AYS Daily Digest 24/6/20: I can’t breathe: Death inside Spanish juvenile centre
Coronavirus tests on refugees rescued at sea // Asylum policy updates from the EU // Protests held in Germany // EU silent on illegal pushbacks and human rights abuses.
Feature
In 2019, the death of a young Moroccan boy in a juvenile centre in Spain was classified as “accidental”, but with a recent video of his death coming to light, there have been new calls to reopen the case regarding his death.
In the disturbing video, you can see employees roughly placing the young man on a bed, face down. One of the guards proceeds to kneel on the boy’s lower back to tighten a strap around his waist, before realizing that he is no longer breathing. During the restraint, the video shows eight officials present. Within the video, you can see that the young boy was not resisting or acting violently, so the disproportionate use of force against him could not have been justified and has since prompted renewed calls to ban this method of restraint. The video raises questions as to why it took eight grown men to restrain a young boy, and under what circumstances would it be acceptable for a grown adult to kneel on a young boys back whilst others hold him down.
“The video shows how they killed him. It’s murder,” said Anass Tahiri, the brother of the young boy who was killed. The family has since lodged an official appeal against the case’s original dismissal.
Since this video was released, it has been reported that two other young people died because of this restraint method.
The Defender of Rights, Francisco Fernandez Marugan, calls on the government to change the law: “A swift and radical decision is needed to end the use of mechanical restraint once and for all [ and] no one else should die in Spain under these circumstances”
In 2016, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture visited Tierras de Oria, denouncing its restraint procedure as a “disproportionate use of force” and urging the regional authorities to end it, according to Maribel Mora, regional deputy of opposition”, yet according to official figures, in the following two years, the restraint was used 360 times.
A petition has been launched with over 44,000 signatures to further support the family:
Spain
Spain has rejected the recent migration plan developed by the EU commission as it believes it could ‘place an even heavier burden on frontline countries’. The Spanish government has argued that the new EU policy aimed to curb irregular immigration lacks quotas to relocate migrants across member states, and further wants the commission to introduce mandatory quotas for migrants who are rescued at sea.
Spanish sources have told El Pais that without such a system, the scheme designed by the EU commission will place an even heavier load on frontline countries with external borders. El Pais further reports that Spain, Germany, France and Italy have formally acknowledged within internal documents the ‘excessive burden’ that is borne by some member states.
El Pais state that diplomatic sources believe the EU Commission is trying to incorporate elements that will make everyone happy in an effort to overcome the enormous differences that have held back progress since 2015 when the immigration crisis broke out and Brussels presented the European Agenda on Migration.
It is believed that with Germany taking over the rotating EU presidency within the second half of the year, Brussels is hoping to relaunch talks in the coming weeks.
Greece
Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell visited the military border post at the Kastanies border crossing with Turkey, in the Prefecture of Evros, on Wednesday morning.
Dendias and Borrell flew to the area with a helicopter and were later briefed by a representative of the Greek Police and spoke with Frontex officers deployed within the area.
In a statement, Dendias said “The Greek borders with Turkey are also the European Unions borders with Turkey and the EU has the determination of protecting its external borders effectively”.
Recalling the situation in March at the Evros border he said “Today after a short interval due to the pandemic, Turkey has once again stated that its land borders with Europe are open, its coast guard is escorting boats loaded with migrants heading towards the Greek islands and it insists on undermining the security, stability and peace in the Eastern Mediterranean.”
During the meeting between the two officials, the focus was to outline and describe the potential violations of Greeks sovereign rights that are being infringed upon by the presence of Turkish military aircraft and ships in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean with Borell stating “We strongly support the sovereignty of Greece” but throughout the meeting there was a distinct absence of any mention of the mounting evidence of illegal pushbacks by Greece.
The meeting between Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell comes just weeks after a series of reports regarding Greece’s continued violation of fundamental human rights. Since the beginning of May, the Border Violence Monitoring Network has collected testimonies of the illegal and inhuman pushback and collective expulsion of up to 315 people, with the Greek authorities using excessive violence, electric shocks and forced undressing as a common tactic of their illegal pushbacks.
