Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

A displaced Libyan Tawargha woman is seen in a refugee camp in the outskirts of Benghazi. Manu Brabo/AP

Is the European Union funding the torture of refugees in Libya?

Amnesty International says European funding to secure Libyan borders is resulting in ‘holding centres’ where abuses occur.

THE EUROPEAN UNION may be unwittingly funding abuse of Libyan refugees through its support for border control mechanisms, Amnesty International has claimed.

The group says an EU-funded programme to support the troubled country’s international borders may be forcing vulnerable people into holding centres where they are routinely abused.

While the EU’s programme in Libya has been intended to help curb “illegal migration” across the borders – mostly to Italy, which has colonial ties with Libya and which has housed many refugees – the programme also means keeping asylum seekers in temporary accommodation.

Amnesty said it visited seven of these ‘holding centres’ earlier this year, and found evidence of ill-treatment – and in some cases, torture.

In at least two of the centres, detainees said they had been shot with live bullets during some riots, while in other cases detainees said they had been subjected to beatings with water pipes and electric cables.

In another instance, a man was shot in the foot and tied to a bed where he was hit with the butt of a rifle in his lower back. Four months later he remains unable to walk, or even stand up.

Over 25,000 people have been deported from Libya in the last year, on the basis that they are considered to have entered the country illegally – but people ready for deportation are housed in the centres for months at a time, without legal aid.

At the time of Amnesty’s visits, a total of 5,000 people were being held in 17 holding centres, which Amnesty also says have poor hygiene standards where many suffer from conditions like chronic diarrhoea.

In one centre, 80 detainees were held in a courtyard in the sun to treat an apparent scabies infection which left them with itchy hands and genitals. However, the patients then became dehydrated because of their exposure to the sun.

“The torture and ill-treatment we uncovered at ‘holding centres’ is unacceptable and is a stain on the record of post-Gaddafi Libya,” said Amnesty International Ireland director Colm O’Gorman.

“EU funding should be used to promote and protect human rights in Libya. It is deeply troubling that EU money appears to have been used to support detention centres where thousands of foreign nationals are unlawfully held.”

Amnesty had asked the EU and its member states not to enter into further agreements to fund Libyan border control without assurances that Libya’s interior ministry offers a guarantee to uphold the human rights of people who may be housed in its centres.

Read: Irish teachers still owed €142,000 for teaching Libyan Leaving Certs

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

Close
19 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Side View Bob
    Favourite Side View Bob
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 7:35 AM

    Wouldn’t surprise me.

    Gaddaffi was a lovely man until he wanted to introduce the gold dinar for the sale of oil.

    Then the eu and the usa shat themselves.

    The eu/usa murdered tens of thousands of Libyans for oil and is murdering people on a daily basis with the bullshit “arab spring”.

    Nothing would surprise me about the eu.

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute mattoid
    Favourite mattoid
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 7:52 AM

    Gadaffi was a lovely man?? Whatever your views on western foreign policy in the region, thats nonsense!

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute B Lowe
    Favourite B Lowe
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 8:11 AM

    Re Side View Bob.

    You are spot on.

    Re Mattoid.
    Gaddafi was loved by his people.
    Libya under Gaddafi was a beacon of light compared to present day and was the envy of the African continent until NATO ransacked and pillaged the country.

    30
    See 7 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jamie Garamanli
    Favourite Jamie Garamanli
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 8:22 AM

    B Lowe I didnt know you knew what people in Libya thought of Gaddafi. Actually you dont my familyare Libyan and they live in Libya (fought in the uprising as well) and they will tell you it was know shining light it hardly had lights let alone enough food. Yes the U.k France and America wantedhim out for the oil but the people wanted him out because he was an evil dictator

    27
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Side View Bob
    Favourite Side View Bob
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 8:36 AM

    Jamie,

    “uprisng”

    no Libyan could call what happened in Libya an “uprising” the brits/yanks used bastardized forces to gain control of the oil.

    The brits/yanks will tell you that al Qaeda/taliban are there evil enemies but they have no problem arming them when it suits them.

    Libya was a beacon of light.

    You Jamie, are a bullshytter

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Deeeeeee17
    Favourite Deeeeeee17
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 9:04 AM

    The awkward moment when someone makes a derisive comment citing someone else’s spelling mistake and then makes a silly grammar mistake..

