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  • Pour le président émirati de la COP28, sortir des énergies fossiles ramènerait l’humanité “à l’âge des cavernes”
    https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/pour-le-president-emirati-de-la-cop28-mettre-fin-aux-energies

    “The Guardian” a diffusé dimanche une vidéo dans laquelle Sultan Al-Jaber estime qu’ il n’existe “aucune étude scientifique” montrant qu’une élimination progressive des énergies fossiles permettrait de limiter le réchauffement à 1,5 °C . Ces déclarations, qui émergent en pleine COP, ont provoqué l’indignation des scientifiques.

    Qq’un lui dit pour l’augmentation du niveau de la mer d’ici la fin du siècle, et le fait que sa ville est candidate à la submersion, à la façon des Tuvalu ou des Seychelles ?

    https://fr-fr.topographic-map.com/map-w1nsnx/Duba%C3%AF

  • Conflit israélo-palestinien : Les divisions sud-africaines révélées par la guerre entre Israël et le Hamas - BBC News Afrique
    https://www.bbc.com/afrique/articles/cw927xrqxjpo

    Une responsable de l’ANC, Gabriella Farber, a démissionné du parti, l’accusant de « soutenir le Hamas ».

    « On m’a clairement fait comprendre qu’il n’y avait pas de place pour un juif fier d’appartenir à l’ANC, quels que soient mes efforts », a-t-elle déclaré dans sa lettre de démission publiée sur X, anciennement Twitter.

    « Il a fallu neuf jours à l’ANC pour condamner le Hamas pour les atrocités qu’il a commises contre le peuple juif.

    Lorsque l’ANC a condamné le Hamas, dans la phrase suivante, il a déclaré qu’Israël commettait un génocide », a-t-elle déclaré en quittant son poste de porte-parole de la Ligue des femmes de l’ANC dans la région de Gauteng.

    […]

    Mais la communauté juive d’Afrique du Sud, qui compterait environ 65 000 membres, n’est pas unie dans sa condamnation du soutien apporté par le gouvernement aux Palestiniens.

    Le dessinateur primé Jonathan Shapiro, qui se définit comme un « juif laïc », estime qu’il est important de se rappeler que de nombreuses personnalités de l’ANC, qui luttaient contre l’apartheid, étaient juives et qu’elles ne soutenaient pas Israël.

    « Je pense que M. Farber doit être très aveugle au fait que la plupart des héros juifs importants de la lutte contre l’apartheid étaient, dans une large mesure, très opposés au projet colonial israélien », a déclaré M. Shapiro, mieux connu sous son nom de plume Zapiro, à la BBC.

    Il a cité des hauts responsables de l’ANC tels que Joe Slovo, Arthur Goldreich, Rusty Bernstein, Ronnie Kasrils et Amy Thornton, affirmant qu’ils avaient « un passé de socialistes ou de communistes ou, en général, de personnes qui veulent voir la justice dans les luttes, où qu’elles soient menées ».

  • Supreme court rejects Rishi Sunak’s plan to send asylum seekers to #Rwanda

    Judges uphold appeal court ruling over risk to deported refugees and deals blow to PM’s ‘stop the boats’ strategy

    Rishi Sunak’s key immigration policy has been dealt a blow after the UK’s highest court rejected the government’s plans to deport people seeking asylum to Rwanda.

    Five judges at the supreme court unanimously upheld an appeal court ruling that found there was a real risk of deported refugees having their claims in the east African country wrongly assessed or being returned to their country of origin to face persecution.

    The ruling undermines one of the prime minister’s key pledges: to “stop the boats”. The government claimed that the £140m Rwanda scheme would be a key deterrent for growing numbers of asylum seekers reaching the UK via small boats travelling across the Channel, a claim that refugee charities have rejected.

