Migrants looking down from the mountain behind the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in Morocco. Credit: Andrea Pettrachin/IPS

By Andrea Pettrachin
CEUTA, Sep 4 2015 (IPS)

In the middle of the mountains behind the border fence of Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in Morocco, and eight kilometres from the nearest Moroccan village of Fnideq, an uncertain number of migrants live in the woods. No one knows exactly how many they are but charity workers in Melilla, Spain’s other enclave in Morocco, say they could be in their thousands.

Ceuta is one of the main (and few) ‘doors’ leading from northern Africa to the territory of the European Union, and is a ’door’ that has been closed since the end of the 1990s, when the Spanish authorities started to build a tripe six-metre fence topped with barbed wire that surrounds the whole enclave, as in Melilla.

In the past, those waiting in the mountains for their turn to try to reach Spain had been able to build something resembling a normal life. They put up tents and at least were able to sleep relatively peacefully at night.Today, the migrants are forced to remain mostly hidden in small groups among the trees or in small caverns, and they know that all attempts to pass the Spanish border are almost certain to fail and end up with arrest by the Moroccan authorities

That all ended after 2012, when the Moroccan police started to burn down the camps and periodically sweep the mountainside, arresting any migrants they found, charged with having illegally entered the country.

These actions were the result of agreements between the Moroccan and Spanish governments, after Spain had asked Morocco to control migration flows.

The most tragic raid so far by the Moroccan police took place last year on Gurugu Mountain which looks down on Melilla. Five migrants were killed, 40 wounded and 400 removed to a desert area on the border with Algeria. According to the migrants, the wounded were not cured and were left to their own destiny.

Today, the migrants are forced to remain mostly hidden in small groups among the trees or in small caverns, and they know that all attempts to pass the Spanish border are almost certain to fail and end up with arrest by the Moroccan authorities.

They live, in their words, “like animals” and when speaking with outsiders are clearly ashamed by their condition, apologising for being dirty and badly-dressed.

The first thing many of them tell you in French is that they are students and that before having to leave their countries they were studying mathematics, economics or engineering at university.

Many of them are from Guinea, one of the countries most seriously affected by the Ebola epidemic, others come from Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso, all countries characterised by political turmoil of various types.

All of them have been forced to live in these woods for months or even years, waiting for their chance to pass the border fence.

The statistics show that some of them will certainly die in their attempts to reach Spain – either on the heavily fortified fences which encircle the enclaves or out at sea in a small boat or trying to swim to a Spanish beach.

Some of them will finally make it to Spain, perhaps after five or six failed attempts. In that case they will have overcome the first hurdle, escaping the “push-back operations” by the Spanish Guardia Civil, but they will still face the possibility of forced repatriation, particularly if they come from countries with which Spain has a repatriation agreement.

Many of them, however, will finally give up and decide to remain somewhere in Morocco, destined to a life of continuous uncertainty due to their irregular position in the country. You can meet them and listen to their stories in the main Moroccan cities, especially in the north. In most cases, they had escaped death in their attempts to reach Spain and do not want to risk their lives any longer.

Meanwhile a report on ‘Refugee Persons in Spain and Europe” published at the end of May by the non-governmental Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR), denounces how sub-Saharan migrants are dissuaded from seeking asylum in Spain, even if coming from countries in conflict such as Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo or Somalia, once they realise that they are likely to be forced to remain for months in a Centre for Temporary Residence of Immigrants (CETI) in Ceuta or Melilla.

In Melilla, for example, those who apply for asylum cannot leave the enclave until a decision has been taken on their application. Unlike Syrian refugees whose application takes no more than two months, CEAR said the average time to reach a decision for sub-Saharan Africans is one and a half years.

The CEAR report is only one of a long list of recent criticisms of the Spanish government’s migration policies from numerous NGOs and international organisations.

The main target of these criticisms has been the Security Law (Ley de Seguridad Ciudadana) passed this year by the Spanish Parliament with only the votes of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party. The aim was to give legal cover to the so called devoluciones en caliente, the “push-back operations” against migrants carried out by the Spanish frontier authorities in Ceuta and Melilla in violation of international and European law.

On the Spanish mainland, said the CEAR report, migrant’s right of asylum is seriously undermined by the bureaucratic lengths of application procedures and the political choices of the Spanish authorities.

Calls from CEAR and other NGOs to end “push-back operations” seem very unlikely to be taken into consideration soon by the Spanish government and Parliament, in view of the general elections later this year.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Migrants send a message – “We are humans, not animals”. Credit: Amnesty International France

By A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, Jun 13 2015 (IPS)

Human rights groups are calling for a sustainable solution to the migrant crisis in Europe, especially following the dismantling of refugee camps in Paris and Calais, France, over the past two weeks.

In one of the latest incidents, tense confrontations occurred in the French capital when security forces evicted migrants from a park last Thursday, with activists later blocking the police from entering a former barracks where the migrants were temporarily sheltered.“The state has a duty to ensure durable accommodation solutions for all those who seek asylum” – Marco Perolini, Amnesty International

Amnesty International, present as observer during the operation, said that the state needs to do more to find housing solutions for migrants who have been sleeping on the street and in public parks.

“The state can evict people for various reasons, but migrants also have rights,” Stephan Oberreit, director general of Amnesty International France, told IPS.

“If the state informed people, explained the regulations and offered decent shelters, then that would be fine,” he added. “But this is not the case. They are not providing enough shelters for migrants and asylum seekers.”

Some of the migrants in the park – at the Bois Dormoy in the city’s 18th district – had already been evicted from a makeshift camp set up under a metro overpass, where conditions had become increasingly unsanitary.

Others came from a second cleared camp in northern Paris where about 350 migrants had been living. Most of those affected are from Sudan but there are also Somalis, Eritreans, Egyptians and other nationalities among the groups, officials said.

Activists and migrants protest evictions in Paris. Credit: Amnesty International France

The authorities had additionally evicted about 140 migrants from two makeshifts camps in Calais, northern France, where more than 2,000 migrants have been living in rough conditions in tent settlements.

On Thursday, at the Bois Dormoy, in incidents that lasted late into the night, the migrants took steps to organise their own response to the security operations after they had been told to leave the park. They held meetings among themselves and liaised with activists – who have been providing food and support – to make their concerns known.

City officials initially offered about 60 places at state shelters but eventually increased the number to accommodate more of the migrants, following negotiations. Rights groups feared, however, that many would still remain homeless.

“The French authorities cannot just keep moving these migrants and asylum seekers from pillar to post without seeking viable alternatives – the state has a duty to ensure durable accommodation solutions for all those who seek asylum,” said Marco Perolini, Amnesty International’s Researcher on Discrimination in Europe.

“Real and viable alternative solutions must be found to give these migrants and refugees adequate shelter and services, including access to asylum procedures,” he added.

Other groups such as GISTI (Group for Information and Support to Immigrants), told IPS that they were also providing legal assistance to the migrants, with their lawyers representing asylum seekers at court hearings.

Meanwhile, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said she would like to open a “welcome centre” for migrants who may be en route to other countries, or who may eventually decide to seek asylum in France.

“We are facing a huge increase in the numbers, and we need to open some kind of welcome centre,” she told French media. “One thing is certain – they cannot sleep on the streets.”

Such a centre would only be for temporary stays, and groups such as Amnesty International say that more permanent solutions are urgent and necessary.

This week, the European Commission, the executive branch of the 28-nation European Union (EU), called for member states to endorse its proposal to resettle 40,000 migrants as the boats keep arriving at Italian and Greek shores.

According to United Nations figures, more than 100,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean since the start of 2015, and about 1,800 have died in the perilous boat trips, as they flee poverty and warfare in their homelands.

Thousands have entered France, often in an attempt to reach other countries such as Britain.  But while both France and Britain are against the proposed EU quotas, the number of people who would be relocated in France is just a “drop in the ocean”, Oberreit of Amnesty International told IPS.

“We can’t keep looking at temporary solutions,” Oberreit warned. “Individuals must be able to have a proper process of their situation in order to have refugee status, and migrants must have some form of shelter so they don’t have to be out in the street and go hungry.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

Refugees in Berlin defied a municipal eviction order in June 2014 with a nine-day hunger strike on the rooftop of a vacant school building using the slogan “You Can’t Evict a Movement” which today has become the rallying cry of the refugees’ movement in Germany. Credit: Denise Garcia Bergt

By Francesca Dziadek
BERLIN, May 21 2015 (IPS)

In a move to take their message of solidarity to refugees across the country and calling for their voices to be heard in Europe’s ongoing debate on migration, Germany’s asylum seekers have taken their nationwide protest movement for change on the road under the slogan: “You Can’t Evict a Movement!”.

Earlier this month, in a twist to conventional protest movements, refugees organised a Refugee Bus Tour across Germany, turning action into networking through mobile solidarity.

