#cetorelli | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rightsinexile · 5 years ago

Text

Publications

In the revised Returns Directive, the EU Commission aims to “speed up return procedures, prevent absconding and secondary movements, and increase the overall EU return rate, in full respect of fundamental rights.” This Statewatch article argues that the new proposal’s key aim is to restrict individual rights in the name of improving the functioning of the EU’s deportation system, and that there is no clear evidence supporting the claim that the proposal would lead to more effective returns of irregular migrants. In the second part, the article gives an overview of the key changes to the revised directive. - The revised Return Directive: A dangerous attempt to step up deportations by restricting rights. Jane Kilpatrick. Statewatch. September 2019.

Asylum Insight’s school resources provides facts on asylum seekers and refugee students and their teachers. This booklet includes a flowchart of the asylum process, an overview of refugees’ countries of origin, and a chronology of asylum policy in Australia. - Asylum seekers and refugees: The facts. Asylum Insight. 2019.

The organisation United Against Racism, located in Amsterdam, compiles a list of deaths of migrants and refugees who passed away between 1993 until 1 April 2019. It states that as of 1 April 36.570 undocumented deaths of migrants and refugees died because of restrictive EU immigration policies. The list states the date and location where the person was found dead, their name, age and gender and the cause of death. - List of 36.570 undocumented deaths of refugees and migrants due to the restrictive policies of “Fortress Europe.” United Against Racism. 1 April 2019.

The PHR report sets forth a series of violent and disproportionate attacks by Sudanese armed forces against protesters and hospital personnel since December 2018. The security forces prevented doctors from attending to the wounded and they have arrested and detained the hospital personnel. - Intimidation and persecution: Sudan’s attack on peaceful protesters and physicians. Rohini Haar. Physicians for Human Rights. 5 April 2019.

This report by the human rights organisation Odhikar highlights the overall human rights situation in Bangladesh for the first quarter of 2019. The topics discussed include state repression, extrajudicial killings and torture, the death penalty, labour rights, political repression, public lynching, violations committed by Indian border security forces and violence against women. - Quarterly Human Rights Monitoring Report on Bangladesh. Odhikar. 11 June 2019.

This annual report on Children and Armed Conflict notes that the year 2018 was marked by the highest levels of children killed and maimed in armed conflict since the UN started monitoring the phenomenon. Overall, more than 24,000 violations were verified in 2018 in the 20 conflict situations. While the number for other violations decreased or remained relatively steady, more than 12,000 children were killed or maimed, mostly by cross-fire incidents, explosive remnants of war, improvised explosive devices, landmines and active combat actions. The report underscores the continued recruitment and use of more than 7,000 children in frontline fighting and the detention of children for actual and alleged association with armed groups in 2018. - Children and Armed Conflict. Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict. 20 June 2019.

PHR has collected extensive medical evidence of the human rights violations including targeted violence committed against Rohingya. This report supplements the 2018 Rohingya report and focuses on the underreported outcome of the 2017 violence: survivors who suffered physical impairments from their wounds that became long-term disabilities. - Shot while fleeing: Rohingya disabled by Myanmar authorities’ targeted violence. Laura Mills and Rupa Patel. Physicians for Human Rights. 25 June 2019.

In this document, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) gives a short update on the legal changes to the Hungarian asylum system since July 2018. HHC argues that the legal amendments made by the Hungarian parliament drastically reduced the chances of asylum seekers receiving protection, as it leads to automatic rejection of almost all asylum claims. Numerous applicants risk imprisonment up to one year and the Hungarian government has developed a streamlined refoulement procedure. Push-backs are common and there is a limit of one person to be admitted to the transit zone and apply for asylum per day. - How legal changes resulted in blanket rejections, refoulement and systemic starvation in detention. Hungarian Helsinki Committee. 1 July 2019.

In January 2019, the Trump administration expanded its crackdown on asylum with a new practice: returning primarily Central American asylum seekers to several border towns in Mexico where they are expected to wait until their US asylum court proceedings conclude. Under a recent deal with Mexico, this practice may expand across the entire border. Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that the program, named the “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP) by the US government has thus far had serious human rights consequences for returned asylum seekers. It found that the returns program is expelling asylum seekers to ill-prepared, dangerous Mexican border cities where they face high if not insurmountable barriers to receiving due process on their asylum claims. Among those asylum seekers HRW interviewed, several reported attacks on themselves or others in the town, including violent assaults, sexual violence, and kidnapping. - “We can’t help you here.” US returns of asylum seekers to Mexico. Human Rights Watch. 2 July 2019.

This dissertation focuses on Rohingya youth and their process to adulthood and forming identity in Bangladesh. The uncertainty around Rohingya identity raises several questions: How does the experience of displacement and ‘refugee-ness’ in Bangladesh shape identity among Rohingya people, particularly among the youth and young adults? And in what ways do they retain their Rohingya identity in the context of their non-citizen status in Bangladesh? The findings of the ethnographic research show that due to living in oppressive conditions, uncertainty, and the lack of an appropriate social environment, Rohingya people struggle with forming their identity. - Rohingyas in Bangladesh: Owning Rohingya identity in disowning spaces. Sultana Ishrat Zakia. 2 July 2019.