    Reading out the judgment, Lord Reed, the president of the supreme court, said the judges agreed unanimously with the court of appeal ruling that there was a real risk of claims being wrongly determined in Rwanda, resulting in asylum seekers being wrongly returned to their country of origin.

    He pointed to crucial evidence from the United Nations’ refugee agency, the UNHCR, which highlighted the failure of a similar deportation agreement between Israel and Rwanda.

    The ruling came the day after the sacked home secretary, Suella Braverman, released an incendiary letter accusing the prime minister of breaking an agreement to insert clauses into UK law that would have “blocked off” legal challenges under the European convention on human rights (ECHR) and the Human Rights Act.

    Braverman said Sunak had no “credible plan B” and added: “If we lose in the supreme court, an outcome that I have consistently argued we must be prepared for, you will have wasted a year and an act of parliament, only to arrive back at square one.”

    A meeting of hard-right Conservative MPs on Wednesday morning to consider the judgment was expected to back calls to leave the ECHR.

    Sir John Hayes, a close ally of Braverman, said on Tuesday that in the event of losing, ministers should table a narrow piece of legislation to enact the Rwanda plan before Christmas, and later include withdrawing from the ECHR in the Tory election manifesto.

    Reacting to the ruling, Sunak said the government would consider its next steps and claimed there was a “plan B”, despite Braverman’s criticisms.

    He said: “This was not the outcome we wanted, but we have spent the last few months planning for all eventualities and we remain completely committed to stopping the boats.

    “Crucially, the supreme court – like the court of appeal and the high court before it – has confirmed that the principle of sending illegal migrants to a safe third country for processing is lawful.”

    The home secretary, James Cleverly, said: “Our partnership with Rwanda, while bold and ambitious, is just one part of a vehicle of measures to stop the boats and tackle illegal migration.

    “But clearly there is an appetite for this concept. Across Europe, illegal migration is increasing and governments are following our lead: Italy, Germany and Austria are all exploring models similar to our partnership with Rwanda.”

    The judgment will raise serious questions about expenditure on the scheme. More than £140m has already been paid to the Rwandan government. The government has refused to disclose a further breakdown of costs on the scheme and on legal fees.

    A spokesperson for the Rwandan government said: “The money has been already allocated to a number of government projects.”

    Reed said the legal test in the case was whether there were substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be at real risk of being sent back to the countries they came from, where they could face ill treatment.

    “In the light of the evidence which I have summarised, the court of appeal concluded that there were such grounds. We are unanimously of the view that they were entitled to reach that conclusion. Indeed, having been taken through the evidence ourselves, we agree with their conclusion,” he said.

    Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said it was a victory for men, women and children who simply wanted to be safe.

    He said: “The plan goes against who we are as a country that stands up for those less fortunate than us and for the values of compassion, fairness and humanity. The government should be focusing on creating a functioning asylum system that allows people who seek safety in the UK a fair hearing on our soil and provides safe routes so they don’t have to take dangerous journeys.”

    Toufique Hossain of Duncan Lewis solicitors, one of the lawyers representing asylum seekers who brought the legal challenge, said: “This is a victory for our brave clients who stood up to an inhumane policy. It is also a victory for the rule of law itself and the separation of powers, despite the noise. It is a timely reminder that governments must operate within the law. We hope that now our clients are able to dream of a better, safer future.”

    Sonya Sceats, the chief executive of Freedom from Torture, said: “This is a victory for reason and compassion. We are delighted that the supreme court has affirmed what caring people already knew: the UK government’s ‘cash for humans’ deal with Rwanda is not only deeply immoral, but it also flies in the face of the laws of this country.

    “The stakes of this case could not have been higher. Every day in our therapy rooms we see the terror that this scheme has inflicted on survivors of torture who have come to the UK seeking sanctuary.”

    Steve Smith, the chief executive of the refugee charity Care4Calais, a claimant in the initial legal challenge, said the judgment was “a victory for humanity”.

