This is a compilation of the tweets by the MENA Regional Coordinator of the International Detention Coalition. For live updates, follow @IDC_MENA
Regional: On 21 September, International Day of Peace, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, stated that “leaders should invest in young peace builders”. Freeing children from immigration detention facilities, so that they may realise their potential is imperative to global peace efforts, and is at the heart of the IDC Global Campaign to End Child Detention.
Israeli soldiers fired on migrants at Egyptian border. As part of a military investigation into the shooting, Southern Command chief Sami Turgeman has said soldiers acted “against the rules of engagement” when they opened fire in early August.
Libyan authorities detain 300 African migrants. Thousands of asylum seekers and migrants seeking a better life in Europe cast off from Libya on rickety boats, hoping to reach Italy. The International Organization of Migration estimates that more than 2,600 people have dies in 2015 so far, on the Central Mediterranean route which includes Libya.
Libya’s ‘Masked Men’ Hunt Human Smugglers. Drowning of 183 migrants galvanized Zuwara’s citizens to crack down on human trafficking.
For a startling look at Libya’s detention networks, check out VICE News series ‘Detained by Militias: Libya’s Migrant Trade’. The videos reveal state-run detention centers as overcrowded and violent; and how government immigration controls are outsourced to militias, who are detaining migrants and refugees en masse.
Tunisia: An ‘open air prison’ for migrants. Migration management in Tunisia is handled on an ad hoc basis. With no working asylum legislation or migration policy, residents in the area of the old Choucha refugee camp often do not know what their administrative status in the country is, or when it will be resolved. A new photo exhibition Empire, by Samuel Gratacap, looks at life in Choucha.
Jordan: New study finds female migrants in Jordan who are administratively detained, are isolated from aid and information.
The study considers the particular vulnerabilities and harms experienced by migrant women, many whom lack proper identification or residency documents and are often victims of labour rights violations. These women are often detained indefinitely, involuntarily and without due process under the 1954 Crime Prevention Law, for the ostensible purpose of their own ‘protection’ or ‘precautionary’ detention.
As Jordan enters a phase in which it is amending key legislation related to the criminal procedure, human rights plan, and engaging in dialogue under the review of key UN bodies, the report aims to influence these processes towards bettering the conditions for women in detention in Jordan.
Lebanon: The Lebanese government is launching a campaign to register 100,000 new students from among the Syrian refugee population in its already overwhelmed public schools.
Education Minister Elias Bou Saab has said that giving refugee children free education within the region, may stem the flow of refugees fleeing for Europe. The Minister also cautioned that whilst the new enrollments are double what they were last year, there are still approximately another 100,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon who are still not in school.