FEATURE: J'accuse
01 January 1995
Extracted from the prosecution counsel's indictment of the EU for violations of human rights, laid before the Basso Tribunal on the Right of Asylum in Europe, Berlin, 8-12 December 1994.
I come before this Tribunal today to accuse the governments of western Europe of betrayal. A betrayal not only of the asylum-seekers who seek refuge in their countries, on whose behalf I speak as Prosecutor, but also betrayal of the humanitarian ideals which gave rise to the Geneva Convention and to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this betrayal of the aspirations of humanity is betrayal of the peoples of Europe and the world, and of democracy itself.
The charges we lay against the governments of Western Europe, are that they have conspired together against refugees and asylum-seekers and have taken measures, individually and collectively, which violate the fundamental human rights these governments claim to uphold, such as the right to life, liberty and security of person, the right to dignity, to live in freedom from torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, the right to self-determination and to resist oppression, the right to freedom of thought, conscience and expression, the right to family life, the right to enjoy an adequate standard of living, and the right of asylum itself. Further, they have committed fraud on the people of Europe by falsely characterising refugees as illegal immigrants, criminals, scroungers and terrorists, and that they have incited racial hatred against them by these and other measures.
Interior and justice ministers of the EU states have conspired together in secret and unaccountable intergovernmental fora, sometimes with other parties, in order to keep refugees out of western Europe, and to deal with those who get to western Europe by expelling as many as possible, as quickly as possible.
The results of these secret and unaccountable processes are then presented to national parliaments of member states as faits accomplis requiring changes to national law, and in some cases - like Germany and France - to the constitution.
To implement these intergovernmental agreements, member states of the EU have changed domestic law to introduce visa requirements, carrier sanctions, pre-screening procedures with drastically reduced safeguards for asylum-seekers. They have signed cooperation and readmission agreements with countries of origin and transit of asylum-seekers, to effect expulsion of rejected asylum-seekers and "illegal immigrants".
The violations: Asylum-seekers are prevented from leaving the country of their persecution
The citizens of 129 countries, including Iraq, Iran, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Zaire, Ghana, Rwanda, Turkey, Bosnia, India and other refugee-producing countries, now require visas to enter the EU or EEA territory. The list has been compiled by the K4 Committee, formerly the ad hoc group of immigration ministers, meeting under the inter-governmental procedures set out in the Maastricht Treaty.
Most countries of western Europe have adopted carrier sanctions. This means that refugees will not be allowed on to a ship or an aircraft without a visa, because airlines and shipping companies bringing undocumented passengers (or in some countries, for example Britain, passengers with false documents) must pay a large fine, as well as bearing the cost of the passenger's detention and repatriation. The fine remains payable even if the passenger is granted asylum.
Refugees do not normally get visas. The Geneva Convention defines a refugee as someone "outside the country of nationality and unable or unwilling to return there". This provision allows European states to deny visas to would-be refugees who are still in their own country; once they leave, visas are refused on the ground that they are out of danger and can stay where they are.
The result of the exclusionary combination is that airlines and shipping companies refuse to carry passengers<