In order to provide full understanding and recognition of the genocidal crimes committed by ISIS against the Yazidi community of Sinjar, LSE established a demographic documentation of the victims of the attack in the village of Kocho. A list of victims gathered by Yazidi enumerators was compared and validated with a second list of victims compiled by a Yazidi community leader who survived the attack. A dual system estimation was applied to determine the likely number of victims who remained uncounted. The Yazidi Victims Demographic Documentation Project aims to play a significant role in achieving accountability for the crimes ISIS has committed against the Yazidis. - Counting mass atrocity: A demographic documentation of ISIS’s attack on the Yazidi village of Kocho. Valeria Cetorelli and Sareta Ashraph. LSE Middle East Centre. 5 July 2019.

This report aims to map the cooperation between Egypt and EU member states in migration and border management. It furthermore analyses the impact this cooperation has on the rights of migrants and refugees in Egypt. The report notes that EU-Egypt relations have intensified since 2016 and that EU member states such as Italy and Germany continue to engage in bilateral cooperation with Egypt. Furthermore, the report argues that cooperation negatively impacts the human rights of migrants and Egyptians themselves, as deportations of Egyptians from the EU have increased while people continue to face authoritarianism in Egypt. - EU-Egypt migration cooperation: At the expense of human rights. Euromed Rights. 15 July 2019.

The Italian association of immigration lawyers (ASGI) engaged in a survey and field research in Niamey, Niger, in November 2018. The in-depth study aims to analyse the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM), a system that was invented to relocate migrants previously evacuated from Libya to Niger, assess their applications and select applicants to resettle in third states. The report examines whether the ETM programme and resettlement are suitable instruments to maintain a balance between border checkpoints management and ensuring the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. Specifically, it questions whether such mechanisms are suitable for granting the right of asylum to people who are unable to reach Europe to seek international protection. - The “Emergency Transit Mechanism” programme and the resettlement from the Niger: Legal analysis, current and future concerns. Associazione per gli Studi Giuridici sull’Immigrazione (ASGI). 17 July 2019.

In 2017 President Emmanuel Macron said France would resettle 10.000 refugees by the end of 2019. IFRI research focuses on the local integration of resettled refugees in small-sized communities in France. The author has sought to grasp the local process of the reception of resettled refugees and their integration in small communities through interviews with local actors and field visits. - Another story from the “Refugee Crisis”: Resettlement in small towns and rural areas in France. Matthieu Tardis. Institut Francais des Relations Internationales. 26 July 2019.

In July 2019 US Attorney General WIlliam Barr issued a precedential decision, Matter of L-E-A-, 27 I&N Dec. 581, a case in which the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) represented L-E-A-, a Mexican citizen, in his claim for asylum in immigration court. CLINIC’s practice pointer is intended to quickly provide legal practitioners with information on how to respond to L-E-A-. It outlines the flaws in the AG’s reasoning and suggests strategies for those with family-based asylum cases before asylum officers and immigration judges. - Practice Pointer: Matter of L-E-A-. Catholic Legal Immigration Network. 29 July 2019.

This article responds to dual calls for researching and theorising everyday social phenomena in postcolonial studies, on the one hand, and serious engagement with the postcolonial within the discipline of sociology, on the other. It focuses on the everyday lives of asylum seekers living on asylum seeker welfare support in the UK. Asylum seekers offer a case study for exploring the postcolonial everyday because they live in poverty and consequently experience daily harm at the hands of the state, despite the UK fulfilling its obligations under human rights law. - Necropolitics and the slow violence of the everyday: Asylum seeker welfare in the postcolonial present. Lucy Mayblin, Mustafa Wake, Mohsen Kazemi. Sociology. July 2019.

Amnesty International reports on the unlawful targeting of human rights defenders by US authorities at the US-Mexico border. This campaign includes intimidation, threats, harassment and criminal investigations, including smuggling charges, against people defending human rights of migrants and asylum seekers. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) subjected these human rights defenders to legal harassment such as warrantless and unreasonable searches, prolonged interrogations, detention and travel restrictions. Also, DHS has collaborated with the Mexican authorities in surveillance operations and criminal investigations. - Saving lives is not a crime: Politically motivated legal harassment against migrant human rights defenders by the sea. Amnesty International. July 2019.

In this policy note the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) analyses the challenges that EU member states encounter in enforcing return decisions. ECRE identified stricter rules for return have been introduced in the 2018 Recast Return directive, raising concerns about its impact on fundamental rights of returnees, such as the increase of (prolonged) detention of potential returnees. By rushing policy change after policy change with an ever more restrictive focus, the EU Members States are in danger of inflicting considerable harm on third-country individuals. - Return policy: Desperately seeking evidence and balance. ECRE’s assessment of latest developments in EU policy and law of returns. ECRE. July 2019.

