ECRE Press Briefing on JHA Council Meeting
From 7 to 10 May, over 500 migrants, including pregnant women and children, were forcibly returned to Libya by the Italian coast guard without an assessment of their need for protection. ECRE believes that deporting people to a country where they face ill-treatment and may be pushed back into the arms of their persecutors violates human rights law. While the EU is trying to build a Common European Asylum System, in fact many refugees are not able to get to Europe and access the protection they need. At the meeting, Christopher Hein, the director of Italian Refugee Council offered first hand experience and evidence concerning the worrying pushbacks to Libya. The Italian Refugee Council (CIR) is member of ECRE and works in defence of refugees and asylum seekers' rights in Italy. In Libya CIR works as partner in an European project to protect migrants' rights and to promote asylum and international protection for refugees. On this occasion ECRE issued a press release to appeal to the European governments to ensure respect for the right to seek asylum in Europe. |
During a special breakfast Press briefing on 3 June, preceding the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council meeting (4-5 June), ECRE presented its