Patrick Wintour, Diplomatic editor of the Guardian, reported on Monday 20 March 2023 that the he UN rapporteur on Iran, Javaid Rehman, has said the scale and gravity of Iran’s violations of human rights amount to a crime against humanity. Javaid Rehman, a special rapporteur on Iran, told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday the country was experiencing the most serious violations in four decades.
Rehman warned Iran was experiencing the most serious violations in four decades. He also claimed the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, in September 2022 resulted from beatings by the “morality police”. Iran has said she died from a pre-existing neurological disorder, but Rahman said reliable medical sources pointed to state culpability. He said Iran had refused to conduct an impartial or transparent inquiry into her death, including the allegations that she was beaten up and tortured.
“The scale and gravity of the violations committed by Iranian authorities, especially since the death of Ms Amini, points to the possible commission of international crimes, notably the crimes against humanity of murder, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and sexual violence, and persecution,” he said.
Drawing on evidence, including eyewitness testimony and comments from reliable medical sources, the report said it was clear she had died on 16 September “as a result of beatings by the state “morality police”.
“I would like to stress that her death was not an isolated event but the latest in a long series of extreme violence against women and girls committed by the Iranian authorities,” Rehman said. He said “the responsibility of top senior officials in instigating this violence can … not be ignored.”
“Protesters including children were beaten to death,” Rehman said, adding that “at least 527 people, including 71 children were killed, and hundreds of protesters severely injured.”He also said dozens of protesters “have lost their eyes because of direct shots to the head”, while Iranian doctors had reported that women and girls participating in the demonstrations “were targeted with shotgun fire to their faces, breasts and genitals”.
He said: “Children released have described sexual abuses, threats of rape, floggings, administration of electric shocks and how their heads were maintained underwater, how they were suspended from their arms or from scarves wrapped around their necks.”
The EU says it has now imposed sanctions on 204 individuals and 34 entities in six waves of sanctions. The UK announced it was putting sanctions on five members of the board of directors of the IRGC Co-operative Foundation. This organisation funnels money into the Iranian regime’s repression, the UK Foreign Office said.
He voiced outrage at the executions of at least four people associated with the protests “after arbitrary, summary, and sham trials marred by torture allegations”. He added: “These summary executions are the symbols of a state ready to use all means to instil fear and quash protests,” pointing out that at least 17 other protesters have so far been sentenced to death and more than 100 others face charges that carry the death penalty.
Dear Friends, colleagues and human rights defenders
As I write this, I am on day 25 of my hunger strike, and Alaa, my brother, is on day 96 of his.
Alaa is a British-Egyptian prisoner of conscience and pro-democracy activist imprisoned in Egypt for most of the past decade.I decided to go on this hunger strike right after I last saw my brother in prison, on June 12th. He has lost a lot of weight, there was a very frail air about him, his hands looked thin and so pale that I could see the blue veins, and he was livid with anger. He kept on telling me to get over the notion that he can be rescued, he will never make it out of prison. “Focus on making the political price of my death the highest possible”, he said. It was an incredibly intense visit. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/12/21/alaa-abdel-fattah-and-two-others-receive-heavy-prison-sentences-in-egypt/]
I stepped out of prison and decided I will join his hunger strike. I was frustrated with how all officials seemed to take his strike lightly. The Egyptian government was blatantly denying his hunger strike on national TV and all official meetings, while making sure no one sees Alaa but his family, so they blocked his lawyer from visiting, the national council for human rights from seeing him, and they have been blocking his British consular visit for months. On the other hand the British officials while sharing their genuine concern with us as a family in meetings, in their public official communication seemed to tip toe around Alaa’s hunger strike and how critical his situation is.
Things have changed over the course of the past weeks.
On June 21st the British Foreign Secretary confirmed to parliament that she is “working very hard to secure his release.” On July 4th a letter written by MP David Lammy, my MP and shadow foreign minister to the foreign secretary Liz Truss stressing on the importance of her intervention for Alaa’s release and highlighting his hunger strike. Another letter signed by 35 MPs and Lords was sent to the Egyptian minister for foreign affairs, Sameh Shoukry, on the same day.
And finally Sameh Shoukry arrived in London this week and my brother’s case was brought up during the bilateral meetings he attended, we are still waiting for an update about these meetings and if any agreement has been reached between both governments with regards to Alaa.