On 19 June 2019 the Austrian Parliament adopted a law establishing a Federal Agency for Supervision and Support Services which will be in charge inter alia of (i) providing reception conditions, (ii) providing legal assistance to asylum seekers; (iii) providing assistance for return, (iv) providing human rights observers to monitor deportations; and (v) providing interpreters and translators during the asylum procedure. In this legal note, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) provides its analysis of the main changes introduced by the law and their impact on the provision of legal assistance to asylum applicants both at first and second instance. The overall restrictive approach to free legal assistance pursued by the new law, the exclusion of welfare organisations and external service providers in the provision of legal assistance is of particular concern. - Reforming legal assistance in Austria: An end to independent provision? ECRE's call for withdrawal of measures that severely restrict access to independent legal assistance. ECRE. July 2019.

Nubsud Human Rights Monitors Organisation (NHRMO) has been monitoring human rights violations committed against the civilian population in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, Sudan, since the current conflict began in 2011. Human rights update April-June covers the attacks perpetrated by the Sudan Armed Forces and allied militia in the regions Delami Country and Blue Nile. - NHRMO. Civilians of South Kordofan and Blue Nile continue to face attacks. NHRMO. 4 August 2019.

Many Eritreans have spent their entire working lives in indefinite national service. Since 2003 the Eritrean government has forced thousands of young people to undergo military training before they complete secondary school. This report examines how national service violates young people’s rights and restricts their access to quality secondary education. - “They are making us into slaves, not educating us.” How indefinite conscription restricts young people’s rights, access to education in Eritrea. Human Rights Watch. 8 August 2019.

Venezuela’s crisis has triggered mass migration and more than 3.4 million Venezuelans have fled. The authors undertook an assessment mission to Cúcuta, in the Colombian state of North Santander, and to Bôa Vista and Pacaraima, in the state of Roraima, Brazil. Interviews were conducted with key informants, including health providers and organizations engaged in the humanitarian response. Surveillance data shows the increase of infectious diseases, as well as adverse maternal and neonatal health outcomes, among Venezuelans in North Santander and Roraima. - Venezuelan migration and the border health crisis in Colombia and Brazil. Shannon Doocy, Kathleen R. Page, Fernando de la Hoz, Paul Spiegel, Chris Beyrer. Journal on Migration and Human Security. 12 August 2019.

Commissioned by UNHCR, the Asylum Research Center maps the current security situation in three eastern Congolese regions — North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri — from January 2018 until August 2019. The report includes relevant country information on the security, humanitarian and human rights situation, and identifies issues relevant to refugee status determination. The report provides an overview of the various armed groups in the region and it highlights the conflict-related sexual violence and the violence committed against children, including the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Lastly, it covers the current Ebola crisis and the situation of internally displaced persons in eastern Congo. - Democratic Republic of Congo: The situation in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri. Asylum Research Center. August 2019.

In this article the authors examine a novel set of data from migrant shelters’ qualitative interviews with migrants and with staff and advocates working at the Mexico-Guatemala border region, as well as complaints of abuses committed along migrants’ journeys — informally filed by migrants. The article aims to document and analyze the nature, location, and perpetrators of these alleged abuses, using a framework of “compassionate repression” (Fassin 2012) to examine the obstacles that migrants encounter in denouncing abuses and seeking protection. While humanitarian visas can provide necessary protection for abuses committed in Mexico, they are limited by their temporary nature, by being nested within a migration system that prioritizes migrant removal.The paradox between humanitarian concerns and repressive migration governance in a context of high impunity shapes institutional and practical obstacles to reporting crimes, receiving visas, and accessing justice. In this context, a variety of actors recognize that they can exploit and profit from migrants’ lack of mobility, legal vulnerability, and uncertain access to protection. This could lead to a commodification of access to humanitarian protection along the route. - Paradoxes of protection: Compassionate repression at the Mexico-Guatemala border. Rebecca Galemba, Katie Dingeman, Kaelyn deVries, Yvette Servin. August 2019.

The Congo Research Group (CRG) is an independent, non-profit research project dedicated to understanding the violence and the different aspects of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The CRG aims to uncover and verify violence at the local level and to correct underreporting, employing local Congolese researchers who report and verify incidents. Together with Human Rights Watch, CRG started the Kivu Security Tracker (KST) project to map violent incidents and actors in order to better understand the intensity of local violence. Between June 2017 and June 2019, the KST project documented 3.015 violent incidents, and eastern Congo continues to see levels of violence as high as some of the (other) most violent places in the world. - Congo, forgotten: The numbers behind Africa’s longest humanitarian crisis. Congo Research Group, New York University. August 2019.

#refugees #asylum #asylum seekers

1 note · View note