AYS Daily Digest 29–30/9/2021: Belgium, #Justice4Mawda, Appeal Trial Started
Oct 1 · 9 min read
MSF resumes works in Libyan detention centres but ends its intervention in Lampedusa hotspot. Mimmo Lucano sentenced to 13 years in prison in Italy. Cash assistance in Greece handed over to to authorities…
On May 17 2018, a police officer shot and killed #Mawda, a 2-year-old, who was in a van being chased by police, while trying to reach the French border. #Justice4Mawda (Credit: Molly Crabapple)
FEATURED — Justice4Mawda: Appeal trial started on Thursday
Yesterday, Thursday 30th of September, the appeal trial for the death of Mawda started. The police officer who shot and killed the 2-year-old girl, and received a 1 year suspended sentence after the first trial in February, is now appealing and seeking a full acquittal. At the time of the first trial the judge gave the following sentences:
— 4 years imprisonment for the alleged driver
— 1 year suspended prison sentence and a 400 euros fine for the police officer
— acquittal for the alleged smuggler.
As the Prosecutor’s Office did not appeal the first ruling, in this new trial, the sentence cannot be aggravated.
On the first day of the new trial, the family’s and the state’s lawyers described the context of the murder, the numerous ways in which the police officer’s actions contravened training guidelines and police codes of conduct — as well as national and European laws — by putting people in danger without a proportionate cause. They also listed the lies of police and prosecutors in the aftermath of the killing of Mawda:
- That no shot was fired;
- That the child’s head had been used to smash the back window of the van by other passengers;
- That police shot at the bottom of the van.
In the meantime, the campaign #Justice4Mawda has been calling for a parliamentary inquiry on the death of Mawda and on the entire Operation Medusa, the Belgian framework of anti-migrant police actions since 2016. The campaign considers that the only solution to bring this case to a close is to focus on the responsibility of government policies and police operational decisions, instead of on the actions of a single officer.
LIBYA
MSF resumes work in Libyan detention centres
Three months after the suspension of activities in Libyan detention centres due to a number of violent incidents against detainees and risks faced by staff, over the past two weeks MSF has resumed work in two internment camps in Tripoli, Al-Mabani (Ghout al-Sha’al) and Abu Salim. In addition, MSF has also started working in a third detention centre, Shara Zawiya, to which the organisation had no previous access. This is the result of talks between MSF and the Libyan DCIM (Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration), where MSF “was assured that certain basic requirements were met in the detention centers”.
Among other things, it was assured that the use of force against detainees would be prevented and the safety of the MSF teams would be guaranteed. In addition, unhindered and permanent access for medical staff to the internment camps was promised, as well as unhindered access for interned people to the medical help offered by Doctors Without Borders.
In the past two weeks, more than 400 patients were examined and treated. 30 were children under the age of 15. The most common diseases were caused by the poor living conditions in the prisons: skin diseases, gastrointestinal diseases and upper respiratory tract infections. 28 patients had to be referred for urgent medical care to clinics and hospitals.
GREECE
Do you know your rights when interacting with the police in Greece ?
Have a look at the new info sheet Lesvos Legal Centre prepared, available in four languages to find out about your rights in case of a police control in the street or at your home, if you are taken to the police station or asked to testify as a witness
More Pushbacks
ABR have documented another pushback of 9 people from Lesvos. The group, including children and a pregnant woman, arrived at 6.30am on Saturday 18th September. They had contact with ABR for one hour before their phones were turned off. Eventually it was discovered that on 19th September, 18 hours after the last contact ABR had with them, the Turkish coast guard found them drifting in a life raft 12 nautical miles off the coast of Lesvos where they had arrived the previous day.
Another pushback was prevented with the intervention of Legal Centre Lesvos, and at least 18 of the 26 people who arrived on Thursday 30th September have been taken to the quarantine camp.
Meanwhile the Greek PM, Mitorakis, has announced that 2000 more peopleneed to be deported to Turkey and that he’ll be visiting Samos on Friday 1st October. Hard to tell what he based this figure on, but it’s unlikely to be anyone’s actual asylum case.
Cash Assistance management handed over to Greek Govt
UNHCR has announced that the Greek government will take over the management of the cash assistance programme for asylum seekers in Greece from the beginning of October.
The cash assistance programme was a part of the Emergency Support to Integration and Accommodation (ESTIA) programme which began in 2018. The Greek Govt took over control of the housing provision at the start of the year among much controversy as millions were awarded to an unknown NGO originally called Hopeland and now renamed Hopeten.
And despite UNHCRs statement that:
Cash assistance reinforces the dignity of those who have been forced to flee, enabling them to meet their basic needs and to decide for themselves how they do so. — Mireille Girard, UNHCR Representative in Greece.
The government have already made it necessary to live in a government run accommodation structure in order to receive it. We do wonder how that reinforces an individual’s dignity…
Unaccompanied children to be transferred
According to local media the 222 unaccompanied children still known to be in camps will be transferred to a new centre in Athens run by Metatarsi by the end of the year. Apparently the Migration Ministry’s special secretary for the protection of unaccompanied minors, Irini Agapidaki, has also been working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees since April this year to locate young at-risk migrants living rough. We fully support this sudden interest in their wellbeing.
BULGARIA
4 people deported from France to Bulgaria
InfoMigrants report that last Monday 4 people from Afghanistan were deported from France to Bulgaria under Dublin regulations. As Tihomir Sabchev notes, one of the points to stress is that too little information is known about conditions of reception and detention in the country, which makes it difficult — if not impossible — to build cases to prevent such deportations.
Bordermonitoring Bulgaria is one of the few reliable sources on the situation in the country. Check it out.
