NEWSFLASH

Any peace initiative for the Middle East needs a strong human rights component says Amnesty International as EU Foreign Ministers meet in Brussels.

Amnesty International today releases a report criticising Spain’s failure, one year on, to conclude investigations on the deaths of 13 migrants and hundreds wounded in Ceuta and Melilla in September/October 2005. (Available below)

26/10/2006 – Amnistía Internacional ha recibido y documentado informes de graves violaciones de derechos humanos contra migrantes y solicitantes de asilo que intentan cruzar la frontera entre Marruecos y España en los enclaves españoles de Ceuta y Melilla.

Amnesty International is concerned about the EU’s moves to give financial support to countries such as Libya to tackle irregular migration, without seeking any type of guarantees that the rights of asylum seekers and migrants will be upheld in the process.

As EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers prepare to meet once again in Tampere, the site of the landmark summit that in 1999 set the political direction for developing the EU as an “Area of Freedom, Security and Justice”, Amnesty International urges the EU to make the Hague Programme human rights proof.

As it presents a report documenting Hizbullah’s attacks in Northern Israel, Amnesty International appeals once again to EU Foreign Ministers to call for a comprehensive, independent and impartial inquiry into violations of international humanitarian law by both sides in the conflict.