Around the Campaigns - Thursday 6th May 2010
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Huseini Abubakar, is still here, still in Harmondsworth IRC, still not told what is happening, still without a solicitor. If you can help find a solicitor or just want to make a call of solidarity, his number 077 2239 1686.
Personal Appeal from Huseini Abubakar
http://tinyurl.com/Huseini-Abubakar
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Frontex/EU Joint Charter Flights: Readmission agreement EU-Pakistan
No evaluation of the readmission agreements has been done so far : the consequences of readmissions have been neither made public nor communicated to the European Parliament or to the national assemblies. Pakistan is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, or the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (and its 1966 and 1989 optional protocols), nor the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights were signed.
The European Parliament has to deny its approval
http://www.migreurop.org/article1693.html
17 Joint Return Flights coordinated by Frontex in 2010
http://tinyurl.com/Frontex-2010
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UN refugee chief: Security worse in Afghanistan
Geneva - Security in Afghanistan has deteriorated in recent months to the extent that foreign staff of the U.N.'s refugee agency are unable to travel to half of the country, its top official said Wednesday. The agency has to rely on local staff or Afghan partner organizations to reach tens of thousands of displaced people and returning refugees it is trying to aid, said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres. "There was a worsening security situation in the recent past," he told reporters in Geneva. "Access of our international staff to the territory is now limited to about 50 percent."
For full article go here: http://tinyurl.com/Frank-Jordon-AP
Amnesty International condemns assurances on torture
By Frances Webber, © Institute of Race Relations 06/05/10
A new report from Amnesty International explains why diplomatic assurances against torture are worthless.
When, in December 2001, parliament approved the indefinite detention of 'suspected international terrorists' in the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, it was persuaded by the then home secretary's argument that the men could not be deported since the regimes from which the men came - Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Jordan, Egypt - would subject them to torture. But within months of the December 2004 condemnation (read an IRR News story: 'Law Lords rule 'terror detentions' discriminatory and disproportionate' (http://www.irr.org.uk/2004/december/ak000012.html)) of the internment provisions by the House of Lords as discriminatory and disproportionate, the government was arranging the deportation of the men. How was this possible? The regimes from which the men had fled had not changed, and their use of torture against dissidents and suspected terrorists was just as entrenched. What had changed was the British government's determination to get rid of the men - if they could not be interned, they would be deported, come what may.
The decision led to a frantic round of diplomacy with torturing states, resulting in a series of unsavoury deals which were put up to counter the men's appeals against deportation. Foreign office witnesses testified to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC, which hears national security deportation appeals), straight-faced, that Jordan, Algeria, Libya would comply with the no-torture deals despite regularly breaching their international obligations against torture, because it was in their interests to do so. The officials accepted that the men would certainly be tortured without the assurances, and that arrangements for monitoring were inadequate, but insisted that nevertheless, they would comply, having given gentlemen's agreements. On this flimsy foundation, SIAC ruled that the men could be returned to Algeria and Jordan (though not Libya), and the higher courts upheld their ruling - but the European Court of Human Rights stepped in to order a stay on the men's removal pending its examination of their claims.
The new report, Dangerous deals: Europe's reliance on 'diplomatic assurances' against torture, from Amnesty International confirms the cynicism and dishonesty behind the 'no-torture' deals which guarantee nothing of the sort. It is the latest of a number of critical reports from international human rights bodies on diplomatic assurances, and describes recent developments at the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Committee Against Torture, as well as legal and political developments in European countries. The UK is revealed in the report as the most aggressive promoter of diplomatic assurances in the EU, and together with Italy, Russia, Sweden, Azerbaijan and the USA, has been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights or the UN Torture Committee for the use of these assurances to return people to torturing states. There are further cases involving proposed expulsions from the UK, Germany and Austria in the pipeline at the European Court of Human Rights. Read more . . . |