"They were kicking and beating us for no reason, and when we asked for something to eat, the border policemen pointed to a truck loaded with rotten food that cats live in and told us to eat it."
- Tesfawi, an Eritrean immigrant who was arrested on the outskirts of Kufra in 2003.
"I can't count the number of times Libyans hit me in the street... drivers and cars try to trample you. insults never stop in the street. you live in fear. I only focused on getting home safely from work every day."
- Ahmed, a Sudanese asylum seeker in Italy, describes the conditions he was subjected to in Libya from 1992-2003.
"They hung me from a chain on the wall, put a stick behind my knees and tied my hands to it. They hung me on the wall. I stayed like this for forty-five minutes. They beat me all the time. They told me 'If we kill you, no one will know'."
- A migrant from a sub-Saharan African country describes his treatment after his arrest on drug charges in 2004.
Not long ago, Libya opened its doors to foreigners. When it was keen to bring in cheap labor, the Libyan government and its leader, Muammar Gaddafi, announced the welcome to the sons of Africa in the spirit of African solidarity.
But that contract has expired. Around the year 2000, the government began to fear that too many foreigners had come in, leading to saturation of the labor market. Well over a million foreigners had arrived in a country with a population of just over five million. The government held foreigners responsible for a rise in crime, new diseases, and social tension.
At the same time, European governments began pressuring Libya to suppress illegal immigration. In recent years, thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees have left Libya or its suburbs to cross into Europe, boarding overcrowded smugglers' boats to Italy. The European Union has urged Libya to stem the flow.
Over the past three years, the Libyan government has taken a number of steps to achieve this goal. It has tightened control over its borders, whether in the desert or along the coast. It has also supported its Ministry of Immigration, which is now cooperating more closely with the European Union, individual European governments, and the International Organization for Migration, in monitoring migration.
The most problematic thing is that the government implemented a plan to arrest tens of thousands of foreigners who entered Libya illegally or without valid documents, and forcibly return them from whence they came. A large number of these were economic migrant workers, but the government made no attempt to distinguish between these and those who also came to Libya as asylum seekers, refugees, and others in need of international protection. The plan, which was initially chaotic and poorly organized, led to arbitrary arrests, physical abuse, prolonged and unjustified detention in poor conditions, and forced deportations without the opportunity for the deportees to apply for asylum, all of which constitute a violation of Libyan and international law.
One of the recurring problems is physical abuse upon arrest, usually on the Libyan borders or in campaigns to pounce on those in the cities. Human Rights Watch Libya and Italy interviewed dozens of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers who either experienced or witnessed beatings and other forms of abuse during their time in Libya at the hands of border guards and police.
In addition, migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees recounted several violations during their detention in various detention centers in Libya, including beatings, crowding, poor conditions, denial of access to lawyers, and failure to provide them with the necessary information about their expected deportation. Witnesses said that physical abuse by guards led to the death of the victim in three cases. Three of those interviewed said that security officials threatened Women detained with sexual violence, and one witness said he saw what he thought It's rape. If the reports received indicate that the conditions of detention of migrants and refugees have improved in recent years, the evidence suggests that many of these violations will continue.
The interviewees said that they often witnessed or exposed themselves to police corruption during arrests or in prisons. The policemen and border guards, receiving bribes, released detainees or condoned their escape.
The Libyan government says that the arrest of foreigners who are illegally present in the country is a matter required by public order, and that the security forces are implementing it in accordance with the immigration law. She said, "Judiciary." It did not look into these cases, although the government did not provide statistics on the number of police officers charged or convicted for using excessive force or otherwise violating the law (see Appendix 1).
In the period from 2003 to 2005, the government repatriated nearly 145,000 foreigners without valid documents, according to official figures, and most of them were from sub-Saharan Africa. Today, most deportations take place by air, but some of the first expulsions were by road, by car, truck or bus across the desert, and some were reported to have died on the way.
The Libyan government says most of the deportees were economic migrants, but some were definitely asylum seekers or refugees who were at risk of persecution or ill-treatment in their home countries. Of particular concern are cases of mass returns to Eritrea, where the Eritrean government has detained and possibly tortured returnees from Libya. And it happened in 2004 that the Eritreans who were forcibly returned from Libya hijacked their plane on the way and forced it to land in Sudan, where the UNHCR examined their cases and acknowledged that two of the deportees were refugees.
Among the major problems is Libya's refusal to issue a special law or regulations for asylum. Libya is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, and it does not cooperate officially with the High Commissioner for Refugees, despite the presence of the UNHCR office in Tripoli. At all stages of the deportation process, from detention to refoulement, individuals do not have the opportunity to apply for asylum.
Some Libyan officials say that Libya does not offer asylum because foreigners who are in the country illegally do not need protection. Others were more forthright, saying that they are afraid to open the door to Libya for asylum-seekers at a time when the government aims to reduce the number of foreigners.
The Libyan government says it does not deport those who claim, for valid reasons, that they have been persecuted or abused in their home countries. But as long as there is no asylum law or regulation of asylum procedures, it remains unclear how individuals can effectively seek protection, which authority does so, and on what criteria.
Forcible return of refugees is a violation of Libyan law and international law. The Libyan Constitutional Declaration issued in 1969 stipulates “the prohibition of extradition of political refugees.” And Law No. 20 of 1991 on the Promotion of Freedom says that Libya is “a haven for persecuted people and freedom fighters. to send individuals to countries where they face a serious risk of persecution or torture. With these obligations, you can decide whether there are refugees among the migrants you return or expel.
For this report, Human Rights Watch interviewed fifty-six migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, all of whom had spent time in Libya. At the time of the interviews, seventeen of them had obtained asylum, either from the UNHCR in Libya or from the Italian government. Thirteen of them were waiting for the Italian government to respond to their asylum requests. Some of our interviewees said they would have preferred to stay in Libya than risk the dangerous sea voyage to Italy if asylum was an option in Libya.
The report also deals with the treatment of sub-Saharan Africans in the Libyan criminal justice system. In Libya, foreigners recounted police violence and due process violations, including torture and unfair trials. Foreigners who reside or were residing in Libya say that sub-Saharan Africans in that country face hostility from their xenophobic host population, which takes the form of blanket accusations of criminality, verbal and physical aggression, harassment, and extortion.
Some of the abuses reported by migrants and refugees, such as extortion, police mistreatment, and bypass of due process, are in the Philippine settlement because of the weak rule of law. desirable, which makes them particularly vulnerable to abuse.
The Libyan government claims that foreigners enjoy the same rights as Libyan citizens, such as the right to fair treatment and the right not to be subjected to torture, and it claims that it punishes the perpetrators of violations, which it describes as individual cases. It denies that any foreigner held for criminal or immigration reasons is the result of victimization.
The final chapter in this report looks at the immigration and asylum policies of the European Union, which cooperates with Libya in controlling migration without prioritizing protection. The EU should make the future of cooperation contingent on Libya signing and implementing the Refugee Convention, which entails, inter alia, the obligation not to return individuals to countries where they risk torture or persecution and to cooperate fully with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Eh, by stopping the abuses committed against migrants, such as the use of torture and detention in conditions below acceptable standards.
As for Italy, the country hardest hit by immigration from Libya, it has committed the most serious violations of international laws aimed at protecting migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. The Italian government refused to allow Human Rights Watch to visit the main detention center in which people from Libya are held, on the island of Lampedusa, even though witnesses spoke of a lack of hygiene, overcrowding, and physical abuse by guards. In a positive development, the Italian government recently allowed the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Italian Red Cross, and the International Organization for Migration to have permanent headquarters on the island, so that it can assist the government in identifying asylum seekers and assisting those in need of aid. pile.
The most difficult problem is the policy applied by Italy, which is the policy of mass expulsion of people and their return to Libya, which constitutes a violation of Italy's own obligations with regard to human rights and asylum. Italy has expelled thousands since 2004 in a hasty and indiscriminate manner, and not all individuals have had an adequate opportunity to apply for asylum. When they arrived in Libya, the Libyan government would send them back to their home countries, regardless of whether or not they feared persecution or ill-treatment. In the period from August 2003 to December 2004 alone, the Italian government funded 50 private flights from Libya to bring back 5,688 people.
On 14 July 2003 the Italian Ministry of the Interior issued a decree allowing the Italian Navy to intercept ships carrying asylum seekers and migrants and, if possible, to force these ships to return to the territorial waters of the countries from which they came. The decree made no consideration for the identification of asylum-seekers, and its terms violated the principle that the state in whose territorial waters a ship is intercepted bears primary responsibility for meeting any protection needs of persons on board.
The legal obligations that Italy bears towards foreigners on its territory are the same as Libya's obligations under international human rights treaties (in particular not to arbitrarily detain anyone, not to collectively expel and not to return anyone to his homeland), but it is also bound by the obligations dictated by European human rights law. In which the individual enters the Italian territorial waters or his journey is intercepted and he is prevented from continuing in the international waters. Therefore, Italy shares the responsibility for any return resulting from the expulsion, and for any torture or inhuman or degrading treatment that the expelled individuals may be subjected to if they are returned to their country of origin or to any other place.
The Method
Human Rights Watch conducted its research from April 20 to May 13, 2005, in several locations in northern Libya. This was the organization's first visit to that country, and it was part of Libya's attempt to gradually open its doors to international human rights groups that wanted to look into its conditions, over the past two years. The organization also carried out other research in the period from 23-27 May 2005 in Rome, with refugees and migrants who traveled to it via Libya.
The total number of persons interviewed by Human Rights Watch was fifty-six migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees who had spent between five days and thirty-five years in Libya. As for the interviews conducted in Libya, sixteen of them were conducted with individuals in prison, and nine with individuals awaiting deportation at the Al-Fallah Center in Tripoli. who Among them were children (one of whom was a teenager at the time he was in Libya). As we have already mentioned, seventeen of those we interviewed were refugees whose status was recognized, either by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or by the Italian government, and thirteen others were waiting for their asylum applications to be processed in Italy, and two others had been rejected there.
The number of refugees and asylum-seekers with whom we had access in our research (through various UN agencies and NGOs) was higher than that of economic migrants, and so their representation of the majority of the fifty-six interviewees does not accurately reflect the composition of the foreign community residing in Libya, as most of its members are economic migrants. Human Rights Watch interviews did not include any non-Libyans from outside Africa, such as Asian migrant workers, so we did not examine what happened to them. The countries of origin of those we interviewed were Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Ghana, Cameroon, Liberia, Egypt, Niger, and Nigeria. Donabinformative .
In addition to refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants, Human Rights Watch, Libya and Italy, conducted interviews with government officials, politicians, representatives of nongovernmental organizations, lawyers, the judiciary, journalists who narrated what they saw, representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and others. Ancillary issues and reports of the United Nations treaty bodies, as indicated in the footnotes.
The Libyan government allowed Human Rights Watch to interview all relevant government officials who specialize in immigration matters, including senior officials in the General People's Committees for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, and for Justice and Public Security (they correspond to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Justice, and Interior). Human Rights Watch visited five prisons and the Al-Fallah Deportation Center in Tripoli. All interviews with prisoners and detainees in all locations were conducted in confidence. Libyan officials told Human Rights Watch that all the individuals whose views the organization surveyed would not face any consequences. The Libyan government also provided Human Rights Watch with a memorandum outlining its position on migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, and this document is attached in its entirety in the appendix.
At the same time, the government has severely restricted our contact with immigrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees outside of the Philippine prison and detention system. The government explicitly asked Human Rights Watch not to speak with individuals, whether Libyan or foreign, without obtaining prior approval from the government. Government representatives accompanied or observed the delegation at all times. In one case, the police arrested a Liberian refugee one hour after he spoke with Human Rights Watch. The police released the man the next day after the complaint filed by Human Rights Watch. The police confirmed to the organization that they had arrested him because he did not have the correct residency documents, which was the case; However, Human Rights Watch believes that the reason for his arrest was that he provided information to the organization. This person left Libya after that because he felt that he was being watched and was in danger.
In Italy, as previously mentioned, the government refused to allow Human Rights Watch access to the reception and detention centers where it holds migrants and asylum-seekers from Libya, including the camp on the island of Lampedusa. Croton, as innocent, was rebuffed in a fax from the Croton Chief of Police dated the 23rd. May 2005. The Italian government has also refused entry requests to these centers from UNHCR, Amnesty International, and other independent monitors, as well as lawyers whose clients are inside these centres.
This report is the third in a three-part series on Libya, based on Human Rights Watch's first-ever visit to Libya, from April to May 2005. The first report, entitled “From Words to Action: The Necessity of Human Rights Reform,” examines restrictions on civil and political rights. The second, titled “A Threat to Society? Arbitrary Detention of Women and Girls for 'Social Rehabilitation’,” records abuses against women and girls in institutions that are supposed to protect them. Both reports, and other documents specific to Libya, are available at the following website: http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=arabic_mena&c=libya
(recommendations detailed at the end of this report)
To the Government of Libya
Issue and implement the necessary legislation to fulfill Libya's obligations regarding asylum under domestic laws, the Constitutional Declaration, the Great Green Charter for Human Rights, the Freedom Promotion Act and under international agreements to which Libya is a state party. Asylum seekers.
Monitor conditions in all detention facilities for immigrants and potential asylum seekers, and bring criminal proceedings against guards and other officials who physically abuse or otherwise mistreat detainees.
Sign a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and allow this agency to perform its function freely in Libya, including allowing it to visit all immigration detention centers without restrictions.
Preparing effective mechanisms and making them available to non-citizens who face expulsion so that they can challenge their arrest and expulsion, based on human rights and immigration grounds, and not to expel any individual until the provision of these mechanisms is complete.
Promptly refer all migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees detained for non-immigration offenses to a judicial authority, and charge or release them with a recognizable criminal offence.
Detention of foreigners detained for non-immigration offenses in conditions that meet minimum international standards.
To the European Union
To European Union Member States
Refrain from expelling (non-Libyan) third-country nationals to Libya until Libya adheres to its treatment of migrants in accordance with international human rights conventions, ends physical abuse and other ill-treatment, protects the rights of refugees, and avoids refoulement to countries where the individual is at risk of torture .
Ensure full observance of human rights and refugee law in all national measures preventing entry and residence in the country without authorization, and in measures for the exclusion of undocumented residents from the territory of the European Union.
To the Institutions of the European Union and Member States
Encouraging Libya to (1) ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol; (2) passing a national asylum law; and (3) formal recognition of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Applying strict human rights conditions to any cooperation with the Libyan government with regard to migration (including border control) to ensure a high level of observance of human rights, and the rights of refugees and migrants in particular.
To the Italian Government[1]
Stop the collective expulsion of citizens of any third country to Libya, which constitutes a violation of Italian law, as well as European and international human rights law.
Allow entry to all Reception and Identification Centers and Detention Centers in Italy to all UNHCR observers, human rights and legal defense NGOs, lawyers, journalists and other independent observers.
Geography of Libya
Libya, whose official name is the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, is a large country with an area of 1,759,540 square kilometers (679.363 million square miles), and a relatively small population of 5.3 million people or a little more. Its population is the coastal areas overlooking the sea Mediterranean.
The length of the northern coast of Philippi is approximately 1,770 km, and it is approximately 300 km away from its nearest point in Italian territory (Lampedusa Island). Libya shares its eastern, southern and western borders with Egypt (1,150 km), Chad (1,055 km), Algeria (982 km), Tunisia (459 km) and Sudan 383 km) and Niger (354 km), and most of its land borders located in the remote desert are not marked with border signs.
Political system in Libya
The contemporary political system in Libya derives its roots from the Al-Fateh revolution of September 1969, a peaceful coup that overthrew the monarchy and installed in its place the Revolutionary Command Council led by Muammar Gaddafi, who has remained the country's leader since then, although he does not have an official title (as he is sometimes referred to as "the moral leader" and sometimes by the title " Leader of the Revolution"), he controls all major aspects of the country's political and economic life.
In the seventies of the twentieth century, Gaddafi developed a political philosophy he called the Third Global Theory, a hybrid of socialism and Islam. A people’s committee, which is the executive body that appoints a local representative in the General People’s Congress, which is equivalent to The National Legislative Council. The General People's Congress, in turn, is administered by its people's committees, which are equivalent to ministries. Since 1977, when this system became stipulated in the "Declaration for the Establishment of People's Authority", Libya has become officially known as the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
Gaddafi and the current Libyan government describe the system based on basic popular congresses as the most developed form of democracy, noting that citizens do not elect representatives but rather participate themselves directly in the affairs of government. Existing in almost all sectors, including various popular congresses, trade unions, universities, state corporations, and the media, is a parallel mechanism to maintain ideological and political control over all aspects of Philippine economic, social, and political life.
As Libya possesses the largest reserves of crude oil in the African continent, it occupies the second rank among the richest countries in the continent after South Africa, and is distinguished by being significantly more advanced than other countries in the north of the continent. At the same time, its wealth is concentrated in the hands of the elite, while Libyan citizens and government officials complain about its chronic corruption.
During the long period of Gaddafi's presidency in Libya, international relations worsened between Libya and the United States and most of the major European powers, and then there was an improvement in relations with the United States and Europe in 1999 after the cooperation shown by Libya in the Lockerbie case (relevant to the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Scotland in 1988), and the improvement continued with Libya's disclosure of its weapons programs in 2003, and its approval To remove its weapons of mass destruction and to cooperate in the "war on terror" which Launched by the United States in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. On May 15, 2006, the US government announced that the two countries would resume full diplomatic relations, and the Bush administration asked the US Congress to remove Libya from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, and Congress approved that on June 30.
Human Rights in Libya[3]
Since he assumed power in 1969, Gaddafi took repressive measures to tighten control over the country. In 1973, the police and security forces arrested hundreds of Libyans who were opposing the new political system, or whom the authorities feared would oppose it. The police and security forces, in what some Libyans call a cultural revolution to "educate the masses," arrested a number of university professors, lawyers, students, journalists, Trotskyists, communists, and members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and some of them were forcibly disappeared. Eighties, increasing state repression in a wave of revolutionary upheaval, was exposed Critics were imprisoned or forcibly disappeared, and the state took control of religious institutions.
In 1988, Libya witnessed some minor reforms, such as the release of some political prisoners. In June of that year, the General People’s Congress adopted the Great Green Document for Human Rights in the era of the masses, which guarantees some basic rights and prohibits any punishment that “affects human dignity and strikes his being.” It guarantees, in particular, the independence of the judiciary (Article 9), freedom of thought (Article 19), and equality between men and women (Article 21), and it also stipulates that the goal of Jamahiriya society is the judiciary. The death penalty, a goal that has not yet been achieved. However, the following year witnessed another wave of internal repression, after which no new signs of improvement appeared for a decade.
The human rights situation has improved again since 1998, although Libya still has a long way to go to fulfill its obligations under international human rights law. In 1998, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Gaddafi's son, founded the Gaddafi International Charity Foundation, which initiated a human rights program run by a former political prisoner. In 2003, it began an anti-torture campaign. In 2001 and 2002, the authorities released approximately 300 prisoners, some of whom the government had imprisoned since 1973 because of their peaceful political activism.
In April 2004, Muammar al-Gaddafi called for a series of legal reforms such as abolishing the People's Court, which primarily handles political crimes (it was abolished in January 2005), reducing the number of crimes punishable by death, and more stringent application of Libyan due process laws. In February 2006, the authorities pardoned 132 political prisoners, most of whom had spent more than seven years in detention, imprisoned for practicing peaceful activities and after unfair trials. [4] However, the promises of reform in general were greater than the reform that was actually achieved, as Libya is still subject to tight control by the elite, and there is limited margin for expression or for organizations that criticize ideology. governing and those in charge of its implementation.
Foreigners in Libya
As mentioned above, the population of Libya is about 5.3 million. Libya declares that it is a country characterized by cultural and social homogeneity, and does not recognize the existence of national, ethnic or religious minorities.[5] Despite the lack of reliable statistics, the Libyan government estimated in 2005 that the number of foreign workers residing in it in a “legal” manner is 600 thousand, which means that this is the number officially registered with the authorities. In addition, the government estimates that Libya has between one and one million. 2 million “Illegal” immigrants. It is said that the number of people entering the country every year ranges between 70,000 and 100,000 foreigners from both categories.[6]
There are many reasons for the high number of foreigners, the first of which is the difficulty of controlling the borders, most of which are located in the desert at a length of 4,400 km with six neighboring countries. The second is that the relatively booming economy attracts job seekers from poor countries to it. As for the third reason, it is that the government used in the past to follow an open-door policy with the Arabs first, and then with the Africans from the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
The influx of foreigners began in the seventies with the rapid development that Libya witnessed thanks to the revenues of oil, which was discovered for the first time in 1959. Today.[7]
Throughout the nineties, Gaddafi's attention shifted away from the Arab world towards Africa, due to his sense of disappointment with the reaction of Arab governments regarding his intensifying international isolation after the two plane bombings over Lockerbie and Niger,[8] so he began expressing an African solidarity policy that included opening the door to the people of African countries located to the south of the Sahara desert.
Libya has signed a series of bilateral and multilateral agreements with countries such as Sudan and Chad. And she announced in African newspapers that she was encouraged to receive foreign workers. [9] In 1998, she played a major role in establishing the Sahel-Saharan States Assembly, an organization consisting of 21 African countries, based in Tripoli. The organization says that it seeks to “facilitate the movement of legitimate families.”[16] The head of the Passports and Nationality Office, Muhammad al-Ramali, agrees with him, saying, “I worked here for more than twenty years, and we did not receive any of these people. Most people continue to leave to the West.”[17]
Indeed, the vast majority of those entering Libya, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other migration experts, are for economic reasons, either seeking to reside in Libya or hoping to reach Europe. The number of those who met Bahnhumen Rightsuch said that they were hoping to find work in Libyan, but they were an involvement after that, northern when they were successful in finding a work, and Nigerian man connects to Libya in 2003, then he was thrown into the migrants in drugs, and Human Rights Watch said, "I came to me because I came to a poor family. T that you gain some money to fill it in commercial activity in me. " 18]
However, not everyone who comes to Libya comes for economic reasons, whether to work or to cross from it to Europe. Some are fleeing persecution in their countries of origin, and those who fled directly to Libya in search of protection, or moved to Libya from other countries such as Sudan, where safety is no longer available. For example, a man from Darfur in Sudan told Human Rights Watch that he fled from Sudan in 1993 when he was He was 15 years old, because of government-backed militia attacks on his village, and he said, "I was looking for a place where I could go back to school."[19] Human Rights Watch also met with him an Eritrean young man who had fled from Eritrea for fear of being arrested because of his refusal to enlist in September 2002, so he walked from Asmara to Kassala in Sudan, then a passing car took him to Khartoum, and he said, "I intended to stay, but it was It seems that they will return the Eritreans according to an agreement between Sudan and Eritrea, so I decided to flee [to Libya].”[20]
Whether the arrivals are migrants, asylum seekers or refugees, they enter Libya through ancient trade, caravan and migration routes that have been in use for centuries. The most common route among those tracked by Human Rights Watch is the route from Sudan or Chad across the desert in the south to the Libyan city of Kufra in the southeast. East Africans (and sometimes Asians) enter Libya from this direction, while migrants from countries on the Gulf of Guinea such as Ghana and Nigeria enter mostly via Niger and Mali (and often then head west to travel from Morocco to Spain). Kufra is always Benigazi, where immigrants try to buy Libyan documents. In the end, many turn to the capital, Tripoli.
