Migrant expulsions to Libya breach Refugee Convention

1.07.26pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 12th Apr 2005

As EU justice & home affairs ministers meet on April 14th to discuss the EU's relationship with Libya on migration, MEPs will discuss a motion condemning the breach of the Refugee Convention which the mass expulsion of people from Italy and Malta to Libya represents.

Liberal Democrat MEP for London and Liberal Democrat European justice spokeswoman Baroness Sarah Ludford said:

"Respect for the 1951 convention is officially at the heart of EU asylum policy and our human rights mission. Denying migrants a chance to have their claim for refugee status assessed, and expelling them into Gadaffi's tender care, is a scandal."

"The European Commission is supposed to be the watchdog ensuring Member States respect the law, but there been not a squeak of condemnation from Commissioner Frattini. Instead of silently colluding, he should be taking them to the European Court of Justice."

"Certainly a comprehensive and sensitive EU policy needs to be developed which covers regional cooperation, UN resettlement, voluntary and obligatory return under humanitarian conditions, investment in local capacity for refugee determination and so on. But just to dump people back in a human rights desert is intolerable."

ENDS

Note: Amnesty International (briefing of April 7th) has documented the human rights violations in Libya's treatment of migrants such as arbitrary arrest, routine detention in deplorable conditions, expulsion with no attention to protection needs and refusal to admit the UNHCR.