International
Refugee News
November
28 – December 11, 2000
Canadian Immigration officers have been
working overtime to deal with a 400-per-cent increase in the number of refugee
claims that have been made at four land border crossings in Niagara Falls and
Fort Erie, Ontario, since 1998. In 1998-99, the number of
refugee claims made in Niagara Falls and Fort Erie totalled 1,536. That figure
has soared to 5,857 during this fiscal year.
(The Globe and Mail - Canada, December 11, 2000)
Britain's largest ferry company, P & O
Stena, is to establish round-the-clock security checks on lorries at the
Belgian port of Zeebrugge. And the British Immigration Service will start
checking tickets and passports at the Paris Eurostar railway terminal.
Checks on passengers catching London-bound trains at the Gare du Nord in
Paris will start early next year.
(Daily Mail (UK), December 11, 2000)
Detention centres for illegal immigrants
were not meant to be holiday camps, Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said in a response to comments by former
Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who described South Australia's Woomera
detention centre as a "hell-hole." Ruddock denied human rights
abuses went on at the centre. (The
Australian Associated Press, December 11, 2000)
Former prime minister, Malcolm Fraser,
called for an independent inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse of children
and other human rights abuses at Woomera.
"I have seen the reports, I have seen photographs of it from a
distance from outside the barbwire," "Is this really the place to put
people who might be, probably are, trying to escape from absolute tyranny?” "The facilities are not good. It's obviously very hot and
clearly unpleasant, management extraordinarily harsh, unthinking and not
carrying out their duty of care if the allegations have any validity at
all." Mr Fraser said private
enterprises should not be allowed to run prisons or detention centres because
they were more concerned with boosting profits than the welfare of
detainees. He said the use of water
cannons and tear gas to quell violence at Woomera was unprecedented in
Australia. (The Australian, December 11, 2000)
In 1990, the US
Congress quietly removed homosexuality as a disqualification for admission to
the United States. In 1994, Attorney General Janet Reno clarified persecution
based on sexual orientation can be considered grounds for asylum. But immigration lawyers said deserving
asylum applicants who are lesbian or gay still face significant hurdles to
filing, documenting and winning their case.
In August, a California-based federal appellate court strengthened
the hand of gay asylum-seekers by making it clear they may be considered part
of a distinct social group. (The Fort-Lauderdale Sun-sentinel, December 10,
2000)
Police detained 14 Iraqi Kurds on this
eastern Aegean Sea Island, and arrested a 17-year-old smuggling suspect who
travelled with them from the nearby coast of Turkey. (The Associated Press, December 10,
2000)
Children held for years in immigration
detention centres. Asylum seekers shackled at airports or tossed in county
jails with felons. Immigrants deported for incidents that occurred years ago. The
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will scrutinize asylum and immigration laws and
their effect on immigrants' civil rights in an effort the commission calls
"Crossing Borders." (The Associated Press, December 8, 2000)
UN member states will meet to
sign the first UN convention against international organized crime. The convention and two
protocols -- against trafficking in women and children for sex slavery, as well
as the smuggling of migrants –, which were also adopted by the United Nations
in November, will come into force after ratification by 40 countries. (Agence
France Presse, December 8, 2000)
Fourteen thousand have been
caught in the past five months trying to board ferries at the French Calais
port, either with no papers or false visas.
Calais port has hired an army of security agents since July who stick
rods into the trucks to test carbon dioxide levels and the possible presence of
humans. One of the main operators ferry firm,
P&O Stena Line, started similar tests this month. France's frontier police
say they send only about 20 percent back home and 80 percent are
‘non-returnable.' (Reuters, December 7,
2000)
Bosnia's central government
decided to require Iranian citizens to enter the country with visas in a bid to
prevent mass illegal migration into Europe.
According to the United Nations mission to Bosnia, 12,323 Iranians
arrived to Sarajevo airport this year and only 1,062 of them have left the
country. During the past three months,
Croatian authorities have returned over 2,300 Iranians to Bosnia. The decision on visas was made at the
request of the Iranian government. "The UN hopes that this decision helps
stem the growing problem of illegal migration to Bosnia," Douglas Coffman,
UN spokesman, told AFP. (Agence France Presse, December 7, 2000)
Amnesty International said
after five days of meetings with government and political party officials that Japan
had to do much more to meet its international commitments on human rights. Japan also had a woeful record on asylum
seekers, often deporting refugees "before they even have the chance to
apply for asylum" and sending them back to an uncertain fate. Between 1994 and 1997, only one out of 516 asylum seekers was
granted refugee status. (Agence France Presse, December 8, 2000)
Australian Immigration Minister
Philip Ruddock has blamed a malicious campaign against the operators of the
Woomera Detention Centre, Australasian Correctional Management, for allegations
of brutality at the centre. Family
services director said children were handcuffed and kept in solitary
confinement, according to information from medical clinic staff and lawyers
visiting the detention centre.