Some enter Libya in other ways. One of the Libyan officials specialized in immigration affairs stated that Tunisian officials sometimes “get rid” of the migrants who came to Tunisia despite the fact that these officials threw them on the Libyan side of the border between the two countries, either after arresting them while they were trying to travel to Europe, or after their work or study permits in Tunisia expired.[22] Lets watch the six men in Al-Fallah deportation center (three Liberians, one Ivorian and one Guinean). and another from Congo) who said they had been working in Tunisia until early April 2005, when Tunisian authorities caught them on the Libyan side of the border.[23]
The Libyan government believes that the influx of foreigners is exhausting Libya's resources, which is what Muhammad al-Ramali explained by saying, "We are trying to provide job opportunities for everyone, but given our population, which is approximately 5.5 million people, we can only absorb a million people or less than that. The real problem lies in those who enter the country illegally and without documents." In April 2006, the Libyan government stated, in a memorandum sent to Human Rights Watch, that these immigrants "constitute a threat to public security, and therefore legal steps must be taken against them."[24]
The officials told Human Rights Watch that due to the high unemployment among foreigners, crime rates have soared in Libya. Nasr al-Mabrouk, who held the position of Secretary of Public Security (Minister of Interior Affairs) until March 2006, said that foreigners commit 30 percent of all crimes committed in Libya, adding, "We suffer a lot from this phenomenon."[25] He sought sympathy with Libya, as he did Muhammad al-Ramali, who said, “When you have a full meal of your own, you can share it with one, but it is impossible to share it with five others.”[26] Other Libyan officials described the country as being “prone to a flood” of immigrants,[27] and many of them believed that irregular migration threatened public health and led to the introduction of new types of crime such as drugs and prostitution.[28] said the Secretary of Social Affairs, Amal. Nuri Safar, in response to a question about violence against women in Libya, said, "Violence may not originate from a Libyan, but it may come from foreign cultures from outside Libya."[29]
A number of Libyan officials and citizens have also said that sub-Saharan Africans bring HIV with them. In a media film on migration produced by the General People's Committee for Public Security, the government claims that the rate of HIV infection is rising as migration rates rise, although it does not provide any statistics or evidence about HIV transmission outside the category of immigrants.[30] Shukrighanem, Secretary General of the General People's Committee, said: During a Human Rights Watch visit, he said, "Poor Africans are pouring into Libya with HIV, drugs, and crime." He complained that African agricultural workers assaulted Libyans and their property on isolated farms.[31]
The report of the European Commission delegation, which visited Libya in November-December 2004 to discuss the issue of migration, mentioned the concerns of the Libyan government, as the report concluded the following:
According to the Libyan authorities, the uncontrolled movement of illegal immigrants from and to Libya has reached the point of a national crisis, especially with regard to immigration from sub-Saharan African countries. Economic because of the sharp increase in the supply of cheap labor, and the possibility of terrorist penetration. It seems that there is almost no Does anyone understand the necessity of adopting a strategic approach to confront the problem, except at the level of a few speakers at the higher levels. [32]
Feelings of hostility to foreigners also intensified in Libya, and the most serious incident in this regard occurred in late September 2000 in the town of Zawiya, west of Tripoli, where a group of Libyan mobsters clashed with a group of foreigners, most of whom were from Sudan and Chad. About 50 people were killed, according to press reports (see Chapter VIII, "Other Violations Against Migrants, Asylum Seekers, and Refugees"). [33] The government Libyan She said that the number of the deceased Seven. In the aftermath of this incident, the General People's Congress ordered the authorities to prevent the private sector from hiring foreigners, and the police launched a massive campaign to arrest people.
The problem intensified with the improvement of relations between Libya and Europe, especially after the United Nations lifted sanctions on Libya in September 2003. European governments, especially Italy, began pressuring Libya to improve controls on the flow of migrants from its shores, and Italy began forcibly expelling migrants and asylum seekers who came to it from Libya.
What is the biggest difference between Libya today and what it used to be in its willingness to welcome foreigners, as Gaddafi said seven years ago. Most of the non-Libyans interviewed by Human Rights Watch for this report complained of unbridled discrimination and racist violence in Libya. Some of them believe that, whether they came to Libya for work or for asylum, their xenophobia prompted them to move to Italy. Martat, an Eritrean woman who obtained asylum in Italy, said, “At first I had no clear idea of traveling to Italy. I stayed in a private house with six others [in Tripoli], and we could not leave because of our fear. her head [34]
A Sudanese man now residing in Italy told Human Rights Watch that he felt let down by saying, "From my experience, I see that the Libyan government is deceiving the world by saying it is helping Africans. Africans come in the name of African unity, but the Libyan government is not giving them anything."[35]
Libya has no asylum law or procedures for dealing with asylum, and people fleeing persecution have no formal mechanism to seek protection.[36]
Some senior Libyan officials say there is no need for an asylum system; Because the country has no asylum seekers or refugees. Muhammad al-Ramali, director of the Passports and Nationality Office, said, "We don't have a law for that. If you don't have this problem, you don't need a law for it." He added, "When people start complaining that they need asylum, then we know [we need a law]."[37]
Other officials do not deny that Libya has refugees among the foreign arrivals, but they say that the Libyan administration cannot deal with asylum requests. They fear that the provision of asylum may attract a new wave of undocumented immigrants who may take advantage of the asylum channel to avoid deportation, and that it may be difficult for Libya to get rid of those who have already reached it.
As for the Director General of Consular Affairs at the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, he says that if Libya allows asylum, asylum seekers will benefit "like a plague of locusts."[38] As Shukri Ghanem, Secretary-General of the General People's Congress from 2003 until March 2006, says, "We cannot open the door to asylum unless we find fifty million people."[39]
Libya’s 1969 Constitutional Declaration states that “political refugees may not be handed over.”[40] In addition, Law No. 20 of 1991 on the Promotion of Freedom states that “The Great Jamahiriya is a country of persecuted people and freedom fighters. It enjoys constitutional authority. [42] Whatever the Libyan government says that all foreigners are economic migrants and not refugees, it is impossible to distinguish between the two categories without procedures to determine their status.
Libya does not sign the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, concluded in Geneva of 1951 regarding the protection of refugees, nor the protocol annexed to it in 1967, but the words of the Convention against Torture and the African Convention on Refugees prohibit Libya from sending individuals to any country where they face real risks of being subjected to persecution or torture. Under customary international law, Libya is also under an obligation not to return anyone to any place where they might face persecution or where their life or freedom would be in danger. [43] It is essential to ensure that these obligations are met that Libya identifies, through a mechanism for recognizing individuals or groups, any refugees or others in need of international protection who may be among the migrants they send home or expel from Libya.
Although some Libyan officials claim that there are no refugees who want us to seek asylum in Libya, Human Rights Watch interviewed seventeen individuals who had not been able to obtain protection in Libya, but who obtained refugee status from UNHCR or later obtained it from the Italian government. Some of these said that they would have sought asylum in Libya if that option had been available. Thirteen other people were waiting for the Italian government to respond to their requests for asylum.
Among them is Yohannes, an Eritrean journalist whom Human Rights Watch met in Italy, where his application for asylum was being examined in December 2005. Yohannes was working as a journalist for an opposition newspaper in Eritrea, where the authorities briefly arrested him for his writings in 2001,[44] and in the same year, the government shut down his newspaper as part of its crackdown on independent journalism.[45] Iohannis was detained by the Eritrean authorities But he eventually managed to escape to Sudan. Eight months later, he headed to Libya and entered it without a permit.
They said that the journey to Libya with a smuggler was dangerous, as along the way he saw more than 20 bodies of men and women lying in the sand. The driver tried to avoid the Libyan security forces, but the police arrested the group near the city of Kufra.
They reminded Yohannes that the police saw his press card and accused him of being a spy. I separated him from the rest of the group of forty, so that he spent the next eight months in four different prisons, the first of which was in a place called “Aujila,” where the authorities held him in solitary confinement with insufficient amounts of food. He said that the guards sometimes beat him, and that once they hit him so hard on the head that he lost consciousness (see Chapter VI, “Abuses in Custody”).
They said that the security officials beat him in another prison called "Jalo", in which he spent another two months, and in the end they transferred him to a prison in Benghazi, where he witnessed the guards using violence against many prisoners, and in one of the cases he witnessed, the prison guards beat a Chadian prisoner severely until he died.
Shortly afterwards, Yohannes was visited in prison by officials of the Eritrean embassy, who took a photograph of him, took his fingerprints, and told him to prepare for his deportation to his homeland. But because of his previous arrests twice in Eritrea and the government's closure of his newspaper, Yohannes feared what the government might do upon his return. He enlisted the help of some of his prison mates to bribe the Libyan guards and fled, eventually paying a smuggler to take him to Italy, where he is now seeking asylum.[46]
Draft Asylum Law
Muhammad al-Ramali, head of Libya's immigration office, said that the government has set up an "informal special committee" to examine proposals for a refugee law even though "we don't feel compelled to do so." The committee is chaired by Suleiman al-Shuumi, secretary of foreign affairs at the General People's Congress. 2004 "to develop a law to deal with refugees with political, social, cultural and economic motives and refugee groups as Darfur refugees." He said that the existence of the law is necessary so that "asylum applications are not left to be decided by an individual, and that certain criteria and standards are established." He added:
This proposal defines the cases, advantages, and mechanisms for asylum application and approval, and the administration responsible for supervising that on the Libyan side and the budget. There are several procedures for accepting asylum seekers. Over the past year, we have consulted several laws from various Arab countries, but we did not find the appropriate model. We looked at Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, and France, and studied the laws and advantages. [47]
Al-Shuumi said that the committee was submitting the law to the Basic People's Congresses, in which Libyan citizens discuss the merits of the new draft laws, in November 2005. If it was approved, it would be presented to the Working People's Congress for final approval. Rights Watch to review the draft law.
The Commissioner for Refugees in Libya
The existence of an office for the Commissioner for Refugees in Libya dates back to 15 years ago, but the Libyan government still refuses to sign a memorandum of understanding with UNHCR. Around 2004, the government stopped recognizing the letters of confirmation given by the UNHCR to refugees and asylum seekers who are recognized by the UNHCR through its established procedures. Security forces continue to arrest these people for immigration offenses even though the government did not deport any of them in 2005. [48] Such arrests, along with the lack of an enforceable formal agreement, severely hinders UNHCR in fulfilling its mandated role.
However, there is a positive aspect that the government has recently granted UNHCR access to the main detention center in Tripoli, where UNHCR met with a number of refugees and asylum-seekers, dealt with some cases of repatriation or resettlement, and conducted interviews to determine the asylum status of the applicants. Other detention centers in Libya.
The government's non-recognition of the UNHCR is related to its position, which it always expresses, which is that Libya has no refugees. Saeed Oribi Hafiana, the assistant secretary for foreign liaison and international cooperation, told Human Rights Watch that the government cooperates with the United Nations whenever the need arises, and said, "The Jamahiriya has no objection to cooperation with any of the United Nations bodies, provided that the issue at hand that requires cooperation is a real problem."[50]
UNHCR has been vocal about its dissatisfaction with the lack of cooperation. Its Operational Plan for Libya for 2006 states the following:
The necessity of concluding a memorandum of understanding with the Libyan government, especially since refugees are increasingly becoming part of the broader context of the flow of migrants in a mixed or compound manner, as is the case in Libya, and since the special policies for managing migration do not provide for identifying the needs of asylum seekers and refugees, such as enjoying protection, and responding to them in an appropriate manner. [51]
The UNHCR had begun its activities in Libya in 1991 when the Libyan government accepted about three thousand Somali refugees who had been resettled by the UNHCR from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. To Libya across the desert) Coming New arrivals, and the camp expanded to accommodate about three thousand inmates. Later, the government moved the camp to the Salah al-Din region to ensure more protection and control, but security problems necessitated its closure in 2004, according to what the UNHCR and a former camp inmate said.[53]
In August 1995, Gaddafi ordered the expulsion of about 30,000 Palestinians from Libya to the Palestinian autonomous areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in protest of the Oslo agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel. [54] The Libyan government asked UNHCR to help about a thousand of these refugees, whom it deported to a desert camp in Libya near the border with Egypt. [55] One of the results of this era was that the Palestinians They became acting The largest group of refugees registered with the UNHCR office in Tripoli today. In October 1995, Gaddafi called on the Palestinians to return to Libya. Today, the government provides Palestinian refugees with free education and health care.
Until mid-2004, UNHCR was able to provide assistance through its office in Tripoli to a large number of refugees, including a measure of financial aid, vocational training, medical assistance and assistance in placing children in Libyan schools. Despite the lack of a formal agreement of cooperation, UNHCR was in regular contact with the government and succeeded in releasing a number of detainees holding letters of confirmation, thus preventing their expulsion. But in the summer of 2004, relations between the two parties worsened, and the government forced UNHCR to reduce the amount of aid it provided.
In July of that year, the Libyan government forcibly returned more than 100 Eritreans to their country (see Chapter VII, “Forcible Return”). Human Rights Watch and other organizations received reliable information by phone stating that the Eritrean government arrested the returnees upon their arrival and detained them in solitary confinement. [56] In the following month, the Libyan government forcibly returned 75 other Eritreans despite UNHCR's protests. UNHCR is concerned about refugee status. [57]
This incident marks the beginning of the government's crackdown on undocumented migrants in Libya, UNHCR officials said. In October 2004, UNHCR explicitly called for contact with hundreds of undocumented migrants whom the Libyan government was preparing to deport, after Italy had returned them to Libya. (The UNHCR has condemned the Italian government's actions as unlawful expulsions. See Chapter X, "The Role of the European Union and Italy"). The Libyan government prevented UNHCR from contacting refugees awaiting deportation, and has since denied it access to most deportation facilities. (although it has allowed her access to the main center in Tripoli since November 2005).
In December 2004, the European Commission agreed to allocate about 740,000 euros to the UNHCR project "to build an asylum institution in North Africa", which covers the five countries of the Arab Maghreb Union (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania). Today, the project is being implemented in all these countries except Libya due to the lack of official recognition and cooperation.
In the middle of 2006, the UNHCR office in Tripoli consisted of three international workers, one of whom was responsible for protection affairs, and eight Libyan workers, but their powers remained limited in the absence of a proper legal situation. Despite this, UNHCR continues the procedures for determining refugee status whenever individuals arrive at its headquarters, grants "refugee status deserving of protection"[59] to refugees and asylum seekers, and issues letters of confirmation, even though the Libyan government does not recognize these letters and continues to arrest their holders. The UNHCR does not take action to contact foreign communities, as it says it fears raising false expectations that it can protect refugees from them.
Human Rights Watch met with a number of immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees from Libya and Italy who said they did not know UNHCR existed in Libya. An Eritrean refugee in Rome, who had spent a month in Libya in 2003, said, "Its office is not in Tripoli, or I have never heard of it."[60] An Ethiopian asylum seeker in Rome who had spent about two years in Libya between 2003 and 2005 stated that he had no contact with the UNHCR office in Tripoli, and said, "I don't know if he was Is there an office or not.”[61]
Other refugees and asylum seekers told Human Rights Watch that they knew there was a UNHCR office, but they did not go there because they knew the agency could not help them. "There is a UNHCR office in Libya but it is only symbolic," said Ethiopian Ephrem S., who spent nearly two years in Libya illegally and then obtained refugee status in Italy in 2002. Anything. No one came from the UNHCR to see the conditions in which the refugees live, so I considered it useless.”[62]
Despite the restrictions imposed on the operation of the UNHCR office in Tripoli, the office registered 12,166 refugees eligible for protection in April 2006, including rejected cases. Of these, 8,873 were Palestinians, and the remainder consisted of about 1,500 Somalis, 100 Liberians, 100 Sierra Leoneans, and a number of Eritreans, Ethiopians and Sudan and other countries. [63] UNHCR reported that the Tripoli office lost contact with some of these registered refugees after they left Libya or After the Libyan government returned them to their home countries.
The UNHCR provided Human Rights Watch with its figures on registered refugees for the year 2004. In this year, the UNHCR office in Tripoli examined 356 cases to determine refugee status, and the UNHCR recognized forty-six of those as refugees and did not recognize another seventy-three. [64] The UNHCR also closed 237 cases for other reasons, most notably the disappearance of asylum seekers, which the UNHCR says may be in most cases. He left Libya.
One of the effective protections that UNHCR's Tripoli office can offer refugees in Libya is resettlement to a third country through its referral program for resettlement. UNHCR says it rarely uses this procedure in Libya, and only resorts to it in emergencies. UNHCR resettled seven Eritrean refugees who Amnesty International discovered were being held when it was visiting Libya in February 2004. The Libyan government had made resettlement a condition of the release of these Eritreans.[65]
The general conditions of foreigners in Libya, such as their lack of security, the lack of prospects for integration, and the risk of forced return, are considered to be in line with the criteria laid out in the UNHCR Guideline for Resettlement that do warrant resettlement. UNHCR should therefore seek a solution by resettling eligible refugees who have no hope of integrating in Libya or returning to their homes on their own.[66] Between 1995 and 2002, UNHCR provided financial assistance to many Today, however, financial support reaches only a handful of the particularly vulnerable, such as pregnant women and the elderly. [67] UNHCR officials say that UNHCR's policy is to prevent long-term urban refugees from relying on foreign aid and to emphasize integration through self-reliance. [68] Since 2002, UNHCR has also provided assistance to refugees in the form of vocational training and job placement. [69] Microfinance programs began In 2003 and 2004, UNHCR helped refugees set up stalls in the markets to sell coffee, but the police cracked down on immigrants who did not hold permits in the summer of 2004, which led to the closure of the stalls, so UNHCR abandoned the project.[70]
Without government cooperation, UNHCR works with a number of charities and semi-official local aid organizations to provide services to migrants, asylum-seekers, refugees, and others in need of international protection.[71] In cooperation with an implementing partner, the Al-Wafa Charitable Association for Humanitarian Services and Relations, UNHCR provides support to refugees recognized by its office.[72] In addition to vocational training, Al-Wafaa provides support. Health care for refugees who deserve protection according to UNHCR standards, either by treating them directly (where there is an obstetrician among its employees or by referring them to state hospitals and clinics.[73]
As noted above, the Libyan government has given UNHCR access to the main detention center in Tripoli since November 2005, which has enabled UNHCR to conduct refugee status determination interviews and, in some cases, to release some detained refugees.
The UNHCR has also provided assistance with regard to the draft asylum law being prepared by the Libyan government, providing the authorities with examples of national laws adopted in neighboring countries, such as Sudan, Mauritania and Iraq. It also suggested that the government form a working group to assist in the drafting process and provide legal and technical advice.[74]
The Libyan authorities have carried out at various times during the past decade, most recently in 2004, systematic and widespread detention campaigns of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees without official documents. [75] Many of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch described physical abuse and other forms of ill-treatment, and their testimonies are consistent with other published accounts in this regard.
Libyan security officials used to arrest immigrants and refugees in two cases, the first while they were at the border or close to it towards entry to or exit from Libya, and the second during campaigns combing cities. In both cases, migrants and refugees reported abuse by the Libyan police and prison guards, and complained of overcrowding in detention facilities, poor sanitation and nutrition, no knowledge of the reason for their detention, no access to a lawyer, and no opportunity for legal review of their situation. In one case, a witness said he heard four women screaming and crying after security guards took them to separate rooms, suggesting that they had been sexually abused. In several cases, foreigners from Libya reported that the police released them or allowed them to escape after paying a bribe.
The arrests of people are largely directed towards returning them to their countries of origin, as the authorities detain large groups of foreigners in different facilities for varying periods of time, as a prelude to returning them to their countries. Despite Human Rights Watch's requests, the Libyan government did not provide any information about the procedures or criteria used in apprehending foreigners without any official documents. The European Commission delegation that visited Libya to discuss illegal immigration concluded in its report that "many of the illegal immigrants whom the delegation met in the centers [detention centers] appeared to have been arrested at random."
More than half of the fifty-six migrants and refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch for this report said that Libyan authorities had detained them at some point during their stay. A similar percentage was reported by the American University in Cairo after it interviewed sixty-five refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants in January 2006 as part of a study on migration to Europe via Libya. It turned out that "slightly less than half" of these had been detained by the Libyan authorities, and "almost all respondents expressed their constant fear of detention."[76]
As we documented in the previous chapter, “Deprivation of the Right to Seek Asylum,” Libya does not have an asylum law or procedure, and thus detained individuals do not have the opportunity to apply for asylum. On the contrary, the Libyan government resorts to the forcible return of many detainees held without authorization, regardless of whether they may face persecution or torture upon return.
The Libyan government says that the arrest of foreigners who are in Libya illegally is necessary to maintain public order, and that the security forces do so in accordance with the immigration law. [77] In April 2006, the government sent a memorandum to Human Rights Watch in which it said that some police officers "exaggerate the use of force," but that "the abuses in these cases are nothing more than isolated individual actions, unrelated to any method." . In these cases, "due legal action" was taken, although the government gave no statistics on the number of police officers charged or convicted of using excessive force or otherwise violating the law.[78]
The government completely rejects allegations that the police and other security forces assaulted sexual detainees or used excessive force in a manner that led to the death of a foreigner.