ITALY
Arrivals
80 people from Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan were rescued from a sailboat on Thursday morning and taken to Roccella Ionica, in Calabria, southern Italy. Among them, 5 women and 13 minors (10 of which unaccompanied).
Domenico Lucano sentenced to 13 years of prison for “aiding and abetting illegal migration”
Mimmo Lucano Sentenced “For crimes benefitting humanity” (Credit: Vauro Senesi)
Italian former mayor of Riace, Domenico “Mimmo” Lucano, was sentencedon Thursday to 13 years of prison and more than €700,000 fine for, among others, abetting illegal immigration, embezzlement, and fraud. Lucano had come to notoriety when he managed to revitalise his community by welcoming and integrating migrants. With him, another 17 people have been sentenced to lengthy prison sentences. The sentence comes as a shock for Lucano and many migrant solidarity groups throughout Italy and beyond, as it almost doubles the 7 years and 11 months requested by prosecutors.
As reported by media, “according to the magistrates, Lucano had flouted the public tender process by awarding waste collection contracts to two cooperatives that were set up to help migrants look for work.”
The reasoning of the judge’s ruling has not been published yet, and Lucano has announced he will appeal the sentence. He has been under house arrest since 2018 as he will remain until the end of appeals.
MSF end its intervention in Lampedusa hotspot
MSF stated that a structural plan for the reception of people on the move is needed now more than ever.
The emergency approach that is still used does not ensure a dignified welcome nor does it respond to the health needs of people, especially of the vulnerable.
The hotspot system is not suitable for welcoming with dignity and respect men, women and children who have just crossed the Mediterranean. Overcrowded spaces, promiscuity and poor hygiene conditions only worsen people’s physical and mental health.
People who arrive in Lampedusa have specific health needs that require immediate assistance. The current disembarkation methods do not facilitate the identification of some of these needs, starting with those related to traumatic experiences, such as violence suffered in Libya.
BELARUS/POLAND
Situation at Minsk airport
The Polish police keep texting people on the move in the border area, warning them that the border is closed and they should return to Minsk, all the while the people keep trying to find ways through different organisations to help them to survive the conditions there and hope for a pass through to Poland. Every day some 500 people arrive at Minsk international airport with the intention to getting to Germany via Poland. Hundreds of them are stuck at the airport waiting to get their entry visas. A story on what is taking place at the airport in Minsk painfully reminds us of the Keletyi situation some years ago.
Afghans remain stranded at the border
(About 32 Yazidis from Shingal have been sitting on the border between for a week #Polen and #Belarus fixed. Thousands #Flüchtlinge have been waiting for weeks without food, water and shelter at low temperatures on the border between Belarus and the EU.)
Amnesty have released a report and digital reconstruction of the pushback of the 32 people at the Polish border in August.
Using photogrammetry and photo-matching to reconstruct 3D models, Amnesty International was able to verify the group’s position on the border, confirm the suspected pushback between 18 and 19 August and the location of the group between 12 August and 13 September. It also exposed the inhumane conditions in the makeshift camp that the group is being forced to live in.
They are calling on Poland’s government to “ensure that those seeking protection have access to its territory” and provide adequate shelter, food, water, sanitary facilities, access to lawyers and medical care. They also ask Poland to repeal the state of emergency and laws limiting movement in the border area, and grant unhindered access to journalists, activists, NGOs and lawyers.
People have requested asylum in an EU country, an EU member state is blatantly violating their rights and the EU must act swiftly and firmly to call out these flagrant abuses of EU and international law — Eve Geddie, Amnesty
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Hot showers and a lot more
On Thursday, No Name Kitchen wrote a long post commending the activities of one of their partner groups, the Italian, Collettivo Rotte Balcaniche Alto Vicentino, responsible for providing hot showers and a moment of respite to people stuck on the Bosnian/Croatian border.
Recently, the Collettivo Rotte Balcaniche Alto Vicentinowrote a Special for AYS for Bihac: A handshake, a hug and they are gone.
FRANCE
15th eviction of the year in Calais
Again, another large eviction was carried out by riot police in the Calais area. 400 people were taken, their tents and belongings destroyed or seized, and forcibly transferred into buses, towards undisclosed locations. Read the collective statement by groups and organisations in the area.
Also on Wednesday, people in Calais gathered to mourn and remember a young man who died on Tuesday after being hit by a lorry near the border.
UK
Overcrowding and Covid outbreak in hostel accommodation in London
Following on from what we reported in our weekend digest on reception conditions for people who fled Afghanistan, media now report that around 500 men are currently staying at a hostel in Southwark, south London. The use of hotels for reception accommodation has been ongoing for a long time and the bad hygienic conditions, overcrowding and risk of abuse are far from being new. In Southwark, it is reported that up to 15 people were living in one room, despite the guidelines of the Home Office stated that the limit was 10.
Unsurprisingly, there has been a Covid outbreak:
A Covid outbreak at the site in recent weeks has led to a number of people being infected. The Home Office would not disclose how many. Residents have reported incidents where their roommates have tested positive, but have not been able to isolate until several days later.
WORTH READING
- Bitter Balance: The Tightening of Asylum Law by Horst Seehofer. In the aftermath of German federal elections, this piece by Pro-Asylum summarises the areas in which unbearable conditions have become the new normal. (in German)
- Strategies of Deterrence, Policies of Death. How is the Spanish ‘most progressive government’ doing so far? by Refugee Rights Europe.
- ‘I didn’t really learn much except to nag the police. However, I have done that thoroughly’ — R.I.P. Heiner Busch, founding member of Statewatch. This is a tribute from several German organisations with which he worked.
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