“We wanted to go out and bring a message of solidarity to all corners of Germany, to meet other refugees and tell them not to be afraid, to take life into their own hands and above all that you are not a criminal,” Napuli Görlich told IPS, tired but relieved after a month of travelling."In dictatorships, young people suffer systematic oppression for a mere criticism of the regime. Faced with joblessness and lack of freedom of expression, they will seek legal or illegal emigration following the lure of the foreign media's often empty slogans of justice and freedom" – Adam Bahar, Sudanese blogger and campaigner for Germany’s refugee movement

On the morning of Apr. 1, Napuli had stood on this same spot, flanked by fellow campaigners Turgay Ulu,  Kokou Teophil and Gambian journalist Muhammed Lamin Jadama, staring at the burnt-out refugee Info Point in Berlin, victim of one of a number of disturbing arson attacks this year, including one on a refugee home in Tröglitz, in the eastern state of Saxony.

Until the day before, the Info Point had functioned as a social solidarity base in the heart of Berlin’s Oranienplatz square, known here as the O’Platz. The square holds a symbolic importance as the central stronghold of the nation-wide refugee movement.

“That was a very sad moment for us,” said Napuli. “Such brutal attacks hit us where it hurts most, in our sense of vulnerability, precariousness, and invisibility,” she continued, vowing that the Info Point, registered as an art installation in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, will be rebuilt.

One of the most vocal and resilient personalities of the German refugee movement, Napuli was born in Sudan and studied at the universities of Ahfad and Cavendish in Kampala.  A human rights activist, she suffered torture and persecution for running an NGO and fled to Germany, where she has been with the refugee movement ever since.

From the start, she has also been associated with the O’Platz “protest camp”, which became her home and that of 40 other refugees in October 2012.  They had pitched their tents in the square after a 600 km march from what they termed a “lager” reception centre in Würzburg, Bavaria. The refugees stayed, on braving the elements, until the district council ordered bulldozers to tear it down in April last year.

“When they came to clear the camp I had nothing, absolutely nothing, only a blanket on my shoulders,” Napuli recalled. For the next three days, she took her blanket, her protest and her rage at the lack of an agreement with the Berlin authorities up a nearby tree, literally.

Germany’s refugee movement was sparked by the suicide of a young Iranian asylum-seeker Mohammad Rahsepar who hanged himself in his room at the Würzbug reception centre on Jan. 29, 2012.  En route to the German capital the marchers stopped by other “lagers”, starting to raise awareness about the inhumane conditions of isolation for asylum applicants, inviting them to leave their camps and join the march for freedom to Berlin.

Since then, the movement has been calling unequivocally for abolition of Germany’s enforced residence policy, or “Residenzpflicht”, a lager system which effectively denies asylum-seekers freedom of movement.

Other demands are an end to deportations, and rights to education, the possibility to work legally and access to emergency medical care, so far unavailable to asylum seekers.

After the O’Platz protest camp was razed to the ground, many of the prevalently African refugees occupied a vacant school building in Berlin, the Gerhardt-Hautmann-Schule in the Kreuzberg district’s Ohlauerstrasse, where they ran social and cultural activities until June 2014.

The local authorities attempted to enforce an eviction order, flanked by a 900-strong federal police force, and barring all access to visitors, press, voluntary organisations and even Church groups were denied access to the school or delivery of food.

Refusing to leave the building, some of the refugees took to the school’s rooftops for a nine-day hunger strike and standoff, waving a banner with the slogan “You can’t evict a movement”, which has now become the rallying cry of the refugees’ movement.

Some, like Alnour, Adam Bahar and Turgay Ulu, continue to live here, still hopeful that the district will agree to a proposal to set up an international refugee centre here and that they may be able to receive visitors.

Angela Davis, the iconic U.S. civil and human rights activist, was denied access when she tried to visit them on the premises recently.  “The refugee movement is the movement of the 21st century,” said Davis, referring to the plight of migrants worldwide.

During her May 2015 visit to Berlin, Angela Davis brought a message of support to members of the German refugee movement outside an occupied school building in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. Credit: Francesca Dziadek/IPS

“The Polizei can come at any time of night and snatch us away; we are under constant threat of deportation. I am feeling very stressed, I cannot sleep very well,” Alnour told IPS, explaining how they have had to make do with one, cold, defective shower for 40 people.

Undeterred on his return from the Refugee Bus Tour, Turgay Ulu, a Turkish journalist who was tortured and imprisoned as a dissident for 15 years, published the refugee movement’s magazine and is an active network organizer, has a very busy “working” schedule.

“There is a lot to do, from organising sleeping places for the homeless, writing and producing video content, organising spontaneous demonstrations and occupations, musical events, theatre performances, and consciousness-raising on national and international refugee bus tours,” Ulu told IPS.

“We have two choices, we either sit in the lagers and eat, sleep and eat again and go crazy, or we protest.”

Germany’s problem has been the exceedingly long waiting times necessary for processing asylum applications.  The United Nations has reported that in 2014 the country had the highest number of asylum applications since the Bosnian War in 1992. There are reportedly 200,000 asylum applications still outstanding and it is being predicted that this will have risen to 300,000 this year.

Adam Bahar, a Sudanese blogger and one of the refugee movement’s campaigners, told IPS that his dream of a better life of freedom and wealth evaporated when he reached Europe, where he soon realised that freedom and human rights are not for everyone to enjoy.

“In dictatorships, young people suffer systematic oppression for a mere criticism of the regime,” he said. ”Faced with joblessness and lack of freedom of expression, they will seek legal or illegal emigration following the lure of the foreign media’s often empty slogans of justice and freedom.”

Today, continued Bahar, who is in demand as a speaker and gives seminars at Berlin’s Humboldt University, “colonialism, which was born in Berlin in 1884, is being implemented by starting wars and marketing weaponry.”

As politicians busy themselves with strategies and programmes and allocating resources to more programmes to hold back refugees, they should be naming and shaming the real culprits instead, he said. “Change begins by uprooting dictators who are clandestinely colluding to misuse their nation’s wealth and remain in power thanks to the support of the pseudo democracies of the first world.”

Meanwhile, the refugee movement’s unified front appears to be making some, albeit limited, headway. The forced residence system, for example, has been abolished in a number of federal states and the Berlin Senate has just announced plans to provide refugee shelter accommodation to be completed by 2017 in 36 locations for 7,200 asylum seekers spread out across Berlin’s local districts at an overall cost of 150 million euros.

Germany is currently walking a tightrope between honouring its international humanitarian responsibilities, pursuing its international economic interests, including its remunerative arms sales contracts, and handling dangerous right-leaning swings in public opinion against immigrants.

At the same time, Germany is pursuing a risky carrot-and-stick immigration policy agenda which is sending out contradictory signals – a 10-year-old immigration law which placed Germany on the map as a land of “immigration” for highly skilled foreigners, while tightening restrictions for those who are not deemed to be candidates for economic integration.

At issue is the divisive policy which places refugees in “asylum-worthy” categories. “In Germany there are three categories of refugees,” Asif Haji, a 30-year-old Pakistani asylum seeker, told IPS.

“The first are Syrians and other Middle East refugees who are awarded permits and education. Second come the Afghans and Pakistanis, who have to struggle a bit but are allowed language school and work permits. But then there are the Africans who are widely perceived as economic migrants leeching on the system and petty criminals dealing in drugs who are not particularly welcome anywhere.”

“This is unfair,” he said. “Human tragedy should not be classified.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

A boatload of people, some of them likely in need of international protection, are rescued in the Mediterranean Sea by the Italian Navy. The UN at 70 must “be fit for the purpose … otherwise it would be letting down people in need and compromising its legitimacy”. Photo credit: UNHCR/A. D’Amato

By Julia Rainer
VIENNA, May 14 2015 (IPS)

Events are being organised around the world to celebrate the 70^th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, but a recent seminar held in the Austrian capital was not held to applaud the body’s past contributions.

Rather, the 45^th International Peace Institute (IPI) Seminar, held from May 6 to 7,  saw representatives from the political, NGO, media and military sectors come together to discuss the organisation’s capability to deal with the crises and challenges of the future.

There was consensus among participants that the difficulties in the realms of international peace and security are very different today from those that dominated the international community at the time of the foundation of the United Nations in 1945.The global scenario has seen the entry of non-state “actors” such as criminals and terrorists representing a real threat to stability of the international system that the United Nations was set up to safeguard

Not only has the number of member states quadrupled since then, the global scenario has seen the entry of non-state “actors” such as criminals and terrorists representing a real threat to stability of the international system that the United Nations was set up to safeguard.

At the same time, the planet is afflicted by other threats that do not stop at national borders, such as climate change, pandemics and wars, which have global dimensions and are extremely difficult to contain in our globalised world.

As Martin Nesirky, Director of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Vienna, put it: “The UN grew from the ashes of World War Two and there has been no global conflict since then, but neither has there been global peace.”

This year, debate about reform of the United Nations comes at a time that represents a possibility for change and action on two major fronts.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), although they have not yet been fully realised, are being pushed forward in the spirit of adapting a new development agenda in the form of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Furthermore, there are hopes that a global agreement on climate change will finally be reached in Paris in December at the U.N. Climate Change Conference.

According to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, “this is not just another year, this is the chance to change the course of history.”

However, the not all participants at the IPI seminar were convinced that the United Nations could fulfil its destined role without adapting to the fast changing circumstances that shape the world community.

A hotly debated issue was the long demanded reform of the U.N. Security Council and the power of veto held by its five permanent members – China, United States, France, United Kingdom and Russian Federation – which were said not to represent the world community.

