Real solutions could have been agreed today.  No one should be fooled. They haven’t been.

European leaders must move beyond political grandstanding to ensure robust and multi-country search and rescue.

European leaders meeting in Brussels have an opportunity and the responsibility to make right their colossal failures which continue to lead to deaths. The proposal on the table puts spin before lives.

23/04/2015 – Last week, we published our report ‘Behind the Rhetoric: Human rights abuses in Bahrain continue unabated’, which highlights how, despite assurances towards the international community, the Bahraini government has intensified its crackdown on dissenting voices in recent months.

Let’s call this what it is: racism, pure and simple.

On Thursday, Europe’s leaders can finally take concrete action. There can be no more excuses to prevent further deaths.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

22/04/2015 – Must try harder: Ethnic discrimination of Romani Children in Czech schools, documents how the the Czech authorities are violating the human rights of Romani children in schools across the country. Romani children are segregated in mainstream education in Roma-only separate classes, buildings and schools and even placed in schools for pupils with “mild mental disabilities”. Those in ethnically mixed schools experience bullying, and harassment.

21/04/2015 – Amnesty International’s new report on the situation in the Mediterranean documents testimonies of shipwreck survivors. It details the challenges and limitations of current search and rescue operations in the central Mediterranean and sets out ways in which this can be remedied. It calls for the immediate launch of a humanitarian operation to save lives at sea, with adequate ships, aircraft, and other resources, patrolling where lives are at risk.

Words must now turn into concrete action specifically in the form of a European multi-nation and robust search and rescue operation.

Amnesty International