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Statewatch News Online: Italy/Libya: Refugee day and the agreement with Libya: let's not repeat the mistakes of the past
28 March 2012
Italy/Libya:
Refugee day
and the agreement with Libya: let's not repeat the mistakes of
the past
22.06.2012
ASGI [Associazione di Studi Giuridici
sull'Immigrazione] expresses its deep concern and great bewilderment
about the agreement/recorded document sealed between the Italian
and Libyan governments in Tripoli on 3 April 2012, for the purpose
of enacting cooperation between the two states to counter irregular
migrations.
ASGI recalls how any agreement or understanding, even between
police forces, that aims to counter so-called irregular immigration
between Italy and Libya and, consequently, any operation that
is in any way financed using Italian funding, must be subordinated
to effective respect by Libya of the fundamental rights of foreigners
who are intercepted. It is clearly evident that the benchmark
for such respect cannot merely comprise possible diplomatic assurances
expressed by the Libyan government, but rather, it implies enacting
a new and effective judicial system that complies with international
standards in the field of international protection and the rights
that apply to foreign workers and their families.
The adoption of measures that effectively impede actions to push
people back to the southern Libyan border outside of a framework
of indispensable conditions of dignity and security, appears
particularly necessary. ASGI recalls that violations of the non-refoulement
principle enshrined in international law and applicable even
to countries that, like Libya, have not signed the Geneva Convention
on the status of refugees, does not only emerge when there is
a type of conduct -material and legal- that runs the risk of
sending an asylum seeker back to places that are not safe; it
also applies when there is a "serial" forced return
towards any other third state, or a transit state, that does
not provide effective protection.
ASGI recalls that Libya has not signed the Geneva Convention
on the status of refugees yet, and that, overall, it is still
a country in which the protection of fundamental rights still
appears absent, as has been recently reiterated by authoritative
reports (see Amnesty International, in particular). Hence, the
conditions do not exist on the basis of which Italy could financially
and technically support Libya in "controlling flows of irregular
immigration" towards Europe and Italy, as has been done
in the past by the Italian government, with very serious damage
done in terms of the violence inflicted upon thousands of human
beings who were arrested and deported by the Libyan police.
ASGI recalls that, also in the light of the recent sentence issued
by the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court (Hirsi et al. vs.
Italy, 23 February 2012), there is no way or form in which the
Italian government may cooperate, directly or indirectly, through
the provision of means and funding, in operations to counter
immigration that may be undertaken by the Libyan side in international
waters.
It is absolutely necessary for collaboration and cooperation
between Libya and Italy, and between Libya and the European Union
in general in the field of immigration, to undergo a deep shift
in relation to the past, to settle upon a level that is entirely
different, that is, by supporting the new Libyan authorities
in order for them to adopt a legal order in the country that
complies with international standards in the field of fundamental
human rights.
ASGI especially deems it necessary for Libya to:
a) ensure the right to asylum in accordance with international
standards, adhering to the Geneva Convention on the status of
refugees and its related protocols;
b) ensure effective provisions to prevent and repress any form
of torture or of inhumane and degrading treatment against anyone
who is in Libyan territory, regardless of whether their residence
is regular;
c) enact a radical reform of the facilities for the detention
of irregular migrants, which are not reception centres at all
in Libya, but rather, places of detention where all the independent
international agencies have ascertained very serious and systemic
violence.
It is necessary not just to bear in mind the serious events that
occurred in the recent past and the guilty verdict against Italy
issued by the Strasbourg court for violating fundamental articles
of the Convention and for violating the protocol that forbids
collective expulsions, but also that, in very recent times, people
who cooperated with the International Criminal Court were arrested
and convicted by the Libyan armed militias, receiving custodial
sentences. As a result, ASGI strongly condemns the fact that
the mentioned agreement/recorded document assumed by [interior]
minister Cancellieri was not made public in spite of repeated
requests submitted by various protection bodies, and asks that
any proposed understanding or cooperation with Libya in the field
of migration flows that constitutes a treaty that has a political
nature, must be subject to a prior authorisation law approved
by the Parliament in accordance with art. 80 of the Constitution.
Unofficial translation by Statewatch
Source
"Giornata
del rifugiato e accordo con la Libia: non ripetere gli errori
del passato", ASGI press statement, 20.6.12 (in
Italian)
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