Arresting Persons Upon Entry and Exit
Migrants, asylum seekers or refugees are frequently arrested by security authorities at or near the Libyan border while trying to enter or leave the country. In one case, the Libyan border police arrested an Eritrean couple, Tesfaye and Almaz, on the outskirts of Kufra in April 2003. The couple, who fled Eritrea in 1997, after being forced to serve in the army, said they then spent six years in Sudan and, in 2003, hired a smuggler to take them and their baby to Libya. Border police with them They arrested them, along with 25 others in the car they were traveling in, and sent them to an undisclosed detention center where they stayed for eight days. "They would make us clean the yard as soon as we woke up, and they would beat us with whips if we stopped. They would kick and beat us for no reason, and when we asked for something to eat, the border policemen pointed to a truck full of rotten food that the cats live in and told us to eat it."[79]
The couple said that the authorities kept 28 people in one room without a window, and Almaz and her child were the only women in the group, and they slept on the floor without a mattress. Tesfaye and Almaz said that the police forced the group to work every day, either cleaning the yard or digging trenches. Their daughter became dehydrated, but the guards denied her medical care. Since Tesfay spoke Arabic, they understood that the police were waiting to arrest more people, so that they could be deported en masse to Sudan.
The others in the group were afraid of going back, so they managed to escape from the detention center at night; As for Tesfay and Almaz, they decided not to go because of their child. When the guards woke up the next morning and found that the other detainees had fled, one of them beat Tesfaye to find out where the men were fleeing from.
Another Eritrean, who had entered Libya from Sudan without a permit, told Human Rights Watch that security forces arrested and beat him in Kufra, and that he believes they sexually assaulted four women in his group. Barakat, 23, said he fled from Eritrea to Sudan in June 2002 to escape military service. In August, he went to Libya "because I saw a lot of people going to Libya."[80]
Al-Barakat said that members of the Libyan forces arrested him in Kufra on his way to enter Libya illegally, and they were wearing khaki-colored uniforms and carrying weapons, and they arrested four women and ten other men with him. The security forces confiscated their money and beat the men. After the beating ended, it appears that four security men tried to assault four of the women in the building in which they held them.
Shortly after that, Barakat succeeded in escaping from the detention center and reaching Tripoli, where he spent two months. "I was wondering if there was any organization or embassy in Libya that could help the refugees, and I had never heard of UNHCR being there, so I thought my only chance was to flee to Italy for my life," he said.
Barakat arrived in Italy in October 2002, where he applied for asylum, but the request was rejected, so he was ordered to leave the country. As of May 2005, he was still working without a permit and trying to hide from the police.
As for Ahmed, 27, from Darfur, he said that the Libyan police beat him after he arrived in Libya. He said he fled his village in Darfur due to militia attacks in 1993, and made his way to Libya illegally that year in a contraband truck. Ahmed said that the driver was a good man. When the truck arrived in Kufra, the driver gave him money to travel to Benghazi. Shortly after his arrival, Ahmed said, the police found him sleeping in a public park, and told Human Rights Watch that they had beaten him and that one of the policemen whipped him with a belt with a large metal buckle, causing a deep cut in his head.[81]
The police took Ahmed to a police station, where a man described him as a senior officer with a kind heart, took him to the neighborhood where the Sudanese live in the city, and he also said that he took him to a hospital to treat the wound in his head, where a Bulgarian doctor asked him who had beaten him. And they responded to him with anger, according to his claim, and Ahmed mentions that one of them said to him, "Get out of here and get away from us... If you did that, we would kill you."
Anabisa, a 23-year-old Orthodox Ethiopian now recognized as a refugee in Italy, told Human Rights Watch that Libyan police beat up a group of foreigners they had arrested after a failed attempt to go to Italy. According to the woman, she and forty-seven others boarded a smuggler's ship from the Libyan coast in September 2003, but the ship sank en route. Four people drowned, while the remaining forty-three were rescued by a French ship (Eritreans). Ethiopians, Somalis, Moroccans, and others from the Arab Maghreb). The French handed the survivors over to the Libyans, who drove them to prison in a windowless truck. Annabisa said that Libyan security officials beat and kicked migrants and refugees along the way, even women. [82] Chapter VI, “Abuses in Custody,” recounts her experience while in detention.
Arrests as part of urban sweeps
In 2001, the Libyan government embarked on more concerted efforts to arrest migrants and refugees in urban areas after the outbreak of violence against foreigners in Al-Zawy & to a place called "Janzour" (possibly a police station in the Janzour neighborhood in Tripoli) "where they are crammed into a small open building...without adequate health care services or adequate food." [87] David alleged that some detainees died as a result of suffocation, shock, and starvation.
According to UNHCR, the Libyan police arrested 31 refugees and asylum-seekers who had letters of confirmation from UNHCR during combing campaigns that began around September 2004. [88] The authorities detained all those in the Al-Fallah detention center in Tripoli, except for a Somali refugee who was detained at the Immigration Department. The authorities eventually released them after the UNHCR gained support. A number of ambassadors of the African Union countries. [89]
One of the senior Libyan officials said that the Libyan government has stopped carrying out sweeping campaigns for immigrants without documents in cities; Ali Imdward, working director of consular affairs at the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, said, "At the present time, we have stopped detaining people." He hinted that the current policy is to arrest those who leave Libya for Europe only, not in police sweeping campaigns in Tripoli and other cities.[90]
However, Amdward said that the police continue to arrest foreigners who beg in the streets, mostly Moroccans, Egyptians and Tunisians, who he claims are employed in organized crime networks run by their own compatriots.
Winkramdord and other Libyan officials claim that the police detain foreigners arbitrarily, and maintain that the government takes action to eliminate abuses by police officers during arrests. He said that an investigation was conducted in 2004, after which disciplinary measures were taken against the policemen involved in three corruption cases, but he did not give any details about these cases.
On August 8, 2004, a committee affiliated with the General People's Committee for Public Security issued directives to protect the lives and property of arrested foreigners, although it is not yet clear to what extent these directives are being implemented. The directives, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, state:
"Arrest and deportation quietly, without violence, beatings, or any other uncivilized behavior."
"Recording the funds in the possession of these persons in official records and official records."
"Treating these people in a proper manner, avoiding harming them, and respecting their humanity."
"[Officials should] allow them to carry their belongings and money and provide them with the necessary means of transportation in coordination with the concerned departments."[91]
Decision No. 67 (2004) of the Secretary of Public Security attached to these directives calls for the formation of a committee to follow up on the arrest, detention, and deportation of illegal immigrants. Article 5 of this decision stipulates that the committee must take into account “the special controls related to human rights that guarantee the personal and property security of illegal immigrants.”[92]
Human Rights Watch has learned from the Libyan government whether this committee has already been formed to follow up on the arrest, detention, and deportation of foreigners without documents, and who the committee would include among officials, if the formation had already taken place. But as of August 1, 2006, the government had not yet responded.[93]
In addition to the forms of abuse that occur at the time of arrest, migrants and refugees reported numerous abuses during their detention in various facilities in Libya, including beatings, mistreatment, and denial of access to lawyers. In three of the cases, witnesses reported physical abuse by guards that led to the death of one person. Three of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported that security officials threatened the women detainees By sexually abusing him, he saw a witness What is believed to be a case of rape. And if there is news of an improvement in the conditions of detention of immigrants and refugees in recent years, the evidence suggests that many of these forms of abuse are still continuing.
In their efforts to keep up with the large influx of migrants and refugees, the Libyan authorities are using a variety of facilities for the purpose of detention. People interviewed by the organization reported that they were held in police stations, ordinary prisons (sometimes with common criminals), military bases and tented desert camps. Human Rights Watch has learned from the Libyan government whether it has standards for detaining foreigners, but as of August 2006 the government had not yet responded to them. Migrants and refugees spoke of overcrowding, lack of health care, and severe restrictions on meeting visitors and lawyers.
A technical mission from the European Commission visited detention sites in various parts of Libya in late 2004, and reported that it found a disparity in conditions “from relatively acceptable conditions to very poor conditions.”[94] The mission said that there are short-term detention centers and others for long-term detention, and that the centers designated for long-term detention resemble prisons. and the detention of detainees for a period of time up to seven months or more without legal review, for the detention of unaccompanied children, and for cases in which detainees appear to have valid residency documents in Libya.
Another problem Human Rights Watch noted was the endemic corruption in the immigration system. Immigrants and refugees consistently reported that detainees could buy their freedom by bribing guards or their commanders.
The Libyan government claims, as previously mentioned, that the authorities deal with foreigners within the limits of the law, and that it initiates legal cases against officials who cross their borders by using excessive force or other ill-treatment during detention. Hmm. The government said that “it is difficult to find a quick solution to the issue of overcrowding due to the high number of illegal immigrants entering the Libyan Jamahiriya,” as these numbers require “large funds that exceed the capacity of the Libyan Jamahiriya.”[95]
The government said that bribery is a crime punishable by Law No. 2 of 1979, and in the event of corruption by a state employee or police officer, "it is certain that the relevant branches will take legal measures in any specific case they are notified of."
Libya is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 9 of which states that “No one may be arbitrarily arrested or detained. No one may be deprived of his liberty except for reasons stipulated by law and in accordance with the procedure established therein.” Detention is considered “arbitrary” if the law cannot allow it or if it is not carried out in accordance with the procedure established therein, and it is also considered arbitrary if it is arbitrary. Aaaa or based on whims or not accompanied by fair legal review procedures. [96]
Arbitrary detention is defined as unlawful, as well as unpredictable and unfair. Given the high incidence of indefinite detention of migrants and refugees, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has developed criteria to determine whether or not the deprivation of liberty of migrants and asylum seekers is arbitrary. Nuts anyway The detention may continue indefinitely or extend for an excessively long period.”[97]
Detention Conditions in Kufra
Most migrants or refugees intercepted entering from southeastern Sudan or Chad are held in or near the desert town of Kufra, and the government appears to be holding migrants and refugees in several camps in that area. People interviewed by Human Rights Watch spoke of a number of forms of abuse there, including severe physical abuse.
Ali Amdward, a senior Libyan official in charge of immigration, admitted that detention conditions in Kufra are sometimes bad, and referred to the death of a pregnant woman without explaining the circumstances of her death. He said that, in the aftermath, the government prepared to return 130 adults detained in that facility, who were from Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia, with the help of the embassy of each group and the International Organization for Migration, which provided one hundred US dollars for each person. (The IOM denied giving money to people who were repatriated by Libya.) [98] Umdward said that bringing embassy officials to people in Libya who might face persecution by their governments was not a problem because “nobody said they were afraid of it.”[99]
In interviews with Human Rights Watch, eight individuals who were detained in and near Kufra, including three who were later granted asylum in Italy, spoke of the ill-treatment they witnessed and experienced in various detention facilities. Abraha, an Eritrean refugee who fled his home country in 2002 after refusing to perform compulsory military service, said that the Libyan security authorities arrested him for not carrying the necessary documents, and took him to a police station in Kufra in 2002. He said that the two smugglers who brought him to Libya for $200 were in the station, and the police used to beat one of them. The police said that they only wanted smugglers, and that they would release Abrah and the others, about 25 in number, but kept them in the center for three days. The detainees slept without mattresses on the floor in a courtyard, but were given food and water, and the women and children slept on the other side of the yard.
After three days, the authorities transferred the group to a prison outside Kufra, where conditions were significantly worse. As far as Abraha was aware, there was no doctor in the prison, and the guards never took anyone anywhere for medical care. Abraha was kept in a cell with one toilet with about forty men, and the guards did not allow them to go out for a month. For the next two months, they were let out on whim, Abraha said, “It depends on the mood of the guard.” The detainees were not allowed to make phone calls, contact lawyers, or receive visitors. Abraha told Human Rights Watch:
No one could know if we were alive or dead because we couldn't contact anyone... We asked to speak to the prison director to ask for information, but the guards kept saying "tomorrow, tomorrow". Then the prison director came and told us that we had to wait until it was decided when we would be sent back to our country. One day the Eritrean ambassador came and said he had come to help us out, but in fact he had come to bring us home.[100]
Abraha and others went on a hunger strike to protest the conditions of detention, but they gave up after 15 days when their strength failed. Abraha and two others fell ill, so the guards put them in the yard on the ground. Abraha said that the prison director came and beat the three of them with a rubber stick, so the detainees who were on hunger strike revolted, but the guards were able to return them to their cells. Abraha added, "Two of them were seriously injured, so a doctor came the next day to examine them."
Three months later, the prison director told the detainees that the Libyan government did not have enough money to send them to Eritrea, but they could go to Sudan. Then the director took all the prisoners, numbering about 100 people, and drove them toward Sudan in four vehicles. Kufra Abraha paid $200 to reach Tripoli, where he spent about six weeks, then paid $1,000 to a smuggler to take a ship with more than 150 passengers to Italy, and he arrived there in March 2003 after two days at sea, and there he obtained refugee status in May 2005.
Another Eritrean refugee, "Teklo" who was granted asylum in Italy, told Human Rights Watch about his experience of being detained for three months in Kufra, where guards beat detainees on a regular basis. He said that the authorities arrested him in 2002, along with about 100 inmates, both criminal and immigrants. He was held in a shared cell without windows or beds with four other men. Ticlo added that the Libyan officials were interrogating him “morning and evening” after his arrest, and that they beat him repeatedly with electric cables and whips, demanding that he reveal the location and names of other immigrants who evaded the police and the details of their entry into the country without permission. The interrogation and beatings lasted about 20 days, and then became more frequent. Ticlo said he was not allowed to make any phone calls or contact a lawyer.[101]
Alexander, an Ethiopian refugee, said he paid a smuggler $300 to go from Sudan to Kufra in January 2002, but that the group he was traveling with was arrested by Libyan security forces when they arrived. He added that he spent a year in prison in one of the military bases on the outskirts of Kufra with about 170 people, including 70 women. He said, "I could not contact anyone on the phone or write to anyone for a whole year. All they told us is that they are trying to contact our country to return us to it." He said that two of the men died while he was there, but he did not know why they died. "They were sick, and they did not receive the necessary care. We slept on the floor, so they caught a cold, and they were very depressed," he explained.
Alexander said that the guards never allowed the detainees to leave their cells. One day (the date of which he does not know) the detainees protested that they went on a hunger strike. He told Human Rights Watch how the Libyan authorities dealt with the situation:
We fell into a trap there, and they did not send us back to our country. We were locked up like animals, so we all went on hunger strike for five days. So the colonel came with many guards who surrounded the yard and took us all out of the cells. The colonel told us that we do not know the reason for our presence there, and we do not know that we are accused of any charges. Then the guards started beating everyone with sticks and shooting in the air to force us to go back to the cells.[102]
Alexander said that he paid a bribe during his deportation after about three months, and fled to Tripoli, where he spent six months. In June 2003, he paid $1,000 to be smuggled on a ship to Italy. He added, "There were about 110 people in the small fishing boat. We landed in Lampedusa at dawn, and there was no one to watch us, so we could only We waited on the ship for the police to come.” When the Italian authorities arrived, Iskandar Haq asked for political asylum. In May 2005, he was granted residency for humanitarian reasons.[103]
In another recent incident, Waldmariam - an Eritrean who was seeking asylum in Italy in May 2005 - was arrested outside Kufra in March 2004 for not having the necessary documents, as soon as he entered Libya from Sudan. He said that the Libyan authorities detained him with 46 others, including two children, for three weeks in a desert camp about 40 kilometers from the city. And Maryam was staying in a tent with about 15 men, while the women and children remained in a tent designated for them.
Wolde Maryam mentioned that the guards often beat the detainees, as he told Human Rights Watch:
The guards used to smoke hashish all night long and then they would come with a searchlight and choose some of us to beat them. And one night they came, so I raised my head, and they asked me what I was, and I answered them that I was a Christian, so they took me outside and beat me. Two other men said that they were Muslims, and the guards did not take them outside.[104]
And Maryam added that the guards often made the men say they were Jews and beat them. At other times, they would order the men to stay in the push-up position for a long time, and they would rest on their fists clenched and on the tips of their toes. “After a while, the body would begin to shiver, and if someone fell, the guards would beat him,” Waldmariam said.
One night, one of the men escaped, and he was found after four hours exhausted in the desert. Waldmariam said that that night the guards forced all the men in the camp to strip and lie on the ground, and about ten guards beat the men on their heads and bodies with rubber sticks.
And Woldemariam mentioned that the guards used to go sometimes to the women's tent at night, but the camp commander ordered them to stop. He said, "The guards used to go to the tent at night to harass the girls. We were ready to sacrifice our lives for them, and when we spoke to the camp commander, the guards told them to stop."
After three weeks in the camp, the authorities transferred the detainees to a prison in Kufra, a regular prison that holds about 600 prisoners, Waldmariam said. The authorities put him in a cell with 150 undocumented immigrants of different nationalities. There was a separate cell with about 15 women and children. At one point, the guards took a pregnant woman to the hospital and then released her.
There was only one toilet in Woldemariam's cell, and the detainees also used it to clean themselves with buckets of water, the means of showering available to them. They were never given a chance to change their clothes, pillows, blankets, or sheets, and there were no beds in the cell. The cell had only one window with bars, and the guards took the men out of the cell three times a day to count them. They are being held eating boiled rice or pastries once a day. They were not allowed to make phone calls or receive visitors. On one occasion, the Eritrean ambassador came to specify the Eritreans who would be deported, and Woldemariam said, "Most of us said that we are Ethiopians in order to avoid being sent back to Eritrea."
In June 2004, many Eritreans and Ethiopians rebelled because of the lack of food. Weldmariam said, "We decided to rebel, so we threw anything at our fingertips at them, such as cups and plates." After the rebellion, security officials took all the Ethiopians and Eritreans to the desert camp for a second, and there, Weldmariam paid a bribe to one of the guards to let him go. Finally, he was able to reach Tripoli, where he paid $1,400 to travel by sea to Italy. He arrived there in September, after three days at sea, and there he applied for asylum.
Conditions in Other Detention Facilities
The Libyan authorities hold migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in various facilities across the country. In September 2004, some Somalis who had been deported from Libya spoke to journalists in Mogadishu saying that the Libyan police had held them in a chemical warehouse, which had caused them skin problems.[105]
In September 2003, the Eritrean refugee, Anabessa, tried for the first time to go from Libya to Italy on board a smuggler's ship, carrying 47 others. As previously indicated in Chapter Five, "Violations during the Arrest of Persons", the ship sank with four of its passengers before the crew of a French ship could rescue the rest of the survivors and hand them over to the Libyan authorities.
Anabisa said that the Libyans held this group in a prison about an hour and a half away by car from the coast, which she believed was a detention center for "immigrants and refugees only." There were four pregnant women in the group, one of whom gave birth immediately, while the authorities released the other three before their due date. There was also a four-year-old boy, whose mother had drowned while trying to travel by sea, so his father came and took him back to Eritrea.
Anabisa said that the guards in the camp used to beat the detainees with plastic pipes. After about six weeks, the authorities attempted to transfer the women in the group, which would have meant separating the husbands from the wives. The detained men protested vehemently; This led to more beatings, including with sticks that deliver electric shocks.
Despite the protest, the authorities transferred the women to another facility in Misrata. Anabesa was kept with 12 other women in a small cell that did not have a shower, so the women used water brought to them in plastic bottles for showering, and they were only allowed to go to the bathroom once a day. I was given bread and tea in the morning, and one meal of rice per day. The conditions of the health facilities were very poor; Many women became ill, according to Anabisa. She also said that an Ethiopian woman died after she went on a hunger strike to protest these conditions, but she does not remember her name.
Anabisa said that the male guards threatened female detainees to sexually assault them. She described the fear in which women lived by saying:
When we needed to take food, we used to go together, there were 13 women in total, so that we would never leave one of us alone in the room. This was a successful way to ward off assault. The same thing happened when the male guards came at night with a set of keys and entered our cell. When that happened, we woke each other up and we gathered together and started crying and screaming until they got worse and left. [106]
Anabisa claimed that she saw the guards in Misrata beat a Nigerian man to death after he tried to escape, but she does not know his name. She also said that they tortured a man from Ghana by tying his feet and hands behind his back and leaving him out in the sun and covering his body with sugar-sweetened syrup that attracts flies.
Anabisa spent three months in Misurata, then paid a bribe to a guard to let her escape with three other women. Then I took a second ship to Italy and got there in December 2003, after which I was able to get asylum. She said that some of those arrested and with her remained in Misrata for periods of nine months.
Two other people interviewed by Human Rights Watch, who are Eritreans, were also detained at different times in a facility in Misrata, and both alleged that guards beat detainees on a regular basis.[107]
One of the Ethiopian refugees, Getachew, stated that the authorities held him in a detention center apparently intended for foreigners near Tripoli for 29 days in late 2003. He said that the guards were forcing the detainees to carry cement blocks at a construction site and were beating them with sticks because he could not carry the heavy blocks. He knows this man's name [108]
Getaccio managed to escape by bribing a guard and began working without a permit to earn some money to travel to Italy, which he managed to reach in October 2004. In May 2005 his asylum application was still under examination.
Eritrean journalist and refugee Yohannes, who fled to Libya in 2002 because he did not find the necessary protection in Sudan, was arrested after he tried to swerve his car to avoid checkpoints near Kufra in 2002. He told Human Rights Watch that he spent time in four prisons in different parts of Libya.
The first of these prisons was a place he called "Ojila", where the authorities put him in solitary confinement and beat him throughout his detention, which lasted for two months. He said that at six o'clock in the evening every day they would beat him with sticks and curse him while telling him that he should convert to Islam. On one occasion they beat him so hard with a stick on his head that he lost consciousness. He added, "They told me that I was a spy, and they were laughing while torturing me."
