HRW urges Tunisia to stop ‘collective expulsions’ of migrants to desert

News Agency nabakhabar — Sat, 08 Jul 2023 01:00:40 +0000

Hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa have been left stranded in dire conditions in the south of Tunisia since being driven out of the port city of Sfax in the past week.

Human Rights Watch has urged Tunisia to put an end to what it called the “collective expulsions” of black African migrants to a desert area near the Libyan border.

“Tunisian security forces have collectively expelled several hundred Black African migrants and asylum seekers, including children and pregnant women, since July 2, to a remote, militarised buffer zone at the Tunisia-Libya border,” HRW said on Friday.

“Many reported violence by authorities during arrest or expulsion,” the New York-based watchdog said in a statement.

HRW’s Lauren Seibert urged Tunisia’s government to “halt collective expulsions and urgently enable humanitarian access to the African migrants and asylum seekers already expelled to a dangerous area”.

This comes against a backdrop of violence after the funeral of a 41-year-old Tunisian man who was stabbed to death in Sfax on Monday in a brawl between Tunisians and migrants.

Sfax, the North African country’s second-largest city, is a departure point for many hoping to reach Europe by sea, often the Italian island of Lampedusa about 130 kilometres (80 miles) away.

‘No time to waste’

The HRW said migrants it interviewed alleged “several people died or were killed at the border area” between Sunday and Wednesday, “some shot and others beaten” by Tunisian security forces.

“They also said that Libyan men carrying machetes or other weapons had robbed some people and raped several women,” HRW reported, adding it was unable to independently verify the accounts.

HRW called on the government in Tunis to “investigate and hold to account security forces implicated in abuses”.

“African migrants and asylum seekers, including children, are desperate to get out of the dangerous border zone and find food, medical care, and safety,” Seibert said. “There is no time to waste.”

Tunisia has seen a rise in racially motivated attacks after President Kais Saied in February accused “hordes” of undocumented migrants of bringing violence and alleging a “criminal plot” to change the country’s demographic make-up.

Some migrants forcibly taken to the desert told AFP by phone on Thursday that hundreds, including women and children, had been abandoned there and left destitute.

Video footage shared on Friday by an African association shows dozens of visibly exhausted people, including mothers with babies, sitting or lying on the sand in the desert by the Mediterranean near the border with Libya.

One begs for help, saying: “We have nothing to eat. How many days can we survive?”

Some Tunisians have expressed solidarity with the migrants, providing food and medical help to those now living on the street after being chased from their homes.

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Poland’s all-postal presidential vote ‘dangerously undermines’ democracy, warns HRW

News Agency nabakhabar — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 18:30:58 +0000

Campaigning for the presidential ballot was paused in early March due to the COVID-19 pandemic but the country’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) has backed maintaining the May 10 election and introduced legislation to create a mail-in voting system.

The bill has been backed by Parliament’s lower house and has moved on to the Senate.

The second alternative PiS has proposed is to extend the current presidential term from five to seven years.

Human Right Watch condemned both alternatives on Tuesday and called on parliament — held by Pis — to “ensure that the election process is predictable, free, and fair, which may require postponing the voting for a short period.”

‘There is no legal basis for the election’

According to Human Rights Watch, preparations are already underway for the all-postal election to take place despite the legislation not having been approved yet. For the NGO, “given the unprecedented nature of such full-scale mail-in voting in Poland, and the extremely short time frame, it appears very unlikely – if not impossible – that the process will guarantee fairness and transparency.”

Piotr Buras from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank also told Euronews that with two weeks to go before the election, “there is no legal basis for the election to take place.”

“The government decided to change the electoral law just a few weeks ago to introduce general postal voting. It, in itself, is unconstitutional — the basic law forbids any changes to the electoral law later than 6 months before the election,” he wrote in an email.

The country’s constitution already provides for circumstances in which the government could postpone elections during a public health emergency. Per the constitution, an election can only be held no earlier than 90 days after the end of a state of emergency for public health reasons.

The government has not declared a state of emergency. The country has, as of Tuesday, recorded 12,218 cases and 596 deaths from COVID-19, according to a tally kept by the John Hopkins University.

Furthermore, Buras stressed, Poland has no experience of this kind of voting.

“Universal postal ballot organised within a few weeks from scratch by an unprepared institution in the midst of a pandemic poses numerous challenges,” he explained. Voter confidentiality and participation would be compromised, he said.

“Also, hundreds of thousands of Poles living abroad will not be given the possibility to vote,” Buras added.

‘Unfair advantage’

The NGO decried the fact that while opposition candidates have paused their campaigning, incumbent President Andrzej Duda, an independent allied with PiS, gets extensive coverage in government-friendly media. It said this “gives him an unfair advantage and raises concerns about all candidates’ ability to campaign freely and fairly.”

Buras echoed that assessment.

According to a poll commissioned by the ECFR earlier this month, Duda should win the first round with 65% of votes, primarily because “the opposition’s electorate does not intend to participate” over concerns about the ballot’s legality and the risk to their health, Buras said.

“If there was a second round — in case Duda does not get more then 50% of votes in the first round which is a likely scenario if the opposition electorate is mobilised — the outcome of the election would be open,” Buras went on.

For Lydia Gall, senior Balkan and Eastern European Union researcher at Human Rights Watch, “elections should be safe, free, and fair at all times, including during a deadly pandemic.”

“Rather than present parliament with options that dangerously undermine the integrity of Poland’s democracy, the governing party should propose serious measures that can guarantee free elections during a health crisis,” she added.

Poland vs the EU

Poland’s right-wing government has repeatedly drawn the ire of the European Commission since 2015 for pushing through legislation that the EU says undermines judicial independence and rule of law.

The EU Court of Justice (ECJ) has also repeatedly ruled in the EU’s favour in several court cases opposing the top EU institution to Poland.

In June 19, it ruled that Polish legislation lowering the retirement age of Supreme Cout judges was “contrary to EU law”. Earlier this month, the ECJ also ordered Poland to “immediately suspend” the activities of the Supreme Court’s disciplinary chamber, whose members are elected by the Pis-held parliament.