The recent election of Trump in the US and the surge of the far right and increasing acceptance of far-right ideas across Europe are a threat to the human rights of many people. At the sharp end of the hate and the demonisation of the “other” are refugees who have been forced from their homes and communities by violence, war and destruction. Over 75 % of the world’s refugees are hosted by poor and middle income countries. Only a fraction, lured by the talk of human rights try to find safety in Europe. Refugees have contributed immensely to the UK and other European countries. But for racist ideologues and politicians in search of a scapegoat they make easy targets. As human rights defenders we have to stand up against the hate and push back against the demonisation of refugees. Seeking asylum is a universal human right and we need to defend it. This Saturday at Amplify Festival we are going to discuss the implications of Fortress Europe. On 16th January we are showing the film “Green Border” at the Human Rights Action Centre. Hope to see many of you there.
Again please contact us for any questions or if you would like us to give talks in your communities.
Poland
by Lucja Jastrzebska
Women’s Rights
A year after Tusk came to power, why is access to safe and legal abortion still a distant dream in Poland?
While abortion had already been severely restricted in Poland since 1993, a ruling from Poland’s discredited Constitutional Tribunal in 2020, which went into effect the following year, removed one of the legal grounds for abortion – in cases of fetal impairment – and leaving a near-total ban.
If elected, Doland Tusk promised he would make access to free, safe and legal abortion for all a reality within 100 days of coming into power.
And yet those 100 days have come and gone and a year after Tusk swept to power, the possibility of Poland providing access to safe and legal abortion for all who need it, seems as distant as ever.
Read more of Anna’s story here- https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/10/a-year-after-tusk-came-to-power-why-is-access-to-safe-and-legal-abortion-still-a-distant-dream-in-poland/
Refugee Rights:
Amnesty deems Poland’s Plans to suspend the right to seek asylum ‘flagrantly unlawful’
States refer to the “instrumentalisation” of migration to designate actions by third states or other actors that facilitate irregular migration movements into another country in an attempt to destabilise it.
The plans for the suspension of asylum applications form part of Poland’s strategy on migration for 2025-2030, approved by the Government on 15 October 2024.
These plans are the latest in the Polish government’s efforts to undermine the human rights of refugees and migrants arriving at the Polish-Belarussian border.
‘Suspending the right to seek asylum is flagrantly unlawful and Prime Minister Tusk knows this. EU member states like Poland are playing politics with the rights of refugees and migrants. From Poland to Finland, Greece and Germany, so-called emergencies are being weaponized to enact laws that gravely undermine access to asylum and protection from befoulment’. – Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Europe, Dinushika Dissanayake.
Rise of Populism and far-right anti-immigration policies – EU backs call to ban asylum seekers in Poland | World | News | Express.co.uk
Action:
Find out more about the struggles refugees face in the Polish-Belarusian border.
Attend our Film Screening of Green Boarder & Q&A
Unflinching in its exploration of the current migrant crisis, Green Border draws on real-life experiences of refugees journeying through the primeval forest on the Polish-Belarusian border to seek asylum in the EU. The issues are political and strategic, but here the focus is on inter-personal relationships and everyday experience. Working with refugees and professional actors, Holland presents a variety of perspectives – refugees, aid workers and border guards – challenging us to confront complex moral choices. How would we respond? Are we comfortable with decisions made in our name? Shot in stark monochrome, Green Border is a call for compassion for those who desperately need it and a plea for humanity toward those who withhold it.
Date: 16th January 2025
Time: 18:30-21:00
Where: Amnesty International UK, Human Rights Centre
Get your tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/green-border-film-screening-tickets-1077069988329?aff=oddtdtcreator
(tickets are free, but you must register)
Türkiye
by Chris Ramsey
UN expert on toxics and human rights to visit Türkiye
In a new development in respect of the human rights situation in Türkiye, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights, Marcos Orellana, is going to visit Türkiye from 2 December to 12 December.