Some participants noted that the current geopolitical situation is marked by a breakdown of power relations which have complicated the work of the United Nations enormously.

Richard Gowan, Research Director at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC) and a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), expressed his concern about the escalation of power struggles in recent years.

“Tensions between Russia and the West, and to some extent China and the West, have severely impaired the UN’s ability to deal with the Syrian crisis and stopped the UN having a serious role in the Ukrainian crisis altogether.”

He called for resolution of ongoing geopolitical competition to enable the United Nations to regain the strength to deal with pressing crises” and warned that “if the Security Council breaks down, the rest of the UN will ultimately break down.”

Meanwhile, as the world faces the most severe refugee crisis since the Second World War, it was stressed that the proper functionality of international institutions – and of the United Nations in particular – is of the highest importance. More than 53 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced today, a figure equal to the entire population of South Korea.

The last tragic incidents of hundreds of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean have shown that the international community is failing to ensure the security of those seeking a safe future in Europe. “Desperation has no measure and no cost,” said Louise Aubin, Deputy Director of the Department of International Protection at the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

During her work for the U.N. refugee agency, Aubin came face to face with the situation of the world’s largest refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, situated some 100 kilometres from the Kenya-Somalia border, which houses an estimated 500,000 Somali refugees, some of whom are third generation born in the camp.

“It’s impossible for me to explain as a parent that I would actually accept that situation,” Aubin said.” There is no way I would not do anything in my power to try to send my children somewhere else. And that somewhere else is across the Mediterranean.”

In the light of the recent tragedies suffered by refugees, participants said that it is necessary to create safe access to asylum in order for refugees to enjoy the rights that are theirs under international law.

It is clear that this responsibility does not lie only with the United Nations, they agreed, pointing to the role of the European Union in dealing with refugee flows.

However, both the United Nations and the European Union are only as strong as their member states allow them to be.

If the UN at 70 turns out not be fit for the purpose, it has to take immediate measures to become so – otherwise it would be letting down people in need and compromising its legitimacy.

Edited by Phil Harris    

An internal war is roiling the administration of President Ernest Bai Koroma with the Vice President, Samuel Sam-Sumana, at dead center. The VP, expelled last week from the ruling All People’s Congress (APC), is said to be forming a rival political movement from his home district in Kono, the country’s raw diamond capital, and an election decider.

Tensions grew so hot this week that President Koroma sent soldiers to surround Sam-Sumana’s home. This prompted the VP to put in a hurried asylum request with the U.S. embassy which has taken no action on the matter as yet.

“I have fled my house and am with my wife in a place I cannot disclose, waiting to hear from the U.S. Ambassador, whom I have asked for asylum,” Mr. Sam-Sumana told local media.

“I don’t feel safe this morning as vice-president,” he told the AP news agency by phone. He said he had spoken to US Ambassador John Hoover and was waiting for a response.

It’s not the first crisis for the Vice President, son of an influential ruling family. In 2011 his office was identified in a TV documentary investigating illegal logging. The matter was dubbed “Timbergate” by the press.

Other serious problems with the Vice President were quietly dismissed by the President. This became an irritant for the Campaign for Good Governance, a civil society group, which asked why Sam Sumana had not “cleared his name from the many allegations such as the cocaine trade and illegal timber logging that were brought against him while he was vice president in the last five years”.

“As an independent organisation, we want to see people with integrity and a clean record in our governance system,” Valnora Edwin was quoted to have said.

In the decision to expel Sam-Sumana, after a three month investigation, the VP was accused of “inciting anti-party activity, fermenting violence, deceit, false statement amounting to fraud, inciting hate, threatening the personal security of key party functionaries, flouting of rulings and decisions of the party, carrying out anti-party propaganda, and engaging in activities inconsistent with the achievement of the party’s objectives.”

Further, it was alleged, the Vice President had falsified his academic qualification – that he has a graduate degree – lied that he was Muslim prior to his selection as running-mate in 2007, and was the mastermind of political violence against party comrades in the volatile Kono district.

On the announcement of the expulsion, a large crowd gathered at party headquarters to celebrate despite the ban on such events under public emergency laws to control the spread of Ebola. The president himself was seen smiling and waving as his motorcade slowly made its way through the cheering crowd. Under the constitution, Sam Sumana cannot be fired but only impeached or removed for sufficient cause.

“Whatever way this political struggle for power and influence go, it serves as an unnecessary distraction to our fight to end the Ebola outbreak,” observed Abu-Bakarr Sheriff in a Concord Times editorial. Most significantly, it would vindicate the view that President Koroma committed an error in judgment by retaining a man with more than a fair share of scandals as the second gentleman of the republic.”

Edited by Roger Hamilton-Martin

The Harran camp for Syrian refugees was one of the last to be built by the Turkish government in 2012 and is considered the most modern, with a capacity for lodging 14,000 people in 2,000 containers. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
HARRAN and NIZIP, Turkey, Jan 4 2015 (IPS)

“We ran as if we were ants fleeing out of the nest. I moved to three different cities in Syria to try to be away from the conflict, but there was no safe place left in my country so we decided to move out.”

For Professor Helit – who was describing what he called the indiscriminate bombing of cities and burning of civilian houses by the Syrian regime under President Bashar al-Assad when he fled his country two years ago – this “moving out” meant taking refuge across the border in Turkey in one of the so-called “accommodation camps” provided by the Turkish government.

Helit and his 10 children – five daughters and five sons – fled on December 31, 2012, hitch-hiked a lift in a truck to the border with Turkey, and then made their way to the refugee camp in Harran, 20 kilometres from the Syrian border.The Syrians refugees living in Harran have tried to reproduce the lifestyle they had in their homeland, but every family has a sad story to tell – many have lost relatives in the conflict and others still have members in the battlefields fighting the regime

The camp in Harran was one of the last camps to be built by the Turkish government in 2012 and is considered the most modern, with a capacity for lodging 14,000 people in 2,000 containers.

For more than thirty years Helit had been the headmaster of a school in Syria before the outbreak of the armed conflict in Syria in March 2011. He now runs the camp school for 4,700 Syrian children of all ages.

Harran is divided into small neighbourhood-like communities with names such as Peace, Brotherhood and Fraternity, alluding to universal values. Seen from outside, the camp seems like a prison, but the gates of the Harran camp are always open so that families can leave and visit shopping centres nearby.

The Syrians refugees living in Harran have tried to reproduce the lifestyle they had in their homeland, but every family has a sad story to tell – many have lost relatives in the conflict and others still have members in the battlefields fighting the regime.

Professor Helit showed IPS the classrooms and common areas frequented by Syrian students aged between 13 and 16, the walls decorated with paintings by the students which, he said, are an “expression of their feelings and pain.”

“We will never stop fighting for our independence,” he added. “We will resist until the end.”

Stories like that of Professor Helit can be found everywhere in refugee communities along the border, although not all have the “luxury” of container housing.

Syrian children going to school on a cold morning in the tent refugee camp in Nizip, Turkey, near the border with Syria. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

In most camps, like the one in Nizip in the province of Gaziantep – an important industrial city in eastern Turkey – families of up to eight people live in tents.

Nizip lodges 10,700 Arabic Syrians, mostly from Aleppo and Idlib – both towns which were targeted by the al-Nusra Front, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda.

But the Nizip camp is also the setting for an interesting initiative in which its residents are being given the chance of electing their own neighbourhood community representatives. This pioneering initiative is now in its second year.

“This was the first time I ever voted. I don’t understand much about how it works but in Syria there was only one candidate and didn’t matter if we voted or not because the result was already defined”, Mustafa Kerkuz, a 57-year-old Syrian refugee from Aleppo, told IPS.

According to Demir Celal, assistant director of the Nizip camp, this is the first time that Syrians have able to vote freely. “We aim to teach them what a free election looks like,” he said.

The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey now stands at two million, according to Veysel Dalmaz, head of the Prime Ministry’s General Coordination for Syrian Asylum Seekers, who warns that the country has nearly reached full capacity for humanitarian assistance even though Turkey has “an open door-policy in which no one coming from Syria is refused and we do not even discriminate which side they are on.”

So far, the Turkish government has allocated more than five billion dollars to humanitarian aid through the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority of Turkey (AFAD).

According to Dalmaz, there has never in history been a case of mass migration from one country to another in such a short period of time as the migration from Syria to Turkey, and “there is no country that has managed to absorb so many people in so little time.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Sit-in of Syrian migrants in Athens, demanding that they be granted permission to move on to other European countries. Many of them are sleeping rough on the ground during the night, covered only with blankets to face temperatures under 10 degrees Celsius. Credit: Apostolis Fotiadis/IPS

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Nov 29 2014 (IPS)

A sit-in protest by Syrian refugees on Syntagma Square opposite the Greek parliament in the heart of Athens has turned into a demonstration of the stalemate faced by both Greek as well as European immigration policy.

About three hundred men, women and children have been on the same spot for over a week now, demanding that they be granted permission to move on to other European countries to the northwest of Greece.“Given that the refugee population will keep increasing, it is necessary to identify appropriate policy initiatives to promote integration now. This is necessary both for refugees as well as for social cohesion in Greece” – Giorgos Tsarbopoulos, Head of the UNHCR Office in Greece

Many of them are sleeping rough on the ground during the night, covered only with blankets to face temperatures under 10 degrees Celsius. Tens have already been transferred to hospital to be treated for minor symptoms, mostly due to hypothermia. Medical incidents have increased after many of the protestors decided to start a hunger strike six days ago.

