With migrant crisis intensifying, European human rights court finds Italy guilty

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) delivered a judgment in Strasbourg on Tuesday which found Italy guilty of having violated the rights of three Tunisian migrants even as the ongoing migration crisis continues to worsen.

In Khlaifia and Others v. Italy, the EHCR's Chamber judgment found Italy had violated the European Convention of Human Rights on several counts, including the migrants' right to liberty and security, and their right to being properly informed of charges against them.

Italy was also found to have violated the convention's prohibition of collective expulsion.

The Tunisian nationals, Saber Ben Mohamed Ben Ali Khlaifia, Fakhreddine Ben Brahim Mustapha Tabal and Mohamed Ben Habib Ben Jaber Sfar, were intercepted by the Italian authorities after fleeing Tunisia by boat on Sept. 16 and 17, 2011.

The migrants were transported to a reception center (Centro di Soccorso e Prima Accoglienza) on the Italian island of Lampedusa where they were detained, before being transferred and held on ships moored in the Palermo harbor. They were finally expelled to Tunisia later that month.

According to the judgment, Italy detained the migrants illegally, deprived them of contact with the outside world, failed to inform them of the reasons for their detention and so blocked any recourse to challenge it.

Finally, the judgment found the migrants had been deported en masse, following insufficient identification procedures, whereas the convention requires states to treat each migrant case individually.

Any party to the decision may appeal it in the three months following its delivery and request it be referred to the ECHR Grand Chamber.

If the ruling holds, however, it will reinforce that need for all 47 state signatories to respect migrants' rights, regardless of status. In particular, party states to the European Convention will be reminded of their obligation to treat migrants' cases on individual bases.

The decision comes in the wake of widespread debate in Europe on the ongoing crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of irregular migrants try to reach the continent while fleeing conflict and instability in their home countries.

Within the debate has been a growing call for the respect of migrants rights, with many leaders expressing concern over the state of fundamental rights as the crisis worsens.

In a statement on Tuesday, Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland of the Council of Europe (CoE), which includes the Strasbourg court, declared: "The migration crisis poses a serious threat to the respect for human rights in many parts of Europe."

He continued to call the judgment a timely reminder: "asylum seekers and migrants must be treated as individual human beings with the same basic rights as everyone else."

The Secretary General's words echoed those shared by the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, declaring: "Those who think that irregular migrants have no rights because they have no papers are wrong. Everyone is a holder of human rights, regardless of their status."

Meanwhile, the crisis worsens as Europe continues to see steeply increasing numbers of migrants.

Earlier this month, the border control agency for the European Union (EU), Frontex, said it had detected 107,500 migrants at EU borders in July, more than triple the number during the same month last year, and the first time the number passed 100,000 since Frontex began keeping records in 2008.

According to the UN, more than 300,000 people have attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea this year, with many losing their lives during the crossing, including hundreds who were in two boats that sank off the coast of Libya on Aug. 27.

The largest numbers of irregular migrants to Europe are Syrian and Afghan, and while many have tried to reach the continent by sea, most of them initially arrived in Greece from Turkey.

The high numbers of migrants have put pressure on the existing EU policies on the handling of refugees and asylum seekers.

The existing Dublin Regulation, which requires EU states of first entry to register asylum seekers, has been criticized for putting too much pressure on countries with high arrival rates, such as Greece, Italy and Spain.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a statement on Monday calling on other EU countries to accept more migrants.

The German government has already said it has suspended the Dublin rule to allow Syrians traveling to the country from other EU member states to apply for asylum. According to the country's authorities, Germany expects over 800,000 migrants this year, more than four times last year's figure.

Germany's willingness to accept migrants, however, has led to chaos in Hungary, where the police closed the main train station in Budapest on Tuesday as thousands of migrants tried to board trains to Vienna and Munich.

The two cities saw thousands of migrants arrive on Monday after Hungary waived visa checks on its railways. Now Hungarian authorities claim they are trying to enforce EU law, which requires valid travel visas for trips between Schengen zone countries.

Source: XINHUA