The expert will examine the human rights situation related to the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and waste in the country, including plastic waste, pollution and ship recycling. He is particularly interested in identifying good practices and areas of regional and international cooperation.
The Special Rapporteur will meet with various Government ministries and representatives, human rights and civil society organisations, community representatives, academics, and industry.
He will report back to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2025.
Gezi Prisoners of Conscience
As I have said in many previous newsletters, please do continue to send solidarity messages to the 5 remaining Gezi Prisoners of Conscience as we have good evidence that they are getting through and are much appreciated.
The redoubtable York group have developed a strong relationship with Can Atalay and have recently reported this exchange:
“Can Atalay started to send postcards more often after I sent him a card with a picture of a painting of miners in a pub – and also mentioned the uproar in the Turkish parliament about his position, just saying “his news” in case of prison censorship. I bought the card at one of the art galleries near Durham showing miners’ art, including the Pitman Painters and more recent painters. He liked it very much and wrote,
“”The news” are amazing aren’t they? :))). Thank you for all this lovely card. I loved that pub and I would love to chat with these tough miners!:)
Probably you’ve known already, probably you have no idea: I worked a lot with miners and they mean a lot to me! And I’ve read a lot about miners in 19th century and also early 1980 era/Thatcher era….I’ll put this card nearby my window.”
I hope this will inspire you to redouble your solidarity work with all of the Gezi Prisoners of Conscience.
Write for Rights- Prof Şebnem Korur Fincancı
I trust that as many people as possible have managed to include a strong focus in your Write for Rights campaigning on the case of Prof Fincancı. Amnesty UK have now produced a new campaign resource, a placard graphic that is attached with this newsletter. This could be printed at A4 size on a domestic printer, but for greater visibility it would be better to have it printed commercially at A2. ( Amnesty UK are not proposing to have large numbers printed for distribution to groups). Learn more about Professor Fincanci.
If you have any photographs of your campaigning on this case I would be very grateful to receive them so I can get some feel for the scale of activity being undertaken.
Fortress Europe kills
by Ulrike Schmidt
Continuous and recent conflicts are forcing people to flee their homes and seek safety in other countries. Over 75% of the worlds refugees are hosted in poor and developing countries. A minority tries to reach Europe, drawn by the promise of human rights.
The European efforts to keep refugees and migrants out at all costs have for years resulted in immense suffering and loss of life.
The sinking of the “Adriana “with 750 people on board after a Greek patrol boat towed it so hard that it overturned , more than 600 people drowning, including over one-hundred children, was just the most spectacular horror. The BBC documentary
Dead Calm :Killing in the med (still on I player) investigates the systematic murder and deliberate negligence leading to death of drowning by “masked men” employed by Greek authorities operating from EU funded vessels. In June 2022 many refugees and migrants died when they tried to cross into Spain’s North African enclave. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/06/morocco-spain-agony-goes-on-for-families-of-missing-and-dead-as-melilla-cover-up-continues/
People still die in the forests bordering Belarus and Poland, Lithuania and Latvia and they are suffering violent pushbacks and inhuman conditions in overcrowded detention centres.
Frontex and inhumane borders
The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, known as Frontex, was established by the European Union in 2004 to control Europe’s external borders. Frontex’s mandate is to oversee and coordinate the national border authorities of EU member states, providing operational and technical assistance to countries as required
Frontex contributes to the inhumanity at Europe’s borders through violating the human rights of migrants and asylum seekers in efforts to ‘secure’ Europe’s external borders. The inhumanity is perpetuated by Frontex by the direct and indirect involvement in illegal pushbacks, violence of border officials, and the denial of access to asylum by states such as Greece, Hungary, Malta, Bulgaria and Croatia. These human rights abuses have been systematically documented by European and international nongovernmental organisations; these reports have been used to collect the research set out below.