Accordingly I have decided to put an end to my strike, mostly because I feel I am growing too weak and tired to carry out my most important role right now: advocating for my brother’s life and freedom. But Alaa, being a prisoner, has no way of voicing out his frustration and anger at the continued injustice he is trapped in, except through his body, and depriving himself of the comfort of food. So he continues with his hunger strike, and next Sunday will be his 100th day!
Things seem to be moving but it worries us that the pace is very slow given how critical and life-threatening Alaa’s situation is.
So I am writing asking for your help, and asking you to believe that no help is too little. Every small action at this point really helps in building more awareness, sympathy and pressure to help us save my brother and with him the possibility of any happy future for my family. I will share some suggestions but please feel free to reach out, or organize any kind of action you think might help.
– Write to the Egyptian ambassador in your respective countries, address the urgency of Alaa’s case and situation.
– Write to your parliament representatives asking them to write to their counterparts in the UK and Egypt discussing Alaa’s case. If they could also issue any solidarity public statements it’d help immensely. Only today the German MP Tobias B. Bacherle published this statement in solidarity
– With the coming UN Climate conference #COP27 taking place in Egypt this year, all participating governments can influence and help in improving the human rights situation in Egypt prior to their attendance. So accordingly you have a chance to write to your government’s representatives who might be taking part in it and urge them to raise Alaa’s case with their Egyptian counterparts, and stress on how devastating it’d be if they allowed a British/Egyptian activist to die in prison after years of unjust detention. – Statements of solidarity by Human Rights defenders and organizations, and any solidarity vigils are always welcome
Feel free to share this email with anyone you think could help. For more resources and info regarding Alaa : check https://freealaa.net/, and on twitter @FreedomForAlaa
I urge you to carry my brother’s case as yours and help me in every possible way. I am exhausted and scared we’d lose him, but I also think this is the first time in years his release seems like an actual possibility not just a dream.
When she faced domestic violence from members of her family, including her father, and government institutions failed to provide her with any protection, she fled her country to Britain after using her father’s phone without his knowledge to obtain permission to travel. In a television interview on August 4, 2020, she spoke of her November 26, 2019 escape from Qatar to Britain, via Ukraine.
Upon arriving in Britain, she applied for asylum. During her stay in Britain, Al-Maadeed introduced herself as a defender of Qatari women’s rights and explained how male guardianship prevents women from working or traveling without a male family member’s consent, as well as how women victims of domestic violence are left with little protection.
Al-Maadeed withdrew her application for asylum in Britain after receiving assurances from the Qatari authorities that she would be protected if she returned to her home country. On October 6, this year, Al-Maadeed posted on her Instagram account a video in which she explained the details of her return from London on September 30 to the capital, Doha, where she arrived the following day.
What happened next is incomprehensible. Qatari authorities, who pledged to protect her, as it should with to all citizens, reneged on all their promises and left her alone trying to survive domestic abuse. In a video posted on her Twitter account on October 12, Al-Maadeed said that she had been subjected to three failed assassination attempts by her family. She also described her father’s coming into the lobby of the hotel where she was staying, despite being one of her main opponents and the reason for her running away from home. Perhaps the following tweet, dated October 12, honestly sums up the torments she suffered upon her return: https://platform.twitter.com/embed
My family, and those who I count as my own, want to slaughter me.
Shortly thereafter, she posted the following tweet: “Sheikh Tamim is the only one who can stop the danger to my life with his own hands.” On October 13, Al-Maadeed completely disappeared from social media, and her whereabouts have not yet been known. The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad, on whom Al-Maadeed relied for protection and pleaded for support, was not able to provide the necessary protection for a citizen who did not commit any violation and voluntarily returned to her country based on many promises from the authorities that they’ll keep her safe.
Since her disappearance, there have been conflicting reports, with regards to what has happened to the 23-year-old. According to some reports, Al-Maadeed was killed by her family, while others reported her forcible detention in a psychiatric hospital under heavy sedation, Meanwhile, the Qatari government refuses to provide documented information to prove that she is alive, which raises many suspicions.
The Gulf Center for Human Rights cannot confirm any of the above-mentioned reports but holds the authorities, who have pledged but failed to protect Noof Al-Maadeed, responsible for any harm done to her. At present, all information indicates that Al-Maadeed is facing serious risk to her life and freedom. If not killed, then it is a fact that she may be facing a lengthy incommunicado detention, which puts her life at imminent risk.
