Amnesty International Report 2017/18

Amnesty International Report 2017/18

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2017, 21,703 asylum-seekers out of 66,400 had been relocated from Greece, and 11,464 out 

of around 35,000 from Italy.

Among the worst offenders were Poland and Hungary, both having refused to accept a single 

asylum-seeker from Italy and Greece by the year’s end.

The European Court of Justice rejected Slovakia’s and Hungary’s complaint against the 

mandatory refugee relocation scheme. The European Commission also opened infringement 

proceedings against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for failing to comply with their 

relocation obligations.

CURTAILING ACCESS TO ASYLUM AND PUSHBACKS

Hungary reached a new low by passing legislation allowing pushbacks of all people found in 

an irregular situation in the country and by introducing the automatic detention of asylum-

seekers, in blatant breach of EU law. The authorities locked up in containers asylum-seekers 

arriving at its borders. Hungary’s systematic flouting of the rights of refugees, asylum-seekers 

and migrants also included severely restricting access by limiting admission to two operational 

border “transit zones” in which only 10 new asylum applications could be submitted each 

working day. This left thousands of people in substandard camps in Serbia, at risk of 

homelessness and forcible return further south to Macedonia and Bulgaria.

Abuses and pushbacks continued at the EU external borders, from Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, 

and Poland. Poland’s government proposed legislation to legalize pushbacks, a regular 

practice at a crossing between Poland and Belarus. In a landmark ruling, the European Court 

of Human Rights condemned Spain for breaching the prohibition of collective expulsions and 

for violating the right to an effective remedy in the case of two migrants who were summarily 

returned from the Spanish enclave of Melilla to Morocco.

Slovenia adopted legislative amendments under which it could deny entry to people arriving 

at its borders and automatically expel migrants and refugees who entered irregularly, without 

assessing their asylum claims.

FORCED RETURNS

EU member states also continued to put pressure on other governments to accept 

readmissions – in some cases without including adequate guarantees against refoulement.

At a time when civilian casualties in Afghanistan were at some of their highest levels on 

record, European governments forced increasing numbers of Afghan asylum-seekers back to 

the dangers from which they fled in Afghanistan. Forced returns to Afghanistan were made 

from countries including Austria, the Netherlands and Norway.

IMPUNITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE 

FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia delivered its final judgment on 29 

November 2017, bringing to a close its largely successful 23-year effort to hold perpetrators of 

war crimes to account. Also in November, it sentenced Bosnian Serb war leader Ratko Mladić 

to life imprisonment for crimes under international law, including genocide, war crimes, and 

crimes against humanity.

At the national level, with the exception of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which some modest 

progress was made, impunity remained the norm, with courts continuing to have limited 

capacity and resources, and facing undue political pressure. Prosecutors across the region 

lacked the support of the executive and their work was compromised by a climate of 

nationalist rhetoric and lack of political commitment to sustained regional co-operation.

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Amnesty International Report 2017/18

By the end of the year, the authorities had made no progress in establishing the fate of over 

11,500 people disappeared during the armed conflicts in the Balkans. Victims of enforced 

disappearance and their families continued to be denied access to justice, truth and 

reparation. Nominal improvements in the laws regulating reparation for victims of wartime 

sexual violence continued to be made in several countries.

DISCRIMINATION

THE “TRADITIONAL VALUES” PRETENCE IN EASTERN EUROPE AND IN 

CENTRAL ASIA

Governments across Eastern Europe and across Central Asia continued to prop up repression 

and discrimination by promoting and increasingly invoking the rhetoric of a discriminatory 

interpretation of so-called “traditional values”. The “traditional values” referred to were 

selective xenophobic, misogynistic and homophobic interpretations of cultural values. In 

Tajikistan, this discourse and its application was used to punish LGBTI communities for 

“amoral” behaviours and enforce “norms” for dress code, language and religion primarily 

against women and religious minorities, including through new legislation. In Kazakhstan and 

Russia, there was an increasing number of criminal prosecutions and other harassment of 

religious minorities, on arbitrary grounds, under “anti-extremism” legislation. The said 

interpretation assertion of “traditional values” reached a terrifying dimension with the secret 

torture and killing of gay men in Chechnya by authorities.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Following sexual harassment allegations against US Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and 

others in the show business industry, millions of women worldwide used the online hashtag 

#MeToo to break the silence about their experiences as survivors of sexual violence. This 

became a rallying cry for challenging victim blaming and holding offenders to account. The 

year also saw the women’s and feminist movements mobilizing thousands – including during 

January’s Women’s Marches across Europe, and Black Monday protests in Poland that 

successfully pushed the government not to further restrict access to safe and legal abortion. 

Yet, throughout Europe and Central Asia, women and girls continued to experience systemic 

human rights violations and abuses, including torture and other ill-treatment, denial of the 

right to health and bodily autonomy, inequality of opportunity, and widespread gender-based 

violence.

Access to abortion remained criminalized in most circumstances in Ireland and Northern 

Ireland and severely restricted in practice. In Poland, there were systemic barriers in accessing 

safe and legal abortion. Abortion remained criminalized in all circumstances in Malta.

The EU and Moldova signed the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating 

violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention). It was ratified by 

Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Norway and Switzerland – bringing to 28 the number of 

states to have done so. Ukraine signed it in 2011 but failed to ratify the Convention.

Despite increasingly strong legislative protections, gender-based violence against women 

remained pervasive, including in Albania, Croatia and Romania. In Russia, under the cover of 

the so-called “traditional values” narrative, and encountering little public criticism, the 

Parliament adopted legislation decriminalizing some forms of domestic violence 

which President Putin signed into law. In Norway and Sweden, gender-based violence, 

including sexual violence, remained a serious problem with inadequate state response.

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