- Pushbacks
Pushbacks of migrants have been a consistent and systematic feature of Frontex’s operational activity for over eight years. Pushbacks violate the prohibition against non-refoulement and collective expulsions, as stipulated in Article 19 of the CFREU, Article 33 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment.
Greece:
Human Rights Watch have recorded that in Greece, Frontex has been directly involved in supporting and concealing pushbacks of migrants at the land and maritime border with Turkey since October 2020. There have been numerous court cases against the Greek coastguard abandoning migrants at sea and pushing people back towards Turkish waters.
Croatia:
Frontex remains present on the Croatian border and is complicit in the violent pushbacks of migrants and asylum seekers at the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia since 2016. The Danish Refugee Council recorded approximately 18,000 migrants pushed back by Croatia between March 2020 and May 2021.
Slovenia:
The European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights reported that since 2018 Slovenia has undertaken pushbacks at their border.
- Pullbacks
Pullbacks are a tactic used by European states in coordination with bordering states, to prevent migrants from ever reaching European soil and therefore attempting to evade responsibility under the non-refoulement principle. However, assistance and facilitation of these operations results in effective control and triggering jurisdictional responsibility, thus obliging states to their respect their human rights responsibilities.
Frontex has enabled interceptions and returns by the Libyan Coast Guard of migrant boats, despite knowledge that migrants suffer from systematic and widespread human rights violations in Libya when returned. Frontex’s aerial surveillance of the Mediterranean detects migrant boats and facilitates the subsequent interception by Libyan authorities, thus rendering Frontex complicit in the abuses carried out by the Libyan coast guard. In 2021, Frontex facilitated operations by the Libyan authorities which resulted in the forced return of approximately 10,000 migrants and asylum seekers.
- Violence at the borders
Frontex is complicit in violent treatment of migrants and asylum seekers at Europe’s borders. Violent treatment and excessive use of force is commonplace in pushback operations and border control, violating Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Hungary:
The UNHCR reported on the violent and abusive treatment of asylum seekers by Hungarian officials between 2016 and 2020, yet Frontex failed to take measures to prevent these human rights violations, despite calls to suspend operations by Frontex’s consultative forum on fundamental rights and legal action taken by the European Commission. Frontex only suspended its operation in Hungary after the European Court of Justice ruled that Hungary was breaking human rights law in December 2020.
Greece:
Frontex was directly involved with a rapid border operation (RABIT) in Greece in March 2020, despite the fact that abusive and violent actions took place as part of this operation, including temporarily suspending access to asylum, prosecuting asylum seekers for irregular entry, and violently forcing migrants back across the border.
Croatia:
It has been documented by The Guardian that migrants have been whipped, robbed, sexually abused and stripped naked by members of the Croatian border authorities. Despite these testimonies, Frontex remains present at the Croatian border and is indirectly complicit in these abuses, failing to prevent such human rights violations.
- Denial of access to asylum
The fourth way in which Frontex contributes to inhumanity at Europe’s borders is through the facilitating operation in EU member states in which the right to asylum is limited. In both Hungary and Greece, violations of the right to asylum have been widely reported. In Greece under RABIT 2020, Frontex supported the temporary suspension of access to asylum. This violates Article 18 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Therefore, Frontex is widely and systematically responsible for human rights violations across the external border of the EU. Reform of the agency is needed in order to address this inhumanity at Europe’s borders.
Pact on Migration and asylum
In May 2024 the European Parliament adopted the Pact on Migration and asylum.
This agreement will set back European asylum law for decades to come. Its likely outcome is a surge in suffering on every step of a person’s journey to seek asylum in the EU.
Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office
Key concerns: a “surge of suffering” at every step of a person’s journey
- Widespread detention and de facto detention during screening, asylum and return border procedures (Greek islands model), incl. families with children, up to 6 months
- Reduced safeguards for people seeking asylum, particularly in border procedures
- Abuse of crisis / instrumentalisation measures, normalised ‘emergency’ derogations
- Weak and ineffective border monitoring mechanisms, without independence guarantees, effective mandates, or capacity to hold actors accountable for violations
- Risk of non-implementation or imbalanced implementation by states
Heightened reliance on non-EU countries, more funding for containment.