In a facility called "Jalo", the authorities locked him alone in a cell for about two months. He said that the guards were beating him in an attempt to force him to renounce his Christian faith and to perform Muslim prayers. We were taken to a place he called "Jedabiya" where he stayed in a cell with about 50 refugees and immigrants from Chad. He said the guards also beat him there and forced him to perform Muslim prayers. It was here that Johannes fell seriously ill. And one day the disease became so severe that he could not move while the guards were calling for the prisoners to go out into the yard, which angered the guards. He said that they put out cigarettes in his leg to force him to move, and Human Rights Watch noticed two burn marks on one of his legs, which he said were caused by this attack. After about two months in this prison, the authorities transferred him to a prison in Benghazi. Yohannes claimed that the guards there were beating the prisoners in the corridors. On one occasion, he said, they beat a Chadian prisoner severely until he died, but he did not give details of this incident. Shortly after that, Yohannes bribed some guards, managed to escape, and went to Italy, where he applied for asylum.[109]
Ephrem S., an Ethiopian refugee of an Ethiopian father and an Eritrean mother, spent some time in March 2001 in a facility in Tripoli, where the sanitary conditions were seriously poor. Efrem said he was arrested when the smuggler's boat he was on to Italy ran into trouble and an Italian fisherman managed to rescue its passengers and hand them over to the Libyan authorities. Ephrem spent 12 days in what he believed to be a regular prison in Tripoli. He said that the Muslims were isolated from the Christians, and he was staying in a large room with about 30 men. He added that they were eating "disgusting" food from one bowl for all. There was no shower or other bathing facilities, and there was only one toilet for the 30 men. And no one could talk to the guards, and they were not allowed to go out. "A lot of people were afraid for their lives," Ephraim told Human Rights Watch. "We thought they were going to deport us or kill us. I didn't get a chance to tell anyone that I was a refugee and that I was afraid."[110] Efrem then managed to escape from prison and made it to Italy in 2002, where he was granted asylum.
Amatiklou, the 23-year-old Eritrean refugee mentioned earlier, told Human Rights Watch what happened after he was caught trying to leave Libya for Italy, and the abuse he endured in detention, including possible sexual abuse. He said that he and a group of foreigners were arrested by police in May 2003 while they were waiting for a smuggler's ship to arrive. .added He spent three months at a naval base in Zlatan, and described the conditions prevailing there by saying:
We were staying in the yard, divided by nationality and gender in the different sections of the yard. The soldiers were young and smoked a lot. They would make us run around the yard in the morning throwing things at us, with anything they could get their hands on.[111]
Teclow stated that all the detained men slept in the open, and no mattresses were provided for them. As for the women and children, they lived in a garage-like building at the end of the yard. "The guards would go to him at night, and the women would scream, and the men would go to see what was happening, but the guards would beat them. I'm not sure, I don't know if any of them had been raped. If that had happened, the rapist would have spoken about it for fear of shame," Ticlow said.
At the end of July 2003, the director of the facility said that all those who paid the smugglers in local currency would be released, but those who paid in US dollars would stay. Ticlo was then released, who claims the manager told him the others they could stay and work in Libya if they wanted, but they were not allowed to try to travel to Europe. In August, Ticlo paid $1,000 and took a ship to Europe, where he was granted refugee status.
Deportation facilities
The Libyan government has two types of facilities in which it detains undocumented foreigners before deporting them out of Libya, which are "voluntary" facilities and "involuntary" facilities. The voluntary centers are designated for migrants and refugees who agree to return to their countries, most of which are in Tripoli.
The authorities stated that the voluntary centers are "open", meaning that the inmates can enter and leave as they wish, pending the preparation of the necessary arrangements for their return to their country. However, the European Commission mission to Libya in November-December 2004 noted that the inmates of the voluntary center on Al-Fallah Street in Tripoli (which is located close to the involuntary center on the same street) feel so frightened that they cannot leave the vicinity of the area.
The Libyan police prevented a Western female journalist from entering the voluntary center on Al-Falah Street when she visited it in late 2004. The journalist spoke to a number of non-Libyans in the area surrounding the center, and she mentioned that several hundred Ghanaians and Nigerians were sleeping in tents in an area surrounded by a wall topped with barbed wire and guarded by the police. Some migrants said the center was overcrowded, with its inmates waiting for flights home.[113]
Libyan immigration official Ali Imdward agrees that “voluntary” is a relative term; Because some in the voluntary centers accept to return to their country for fear of being arrested and detained in one of the involuntary centers.[114] Perhaps they are attracted by the hundred dollars that the Libyan government said the International Organization for Migration gives to everyone who volunteers on their own to return to their country, although the organization denied providing these funds.[115]
Conditions in the involuntary centers are worse, though signs suggest that they are on the way to improvement. Unlike the voluntary centers which are full of people who have agreed to return to their homes, the involuntary centers are inhabited by undocumented foreigners who have been arrested and detained by the police pending deportation. Those who fear persecution in their home countries have no possibility to apply for asylum or challenge the deportation decision.
The Libyan government says that detained foreigners are initially placed in small detention sites across Libya, which was explained by Ali Amdward, who said, "We sometimes collect them and feed them, but this is not a detention, it is a temporary detention." He said that the detainees receive three meals a day and are provided with basic health care. American or European Union standards, but they are treated as we are treated and eat We also eat.”[116]
After the initial detention period, the authorities transfer detainees to the larger involuntary centres. The main center for involuntary deportation is located on Al-Fallah Street, Tripoli, and is known as Al-Fallah Camp, while other permanent deportation centers are located in Misrata (220 km east of Tripoli), Salamam (between Sabratha and Zuwara, west of Tripoli), Kufra and Sabha.
It is not clear what will happen to the deportation centers in the future. The director of the Immigration Department, Muhammad al-Ramalil, told Human Rights Watch that Law No. 2 (2004) regulating the entry, residence and departure of foreigners in Libya would eventually lead to the removal of these camps. (For a discussion of Law No. 2, see Chapter IX, “Legal Standards.”) Under the new law, however, the government could charge undocumented foreigners and refer them to the courts for judges to sentence them to either deportation within 24 hours, or up to a year in prison.[117]
Conditions in Al-Falah Deportation Center
Human Rights Watch visited Al-Fallah Center for Involuntary Deportation twice, the first on April 25 and the second on May 9, 2005. Conditions in the center improved significantly between the two visits, as the authorities painted the walls, installed beds, and provided more food, according to Human Rights Watch's inspection of the place and interviews with detainees.
In the short visit that took place on April 25, Human Rights Watch counted 27 detainees in the center from different countries such as Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Morocco, Bangladesh and the Congo. generally accepted, but they fear going back to their country.[118]
The center consists of a wide, open, rectangular courtyard, with about six dormitories on one of the two long sides facing the gate, and three rooms on one of the two short sides and a cooking area on the other short side. The dormitories contain about 20 mattresses and blankets placed on the floor, and the toilets are located in separate rooms on the side.
On the second visit, immigration officials told Human Rights Watch that the center housed 172 people to be repatriated, including 43 Egyptians. There were also Moroccans, Nigerians, Congolese, Ghanaians, and Ivorians and Liberians. [119]
On that second visit, the rooms had narrow beds resembling shelves, which the detainees said had been installed by the authorities a few days ago. The walls were freshly painted, and the center was clean and tidy. Officials took the visitors to a small medical clinic with a doctor, and said that detainees were taken to hospital if they were seriously ill.
There were no women or children among the detainees this time, but the person in charge of the deportation centers in Libya told Human Rights Watch that they put women and children in special rooms. [120] A delegation from the European Parliament, which visited Al-Fallah Center in April 2005, interviewed some of the female detainees, and its report stated that the women did not complain of harassment or ill-treatment, but they were asking for a female doctor and an improvement in the level of care for minors who are not. And accompanied by their families Libyan officials told the delegation that the total number of detainees in Al-Fallah center ranged from just under 100 to more than 700.[121]
Human Rights Watch conducted short interviews with a group of nine detainees, all of whom were arrested because they did not have the necessary documents. They said that conditions in the center were generally good, especially on the day of Human Rights Watch's visit, when the authorities provided them with ample amounts of chicken. A man said, "I did not have a chicken for a lot before. A 32 -year -old Masrib said, he was ahead of 2,000 dollars in Egypt to be smuggled through Libya to Italy, "We don't know when we will leave, there is no news."[123] Two of the nine men, an Egyptian and a Nigerian, said that the Libyan police beat them after they arrested them.[124]
The conditions Human Rights Watch witnessed in al-Fallah were much better than what one of the refugees said he had seen in December 2004. The man, a Liberian who left Libya after the interview, said he bribed the camp guards with cigarettes to enter to take care of some of his friends who were among the detainees. Inside the center, he told Human Rights Watch, he saw "a lot of refugees and other detainees suffering." of chest diseases due to a cold in prison.” He also saw "many children suffering from severe illness and malnutrition." He added that there was no water for three days during his visit, and there was no medical care.
The deportation of people is an essential component of the Libyan government's plan to reduce the number of undocumented foreigners. From 2003 to 2005, Libya repatriated approximately 140,000 individuals. While most of these immigrants were for economic reasons, who entered the country illegally, some of them were asylum seekers and refugees who faced the risk of persecution or ill-treatment in their home countries.
Since Libya lacks a law and regulation of immigration procedures that include clear steps to determine whether people face the risk of torture upon return, Libya cannot decide whether the people it deports should receive protection. for each case individually.”[126] The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has expressed harsher criticism It expressed concern about “minimum standards for the treatment of persons who may be in need of international protection”[127].
According to the Libyan government, the authorities repatriated 47,991 people in 2005, and the government said that 35,627 of these people, 74 percent, returned voluntarily to their country, by which it meant that the individuals turned themselves in to the authorities and agreed to return home. As for the rest, they deported them “after consulting with the authorities of their countries.”[128] The report of the European Commission said that Libya deported 45,000 people in 2004 and 43,000 in 2003, although the report did not specify the number of those who volunteered to return to their homes[129].
As mentioned earlier, the concept of voluntary return is imprecise. As acknowledged by Alia Medward, a senior immigration official, some would volunteer to return to their home countries because they feared arrest, detention, and forcible return. [130] The abuses that are committed during the arrest and detention of persons, in addition to the general discrimination against foreigners, may also convince individuals that voluntary repatriation is the best available path.
The deportation of people to countries where they are at risk of violations constitutes a direct violation of international conventions ratified by Libya. In particular, Article 3 of the Convention against Torture states that “No State Party shall expel, return (“refouler”) or extradite a person to another State if it has substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
The Libyan government claims that it only returns migrants without authorization and for economic reasons, so they do not face the risk of torture. Saeed Oreibi Hafiana, Assistant Secretary for External Communications and International Cooperation, said, "We are returning them legally and we bear the costs of returning them"[131].
The Libyan government said in its third periodic report submitted in 1998 to the Convention Against Torture Committee that Libyan law prohibits “the expulsion, surrender or return of persons [to a place where they are subjected to torture or ill-treatment].”[132] It is not clear whether the Libyan government is referring to Libyan Law No. freedom, so it is not permissible to hand over the refugees from them to its protectors any party”, or to the direct effect of international treaties, such as the Convention Against Torture.
In the memorandum it submitted in April 2006 to Human Rights Watch, the government elaborated on its position, saying that Libyan law and international obligations prevent returns:
With regard to the claim that asylum seekers are subject to detention and deportation, the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation confirms that the Libyan Jamahiriya is not among the states parties to the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees and the Protocol annexed to it, but Libya - according to its domestic legislation, on top of which is the Great Green Document for Human Rights in the era of the masses, and the Law for the Promotion of Freedom - provides a haven for activists in freedom, and the law prohibits the transfer of refugees to any other party for their protection. The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation would like to clarify that the report [which it issued Human Rights Watch confuses illegal immigrants who want to stay or immigrate to other countries, and those who enter the country illegally and declare their intention to stay, asking for freedom, and for that Libya accepts them as its guests. .
The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Relations affirms that Libya does not extradite any person to a country or prevent him from entering Libya if there is evidence that he may be subjected to torture, or that he does not enjoy an appropriate fair trial for the charge against him in the country to which he is deported, based on local law and the agreements signed by Libya, including the Convention against Torture. On this basis, agreements with other countries in which Libya participates regarding the transfer of migrants do not include permission to transfer in cases of political crimes[133].
The Libyan government believes it is doing documented foreigners a favor by repatriating them. Immigration officials said the route taken by smugglers to Italy is dangerous, and that hundreds of people die each year in overcrowded boats. The government pays for the repatriation effort, which is prohibitive. Ali Imdward says that the government spent $16 million on repatriating people between August 2004 and February 2005[134].
According to the government memo submitted in April, in 2005 the government spent 3,678,756 Libyan dinars on “deportations,” which is equivalent to $2,935,000.
As we mentioned above, and in the context of the lack of an asylum law and a list of procedures for implementing the general principles of Libyan law and international human rights treaties, ambiguity still surrounds how the government distinguishes between economic migrants and asylum seekers and refugees. No one knows which authorities consider asylum applications and what criteria they base their decisions on.
The deportation process
The process of arresting and detaining people, as the previous two chapters explained, is often arbitrary and unorganized. .
Libyan immigration officials claim that when foreigners are arrested, whether they are trying to cross the border or during a campaign in a city, the authorities first contact their embassies to determine their hobbies and nationalities. Officials said that the embassies of Egypt and Negro Chad are quick to respond, and usually send their response within one week, but Nigeria and Ghana are usually slow [135].
Sending the names of detained foreigners to their embassies may put asylum seekers and refugees at risk by letting their governments know their hobbies; again, the Libyan government claims that this is not a problem because all detainees are illegal immigrants; and whether they are legal or illegal immigrants, there must be an asylum procedure, otherwise it is impossible to ensure that people who have legitimate fears of persecution by their governments are not among them. detainees.
The fastest return is that of other families, often reported by migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch, and the problem of bribery demanded by Libyan border guards, soldiers, and policemen. Government security escorts sometimes offered to release deportees in exchange for several hundred dollars. In the previous chapter, we dealt with the violations that Human Rights Watch was subjected to in detention, according to the soldiers They put him and other detainees in military trucks in early 2003 and drove them to the border with Sudan. There, the soldiers said they were willing to release them for US$200 per person. Iskandar paid the amount, and succeeded in reaching Tripoli, where he paid a sum of money to a smuggler in return for transporting him to Italy [144].
Eritreans at Risk of Return
Since 2002, Libya has deported hundreds of Eritreans, some of whom have faced serious abuse upon return. [145] A highly publicized case of mass deportation occurred on July 21, 2004, when Libya forcibly returned 109 Eritreans on a special flight, funded by Italy, on a Libyan Airlines plane. yapesti. [146 [Human rights organizations say that the Eritrean government detained the deportees upon their arrival and detained them incommunicado in a secret prison.[147]
Then the Libyan authorities tried several weeks later, specifically on August 27, to forcibly return another group consisting of seventy-five Eritreans, including six children. As the Eritreans were afraid to return to their homeland, they hijacked the plane and forced its pilot to land in Sudan, where sixty people from the group requested asylum. UNHCR conducted personal interviews with the 60 asylum seekers and determined that they were in need of protection. [148] In a statement issued on September 21, UNHCR said:
UNHCR conducted personal interviews with 60 Eritrean travelers after their arrival in Khartoum on August 27. The group said that they had been held without charge for a long period in the Libyan town of Kufra, and that they had been repeatedly subjected to physical abuse. They also said that despite their request to see UNHCR, they were not allowed to benefit from any of the asylum procedures. In addition, no one informed the group of the decision to deport them to Eritrea, and they were forced to board a chartered private plane, and they did not know until after takeoff that the destination of the plane was their country of origin. Sixty of the seventy-five passengers were subsequently granted refugee status in Sudan. [149]
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) strongly blamed the Libyan government and reminded it of the need to take into account its obligations under the Organization of African Unity agreement that deals with specific aspects of refugee problems in Africa, concluded in 1969 (the African Refugee Convention, see Chapter IX “Legal Standards”). Eritrea on August 27 constitutes a serious violation of the African Convention and represents a clear violation of international protection norms and the principle of non-refoulement or expulsion.
One refugee interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Italy said that the Libyan police had detained him in Libya with a group of other Eritreans. He believes the government expelled the group in July or August 2004. "They were refugees like me. They called themselves refugees, and tried to say 'we are refugees' but there is an agreement between the government of Libya and Eritrea, and so they always bring back [Eritreans] who the government wants," he said. In its struggle from Sudan [150].
Temporary respite for some nationalities
Libyan immigration officials say that the government does not return holders of certain nationalities because the conditions in their countries do not allow them to return. Muhammad al-Ramali said, "The Somalis represent a problem, because the planes cannot land there. Even if the Somali embassy cooperates with us, which is rare, we cannot manage the plane; therefore I decided to release them from the camp."[151] He said that 120 Somalis had indicated their willingness to return home voluntarily by April 2005, but that there were no flights.
Ali Emdurdel told Human Rights Watch that the government does not deport people from "hot" areas such as Liberia or Somalia, although his researchers and Human Rights Watch interviewed some Liberians when they visited the al-Fallah detention center on April 25 and May 9, 2005[152]. in these two countries. Ali Imdward said that Libya had an informal agreement with Sudan, until April 2005, not to deport anyone, and he explained that by saying that if a person came from Darfur, no one would be able to return him to Khartoum, because the Sudanese government does not have the authority to return the individual to other regions in the country[153].
Amdour said that the Libyan government allows individuals who benefit from this temporary period to search for work with contracts, and they may apply for a residence permit if they find work. And if they fail to find work, the government may temporarily accept their presence illegally as long as they are registered and ready to return when conditions permit.Ali Amdward explained that the Libyan government cannot return some people because their countries are far away or because their numbers are so small that it is not justified to hire planes to return them. For this reason, it sometimes happens that some refugees or immigrants who are detained indefinitely in deportation camps claim that they belong to a country other than their own, such as Ghana or Nigeria, until they get out of detention. Amdward said that deportation to a third country, that is, the return of a person to a country other than his country of origin, Libya, does not happen except unintentionally as a result of ignorance in such cases as mentioned.
The Libyan authorities also told the European Commission delegation in November/December 2004 that the government was not returning people to conflict zones. However, the committee stated in its report that it “could not determine who decides to exclude a particular area from the areas to which people are returned, and how this decision will be implemented.”43 It does not have a comprehensive law that prevents, prohibits, or addresses racial discrimination.[160]
The vast majority of sub-Saharan migrants and refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported regular discrimination during their stay in Libya, discrimination usually based on ethnicity. In an interview with Human Rights Watch, a 29-year-old Eritrean asylum seeker named Youssef, who was residing in Libya between May and August 2004, said that some Libyan citizens stopped him in the street to take his money six times, and that they beat him when they found nothing with him. result Therefore, Youssef and other immigrants and refugees said that many foreigners in Libya rarely leave their homes, and if they do go out, they only go out to work or to buy food during daylight hours. [161]
Getachew, a 31-year-old Ethiopian, resided illegally in Libya for two years starting in July 2003 before moving to Italy, where he sought asylum. He was initially planning to stay in Libya indefinitely until he realized the difficulty of life for foreigners who did not carry the necessary documents. "I saw the situation there, and I saw how the society deals with foreigners, migrants and refugees. If you want to move to go to the shops, the Libyans ask you for money to buy cigarettes, and if you refuse, they assault you," he said. Getachew said Libyan men assaulted him three times on the outskirts of Tripoli: "Whenever we stood at the bus stop, they took our money, and at every bus checkpoint on the way back you have to pay 40 dinars (about 24 euros) to the police." Except They caught you.”[162]
Ephrem S., a 21-year-old Ethiopian who received refugee status in Italy, spent the period from 2000 to 2002 in Libya without having the necessary documents. "Libyan youths are sitting in the streets waiting for foreigners to be attacked," he said. He explained to Human Rights Watch that a group of Libyan men beat him in April 2002. "One day, five Libyan men asked me what my religion was, and I told them I was a Christian. They asked me for my name, then they grabbed me and hit me on the back. I don't know what prompted them to do that." yen, You cannot move freely in the streets, go to school, or buy anything in the shops.”[163]
Most migrants and refugees in Libya work in the informal sector, where they are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. A Liberian refugee named David, who used to work at a car washer in Tripoli, told Human Rights Watch that his employees sometimes did not pay him for his work, and that he had no way to complain. [164] A young Sudanese man also described how he helped a Libyan man sell vegetables in a Tripoli market, saying that he worked 12 hours a day, earning an average of two dinars per day (about $1.2). euro). And when the sale stalled, his wages were reduced to one dinar, and sometimes he would return home empty-handed. After a year and a half, his Libyan employer did not pay him wages for a whole month, and he had no way to claim his rights, so he left the job with him.[165]
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in its concluding observations of March 2004, expressed concern that “anti-black and racially motivated actions against foreign workers adversely affect their employment status and the terms and conditions of work that apply to them.” The Committee urged Libya to “ensure that foreign workers are not discriminated against in the field of employment on the basis of colour, ethnic or national origin.”[ 166]
The International Labor Organization has also raised other concerns. In its 2004 report, the organization indicated that “foreign workers represent a large segment of the labor force, but they are treated badly; they are not allowed to form or join trade unions, not even the so-called official labor organization, the General Federation of Producers/Workers, and foreign workers find no protection against the discrimination they are regularly exposed to.”[167]
Racially Motivated Violence
In late September 2000, Libya witnessed the largest rate of violence against foreigners in the town of Zawiya, about 40 kilometers west of Tripoli, where a group of ordinary Libyans clashed with a group of foreigners, resulting in the killing of about 50 foreigners, according to most media reports. As for the government, it announced that the number of the dead is seven. It was reported that most of these foreigners are from Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana and Chad, as well as a number of people from sub-Saharan African countries.[168]
Human Rights Watch was not able to fully investigate this incident, and many of its details, including the number of injured and dead, are not yet clear. A senior Libyan official at the time denied that a major clash had taken place, saying that "a quarrel broke out" between some Nigerians and Libyans after the Nigerians provoked a number of Libyan girls. The official said, "The police intervened immediately and took the necessary measures and arrested those involved in the incident."[169] In response to his inquiries from Human Rights Watch, the Libyan government said in April 2006 that Seven died in the accident, except for her It did not specify the number of foreigners and Libyans among them.[170]
Some Saudi and Sudanese newspapers indicated that the clashes that erupted on September 20, 2000 resulted in the death of about 50 people and the injury of dozens. Al-Hayat newspaper, owned by Saudis and published in London and a number of Arab capitals, said, "Most of the victims are Chadians, while a small number of Sudanese were also killed, perhaps up to five people." In Khartoum, the daily Akhbar Al-Youm wrote that "50 people were killed and dozens injured in clashes between the Libyans on the one hand, and the Chadian and Sudanese nationals on the other hand, in Zawiya."[171] The most sensational news reports came from Nigeria, where local media announced that about 500 Nigerians had sacked them, which led to a violent demonstration in Lagos in which one person was killed.[172]
A report on Sudanese television stated that the Sudanese president was asking Gaddafi to intervene. [173] Later that week, a group of young Libyans reportedly looted the Niger embassy building.[174]
To date, the government has not provided any details about the incident in Al-Zawiya, despite its claim that it has opened an investigation into it. On March 2004, her closing notes practiced the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination in the Association of Libya to "provide detailed information on the number of people who have passed away the results of the investigation conducted by the authorities, and the details of the lawsuit against any of the people with a crucifixion of these events, and any power that was published in this regard. [175] The incident, but the Libyan government for its informative, "Seven Libyan and foreigners".