The GCHR, once again calls on the international community, particularly UN institutions, and governments with influence in Qatar—including members of the European Union—to take immediate action to pressure the Qatari authorities to ensure that Al-Maadeed is safe and can live freely in Qatar.
The government of Qatar cannot continue to ignore international opinion that is searching for the truth, and its absolute silence will be a sure condemnation, as it bears full responsibility for preserving the safety of its citizens, including Nouf Al-Maadeed.
On 2 January 2022 AFP reported that Britain’s Prince Charles urged people in a New Year message to “take a moment” to recognise those “standing up for freedom and human rights” around the world.
The heir to the throne paid tribute to people in places such as Afghanistan, Syria and Myanmar facing political and religious persecution and insecurity alongside increasingly dire humanitarian situations.
“As we start a New Year, we might take a moment to remember the many people around the world who are standing up for freedom and human rights,” he said on Saturday.
“In the face of such adversity, incredibly brave individuals, local communities and international organisations are responding to great needs by providing vital assistance.
“I pray for peaceful resolutions to these conflicts and that we might all be blessed with the courage to support those in need, wherever they may be.”
Redress, an NGO campaigning for the return of Nazanin, says the award “recognises the injustice Nazanin has suffered as a pawn of international diplomacy”.
It comes after ended his second hunger strike, this time for 21 days, to try and break the political impasse to bring Nazanin home.
“Nazanin was very pleased to hear of this award, for herself but also for all the others detained in Iran that you don’t get to hear about,” her husband Richard Ratcliffe said.“The Iranian regime gets away with terrible crimes that thrive in darkness where accountability should be.”
He added: “All our family are very proud of this award.”
Since Richard’s hunger strike, Boris Johnson has said it is “worth considering” paying a £400m historic debt to Iran by sending a plane full of cash to Tehran.
Nazanin, 43, mother of a seven-year-old girl, was arrested in Tehran in 2016 after being accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government – charges always denied and widely refuted.
William Browder, head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, said: “Nobody should ever be put in a situation like this, but in spite of the pressure, she has proven how powerful she can be even in the most powerless situation. Her hostage takers should understand that their crimes won’t go unpunished.”
Accepting the “courage under fire” award on her behalf at the event in London on Thursday evening, Gabriella read her mother’s words.
On 10 September 2021 Brian Dooley blogged for Human Rights First: “British Government Proposes Amnesty for Killings That’s Worse Than Pinochet’s”:
In a startling move, in July 2021, the British government announced a proposal to end all Troubles-era prosecutions, granting amnesty to its soldiers for any crimes they committed during this time. While the proposal has yet to be introduced as a bill, its mere introduction has already received a strong reaction.
Last week, I visited Belfast and Derry where I met with human rights NGOs and families of those killed during the Troubles. Human Rights First has been active on these issues for decades, with a focus on past abuses and on supporting the human rights lawyers helping families bring prosecutions against those who committed them.
This recently introduced proposal is a significant setback to the families whose loved ones were killed by British forces during those years. Many of which have spent decades looking for the truth about what happened to those who were killed. During my time with them, some of the family members said that this proposal, which would eliminate any potential for accountability, has left them exasperated and angry.
Some of the killings from this period, like those on Bloody Sunday in Derry or Ballymurphy in Belfast, are well known and have received international attention. Others, such as the Springhill-Westrock shootings and many others, have had less attention. Overall, during the Troubles (1969-1998), 3,350 people were killed, including 1,840 civilians, and 47,500 were injured.
In many cases of killings, there was no real investigation done at the time. Local human rights NGO, the Pat Finucane Centre, has recently published declassified documents showing how some soldiers evaded prosecutions. The new proposal would remove any possibility of the families having any possibility for legal recourse or bringing the killers to justice.
The wide scope of the UK government’s proposed amnesty is breathtaking.
Human Rights First has for many years worked with Belfast-based human rights NGO the Committee for the Administration of Justice (CAJ). This week, with a team of experts from Queen University, Belfast, the CAJ produced an analysis of the proposed amnesty laws, measuring the British government’s proposals “against binding international and domestic human rights law, the Good Friday Agreement and other international experiences of amnesties to deal with past human rights violations.”
