Brussels, 24/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 24 March, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Spanish andMoroccan authorities to set in place procedures to protect the rights of migrants, with the two countries due on Wednesday to discuss a mechanism to allow illegal migrants to be expelled summarily and immediately from Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish enclaves on the Mediterranean coast in Morocco. Both of these countries should reject this mechanism, the NGO argues.
“Pushing people back across the border without due process or screening for protection violates Spanish, European and international law”, Human Rights Watch stressed in a press release on Monday 24 March. “All the more so because migrants forced back into Morocco face violence and other abuse at the hands of the Moroccan security forces”, it adds.
A meeting to be held in Tangiers will include discussions on how to implement the bilateral readmission agreement in force between Spain and Morocco. This agreement, which was signed in 1992 but has only been up and running since 2012, provides for scaled-down formalities to facilitate the expulsion of third-country nationals. The human rights protection measures laid down by the agreement were already weak, so to undermine them further would be a step in the wrong direction, Human Rights Watch argued.
In early February, the Spanish Home Affairs Ministry was at the centre of a row over the way the border patrols forced migrants back to Ceuta, for instance using riot gear (see EUROPE 11030 and 11027). European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström also got involved in the debate, calling on Madrid to explain these events, during which a number of migrants were killed. There has also been a citizens' petition in Spain calling for Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz to step down following the events. (SP)