The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) is alarmed at the impact that extending the SEAHORSE maritime surveillance programme would have on migrants’ and refugees’ rights. The SEAHORSE MEDITERRANEO project was officially approved by the European Commission and unveiled in Madrid last Thursday, 19 September. EMHRN regrets that once again the EU is keeping up its lock-down on its external borders, this time through enhanced cooperation with Libya in its fight against irregular immigration to Europe.
Libya had already signed an agreement in principle with the European Union in June 2012 authorizing EUROSUR to act on its borders. Played up as a response to the deaths in the Mediterranean Sea, the aim is to ward off attempts to cross borders into Europe. To that extent, the SEAHORSE MEDITERRANEO project is just another tool put front and centre by the EU.
As with its counterpart programme SEAHORSE ATLANTICO – in force since 2006 between Spain, Morocco and some African Atlantic coastal states – the EU and its member states plan to step up controls on North African coastal and land borders, not least by deploying high-tech tools. Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt are also set to join the agreement, which will be rolled out over the next three years.
And yet, while the numbers reaching the Spanish coastline have fallen, the crackdown and serious violations of the human rights of migrants and refugees “stuck” in Morocco are a direct outcome of the implementation of SEAHORSE ATLANTICO. There is every reason to think that this kind of partnership with Libya would exacerbate the abuses going on in the country.
The most basic rights of migrants and refugees are violated on a daily basis in Libya, where they suffer arbitrary detention, inhuman treatment, forced labour and deportation. Libya has no asylum system offering protection to refugees on its territory and it is not a signatory to the 1951 Geneva Convention. As recently as last July, the ECHR put an emergency injunction on Malta’s return of migrants and refugees on the grounds that they might suffer inhuman or degrading treatment or torture in Libya.
By committing itself to implementing the SEAHORSE MEDITERRANEO project, the European Union risks violating its own obligations in terms of the respect of fundamental rights – not least the principle of non-refoulement and the right of everyone “to leave any country, including his own”.
EMHRN urges the EU to:
– Modify its migration policy by making any form of cooperation with Libya, Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia, where the rights of migrants and refugees are not respected, contingent on the proper observance of migrants’ and refugees’ human rights,
– Promote access to international protection for asylum seekers and refugees and in the current conditions where these rights are being violated in countries of North Africa, ensure that they have access to the EU,
– Give effective support to the implementation of national asylum systems in these countries that are capable of providing protection to refugees and respecting the rights deriving from refugee status.