Amnesty International Report 2017/18
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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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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