What does that mean? It will mean more detention centres like the closed controlled access centre in Samos where vulnerable people including families with children and unaccompanied minors are held in overcrowded, unhygienic and dangerous prison conditions often for months.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur25/8356/2024/en/
The cooperation between Greek authorities and EU bodies enhances both Greece’s role as a “testing ground” for EU migration policies and the responsibilities of the EU for any resulting violations.
Amnesty International consistently expressed concern that the Pact would weaken access to asylum and increase the risk of human rights violations and de facto detention, as several instruments under the Pact heavily rely on the use of restrictive measures to keep people in specific facilities or areas, usually close to the border.
The CCAC (Closed Controlled Access Centre) in Samos is equipped with a rigid system of containment and surveillance, including double barbed wire metal fencing, CCTV throughout the facility, and the 24/7 presence of patrolling police and privately contracted security officers.9 In 2021, Amnesty International denounced the prison-like structure of the CCAC and the unlawful detention of some of its residents.
Some residents talked about a sense of insecurity, a lack of privacy and about the authorities’ failure to accommodate families separately from unrelated single adults.38 Ameer, a man from Palestine, said that he had been in the CCAC with his wife and children for around three months as of our visit. He expressed concern as his family was living in a container where unrelated single men were also being accommodated, saying: “children sleep early, and if there are conflicts between single men it affects us, it wakes us up…It is unsafe for my kids, they cannot go to the toilet alone, I need to accompany them. Most of the time my children pee themselves because they are afraid to go out at night”. Living conditions in the CCAC are further exacerbated by long-standing shortages affecting the running water supply in the centre and broken sanitary facilities. “When we arrived in the camp there was water for three hours per day. People couldn’t take showers at the same time. We put water in a jug. We are taking showers as it was done 70 years ago.”
They gave us one soap for two rooms”. A man in the CCAC with his family including children, said they had not received “diapers or hygiene products” for almost two months. He notes: “we buy diapers when we have money, cheaper diapers, and my child had a skin reaction. We didn’t change diaper all day because we don’t have enough”. Ameer from Palestine noted: “Water in the bathroom is dirty and discontinuous. Me and my wife share the toilet and bathroom with a lot of people including single men. There are lots of cockroaches, I am asking just detergent so that we can clean for ourselves. My kids got lice in the hair and cockroaches move on them while they sleep. Kids wake up at night and find the cockroaches walking on them and it is traumatic”.
It also means further externalisation.
Human costs of externalisation
Attempts to outsource asylum to third countries are a manifestation of states’ flagrant shirking of their legal responsibility for people in need of protection. Outsourcing asylum processing and protection to third countries who cannot provide effective protection or are already disproportionately hosting refugees, is inconsistent with the objective and spirit of the Refugee Convention. It also obfuscates jurisdiction and responsibility, making it more difficult for people to access justice when their rights are violated. Where extraterritorial asylum processing has been tested, it has caused immeasurable human suffering and rights violations.
In July 2021 Amnesty International published a report detailing how refugees and migrants intercepted and brought back to Libya under a deal between Italy,the EU, Frontex and Libya were suffering traumatic abuse in Libya’s detention centres: including rape, extortion, torture and death.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde19/4439/2021/en/
In July 2023 the European Union signed a memorandum of understanding with Tunesia agreeing to provide Tunesia with technical support to deter Europe bound migration, including 105 million euro for “border management” as well as 1 billion euro in loans and additional support
In May the Tunisian government launched an unprecedented repressive clampdown against migrants, refugees and human rights defenders working to protect their rights. Security forces have escalated their collective unlawful deportations of refugees and migrants. On Friday before dawn Tunisian security forces evicted hundreds of migrants and refugees, including children, pregnant women and asylum seekers registered with the UNHCR, who were camping in a public park. During the eviction, according to Amnesty International’s documentation, security forces used teargas and tasers against them including against children. 400 asylum-seekers were deported to Libya putting them at risk of rape, torture, extortion and slave labour.