Europe
FRA’s Fundamental Rights Survey collected data from 35,000 people about their experiences, perceptions and opinions on a range of issues that are variously encompassed by human rights. It focuses on findings with respect to respondents’ opinions about human — or fundamental — rights; their views and perceptions on the functioning of democratic societies — as a pillar on which human rights can flourish; and on their thoughts on and engagement with public services that have a duty to enforce human rights law and to protect people’s rights.
- 88 % of people in the EU say that human rights are important for creating a fairer society. But 68 % think that some people take unfair advantage of human rights.
- The survey results reveal stark differences between countries and groups in society. People’s views differ significantly, depending on their age, gender, wealth, level of education or whether they live in the countryside or in the city. For example, more people with lower incomes or longstanding health issues believe that human rights bring unfair benefits to some people.
- 33 % believe that human rights only benefit those who do not deserve them, such as criminals and terrorists. This goes up to 44% for people who find it difficult to make ends meet. By educational level, 41 % with lower secondary education or less share this view, but only 23 % with higher education.
- In 11 out of 27 EU Member States, 50 % or more agree that human rights abuses are not really a problem in their country, but instead are something that happens ‘elsewhere’. People who find it difficult to make ends meet are less likely to share this view: 43 % do so, compared with 54 % of people who easily make ends meet.
To read their full report, please follow the link below:
The European Asylum Support Office has published its flagship report the “Annual Report on the Situation of Asylum in the European Union”. The report describes changes to policies and legislation at European and national levels, shares best practices and summarises challenges which persist. It presents trends in asylum patterns, key indicators and examples of case law to showcase how European and national laws are interpreted and applied in the context of the EU asylum acquis.
The Report finds that 2019 was the first time since 2015 that applications increased on an annual basis, in part due to a sharp rise in applicants from Venezuela (+103% over 2018) and Colombia (+214% over 2018). Some EU+ countries — such as Cyprus, France, Greece, Malta and Spain — received more asylum applications in 2019 than during the so-called migration crisis in 2015 and 2016.
Furthermore, with the contributions from a wide range of additional sources, including civil society organisations, academia and research institutions, the annual report also refers to Croatian police forcing children to declare themselves as adults, the use of excessive force by police and border officials against refugees and migrations, detention conditions breaching standards outlined by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture.
To read the full report or to watch the accompanying webinar please follow the link below:
Budget Committee MEPs gave their green light to top up support to refugees and host communities in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon in response to the Syrian crisis. The draft report recommending the approval of the draft amending budget was adopted on Wednesday, 33 to 4 with 3 abstentions.
The budget earmarks €485 million to fund the continuation of the two main EU humanitarian support actions in Turkey, the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) and the Conditional Cash Transfer for Education (CCTE).
The ESSN is a multi-purpose cash transfer scheme providing monthly assistance through debit cards to over one and a half million of the most vulnerable refugees in Turkey. Under this program individuals receiving assistance decide for themselves how to cover essential needs like rent, bills, food, and medicine, and follow new recommended best practices within the field of humanitarian assistance. Additionally, the CCTE programme provides vulnerable refugee families with bi-monthly cash payments to help them send and keep their children in school. It was estimated that by the beginning of 2018, this program assisted 230,000 refugee children.
This proposal states that host communities and refugees (Syrian refugees and Palestinian refugees from Syria) in Jordan and Lebanon are supported with a total of €100 million. This money will be used to fund projects giving access to education, to support livelihoods and for the provision of health, sanitation, water and waste services, as well as social protection.
The draft report still needs the approval of the full house at an upcoming plenary session and Are You Syrious will follow carefully.
Detailed information regarding this policy can be found at the following link.
Sea
Sea Watch International has continued their essential work monitoring the Mediterranean Sea.
Following a rescue mission last week, where 211 people were rescued by Sea-Watch, 28 of them tested positive for COVID and were transferred to the Moby Zara quarantine ship. The Moby Zara is currently stationed off the Sicilian port of Porto Empedocle.
