Libya: Report: How to Balance Rights and Responsibilities on Asylum at the EU Southern Border of Italy and Libya
by RUTVICA ANDRIJASEVIC
During the last year the temporary holding center for irregular migrants in Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island, has been repeatedly denounced for instances of procedural irregularities and alleged human rights violations.
Lampedusa ‘temporary stay and assistance centre’ (CPTA) came to a larger public attention in the Fall of 2004 when Italian authorities expelled more than thousand undocumented migrants to Libya on military and civil airplanes. Numerous and consistent allegations of degrading treatment of third-country nationals in detention in the holding centre, the difficulty in gaining access to the asylum determination process and the large scale expulsions to Libya, brought Lampedusa to the attention of European and international institutions.
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UK: RSC Paper:The Evolution of Immigration Detention in the UK
RSC Working Paper No. 27 The Evolution of Immigration Detention in the UK: The Involvement of Private Prison Companies Christine Bacon
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Finland: Journal of Refugee Studies: Medical Encounters in reception centres
Clinician and asylum seeker perspectives on health & healthcare in Finnish reception centres.
Click here to download full article by Peter H. Koehn
Italy: Report: European Parliament- Visit to Lampedusa
Report from the LIBE Committee Delegation on the Visit to the Temporary Holding Centre (THC) in Lampedusa (IT)Rapporteur: Ms Martine ROURE
A delegation of 12 MEPs travelled to the island of Lampedusa in southern Sicily to visit the Temporary Holding Centre.
Prior to visiting the centre, the EP delegation questioned the Italian authorities for more than two hours in order to obtain information on the centre.
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Italy: FIDH report: Right to asylum in Italy
Right to Asylum in Italy : Access to procedures and treatment of asylum seekers
Italy’s geographical position makes the country one of the principal maritime entry points into the European Union for migrants and asylum seekers from more and more distant countries. In recent years this situation has led Italian authorities to take initiatives regarding the administration of its borders and the treatment of asylum seekers which, coupled with a complex and unstable legal mechanism, does not always meet the requirements to respect Human Rights of the person. This tendency is in line with the more general direction adopted by the European Union since the end of the 90s in the domain of the fight against illegal immigration.
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Malta: FIDH Fact Finding Mission report:
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Locking up foreigners, deterring refugees: controlling migratory flows in Malta
During the first quarter of 2003, the attention of FIDH was drawn to the situation of asylum-seekers held in detention in Malta. Subsequently this information was confirmed by a number of sources: Amnesty International reports on the return of Eritrean citizens; a report (dated July 2003) by theMaltese Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS Malta) association; information communicated by the European Migreurop network which brings together NGOs and researchers working on the camps for foreigners in Europe; telephone calls between GISTI and asylum seekers detained in a number of centers describing detention conditions, incidents in the detention camps (hunger strikes, attempted escapes, attempted arson) and their concerns about the processing of their asylum applications; and a report by the MAHR (Malta Association of Human Rights), a member organisation of the FIDH.
A mission subsequently took place by FIDH from 21 to 26 February 2004.
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Italy: Report: COE Human Rights Commissioner Visit
REPORT BY MR. ALVARO GIL-ROBLES, COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, ON HIS VISIT TO ITALY 10 - 17 JUNE 2005
for the attention of the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly.
Europe: JRS: Detention in Europe- Administrative Detention of Asylum Seekers and Irregular Migrants
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) is a global Catholic organization, which was founded in 1980 and whose mission is to accompany, serve and defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people regardless of their religious affiliations. The regional office of JRS-EUROPE in Brussels networks with JRS staff in 22 European countries. JRS personnel in Europe accompany inter alia detainees and former detainees. Based on the experience from this work and on JRS-EUROPE’s research, JRS-EUROPE has developed this “Observation and Position Document” on detention. The purpose of this document is to inform and to alert, but also to advocate the rights of detainees.
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Europe: COMPAS Paper: The Exclusion of Asylum Seekers in Europe
This paper discusses certain mechanisms of exclusion practiced by a number of European states and the costs associated with them, before posing a question that is being raised more and more across Europe – what price are we prepared to pay to maintain our borders? The mechanisms of exclusion addressed are deportation, detention and dispersal.
Click here to download paper by researcher Liza Schuster