    Their their, it’s not so bad! :-)

    6
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jamie Garamanli
    Favourite Jamie Garamanli
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 9:04 AM

    So your’e saying my father isnt Libyan,and didn’t fight? You are talking about somethimg you know nothing about, Im left wing mate but just because the west got involved doesnt mean it was all a western plan. Yeah they did jump on board and took advantage of it for there own personal gain. But Libya was no beacon of hope. Libya is in a awful way at the moment whatever notion of calm and government control in the media is lies it lawless my father has compared to Somalia where the warlords roamed in the 90s

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Derek Durkin
    Favourite Derek Durkin
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 11:10 AM

    Gadaffi may have had great intentions for the people of Libya and his economic policies certainly benefited all but power does eventually corrupt. Everything else is pretty spot on thou.

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Side View Bob
    Favourite Side View Bob
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 11:32 AM

    jamie,
    i know more about libya than you or your father.

    your use of british isms tells me a lot about you.

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Side View Bob
    Favourite Side View Bob
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 12:51 PM

    is jamie david thompson?

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Amnesty Ireland
    Favourite Amnesty Ireland
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 10:19 AM

    Under the al-Gaddafi government the Libyan people were denied fundamental human rights, abused, oppressed, imprisoned, tortured and silenced. Many of the abuses being used by armed militias in Libya today are replicating the abuses carried out by the former Libyan government. Amnesty International has decades of reports and evidence of documented human rights abuses by the former Libyan government on an appalling scale.

    Human rights is not about picking a side, being pro al-Gaddafi or being anti western or supporting rebels or NATO’s intervention. It’s about condemning human rights abuses regardless of which side carries them out. Both sides during the conflict in Libya carried out human rights abuses that in some cases would be tantamount to war crimes.

    The current Libyan government is not doing enough to protect the human rights of its people, and armed militias involved in the conflict have refused to disband and are engaged in widespread torture. As our report today shows, refugees and migrants to Libya are being treated appalling. Those are the issues we should be trying to address.

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute B Lowe
    Favourite B Lowe
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 12:26 PM

    Re Amnesty.

    Your first paragraph could be applied to the US. Change Libya under Gaddafi to America under Bush/Obama and it’s hard not to see striking similarities.

    Both countries have engaged in what you described in your piece.

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Amnesty Ireland
    Favourite Amnesty Ireland
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 12:34 PM

    I don’t disagree with that. The use of torture by the US is something Amnesty International has frequently highlighted, along with the use of drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Criticising the human rights record of one ‘side’, doesn’t mean anyone should turn a blind eye to the violations committed by the other.

    3
    See 3 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Side View Bob
    Favourite Side View Bob
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 12:52 PM

    “Under ff/lab/fg governments the irish people are being denied fundamental human rights, abused, oppressed, imprisoned, tortured and silenced”.
    Where was amnesty when donegal/sligo people were being framed, tortured and imprisoned?
    Where is/was amnesty international when the families of those murdered by the british in dublin and monaghan need/ needed them?
    What’s amnesty’s stance on state controlled media?
    i could go on.
    Amnesty are sickening hypocrites

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute mattoid
    Favourite mattoid
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 2:57 PM

    @Blowe
    “Both sides have engaged in what you described in your piece”

    So you do acknowledge that Gaddafi wasn’t the benign “beacon of light” you portrayed in your earlier comment?

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute mattoid
    Favourite mattoid
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 3:03 PM

    @Amnesty
    Unfortunately it appears that no matter what human rights abuses are documented and how compelling the evidence, there will always be those who will choose to disregard it if it doesn’t fit with their chosen ideological viewpoint.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Side View Bob
    Favourite Side View Bob
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 11:38 AM

    “Under ff/lab/fg governments the irish people are being denied fundamental human rights, abused, oppressed, imprisoned, tortured and silenced”.

    Where was amnesty when donegal/sligo people were being framed, tortured and imprisoned?

    Where is/was amnesty international when the families of those murdered by the british in dublin and monaghan need/ needed them?

    What’s amnesty’s stance on state controlled media?

    i could go on.

    Amnesty are sickening hypocrites

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Side View Bob
    Favourite Side View Bob
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 12:52 PM

    sorry, that was meant to go with amnestys bullshit, see below.

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Andy Mars
    Favourite Andy Mars
    Report
    Jun 20th 2013, 3:01 PM

    The Janus faced Troll known as Side View Bob aka Thomond Park & Aviva Park (caught out claiming false journalistic credentials resurfaces as Limerick Boy and now appears in his current form. No doubt this muppet has also many other guises.

    2
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds