Fundamental detail and urgency missing from government announcement on the right to work for people seeking asylum,” outlining key shortcomings of the government proposal: “The Irish Refugee Council call for the right to work to be immediately available to people who have waited six months for an asylum decision and without restrictions to particular professions. They also seek clarity about key details missing from this decision: for example it is essential that people can access Child Benefit, the Affordable Childcare Scheme and the Family Income Supplement, each being an important safeguard for children of parents on low pay.”

By opting into the recast Reception Conditions Directive Ireland will have to abide by a range of recast Reception Conditions Directive standards, including accommodation guaranteeing an adequate standard of living, as well as specified grounds for detention. Under the Directive, Ireland will also have to refrain from detaining asylum seekers in prisons as a rule.


For further information:
 




NGO takes Italy to court over misappropriation of development funds directed to Libyan coastguards

The Italian NGO ASGI filed a suit against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation before the Administrative Tribunal of Lazio (TAR) accusing the Ministry of misappropriation of funds  and misuse of power in regards to Italy’s technical support of border management by Libyan authorities.

In a statement last week, the ECRE Member organization Associazione per gli Studi Giurdici sull’ Immigrazione (ASGI) criticized the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for overstepping its power in allocating a total 2.5 million Euro to the Ministry of Interior to repair four vessels of the Libyan coastguard. The money was allocated from the so called ‘African Fund’, a development fund which is set up to promote cooperation and dialogue with African countries under the frame of development and humanitarian interests.  The 2.5 million Euro are invested in equipment and measurements aiming at border management and there is a high probability that the vessels might be used to pull-back and detain migrants and refugees fleeing Libya. On those grounds ASGI argues that this represents a diversion of funding, saying that the use of funds is profoundly different from its development target.       

“The Italian government is reinforcing the Libyan coastguard in order to delegate illegal activities, and in particular push backs to the country. On this agenda Italy is supported by the European Commission that pursuit the same aims. Considering the horrors people in Libya face, the policy is to be denounced. This case might help to build public pressure in protest of the extensive externalization efforts and hopefully will put a cap on the unlawful diversion of funds. In the end EU and Italy need to be called to account for their complicity,” said Salvatore Fachile and Giulia Crescini, ASGI Rome to ECRE Weekly Bulletin.

The accusation of questionable allocation of funds is not limited to Italy. In a report from last week, Oxfam finds that the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa lacks checks and balances and focuses on European ‘migration management’ rather than African long-term interests and development goals. 

The human rights violations in Libya are escalating. Last week, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein strongly criticized EU’s and Member States cooperation with Libya in view of inhuman conditions in detention facilities.  Further UN Secretary- General, the Secretary General of the African Union and leading UN Agencies strongly condemn recently documented slave markets in Libya where migrants are auctioned. On Wednesday, France called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over the topic.

 
For further information:
 




Amid concerns from civil society, newly arrived migrants are temporarily placed in a soon-to-be prison in Spain

Over five hundred migrants from Algeria and sub-Saharan Africa who reached the Spanish shores over the past weekend have been placed by the Spanish Ministry of Interior in a centre that will be used as a penitentiary facility in the very near future in Archidona, Málaga.

Due to the saturation of the Spanish reception system, the government took the decision to temporarily use the soon-to-be prison in Archidona as an immigration detention centre (CIE in Spanish), despite concerns from the civil society over the lack of information regarding the conditions of the facility and in an alleged disregard of the Spanish legislation which establishes that immigration detention centres cannot have a penitentiary nature.

The Spanish government has rebutted the criticism and argued that the measure is of a provisional nature, has been authorised by different judges and that the facility fulfils all necessary criteria to provide for migrants’ needs during the period of detention.

NGOs, including ECRE Member CEAR, and political parties have requested the immediate release of the migrants in the Archidona facility and have criticised the Spanish government’s asylum policy. The complaints were brought before the National Ombudsman, who is expected to investigate if the human rights of those detained in the provisional centre have been violated.

