Amnesty International Report 2017/18

Amnesty International Report 2017/18

49

Broad definitions of terrorism in the law, and the misapplication of counter-terrorism laws to a 

wide group of people – human rights defenders, environmental activists, refugees, migrants, 

and journalists – continued, notably in Turkey but also throughout Western Europe. Vague laws 

punishing “glorification” or “apology” of terrorism were used to prosecute activists and civil 

society groups for opinions expressed on the internet and social media, including in France, 

Spain and the UK.

France’s state of emergency ended in November, having lasted almost two years. In October, 

France adopted a new counter-terrorism law embedding in ordinary law many of the measures 

permitted under the emergency regime.

Instead of investigating and prosecuting suspected perpetrators of violent attacks, many 

states implemented administrative control measures limiting everyone’s rights and often 

applied these based on vague grounds, often connected to religious belief or associations. 

Detention without charge or trial was proposed in several countries, including France, the 

Netherlands and Switzerland, and introduced in Bavaria, Germany.

Many EU member states also attempted to draw links between the refugee crisis and 

terrorism-related threats. Although a Hungarian court’s conviction on spurious terrorism 

charges of “Ahmed H”, a Syrian resident in Cyprus, was annulled, Ahmed H remained in 

detention while his new trial unfolded. The trial was ongoing at the end of the year. He had 

been convicted of an “act of terror” for throwing stones and speaking to a crowd through a 

megaphone during clashes with border police.

A number of states in Europe and in Central Asia intensified their focus on online activity as a 

perceived potential driver for terrorism-related or “extremist” activity. The UK proposed 

criminalizing repeated viewing of “terrorism-related” content online with a maximum 15-year 

prison sentence. Similar measures already existed, and were deemed unconstitutional, in 

France.

In Eastern Europe and in Central Asia, government responses to the real and perceived 

threats posed by terrorism and extremism followed an all-too-familiar pattern. Extraditions and 

renditions of suspects to destinations where they were at risk of torture and other ill-treatment 

were frequent and swift, individuals being forcibly returned, in contravention of international 

law. In Russia’s North Caucasus, enforced disappearances, unlawful detention, torture and 

other ill-treatment of detainees, and extrajudicial executions were reported in the context of 

security operations. In Russia-occupied Crimea, the de facto authorities pursued all forms of 

dissent and continued to arbitrarily target the Crimean Tatar community under anti-extremism 

and counter-terrorism legislation.

REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS

During 2017, 171,332 refugees and migrants arrived in Europe by sea, compared to 362,753 

in 2016. The decrease was mainly due to EU states’ co-operation with Libya and Turkey. At 

least 3,119 people died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. EU states 

intensified their efforts to prevent irregular entry and increased returns, including through 

policies that exposed migrants and those in need of protection to ill-treatment, torture and 

other abuses in countries of transit and origin.

By using aid, trade and other leverage, European governments encouraged and supported 

transit countries – even those where widespread and systematic violations against refugees 

and migrants were documented – to implement stricter border control measures, without 

adequate human rights guarantees. This trapped thousands of refugees and migrants in 

countries where they lacked adequate protection and where they were exposed to serious 

human rights violations.

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50

Amnesty International Report 2017/18

NGOs, which performed more rescues in the central Mediterranean in the first half of 2017 

than any others, were discredited and attacked by public commentators and politicians, and 

faced restrictions on their activities by a new code of conduct imposed by the Italian 

authorities.

Russia continued to return asylum-seekers and refugees to countries where they were at risk 

of torture and other ill-treatment, as did other countries in Europe and Central Asia.

EUROPEAN COLLABORATION WITH LIBYA

With most refugees and migrants crossing the sea into Europe embarking from Libya, the EU 

and European governments, with Italy at the forefront, sought to close down this route by co-

operating with the Libyan coastguard and other actors in the country. They entered into a 

string of co-operation agreements with Libyan authorities responsible for grave human rights 

violations, in particular the Libyan Coast Guard and Libya’s General Directorate for Combating 

Illegal Migration (DCIM).

Italy and other governments failed to include key human rights guarantees in these 

agreements and turned a blind eye to the abuses, including torture and extortion, against 

refugees and migrants by the very institutions they were co-operating with. The actions of 

European countries were leading to increasing numbers of people being stopped or 

intercepted. In so doing, European governments, and Italy in particular, were breaching their 

own international obligations and becoming complicit in the violations committed by the Libyan 

authorities they were sponsoring and co-operating with.

EU-TURKEY MIGRATION DEAL, CONDITIONS IN GREECE

The March 2016 EU-Turkey migration deal remained in place and continued to restrict access 

to territory and asylum in the EU. The deal aimed at returning asylum-seekers to Turkey, on 

the pretence of it being a “safe country” of transit. European leaders maintained the fiction 

that Turkey provided protection equivalent to that of the EU, even though Turkey had become 

even more unsafe for refugees since the 2016 coup attempt. The removal of procedural 

safeguards under Turkey’s state of emergency put refugees there at heightened risk of 

refoulement, the forcible return to countries where they were at risk of facing serious human 

rights violations.

Throughout 2017, the deal left thousands exposed to overcrowded, squalid and unsafe 

conditions on Greek islands that were transformed into de facto holding pens and condemned 

them to extended asylum procedures. Some suffered violent hate crimes. Compared to 2016, 

arrivals on the Greek islands dropped sharply, mainly due to the deal,but a relative increase in 

arrivals during the summer stretched the islands’ already insufficient reception capacity once 

again. In December, around 13,000 asylum-seekers remained in limbo, stranded on the 

islands.

Reception conditions both on the islands and in mainland Greece, meanwhile, continued to 

be inadequate, with many still forced to sleep in tents unfit for winter and women and girls 

particularly vulnerable in unsafe camp facilities.

In September, Greece’s highest administrative court paved the way for forcible returns of 

Syrian asylum-seekers under the EU-Turkey migration deal by endorsing decisions by the 

Greek asylum authorities that deemed Turkey safe for two Syrian nationals.

RELOCATION SCHEMES

Solidarity with frontline countries receiving the majority of arrivals continued to be in short 

supply. European countries failed to relocate their committed numbers of asylum-seekers from 

Greece and Italy under the emergency relocation scheme adopted in September 2015. As of 

November, European states had fulfilled just 32% of their legal commitment. At the end of 

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