Amnesty International stated that, in May 2001, a Libyan court issued death sentences to two Libyans, a Manganese citizen, and four Nigerians, accusing them of "plotting against Libyan politics and its pioneering role in Africa, undermining the Jamahiriya's goal of creating a unified African entity, and disturbing public security." The court also convicted the Nigerians and the Ghanaian of "intentionally killing Libyan citizens and stealing." It is not known whether the authorities have implemented these sentences in the hope.[176]
Human Rights Watch met with a man named David B., who said he witnessed some incidents of violence in what is known as the Nigerian camp in Zawiya. He mentioned that the clash began after the killing of one of the Libyans at the hands of a Nigerian, so a large group of Libyans threw Molotov cocktails at the camp and set it on fire, he said. He added that government drifts leveled the camp to the ground, which suggests that the government was involved in the matter.[177]
The following week, a house on the outskirts of Tripoli in which David B. was staying was looted by a number of Libyan youths. With eight other compatriots, the nine fled to their embassy for protection, David said. On the way, crowds of people smashed the windshields of the taxi David and his colleagues were traveling in with sticks. David added that the embassy was filled with women and children fleeing similar attacks.
Some African governments have organized the evacuation of their citizens. At least 230 Ghanaians returned home in early October, and Ghanaian officials told the press that at least 1,500 others were on eviction lists after the violence.[178] The Nigerian government has reportedly returned more than 4,000 Nigerians to their homes.[179]
While the events of September 2000 were the most violent in recent years, the vast majority of refugees and immigrants interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they witnessed or were subjected to physical harassment or violence during their stay in Libya, often without significant police intervention. Rather, the threat and violence sometimes comes from the police themselves.
In an interview with Human Rights Watch, Ahmed, a Sudanese man who was trying to obtain asylum in Italy, talked about the violence he suffered during his stay in Benghazi and Tripoli from 1993 to 2003 as an undocumented immigrant. on foot I cannot count the number of times I was beaten in the street by the Libyans.” He showed Human Rights Watch the scars on his body that he said resulted from this beating, and added, “If you wear Western clothes with English phrases printed on them, this is a reason that makes them beat you, and makes motorists try to run you over. Walking in the street always exposes you to insults, so you live in constant fear, Therefore, most of my concern was to return from work to my house safely, day by day [180]
Alex, an Ethiopian refugee who spent six months illegally in Tripoli in 2002, said that living in all neighborhoods of the capital is equally difficult for foreigners. "Young Libyans in cars are trying to run you over in the street or insult you loudly. I don't know Arabic, but I understand them when they say 'nigger'. Once I was attacked in the street in Abu Salem [a neighborhood of Tripoli] by some kids." Alex also mentions that he witnessed a more serious attack than that, as he said, "I saw a black man riding a bus to go home, and he quarreled with the driver. Then everyone got into a fight, and all the passengers hit him. Only an African diplomat who was passing by his car saved him, and he pulled him into it to save him from the public."[181]
Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees used to underestimate the idea of going to the police to report crimes due to the indifference or open hostility of the police. Among them is a 32-year-old Eritrean man who was trying to obtain asylum in Italy in May 2005, and he had spent five and a half months in Tripoli illegally during 2004, where he commented on this situation by saying: I would never go to the police [to report violence by Libyans] because they would arrest me, and they wouldn't believe me. Some would steal $1,000 from them and not go to the police."[182]
Ama David B., who previously recounted the events in Zawiya, told Human Rights Watch what happened when Libyan citizens beat him in August 2002 and he went to the police:
The three of us [nationality withheld] got on the crowded bus together, and the Libyans got angry and insulted us that we were “animals.” Some of them grabbed me from behind and beat me. Then some people grabbed sticks and threw stones at us. One of the policemen was close to us, so we went to him and he asked for my passport, then he hit me on the head from behind. He saw them beating us but he let them go on their own.
When we went to the police station, they said we must bring a medical report. So we went to Al-Zawiya Street Hospital, where they bandaged the forehead without charge, but when we went back to the police they said, "We can't do anything."[183]
Ethiopian asylum seeker Getachew said that young Libyan men looking for drugs and prostitutes used to come sometimes to the residence where he lived with others in Tripoli and to the homes of other immigrants. On one occasion, there was a quarrel in which one of the Libyans pulled out a knife and his friends locked four Ethiopian and Eritrean women in a room. Getachew said he and other immigrants called the police to save women who were not familiar with Sat. The police came and took the women out of the locked room, but they did not arrest the Libyans, who later returned to the house and threw stones at it.[184]
The previous example shows that non-Muslim women from sub-Saharan Africa seem to encounter special problems because some Libyans assume that they are immoral if they are not prostitutes. A 26-year-old Sudanese asylum seeker, Abdul-M., who had been working illegally in Benghazi and Tripoli for a year and a half, said that he had seen some black women go through a lot of hardships: “Black foreigners should stay at home in Libya because Libyan men and boys always try to touch them if they go out. I saw an old Sudanese woman who was pulled into a car by some Libyans. It can happen like this.” It's anytime the police see It happens, but she does not say anything because Libya is governed by the law of the tribe, not the law of fairness.”[185]
Amammariam, a 23-year-old Eritrean woman who was seeking asylum in Italy in May 2005, spent seven months working illegally in Tripoli in early 2004. “I saw a lot of bad things there: women who were raped, children throwing stones at adults and hurting them. I speak Arabic and wear Arab clothes, so I was fine,” she said. You speak Arabic and feel terrified just to go While living in Tripoli, Maryam worked illegally in a cafe run by Sudanese. "It was better than other jobs, better than working as a maid for a family. I knew many women who worked as maids for families and never got paid or had boiling water thrown in their faces."[186]
Foreigners in the criminal justice
The Libyan government says that foreigners in Libya are responsible for a number of crimes that are disproportionate to their number. In a statement to Human Rights Watch, the former Secretary of Public Security, Nasr al-Mabrouk, who left his post in March 2006, said that immigrants are responsible for 30 percent of crimes in Libya, and added, "We suffer a lot from this phenomenon." He also claimed that the rate was high for counterfeiting currency and other documents and for some drug crimes,[187] but he did not provide any official reports or statistics to support his claim.
The Attorney General in Libya, Muhammad al-Misrati, said that the police arrest many foreigners for committing various crimes, “Sometimes the police collect them as if they were in a fishing net, but the prosecution follows the law later.”[188] This metaphor suggests the extent of the abuse that many foreigners report during their arrest.
Within the Libyan criminal justice system, foreigners enjoy the same legal rights as Libyan citizens; They must be notified of the reason for their arrest, have access to a lawyer and a fair trial. Torture is prohibited (see Appendix 1).
Despite this, migrants and refugees arrested under criminal law have reported a number of abuses. In some cases, interrogators used torture to extract confessions, and in many cases, defendants were not provided with defense lawyers, or it was the first time the accused had met his lawyer during his trial. Some migrants and refugees said they often spent long periods in detention before being brought to court. During the trial, the translation was sometimes very poor, if it existed at all.
With the exception of the translation issue, the aforementioned violations are not limited to foreigners alone, as Libyan citizens are also subjected to them. However, migrants are particularly vulnerable to violations of the law, especially given the lack of tribal support and because they are often viewed as unwelcome outsiders.
Torture
Libyan law criminalizes torture, and the government has repeatedly claimed that it investigates and prosecutes cases of alleged torture. Nasr al-Mabrouk, the former secretary of the Internal Security Agency, told Human Rights Watch, "We will not allow any police officer to subject anyone to torture. When we learn of any offense committed by a police officer, we risk justice."[189]
Former Secretary-General of the General People's Committee, Shukri Ghanim, told Human Rights Watch that torture is completely contrary to state policy, and if it occurs, it is a result of the presence of some "patients" who must be held accountable. "The difference is whether torture is a premeditated policy, or whether it is an abuse of power," he added. He argued that the problem could be solved through training. [190]
Article 2 of the Great Green Document for Human Rights prohibits any punishment that “upholds human dignity and strikes his entity,” and prohibits “harming a prisoner materially or morally.” And Article 17 of Law No. 20 on the Promotion of Freedom stipulates that “it is forbidden to subject the accused to any kind of physical or psychological torture, or to treat him in a cruel, humiliating, or degrading manner.”
Article 435 of the Penal Code stipulates that "any public official who orders the torture of the accused or tortures them himself shall be punished with imprisonment from three to ten years." Article 341 of the Penal Code stipulates that whoever carries out the order of torture shall be punished with imprisonment for ten years. Article 337 of the Penal Code stipulates the imposition of a prison sentence on "every public official who uses violence against a person while exercising his job in a way that degrades their dignity or in a way that causes them physical pain."
The Libyan government says it has taken all possible steps to curb torture. In a statement issued on October 20, 2005, in response to his allegations by Human Rights Watch of torture, the government declared:
The Libyan people guarantee through all of their basic popular congresses and reaffirm in all their basic documents such as the Declaration of People's Authority, the Great Green Document for Human Rights, and the Law for the Promotion of Freedom the need to abolish humiliating punishments and limit all punishments that restrict freedom to a minimum. However, the competent authorities did not deny the discovery of violations by some individuals, and appropriate measures were taken to hold them accountable and refer them to trial. [191]
However, many migrants and refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch complained of being tortured after arrest, usually at the hands of the special police force known as the Mukafaha, which deals with drug cases. Human Rights Watch interviewed six non-Libyan nationals imprisoned for possession or sale of drugs or alcohol, who said they were tortured Usually at the hands of the police, to extract confessions from them.
In an interview with Human Rights Watch, a man from a sub-Saharan African country, who was imprisoned for drug possession, said that the anti-government forces in Tripoli beat him after arresting him in 2004. He said:
They hung me up with a chain attached to the wall, and there was a stick behind my knees, and they handcuffed it. They hung me on the wall, and I stayed in that position for 45 minutes, during which time they beat me. They said, "If we had killed you, no one would know."[192]
Another prisoner from a sub-Saharan country told a similar account, saying that the Libyan authorities held him at Zawiya police station without food or water for several days after his arrest in August 2003. He alleged that police officers tied his hands behind his back and used a piece of wood or an iron bar to hang him from the wall. It took two or three hours at a time, and sometimes they beat him too. Six days later, he signed a confession in Arabic, which he cannot read, he said. "I saw my lawyer for the first time in the pre-final session [of the trial]."[193]
Another citizen of sub-Saharan Africa, who was arrested for possession of drugs in May 2004, said that the police detained him at Al-Jariyya police station for three days without food or water. Then the interrogators hung him in the police station for four hours, and his hands were tied behind his back. He said:
They put an iron bar behind my back and hung me for about four hours, and they beat me with a cable on my legs... They hung me every day. And on the fourth day, which was a Friday, I had to write what I said.[194]
This man added that he did not know what came in these statements, as he told Human Rights Watch, "I was afraid because I am the head of a family and I do not want to die. And because I was afraid, I did everything they told me to do. I signed something in the mukafaha under duress, and I do not know what came of it."
Some migrants and refugees said they were abused in regular police stations. A man from sub-Saharan Africa, who was arrested in 2005 in Sirte, said he was taken to a police station in the city, and told Human Rights Watch, "They made me stand for two days. I had carbon papers, and they thought I was counterfeiting currency.. They beat me like a prisoner of war."[195]
Another citizen of a sub-Saharan African country, who was accused in 2004 of consuming alcohol and counterfeiting currency, was taken to a police station (his location was not specified), where he was allegedly beaten by the police, and added:
I was handcuffed, they put a piece of wood under my knees, and they flogged me with cables on the soles of my feet. They asked us who had the counterfeit money.. They beat us all, and kept beating us for a day. They told us to confess that the money is our money. I do not speak Arabic, and I signed statements that I do not understand.[196]
A man from sub-Saharan Africa, who was accused with a group of men of premeditated murder, recounted that interrogators subjected him to torture in Misrata. He told Human Rights Watch:
I haven't been able to sit for five months. I've been in a four-foot-by-four-foot room. I couldn't lie in it. They interrogated us, starting first with me, but they did not speak to me for ten days. Then they brought a rope and tied my hands to my legs and hung me up. They took me every day and beat me for five months... They beat me with a cable on the soles of my feet... I confessed under the pressure of being beaten. [197]
The man stated that the authorities detained him after beating him in a cell for solitary confinement for a period of 20 days, which is a period that exceeds the five days permitted by Libyan law. He said he was fed three times a day in his cell and was allowed to shower daily, although he was not allowed to exercise in the yard.
Human Rights Watch visited the main police station in Zawiya, one of six police stations in the city. There, the station's commander said that "people are free to complain [about torture]," but he did not provide Human Rights Watch with information on the number of complaints of abuse registered in Zawiya or the number of police officers against whom disciplinary action was taken for abuse of detainees, if any. these procedures.[198]
Unfair Trials
Migrants and refugees whom Human Rights Watch interviewed in Libyan prisons presented a consistent set of complaints about due process violations in their cases since their arrest. Common complaints were failure to be notified promptly of the reason for their arrest, lengthy pre-trial detention, restrictions on access to lawyers, poor interpretation during trial, and an inability to prepare an adequate defence.
A Nigerian man, Eniko, who had come to Libya to work as a welder and car mechanic, said that he was arrested in March 2004 in the Janzour neighborhood of Tripoli while he was returning home from an Internet cafe. The police took him to the police station in Janzour and then to the police. Then he waited 11 months before appearing for trial, which ended in his conviction. He said that he did not know the term of the sentence he was sentenced to, because the translator left the trial before telling him. He began serving the sentence in March 2004 and said he believed he would be released soon.[199]
Alkwame, a 44-year-old Ghanaian who has lived in the Philippines for ten years, said the police arrested him in July 2004 because he was making wine. [200] He said he first met his state lawyer on the day of his trial in February 2005, and that the two did not speak face-to-face. The trial lasted two minutes, and the translation was poor. He was unable to communicate fully with the court. Kwame said he wanted to file an appeal but did not know how to do so.[201]
A citizen of a sub-Saharan African country claimed that he confessed to a drug-related crime after being tortured by police officers in Zawiya. He said that his trial lasted four months, including delays, and included six sessions, but he was unable to seek the assistance of a court-appointed lawyer until the verdict hearing in January 2004. It was the first time he spoke to a lawyer. in the courtroom, where he said, We had asked for a government lawyer from the beginning, and they said you have drugs, so why don’t you have enough money to hire a lawyer at your own expense.”[202]
In a second prison, a young migrant from Nigeria named Ibrahim told Human Rights Watch that when he appeared in court in 2003 for possession of heroin, the judges did not ask him any questions and he did not say anything. Ibrahim added that they did not have a lawyer or translator with them, so he did not understand what happened in the session. In the end, he said, the judge sentenced him to three years in prison and a fine of 1,000 dinars.[203]
Libyan officials and lawyers agree that translation is a problem due to the lack of qualified translators, which leads to a delay in the defendant's appearance before the court. There is a bigger problem represented by the accumulation of cases in the criminal justice system, which forces many to remain in detention for up to a year before appearing in court.
In an interview with Human Rights Watch at the Benghazi Court of Appeal, one of the court's lawyers said that if the court finds no interpreter for a foreigner who speaks an unfamiliar language, it treats him “as if he is deaf,” although it is not clear what exactly that means. Such cases rarely happen, the lawyer said, "usually the defendants find friends to talk to, or their embassy sends them a translator. If the accused wants to change the translator assigned to translate for him, he must insist on that."[204]
Libyan Attorney General Mohamed al-Misrati told Human Rights Watch that nationals of other countries have the right to legal counsel, including the right to court-appointed lawyers if they cannot afford one at their own expense, and the right to request their release from detention on bail pending trial. From that.[205]
Conditions in prisons
There are currently 34 prisons in Libya called "correction and rehabilitation centres". In addition, the Internal Security Agency runs other detention centers for suspects and security prisoners, such as Abu Salem prison in Tripoli. The director of the National Prisons Service, Brigadier General Belqasem Magharjoum, stated that there were 12,860 Philippine prisoners in late April 2005,[206] of whom 40 percent were non-Libyans.[207]
A number of prisoners and lawyers said that prison conditions in Libya have improved in recent years. The government has renovated some centers, and since September 2004 it has begun to participate in a project with the International Center for Prison Studies, funded by the British government, aimed at "raising the level of human rights in Libyan prisons."[208]
Human Rights Watch visited five Philippine prisons. All of them were Libyans and foreigners, and one of them was women prisoners in al-Kuwaifiyah prison in Benghazi. Conditions were generally acceptable. In each prison, prisoners said that the area had recently been cleaned, and in some places the smell of fresh paint was still strongly felt. Prisoners in Jendouba prison said that a ping-pong table had been set up the day before its researchers arrived, Human Rights Watch.[209]
Although the conditions appear to be acceptable, a number of prisoners and pre-trial detainees have expressed a number of complaints, the most serious of which was the use of physical violence by guards as a form of punishment. that they beat A prisoner in another prison told Human Rights Watch, "If you get in trouble, the guards beat you. Personally, I've never been beaten, but I see it happen at least two or three times a week."[210] He added that beatings often happen after prisoners break the rules, and he said, "Prisoners use sharpened spoons as weapons and start fighting, so they are punished by putting them in solitary confinement and being exposed to be beaten.” [211]
One of the tasks of the Public Prosecutor's Office is to investigate reports of abuse by the judicial police in prisons. Human Rights Watch assessed the complaint boxes in every prison it visited. Brigadier General Jarjoum admitted that all the guards were "not angels," but said that they investigate all complaints of abuse, and punish or initiate legal action against those found to have used force excessively or without reason. He said, "We do not deny the existence of excessive use of force, but if that happened, the responsible officer is removed from his post."[212]
Brigadier General Jarjoum said that the main problem in prisons is overcrowding. The International Center for Prison Studies reported that the occupancy rate in Libyan prisons is 140 percent.[213]
Most citizens of sub-Saharan Africa said that there is no racism problem among the prisoners, a view that Brigadier General Gerjoum agrees with, saying, "There is no racism, they are all integrated together." In the Kweifiyah prison in Benghazi, a foreign Christian prisoner told Human Rights Watch that the authorities allow him to practice his religious rites freely.[214]
The articles of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which Libya has acceded as a state party, stipulate that embassies must be notified in the event of imprisonment or detention of any of their nationals if the detainee so requests. [215] However, Human Rights Watch discovered cases in which such notification did not appear to have taken place. For example, a foreign man in Kweifiyah prison said that his sisters and parents back home knew nothing of his whereabouts. He said that he and six others could not contact their embassy. [216] Another man who could not contact his embassy told Human Rights Watch:
I don't know when you got married. I learned of her death in May of last year. I had asked to see her and they said, "Unfortunately we have to tell you that she died." I have two twin children, their ages range between five and six...and I don't know where they are...I didn't call my embassy. I think they know we're there but they don't do anything. [217]
The Libyan government blames the embassies for neglecting to respond to the needs of their citizens. Human Rights Watch met in Tripoli with a diplomat from a sub-Saharan African country, who said that the Libyan police arrest so many of his countrymen, numbering in the hundreds, every week that the authorities do not inform the embassies regularly. Sometimes the authorities allow him to visit prisons, but they only allow him to visit convicted criminals, not those who are waiting to appear before the court.[218]
It is natural that refugees who end up in prison are reluctant to contact their embassies if they fear persecution by the government in their home countries. Without UNHCR's access to prisons, they would have no alternative authority to contact for help.[219]
Brigadier General Jerjoum told the UNHCR that the Libyan government deported 1,800 foreigners, Africans and non-Africans, to their home countries in 2004. He said that among them were a number of convicted criminals who were deported according to the sentences issued against them.
The execution of foreigners
For a long time, the Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi and the Libyan government have been talking about abolishing the death penalty. Article 8 of the Great Green Charter for Human Rights, which entered into force in 1988, states that "the aim of the Jamahiriyan society is the abolition of the death penalty."
Ali Omar Abu Bakr, Secretary of Justice until March 2006, said that legal experts were working on preparing a new penal code that would reduce the number of crimes for which the death penalty is applied as a penalty "to the maximum extent possible," so that execution would remain only in cases of "terrorism" and "the most serious crimes."[220] Abu Bakr said that the new law would be submitted to the General People's Congress for review by the end. 2005, however, the penal code had not yet been introduced by May 2006. Abu Bakr said that until the new penal code took effect, the government had in effect halted executions.[221]
Despite this claim, the Libyan government is still carrying out the death penalty for some prisoners. Human Rights Watch spoke to two Libyan sources familiar with these cases, who did not want to disclose their identities. They said that the authorities executed two Nigerians convicted of premeditated murder in April 2005.[222]
In mid-July, the Libyan authorities executed four Egyptian citizens, Marafeh Ali Abdel-Latif, Majed Al-Saeed Muhammad, Barakat Abdel-Zaher, and Bassiouni Ahmed Al-Tayeb. The four were among 15 Egyptians sentenced to death for premeditated murder in 2004.
Human Rights Watch has no information about the executed men, or the other prisoners in this case. [223] Also in July, the Libyan authorities executed two Turkish citizens, according to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which announced on July 14 that Anselim Aslan and Yunus Ozkan had been executed for the 1995 murder conviction.[22] 4]
Human Rights Watch inquired with the Libyan government about the number of executions carried out by the authorities in 2005, and how many of them were foreigners, but as of May 1, 2006 the government had not yet responded.
Libyan Law
In the post-monarchy era, Libya adopted a Constitutional Declaration on December 11, 1969 that was intended to serve as a transitional measure until a permanent constitution was adopted for the country.[225] However, at the time of writing this report, Libya was still a unified country, governed by the Constitutional Declaration along with a series of basic laws considered to have constitutional weight. These legislations, taken together, guarantee many basic human rights, especially with regard to freedom of expression and association, although there are some notable exceptions.[226]
The Constitutional Declaration provides for the right to work (Article 4), the inviolability of homes (Article 12), the right to education (Article 14), and the right to health care (Article 15). As for the judiciary, Article 27 states that the aim of judicial rulings is “to protect the principles of society and the rights, dignity and freedom of individuals.” Article 28 guarantees the independence of judges, while Article 31 stipulates that any person is considered innocent until proven guilty, and that the opportunity to prepare a just defence, as well as the prohibition of “harming the accused or imprisoned physically or psychologically.”