Throughout the protest, the Greek authorities have been communicating with them, repeating the official line that there exist no legal provisions for travelling to other European countries unless they have formally acquired refugee status.

However most of the Syrians taking part in the sit-in appear unwilling to apply for asylum in Greece.

They have refused to do so even after it was made clear to them that asylum would be granted to them with fast track procedures. This would help secure the travelling documents, which they desperately want, but at the same time would deprive them of the right to seek asylum in other European countries in which refugees enjoy access to better integration services.

Indeed, the Greek authorities are facing a unique situation. The Secretary-General of the Ministry of Interior, Aggelos Syrigos, told IPS from Syntagma Square where the protest is taking place that the situation seems irresolvable. “We explained to them that what they ask is not possible. We advised them to apply for asylum, so we can offer shelter to families. Many of them seem to believe that other Europeans can intervene to resolve their problem, which is not the case,”

Some years ago, when Greece was receiving mostly economic migrants, the country implemented a policy that limited access to asylum claims because irregular migrants were abusing the system.

Syrian migrants protesting in Athens. About three hundred men, women and children have been on the same spot for over a week now, demanding that they be granted permission to move on to other European countries. Credit: Apostolis Fotiadis/IPS

The crisis transformed the country into a non-desirable destination for refugees and migrants. Now it appears to be the authorities that are pushing refugees, which are the vast majority of arrivals these days, to enter the system and claim asylum.

The change in policy came after the authorities established an effective asylum system in cooperation with UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, and after pressure from the European Commission on the country’s authorities.

But this change of policy has not been followed up by establishment of the effective integration services and infrastructure that the country needs.

A recent reportby the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) on the cost-effectiveness of irregular migration control policy in Greece between 2007 and 2013 shows that Greece has prioritised an expensive system of border controls, detention and returns.

It has invested most of the available resources from European funds and the national budget in such a system at the expense of a less costly and more proactive system without such punitive measures. As a result, it now lacks facilities that would help manage new waves of arrivals.

The Head of the UNHCR Office in Greece, Giorgos Tsarbopoulos, told IPS that Greece never really attempted to implement an integration policy in the first place, but now, “given that the refugee population will keep increasing, it is necessary to identify appropriate policy initiatives to promote integration now. This is necessary both for refugees as well as for social cohesion in Greece.”

Tsarbopoulos believes that the government’s decision to precondition any protection offered to Syrian protestors on first applying for asylum might prove counterproductive by polarising the situation.

Many Syrians who come from an urban middle class background understand that claiming asylum in Greece will connect them to a future that leads to social marginalisation, a situation that they clearly find very difficult to accept.

A few nights ago, this correspondent was party to a conversation between Mohammed A., who has been sleeping rough in Syntagma Square since the beginning of the sit-in, and a Greek man, both of the same age.

The conversation ended with the Syrian saying: “I don’t want anything from Greece. What I want is just to be able to go where I want. You can go anywhere you want. I want this too.”

Both Syrigos and Tsarbopoulos agreed not only that the issue will deteriorate but also that the time frame for adequate solutions is limited.

According to the latest official Greek estimates, more than 5000 Syrians entered Greece last month and just a few days ago Greece sent a military search and rescue operation south to Crete to save an immobilised container ship believed to be carrying about 700 refugees.

The Greek Council of Refugees issued a response to the government’s position to push Syrians to submit asylum applications. According to the organisation, the asylum process “should not be a tool and a prerequisite for the provision of material reception conditions and immediate humanitarian assistance to people fleeing war conflicts”.

In an analytical press release circulated by UNHCR Greece five days ago, Europe is being urged to open legal pathways for refugees and start a dialogue on a Europe-wide refugee solution that puts the emphasis on solidarity among the European Union’s member states.

For two years, the Greek government, together with Italy and Malta, has repeatedly been asking the European Council to discuss responsibility-sharing between member states in the north of Europe and those in the south, but this has not yet happened.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Banner in the village of Fidae (near Byblos) which reads: "The municipality of Al Fidae announces that there is a curfew for all foreigners inside the village every day from 8 pm to 5.30 am". Credit: Oriol Andrés Gallart/IPS

By Oriol Andrés Gallart
BEIRUT, Nov 21 2014 (IPS)

Staring at the floor, Hassan, a 21-year-old Syrian refugee from Idlib in northwestern Syria, holds a set of identification papers in his hands. He picks out a small pink piece of paper with a few words on it stating that he must obtain a work contract, otherwise his residency visa will not be renewed.

Hassan (not his real name) has been given two months to find an employer willing to cough up for a work permit, something extremely unlikely to happen. After that, his presence in Lebanon will be deemed illegal.

Hassan, who fled Syria almost three years ago to avoid military service, tells IPS that all that awaits him if he returns are jail, the army or death, so he has decided that living in Lebanon illegally after his visa expires is his best bet.Hassan, who fled Syria almost three years ago to avoid military service … [says that] all that awaits him if he returns are jail, the army or death, so he has decided that living in Lebanon illegally after his visa expires is his best bet.

Sitting next to Hassan is 24-year-old Ahmed (not his real name) from Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, who lost his residency one month ago. Since then he has been forced to watch his movements. “I live with permanent fear of being caught by the police and deported,” he says.

Since the start of Syria’s civil war in March 2011, over 1.2 million Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon, where they now account for almost one-third of the Lebanese population.

Particularly since May, the Lebanese government has increasingly introduced measures to limit the influx of Syrian refugees into the country. Speaking after a cabinet meeting on Oct. 23, Information Minister Ramzi Jreij announced that the government had reached a decision “to stop welcoming displaced persons, barring exceptional cases, and to ask the U.N. refugee agency [UNHCR] to stop registering the displaced.”

Dalia Aranki, Information, Counselling and Legal Assistance Advisor at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), told IPS that Lebanon “is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention” and, as a result, “is not obliged to meet all obligations resulting from the Convention.”

“Being registered with UNHCR in Lebanon can provide some legal protection and is important for access to services,” she wrote together with Olivia Kalis in a recent article published by Forced Migration Review. “But it does not grant refugees the right to seek asylum, have legal stay or refugee status. This leaves refugees in a challenging situation.”

Current legal restrictions affect the admission of newcomers, renewal of residency visas and the regularisation of visa applications for those who have entered the country through unofficial border crossings.

One aid worker who is providing assistance to Syrian refugees in Mount Lebanon told IPS that the majority of the Syrian beneficiaries they are working with no longer have a legal residency visa.

Aranki notes that fear of being arrested often forces those without legal residency papers to limit their movements and also their ability to access various services, to obtain a lease contract or find employment is severely limited. It could also impede birth registration for refugees -with the consequent risk of statelessness, or force family separations on the border.

Before May this year, Syrians could usually enter Lebanon as “tourists” and obtain a residency visa for six months (renewable every six months for up to three years), although this process cost 200 dollars a year, which already was financially prohibitive for many refugee families.

However, NRC has noted that under new regulations Syrians are only permitted to enter Lebanon in exceptional or humanitarian cases such as for medical reasons, or if the applicant has an onward flight booked out of the country, an appointment at an embassy, a valid work permit, or is deemed a “wealthy” tourist. Since summer 2013, restrictions for Palestinian refugees from Syria have become even more severe.

Under its new policy, the Lebanese government also intends to participate in the registration of new refugees together with the UNHCR. Khalil Gebara, an advisor to Minister of Interior Nohad Machnouk, says that the government has taken these measures for two reasons.

“First, because the government decided that it needs to have a joint sovereign decision over the issue of how to treat the Syrian crisis. (…) Previously, it was UNHCR to decide who was deemed a refugee and who was not, the Lebanese government was not involved in this process.”

Secondly “because government believes that there are a lot of Syrians registered who are abusing the system. A lot of them are economic migrants living in Lebanon and they are registered with the United Nations. The government wants to specify who really deserves to be a refugee and who does not”.

Ron Redmond, a UNHCR spokesperson, said that the U.N. agency has “for a long time” encouraged the Lebanese government to assume a role in the registration of new refugees and affirms that registration is going on.

“There is concern about the protection of refugees but there is also understanding on UNHCR’s part,” said Redmond. “Lebanon has legitimate security, demographic and social concerns.”

Meanwhile, accompanying the increasing fear of deportation from Lebanon, Syrian refugees have also been forced to deal with routine forms of discrimination.

Over 45 municipalities across Lebanon have imposed curfews restricting the movement of Syrians during night-time hours, measures which, according to Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Director Nadim Houry, contravene “international human rights law and appear to be illegal under Lebanese law.”

Attacks targeting unarmed Syrians – particularly since clashes between the Lebanese army and gunmen affiliated with Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Arsal in August – have  also occurred.