Responded to the positive tests, the governor of Sicily, Nello Musumeci shared the following on his Facebook feed: “Twenty-eight positive migrants are on the ship anchored in Porto Empedocle, a solution [the quarantine, ed. note] that we willfully demanded from the central government on 12 April to avoid outbreaks developing on the island, without being able to contain and control them.”
Despite this, controversy has erupted in Italy over the different treatment of the Italian Mare Jonio ship compared to the German ship, Sea Watch 3. The Mare Jonio was allowed to disembark 67 people in Pozzallo who’d been rescued in the Mediterranean, while the 211 migrants rescued by Sea Watch were transferred to the Moby Zaza ferry where they will have to spend the period of quarantine. The Sea-Watch 3 was also ordered to quarantine off Porto Empedocle.
Austria
Karl Nehammer, Austria’s interior minister, says he supports a German proposal to process asylum claims before migrants enter Europe. Nehammer’s German counterpart told a German newspaper ahead of their meeting, “It is important to conduct fast-track procedures at the external border”.
Germany has previously argued that the EU should change its approach to asylum applications. German interior minister Horst Seehofer told the interior ministers of France, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom that “We have to realize the Dublin system has failed”. “Our proposition: Effective protection of Europe’s external borders, where we check whether someone has a need for protection or has to be returned immediately. This means we need a unified set of rules.”
Under Seehofer’s proposal, only asylum seekers with prospects for receiving protection in Europe should be distributed among a group of willing EU countries. Their asylum issues would then be addressed there.
Austria’s interior minister has supported these proposals as it argued that he wants to speed up decisions on migrants wishing to enter Europe who have little prospect of being allowed to stay. Furthermore, it reported that they plan to be able to force the immediate return of those whose asylum claims are rejected.
Germany
Recent demonstrations have been held in Halle calling for the city to take in more refugees and to make the city a designated safe haven.
Further refugee rights protests have been called for Sunday at 12 pm to protest the rescue ships that are being held in port and prevented from conducting rescue missions while people drown in the Mediterranean.
UNHCR
UNHCR has developed a new tool for refugee and migration practitioners that provides easy access to official refugee data.
Upcoming Events
RiVolti ai Balcani is holding a press presentation conference on Saturday 27 June. The conference will provide an overview of the current situation along the Balkan route and include direct testimonies from people on the move. Specific attention will be paid to the continued use of illegal readmissions on the Italian-Slovenian border.
Speakers will include Gianfranco Schiavone (vice-president of the Association for Legal Studies on Immigration, Asgi), Silvia Maraone (coordinator of IPSIA Acli interventions in Bosnia and Herzegovina), Anna Brambilla (lawyer of the Court of Milan, member of Asgi), Diego Saccora (Along the Balkan Route), Agostino Zanotti (director of ADL in Zavidovići), Paolo Pignocchi (Amnesty International Italy) and Corrado Conti (Ass. Mir Sada and Circolo Spazio Condiviso di Calolziocorte).
It will be possible to follow the live broadcast on Facebook:
On Sunday 28 June, Solidarité migrants Wilson will be hosting an event to clean the areas inside refugee camps. The event description says that: Despite the order of the Administrative Court of Paris to the communes of Aubervilliers and Saint-Denis to install water points, shower cabins, toilets and large-capacity buckets in the three camps of the Saint-Denis Canal, and to strengthen the garbage collection device, the state of the camps is deteriorating day by day.
To see the event and their other calls for assistance please view their Facebook page:
On 27 June in the UK, a protest has been called in London to “stand with Lesvos”. A number of peaceful gatherings in solidarity with all on the Aegean Islands will be held across London during which we will protest:
- The inhumane and illegal treatment of refugees at Europe’s border, both on land and at sea.
- Conditions and congestion in camps on the Aegean Islands, plans to create closed facilities, and the impact on both refugees and local people.
- The failure of the international community to adequately support or challenge the Greek government’s management of this situation.
For the full event page please follow the link.
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