Concerning the rights of refugees, Article 11 of the Constitutional Declaration states that “the extradition of political refugees is prohibited.”
As for the other laws that have constitutional authority, they are: [227]
The Declaration of the Establishment of the Authority of the People, adopted on March 2, 1977.
The Great Green Document for Human Rights in the Age of the Masses, adopted in June 1988.
Law No. 20 on the Promotion of Freedom, adopted in 1991.
A number of Libyan lawyers and law professors believe that judicial procedures must respect these laws, and that citizens have the right to appeal if the government violates the rights guaranteed under them.[228]
The Declaration of the Establishment of People's Power provides for the establishment of the system of popular congresses that form the basis of "direct democracy" in Libya, but it does not directly address human rights. The Great Green Document is more closely related to human rights, as it sets out the guidelines for reviewing laws, according to the Libyan government. Law No. 5 of 1991 regarding the application of the principles of the Great Green Document for human rights in the age of the masses stipulates that all laws in force before the announcement of the Great Green Document must be amended in accordance with the principles stipulated in the document, and that all new laws must also be in accordance with the document.[229] 91.”[230] Moreover, “any individual can challenge the legality of any legislative measure that does not comply with the principles enshrined in the document,”42 and No. 2 is now in effect.[236]
Law No. 6 does not stipulate the conditions that must be met to obtain a residence visa, but Libyan immigration officials told Human Rights Watch that its executive regulations require foreigners to do the following to work legally in Libya:
1. Evidence that the work proposed to be performed by a foreigner cannot be performed by a non-citizen;
2. Conclusion of a contract with the employer;
3. Register with the tax authorities;
4. Submitting a health certificate proving that the foreigner is free from any communicable diseases, including the acquired immunodeficiency virus (AIDS).
Work permits are issued for a renewable one-year period. [237]
The new law states that any foreigner who does not meet these conditions (and is not exempted from it under an international agreement) must register and then obtain a permit (red card) that authorizes him to reside for a short period of three months, during which he must find work and fulfill the conditions necessary to obtain a residence permit (green card). In theory, this system provides protection for red or green card holders from arrest or deportation But he does not carry these documents at great risk.
But even regardless of the implementing regulations for Law No. 2, UNHCR in Tripoli reported in June 2005 that the government was implementing the new law because it had issued red cards to all refugees with letters of confirmation of refugee status from UNHCR. It is not yet clear whether the government will expel refugee holders of these letters who do not meet the requirements to obtain a green card.
Article 16 of Law No. 6 details the grounds that allow the Director General of Passports and Nationality to cancel a residence visa for any person:[238]
1. If their presence threatens the security or safety of the state internally or externally, its economy, public health, public morals, or if it is a burden on the state;
2. If he has been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor prejudicial to honour, trust or public security;
3. If he violates the conditions that were imposed on him when he was granted the visa;
4. If the reason for which the visa was granted ceases to exist.
Article 17 of the law lists the circumstances in which the Director General of Passports and Nationality may deport a foreign person from Libya, namely:
1. If he entered the country without a valid visa;
2. If he refuses to leave the country despite the expiration of the period of residence for which he is authorized and the competent authority does not agree to renew it;
3. If the residence visa granted to him is canceled for one of the reasons specified in Article Sixteen of this law;
4. If a judicial ruling of deportation was issued against him.
Libya informed the United Nations Human Rights Committee that the guarantees contained in Article 13 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights related to challenging the deportation decision apply to any type of deportation permitted by Libyan law.[239] It applied to foreigners who enter Libyan territory without permission. [240] Libya also indicated that appeals may be made. On the legality and content of deportation orders “unless there are strong reasons related to national security that require otherwise,”[241] and that the reasons for making a decision based on the discretion of the decision-making authority regarding the legal status of foreigners “are behind reasons that pertain to the state…the states themselves behind a solid wall of justifications that are difficult to ascertain and penetrate existing relations between states.”[242]
A number of senior justice officials said that decisions to deport or deport non-citizens "frequently" are not challenged (appeal cases are filed against them) in the Libyan courts, and that the Supreme Court has dealt with such a case for review. Human Rights Watch has twice requested copies of judicial rulings related to such cases, but has not yet received any of these copies.[243]
Article 18 of Law No. 6 is of particular importance, as it outlines the procedures for deporting a foreigner, including the administrative authority to detain him:
The Director General of Passports and Nationality may force a foreigner who decides to be deported to reside in a specific place, or assign him to visit the nearest security agency [a police station, for example] on the dates he determines, until he is deported, and he may also detain him until the deportation procedures are completed. A foreigner who has been deported from Libyan territory is not allowed to return to it except with a reasoned decision from the Director General of Passports and Nationality.
The powers of administrative detention relating to foreigners in Philippine are linked to the "completion of deportation procedures". Therefore, the authorities should release those whom it is impossible for Libya to deport under Law No. 6. However, it is not clear, in light of Libya's comments to the Human Rights Committee referred to earlier, whether the term "deportation" refers only to those who have legal status (entry visa or residency visa), or to the deportation of any migrant who does not have permission from the Libyan authorities. No other provision in Law No. 6 appears to cover the detention or deportation of migrants who do not have permission to enter Libya.
Article 18 provides for a less restrictive alternative to detaining people as part of the deportation process, such as imposing certain restrictions on their place of residence or imposing certain conditions regarding their appearance before the authorities.
Article 19 (amended by Law No. 2, which raises the fine by one-tenth) stipulates the following:
Without prejudice to any severer penalty stipulated by any other law, he shall be punished with imprisonment and a fine not exceeding two thousand dinars[244], or with one of these two penalties:
Whoever makes false statements before the competent authorities or submits incorrect data or papers to them knowing that he does not make it easy for himself or others to enter the country, reside in it, or leave it in violation of the provisions of this law;
Everyone who entered, stayed in, or left the country without a valid visa issued by the competent authorities in accordance with the provisions of this law;
Whoever violates the conditions imposed for granting, extending or renewing a visa;
Everyone who stayed in the country after being informed of his departure by the competent authorities in accordance with the provisions of this law;
Anyone who employs a foreigner without observing the provisions of Article 9 of this law.
There are some other texts in Law No. 6 related to the situations that this report deals with. [245]
Attached to Law No. 6 is an "executive regulation", which includes, among other things, a description of the deportation procedures and how to implement them. Human Rights Watch requested a copy of this executive regulation, but the Libyan government had not responded to its request by May 1, 2006.
Libyan authorities are reported to be trying to inform both foreigners and Libyan employers of Law No. 6 and related amendments to Law No. 2, which indicates that the government intends to implement the law strictly. On May 10, 2005, the General People's Committee for Public Security announced that foreigners residing in Libya must "have the necessary visa or they will be sent back to their country." The committee said in its statement that there are three documents required for work Philipia, which is "a valid visa, a valid passport, and an approved health certificate." It also explained that the authorities would take "the necessary measures against anyone, even foreigners or people smugglers who break the law, including a prison sentence of more than one year and a fine of more than 2,000 Libyan dinars [1,250 euros]."[246]
Other local legislation
Other laws relating to foreigners in Philippine include:
Law No. 4 of 1985. This law relates to travel documents, but it does not address or refer to the implementation of Article 6 of the African Refugee Convention, which is the article that obliges Libya to issue travel documents to refugees on its territory. With regard to refugees, Law No. 4 in its seventh article refers to the issuance of travel documents to Palestinians only.
General People's Congress Resolution No. 247 of 1989 regarding the executive regulations of Law No. 6 of 1987, which regulates the entry and residence of foreigners. This decision defines the border crossings through which foreigners can enter Libya, along with entry conditions and required fees. It also defines the categories of foreigners who are not allowed to enter or leave Libya. [247] Human Rights Watch asked the Libyan government to inform it of the categories of foreigners who are not allowed to enter or leave Libya, but it did not receive a response from the Libyan government as of May 1, 2006.
Law No. 10 of 1989 Concerning the Rights and Duties of Arab Citizens in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. This law grants all citizens of Arab countries the right to enter and reside in Libya, in addition to all the rights and duties that Libyan citizens enjoy.[248]
General People's Congress Resolution No. 260 of 1989 regarding employment conditions. This decision gives priority to Libyans and Arabs in the field of employment. For the employment of foreigners, the approval of the Central Employment Office is required. [249]
General People's Congress Resolution No. 238 of 1989 regarding foreign workers. This decision prohibits the employment of any foreigner without the prior approval of the Central Employment Office. It also stipulates the procedures and conditions for the employment of foreigners.[250]
Libya and international law
The Libyan government has repeatedly claimed that international treaties that it ratified and published have a direct impact on the texts of local laws, and that they have priority over the texts of these laws (with the exception of Libyan laws derived from Islamic law).[251] Oblige, take Legal priority over the provisions of domestic legislation.”[252] In the event of a conflict between the provisions of any international treaty to which Libya is a party and the domestic legislation, “the provisions of the international treaty supersede the provisions of the domestic legislation.”[253]
However, Human Rights Watch did not find, at the level of implementation, evidence that international treaties take precedence over Libyan law. A number of Libyan lawyers, judges, and prosecutors told Human Rights Watch that they had never invoked international law before the courts, and some of them claimed that the reference to international law was unnecessary, because all international obligations are reflected in domestic Libyan laws.
Some Libyan laws are currently being reviewed by legal experts. The secretary of the People's Committee for Justice told Human Rights Watch in April 2005 that "there are ambitious plans to reform legislation to bring it in line with international human rights standards."[254] However, as of May 2006, no significant changes had been introduced yet.
Libya's Obligations towards Refugees and Migrants under Human Rights Standards
Article 13 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights[255], detailed in General Comment No. 15 of the UN Human Rights Committee[256], prohibits arbitrary expulsion and gives each foreigner the right to obtain an individual decision regarding his deportation or expulsion. The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (hereinafter referred to as the “Migrant Workers Convention”), which Libya ratified in 2004, also prohibits collective deportation and stipulates that any case of expulsion of a foreigner or a member of his or her family must be examined and adjudicated individually (Article 22). [257] These rights apply regardless of whether the migrant worker is classified as “documented.” or “without documents.”[258]
At the regional level, Libya was one of the countries that adopted the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Banjul Charter)[259] in 1981, thus reaffirming a large number of basic human rights contained therein, among them the right to “[seek] and [obtain] refuge in any foreign country,” and the right not to be expelled from any country. Except by a decision in conformity with the law,” and the prohibition of collective expulsion of non-citizens “that targets racial, ethnic and religious groups.”
Libya has not acceded to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (hereinafter referred to as the Refugee Convention), nor to its 1967 Protocol. However, Libya is a party to the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention that regulates certain aspects of refugee problems in Africa (the African Refugee Convention), which expands on the concept of refugee contained in the 195 Refugee Convention. 1. [260] Greater obligations were placed on Libya under this agreement. Hence, the government should apply its provisions to all refugees on its territory, regardless of their nationalities.
If the African Refugee Convention retains the definition of a refugee contained in the Refugee Convention and its Protocol - who has a "justified fear of persecution" - then it expands the definition of a refugee by including those fleeing from "external aggression, occupation, foreign domination, or events that seriously disturb public security in a part of the country or in all of its territories...". Article 1 (6) states, including He does not support wearing, on the responsibility of the contracting countries on "determining what is if the asylum of a refugee is already" (although the responsibility for this responsibility is often used by using the UNHCR). As is the case in the Refugee Agreement for the year 1951, one of the important points in the interpretation is that the person becomes a refugee in a spontaneous manner if it applies to this definition. This fact requires the fact that it is recognized by the host state. Hence, being a refugee and having the rights of a refugee is not a “grant,” and the state must fulfill its obligations towards refugees, whether its domestic law calls them “refugees” or otherwise.
One of the most prominent developments introduced by the African Refugee Convention to the Refugee Convention and its Protocol is that it upholds the right to asylum (Article 2). [261] However, on the other hand, it is relatively silent about the rights of migrants once they are on the territory of the contracting state, as it includes only 15 articles (compared to 46 articles in the Refugee Convention dealing with the status of refugees in more detail), and then turns a blind eye to some economic and social rights and extension. Intent and basic political. And if the "African Convention For refugees it provides for non-discrimination (Article 4) and for ensuring the issuance of travel documents (Article 6), the absence of other obligations related to the content of refugee status in this territorial instrument makes it important that Libya accede to the international agreement as well.
Paragraph 9 of the Preamble to the African Refugee Convention recognizes the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol as the “fundamental universal instrument relating to the status of refugees.” Article 8 of the African Refugee Convention states that contracting states must cooperate with UNHCR, and describes the agreement as an “effective regional supplement” to the 1951 Refugee Convention. These references support the view that contracting states under the African Refugee Convention should also accede to the International Refugee Convention and, at the very least, cooperate constructively with UNHCR.[2] 62] On the other hand, the African Refugee Convention does not include any articles that give the Commissioner for Refugees an oversight role with regard to the implementation of the Convention, in contrast to Article 35 of the Refugee Convention. Assigning this role, to some extent, to the Secretariat of the Organization of African Unity (currently the African Union), which is supposed to receive information and statistical data on the conditions of refugees in each of the contracting states.
Article 2(3) includes the most important obligation of Libyan law and its application within the framework of the African Refugee Convention, which is the obligation of non-refoulement, as it absolutely prohibits “refoulement, return or expulsion [of a refugee] at the border, in such a way that he is compelled to return or remain in a land where his life, physical integrity or freedom is endangered for the reasons set forth in [the definition paragraph].”
Libya also ratified, in May 1989, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (hereinafter referred to as the Convention against Torture).[263] Article 3 of the Convention against Torture absolutely prohibits refoulement because it involves a risk of torture, and there is no justification for the exclusion from this form of protection.
Libya is also a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child,[264] which includes specific provisions relating to refugee children in Article 22. [265] Both the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Committee on the Rights of the Child have recently called on Libya to ratify the Refugee Convention and expand its cooperation with UNHCR.[266]
In 2004, Libya ratified the International Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its two protocols related to smuggling of migrants and trafficking in persons. Accordingly, Libya is considering a new law, not yet signed, that would impose harsher penalties on people smugglers.[267]
Equal Application of Human Rights Obligations to Non-Citizens
Libya has a set of human rights obligations that apply equally to both citizens and non-citizens.[268]
There is the Convention Against Torture, which applies in its entirety to non-citizens just as it applies to citizens within the jurisdiction of States parties, as does Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment), and Article 10 thereof (humane treatment and respect for human dignity). Another obligation applies equally. It prohibits arbitrary detention under Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil Rights [269] The Migrant Workers Convention obliges states parties to respect a range of human rights for migrants and their families on a non-discriminatory basis, including the right not to be arbitrarily detained. It also provides for the protection of legally detained immigrants from torture or ill-treatment.
The legal jurisprudence around the world, along with the resolutions of successive sessions of the United Nations Committee on Human Rights, makes it clear that the prohibition of arbitrary detention applies to cases related to immigration. [270] As previously indicated, Libyan law does not see the purpose of detaining a migrant who enters Libya illegally other than to deport him from the country; Therefore, all forms of immigration detention must be necessary and proportionate to this end.
Also, Libya is the parties to the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, [271] that it states that it is necessary to do the states of the parties and provide effective guarantees to protect from the discrimination of the compensation in all its competences, including other citizens. Charity to comprehend the discrimination, prohibition, or compensation for it. [272 ]
This chapter focuses on the European dimension, and in particular the Italian dimension, of immigration and asylum in Libya. He considers the method adopted by the European Union in linking up with Libya as its partner in the program that it set for what is called “expulsion.” It means that the European Union seeks to prevent many asylum seekers from reaching European lands, or to return those who succeed in doing so upon their arrival. It also examines how Italy is ahead of the European Union in its bilateral cooperation with Libya, working to strengthen Libya's capabilities to intercept people trying to reach the Italian coast.
The government implements a policy of mandatory detention for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers, and carries out mass expulsions that send people back to Libya, violating Italy's obligations in the areas of human rights and asylum. Violations committed in the Italian prison on the island of Lampedusa include poor conditions for detainees and a series of mass expulsions to Libya without considering asylum applications.
The European Union’s “expulsion” program
Since the mid-1980s, some policy makers in Europe began to follow the idea of “expelling” hosting asylum seekers who arrive or are already in the European Union[273]. The idea of expulsion takes three basic forms that overlap with each other:
1. The concept of a safe third country: It refers to the return of asylum seekers to supposedly safe non-EU countries, which they pass through while coming to Europe, increasingly without regard to whether or not they enjoy effective protection there. Those who are returned to supposedly safe countries often face further deportation to countries with less capacity to fairly adjudicate their claims or to meet their basic needs. A number of EU member states have applied the concept of a safe third country at times, based on a network of bilateral and multilateral agreements for the readmission of persons, most of which contain few guarantees for asylum seekers[274].
2 “Capacity building”: It is closely related to the concept of a safe third country, and it means benefiting from development aid to create adequate conditions for protection in a third country, allowing the member states of the European Union to conclude agreements with its government on the re-entry of people. Thus, asylum seekers are returned to countries that can meet their minimum needs. They feel the need to take the dangerous routes of smugglers, and it is available to them to a degree The greatest opportunity to enjoy protection in the region. However, most of the capacity-building assistance provided by EU countries to countries hosting refugees and countries through which they are transiting has been directed at strengthening border controls and imposing immigration controls[275].
3 “Transferring operations abroad”: This form requires that all or most asylum seekers who arrive or apply in EU countries are sent to a country outside the EU so that their applications can be considered by EU-appointed officials, i.e. asylum seekers are sent to “transit” examination centers in countries outside the EU, regardless of whether they have passed through these countries or not. Thus, the member states of the European Union do not bear legal obligations towards the protection of refugees, but rather they have the right to choose the refugees they will accept and determine their number. How long they may have to spend waiting to receive an offer of resettlement or how they are treated if they are found to be refugees and no offers of resettlement are made, or what happens to asylum seekers who do not pass.
In March 2003, the United Kingdom proposed the establishment of “transit examination centers” in various countries surrounding the European Union so that the European Union countries could return asylum seekers to them to decide on their claims outside the territories of these countries [276]. Denmark and the Netherlands welcomed the proposal, although other countries such as France, Germany and Sweden were less supportive of it. The proposal accepted the reduction of procedural safeguards (limited appeal rights, no access to lawyers, etc.) “If they are going to be subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment.
In the summer of 2004, the German and Italian interior ministers proposed that the European Union establish centers to examine cases of refugees in North Africa. United Kingdom On 9 September 2005, German Foreign Minister Otto Schily returned to presenting The idea of examining asylum seekers in centers to be established in North Africa The ministers expressed their support for a plan presented by the European Commission that includes four main points: accelerating the expulsion of illegal immigrants, increasing the legal integration of immigrants into society, strengthening the capacities of non-EU countries in the field of asylum, and helping developing countries to control the flows of immigrants from them [278].
Transit countries such as Libya have rejected the idea of receiving asylum seekers to Europe without a large sum of money. This resistance, and the accompanying legal and moral objections from refugee advocates, the media, and other EU governments, has led to the idea being rejected outright.
Libya's mandated role as a partner of the European Union in "external" dealings with refugees
The European Union is currently relying on the first and second forms of the "expulsion" model, i.e. focusing on intercepting migrants before they reach the European Union and returning them immediately if they arrive[279]. The European Union has been and is still developing its participation in the Libyan government in this regard.
This cooperation takes place during the steady détente in relations between Libya and the European Union in the past few years. In April 1999, the Third Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the European Union and the Mediterranean countries decided that Libya could be accepted as a partner in the so-called “Barcelona Process”[280] of the European Union, provided that Libya accepted the Barcelona Agreement in its entirety[281]. On October 11, 2004, the European Union lifted economic sanctions on Libya, including the arms embargo, that had been in place since 1992[2 82].
On the same day, the Council of the European Union agreed to initiate a policy of engagement with Libya in immigration matters, and decided to send a technical mission to Libya "to examine the arrangements for combating illegal immigration."[283] Following that, the European Union sent a mission to Libya in the period from November to December 2004 "to examine the arrangements for combating illegal immigration," and this report cites various parts Here are the results of this mission.
Also in November 2004, the European Council adopted the Hague Programme, which calls for a comprehensive approach to asylum and migration, including a request to instruct the European Commission to study "the advantages, appropriateness, and feasibility of joint examination of asylum applications outside the territory of the European Union." Mediterranean basin" [284].
However, what the European Union says about the importance of observing human rights standards as a condition for cooperation in immigration matters is not supported by the cooperation that is taking place in reality. In a meeting held by the Council of Ministers of Justice and Interior of the European Union on June 2-3, 2005, the conferees agreed on the conclusion of the European Council regarding cooperation with Libya in immigration issues, saying that any Libyan cooperation in immigration matters will remain "limited in scope, and take place on technical grounds." , and for specific cases As long as Libya did not fully join the Barcelona process. They indicated at the same time their readiness to move forward in taking a series of ad hoc measures, even if Libya is far from cooperation, whether it is Libya signing and implementing the Refugee Convention, or its cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or its implementation of the Migrant Workers Convention. No clearly agreed role for the High Commissioner, the interest of the European Union countries in providing training in asylum issues and “best practices” in The expulsion of illegal immigrants to Libya, an interest that does not inspire confidence. Italy itself continues to unjustly expel people and send them to Libya, denying the right of some of those who arrived in the Lampedusa detention center to apply for asylum, despite the condemnation of the High Commissioner for this, as well as the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights (see the “Italian dimension” below).
The EU member states that receive the most transit migrants and asylum seekers from Libya, led by Italy, are unwilling to call for guarantees for refugee protection or for the detention and expulsion of migrants from Libya. These guarantees impede the prompt expulsion of persons whom it has forcibly returned to Libya, or whose way Libya has intercepted with the encouragement and assistance of these countries.
But there are some signs of hope. In addition to the European Union seeking to strengthen Libyan border controls and oversight, it is talking about increasing protection for refugees in Libya. For example, the European Union's technical mission to Libya in November/December 2004 was frank in acknowledging the problems that existed, among them Libya's failure to decide each person's case individually before deporting illegal immigrants. that "full recognition by Libya of the status of the High Commissioner for Refugees would represent a first step in this regard."[292] Part of this result was reflected in the conclusion reached by the Council of Ministers of Justice and Interior in June 2005, which called on the Libyan authorities to "show sincere commitment to their obligations under the Organization of African Unity agreement to which specific aspects of refugee problems in Africa are subject, And Haiti acknowledges that the agreement Geneva for Refugees represents the basic and universal document relating to the status of refugees, and requires effective cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and respect for the principle of 'non-refoulement' [293].