Ruddock rejected suggestions that one child being transported to Port
Hedland had leg restraints applied to him and he dismissed claims by Amnesty
International that children were deprived of food for up to 32 hours during
that trip. (The Australian, December 8,
2000)
The High Court's recent
decision to prevent the Minister for Immigration, Ruddock, from deporting
Mansour Aala back to Iran is more than just an immigration case. It is a major
statement of Australia law, which will have widespread, long-term effects. The case creates some strong constitutional
rights for individuals. It gives them an enforceable right to be treated fairly
by Commonwealth officers. (The Canberra (Australia)
Times, December 8, 2000)
A major crackdown on illegal
immigrants by P&O Stena Line, Britain's largest ferry company has netted 43
stowaways in its first 24 hours. The
ferry company has hired 40 security guards to check every lorry bound for Dover
from Calais. Guards using hand-held carbon dioxide gas detectors, which can
trace human breath inside the vehicles, will check lorries. The controversial move has been condemned by
some refugee groups who believe a private company should not be involved in
immigration control. (Press Association (UK), December 7, 2000)
An Iraqi baby girl was detained
by French police yesterday with her mother and other ‘illegal immigrants’ in a
dawn swoop at Calais. On the British
side, police reported a big fall in the number of ‘illegals’ being taken into
custody as the Calais checks took effect. Even so, 27 Iraqis, Afghans and
Iranians were caught in Kent, Gloucestershire and Dorset. Ten Iranian stowaways, including four
children, were found in a British lorry. (The Daily Telegraph (UK),
December 7, 2000)
German Interior Minister Otto
Schily rejects the proposals of the European Union asylum policy as he believes
that they would make it impossible for Germany to return ‘illegal’ refugees to
the neighbouring countries through which they entered Germany, especially to
the Czech Republic and Poland.
The EU proposals stipulate that asylum seekers who enter EU territory
through a "third safe country," should apply for asylum in the EU
member country where they arrived. (Czech News Agency (CTK), December 6, 2000)
Amnesty International has
revealed three new cases of alleged child abuse in Australian immigration
detention centres. In one case it was alleged a
three-year-old boy had been put in leg restraints and later kept with his
father in a suicide-proof cell without windows, toilet or shower for 13
days. The cases also involved children
allegedly being denied food and medical attention. Amnesty International called for a wide-ranging judicial inquiry
into detention of “illegal immigrants.”
AI said the latest claims concerned Iraqi, Afghan and Iranian asylum
seekers and were made by the children's parents. They allegedly occurred at
detention centres in four States, and while asylum seekers were being moved
between centres. The claims follow allegations reported yesterday that a senior
ACM employee molested Chinese women on a deportation flight, and earlier
allegations that a 12-year-old Iranian boy was abused and sold for sex by his
father in South Australia's Woomera Detention Centre. AI said that while it was
claimed that the 12-year-old had been removed from Woomera, Amnesty had
information he was still at the centre. Among other incidents listed by Amnesty
were claims that a four-year-old Afghan girl at Maribyrnong Detention Centre
had a broken wrist for two weeks last year before being taken to hospital and
that an Iraqi girl, 11, was kept in a confined space at the Woomera centre for
nine days with her father and 23 other men.
A spokesman for the Immigration Minister, Ruddock, said some of the
claims could have been exaggerated. He rejected calls for a judicial
inquiry. (The Australian Associated
Press, December 7, 2000)
The U.S. Justice Department is
expected to propose groundbreaking new rules today easing the way for victims
of domestic violence to gain asylum in the United States. (Los Angeles Times, December 7,
2000)
Montreal immigration advocates
are denouncing a recommendation by Health Canada to screen would-be immigrants
for the human immunodeficiency virus, believed to cause AIDS. Under the proposal, would-be immigrants testing positive for HIV
would be barred from settling in Canada. (The Gazette (Montreal), December 3,
2000)
US Virgin Island authorities
have arrested 61 ‘illegal immigrants’ who arrived by boat in the U.S. Virgin
Islands in little more than a week. Officials have arrested more
than 600 “illegal aliens” in the U.S. Caribbean territory this year. (The
Associated Press, December 5, 2000)
The UNHCR has sharply
criticised the EU for not providing sufficient financial or political support
to alleviate the escalating refugee crisis. The Deputy High Commissioner
slammed EU Member States' piecemeal approach to asylum and their policy of
re-enforcing external borders and clamping down on human trafficking. (UNHCR,
European Report, December 6, 2000)
The UK Government's voucher
system for asylum-seekers should be scrapped because it is demeaning,
inefficient and poor value for money, a cross-party group of members of the
Scottish Parliament said. (Evening News (Edinburgh), December 5, 2000)
The German government announced
that it was lifting a three-year-old ban on permitting asylum seekers to obtain
jobs in the country after living in Germany for one year. (Agence France Presse,
December 6, 2000)
An Indonesian construction
labourer was jailed five years and ordered to be given five strokes of the
rotan by the Magistrate's Court here for endorsing a forged social visit pass
and entry permit. The charge under section
55D of the Immigration Act 1956/63 carries a maximum 10 years' jail, RM100,000
fine and six strokes of the rotan. (Malaysia General News, December 5, 2000)
The asylum claims of women who
face persecution abroad because they are openly lesbian, express feminist views
or have been victims of sexual abuse or domestic violence will be given full
consideration by UK immigration judges under new "gender guidelines" for asylum cases. (The Guardian, December 5, 2000)
The Irish Department of Justice
is considering sending asylum seekers to the site of an old military camp. (The Irish Times, December 5,
2000)
Authorities in southern Spain
have arrested 161 “illegal immigrants” over the last 24 hours in Andalucia. (Agence France Presse, December 4, 2000)
Two “illegal immigrants” from
North Africa trying to enter Spain died in separate incidents after they were
intercepted by authorities. A Moroccan man in his late
twenties died after he was shot in the chest by a Civil Guard police
officer. The other North African man
also died after apparently inhaling toxic fumes while the Spanish Coast Guard
towed a small launch carrying him and others to port. (Reuters, December 4,
2000)
German police arrested two
teen-agers for vandalizing a memorial to Omar Ben Noui, 28, an Algerian who
bled to death after jumping through a glass door while fleeing neo-Nazis who
chased him through town in February 1999.
