AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
EU can’t outsource migration control to Libya
(Brussels, 5 July 2012) In a new report released today, Libya: Rule of law or rule of militias
, Amnesty International reveals that nearly a year after Tripoli’s fall to revolutionary fighters, human rights continue to be widely violated. The findings come only weeks after the leak of a secret Italo-Libyan migration control agreement. Italy concluded it on 3 April, despite firm evidence that migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers are still subject to serious abuse in Libya.
“It’s unacceptable for any EU country to continue seeking Libyan cooperation on migration control when it’s well aware what’s happening to migrants and asylum-seekers in Libya”, said Nicolas Beger, Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office. “Italy must immediately revoke any migration control agreement with Libya and fully disclose any past or current cooperation projects with Libya, including EU-funded ones.”
Arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, sometimes with fatal consequences, impunity for unlawful killings and forcible displacement are overshadowing the country’s first national elections since the Gaddafi regime’s fall.
The report includes fresh evidence that Sub-Saharan Africans in Libya, particularly migrants without papers, continue to suffer arbitrary arrest, indefinite detention, beatings which can amount to torture, and exploitation by armed militias. Those rounding up foreigners generally make no distinction between migrants and people fleeing war and persecution in their countries.
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