Italy censured for deporting African migrants
European Court rules it violated human rights
23 February, 13:45
In a binding decision, the Strasbourg court found Italy guilty of degrading treatment, violating due process and putting migrants at great risk when it deported 24 Somali and Eritrean nationals to Libya on May 6, 2009. The judgement in the case of Hirsi Jamaa and Others v.
Italy ordered the country to pay damages of 15,000 euros plus expenses for each of the 22 victims represented. Two of the original plaintiffs have died. They were among roughly 200 African migrants intercepted by Italian authorities off the Sicilian island of Lampedusa and deported against their will without first being identified, questioned nor given the chance to request asylum, which the court ruled broke Article Three of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court also ruled that Italy violated a ban on collective deportation and went beyond the effective rights of the accused to seek recourse in Italian courts. The 24 original plaintiffs in the case were the only ones prosecutors were able to retrace. Under a 2008 treaty, then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi pledged to to help Italy send back undocumented immigrants caught in international waters.
In February 2011 Italy suspended the agreement in the wake of the unrest in Libya.
Last year some 50,000 migrants arrived on Lampedusa after the Tunisian revolution and the Libyan war, pushing reception facilities past breaking point.
photo: archive pic of migrants near Lampedusa
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Guarda la foto1 di 1
(ANSA) - Strasbourg, February 23 - The European Court of Human Rights has censured Italy for violating the rights of undocumented migrants as part of the country's Gaddafi-era policy of sending them back to Libya.
Posts
