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EU: Refugee crisis: latest news from across Europe: 15-3-17

15 March 2017

EU  
Refugee crisis: latest news from across Europe
15..3.17
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Keep in touch: Statewatch Observatory: Refugee crisis in the Med and inside the EU: Daily news (updated through the day), commentaries and official documents

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London Launch of report: Migrant detention in the European Union: a thriving business Outsourcing and privatization of migrant detention (pdf): 6pm Tuesday 28th March Praxis, Pott Street, London E2 0EF (round corner from Bethnal Green underground, buses 8, 106, 254, 388; easy access and toilet facilities for wheelchair users and pushchairs):

"In the UK, corporations like G4S, Serco, Mitie and Capita make millions locking up migrants in privately run detention centres. Many other less known companies also jostle for contracts in the detention industry, for example providing healthcare, cleaning or construction services. Britain is a pioneer in detention outsourcing, hurtling towards the model of the massive US private prison industry.

But detention outsourcing is also taking off across Europe. This meeting will present a new research report by Migreurop, the European and African migration network, which maps the rise of the privatised migration detention business across the European Union."

Organisers: Migreurop, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Brussels Office, Campaign to Close Campsfield, Corporate Watch, Statewatch.

See: Facebook Events (link)

Academics collaborate with artists to ask: who are we to fear refugees and migrants? (The Conservation,link):

"Who Are We? This is the question that London’s Tate is asking at its free six day cross-platform event spanning the visual arts, film, photography, design, architecture, the spoken and written word and live art. The aim of the programme is to foster collaboration and exchange between artists and researchers, with a view to exploring what is becoming of the UK and Europe. How can “another we” be created, one less susceptible to the fear and suspicion currently dominating the continent? "

Turkey must reassess EU migration deal, minister says (ekathimerini.com, link):

"Turkey must re-examine its migration deal with the European Union for it has become clear that the bloc will not live up to its promise to grant Turkish citizens visa-free travel, the country’s minister for European affairs, Omer Celik, told Reuters late Tuesday.

Visa-free access to the EU – the main reward for Ankara's collaboration in curbing an influx of migrants into Europe – has been subject to delays due to a dispute over Turkish anti-terrorism legislation and Ankara's crackdown after July’s failed coup."

Real or Empty Threat? Will Turkey send a new wave of refugees to Europe? (Keep Talking Greece, link):

"As relations between Turkey and Europe deteriorated, the government in Ankara did what it knows best: it fired threats. Exactly there where it knows it hurts Europe: The Refugees. At least two ministers told media that the government is considering to review the EU Turkey Deal. The statements were immediately understood as a threat that president Recep Tayyip Erdogan would open the doors and send a new mass wave of refugees and migrants to Europe. More than 850,000 people left Turkey for Greece in 2015.

Will Erdogan make his threats come true? Some people, like smugglers, think and hope, he will. But analysts believe, he won’t."

 A Message From Turkey, a Nation Under Pressure (NYT, link) by Patrick Kingsley:

"Before I left to begin reporting for The New York Times in Turkey — a nation strained by war, terrorist insurgencies, a refugee crisis and a widening crackdown on dissent — Turkish diplomats in Washington sent me on my way with a velvet box."

ECHR: Border-zone detention of two asylum-seekers was unlawful and their removal from Hungary to Serbia exposed them to the risk of inhuman and degrading reception conditions in Greece (Press release, pdf):

"The case of Ilias and Ahmed v. Hungary (application no. 47287/15) concerned the border-zone detention for 23 days of two Bangladeshi asylum-seekers as well as their removal from Hungary to Serbia. In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:

a violation of Article 5 §§ 1 and 4 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights because the applicants’ confinement in the Röszke border-zone had amounted to detention, meaning they had effectively been deprived of their liberty without any formal, reasoned decision and without appropriate judicial review;..."

See: Judgment (pdf)

France to close another migrant camp, interior minister says (Daily Sabah, link):

"rance said Wednesday that security forces would start dismantling another migrant camp on its northern coast near the port of Dunkirk "as soon as possible" after clashes at the site.

The population of the Grande-Synthe camp has swelled to about 1,400 to 1,500 people since the destruction last October of the squalid "Jungle" camp near Calais, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) away.."

Council of Europe: European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT): Immigration detention (pdf): Very good summary of law and rights:

"Immigration detention is a primary focus of the work of the CPT. It has carried out hundreds of visits to immigration detention facilities, and has developed a detailed set of standards.

The CPT¡¦s standards build on legal principles originating from international (human rights) instruments, such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR),the Committee of Ministers¡¦ Twenty Guidelines on Forced Return, relevant United Nations (UN) treaties, and the 2008 European Union (EU) Return Directive. A foreign national may be deprived of his/her liberty."

Greece: Suicides and depression increase on islands (News That Moves, link):

"From Kathimerini: Aid workers and NGOs have said that the number of suicide attempts and cases of depression among people living in ‘hotspots’ on the Greek islands is increasing. At the ‘hotspots’ on Greece’s islands, thousands of people continue to be stranded, unable to go to the Greek mainland."

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