This study found that the proposal would create an amnesty more sweeping than that of General Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator who introduced a policy to shield human rights violators from prosecution, which is often regarded as the worst. However, unlike the UK proposal, which excludes no crimes and has no temporal limits, Pinochet’s amnesty excluded certain crimes, such as sexual violence, and applied only to the first five years of the 17-year dictatorship. Additionally, Pinochet’s amnesty excluded criminal cases already before the courts and applied only to criminal prosecutions. The UK proposal on the other hand would close cases already in the system and apply to both civil and criminal cases.
Professor Louise Mallinder, one of the experts on the report and a world-renowned scholar of transitional justice who has examined roughly 300 amnesties relating to various conflicts around the world from 1990 until 2016, says the UK’s proposed amnesty “would offer the broadest form of impunity of all the amnesties surveyed.”
Yes, the British government’s standard for addressing past human rights violations by its soldiers, including murders, appears to be lower than that of General Pinochet’s.
The plan is so bad that all major political parties in Ireland, north and south, have united in rejecting it. Members of the U.S. Congress are reportedly signing a letter objecting to it.
The British government got many things wrong over the course of The Troubles. This proposed amnesty for its former soldiers is another huge mistake and should be rejected immediately.
Instead, a real process of justice should be followed, along the lines of that outlined in the 2014 Stormont House Agreement. Dealing with The Troubles’ past is difficult but not impossible. The families of those killed – and of victims of human rights violations in other post-conflict situations that a new UK precedent might influence – deserve much better than what the British government has proposed.
A leading human rights advocate and former political prisoner in Indonesia, Carmel Budiardjo, has died, aged 96.
Carmel Budiardjo played a leading role in reporting human rights violations in Indonesia, including in West Papua, Timor-Leste, and Aceh province. She had herself been jailed without trial in 1968 for three years under the government of General Suharto, while her Indonesian husband was jailed for twelve years. They had been caught up in an anti-communist purge led by Suharto, having been arrested in 1965 on charges of involvement in an attempted coup against his predecessor President Sukarno. See: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/3BDAA6C3-CFA6-444F-7F15-77D914ACFA8B
After being released she was deported to England, where in 1973 she founded TAPOL, which stands for ‘tahanan politik’ or ‘political prisoners’ in Bahasa Indonesian.
For decades, the NGO has campaigned for the release of poilitical prisoners in Indonesia, including many who have been incarcerated in Papua merely for exercising their basic rights such as to freedom of expression or assembly.
Over the next three decades, TAPOL’s work widened to also address broader wider issues of human and environmental rights, peace and democracy in Indonesia.
According to prominent journalist John Pilger, Budiardjo’s “tireless work saw the release of political prisoners in Indonesia and gave crucial support to the heroic (independence and human rights) struggles in East Timor and West Papua“.
Despite the brutal repression of human rights activism by Suharto’s New Order regime, Budiardjo and TAPOL built an extensive network and collaborated with brave human rights defenders and pro-democracy campaigners in Indonesia.
Budiardjo raised international attention towards the 2004 assasination of Indonesian human rights campaigner, Munir Said Thalib, after whose death a lethal dose of arsenic was identified in his body.
Around the same time she launched a campaign demanding an international embargo against the British government selling arms to Indonesia when Indonesian militrary forces had launched a major offensive to crush the Free Papua movement.
She remained an active campaigner well into her 90s, concerned with the plight of political prisoners in Papua and throughout the Indonesian republic
The author of several books, Carmel Budiardjo is remembered as an inspirational defender of human rights.
On 21 June 2021 the Gulf Centre for Human Rights pays tribute to prominent Emirati human rights defender Alaa Al-Siddiq who died in a tragic car accident in the UK, and joins the growing calls for an investigation into the circumstances of her death.
The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) is deeply saddened by the loss of courageous Emirati human rights defender Alaa Al-Siddiq, Executive Director of ALQST for Human Rights and a Senior Researcher at Wejha Centre for Studies, who died tragically in a car accident in Oxfordshire, the United Kingdom on 19 June 2021.
We would like to pay tribute to her unique courage, her kind heart, her wonderful personality, and her tireless work to defend human rights in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. We will remember the anniversary of her loss as the Day of the Gulf Women Human Rights Defenders.
Alaa was a forceful and determined 33-year-old woman. She was outspoken and always defended her father, Sheikh Mohammed Abdul Razzaq Al-Siddiq, a prisoner of conscience who is a member of the “UAE 94”. In 2013, he was sentenced to ten years in prison in a show trial based on trumped-up charges, that violated international standards.