    He added: “This grubby, cash-for-people deal was always cruel and immoral but, most importantly, it is unlawful. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent on this cruel policy, and the only receipts the government has are the pain and torment inflicted on the thousands of survivors of war, torture and modern slavery they have targeted with it.

    “Today’s judgment should bring this shameful mark on the UK’s history to a close. Never again should our government seek to shirk our country’s responsibility to offer sanctuary to those caught up in horrors around the world.”

    Care4Calais continues to support claimants in the case.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/15/supreme-court-rejects-rishi-sunak-plan-to-deport-asylum-seekers-to-rwan

    #justice #cour_suprême #asile #migrtions #réfugiés #externalisation #UK

    –-

    ajouté à cette métaliste sur la mise en place de l’#externalisation des #procédures_d'asile au #Rwanda par l’#Angleterre
    https://seenthis.net/messages/966443

    • Supreme Court rules Rwanda asylum policy unlawful

      The government’s Rwanda asylum policy, which it says is needed to tackle small boats, is in disarray, after the UK’s highest court ruled it is unlawful.

      The Supreme Court upheld a Court of Appeal ruling, which said the policy leaves people sent to Rwanda open to human rights breaches.

      It means the policy cannot be implemented in its current form.

      Rishi Sunak said the government would work on a new treaty with Rwanda and said he was prepared to change UK laws.

      The controversial plan to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda and ban them from returning to the UK has been subject to legal challenges since it was first announced by Boris Johnson in April 2022.

      The government has already spent £140m on the scheme but flights were prevented from taking off in June last year after the Court of Appeal ruled the approach was unlawful due to a lack of human rights safeguards.

      Now that the UK’s most senior court has agreed, the policy’s chances of being realised without major revisions are effectively ended.

      But Mr Sunak told MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions that he was ready to finalise a formal treaty with Rwanda and would be “prepared to revisit our domestic legal frameworks” in a bid to revive the plan.

      A treaty - which Downing Street has said it will publish in the “coming days” - would upgrade the agreement between the UK and Rwanda from its current status as a “memorandum of understanding”, which the government believes would put the arrangement on a stronger legal footing.

      The new text would provide the necessary “reassurances” the Supreme Court has asked for, the prime minister’s official spokesman said.

      LIVE: Reaction to Supreme Court Rwanda ruling
      Chris Mason: Ruling leaves Rwanda policy in tatters
      How many people cross the Channel in small boats?
      What was the UK’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda?

      Ministers have been forced to reconsider their flagship immigration policy after 10 claimants in the Supreme Court case argued that ministers had ignored clear evidence that Rwanda’s asylum system was unfair and arbitrary.

      The legal case against the policy hinges on the principle of “non-refoulement” - that a person seeking asylum should not be returned to their country of origin if doing so would put them at risk of harm - which is established under both UK and international human rights law.

      In a unanimous decision, the court’s five justices agreed with the Court of Appeal that there had not been a proper assessment of whether Rwanda was safe.

      The judgement does not ban sending migrants to another country, but it leaves the Rwanda scheme in tatters - and it is not clear which other nations are prepared to do a similar deal with the UK.

      The Supreme Court justices said there were “substantial grounds” to believe people deported to Rwanda could then be sent, by the Rwandan government, to places where they would be unsafe.

      It said the Rwandan government had entered into the agreement in “good faith” but the evidence cast doubt on its “practical ability to fulfil its assurances, at least in the short term”, to fix “deficiencies” in its asylum system and see through “the scale of the changes in procedure, understanding and culture which are required”.

      A spokesman for the Rwandan government said the policy’s legality was “ultimately a decision for the UK’s judicial system”, but added “we do take issue with the ruling that Rwanda is not a safe third country”.

      It leaves Mr Sunak - who has made tackling illegal immigration a central focus his government - looking for a way to salvage the policy.

      In a statement issued after the ruling, the prime minister said the government had been “planning for all eventualities and we remain completely committed to stopping the boats”.

