Pushed Back, Pushed Around
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Pushed Back, Pushed Around Italy’s Forced Return of Boat Migrants and Asylum Seekers, Libya’s Mistreatment of Migrants and Asylum Seekers Copyright © 2009 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 1-56432-537-7 Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA Tel: +1 212 290 4700, Fax: +1 212 736 1300 [email protected] Poststraße 4-5 10178 Berlin, Germany Tel: +49 30 2593 06-10, Fax: +49 30 2593 0629 [email protected] Avenue des Gaulois, 7 1040 Brussels, Belgium Tel: + 32 (2) 732 2009, Fax: + 32 (2) 732 0471 [email protected] 64-66 Rue de Lausanne 1202 Geneva, Switzerland Tel: +41 22 738 0481, Fax: +41 22 738 1791 [email protected] 2-12 Pentonville Road, 2nd Floor London N1 9HF, UK Tel: +44 20 7713 1995, Fax: +44 20 7713 1800 [email protected] 27 Rue de Lisbonne 75008 Paris, France Tel: +33 (1)43 59 55 35, Fax: +33 (1) 43 59 55 22 [email protected] 1630 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 500 Washington, DC 20009 USA Tel: +1 202 612 4321, Fax: +1 202 612 4333 [email protected] Web Site Address: http://www.hrw.org September 2009 1-56432-537-7 Pushed Back, Pushed Around Italy’s Forced Return of Boat Migrants and Asylum Seekers, Libya’s Mistreatment of Migrants and Asylum Seekers I. Summary ........................................................................................................................ 1 II. Recommendations ......................................................................................................... 17 III. Methodology and Scope .............................................................................................. 20 IV. Terminology ................................................................................................................ 22 V. Italian-Libyan “Friendship” and the Return of Boat Migrants to Libya ........................... 23 VI. Interdiction and the Principle of Nonrefoulement ......................................................... 27 VII. The Approach of the European Union Towards Libya ................................................... 31 Outsourcing EU migration and asylum policy ................................................................. 33 The Role of Frontex ........................................................................................................ 35 VIII. Maltese and Libyan Interdiction Prior to May 2009 .................................................... 38 IX. Failure to Rescue Boats in Distress at Sea .....................................................................41 X. Libya: Lack of Access to Asylum .................................................................................... 47 XI. UNHCR in Libya ............................................................................................................ 50 XII. Linkages between Smugglers and Security and Law Enforcement Officials .................. 53 Police and Smugglers: Bribes, Extortion, and Robbery ................................................... 55 XIII. Abuses against Vulnerable Migrant Groups ............................................................... 58 Abuse of Women Migrants ............................................................................................ 58 Abuse of Unaccompanied Children ................................................................................ 61 XIV. Abuses Entering Libya ............................................................................................... 63 Abuses in Libya’s Western Border Region ..................................................................... 64 XV. Refoulement from Libya and Dumping People in the Desert near the Border ................ 68 Dumping in the Desert .................................................................................................. 70 XVI. Migrant Detention Centers: Conditions and Abuses ................................................... 74 Kufra ............................................................................................................................. 75 Kufra Detention Center ........................................................................................... 76 Kufra Private Detention Centers .............................................................................. 78 Tripoli Area Migrant Detention Facilities ........................................................................ 79 The Airport .............................................................................................................. 80 Jawazat Detention Center ....................................................................................... 80 Detention Centers along Libya’s Northwestern Coast (outside Tripoli) .......................... 82 Al-Zawiya ................................................................................................................ 82 Misrata ................................................................................................................... 83 Zuwara ................................................................................................................... 87 Zleitan .................................................................................................................... 87 Sabratha ................................................................................................................ 89 Ganfuda ................................................................................................................. 90 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 92 I. SUMMARY Human Rights Watch | September 2009 About 80 irregular boat migrants from various African countries pack into an inflatable rubber dinghy, attempting to cross over from Tripoli, Libya. They are short of food and water, and have run out of gas. They were drifting at sea for at least 48 hours before the Bovienzo, an Italian Guardia di Finanza patrol boat, intercepted them on the evening of Wednesday, May 6. PUSHED BACK, PUSHED AROUND Photographs by Enrico Dagnino The crew of the Bovienzo, an Italian Guardia di Finanza patrol boat. On May 6, 2009, for the first time in the post-World War II era, a European state ordered its coast guard and naval vessels to interdict and forcibly return boat migrants on the high seas without doing any screening whatsoever to determine whether any passengers needed protection or were particularly vulnerable. The interdicting state was Italy; the receiving state was Libya. Italian coast guard and finance guard patrol boats towed migrant boats from interna- tional waters without even a cursory screening to see whether some might be refugees or whether others might be sick or injured, pregnant women, unaccompanied children, or victims of trafficking or other forms of violence against women. The Italians disembarked the exhausted passengers on a dock in Tripoli where the Libyan authorities immediately apprehended and detained them. This report examines the treatment of migrants, asylum free to talk about their experiences without fear of retribution. seekers, and refugees in Libya through the eyes of those who The report has two purposes. First, it is intended to hold have left that country and are now in Italy and Malta. These Libyan authorities accountable for their mistreatment of people, unlike their counterparts who are still in Libya, are migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. It therefore seeks to 4 Pushed Back, Pushed Around improve the deplorable conditions of detention in Libya and European Union (EU), and its external borders migration to encourage Libya to establish asylum procedures in control agency, Frontex, accountable for any harm that befalls conformity with international refugee standards. Secondly, people who are returned to Libya without an assessment of this report is intended to hold the Italian government, the their protection needs. It therefore is also intended to Human Rights Watch | September 2009 5 6 Pushed Back, Pushed Around The irregular migrants attempt to grab onto a ladder to climb aboard the Bovienzo. convince EU institutions and member states to stop Italy and Frontex from forcibly returning migrants to Libya where they are routinely subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment and where potential refugees are not effectively protected. Human Rights Watch was not able to see or interview those returned to Libya following the Italian interdictions, but bases this report on interviews with 91 migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in Italy and Malta conducted mostly in May 2009 and one telephone interview with a migrant detainee in Libya. Human Rights Watch visited Libya in April 2009 but the Libyan authorities would not permit us to interview anyone in public or private places without their express permission. The authorities also did not allow us to visit any of the many migrant detention centers in Libya, despite our repeated requests to do so. This report looks at the burgeoning relationship between Italy and Libya, which has as one of its principal components an agreement to cooperate to stop the irregular flow of third country nationals through Libya and into Italy. Italy’s interdiction regime came quickly on the heels of a new treaty with Libya, “The Treaty of Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation between the Italian Republic and Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” (the “Friendship Pact”), signed on August 30, 2008. The Friendship Pact called for “intensifying” cooperation