Statement by Abdul Aziz Muhamat at the launch event for the UN Committee on Migrant Workers’ General Comment No. 5 (2021) on migrants’ rights to liberty, freedom from arbitrary detention and their connection with other human rights by the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
[…]
While much of the conversation today about how to treat migrants revolves around developing better management strategies and improving service provisions, the Committee on Migrant Workers with this General Comment affirms loudly and clearly that the most important conversation we should be having is how to preserve migrants’ fundamental rights. […]
On 7 October 2021, the UN Committee on Migrant Workers released its General Comment No. 5 (2021), which provides an authoritative interpretation of articles 16 and 17 and other articles of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, focusing on migrants’ right to liberty and freedom from arbitrary detention. […]
The UN’s Independent Fact-Finding Mission to Libya has found that over the past five years, both state and non-state actors have committed such extreme levels of violence and abuses against migrants and refugees that there are reasonable grounds for concluding that war crimes have been committed as well as crimes against humanity. The mission, which […]
LATEST PUBLICATIONS Afghanistan Situation Report: Decades of internal conflict and foreign military interventions have turned Afghanistan into one of the world’s leading source countries for migrants and refugees, with several million Afghan nationals living outside the country. The evacuation of U.S. and other international forces in 2021 spurred a new surge in Afghans seeking to […]
On 18 September 2021, Greece opened the first of five new facilities to confine asylum seekers and migrants on the Island of Samos, close to the border with Turkey. Similar facilities are planned on the islands of Leros, Lesbos, Kos, and Chios. Fully funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund of the European Union, […]
Previously one of the countries in the world least affected by COVID-19, Australia has been struggling to contain outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant across the country over recent months. The States of New South Wales, Victoria and Canberra have all experienced extended periods of lockdown over the past weeks. Immigration detention centres have […]
On 10 September, reports from human rights groups and independent journalists began circulating about Egypt’s efforts to remove two asylum seekers who had been detained for several years but who had purportedly been cleared for deporation back to Eritrea–in violation of Egypt’s international treaty obligations–where they would likely face torture and possibly execution. According to […]
Poland has experienced important reductions in the number of arriving asylum seekers since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: in 2020, there were 2,803 asylum applications, compared with 4,096 in 2019. According to the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, as of 1 January 2021, there were 1,319 persons holding valid residence cards for refugees, […]
The evacuation of foreign militaries from Afghanistan is spurring a new refugee exodus. This “Situation Report” provides an overview of early responses to the crisis in key countries across the globe as well as a summary of recommendations from human rights monitors. […]