      He continued: “Crucially, the Supreme Court - like the Court of Appeal and the High Court before it - has confirmed that the principle of sending illegal migrants to a safe third country for processing is lawful. This confirms the government’s clear view from the outset.”

      Mr Sunak is expected to hold a televised press conference in Downing Street at 16:45 GMT on Wednesday.

      The Supreme Court decision comes amid the political fallout from the sacking of Suella Braverman on Monday, who, as home secretary had championed the Rwanda policy.

      In a highly critical letter, published after her sacking and the day before the ruling, she said the prime minister had “failed to prepare any sort of credible Plan B” in the event the Supreme Court halts the policy.

      Newly appointed Home Secretary James Cleverly told the Commons on Wednesday the government had been “working on a plan to provide the certainty that the court demands” for “the last few months”.

      He said upgrading the agreement to a treaty “will make it absolutely clear to our courts and to Strasbourg that the risks laid out by the court today have been responded to, will be consistent with international law”.

      Lee Anderson MP, the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, urged the government to ignore the Supreme Court and “put planes in the air” anyway.

      Natalie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover, the landing point for many of the small boats, said the Rwanda policy is “at an end” and “we now need to move forward”.

      “With winter coming the timing of this decision couldn’t be worse. Be in no doubt, this will embolden the people smugglers and put more lives at risk,” she continued.

      But charity Asylum Aid said the government must “abandon the idea of forcibly removing people seeking asylum to third countries”, describing the policy as “cruel and ineffective”.

      More than 100,000 people have arrived in the UK via illegal crossings since 2018, though the number appears to be falling this year.

      In 2022, 45,000 people reached the UK in small boats. The total is on course to be lower for 2023, with the total for the year so far below 28,000 as of November 12.

      https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-67423745

    • Supreme court rules Rwanda plan unlawful: a legal expert explains the judgment, and what happens next

      The UK supreme court has unanimously ruled that the government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful.

      Upholding an earlier decision by the court of appeal, the supreme court found that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda may be at risk of refoulement – being sent back to a country where they may be persecuted, tortured or killed.

      The courts cited extensive evidence from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) that Rwanda does not respect the principle of non-refoulement – a legal obligation. The UNHCR’s evidence questioned the ability of Rwandan authorities to fairly assess asylum claims. It also raised concerns about human rights violations by Rwandan authorities, including not respecting non-refoulement with other asylum seekers.

      It is important to note that the supreme court’s decision is not a comment on the political viability of the Rwanda plan, or on the concept of offshoring asylum processes generally. The ruling focused only on the legal principle of non-refoulement, and determined that in this respect, Rwanda is not a “safe third country” to send asylum seekers.

      The ruling is another blow to the government’s promise to “stop the boats”. And since the Rwanda plan is at the heart of its new Illegal Migration Act, the government will need to reconsider its asylum policies. This is further complicated by Conservative party infighting and the firing of home secretary Suella Braverman, just two days before the ruling.
      How did we get here?

      For years, the UK government has been seeking to reduce small boat arrivals to the UK. In April 2022, the UK and Rwanda signed an agreement making it possible for the UK to deport some people seeking asylum in Britain to Rwanda, without their cases being heard in the UK. Instead, they would have their cases decided by Rwandan authorities, to be granted (or rejected) asylum in Rwanda.

      While the Rwanda plan specifically was found to be unlawful, the government could, in theory, replicate this in other countries so long as they are considered “safe” for asylum seekers.

      The government has not yet sent anyone to Rwanda. The first flight was prevented from taking off by the European court of human rights in June 2022, which said that British courts needed to consider all human rights issues before starting deportations.

      A UK high court then decided in December 2022 that the Rwanda plan was lawful.

      Ten asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Sudan and Albania challenged the high court ruling, with the support of the charity Asylum Aid. Their claim was about whether Rwanda meets the legal threshold for being a safe country for asylum seekers.