Given such realities, life in Lebanon for Hassan, Ahmed and many other Syrian refugees, is becoming a new exile, stuck between a rock and a hard place.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

One of the ancient yet vanishing Mandaean rituals in Baghdad, at the banks of the Tigris river. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
KIRKUK, Iraq, Nov 8 2014 (IPS)

“Going  back home? That would be suicide. The Islamists would cut our throats straight away,” says Khalil Hafif Ismam. The fear of this Mandaean refugee sums up that of one of the oldest yet most decimated communities in Mesopotamia.

“We had our house and two jewellery shops back in Baiji – 230 km north of Baghdad – but when ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] took over the area in June we had to leave for sheer survival,” recalls Khalil Ismam from the Mandaean Council compound in Kirkuk, 100 km east of Baiji. That is where he shares a roof with the family of his brother Sami, and the mother of both.

The Ismams are Mandaeans, followers of a religion that experts have tracked back 400 years before Christ, and which consider John the Baptist as their prophet. Accordingly, their main ritual, baptism, has taken place in the same spots on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates for almost two millennia.

In the sixteenth century, Portuguese Jesuit missionaries attempted to convert them to Christianity in Basra (southern Iraq). Young Mandaeans were sent, often abducted, to evangelise far-flung Portuguese colonies such as today´s Sri Lanka. They were called the “Christians of St. John”, although Mandaeans solidly dissociate themselves from Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The Ismams, a Mandaean displaced family, pose at the entrance of the Mandaean Council in Kikruk. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

Khalil Ismam and his brother, both jewellers in their late thirties, also come from Iraq´s far south. Talking to IPS, they explain how they moved to Baghdad in the 1980s, “looking for a better life”. After the first Gulf War in 1991, they were forced to relocate again, this time to Baiji. Today they are in Kirkuk but they have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

“The council has told us that we cannot stay over a month, but we still don´t know where to go next because ISIS is already at the gates of the city,” says Sami.

Among the little they could take with them, the silversmiths did not forget their sekondola – a medallion engraved with a bee, a lion and a scorpion, all of them surrounded by a snake. According to Mandaean tradition, it should protect them from evil."The most striking thing about the killings of Mandaeans in Iraq is that it ranges from monetary gain by the extremists to the more sinister reason of ethnically cleansing the population of Iraq to get rid of the entire population of Mandaeans” – Suhaib Nashi, General Secretary of the Mandaean Association Union in Exile

Talismans are likely among the few things they can stick to while Mandaean ancient rituals begin to disappear as their priests are driven into exile in the best case scenario. In Kirkuk, the dry bed of the Khasa River – a tributary of the Tigris – is not an option so the increasingly rare ceremonies are held in a makeshift water well inside the complex.

“Every two or three weeks a genzibra – Mandaean priest – comes from Baghdad to conduct the ritual but the road is getting more dangerous with each passing day,” laments Khalil Ismam, standing by the pond.

According to a report released by Human Rights Watch in February 2011, 90 percent of Mandaeans have either died or left the country since the invasion by the U.S.-led forces in 2003.

From his residence in Baghdad, Sattar Hillo, spiritual leader of the Mandaeans worldwide, told IPS that his community is facing their “most critical moment” in history, adding that there are around 10,000 of them left in Iraq.

But that was his assessment a few months before the ISIS threat in the region. Today, the situation has worsened considerably, as Suhaib Nashi, General Secretary of the Mandaean Association Union in Exile, sums up:

“In the past two months, our community in Iraq is suffering a real genocide at the hands of radical Islamists, and not just by ISIS”. Nashi told IPS that the situation is equally worrying in southern areas, where the followers of this religion are easy victims of either Shiite militias or common criminals.

“The most striking thing about the killings of Mandaeans in Iraq is that it ranges from monetary gain by the extremists to the more sinister reason of ethnically cleansing the population of Iraq to get rid of the entire population of Mandaeans,” denounces Nashi.

Seeking asylum

Khalima Mashmul, aged 39, is among the Mandaean refugees staying today at the local council. She tells IPS that she is originally from the south, but that she came to Kirkuk at the early age of 15, dragged by a forced population displacement campaign through which Saddam Hussein sought to alter the demographic balance of Kirkuk, where the Kurds are the majority.

Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen dispute this city which lies on top of one of the world’s largest oil reserves. What Mashmul has called “home” for nearly 25 years is still considered as one of the most dangerous spots in Iraq. And she knows it well.

“My husband is a police officer. He lost his right leg and four fingers of one hand after a bomb attack last June. Despite his injuries, they still force him to keep working,” this mother of four tells IPS. Like the Ismams, they cannot stay indefinitely.

“We cannot go back home because my husband is threatened but we don´t have enough money to pay a rent,” laments Mashmul. Their only option, she adds, is that “Australia or any European country” grants them political asylum.

That is likely the dream of the majority in Iraq. In a report on the Iraq crisis released last month, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that 1.8 million Iraqis have been internally displaced since January this year. The report also adds that 600,000 of them need urgent help due to the imminent arrival of winter.

While many wait impatiently to move to a Western country, some others have opted for an easier relocation in neighbouring countries.

Chabar Imad Abid, one of the policemen – all of them Mandaean – managing security at the compound, tells IPS that he does not regret being left alone by his family, saying: “My wife and my five children are in Jordan and I will join them as soon as I can.”

“We have just been told that ISIS is gathering forces in Hawija – 50 km west of Kirkuk,” says the policeman, meaning that the offensive over Kirkuk is “imminent”.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Group of asylum seekers in Casoli, near Bagni di Lucca, Italy. Credit: Silvia Giannelli/IPS

By Silvia Giannelli
LUCCA, Italy, Aug 1 2014 (IPS)

His journey started four years ago in Conakry, Guinea. Now that Mamoudou* has finally reached Italy, he hopes this will be his final stop.

When he first left his home, his plan was to stay in Libya, but after the 2011 crisis, when Gaddafi’s government was overthrown, life in the country became very hard for migrants. “I was jailed 28 times, and tortured,” he told IPS, “so I decided to come to Italy, because it’s a democracy and I hope I will have a peaceful and secure life here.”

Together with 13 other asylum seekers from Mali, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Mamoudou is now living in a tiny village in the Tuscan mountains, where the ‘Partecipazione e Sviluppo’ association is taking care of his application.“While trying to look at tackling the root causes [of migration] in economic disparity may be a laudable objective, it is not going to make a difference any time soon […] Without an effective rescue response people are going to drown, and they have drowned, and more will drown” – Benjamin Ward, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch

They all arrived between April and June from Libya, where they had migrated to escape conflicts and hunger and it is now painful for them to recall how their voyage took. “

In order to smuggle me to the Libyan coast, they put me in the boot of a car,” says Mamoudou. “I don’t know how many hours I spent there and what day I left Libya, but my registration documents say I arrived in Sicily on April 11. “

He paid the equivalent of 1,000 dollars to human traffickers to share a boat with 80 people and no skipper. “They told us where the North was and that we should have taken turns steering. When the Italian Navy found us, we had no idea where we were and the boat was already sinking.”

Since the tragedy off the Italian island of Lampedusa, which left more than 350 migrants dead in October last year, the Italian authorities have started a rescue operation called ‘Mare Nostrum’ (Our Sea). Mamoudou is one of the more than 80,000 migrants that have been saved since the operation started, winning appreciation from human rights NGOs and European Union authorities.

“Mare Nostrum is extremely important because it has saved many lives,” Benjamin Ward, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch, told IPS. “We think it is something that needs to continue and we are among other groups calling for the European Union to respond positively to Italy’s call for European support for the operations”.

Given the high costs of the operations – about 9.3 million euro a month, according to Italian Navy – the Italian Minister of the Interior, Angelino Alfano, who is also leader of the New Centre Right (NCD) party, has stressed on several occasions the need for Frontex, the European Union border management agency, to take over Mare Nostrum.

“Mare Nostrum was set up as an emergency operation. It can’t last forever,” the minister told G6 interior ministers in Barcelona in June. ”Europe must replace Italy in this effort, and Italy will continue to make its contribution,” he added.

“Europe must come up with a clear strategy to regulate the flow of migrants. The Mediterranean that unites us is a European sea. It does not just belong to Italy, Spain, or any of the other countries that look onto this extraordinary body of water,” said the minister.

Yet, the answer of the European Commission leaves little room for negotiation. “Mare Nostrum is a very broad and expensive operation and Frontex is a small agency, it cannot take over Mare Nostrum,” Michele Cercone, spokesperson for EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström, explained to IPS. “Of course Frontex can and will contribute and can do a lot, but we don’t have the means to totally substitute it.”

Despite the widespread approval that the Italian rescue operation enjoys, Italian right-wing party Northern League has been calling for its termination since its early stages. “The only real outcome of Mare Nostrum is the favour we make to the traffickers, who can now leave tens of thousands of people at risk of dying, because they know the Navy will come and rescue them,” Massimiliano Fedriga, party leader in the Chamber of Deputies, told IPS.

“The only real solution is to have EU observatories in the North African countries to verify who has the right to receive asylum, which must be a European asylum and not the asylum of a single country. The others, the illegal migrants, who are the majority, should not come and must not come to our country,” he concluded.

Yet, in April Alfano had already said that “immigration is deeply changing profile […] there are increasingly more asylum seekers than economic migrants.”

Riccardo Noury, communications director of Amnesty International Italy, confirmed. “The migrants who arrive, when they manage to survive, at the European border, which is often the Italian and the Greek border, are mostly people who would have the right to asylum or other types of international protection,” he told IPS.

