Frontex internal investigation fails to rule out fundamental rights violations
A Frontex internal working group identified deficiencies in the monitoring and reporting system of Frontex and suggested further necessary improvement. The working group looked into thirteen allegations of pushbacks and found that in six incidents of pushbacks, the investigators weren’t able to resolve the incidents beyond any reasonable doubt. When heard by the European Parliament about this report, Frontex’ Director Fabrice Leggeri said “I can see that there is no violation of fundamental rights.”
Advocates argue migrant pushbacks are enforced disappearances
The Global Legal Action Network and Human Rights 360 submitted a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee arguing that migrant pushbacks amount to enforced disappearance. The case involves a Syrian boy who was granted asylum in Germany and later went to Greece to search for his missing 11-year-old brother. There, the Greek police arrested him, took his “cellphone, passport, keys and all of his other personal effects,” and deported him to Turkey, where he was “stuck in legal limbo” for three years. As one of his attorneys explained, the “‘black ops and clandestine nature of the violations,’ lack of paper trail, and concealment of facts, as well as the denial of justice and the breakdown in the rule of law, cumulated into an enforced disappearance.”
Council of Europe reports on migration in the Central Mediterranean in 2019-2020
The Council of Europe (CoE) Commissioner for Human Rights published a report analysing the main trends and developments in the Central Mediterranean. Between July 2019 and December 2020, over 2,600 people died and over 20,000 were returned to Libya. In the same period, at least 23 new criminal or administrative proceedings were initiated against NGOs, mostly in Italy. Both the Netherlands and Germany adopted stricter requirements for the work of search and rescue NGOs. The Commissioner urged CoE member states to provide for a quick and adequate response to distress calls, to stop hindering NGOs’ human rights activities, including search and rescue as well as human rights monitoring, and to end pushback and pullback practices.
UK government launches new immigration plan
Late March, the UK government released a new Plan for Immigration, which aims to “deter illegal entry” and to “remove more easily from the UK those with no right to be here”. The plan heavily focuses on deporting people and lowering safeguards for those who cannot be returned. In particular, the plan seeks to ensure the rapid removal of inadmissible cases to the safe country from which they embarked or to another safe third country. In parallel, it introduces a new temporary protection status with less entitlements and limited family reunion rights for people who are inadmissible but cannot be returned to their country of origin or another safe country.
Frontex internal investigation fails to rule out fundamental rights violations
A Frontex internal working group identified deficiencies in the monitoring and reporting system of Frontex and suggested further necessary improvement. The working group looked into thirteen allegations of pushbacks and found that in six incidents of pushbacks, the investigators weren’t able to resolve the incidents beyond any reasonable doubt. When heard by the European Parliament about this report, Frontex’ Director Fabrice Leggeri said “I can see that there is no violation of fundamental rights.”
Advocates argue migrant pushbacks are enforced disappearances
The Global Legal Action Network and Human Rights 360 submitted a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee arguing that migrant pushbacks amount to enforced disappearance. The case involves a Syrian boy who was granted asylum in Germany and later went to Greece to search for his missing 11-year-old brother. There, the Greek police arrested him, took his “cellphone, passport, keys and all of his other personal effects,” and deported him to Turkey, where he was “stuck in legal limbo” for three years. As one of his attorneys explained, the “‘black ops and clandestine nature of the violations,’ lack of paper trail, and concealment of facts, as well as the denial of justice and the breakdown in the rule of law, cumulated into an enforced disappearance.”
Council of Europe reports on migration in the Central Mediterranean in 2019-2020
The Council of Europe (CoE) Commissioner for Human Rights published a report analysing the main trends and developments in the Central Mediterranean. Between July 2019 and December 2020, over 2,600 people died and over 20,000 were returned to Libya. In the same period, at least 23 new criminal or administrative proceedings were initiated against NGOs, mostly in Italy. Both the Netherlands and Germany adopted stricter requirements for the work of search and rescue NGOs. The Commissioner urged CoE member states to provide for a quick and adequate response to distress calls, to stop hindering NGOs’ human rights activities, including search and rescue as well as human rights monitoring, and to end pushback and pullback practices.
UK government launches new immigration plan
Late March, the UK government released a new Plan for Immigration, which aims to “deter illegal entry” and to “remove more easily from the UK those with no right to be here”. The plan heavily focuses on deporting people and lowering safeguards for those who cannot be returned. In particular, the plan seeks to ensure the rapid removal of inadmissible cases to the safe country from which they embarked or to another safe third country. In parallel, it introduces a new temporary protection status with less entitlements and limited family reunion rights for people who are inadmissible but cannot be returned to their country of origin or another safe country.