      The court of appeal said it was not and that asylum seekers risked being sent back to their home countries (where they could face persecution), when in fact they may have a good claim for asylum.

      The government has since passed the Illegal Migration Act. The law now states that all asylum seekers arriving irregularly (for example, in small boats) must be removed to a safe third country. But now that the Rwanda deal has been ruled unlawful, there are no other countries that have said they would take asylum seekers from the UK.

      What happens next?

      It is clear that the government’s asylum policies will need rethinking. Should another country now be designated as a safe country and different arrangements put in place, these will probably be subject to further legal challenges, including in the European court of human rights and in British courts.

      This ruling is likely to revive discussion about the UK leaving the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which holds the UK to the non-refoulement obligation. Some Conservatives, including the former home secretary Suella Braverman, have argued that leaving the convention would make it easier to pass stronger immigration laws.

      But while handing down the supreme court judgment, Lord Reed emphasised that there are obligations towards asylum seekers that go beyond the ECHR. The duty of non-refoulement is part of many other international conventions, and domestic law as well. In other words, exiting the ECHR would not automatically make the Rwanda plan lawful or easier to implement.

      The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said that he is working on a new treaty with Rwanda and is prepared to change domestic laws to “do whatever it takes to stop the boats”.

      The UK is not the only country to attempt to off-shore asylum processing. Germany and Italy have recently been considering finding new safe third countries to accept asylum seekers as well.

      But ensuring these measures comply with human rights obligations is complicated. International law requires states to provide sanctuary to those fleeing persecution or risk to their lives. As this ruling shows, the UK is not going to find an easy way out of these obligations.

      https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-rules-rwanda-plan-unlawful-a-legal-expert-explains-th

    • La décision:
      R (on the application of AAA and others) (Respondents/Cross Appellants) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Appellant/Cross Respondent)

      Case ID: #2023/0093
      Case summary
      Issues

      The Supreme Court is asked to decide the following legal questions:

      Did the Divisional Court apply the wrong test when determining whether removal to Rwanda would breach article 3?
      If the Divisional Court applied the right test, was the Court of Appeal entitled to interfere with its conclusion that Rwanda was a safe third country?
      If the Divisional Court applied the wrong test or there was another basis for interfering with its conclusion, was the Court of Appeal right to conclude that Rwanda was not a safe third country because asylum seekers would face a real risk of refoulement?
      Did the Home Secretary fail to discharge her procedural obligation under article 3 to undertake a thorough examination of Rwanda’s asylum procedures to determine whether they adequately protect asylum seekers against the risk of refoulement?
      Were there substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda will face a real risk of treatment contrary to article 3 in Rwanda itself, in addition to the risk of refoulement?
      Does the Asylum Procedures Directive continue to have effect as retained EU law? This is relevant because the Directive only permits asylum seekers to be removed to a safe third country if they have some connection to it. None of the claimants has any connection to Rwanda.

      Facts

      These appeals arise out of claims brought by individual asylum seekers ("the claimants") who travelled to the UK in small boats (or, in one case, by lorry). The Home Secretary declared the claimants’ claims for asylum to be inadmissible, intending that they should be removed to Rwanda where their asylum claims would be decided by the Rwandan authorities. Her decisions were made in accordance with the Migration and Economic Development Partnership ("MEDP") between the UK and Rwanda, recorded in a Memorandum of Understanding and a series of diplomatic “Notes Verbales”.

      Under paragraphs 345A to 345D of the Immigration Rules, if the Home Secretary decides that an asylum claim is inadmissible, she is permitted to remove the person who has made the claim to any safe third country that agrees to accept the asylum claimant. On the basis of the arrangements made in the MEDP, the Home Secretary decided that Rwanda was a safe third country for these purposes. This is “the Rwanda policy”.

