Gigantic new CoE report on Roma Rights Tackles Statelessness

Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe commissioner for Human Rights, has been a total rockstar when it comes to defending the rights of Roma and stateless persons in Europe. So it comes as no surprise that he is behind a massive new report coming out today called "Human Rights of Roma and Travellers in Europe". The report is 254 pages covering 47 countries, and covers as many relevant topics as you could ask for: forced sterilization, hate speech, human trafficking, housing issues, and of course- statelessness and access to documentation. 

I haven't had a chance to read through the entire thing yet (I did just get it 10 minutes ago, after all) but from what I can tell there is serious attention paid to the issue of statelesssness among Roma. Interestingly, the report doesn't fuss around with distinctions between de facto and de jure statelessness, nor does he bother characterizing people as "at a risk for statelessness" or "legally invisible." Nope, for the purposes of this report, anyone not having access to citizenship rights is stateless, an admirably bold position for the CoE to take.

I would of course recommend reading through the entire document as it is packed with damning evidence and will be an extremely useful compilation of Roma rights violations in this decade. However I would like to just except this portion from the statelessness section, offering recommendations for tackling the problem.

-Providing free legal aid for proceedings aimed at securing
documentation;
–Waiving fees for civil registration for those in destitution;
– Making it possible to establish personal status through simplified
procedures such as witnesses’ testimonials when no other
evidence can be obtained;
– Strengthening the role of Ombudsperson institutions to solve
these issues;
– Acceding to the 1997 European Convention on Nationality, the
2006 Council of Europe Convention on the avoidance of statelessness
in relation to state succession as well as to the two UN
conventions on statelessness. (Section 7)

I fully agree with these ideas, and it sounds very much like Hammarberg has been listening to the NGO world in framing solutions.

You can find the full report here.

Non-Citizen News Roundup

Photo via AP

Israel: On Sunday, hundreds of immigrants and allies protested at the Israeli Immigrant Absorption Ministry after a recent government recommendation to reduce the number of Ethiopian Jews accepted monthly as part of aliyah. The idea comes at a time when the government claims it is having trouble keeping up with the pace of immigration and assimilation needs. Opponents of the plan claim that there are already close to 4,000 recognized Ethiopian Jews waiting to immigrate and that the Government is looking for excuses to avoid its obligations. (There's probably a little truth to both positions.)
Ethiopians Protest Govt's Proposal to Reduce Aliyah (via Jerusalem Post)

UK: The United Kingdom is getting some increased (and probably unwanted) attention in the wake of a new report by UNHCR describing the legal limbo that stateless persons there live in. Many have been denied asylum or any right to remain, but are also un-deportable because no country will accept them. Therefore, they live on the street or hang out in detention centers- not a good situation.
Mapping Statelessness in the UK (via UNHCR)
What its like to be Stateless in Britain- Nischal's Story (via Alertnet)

Australia: Shockingly, Australia has more asylum trouble this week, as 3 Kurdish aslyum-seekers have sewn their lips together in the wake of having their asylum applications denied. Due to the fact that the young men are stateless, they cannot be repatriated anywhere and instead have remained in detention for between 18 and 22 months each. Much like the UK problems described above- it sounds like governments are going to need to reevaluate how they handle non-deportable stateless persons- endless detention and legal limbo are not the answer!
3 Kurdish Men Sew lips together in Protest (via Courier Mail)
Asylum Seekers sew lips together in Australia Protest (via AsiaOne)

UNHCR Report: Trends for the first half of 2011

Serbian asylum seekers, via Serbian Herald

Today UNHCR released a report detailing asylum trends in 44 countries for the first half of 2011. It by no means offers a complete picture, given that it basically covers the Council of Europe plus a handful of other industrialized countries, but it is still packed with interesting findings. Among them:

• Asylum applications are up overall by 17%, with the large majority (73%) being filed in Europe, but the USA accounting for the one single country receiving the most applications.

• Asylum trends are not consistent over Europe, with applications down by 27% in the Nordic region (Danish immigration crackdown, anyone?) and asylum claims jumping by 57% in Southern Europe, especially in Turkey, Malta and Italy.

• Afghanistan leads asylum seeker sending states, followed by China, Serbia (incl. Kosovo), Iraq and Iran.

• The next 5 biggest sending states are Russia, Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea and Nigeria

• The top 5 receiving countries; USA, France, Germany, Sweden and the UK, received 53% of all the applications.

There are plenty of interesting findings within the report, but to me there are two big take-aways. First, "Arab Spring" didn't have the tremendous overall impact that one would expect- none of those countries involved made it into the top 10 asylum-seeker sending states, at least not for industrialized countries. On the other hand, Southern Europe's big jump in applications are partially attributable to Tunisia and Libya, which adds verification to the region's reputation as Europe's gatekeeper, and perhaps explains the upswing in anti-migrant violence we saw in Italy earlier this year.

The second interesting fact is Serbia's continued presence in the top 5 asylum-sending countries. Keeping in mind that Serbia has just been given the go-ahead for EU Applicant status, possibly to be agreed upon as soon as December, one can only hope that this will increase scrutiny of Serbia's human rights situation. Especially when it comes to the Roma, whom for my money probably make up the majority of asylum seekers.

You can read the whole report here:  Asylum Levels and Trends in Industrialized Countries