Documenting human rights violations in the UAE and other Gulf countries comes at a price. Despite all the challenges and threats she faced, Alaa never stopped fighting for freedom for her father and other wrongfully detained prisoners of conscience, hoping for a country that respects human rights including freedom of speech.
Alaa’s role as Executive Director of ALQST, a leading organisation in documenting human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, didn’t make things easier. Alaa was always receiving threats on her Twitter account: https://twitter.com/alaa_q, yet she dealt with the e-flies with patience, civility and respect.
Her relationship with GCHR was a very strong and fruitful one that produced a report, “Torture in the United Arab Emirates: The Tolerance Charade“, published in March 2021 with the Wejha Centre for Studies. She also contributed to several successful online events using Zoom and Clubhouse, including a side event during the 45th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in October 2020.
In December 2020, Alaa was among the WHRDs in the MENA region that GCHR celebrated via a Twitter campaign during the #16DaysofActivism against gender-based violence (GBV). (See the main image above.)
“It is a very big loss, and no one will be able to fill her empty place,” said Khalid Ibrahim, GCHR Executive Director, who added, “It is a very sad day for me as we have lost a wonderful woman, a true courageous, independent, hardworking and ever-patient advocate.”
“I cannot believe that we lost Alaa. She was very courageous! She carried on in the fight against oppression despite all the hardships. Alaa was a genuine voice in a country where everything is built on lies,” said Salma Mohammad, GCHR Project Coordinator.
According to the police and local authorities, the circumstances of the car crash were an accident, but they are still looking for witnesses to find out exactly what happened. GCHR calls on the UK police to publicise the information about the incident which took the life of Alaa Al-Siddiq and injured four others.
Mohammed bin Salman Editorial credit: Matias Lynch / Shutterstock.com
On 12 May 2021 5Pillars (RMS) announced the creation of a new NGO to deal with human rights in Saudi Arabia. The UK-based Standing Against Nefarious & Arbitrary Detention (SANAD) was aunched in an online conference, which focussed on human rights in Saudi Arabia, especially the freedom to criticise the regime and violations perpetrated against those who have been detained, imprisoned or even disappeared.
Bilal Ithkiran, the SANAD CEO, said the organisation would “seek to identify anyone who has been detained for criticising the regime and those who have been denied due process or have had their rights violated.”
He said SANAD hopes, via peaceful means, to develop an optimistic society that looks to the future in a professional manner.
Dr Sue Conlan, a human rights activist and lawyer, said SANAD aims to establish human rights in Saudi Arabia through media awareness and to collaborate with other similar organisations and bring about legal and civil proceedings where appropriate.
“We aim to build databases on human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and collate evidence and initiate legal proceedings against anyone involved in perpetrating human rights violations in Saudi Arabia,” she said.
Dr Saeed Al Ghamdi, an academic and chair of the trustees, said the organisation has launched “to support the the oppressed and push back the oppressors.” He said that the “human rights situation in Saudi Arabia is passing through a very difficult and painful time.”
He added that “the courts are dictated to by the regime” resulting in “prolonged sentences for a stance, an opinion, a tweet or a word they’ve said.”
Abdullah Al Ghamdi, a board member of SANAD, said the path ahead will be “difficult but it is not impossible.” But Al Ghamdi, whose mother is currently being unlawfully detained, ended on an optimistic note saying: “Victory will belong to those who are patient, resilient and steadfast.”
Finally, Fahad Al Ghuwaydi, who has been detained on three occasions in Saudi Arabia for his activism, said the Saudi government’s abuses can be broken down into four phases.
He said: “As a previous detainee myself, I know too well these four phases. I know all too well how they will follow you. How they will follow an individual before they’re detained. I know too well what happens inside the prisons and I know too well how you are denied your most basic of rights as a detainee. I also know too well the obsession that the detainee suffers after they are released from prison.”
Al Ghuwaydi concluded by demanding “the decreasing of pressure upon the people. We demand the release of the political detainees, who were detained oppressively.”
Amnesty International says repression of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly have intensified in Saudi Arabia.
“Among those harassed, arbitrarily detained, prosecuted and/or jailed were government critics, women’s rights activists, human rights defenders, relatives of activists, journalists, members of the Shi’a minority and online critics of government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Amnesty says on its website.