(The
Associated Press, December 3, 2000)
Greek officials intercepted 26
Iraqis at the port of Patros in the Pelopponese islands. (Agence France Presse,
December 3, 2000)
Police in Cyprus arrested 35 Iraqis
and Iraqi Kurds, including nine children, who entered the island illegally
after travelling from neighbouring Lebanon on a fishing boat. Last month another 40 Iraqi Kurds and
Syrians landed in Cyprus in a similar manner. Many of them, excluding children
who are being taken care of by welfare, are in custody pending arrangements to
repatriate them. (Reuters, December 3, 2000)
The UK Conservative party is
revising its hard line policy of locking up all asylum applicants in special
detention centres after Home Office officials costed the programme at over £2bn
in capital costs and £1bn in annual running costs. (The Guardian (UK), November
29, 2000)
About 150 asylum seekers
protested outside the Department of Home Affairs' offices in central
Johannesburg, South Africa against cruel treatment in a peaceful sit-down
demonstration. (Integrated Regional Information Networks, November 29,
2000)
UK immigration officials tried
to deport Eve Aidoo, whose baby is several days overdue, to Ghana. The case emerged as the Home Office revealed figures showing that
the number of forced removals rose by 600 in the first six months of this year
to 7,400, an increase of 9 per cent. (The Independent (UK), December 1,
2000)
Italians harbour a deepening
fear of foreigners and think immigrants are a direct cause of an increase in
crime. Nearly a third of Italians say
their biggest concern is an increasing number of arrivals on their shores from
outside the European Union. (Reuters, December 1, 2000)
Italian police on Friday freed
a Tunisian youth from six-day confinement in a container carried by truck and
arrested the driver for human smuggling.
The 17-year-old was found with no food left and suffering from
hypothermia. (Agence France Presse, December 1, 2000)
The manager of Woomera
detention centre has been moved out amid allegations of child sexual abuse, the
rape of a nurse by a member of his staff, harassment of detainees and poor
administration. He remains an employee
of the Australasian Correctional Management. (The Australian, December 1, 2000)
The Icelandic government has
accepted a proposal on new laws for immigrants with more extensive, clearer
guidelines for the state regarding political refugees. Under the new law, immigrants
will be awarded with a residence permit after three years of living in Iceland,
provided they have attended Icelandic language classes. (Nordic Business
Report, November 29, 2000)
Croatian police detained a
group of 42 “illegal immigrants” as they attempted to enter the country from
Bosnia. Twenty-five Iranian and 17
Turkish citizens were arrested in the central Croatian village of Gornji
Vaganac, near the Licko Petrovo Selo border crossing with Bosnia. In the first eight months of the year, Croatian authorities
detained some 11,500 illegal immigrants -- mostly Romanians, Turks, Iranians
and Chinese -- 40 percent more than in the same period in 1999. (Agence France
Presse, November 30, 2000)
More than 230 children were
being held in detention centres as “illegal immigrants,” the Australian
government said. Under Australian law,
all illegal immigrants are mandatorily detained, with no distinction between
adults and children. That policy has
come under attack following allegations a young boy was sexually abused while a
detainee at South Australia's Woomera detention centre. In the previous 12
months, 651 children had been released.
(The Australian Associated Press, November 28, 2000)
The Australian government
denied it had refused to cooperate with a United Nations human rights committee,
which has cancelled a planned trip to inspect Australian detention centres. The committee is reportedly frustrated at not being able to
coordinate a visit to Australian detention centres with the federal
government. It has been trying to organise
a visit since 1997 when the committee criticised Australia's treatment of
refugees and asylum seekers. (The Australian Associated Press, November 28,
2000)
Two Iranian men in detention at
the Port Hedland facility spent two-and-a-half hours up a light pole in protest
against the time taken to process their applications to stay in Australia. They climbed the pole and agreed to come down after discussions
with immigration department officials and management of the centre. (The Australian Associated Press, November
28, 2000)