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch seem to be mostly concerned by Europe resistance to changing its approach towards migration.

“Obviously there are other aspects like border enforcement, like taking action against dangerous smuggling, which are important and need to continue, but we do think that saving lives should be the top priority,” said Ward.

“While trying to look at tackling the root causes in economic disparity may be a laudable objective, it is not going to make a difference any time soon […] Without an effective rescue response people are going to drown, and they have drowned, and more will drown. That in our view is something that has to be engaged. The European Union can’t simply say that it’s Italy’s mess to fix,” he added.

According to Noury, there are several reasons why Italy’s requests have not been heard.

“In the past years, Italy has lost the chance to show credible policies while asking for Europe’s support. We have been the country of push-backs, the country that threatened to release fake residence permits during the 2011 crisis to allow migrants to cross the Italian Northern border… we haven’t been a reliable partner when it came to reform the EU’s migration policies,”  the Amnesty International spokesperson commented.

“But we now have another opportunity, with the EU presidency [which Italy assumed for a six-month period at the beginning of July], to assume a leadership role.”

If Italy fails to obtain strategic and financial support from the European Union, it will be soon forced to scale down or discontinue its rescue operations. One year after the Lampedusa tragedy, exactly same conditions might be in place, and the consequences could be deadly once again.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

 * Name changed to protect his identity.

An Oct. 3 rally in Washington DC to end the government shutdown. Credit: Rep. Keith Ellison's office/cc by 2.0

By Samuel Oakford
NEW YORK, Oct 12 2013 (IPS)

Early on the morning of Oct. 1, Tapia* left her home in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, took the subway into Manhattan and headed to the federal courthouse on Varick Street.

After spending years in a backlogged legal system, she was going to receive a place in line for a visa and green card that offered permanent status.“I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting, but something always happens." -- Tapia, who cannot travel to see her ailing mother in Mexico

“But when we got there all the courts were closed,” Tapia told IPS.

With the federal government shut down, courts that don’t handle detainees are mostly shuttered, leaving thousands of cases unheard. For asylum seekers or longtime immigrant residents like Tapia, missing a day in court means risking being thrown to the back of a line that can extend for years.

“There were many people there in my situation that day,” she said.

Tapia emigrated from Mexico in 1998 to New York City, where she lives and works as a cook while raising two children, both born in the United States.

“I’ve paid all my taxes and put myself through school,” she said.

Underlying all immigration proceedings is the latent threat of deportation.

“This delay makes me feel nervous and insecure, it shouldn’t be this way,” said Tapia.

The judge at her preliminary hearing – where defendants present evidence arguing their case warrants a final, master hearing – told her lawyer she would assign a “cancellation of removal” (COR) at a later date, when the master hearing could be scheduled.

COR is a status open only to immigrants who have lived continuously in the U.S. for at least 10 years without a felony arrest and whose deportation would “result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to a citizen or permanent resident spouse, parent or child.

Tapia’s six-year-old daughter suffers from early learning disabilities and requires assistance. Her two-year-old son is not yet out of diapers.

A quota of 4,000 COR visas is replenished at the start of the federal government’s fiscal year on Oct. 1. Final, master hearings, like the kind Tapia had scheduled, can only take place when visa numbers are available. Once they run out, judges are only able to offer unofficial, off-the-record promises. Defendants, even if confident of a judge’s empathy, have to continue their disrupted lives while their immigration status remains up in the air.

Every October, the window for getting a place in line narrows, leaving more people in limbo. This year, lawyers expected visas to run out in a matter of weeks.

Immigration attorneys say that even before the shutdown, hearing dates for their clients were already being scheduled well into 2017. The time between hearings, unless a judge makes another exception to “squeeze someone in”, quickly adds up.

Three families represented by Cesar Estela, a Newark, New Jersey immigration lawyer, in COR proceedings have already missed their court dates. Estela says the shutdown only adds a perverse additional layer to an already overwhelmed system.

“Every morning a court will have 50 preliminary hearings in 2 or 3 hours,” said Estela. “If they didn’t do that many, the wait for court dates would be five years.”

In a cruel twist, Tapia’s master hearing was already postponed last October after New York City courts were closed due to Hurricane Sandy. Meanwhile, courts in the rest of the country assigned the remaining visas to other applicants.

So Tapia waited another year and scheduled her final hearing for the first day of the fiscal year, also the day the shutdown began.

“My client cannot move on from this hell,” said Tapia’s attorney, Sara Zeejah.

“Because of our system, even cases that are almost completed cannot be taken off the docket,” Zeejah told IPS. “She [Tapia] cannot travel to see her ailing mother in Mexico even though the judge wants to give her a green card.”

Tapia’s children, who are the basis for her claim, are still young. But immigrants caring for older, adolescent children worry that by the time they have their cases heard, their dependents could be over 21, the cutoff for COR.

After several preliminary hearings dating back to 2011, Filho*, a truck driver originally from Brazil, finally had his master hearing calendared for Oct. 4.

His son, who was 15 when Filho first applied, is now 17. With his hearing now cancelled due to the government shutdown, Estela, his attorney, is concerned.

“His next court date maybe in 2016, when his kid is 19,” said Estela. “If the visas run out in the first week, he might have to wait another year, and then he only has one more.”

If Filho’s case isn’t heard before his son turns 21, he could be deported.

In the meantime, Filho can’t leave the U.S. to visit his wife and daughter in Brazil. “I call my daughter five times a day,” an emotional Filho told IPS. “I’m afraid because all these people, like me, have missed their court dates. What if I have to wait another two years? I want to see my daughter.”

As lawmakers in Washington take a piecemeal approach to restoring government services, immigrants and their lawyers feel they aren’t even on the radar.

“I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting, but something always happens,” says Tapia.

Ting I. Li, an immigration attorney in Chinatown, NY, says all types of clients are affected by the shutdown.

“Next week we have a client who originally applied for asylum. While the case was pending, he married a U.S. citizen. To get a green card [through his wife] he needs a judge to terminate those proceedings first. So next week there is a master hearing for a judge to do that. But if the court is closed, the client can do nothing. They’ve already been waiting two years for this date; the next available date will probably be 2016.”

Another lawyer who spoke with IPS but did not wish to be named said court closures have made his job painful.

“One of my clients, a Nepalese man, was supposed to have a hearing that would finalise his wife and child joining him here. Because of the shutdown, it could be another two years. I don’t know what I’m going to tell him.”

*Clients in this story are referred to by one name only to protect their identities.

Once more, Swiss voters have lashed out against asylum seekers, further tightening the country’s already strict asylum law. The government has meanwhile announced a radical restructuring of the asylum procedure.

Switzerland’s asylum law exists since 1981. Since then, one reform chased the other, all of them to the disadvantage of those seeking asylum in the country. The aim of the ten law revisions so far is evident: make Switzerland as unattractive as possible for poor immigrants.

On Jun. 9, 78 percent of Swiss voters approved new measures to keep asylum seekers out. Switzerland had been so far the only country in Europe to allow asylum seekers to apply at Swiss embassies. Now, Swiss voters have closed that unique door.

The facility had offered a safe path to exile, especially for endangered women and children who could avoid dangerous trips and people smugglers.

The government says the provision attracted too many requests, leading to a huge administrative effort. In 2012 Switzerland registered 7,667 such applications. Since 2006, Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga has said, only 11 percent of these asylum seekers were allowed to travel to Switzerland, and 40 percent of these were finally granted asylum.

Since 2005, thousands of Eritrean refugees have found a way to Switzerland. In 2012, they filed 15.4 percent of all asylum requests. Many young, male Eritreans fled the dictatorship of Isaias Afewerki and compulsory, sometimes infinite military or state service. About two-thirds of them were granted asylum for being conscientious objectors. Now that will no longer be a sufficient reason for asylum.“Sommaruga plans to accelerate only unpromising, baseless asylum requests for one sole purpose: deterrence.”

Swiss voters have also paved the way for a major restructuring of the asylum process. As Swiss cantons struggle to accommodate asylum seekers, the state has demanded extra powers to provide accommodation in its own infrastructure such as unused military bunkers. The government can now use its infrastructure as asylum centres for three years without the approval of the concerned cantons and communities.

On Jun. 14 Sommaruga laid out the details of her restructuring project. Its main aim is the acceleration of the asylum procedure. Under the new procedure, 60 percent of all asylum requests should be conclusively dealt with within 140 days, the remaining 40 percent within a year.

The Swiss Justice Minister intends now to centralise the system that’s now scattered all over the country. Transporting asylum seekers from cantonal accommodations to the federal interrogation bureaus and back has been costing money and time.

Taking the Netherlands as an example, Sommaruga’s vision is to build a small number of big asylum centres, where all concerned administrative actors are present. Also, 60 percent of asylum seekers would be hosted by the government and only 40 percent by the 26 cantons. For that, the government needs to create at least 3,000 more accommodation places.

The Justice Ministry will carry out a two-year test phase at a centre in Zurich, starting 2014. “It makes sense to probe the new procedures in practice and collect experiences, before it is introduced comprehensively,” Sommaruga said at a press conference earlier on Mar. 25.

