Wednesday, May 20, 2015




 EU: Don't endanger lives at sea or deny protection


Saving lives at sea and bringing people at risk in the Mediterranean safely to EU shores should be the top priority.
Judith Sunderland, acting deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia Division
(Brussels) – European Union military action against human smuggling networks should not put the lives and rights of migrants and asylum seekers in jeopardy, Human Rights Watch said. The Council of the European Union agreed on May 18 to create a naval operation, dubbed EUNAVFOR Med, to identify, capture, and destroy boats used by smugglers in the Mediterranean.

“Smugglers and traffickers often show a complete disregard for human life and dignity, and they should be held to account for that, but military action against them could also expose migrants and asylum seekers to serious risks,” said Judith Sunderland, acting deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. “Saving lives at sea and bringing people at risk in the Mediterranean safely to EU shores should be the top priority.”

The EU should assess carefully the short and long term human rights implications of this military operation, including the risk it will increase the dangers of boat migration in the Mediterranean and of trapping migrants and asylum seekers in Libya, where they are often subjected to violence and abuse and have no possibility for lodging asylum claims.

The Council decision foresees implementing the operation in phases. The first phase will involve surveillance and patrols. Following an assessment of phase one, if EU member states agree to proceed, the second phase will include boarding, search, seizure, and diversion of boats suspected of being used by smugglers, while the third phase will involve “rendering inoperable” boats suspected of being used for smuggling.

Any operations in the territory or territorial waters of a non-EU state would require a UN Security Council resolution or the invitation of the state. The internationally recognized government of Libya has said it opposes EU action in its territory or territorial waters. Two governments are vying for legitimacy in Libya, one internationally recognized government based in Tobruk and Al-Bayda in the east and another self-declared authority based in Tripoli in the west, from where the vast majority of boats depart.

Regardless of the area of operation, EU vessels participating in the planned naval operation are subject to the jurisdiction of the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires that all operations are designed, planned, and implemented with full respect for rights including the right to life, liberty and security, an effective remedy, and the prohibition of torture, including the prohibition of sending anyone to a country where they risk torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or threats to their lives or freedoms (the non-refoulement principle).

Migrants intercepted by EU vessels in the Mediterranean, including those participating in EUNAVFOR Med, should be taken to safe ports in the EU, where those asking for protection or indicating a fear of return should undergo asylum screening. Under no circumstances should the EU transfer boat migrants to the Libyan coast guard or disembark them in Libya, where they have no possibility of seeking asylum and where they risk being detained in appalling and abusive conditions and being harmed by the violence that is pervasive across the country, Human Rights Watch said.

The mission is part of the EU’s response to the crisis in the Mediterranean. Since the beginning of the year, at least 1,780 migrants and asylum seekers have died attempting the sea journey. The EU has stepped up search-and-rescue operations, and over 62,000 people have reached the EU so far this year by sea, crossing the central Mediterranean mainly from Libya to Italy and Malta, and the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece. Statistics from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, show that 60 percent of those who arrived by sea so far this year were from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, and Somalia – all countries experiencing widespread political violence and/or repression.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, issued on May 13 a set of proposals towards a “European Agenda on Migration.” The proposals include positive steps, such as the creation of an EU-wide refugee resettlement scheme and a relocation mechanism to more equitably distribute responsibility for asylum seekers among EU member states, Human Rights Watch said. Several EU member states, including the UK, France, Hungary, and Poland, have already voiced their unwillingness to participate in these responsibility-sharing proposals.

The majority of the proposals, however, focus on measures to limit arrivals, including through enhancing immigration controls in sending and transit countries, regional development, and the creation of a pilot “multi-purpose center” in Niger to provide information, local protection, and resettlement opportunities. These measures should be carefully designed to improve respect for human rights and foster conflict resolution in sending countries and to improve the capacity of transit countries to provide protection and integration for refugees, including through the creation of fair and efficient asylum systems that ensure asylum claims are properly screened with a right to appeal rejections, Human Rights Watch said. Such measures should scrupulously ensure that refugees and asylum seekers are not forcibly returned to persecution or other serious harm and that no one is prevented from fleeing threats to his or her life or freedom.

Many, if not most, migrants and asylum seekers entering the EU irregularly willingly pay smugglers to facilitate their travel, though smugglers often deceive them about the context or conditions under which they will be transported, including by putting them in overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels. There are also trafficking victims among those arriving by sea and by land, who are deceived or forced to travel and who are held for ransom or otherwise abused and exploited.

Migrants and asylum seekers interviewed in Italy in May 2015 told Human Rights Watch about abuses they suffered along the migration routes from the Horn of Africa and in Libya. These included being held hostage for months in the Sahara desert in grueling, violent conditions for months until relatives transfer money to traffickers in exchange for onward movement; beatings with wooden and iron pipes, rubber hoses, and whips; shooting deaths for attempted escapes; forced labor; and virtual detention in unsanitary, overcrowded smuggler-run “safe houses” in Libya pending departure. Smugglers routinely overload unseaworthy boats and provide insufficient food, water, and fuel for the journey.

Libya has long served as both a destination country and as a transit country for sub-Saharan Africans, Syrians, and others seeking to reach the EU. Human Rights Watch has documented torture – including whippings, beatings, and electric shocks – as well as overcrowding, dire sanitation conditions, and lack of access to medical care in migrant detention centers in Libya in mid-2014 and May 2015.

Interviews with recently-arrived migrants in Italy in May 2015 indicate that increasing lawlessness and generalized violence in Libya due to the ongoing hostilities are driving some migrants to leave. Some said that they would have remained in Libya and not attempted the dangerous sea crossing to the EU if Libya were not so dangerous. Livinus, a 20-year-old Nigerian who had gone to Libya to find work in 2013, told Human Rights Watch, “You see them pump up the [inflatable] boat, put one hundred people on it, and you know it’s risky. I wouldn’t have taken that risk except for the problems in Libya.”

“Destroying suspected smugglers’ boats might temporarily prevent a person from boarding an unseaworthy vessel, but the consequences don’t end there,” Sunderland said. “The EU needs to be honest in assessing how military intervention will push desperate persons to take even more dangerous journeys, what becomes of people in need of protection seeking to leave an increasingly chaotic and violent Libya, and how this squares with international obligations.”

Human Rights Watch acknowledged that there are no easy short term solutions, but called on the EU to increase safe and legal channels into the EU as a more effective long term solution than destroying boats.   Human Rights Watch

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