NEWSLETTER: September 2018

2 October 2018

OUR LATEST PUBLICATIONS

 

Immigration Detention in Egypt: Military Tribunals, Human Rights Abuses, Abysmal Conditions, and EU Partner 
Egypt has long been a destination and transit country for refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants from across the Middle East and Africa. Its Mediterranean coast has served as an important staging point for people attempting to reach Europe irregularly. Observers have repeatedly expressed concerns about Egypt’s use of police stations and prisons for immigration detention purposes. With the jurisdiction of Egypt’s military substantially expanded since the military coup in 2013, military officers can arrest people for migration-related offences and place them before military tribunals that do not meet international fair trial standards. Despite on-going government repression of civil society organisations and the dire conditions migrants face in detention, Egypt remains a key EU partner in Mediterranean migration control policies. Read the full report. 

Immigration Detention in Scandinavia: A Regional View
Scandinavian countries once served as beacons of tolerance and civility in their treatment of migrants and refugees. Even when they detained people for migration-related procedures, observers often remarked on their exemplary conditions of detention, with Sweden in particular serving as a “model.” But times have changed. Since the onset of the “refugee crisis,” there has been a notable hardening of both policies and political rhetoric targeting asylum seekers across the region. In Sweden, detention capacity has increased and anti-immigrant political groups have grown in popular acceptance. In Norway, deportations continue to grow even as the numbers of asylum seekers drop. In Denmark, politicians publicly celebrate the detention of failed asylum seekers, which appears to endear them to large swaths of the public. Even Finland, which has one of the lowest rates of detention in Europe, has been buffeted by divisive public debate, with some political figures bemoaning the “Islamisation of society.” This special mini-series brings together recent GDP profiles of all four Scandinavian countries, highlighting the changes that have occurred in their detention and deportation policies, the many concerns that have been raised by national and international human rights observers, and long-term trends that are impacting the well-being of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in the region.

Read the Scandinavia mini-series:

 

GDP ON THE RECORD