The details of the test system aren’t entirely clear yet, but it is being ensured that no more than 300 asylum seekers stay in a centre. The centres are likely to consist of detention cells to facilitate direct deportation of those denied asylum.

Human rights groups are watching the ministry’s efforts closely, and with concern. They agree on a need to accelerate procedures. “However, the Justice Minister’s project will mainly speed up Dublin cases and asylum requests with potentially low chances,” Moreno Casasola, secretary general of the refugee rights organisation ‘Solidarité sans frontières’ tells IPS. The ‘Dublin cases’ are asylum-seekers who can be sent back to the first European country where they were registered, under an EU agreement reached earlier in Dublin.

Casasola thinks that speeding up is needed for those asylum seekers who have a good chance of being granted asylum. Such asylum requests are often suspended for months or even years. “If the government wants more efficiency, it should simply decide upon these requests instead of leaving them in the drawer.”

In Casasola’s view, the government doesn’t want positive asylum decisions because it fears a pull effect that may attract even more immigrants. “Sommaruga plans to accelerate only unpromising, baseless asylum requests for one sole purpose: deterrence.”

Along with the accelerated procedure, the Swiss Justice Minister plans to offer asylum seekers free legal advice and representation.

“In principle, that’s a good idea,” Melanie Aebli, secretary general of the ‘Democratic Lawyers Switzerland’ (DJS) tells IPS. But Aebli fears that the government will place the legal advice office in the new centres “probably right besides the bureau for return advice.”

DJS and other refugee rights groups want the legal support promised to asylum seekers to be situated far from the asylum centres, and be identifiable as clearly independent. Aebli says the accelerated procedure will put a lot of pressure on the asylum seekers, because they will hardly be given enough time to collect evidence to present their case and to organise themselves.

Further, the government plans to cut the appeal period for original asylum decisions. “Already 30 days meant a lot of stress for legal representation, cutting it to ten days is highly problematic as there’s hardly time to work out a substantial appeal,” says Aebli.

Switzerland has started to house asylum seekers in underground bunkers on remote mountains. Credit: Ray Smith/IPS.

By Ray Smith
LUCERNE, Switzerland, May 2 2013 (IPS)

Struggling to accommodate all its asylum seekers, Swiss authorities have turned to unused army quarters. Some of these lie on mountain passes, far away from inhabited areas.

Last year, 28,631 persons asked for asylum in Switzerland, nearly twice as many as 2010. Most applicants came from Eritrea, Nigeria and Tunisia. At the end of March 2013, 44,478 persons were registered at the Federal Office for Migration (FOM), which is responsible the asylum process.

Swiss authorities struggle to accommodate all the immigrants. It’s a home-made problem however, as former justice minister and prominent right-wing politician Christoph Blocher initiated a drastic reduction in the country’s asylum infrastructure in 2006.

Reacting to the shortage, the Swiss government in March 2012 ordered the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS) to provide accommodation for 4,000 asylum seekers. The DDPS oversees the Swiss Armed Forces, which have plenty of unused infrastructure.

Nevertheless, the DDPS efforts were slowed by political adversities, building restrictions and non-conformance with communal spatial plans. The parliament therefore passed a resolution allowing bypass of communal and cantonal permission procedures.

Swiss army quarters often are located in very remote areas. However, many citizens are glad to see asylum seekers accommodated far away from populated areas. That atmosphere is the result of more than a decade of right-wing populist campaigns against foreigners and asylum seekers in special.

Before they are distributed to the cantons, the FOM hosts asylum seekers in its own collective centres. Due to the urgent need, remote accommodations seem right for the FOM, even if they pose logistical challenges.

One of these temporary accommodations was opened last October near the village Sufers in the Grison Alps 1,400 metres above sea level. “The asylum seekers live in an old, bleak bunker in a narrow valley,” says Denise Graf of Amnesty International, who recently was allowed to visit the place. “There are no houses nearby, just trees and heaps of snow.”

As in all FOM centres, asylum seekers may only stay outside between 9 am and 5 pm. An army barrack serves as a recreation room. For the weekend, they may leave the centre. “To compensate for their spatial isolation, they are given free tickets for public transportation on weekends. However, the next bus stop is several kilometres away from the bunker,” Graf tells IPS.

“Contact between Sufers’ 130 residents and the 80 asylum seekers is rare,” says the village’s mayor Thomas Lechner. “The centre is two-and-a-half kilometres away from the village.” Asked if he considered an underground bunker a suitable place for asylum seekers, the mayor says: “People are in there for a maximum of 35 days. For army troops, it was handled this way as well, so I guess it’s also reasonable for asylum seekers.”

As the centre in Sufers was closed in the end of April, IPS couldn’t speak to any of its inhabitants. However, former inhabitants of other remote asylum centres have spoken of extreme boredom, which sometimes raised the potential for conflicts.

“It is very difficult to live in bunkers, especially with limited freedom of movement,” says Moreno Casasola, secretary general of the refugee rights organisation ‘Solidarité sans Frontières’. “As you can also see from soldiers’ experiences, it negatively affects your mind quickly.”

The FOM was aware of that, so Sufers and other villages in the valley were asked to provide work opportunities. “It was a win-win situation for the asylum seekers as well as for our commune,” says mayor Thomas Lechner. “They prepared firewood, renovated hiking paths and cleaned wood pastures.

“Indeed, many asylum seekers have welcomed work opportunities. It has raised their acceptance and improved their reputation among locals,” says Amnesty’s Denise Graf. “However, it’s definitely no solution to place asylum seekers in such remote areas in the mountains.”

Because the centre in Sufers has closed, another temporary centre will be opened on the Lukmanier Pass, which connects the cantons of Grisons and Ticino. There, up to 100 asylum seekers will be accommodated once the snow has melted.

“We decided to lend a hand to the FOM,” Peter Binz says. He is the mayor of nearby Medel, the municipality to which the mountain pass belongs. Medel has 400 inhabitants, its main village Curaglia is 15 kilometres away from Lukmanier Pass.

“We approach the issue with a certain respect and openness,” Binz says. Currently, he collects ideas for work opportunities. “They’ll use the bus and our shop, but besides that there won’t be many contacts with the asylum seekers,” he estimates.

Quite soon, the FOM may announce the opening of yet another asylum centre at Lago della Sella 2,256 meters above sea level. The artificial lake is located near Gotthard Pass, which connects Switzerland’s North to the Italian-speaking South.

Lago della Sella belongs to the municipality of Airolo. Its mayor Franco Pedrini is worried: “Nobody lives up there. It’s a beautiful place just fine for a one-week holiday camp, however the climate is rough. It’s not suitable for asylum seekers.”

Even though the centre at Lago della Sella would only be used in summer, it isn’t unusual that snow falls even in July or August. “A little remote would be fine and please citizens who fear the asylum seekers’ presence,” Pedrini says, “but that’s just way too far from any civilized area.”

‘Solidarité sans Frontières’ radically opposes remote asylum centres. “These are human beings, not cows that are brought to the mountains in summer,” its secretary general Moreno Casasola says. He points at other options. “The FOM only relies on the DDPS to provide accommodations. They need to expand their range of partners and include for example clerical institutions, which own plenty of suitable real estate,” Casasola argues.

André Durrer, who works for the relief organisation Caritas, also shakes his head. He prefers asylum centres in urban agglomerations. “For 20 years, we have run asylum centres within populated areas without fences around them and private security standing guard. And it has worked,” he says.

“By providing good assistance and conditions for the asylum seekers, no increased security arrangements are needed like at FOM-centres,” Durrer argues.

Canada’s major Israel lobby organisation is running into conflict with critics who say it is betraying the historical liberal legacy of this country’s 380,000-member Jewish community.

The barely two-years-old Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) is supporting restrictive Canadian refugee legislation, Bill C-31, that has sparked opposition from traditional human rights groups including Amnesty International, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and the Canadian Council for Refugees.

For prominent Toronto Jewish refugee doctor, Dr. Philip Berger, CIJA is rejecting traditional sympathy in his community in Canada for people fleeing oppression. This included fellow Jews escaping Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 40s, when an earlier Canadian government under Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King enforced a “none is too many” policy towards people seeking refuge from Nazi rule.

“CIJA is a disaster for the Jewish community. It is actually starting to become evident a little bit already,” he told IPS.

The new Canadian refugee law provides wide powers to Minister of Immigration Jason Kenney to designate countries as “safe” and “democratic” and thus more liable to generating “bogus” refugees versus those who are genuine.

The inclusion of Hungary on the Canadian government list despite reports of the Budapest government’s failure to protect its Roma minority population from discrimination and physical attacks is also upsetting some Jewish organisations, including the Toronto Board of Rabbis and the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre.

Says Alice Herscovitch, executive director of the Montreal Centre, “People should have access to a fair refugee system. There are countries that produce refugees despite the fact that they are democratic and have an elected government.”

But CIJA’s Steve McDonald counters that Bill C-31 makes “significant improvements toward protecting the safety and security of Canadians”, as well as “deterring human smuggling and dispensing with unsubstantial refugees fairly and quickly”. The centre is refusing to join others in demanding Hungary be taken off the safe list.

CIJA has also unsuccessfully urged the Canadian government to rethink its decision to restrict health services to refugees from its designated list of safe countries.

