THE EU has been accused by refugee groups of violating international law and a “historic abdication of its human rights tradition” in relation to its treatment of asylum seekers.
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has also questioned the union’s commitment to admit people in need of international protection following Italy’s decision to send back migrants intercepted at sea to Libya without considering their claims for asylum.
“High commissioner António Guterres is calling on the EU and its member states to ensure that migration control measures do not undermine fundamental rights of asylum seekers and refugees,” said the UNHCR ahead of an EU justice ministers’ meeting today.
The ministers will discuss the decision by the Italian government on May 7th to order its navy to turn back migrants entering international waters in flimsy boats to Libya rather than allow them to land on Italian soil to lodge asylum claims.
Over the past month at least 500 migrants have been intercepted and returned to Tripoli.
The action has attracted widespread condemnation from human rights groups for undermining international law established through the 1951 Refugee Convention and other human rights instruments.
But EU diplomats said yesterday there was little chance the ministers would appeal to Italy to reverse its policy and resume consideration of asylum claims from migrants intercepted at sea.
One EU diplomat noted that since the new policy was introduced there had been a drop-off in migrants attempting the crossing.
Instead, the European Commission will propose that the UNHCR establish relations with Libya to set up a scheme for reception and protection of asylum seekers in the north African state.
A letter from EU justice commissioner Jacques Barrot to member states and obtained by The Irish Times says “the scheme would make it possible to determine the status of people sent back to Libya, who might then be offered resettlement”.
Refugee groups criticised the proposal, which they believe amounts to a tacit acceptance of Italy’s policy of turning back migrants at sea and will encourage other states to follow suit.
“Italy’s actions in the Mediterranean in May when they sent back 500 individuals to Libya without assessing any asylum claims amounts to a flagrant violation of international law,” said Chris Nash of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), who called on ministers to ensure Italy met its responsibilities towards refugees.
“This is a historic abdication of Europe’s human rights tradition,” added Mr Nash, who noted that about half of African migrants who claim asylum in Italy were granted either full refugee status or some form of legal protection giving them leave to remain.
ECRE is the only EU-based non-governmental organisation acting on behalf of refugees that is allowed to work in Libya and its staff have visited four detention centres for refugees and returned migrants. “No one knows how many detention centres there are in Libya or how many people are in them,” says ECRE’s Italian director Christopher Hein, who added that conditions at the Libyan detention centres he had visited were terrible and that Libya failed to comply with the 1951 Refugee Convention.
“I met Eritreans in a centre that had been in detention for two years with no idea of what was happening to them . . . At the Al-Zawia detention centre there are 70 people in a 64sq m room with no windows. People have to take turns to find space to sleep and they get just one hour exercise in the courtyard,” said Mr Hein, who recently rescued a nine-months pregnant woman from a centre who was one of the 500 people turned back from Italy.
Under Italian law pregnant women cannot be deported even if they are assessed as illegal immigrants. Any migrant who lands in Italy can also lodge an asylum claim, which can take months if not years to be assessed. The lure of a new life in Europe has attracted migrants from strife-torn countries from the Horn of Africa such as Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia to attempt the crossing between Libya and Italy. In 2008 ECRE says 31,000 asylum claims were lodged in Italy, almost double the 2007 figure.
The increasing numbers of Africans applying for asylum has made immigration a major political issue in Italy and Malta in the run-up to the European elections. Both countries are asking other EU states to share the burden of accepting asylum seekers and this plea will form part of a wider discussion on a common asylum policy at today’s meeting.