Joint Statement: Tunisia Is Not A Place Of Safety For People Rescued At Sea October 4, 2024 Index Number: MDE 30/8593/2024
In view of the rampant human rights violations against migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in Tunisia, especially those who are Black; Tunisia’s lack of an asylum system; the Tunisian government’s crackdown on civil society, judicial independence, and the media; and the impossibility of fairly and individually determining nationalities or assessing the protection needs of migrants and asylum seekers while at sea, it is clear that Tunisia is not a safe place for the disembarkation of people intercepted or rescued at sea. The ongoing cooperation between the European Union (EU), EU member states, and Tunisia on migration control which includes reliance on the possibility to disembark people rescued or intercepted at sea in Tunisia – similar to previous cooperation with Libya – is contributing to human rights violations.
European policies to externalize border management to Tunisia are supporting security authorities who are committing serious violations. They are also obstructing people’s rights to leave any country and to seek asylum, containing refugees and migrants in countries where their human rights are at risk. Moreover, disembarkation in Tunisia can endanger individuals and expose them to serious harm, and further puts refugees and migrants at high risk of collective expulsion to Libya and Algeria, which can violate the principle of non-refoulement. The establishment on 19 June 2024 of the Tunisian Search and Rescue Region (SRR), called for and supported by the European Commission, risks becoming another tool to violate people’s rights rather than a legitimate fulfilment of the responsibility to protect safety at sea. Mirroring its cooperation with Libya, the EU and its member states’ engagement with Tunisia may have the effect of normalizing serious violations against people seeking protection and undermining the integrity of the international search and rescue system by twisting it to serve migration control purposes. As humanitarian and human rights organizations, we call on the EU and its member states to terminate their cooperation on migration control with Tunisian authorities responsible for serious human rights violations at sea and in Tunisia. Search and rescue NGOs and commercial ships should not be instructed to disembark anyone in Tunisia. WIDESPREAD AND REPEATED VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS Findings from Tunisian and international organizations, as well as UN bodies, over the past two years indicate that Tunisia cannot be considered a ‘Place of Safety’, as defined by the 1979 SAR Convention, the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) and UN bodies, for people intercepted or rescued at sea, most notably Black people. Despite being party to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, Tunisia has no national asylum law or system. People who enter, stay in, or exit the country irregularly are criminalized by law. Following interceptions at sea or after arbitrary arrests on Tunisian territory, Tunisian authorities have repeatedly abandoned refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in the Tunisian desert or remote border regions with Libya and Algeria. These practices can amount to unlawful collective expulsions, demonstrate a total disregard for refugees’ and migrants’ right to life, and may violate the principle of non-refoulement. People expelled face the risk of serious human rights violations in Libya and onward expulsions from Algeria to Niger. According to reports citing information from the UN, Tunisian security forces have notably rounded up people presumed to be irregular migrants on land and directly transferred them to Libyan authorities, who subsequently subjected them to arbitrary detention, forced labour, extortion, torture and other ill-treatment, and unlawful killings. According to the accounts of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, OMCT, and Alarm Phone, Tunisian authorities at sea have committed abuses and put lives at risk during boat interceptions – including by high-speed manoeuvres threatening to capsize the boats, physical violence, firing tear gas at close range, and colliding with the boats. Tunisian authorities have also subjected refugees, asylum seekers and migrants to torture and other ill-treatment in the contexts of disembarkations, detention, or collective expulsions.
With the election of Trump in the US and the rise of the far right in many European countries the situation of refugees is going to get worse. It is up to us to stand up, push against the tide of racism and xenophobia and defend the universal human right to seek asylum in other countries.
We must insist Refugees Welcome!