But this is not enough for Berger. “CIJA should be leading front and centre (on
this issue),” he said. “They know damn well what is going on. They are so manacled to the Conservative government that they have forfeited any notion of an independent organisation that represents the true interests and views of the Jewish community.”

CIJA came into being as Canadian foreign policy, first under the Liberals and now under the Conservatives, became decidedly more pro-Israel versus taking an even-handed stance between Israel and the Palestinians, notes University of Victoria political scientist and professor emeritus, Reg Whitaker.

“The uncritical alignment of the (Stephen) Harper government with the Israeli Right (i.e. Israel’s governing Likud party) has obviously created a much more welcome climate for aggressive AIPAC-style lobbying in Ottawa,” he told IPS.

Whittaker was alluding to the U.S.-based American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which he describes as having a higher profile in Washington than is the case with CIJA in Ottawa.

This is not for lack of trying on the part of CIJA, he added. Whitaker suggested that the powerful donors who decided to merge various organisations, including the century-old Canadian Jewish Congress, to create CIJA wanted a Canadian version of AIPAC to buttress the case for Israel in Canada.

“The effect of the takeover is to subsume the wider and diverse interests of the (Jewish) community, previously served by a variety of institutions and advocacy groups, under an aggressive AIPAC-style umbrella that conflates ‘Jewish’ interests with Israel’s interests – or in fact with the interests of the Israeli Right. The flip side of course is to automatically label any criticism of the Israeli government as anti-Semitic,” he said.

But CIJA has been clumsy at times, said Carleton University political science professor Mira Sucharov. She pointed to CIJA’s effort to discourage a U.S. author, Peter Beinart, from addressing Jewish Hillel student groups on two university campuses in Ottawa and Montreal. He was on a tour advocating a boycott of products manufactured in illegal Jewish settlement on Palestinian lands under Israeli control.

Also calling for a similar action, Sucharov predicted being barred personally from speaking to the same students. “Through my annual donation to my local Jewish Federation’s annual campaign, I help fund both CIJA and Hillel, the very organisations that would seek to muzzle me and the many others who oppose economic support of the settlements.”

In its defence, CIJA contends that a boycott of settlement products plays a part in “delegitimize(ing)” the state of Israel.

“A boycott of Jews – no matter where they live – is not a tactic of debate or engagement. It’s a tool of conflict. One who calls for the singling out of our fellow Jews for punishment, economic or otherwise, has rejected an essential principle of people hood,” CIJA CEO Shimon Fogel said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Bernie Farber, who headed the old Canadian Jewish Congress before it was forced to merge with the new CIJA, refuses to be drawn into a criticism of the new governing Jewish body.

“CIJA did come out with a couple of statements in support of the Roma. Some feel that it wasn’t strong; some feel they should not have said anything,” he told IPS. “It is typical of the Jewish community where you are going to have a number of opinions.”

Farber also maintained that Jews and Roma groups share a special historical bond because both were specifically targeted in Europe for genocide during the Holocaust by the Nazis.

And he recalled the significant legal and human resources that his organisation under this leadership invested in the past decades on behalf of the Roma in Canada. “There is no longer a Canadian Jewish congress, but the (Jewish) community is still finding ways (to speak out), maybe not through its official spokesbody,” he said.

Steve McDonald defended the different emphasis at CIJA. “I have to say, in general, I’m not sure I can conceive a situation in which we take a position that isn’t met with some disagreement within the diverse landscape of Canada’s Jewish community. This goes back to our view that we should strive for unity of purpose rather than uniformity of viewpoint.”

Meanwhile, to discourage potential asylum seekers the Canadian government is paying for billboard advertising in the Hungarian city of Miskolc where many members of the Roma community reside.

“Virtually all Hungarian asylum claims are abandoned or withdrawn by the claimants themselves, or determined to be unfounded by the independent Immigration and Refugee Board,” said Alexis Pavlich, a spokesperson for Canadian minister Jason Kenney in an interview with the Toronto Star.

“Canadians have no tolerance for those who abuse our system and seek to take unfair advantage of our country at great expense to taxpayers.”

An inmate at the Manus asylum seekers detention centre in Papua New Guinea. Credit: Australian Department of Immigration.

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Jan 30 2013 (IPS)

Papua New Guinean opposition leader Belden Namah has launched legal proceedings against an Australian detention centre for asylum seekers in Manus province of this South Pacific island nation.

Namah argues that the detention centre is illegal and the conditions there are inhumane. The move adds further weight to international human rights concerns about Australia’s offshore immigration detention policy and could pave the way for closure of the centre.

Following an agreement with Papua New Guinea, the Australian government reopened the detention facility in November last year as part of its widely criticised ‘Pacific Solution’ to increased numbers of asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australian waters.

Under the policy, some of those claiming refugee status in Australia are forcibly removed and confined in remote detention camps in the Pacific states Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

Namah claims the detention centre at Lombrum naval base on Los Negros Island, next to the main Manus Island of Manus province breaches Section 42 of the Papua New Guinea constitution which states that no person can be detained indefinitely unless they have committed a crime.

“We challenge the right of the government to force people seeking refugee status in Australia to enter Papua New Guinea to be illegally and indefinitely detained under inhumane conditions,” Namah said in a public statement.

“We are filing injunctions to have the current detainees released and to prevent the government from receiving or detaining any more asylum seekers from Australia.”

Namah’s move is supported by the governor of the National Capital District, Powes Parkop, and by the shadow minister for petroleum and energy, Francis Potape.

The court hearing date is yet to be announced.

Ian Rintoul of the Australia-based Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) told IPS that the development was “a step forward for human rights in Papua New Guinea and Australia” and also important in the light that “the Australian Government has drawn PNG and Nauru into a situation where they could be violating the Refugee Convention.”

Dr Graham Thom, spokesperson for Amnesty International in Australia, told IPS the challenge was “very important, particularly in regard to the human rights issues being highlighted, which we are also very concerned about.

“The Australian Government is still primarily responsible for these asylum seekers in offshore detention facilities, but Papua New Guinea also has responsibilities for the way these people are being treated,” he said.

Papua New Guinea has acceded to the 1951 Refugee Convention with reservations and ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but not yet the Convention against Torture.

The Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship declined to comment.

Australia receives a fraction of the total asylum claims in industrialised countries, with 11,488 in 2011, compared to 66,800 in Southern Europe and 74,000 in the United States. During the first half of 2012, Australia received 7,879 asylum applications, while France received 25,361 and Germany 22,477.

There has been a mandatory immigration detention policy in Australia since 1992 supported by the Migration Act 1958 which authorises detention of non-citizens without immigration status. In all 7,633 people were incarcerated last year.

The majority are found to be genuine refugees.

The detention centre in Manus first operated from 2001-2004 under Liberal prime minister John Howard. The current Australian Labour government overturned its previous objections to the forced detention of asylum seekers last year and reintroduced the policy.

It now claims that the ‘no advantage’ of offshore detention will dissuade asylum seekers from embarking on hazardous sea journeys and ‘wreck the people smuggling business.’ Last year 259 boats carrying asylum seekers entered Australian waters, an increase from 69 in 2011.

In return, Papua New Guinea’s Manus province will receive Australian aid worth eight million dollars.

But despite Australia’s claims that detention facilities in the Pacific islands will be part of a “sustainable and effective regional cooperation framework” guided by humanitarian principles and supported by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), these remain unilateral initiatives.

The UNHCR policy is that “detention as a penalty for illegal entry and/or as a deterrent to seeking asylum” contravenes international human rights laws. It refuses to be party to Australia’s offshore programme.

Currently 238 men, women and children from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Iran are interned on Los Negros. Photographs by detainees show them living behind a high security fence in container huts with no windows, doors or privacy in a tropical climate where temperatures reach 34 degrees C, with 95 percent humidity and inadequate protection against endemic malaria.

The Australian Department of Immigration says “the standard of accommodation and amenities at the temporary detention facility on Manus Island are in line with local standards and living conditions.”

Earlier this month, the RAC reported a hunger strike in the Manus camp, several cases of self-harm, attempted suicide and an attempted escape by two men. Suicidal behaviour by men and women in immigration detention is 41 and 26 times higher than the national average, according to the Mental Health Council of Australia.

In the wake of Namah’s announcement, Amnesty International has announced plans to visit the Manus centre in March to report on Australia’s compliance with international human rights laws.

“Foremost, we will be concerned to assess the treatment of children, the situation of families and unaccompanied minors, and the system of asylum processing, which should be happening as quickly as possible,” Thom told IPS.

He remains concerned that Australia’s offshore detention policy is at risk of violating Article 31 of the Refugee Convention, which states that people should not be punished on the basis of the way in which they have sought asylum, and Article 33 on non-refoulement, which guards against forcing people to decide to return to countries where their lives may be in danger by providing intolerable conditions of detention.

The Australian government has announced that during the last five months 213 Sri Lankan, four Iraqi and two Iranian asylum seekers, most faced with detention on Nauru, “voluntarily” returned to their countries of origin.

After an inspection of Australia’s detention facility on Nauru, Amnesty International reported its concerns about unlawful detention, inhumane conditions and poor standards of water and sanitation. (END)