 
For further information:  
 


UNITED NATIONS

UN Committees provide authoritative new guidance in defense of child migrant rights

In a press release from November 17, United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) announced two Joint General Comments providing authoritative and extensive guidance in the protection the rights of child migrants. The UN Comments are based on consultations with UN agencies, states, civil society organisations and national human rights institutions from across the globe.

The Joint General Comments (CMW/C/GC/3-CRC/C/GC/22) and (CMW/C/GC/4-CRC/C/GC/23) from the ‘Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families’ and the ‘Committee on the Rights of the Child on the general principles regarding the human rights of children in the context of international migration’ underline the fundamental principles of non-discrimination, the right to life, survival and development, the right to be heard and to participate, the best interests of the child and right to liberty and freedom and introduces a total ban of detention: “The detention of any child because of their or their parents’ migration status constitutes a child rights violation and contravenes the principle of the best interests of the child. In this light, both Committees have repeatedly affirmed that children should never be detained for reasons related to their or their parents’ migration status and States should expeditiously and completely cease or eradicate the immigration detention of children.”

The Comments relate to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and the Convention on the Rights of the Child and provide the frame for rights-based migration policies in the 196 States that has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child including countries of origin, transit, destination and return and have the potential to form  frameworks such as Global Compacts on Migration and Refugees and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) regarding the rights of children.

“Migrants are exposed to violence, sexual violence, exploitation and trafficking as well as detention and rights violations by states and the risk and consequences multiply when you are a migrant child. The fact that we now have a thorough and authoritative guidance on the protection of their fundamental rights ensures that there are no excuses to neglect them. This is a victory for UN, NGO’s and institutions who have contributed in the process and now it is vital that we ensure that it becomes a decisive victory for the of most vulnerable children on this planet,” says Elona ECRE Senior Policy And Project Officer – Children.
 

For further information:
 

 

BEYOND EUROPE

Israeli Minister tells asylum seekers to relocate or go to jail after detention centre closure

UNHCR expresses serious concerns over proposals from Israel’s Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan to force Eritreans and Sudanese asylum seekers and refugees would to accept relocation to countries in Africa or face imprisonment in Israel. Further the Israeli Cabinet closure have voted unanimously to close the Holot facility housing many of the Eritreans and Sudanese.

With the new proposal Israel will engage in a largely unprecedented practice of expulsion of asylum seekers to third countries. “As party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Israel has legal obligations to protect refugees and other persons in need of international protection,” said UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Volker Türk.

Further the proposal includes the closure of the Holot Facility inaugurated in December 2013 and hosting more than a thousand asylum seekers within a three-month period. Ministers Ardan and Deri stressed that “the infiltrators will have to choose between going to prison or leaving the country.”

The proposal, unanimously approved by the cabinet, was already announced by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked in August as a reaction to a ruling from the Israeli High Court of Justice allowing the continuance of the controversial practice of expulsion to third countries but setting a 60 day time-limit on imprisonment of asylum seekers and making relocation to third countries dependent of the safety of the receiving country and agreement from the relocated asylum seekers.

The Times of Israel quoted an Israeli official for saying: “The High Court removed from the state the ability to pressure the illegal infiltrators,” and Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked was quoted for saying: “It turned the [migrant’s] lack of cooperation into a reward. We will fight this until we achieve the necessary results.”
According to UNHCR 4,000 Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers have been relocated under the present ‘voluntary departure programme’ reportedly to Rwanda and Uganda. However, “Due to the secrecy surrounding this policy and the lack of transparency concerning its implementation, it has been very difficult for UNHCR to follow up and systematically monitor the situation of people relocated to these African countries. UNHCR, however, is concerned that these persons have not found adequate safety or a durable solution to their plight and that many have subsequently attempted dangerous onward movements within Africa or to Europe.”

Further UNHCR notes that “Since Israel took over refugee status determination from UNHCR in 2009, only eight Eritreans and two Sudanese have been recognized as refugees by the authorities. Another 200 Sudanese, all from Darfur, were recently granted humanitarian status in Israel.” There are currently 27,500 Eritreans and 7,800 Sudanese in Israel.

 
 


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