Transforming Libya into a safe country for first asylum is considered a praiseworthy goal in terms of enhancing refugee protection, not as a nominal goal aimed at by the European Union countries for its own interest, i.e. making Libya a more suitable destination for the re-entry of people. Between continents they are rare necessary for protection reasons alone” even before the completion of the aforementioned improvements [294].
As previously discussed in this report, a number of Libya's obligations under the treaties mean that it must cooperate with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. On August 9, 2005, Libya signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Organization for Migration stipulating that this organization should have a presence in Libya, and then the organization opened an office for it in Tripoli in April 2006[295]. The organization said that the agreement includes provisions Concerning the rights of migrants and international immigration law, and technical aid and capacity-building for migration management.”[296]. They became immigrants in the neighboring countries of Libya.
In May 1997, the International Organization for Migration signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in which it agreed not to take measures that contradict the humanitarian concerns of the Commission.”[298] Hence, the duty of the aforementioned organization is to identify asylum seekers and refer them to the Commission.
The aforementioned organization proposed a set of activities in Libya, referred to by the acronym “TRIM” (which means “Transit and Irregular Migration Management”) and to implement projects to improve conditions in reception centers for irregular migrants, and to provide the organization with assistance in returning migrants to their countries of origin through a program called Assisted Voluntary Return and Re-entry Program. The International Organization for Migration allocated $3.59 million in its 2005 budget request for 'TRIM' projects in Libya[299]. The organization is currently participating in training in the police academy on border control and forged documents, and "provided assistance in the voluntary return of irregular migrants who cross Libya on their way to southern Europe"[300].
Although the European Union and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are committed, in word or in deed, to strengthening the role of UNHCR in Libya, both seem to have begun to implement projects that run contrary to this commitment. This is partly because many of the EU Member States hardest hit by the arrival of migrants in transit and asylum-seekers via Libya are not eager to impede the expulsion of people unjustly returned by Italy, i.e. impeding their sending to their countries of origin. This includes the unwillingness of UNHCR to examine the cases of those excluded to determine whether the Italian government has denied anyone in Lampedusa their right to apply for asylum.
Libya's reservations about cooperating with the European Union
The Libyan government believes that the resources that the European Union wants Libya to allocate to control migration are unreasonably large, as the contributions made by Italy so far do not represent only a small percentage of the total costs. They consider this amount ridiculously small , if we compare the colossal dimensions of the problem. Ali Amdour ridiculed this, saying, “One or two million euros is hardly enough to dig one well or build one shelter” [301].
The Libyan government may be trying to persuade the EU to pay more money, so that it can focus on addressing the root causes of forced displacement and migration for economic reasons. "We want to cooperate with the EU to help in development in the countries of origin," said Hadi Khamis, head of the Libyan deportation camps.[302]
Consistent with this opinion, the General People's Congress demanded in 2004 the convening of a summit meeting between the African Union and the European Union, hosted by Libya, to discuss ways to provide a "stable and decent life" for people in their countries (although the proposed summit has not yet been held). The Libyan government claims that it will spend between three and four billion US dollars on development in African countries that are a source of refugees and migrants[303]. The government also provides humanitarian aid; In October 2004 it sent eight trucks of aid to refugee camps in eastern Chad. Other food delivery programs exist in Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Sudan[304].
With regard to examining cases of asylum seekers "outside the territory" of the European Union, Shukri Ghanem answered frankly when Human Rights Watch asked him if Libya would ever accept the establishment of similar screening camps mentioned in its territory, saying: "Why do we accept? We do not want to be a wastebasket of Europe"[305].
The Italian Dimension
The bilateral cooperation between Libya and Italy in the areas of immigration and asylum is considered more advanced than the cooperation arrangements that have resulted from the negotiations so far between Libya and the European Union. Access to the Italian coasts, and then expelled to Libya .
Italy's cooperation with Libya stems from the general view of the public and some government officials, which says that asylum seekers are "storming" the coasts of Italy, to a large extent just as people feared an "invasion" from eastern Europe after 1989, and says that the apparatus for dealing with refugees and immigrants is overburdened. Italy was ranked eighth among the twenty-five European Union countries in terms of the number of asylum applications it received (9,500) and the eighteenth in terms of the ratio of this number per thousand of the population (0.2)[306].
In addition, a relatively small percentage of undocumented foreigners entered Italy illegally by sea. According to an Italian government report, most undocumented foreigners in Italy entered the country legally through a land port at the border, and became undocumented when their visas expired or when they overstayed their residence permits. Only 10 percent of the undocumented workers entered the country illegally by sea[307].
One of the main reasons for Italy's tough position is the Dublin Agreement, which since 1998 has led other European Union countries to return to Italy asylum seekers who came to it through Italy[308].
On December 13, 2000, Libya and Italy reached a general agreement on combating terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, and illegal immigration[309]. In February 2003, Italy established a permanent liaison center in Libya on organized crime and irregular immigration. To an agreement with Libya on the practical initiatives necessary to control the borders on land, for counteraction at sea, and for carrying out a joint activity to investigate criminal organizations involved in trafficking in illegal immigrants"[310].
In 2003 the Italian government spent more than 5.5 million euros on cooperation with Libya in immigration matters[311]. Italy then provided training and equipment to stop illegal immigration, and funded the establishment of a reception center for immigrants without documents in Libya[312]. European Although we do not know clearly which criteria you mean. Italy intends to finance two other camps in the south, in Kufra and Visba [313].
In August 2004, the Italian Prime Minister at the time, Silvio Berlusconi, visited Tripoli and held a five-hour meeting with Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, which received great publicity[314]. Neither side confirmed the issue of immigration as the subject of the meeting, but Italy agreed to provide training, technology and equipment to help Libya suppress irregular migration (and the Italian Ibizaiano had visited Libya the previous month ). Again, the deal preceded any agreement with the European Union that would set preconditions to ensure the correct treatment of those in need of international protection.
The details of the bilateral agreement concluded in August 2004 are still unknown. Italy refused to make it public despite public requests from the European Parliament, the UN Human Rights Committee, and NGOs, including Human Rights Watch. According to the European Parliament, the secret agreement "is believed to entrust the Libyan authorities with the task of overseeing migration, and obliging them to re-enter the people returned by Italy."[315]
Two months after the agreement, the European Union agreed to lift the arms embargo on Libya, which lasted for eighteen years, due to Libya's readiness to abandon its weapons of mass destruction program. Italy has worked particularly hard to persuade the European Union to lift the ban so that Libya can import the necessary equipment to tighten control over its borders and limit the flow of migration[316].
Since 2003, Italy has been financing private flights to return immigrants without documents from Libya to their countries of origin. Bangladesh, Sudan, Syria, Ghana, Mali, Egypt, Niger, and Nigeria. The report did not refer to a specific amount of money, but said that the Italian program for private flights to Libya “includes a significant economic contribution” [317].
On February 6, 2005, the Italian Minister of the Interior announced a "verbal agreement" with Libya to control "clandestine immigration."[318] The media reported, which cited unnamed sources in the Libyan embassy in Rome, that the Italian Minister of the Interior would provide 15 million euros, over three years, to the local Libyan police forces to purchase the necessary equipment to combat illegal immigration. Legal [319 A press release issued on January 17, 2006 by the Italian Ministry of the Interior announced the meeting between Gaddafi and Minister Pizano that the two governments were discussing "plans of a more practical nature" to cooperate in stopping irregular migration to Italy. It was also mentioned that the Italian cooperation was able, in a period of little more than one year, to prevent 40,000 people without documents from leaving Libya [320].
Detention in Italy
Until 1998, the Italian authorities ordered unauthorized persons to remain in the country to leave within fifteen days, but since that date the government began to implement a policy of compulsory detention for anyone trying to enter Italian territory or actually entered it without a permit. Its goal is sixty days, and we will reach them To the country, he is deposited upon his entry into one of the first aid centers.
In addition, the government has, since 2005, according to the "Bussi Fini Regulations", detained asylum seekers in identification centers for a period of up to twenty days while their asylum applications are examined. The government is also modifying and preparing some first aid centers to become identification centers[321]. All of these centers are in fact detention centers as long as the detainees are not free to leave them. The so-called "temporary residence and assistance centre", such as the one on the island of Lampedusa, is a center that combines a temporary residence center and an initial assistance center. The government describes this center, which was built in 1998, as carrying out a basic function that combines providing “initial assistance” with the task of “filtering station”[322].
The temporary accommodation and assistance center in Lampedusa, which is located near the airport on a small island with a population of 5,500 people and is mostly popular with tourists, consists of barracks on a piece of dirt near the port and surrounded by barbed wire. It had a capacity of 190 detainees, but the number of people in the center was often much higher. When many people arrived at once, the new arrivals were transported by sea to Sicily, or by sea to Crotone in Calabria.
The Italian government did not allow Human Rights Watch to visit the Lampedusa camp, but visitors described poor conditions inside. [323] One witness, an Italian journalist who spent some time in the center pretending to be an asylum seeker, says that guards physically abused and cursed some of the detainees (see below).
On 28 June 2005, twelve members of the European Parliament visited the center of Lampedusa and commented on the “suffocating” heat and poor ventilation in two of the four pre-fabricated containers used as dormitories, the lack of beds and bedding, the prevalence of skin infections among detainees due to the use of salt water in the bathrooms, and the lack of drinking water (one bottle per day for two persons). The detainees said that the authorities had cleaned the camp the night before the delegation's arrival. In addition, the camp had held more than 900 detainees only four days earlier, which is more than four times the capacity of the camp[324].
Tana Desuluetta, a member of the Italian Senate, who visited Lampedusa in October 2004, told Human Rights Watch that the detainees seemed terrified of returning to Libya, and especially of what they would find themselves at the hands of the Libyan police. Not many of them had been able to contact a lawyer or judge [325].
In December, a delegation from the International Federation for Human Rights visited Lampedusa. The organization's report stated that the camp is "extremely deteriorating and very primitive," and the facilities at the time of the visit were relatively clean, but were at a "extremely degraded" level.
There is no more detailed description of the center than what was reported by the Italian journalist Fabriziogatti, whom we referred to above, and who spent a week there in September 2005 pretending to be a Kurdish asylum seeker. He published an article in the Italian magazine "Espresso" on October 7, 2005, describing the highly unsanitary conditions, including clogged sinks and toilets. One day, Italian policemen forced him to sit in sewage water and kept him for long hours in the hot sun. On another day, Gatti said, they forced a group of detainees to undress completely and made them wrestle with others. They are among the detainees. Gatti said that he saw the Italian policemen while they were They beat some of the detainees, and they behaved vulgarly and humiliatingly towards others in front of the children[327].
In March 2006, an agreement was signed on Lampedusa between the Italian government, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, and the Italian Red Cross. their weakness and their need for help.”[328] The presence of the International Organization for Migration and the Italian Red Cross in The camp is intended to address issues related to migration and unaccompanied minors. According to the International Organization for Migration, its presence “will not be limited to assisting the authorities in ‘managing’ irregular migration flows, but will also include helping to find solutions for migrants in accordance with international law and the principles of human dignity.”[329] By May 2006, the authorities had established sanitation facilities. An additional house, and shades that protect from the sun, and a new building for women to stay But conditions remained bad. In a speech to parliament in early July 2006, Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said that the government had increased the number of staff at the Lampedusa center and raised the level of transport services. [330] He announced later that month that some 9,500 foreigners had passed through the center since January 1, 2006. [331]
The parties in the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Romano Prodi, along with civil society organizations, are putting strong pressure on the government to close all temporary residence and assistance centers. On July 18, 2006, a group of parliamentarians presented the so-called "white paper on temporary residence and assistance centers in Italy," which records human rights violations in these centers and recommends their closure[332]. The Minister of the Interior, Amato, blocked the idea of closing these centers because of “the necessity of detaining these people in them.” That is, immigrants without documents] so that we can know their hobbies and countries of origin for them ... and the necessity of returning them to those countries.”[333] But Amato formed an ad hoc committee to assess the conditions in those centers. The Committee made its first visit to Lampedusa on 19 July 2006, at a time when the center was crowded with hundreds of people who had just arrived by sea.
Expulsions
Since at least 2004, the Italian government has expelled more than 2,800 migrants, possibly also refugees and others in need of international protection, from Lampedusa to Libya, where the Libyan government then returned them to their countries of origin. Sometimes large groups are expelled en masse without considering their asylum applications. The Italian government issued orders to expel other individuals, without returning them to Libya, but allowing them to remain in Italy for a limited period. Some of these were refugees fleeing violence in Manat &62A; Asylum request"[340].
The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Cruel or Degrading Treatment or Punishment also expressed its deep concern about mass expulsions. The persons returned to Libya, numbering 1243 persons, There was no one among them who could be exposed to the danger of persecution, which means that it is forbidden to expel them from Italian territory ... whether to Libya or to any other country that the Libyan authorities may be persuaded to send them to.”[341]
The committee recommended that "the appropriate assessment should be carried out in each individual case to ensure ... that there are no persons who could be exposed to a real risk of torture or ill-treatment, not only in Libya, but in any other country to which the Libyan authorities may be persuaded to send them."
More generally, the committee noted that immigration officials and magistrates, who authorize expulsion orders under Italian law, do not have sufficient access to “independent and objective information on the human rights situation in the countries of origin/the destinations to which aliens to be expelled are sent.”
From January 2004 to November 25, 2004, immigration officials examined the cases of 10,468 migrants in the province of Agrigento in Sicily (the vast majority of whom had arrived in Lampedusa or were intercepted at sea by the police and then taken there). Of these, only seventy applied for asylum. In the view of the Commission, this number "seems extremely insignificant" given the nationalities to which the members of the whole group belong (for example: 550 Eritreans, 477 Sudanese, and 117 Ethiopians).
March 2005 witnessed the second wave of mass expulsions from Italy to Libya. Again, the government did not allow UNHCR to enter Lampedusa during this operation.
The Italian Ministry of the Interior said that the government had transferred 421 of the 1,235 people who had arrived in Lampedusa, to other Italian centers in which they applied for asylum. 101 submitted official requests for asylum in Lampedusa. The government expelled 494 Egyptians to Libya (180 of them were returned on two chartered planes on March 17) and returned 76 Egyptians directly to Egypt. [342] Pizano, then Minister of the Interior, said that what the government did represented “strict” compliance with international laws and norms. [343]
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) regretted the lack of transparency, as its spokesperson made the following statement at a press conference on March 18:
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is deeply concerned about what happened yesterday, when about 180 people were deported on two planes from the Italian island of Lampedusa to Libya, accompanied by escorts from the Italian police. proper and fair examination. However, the Italian authorities have so far refused to respond to this request, which was submitted by the UNHCR, in accordance with its authority to protect refugees, including contacting asylum seekers, and monitoring asylum systems [344].
Pizano responded to the Commission, saying that that body should show "more respect for those who seek to solve problems"[345].
As for the people who were expelled in October 2004 and March 2005, the Italian authorities blindfolded some of them and put their hands in the iron shackles, which prompted the Libyan government to criticize the material conditions that accompanied the expulsion. Each deportee was accompanied by a policeman, Ali Amdward told Human Rights Watch. We [Libyans] bought them shoes and clothes. Libya never puts people in handcuffs or iron shackles during deportation.”[346]
By the time the Human Rights Watch delegation visited Italy in late May 2005, another 400 people had arrived in Lampedusa. On May 14, 2005, Alitalia flight No. AZ8300 carried sixty-seven people from Lampedusa to the city of Al-Bayda in western Libya[347]. [349]. The Italian government did not deny press reports of these deportations, nor did the protests of Italian NGOs. [350] Apparently, the Italian government did not want to deny the news, which could become a useful deterrent to anyone trying to enter the country.
According to Italian government sources, the total number of those returned from Italy to Libya in 2005 was 1,876. “These people were accepted and sent back to their countries of origin”[351].
Following the 2005 expulsions, a comment from the Italian section of Amnesty International said that a written advertisement had been suspended in Lampedusa, which had been translated into many languages, saying "You will stay here until you are transferred to another center for the proper verification of your hobbies and where you have the opportunity to explain the reason for your arrival in Italy". However, Amnesty International asserts that many of those deported in the latest waves of expulsions “did not even know the true destination of the flight and assumed that they were merely being sent to another 'centre' in Italian territory to 'correctly verify their hobbies'”[352].
The European Parliament delegation that visited Lampedusa in June 2005 referred to another problem. The consular authorities of some countries were regularly involved in the procedures for determining the nationalities of some of the detainees in the camp; According to a report on the delegation's trip, members of the European Parliament told the camp managers that "whoever can seek asylum will face grave danger if the consular authorities of his country know his identity." M&;;;n's directors responded to the presence of the individuals who had been expelled to Libya from Lampedusa on the two aforementioned times to decide the following: (a) whether each individual had received notice of the decision to expel him or if the measures mentioned constituted a collective expulsion of these persons; and (b) if each individual was returned to his or her country of origin through proper procedures without abuse or degrading or inhuman treatment, and (c) if any individuals died, disappeared, or suffered serious harm as a result of their expulsion to Libya.
In mid-March 2006, the prosecutor in charge of the case sent the file to the Ministerial Offenses Court of the Court of Rome, which decides whether the charges against the ministers deserve investigation. [359] Ten days later, the prosecutor submitted a proposal to close the investigation with Bezano, but it was not until June 6, 2006 that the court decided to initiate an investigation. [360 ].
Forced Return
On July 14, 2003, the Italian Ministry of the Interior issued a decree allowing the Italian Navy to intercept ships carrying asylum seekers and migrants, and if possible, to force the ships to turn back and return to the territorial waters of the countries from which they came[361]. E violate the principle that says that the state that intercepts the ship In its territorial waters, it bears the primary responsibility for meeting the protection needs of people on board [362].
Human Rights Watch does not know how many times the Italian Navy applied this decree, but one of the recorded cases occurred on October 4, 2004, when an Italian warship intercepted a wooden boat carrying approximately 150 people in international waters near Lampedusa and summoned the Tunisian Navy to accompany it on its way back to the coast of North Africa[363].
Italy's Violation of Its Human Rights Obligations
Italy is no different from Libya in terms of its legal obligations under international human rights conventions and treaties (particularly not to arbitrarily detain people, not to expel them collectively, and not to send them back from whence they came), but Italy also has obligations under European human rights law. Under the Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights, the moment a person enters territorial waters or intercepted by the Italian Navy on the high seas[365]. Italy thus shares responsibility for the return of any person as a result of expulsions, and for any torture or inhuman or degrading treatment to which the expelled person may be subjected to Libya (or if returned to his country of origin or elsewhere by Libya).
Collective expulsion is prohibited by Article 13 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 4 of Protocol IV to the European Convention on Human Rights, and Article 19(1) of the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights. [366] The interpretation put forward by the European Court of Human Rights says that the expression “collective expulsion” means “any measure of coercion.”x627; to stop any steps to expel eleven of the seventy-nine who submitted the application[374] On May 12, the two lawyers submitted a new application to the court regarding another man facing expulsion. The next day, the court asked the same four questions to the Italian government. In addition, the court asked if the applicant had been placed in a “detention center” and asked to see the documents related to the said placement order. It also asked the Italian government to clarify the practical possibilities available to the complainant to challenge the expulsion procedures and the “detention” order. (i.e. if An effective local 'cure' was available) [375].
Following what the court did, the European Parliament issued a resolution expressing deep concern about Italy's illegal expulsion of citizens of a third country to Libya[376].
The Italian government, at the time Human Rights Watch was conducting its research in Italy, had not expelled any of the individuals referred to in the applications to the court. The government was still detaining one of the eleven men who filed first, whose expulsion the court had ordered halted, in the Crotone temporary residence. His lawyer said that since his expulsion was impossible because of the court's 'suspension' order, the government should have legally released him from custody[378].
The Italian government does not claim that Libya is a "safe third country", although it does confirm that Libya has signed the African Convention on Refugees, and that it chaired the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 2002[379]. Marketed by the Italians is the vast majority For asylum seekers in the country who do not meet the conditions for asylum. In 2004, for example, the Italian classification of asylum seekers had “rejected” more than 91 percent of them, even if the government had provided more than a quarter of them with a secondary form of protection. serious distortion of the true picture. 380].
There is no legal basis for repatriation to Libya
Libyan immigration officials say that most of those who are returned to Italy are Egyptians, and then Libya will return them directly by bus to Egypt, within a few days. But as long as these are not Libyans, why does Italy send them back to Libya instead of returning them directly to Egypt? The answer to this question is still vague [381].
Libya did not sign a formal agreement with Italy on the return of persons[382], and this fact was confirmed by the Libyan government to Human Rights Watch[383]. It appears that cases of return, such as preferential oil deals between the two countries, are based on a verbal agreement only. A Libyan official told Human Rights Watch that the Italians and the Egyptians also reached a verbal agreement in November 2004 allowing Italy to repatriate 100 people per month. [384] There is no formal agreement on readmission between Italy and Egypt either, but Egypt, like Libya, has accepted the unofficial re-entry of third-country nationals from Italy to Egypt (such as Sri Lankans) when it turns out that they have crossed Egypt on their way to Egypt. Italy [385].
The lack of formal agreements on the re-entry of persons is an important issue because all international agreements in Italy, including re-admission agreements, must be submitted to Parliament. Therefore, a formal agreement on the readmission of persons slows down the expulsion process and greatly increases its costs.
To the Government of Libya
Provide Asylum
Issue and implement the necessary legislation to fulfill Libya's current asylum obligations under the Constitutional Declaration, the African Refugee Convention, the Convention against Torture, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. And the establishment of effective, fair and legal procedures to decide on Asylum conditions, with the help of UNHCR's experience and directives in this regard.
Ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol and, accordingly, harmonize new national asylum laws and procedures with these two instruments.
Implementation of the Organization of African Unity (African Union now) agreement on regulating certain aspects of refugee problems in Africa, which Libya is a signatory to, and in particular respecting the definition of the agreement on refugees and Article No. 5 of it related to the “essentially voluntary nature of the return of refugees” so that no refugee is returned to his homeland against his will.