“Virtually all known Saudi Arabian human rights defenders inside the country were detained or imprisoned at the end of the year. Grossly unfair trials continued before the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) and other courts. Courts resorted extensively to the death penalty and people were executed for a wide range of crimes. Migrant workers were even more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation because of the pandemic, and thousands were arbitrarily detained in dire conditions, leading to an unknown number of deaths.”
MSF worked in collaboration with Sea-Watch on board the Sea-Watch 4 until February 2021, providing medical care and supporting with humanitarian assistance for rescued people. (Credit: Médecins Sans Frontières)
As countries across Europe adopt increasingly tough migration policies, NGOs are being prosecuted for acts of solidarity with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. We speak to Stephen Cornish, director general of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Switzerland, and Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish Iranian journalist and author who was imprisoned in Australia’s offshore asylum system for six years, about the threat this growing hostility poses to Europe’s democracies.
On 4 March 2021, Italian prosecutors charged dozens of people from humanitarian organisations including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Save the Children with colluding with people smugglers while carrying out rescue operations in the Mediterranean. After an investigation spanning nearly four years, crew members, mission heads and legal representatives who saved thousands of people from drowning at sea are facing years in prison, sending shockwaves through the humanitarian community. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/03/04/new-amnesty-report-on-human-rights-defenders-helping-migrants/
“It’s hard to imagine how saving a life can become a criminalised activity,” says Stephen Cornish, director of MSF Suisse, speaking to Geneva Solutions. The organisation, which denies the accusations, estimates that its six humanitarian ships helped save more than 81,000 lives at sea. “It would be like criminalising the fire department for going to put out a fire.”
The investigation is one of dozens brought against NGOs running search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean since 2016, when a handful of humanitarian organisations including MSF and SOS Mediteranee launched vessels in response to a rise in the number of people attempting the perilous journey from countries such as Libya and Turkey to claim asylum in Europe. Over the past few years, these vessels have been frequently detained by authorities or trapped at sea for weeks at a time, refused entry to ports where they can safely disembark. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/12/18/international-migrants-day-the-story-of-the-ocean-viking/]
Hostility towards rescue agencies has grown since the height of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015, says Cornish, when over one million people – the majority of whom were refugees fleeing the war in Syria – fled to Europe by sea over the course of the year, mainly arriving in Greece and Italy. The EU’s failure to share responsibility for the dramatic rise in the number of people seeking asylum in Europe left countries such as Greece and Italy overwhelmed, Cornish says: “People initially responded with charity and welcome, but then the failure was at a government level not to share the responsibility, and to repopulate people across different states.”
As anti-refugee politics became increasingly mainstream across Europe, countries began to tighten their borders and scrabble for ways to reduce ‘irregular’ migration into the bloc. Last week marked five years since the introduction of the EU-Turkey Deal – a key pillar of these efforts. The agreement called on Turkey to prevent asylum seekers and migrants from reaching the EU in exchange for financial assistance and the promise of the eventual creation of legal resettlement pathways to Europe.
Five years on, Turkey hosts more refugees than any other country in the world, with the EU accused of outsourcing its migration management and turning a blind eye to the poor living conditions facing many refugees in the country. The agreement is also widely viewed as creating the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Greek islands, which became a final destination for thousands of asylum seekers trapped in overcrowded camps waiting for their applications to be processed.
The inhumane conditions in refugee camps on the Greek islands are well documented, with reports of squalid facilities, violence, abuse and a lack of basic amenities commonplace. At times, there have been 40,000 people living in camps designed for a few thousand. As well as Syria, the majority of people are fleeing war and persecution in countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestine and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and one in four are children. The horrific fire that engulfed the notoriously overcrowded Moria camp on Lesvos in 2020, leaving 13,000 people without shelter, became a tragic symbol of Europe’s failed migration policy.
MSF has been operational on the Greek islands of Lesvos, Samos and Chios for many years, although it ceased operations inside Moria citing mass deportation and potential refoulement of asylum seekers and refugees. It no longer accepts EU funding in opposition to the policy.
“[The impact of the EU Turkey Deal] has been horrendous,” says Cornish. “There are still 15,000 people trapped in limbo, in no man’s land in Greece with no way forward and no way back, and suffering at the hands of supposed democracies.”
“We see suicides, we see self-harm in children, we see long term PTSD and people with no hope, no ability to move forward or backward, trapped in punishment,” he says. “We put people in hell holes, and then when hell breaks loose, we pretend like we don’t see it.”
