Asylum Seeking Not Criminal – UNHCR
UNITED NATIONS, 1 Oct 2012
Africa news – TRANSCEND Media Service
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said the seeking of asylum is not a criminal act and those who seek it should not be detained. In a statement obtained by PANA in New York Sunday [23 Sep 2012], the UN refugee agency also called on all states to seek out alternatives to detention when dealing with migrants and refugees. The statement, issued following the agency’s new guidelines on the detention of asylum-seekers, urged the world’s governments to make better use of alternatives to detention for those irregular migrants seeking refuge within their borders.
‘The new guidelines make clear that seeking asylum is not a criminal act, and that indefinite and mandatory forms of detention are prohibited under international law,” it said, adding that it is disappointed that many countries continue to hold asylum-seekers in detention, sometimes for long periods and in poor conditions, including in some cases in prisons together with common criminals.
According to a UNHCR report released in March, global asylum claims have been on the rise, with 2011 experiencing an estimated 441,300 recorded claims, compared to 368,000 the previous year.
‘In relative terms, the largest increase was in southern Europe, which saw 66,800 asylum claims – a jump of 87 per cent. Most of these claims were from people who arrived by boat in Italy and Malta, but with a sharp increase also seen in Turkey,’ it said.
The agency also expressed concern that, along with the growing number of asylum seekers, the use of detention was becoming a more frequent occurrence.
It said UNHCR research indicated that irregular migration is not deterred even by stringent detention practices and that more than 90 per cent of asylum-seekers comply with their conditions of release when freed from detention.
‘Such solutions are important features of immigration and asylum regimes,” it said, adding alternatives to detention are also more cost-effective than detention.
The UNHCR also urged governments to pay special attention to vulnerable asylum-seekers, such as victims of torture and trauma, older persons or persons with disabilities, and children.
The new guidelines supersede the ones last issued by UNHCR in 1999.
Go to Original – afriquejet.com
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The definition of a “refugee” is defined in the Article 1 of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951 and the Protocol of 1967 that removed the time and geographical limitations of the Article 1 of the Convention of 1951. In brief, according to that definition that is probably the most widely accepted refugee definition, a refugee is a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country” A person, who is seeking for asylum and who is not yet recognized as a “refugee”, is an asylum seeker. Therefore, any “refugee” was an asylum seeker.
An asylum seeker is vulnerable in the legal (and any other) sense because he or she does not have any recognized legal/legitimate status. As the result, some countries consider an asylum seeker as an illegal immigrant. This is probably one of the pit holes of international law because there is no international treaty such as the above mentioned 1951 Convention, which intends to provide an asylum seeker with a temporary protection until the refugee recognition process will be completed. It is very often, therefore, the asylum seeker is forced to be sent to an area or a country where persecution (owing to race, religion, nationality membership of a particular social group or political opinion) against him or her is expected.
Regarding this issue, the Article 33 of the 1951 Convention refers to the principle of non-refoulement:
1. No Contracting State shall expel or return (” refouler “) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
2. The benefit of the present provision may not, however, be claimed by a refugee whom there are reasonable grounds for regarding as a danger to the security of the country in which he is, or who, having been convicted by a final judgement of a particularly serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of that country.
For more discusses on that issue, visit http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae68ccd10.html and http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/category,LEGAL,,COMMENTARY,,437c6e874,0.html
The article above points out the above mentioned pit hole of international law. One of the main reasons why relevant authorities consider asylum seekers as illegitimate is many of asylum seekers are seeking for asylum due to economic reasons, not necessarily due to “fear of well-founded persecution” as mentioned in the Article 1 of the 1951 Convention.
Behind issues on the asylum seeker, however, extreme poverty and many other types of structural violence can be seen. What do you think of the following words of the two African boys?
“To the Excellencies and officials of Europe:
We suffer enormously in Africa. Help us.
We have problems in Africa.
We lack rights as children.
We have war and illness, we lack food…
We want to study, and we ask you to help us
to study so we can be like you, in Africa”
Message found on the bodies of Guinean teenagers
Yaguine Koita and Fode Tounkara, stowaways who died
attempting to reach Europe in the landing gear of an airliner.
As such, may relevant authorities treat asylum seekers in the humane manner according to the spirit of international human rights law.