UN report criticises Libya's treatment of refugees (News Feature)

By Yasmin El-Rifae Nov 9, 2010, 16:17 GMT

Cairo/Geneva - The UN Human Rights council met on Tuesday for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of human rights in Libya, amid criticism surrounding the country's treatment of refugees.

The report compiled by the UN for the UPR included concerns over arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, torture, and prison conditions which do not meet international standards.

The UPR sessions were created by the UN in 2006 with the aim of reviewing the human rights records of member countries every four years, based on a rotating selection.

Tuesday's session included details of mistreatment and 'frequent' forced deportation of refugees in Libya. The UN report said that refugees, many of who are seeking asylum, are often deported 'to countries where they could face persecution.'

In Libya's report to the UPR, it stated that it had been playing a key role in African affairs to tackle 'illegal migration in source countries south of the Sahara by contributing to the ongoing political efforts to settle the disputes, conflicts and troubles in and among certain African States.'

Libya's 24-page report also listed projects it had undertaken to assist migrants found in its territory, such as building hostels and medical facilities catered to them.

Libya recently embarked on an agreement with the European Union to receive 50 million euros in return for stemming the flow of thousands of migrants attempting to reach the southern coast of Europe by traveling through the North African country each year.

The EU said the funding, which would take place over three years, should also be used to 'protect refugees'.

A spokesperson for the UNHCR, a UN body mandated to protect refugees and resolve their problems, said she is optimistic the status of refugees in Libya could improve in light of the recent EU agreement.

'We are optimistic that the agreement with Libya and the funding would be used to help asylum seekers,' Sybella Wilkes, UNHCR's Senior Communications Officer for Middle East and North Africa told the German Press Agency dpa by telephone.

But rights groups are concerned that Libya will not use EU assistance to handle refugees according to international standards, which call for refugee protection.

'By setting up EU-sponsored asylum processing centres in Libya, EU States would evade their obligations to protect refugees and shift the responsibility to a country with an appalling human rights record,' a Brussels-based organisation called the European Council on Refugees and Exiles said on in a statement on its website.

Moreover, in June Tripoli shut down operations in Libya of the UNHCR. It has since allowed UNHCR staff to resume limited activities.

'Currently, our office in Libya is restricted to working with our existing case load. We cannot deal with anyone new who approaches us,' said UNHCR's Wilkes.

'We have submitted a memorandum of understanding to the Libyan government, and they are supposed to meet us in Geneva to finalise it. Our hope is to be able to serve everyone who approaches us, as our mandate is to serve all those who need our help,' she added.

According to the UNHCR, there 8,341 registered refugees and 3,428 asylum seekers whose status is still under assessment in Libya.

The UN report to the UPR also mentioned a controversial 'push-back' agreement between Italy and Libya that came into effect last year, stipulating that Italy would immediately deport migrants intercepted in international waters back to Libya.

'Italy intercepts African boat migrants and asylum seekers, fails to screen them for refugee status or other vulnerabilities, and forcibly returns them to Libya, where many are detained in inhumane and degrading conditions and abused,' Human Rights Watch said in a report issued in response to the agreement.

Given the UNHCR's current inability to take on new cases in Libya, concern has grown for the welfare of refugees deported back by Italy.

Human Rights Watch said that reporters emerged this year of the severe beatings, imprisonment in harsh conditions, and the attempted deportation of 245 Eritrean refugees.

Allegations of illegal detention and torture are not limited to African migrants in Libya. Issues surrounding human rights were brought to light in the case of five Bulgarian nurses who were imprisoned in1998 for nearly nine years on charges of poisoning children with HIV.

Some of the nurses, who were all released in 2007, told media they had been tortured with electric shock during interrogations, among other abuses.

The UPR is scheduled to adopt an outcome report for its review of Libya on Friday.

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