The deal has recently been extended until 2022, when the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum is expected to come into force. The New Pact focuses on fast-tracking screening and asylum processes at Europe’s external borders and includes a system of “mandatory solidarity” by which member states do not have to commit to resettling refugees but can instead fund repatriation. It has been widely criticised by humanitarian organisations for repeating the mistakes of the EU-Turkey Deal and failing to improve the situation for asylum seekers and refugees.
“Everything we’ve seen that failed in the US and failed in Australia, and is failing in Greece and Italy, we’d like to now make more semi-permanent policy,” says Cornish of the New Pact, which is currently being negotiated by member states and in the European Parliament. “As we harden these policies, all we do is push people into the hands of traffickers. We push them to take riskier routes and have higher death tolls and greater suffering.”
While the number of asylum seekers and migrants crossing the Mediterranean has decreased dramatically since 2015, migration has continued to be a highly politicised issue across Europe. Countries have adopted increasingly hostile policies which humanitarian organisations say fail to address flaws in existing systems, to the detriment of the people these systems were initially created to help.
Last week, the UK announced an overhaul of its asylum policy, which was met with outrage from humanitarian actors. Under the new plans, migrants and asylum seekers who arrive in the UK by routes deemed illegal will be indefinitely liable for removal even if they are granted asylum, creating a two-tier system which has been criticised as a violation of international law and eroding the right to asylum.
UK home secretary Priti Patel argues that current European policies “play into the hands of people smugglers”, however human rights and migration experts argue that, while governments fail to expand safe and legal routes, it is inhumane and unjust to punish asylum seekers for resorting to irregular routes when the only other option is an interminable wait in one of Europe’s refugee camps.
“Since a number of years [ago], we have made it almost impossible to be able to flee and request asylum from a conflict zone,” says Cornish. “We put all of these hurdles in place to make it impossible to be able to declare asylum and come [to Europe], and then we criminalise anybody jumping the line because we say they’re not following the procedures.”
Lessons from Australia. It has also been reported that asylum seekers in the UK could be shipped overseas while their asylum claim is pending – a policy that echoes Australia’s offshore processing asylum policy, instituted twice from 2001 to 2008 and 2012 to present.
Under the policy, asylum seekers and migrants who arrived in Australia by boat were immediately sent to offshore processing centres on the pacific islands of Manus and Nauru. The detention camps – which held over 2000 people at a time – have been widely condemned for systemic abuses and human rights violations. Although over 85 per cent of people sent to Nauru and Manus were recognised as refugees, the majority were left there for years awaiting resettlement.
Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish Iranian refugee who was detained on Manus Island for six years after attempting to reach Australia by boat in 2013, experienced the horror of Australia’s inhumane asylum policy first-hand. He spoke to Geneva Solutions ahead of the FIFDH event he took part in alongside Stephen Cornish.
“The dangerous side is that Australia is introducing this policy to countries in Europe, especially the UK,” says Boochani, who continued his work as a journalist writing for publications such as the Guardian from Manus. “Australia became a model for many of these countries. And for many years, we were warning about this, we were talking about it, but no one heard us.” [See also: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/55687980-7bdc-11e9-8427-f3aebfb2928e]
“This policy damaged the political culture in Australia [and] the democracy in Australia,” says Boochani. “It damaged the principles in Australia and damaged morality in Australia. I think if the UK followed this policy, you cannot say that [you’ve] just damaged the refugees, you’ve damaged your principles, your democracy, your system, your morality, and your political culture too.”
MSF’s Cornish shares Boochani’s concern that Europe’s asylum policies are damaging the democracy and social fabric of countries, partly fuelling the rise in far-right politics that has gained traction across the continent in recent years.
There have also been reports of mounting deportations and systemic violent pushbacks at Europe’s external land borders by the EU border agency Frontex. At sea, NGOs have also collected evidence of refugees being intercepted and illegally pushed back to Turkey from Greek waters. International human rights and refugee law requires states to protect the right of people to seek asylum and protection from refoulement even if they enter irregularly. The increasingly frequent pushbacks have prompted calls by the UN Refugee Agency for an urgent investigation.
“Respecting human lives and refugee rights is not a choice, it’s a legal and moral obligation. While countries have the legitimate right to manage their borders in accordance with international law, they must also respect human rights. Pushbacks are simply illegal,” said UNHCR’s assistant commissioner for protection Gillian Triggs in a statement…
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 