Establish effective and accessible mechanisms so that detainees, and other foreigners subject to expulsion, can challenge their detention and expulsion on human rights grounds as well as immigration-related grounds. The need to stop all deportation and expulsion procedures until such mechanisms are put in place and until the conditions in which such detention and expulsion occur are brought into line with international human rights standards.
Improve existing conditions in all immigration detention facilities to reduce overcrowding and provide adequate health care. Protect women and children in these facilities while preserving family cohesion.
Officially recognize UNHCR and support its efforts to provide international protection to refugees, asylum seekers and other persons of concern in Libyan territory. In particular, grant UNHCR full freedom of access without restrictions to all places where foreigners are detained in Libya.
Issuing instructions to all officials responsible for implementing the &
Call on Libya to immediately notify the embassies of the arrest, detention or imprisonment of any of its nationals on criminal charges with the consent of the person concerned and to allow the representatives of these embassies to visit these detainees and prisoners or to contact them by telephone at their request.
To the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Appeal to the member states of the UNHCR Executive Committee to raise the issue of the current status of UNHCR in Libya with the Libyan government. And calling on the member states of the Executive Committee to insist that the European Union and the International Organization for Migration make cooperation on the part of Libya with the Commission in the Libyan territories and at sea a precondition for future cooperation in other affairs.
Continue to protest vigorously through the media whenever UNHCR becomes aware that Libya is breaching, or is about to breach, its obligation not to forcibly return refugees.
Make concerted efforts, given the lack of prospects for effective protection and integration of refugees in Libya at present, to create more opportunities for resettlement to a third country in the case of refugees who meet the criteria for resettlement in the UNHCR Guideline for Resettlement, rather than limiting referral to emergency cases.
To the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Organize and hold workshops to discuss the rights of refugees and migrants, with the participation of Libyan judges, prosecutors, private or public lawyers, police, government employees, immigration officials, coast guards and other border guards, judicial police and officers involved in the management and security of detention facilities or "voluntary resettlement".
To the International Organization for Migration
Working to make improving the material and legal conditions of migrants and facilitating resettlement to a third country wherever appropriate, the only two goals of any projects undertaken by the organization in the future in Libya. and discourage or facilitate the interception or return of migrants. And strongly encourage Libya, as a member of the Presidency Council of the International Organization for Migration, to respect the human rights of refugees and to implement laws and procedures that ensure this effectively.
Negotiating with Libya with more transparency on all matters related to immigration and border control.
Application of strict conditions related to human rights to any joint project with the Libyan government in the field of migration. And not to cooperate in supporting controls related to border control or internal migration in Libya, unless significant and noticeable improvements are made in the field of human rights, and the rights of refugees and immigrants in particular.
Avoid using expressions such as “migrants in transit” or “migrant detainees” when talking about the whole crowd of detainees in Libyan detention centers, for example. Given the absence of an effective asylum system in Libya (Libya does not currently have an asylum law, not to mention the effective implementation of the law), these descriptions become misleading and give credibility to those who falsely claim that there are no refugees on Libyan soil.
Avoid setting the goal of “voluntarily resettling migrants” as a measure of the success of IOM projects, because this leads to undue pressure to achieve the goal of return without the necessary guarantees; As raising Libya's ability to return foreign nationals to their country is not a goal that reassures him as long as there are large numbers of forced returnees, and as long as there is no effective asylum system in the country.
Focus on creating the opportunity for refugees to obtain more basic needs such as nutritious food, clean water, beds, sanitation and medical care in facilities in Libya, rather than expanding the infrastructure of camps or immigration detention facilities. Referring anyone who expresses a desire to seek asylum or fears of returning to UNHCR in Tripoli, according to the memorandum of understanding between the IOM and UNHCR. refugees, and insisting on enabling the UNHCR to contact “migrants in transit.” And to stop doing anything Other activity in Libya unless the Libyan authorities accept this condition.
Refer any cases that IOM staff consider to suggest torture or abuse by the police to the human rights program at the Gaddafi Development Foundation and to the Libyan authorities responsible for investigating and prosecuting such cases, with the consent of the victim of the alleged abuse.
To the European Union
To all EU member states
Stop expelling third-country nationals (non-Libyans) to Libya until the treatment of Libyan migrants, refugees and asylum seekers is fully reconciled with European standards of non-expulsion to persecution or risk of rough treatment in contravention of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Under the current circumstances, the return of third-country nationals constitutes a breach of the European human rights obligations not to return persons to where they receive inhuman or degrading treatment. The return of any asylum-seeker to Libya, his rebellion for procedural reasons or the so-called “safe third country” pretext, and who was not initially given the opportunity for a full and fair hearing to hear the justifications for his request, is also considered a breach of the European obligations not to be expelled or reply.
To the European Parliament
Condemning any new collective expulsion of foreigners from Italy to Libya, which is considered a breach of the principle of non-refoulement and a violation of the right to protection against collective expulsion.
To the Institutions of the European Union and the Member States of the European Union
Encouraging Libya to 1) ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol; 2) the enactment of a domestic asylum law; 3) Official recognition of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Adopting greater transparency in the negotiations in Libya on all issues related to immigration and border control.
Ensure that no joint action by the EU, or any action by one of its member states, will undermine the existing conditions regarding the principles of the Barcelona Process.[387]
Applying strict conditions related to human rights to any cooperation with the Libyan government in the field of immigration (including any cooperation in the field of border control), so that a significant and noticeable improvement is achieved in the observance of human rights, especially the rights of refugees and migrants.
The immediate application of "protection-related entry procedures" through the embassies in Tripoli and the resettlement of refugees based on UNHCR's identification of persons in need of resettlement. However, this must be the completion of the process of allowing asylum seekers to automatically reach the territory of the European Union and go through the asylum procedures upon their arrival, as an alternative to this process.
Dealing with the issue of migration in its broader African context within the framework of the Cotonou Agreement,[388] but in full consultation with those responsible for setting development priorities in Africa. At the same time, recognizing that the root causes of migration to and through Libya are not only economic, and the need to deal with them by resolving the causes of forced displacement resulting from conflicts, political repression and human rights violations in the countries of origin.
To the Government of Italy
Announcing the bilateral agreement concluded in August 2004 between the Italian and Libyan governments.
Help Libya establish asylum law and procedures that meet international standards, as well as fund the construction of three detention centers for foreigners in Libya, while encouraging the Libyan government to cooperate with UNHCR.
Desist from providing funding or other bilateral support to Libya with the aim of increasing its capacity to intercept asylum seekers and migrants before they set sail or before they reach Italian waters, and redirect this support to multilateral efforts, particularly through UNHCR and UNHCR, to ensure that basic human rights standards are observed regarding the treatment of these persons in Libya.
Resist the collective expulsion of third-country nationals to Libya, as it is a flagrant breach of Italy's human rights obligations in light of the lack of effective protection for refugees and others in need of international protection, and the human rights violations migrants are subjected to in Libya.
Facilitate all means for UNHCR, human rights and legal aid NGOs, lawyers, journalists and other independent monitors to have unfettered access to all reception, identification and detention centers in Libya. Ensure full cooperation with UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration and the Italian Red Cross under the 2006 agreement to monitor the center at Lampedusa.
Ensure that all fair asylum procedures, including the right to raise concerns about treatment contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, are available to everyone detained by the Italian authorities, including those at sea.
Ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
This report is based on research conducted in Libya by Ophelia Field, who was at the time the acting director of Asylum Policy, Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher in the Middle East and North Africa Division, and research in Italy by Ophelia Field and Judd Sunderland, researcher in the Europe and Central Asia Division. Edited by Clement Bell Frelick, director of the Refugee Policy division, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division, Penward, associate director of the Europe and Central Asia division, and Julia Holow, a senior researcher in the Europe and Central Asia division. The report was reviewed by Wilderteller, director of legal and policy affairs, and Joe Saunders, deputy director of programs at Human Rights Watch. Diane Goodman and Ellenhala Asgers-Dottir provided invaluable advice and assistance in preparing this report. Human Rights Watch interns Saeed Ahmad, David Anderson and Alessandra Tranquili provided research assistance. Ms. Rana Tahrungwa Hasan contributed translation and interpretation.
Human Rights Watch would like to thank the Libyan government for facilitating the organization's visit to Libya in April-May 2005, and especially mentions Muhammad al-Ramali and Hadi Khamis, the Passports and Nationality Department, for their time and for the information they provided to the organization.
Human Rights Watch also thanks the Italian NGOs that helped conduct the research, especially the Italian Council for Refugees, the Jesuit Refugee Society in Rome, and the Italian chapter of Doctors Without Borders. It also thanks Caritas Broma, Amnesty International Rome, Clairrodier (International Federation for Human Rights), Sarah Hammoud and Mark Schadepoulsen (Danish Institute for Human Rights) for their excellent advice, which we have also heard from many independent lawyers and journalists working in Tripoli and Rome. Human Rights Watch and the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees also thank him for Tripoli, Rome and Geneva, and experts of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
First of all, Human Rights Watch thanks migrants and refugees for sharing their stories and personal experiences in preparing this report.
The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation
On the third part of the Human Rights Watch report
Entitled (Violations Against Migrants and Refugees)
Based on her team's visit to the Libyan Jamahiriya
In the period from 20/4 to 11/5/2005 Christian
Introduction
=The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation affirms that the Libyan Jamahiriya has realized the serious social, economic and security repercussions of illegal immigration and called on more than one occasion for the necessity of studying the causes and addressing them in a comprehensive and balanced manner.
The brother/leader of the revolution presented in his telegram to the heads of state of the European Union on 22/6/2002 Christian during their meeting in the Spanish city of Seville, the perfect solution to address this phenomenon, as he emphasized:
-Necessityconvening an African-European summit, similar to the Cairo summit in 2000, to address the phenomenon of migration.
- Transferring investments, setting up projects, creating a labor market, services and production in Africa.
=The brother/leader of the revolution initiative related to the Gaddafi project for African youth, women, and children, which aims to settle development projects, combat unemployment and poverty, and provide job opportunities for these important segments of Africans stems from the direction of the Libyan Jamahiriya to contribute to solving the problem of migration.
=The Libyan Jamahiriya participates in efforts to combat poverty and hunger in Africa within the framework of bilateral relations and through international organizations. We mention, for example, the great contribution of the Jamahiriya in financing five projects for food security in each of Burkina Faso, Chad, Negro Mali and Sudan, members of the Community of Sahel and Saharan States, through the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
= The Libyan Jamahiriya was still open to its African and Arab surroundings, as there are approximately one and a half million foreign workers, more than 90% of the African continent, working for themselves or with the private sector or with the public sector.
=The problem is not with the people who enter the country in a legal way and stay there after the entry visa expires for the purpose of work, or who violate the purpose of the visa by practicing different professions and trades.
=The real problem is the foreigners who enter the country illegally and without documents, and they pose a threat to public security, which requires taking legal measures regarding them.
=Alsothe other problem is the people who enter the country with the intention of migrating to other countries, and the Libyan Jamahiriya is committed within the framework of bilateral and international agreements to combat illegal immigration by taking measures to prevent people smuggling or trafficking in them and to prevent them from falling victim to extortion and fraud by organized criminal gangs, and during the year 2005, 49 criminal organizations were seized Probably illegal immigrants, and the number (40) was seized A) foreigners in an attempt to illegally immigrate across the sea, and the number of (1876) illegal immigrants who were returned from Italy, who infiltrated through the Libyan coasts, were accepted and returned to their country of origin.
=Thousands of illegal immigrants were returned to their home countries in the past period voluntarily at their request and financial assistance was disbursed to them to manage their urgent affairs upon their arrival to their home countries.
=The Libyan Jamahiriya is one of the countries that were directly affected by illegal immigration, as it had repercussions on its national economy, security, social structure, and healthy environment. Libya is crowded with immigrants of all nationalities as a country of destination and transit at the same time, and he expressed his understanding of the Libyan Jamahiriya’s concern about the negative effects of illegal immigration.
=The Libyan Jamahiriya is one of the leading countries in combating racial discrimination in all its forms and causes. There are no discriminatory practices in Libyan society against foreigners, regardless of their affiliation, language, religion, or other reasons.
=Every person (citizen or foreigner) according to the Great Green Charter for Human Rights in the Age of the Masses and the Freedom Promotion Law has the right to a fair trial that guarantees him the right to defense through a lawyer of his own choice.
Bodily integrity is a right for every human being, and torture is one of the prohibited acts in the Libyan Jamahiriya and is punishable in accordance with the provisions of the Penal Code.
=The Libyan Jamahiriya is a haven for oppressed people and freedom fighters, and the legislation in force prohibits the extradition of refugees from them to any party.
Illness during arrest, detention and deportation:
The report claims that immigrants and refugees are subjected to violations during arrest, detention and deportation, and that these operations are carried out randomly and that people are deported to countries where they face the risk of being charged without giving any opportunity to obtain or seek international protection.
The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation clarifies that there is a large number of foreigners in the Libyan Jamahiriya who enter the country illegally, and in many cases some of them deliberately hide or destroy their identity documents, and some of them enter without documents in the first place so that it is difficult for the competent authorities to deport them.
The status of illegality in entry or presence with the absence of identification documents constitutes a threat to public security in any country, and the concerned agencies must act in a manner that limits the seriousness of this situation. Libyan gangs of organized crime, with the help of some citizens, are professional criminals to commit crimes, including: They brought in drug trafficking, currency and document counterfeiting, burglary and theft.
The measures taken by the competent authorities with the aim of eliminating the aforementioned state of illegality are within the framework of the law, as Law No. (6) of 1987, amended by Law No. (2) of 2004 regarding the regulation of the entry and residence of foreigners in Libya and their exit from it, authorizes the competent authority to take action to arrest a foreigner who enters the country or is in it illegally and detains him in a place I amend this purpose to take legal action about it.
The Great Green Charter for Human Rights in the Age of the Masses and the Law for the Promotion of Freedom guaranteed the human right to physical integrity and not to be treated in a cruel or humiliating manner or to harm human dignity. The law also prohibits the public official from using violence against persons, as Article (431) of the Penal Code requires that the employee who uses violence against persons be punished with imprisonment and a fine, and the penalty reaches ten years in the case of torture according to According to the text of Article (435) of the Penal Code, Some police officers may use force during the arrest process to overcome the resistance of the arrested person, and some of them may misuse their powers. However, the occurrence of such cases is nothing but isolated individual practices that are not characterized by systematicity and are subject to rejection and cannot be supported by any party. Incidents of excessive use of force and abuse of power have already been recorded against some foreigners who have been arrested by some police personnel, and legal measures have been taken in them, and whatever it is, physical abuse is not It could lead to death or serious harm Or grave or rape or indecent assault, and what the report mentioned in this regard is nothing but a repetition of statements sent by people who felt frustrated as a result of cutting off their path to emigration to countries they believe were their fetuses, and relying on such statements without verifying them and supporting them with evidence contradicts the approach that the organization has undertaken to mention the facts supported by documents and evidence.
With regard to allegations related to overcrowding in deportation centers, malnutrition, and aspects related to hygiene and public health, the number of illegal immigrants who are being deported is very large, and the deportation process sometimes takes a short time due to the lack of quick response by some embassies and consulates of which the deported illegal immigrants belong, and this causes pressure on deportation centers It results in the presence of the phenomenon of congestion, although This problem has become much less acute after the introduction of significant improvements to the deportation centers, but the issue of overcrowding is difficult to find a solution to quickly because of the huge numbers of illegal immigrants entering the Libyan Jamahiriya, and within the framework of a cooperation agreement in the field of combating organized crime and illegal trade of narcotics and psychotropic substances and illegal immigration signed on 12/18/2000 between the Libyan side and the In Italy, three new deportation centers are being established, and with regard to allegations of lack of adequate nutrition, hygiene and general health, the authority entrusted with supervising the deportation centers is striving to provide adequate food and a clean and healthy environment in Those centers .
The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation affirms that the repercussions of illegal immigration require exorbitant expenses that the Libyan Jamahiriya cannot bear, and that it requires a radical treatment of the causes of illegal immigration through developing places of expulsion and achieving security and stability in them.
It is not truewhat was stated in the report that illegal immigrants entering the country or who are illegally in it are being deported to the border areas. Rather, deportations to their countries are carried out by land, in coordination with their embassies and consulates. The costs of deportations during the year 2005 amounted to (3,678,756) million dinars.
Concerning the report's allegations of arresting and deporting asylum seekers, the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation confirms that while the Libyan Jamahiriya is not an extremist in the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees and the Protocol annexed thereto, it is, according to its internal legislation, on top of which is the Great Green Document for Human Rights in the era of the masses, and the Freedom Promotion Law, a sanctuary for freedom fighters. Those legislations hand over refugees to protect them to any party, and it is clear that the report is in great confusion between immigrants who enter the country illegally with the intention of staying or immigrating to other countries, and those who enter the country in a legal way and seek to stay in it seeking freedom and those who are hosted, and as for those who leave, they entered the country illegally or entered it in a legal way and were caught in the event of infiltration into other countries and they are not deported except after legal measures are taken against them.
The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation affirms thatbased on its internal legislation and the agreements to which it has joined, including the Convention against Torture, it is absolutely impossible to extradite a person to a country or deport him to it at a time when there is evidence that he will be subject to torture or that he will not receive an unfair trial for the charges attributed to him in the country to which he is deported. concluded by the Libyan Jamahiriya at other states that include the inadmissibility of extradition Political crimes.
Concerning what the report claimed that the arrests are carried out in a random manner, this is not true, as these operations are carried out in an organized manner. administration in order to raise their efficiency and ensure that their performance of their functions is in accordance to national and international human rights standards.
With regard to allegations that some police officers took bribes from illegal immigrants to release them, bribery is a criminal and punishable act in accordance with the provisions of Law No. (2) of 1979 regarding economic crimes. .
There are no laws or regulations governing the asylum process:
The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation affirms that the legislative regulation of asylum is the subject of concern from all relevant parties, and those parties are working to issue a law regulating asylum and settlement issues and defining the conditions of refugees and their rights and obligations. asylum.
It also confirms that the Libyan Jamahiriya fulfills its obligations stipulated in national legislation prohibiting the extradition of political refugees, as well as its international obligations stipulated in the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Degrading or Inhuman Treatment and the Organization of African Unity Convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in Africa.
With regard toconcerning allegations related to the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, there is no office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Libyan Jamahiriya, but a representative appointed in 2001 within the framework of the United Nations Development Program and that its existence has been based on the solution to the problem of only some Somalis who were deported from other countries, and the Commission has submitted a draft memorandum of understanding to establish an office for it It is the subject of interest and study from the competent authorities. The Libyan Jamahiriya signed a cooperation agreement with the International Organization for Migration on 9/8/2005, and the Director General of the organization will visit the Libyan Jamahiriya on 4/25/2006 to open the organization's office and hold talks with officials.
Other abuses against immigrants and refugees.
The report claims that there is discrimination against foreigners.
The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation affirms that the Libyan Jamahiriya does not exist in the phenomenon of discrimination, whether on the basis of race, color, religion, origin, language, social background and other reasons that are monitored as a reason for the emergence of the phenomenon of discrimination. Foreigners and citizens are sometimes problems whose causes or nature do not differ from those that occur between citizens themselves or among foreigners themselves and are not the result of any discriminatory practices.
With regard to the so-called events of the corner, the origin of those events was due to a number of illegal immigrants committing armed robbery, rape, robbery and other crimes, and a case was registered in that incident under No. They are (51) people, which confirms the inaccuracy of the information received by the organization and the lack of credibility of its sources .
The report alleges the existence of torture practices to extract confessions, the existence of unfair trials, the failure of illegal immigrants to reach a lawyer, the lengthening of the detention period, and the lack of translation during the trial.
The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation affirmsthat a foreigner, on an equal basis with a citizen, has the right to access justice, and he also has the right to a trial in which the elements and guarantees of a fair trial are met, in accordance with what was stipulated in national and international standards, the most important of which is the right of defense, which is guaranteed to all according to the laws, as each person has the right to choose his lawyer of free will to defend him before the courts and at his expense, if any He is unable to do so. The court appoints him a lawyer who is satisfied with him, and he undertakes his defense without charge in order to guarantee the right It is sacred and is the right of defense, and the cases of those accused of illegal immigration are heard before the courts in accordance with the law.
Concerning what the report repeated about alleged torture practices, bodily integrity is the right of every person according to the Great Green Document for Human Rights in the Era of the Masses and the Law for the Promotion of Freedom, and confirms that torture is prohibited under these two legislations and is punishable by imprisonment for up to ten years in the Penal Code, and that any confession extracted under physical or psychological coercion has no legal force in proof before the courts, and every accused person has the right to plead before the investigation authority judicial or before The court confirmed that his confessions recorded in the police report were extracted from him through coercion, and in this case both of them are obligated to achieve this plea by all legal means, including forensic expertise, and in the event that coercion is proven, the confessions are invalidated and have no legal value in proof, even in addition to other evidence. For acts of torture attributed to them, and the conviction of those against whom the charge was proven, and the court punished him with the appropriate criminal penalty, in addition to the disciplinary punishment that reaches the extent of dismissal from office, and do not miss It should be noted that not every allegation of torture is true, but some people claim that with the intention of evading punishment, which has been proven by some investigations.
The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperationconfirms that the law determines the duration of the detention procedure prior to referral to the judicial investigation authority taken by the judicial control agencies. Oh, it is a fixed term, too, and it cannot be exceeded That period, if it deems it necessary to extend the detention of the accused in order to complete the investigation, it must refer the case to the court to extend the period of imprisonment.
With regard to translation, Article No. (22) of the Judicial System Law requires that the statements of litigants or witnesses who do not know the Arabic language be heard by a sworn translator, and according to this text, it is not possible in any way from the legal point of view to investigate or prosecute any person without the presence of a translation if he does not speak the Arabic language.
Everything reported by the report regarding the alleged violations is nothing but statements sent or conclusions based on guesses and suspicions, and the organization has not provided evidence for it, or it identifies known cases by name and date that have been subjected to these violations, and thus the organization has violated its pledge to provide all facts and information supported by evidence.
The General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation affirms that the Libyan Jamahiriya is facing the obligation to combat illegal immigration within the framework of bilateral and international agreements in a reality in which large numbers of illegal immigrants flow across its vast borders, and it is also facing the fulfillment of its humanitarian obligations and orientations, which places huge burdens and costs on it that no country can afford on its own. To the need to find a radical and comprehensive solution to the problem of illegal immigration in a global framework.