      The claimants (and other affected asylum seekers) challenged both the lawfulness of the Rwanda policy generally, and the Home Secretary’s decisions to remove each claimant to Rwanda. The Divisional Court held that the Rwanda policy was, in principle, lawful. However, the way in which the Home Secretary had implemented the policy in the claimants’ individual cases was procedurally flawed. Accordingly, her decisions in those cases would be quashed and remitted to her for reconsideration.

      The appeal to the Court of Appeal concerned only the challenges to the lawfulness of the Rwanda policy generally. By a majority, the Court allowed the claimants’ appeal on the ground that the deficiencies in the asylum system in Rwanda were such that there were substantial reasons for believing that there is a real risk of refoulement. That is, a real risk that persons sent to Rwanda would be returned to their home countries where they face persecution or other inhumane treatment, when, in fact, they have a good claim for asylum. In that sense Rwanda was not a safe third country. Accordingly, unless and until the deficiencies in its asylum processes are corrected, removal of asylum seekers to Rwanda will be unlawful under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. This is because it would breach article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. The Court of Appeal unanimously rejected the claimants’ other grounds of appeal.

      The Home Secretary now appeals to the Supreme Court on issues (1) to (3) below. AAA (Syria) and others and HTN (Vietnam) cross appeal on issues (4) and (5). AS (Iran) also cross appeals on issue (4). ASM (Iraq) appeals on issue (6).

      https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2023-0093.html

    • Alasdair Mackenzie sur X:

      Here’s my take on the Rwanda judgment in the Supreme Court today.

      It’s a longish one, but tl;dr: it’s a disaster for the Home Office and also for the Rwandans, & surely leaves the idea of outsourcing refugee protection to other countries in tatters, perhaps permanently sunk 1/
      First up, it’s extremely interesting that the Supreme Court was keen to dispel the idea that the problem with the Rwanda policy is only that it’s contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights 2/
      The SC points out that the principle of non-refoulement (not returning people directly or indirectly to face risks of human rights abuses) is also prohibited by other international conventions & by UK law – a clear attempt to defuse criticism of the ECHR 3/
      (Whether that will stop the usual suspects from calling for the UK to leave the ECHR is of course doubtful, but they’d have said that anyway – indeed Braverman’s letter yesterday seems to have been setting herself up to do so whichever way this judgment went.) 4/
      Second, the Divisional Court (High Court) – the only court to have upheld the Rwanda policy – comes in for sharp criticism.
      It’s said to be unclear that it understood its own function properly, ie to assess risk in Rwanda, not to review the Home Office’s assessment 5/
      The High Court also failed to engage with the evidence before it of “serious and systemic defects in Rwanda’s procedures and institutions for processing asylum claims” 6/
      The High Court also took “a mistaken approach” to a key plank of the govt’s case, ie that it was for the govt itself to assess diplomatic assurances given by Rwanda – in fact it shd’ve been for the Court to do so.
      (The last sentence has a nice little barb towards ministers.) 7/
      The High Court also failed to address crucial evidence, including evidence of how asylum seekers transferred from Israel to Rwanda under an earlier deal had been treated, despite its (you might have thought) obvious implications for how those sent by the UK would fare in Rw 8/
      The High Court is particularly criticised for dealing “dismissively” with the crucial evidence of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which was largely uncontradicted and should have been given “particular importance” 9/
      The High Court was of course the court which primarily refused to stop the removals of people on 14 June last year, meaning that people had to apply to the European Court at the last minute. 10/
      So having disposed of the High Ct, the next Q for the Supreme Ct was whether to uphold the Court of Appeal’s decision that the Rwanda policy was unlawful.

      The SC strikingly doesn’t limit itself (as it cdve) to saying the CA’s view was lawful, but strongly agrees with it. 11/
      The SC, again strikingly, dives straight in with this devastating summary of Rwanda’s abject human rights record, including its threats to kill dissidents on the streets of the UK (the point about the first line here is to show that the Home Office knew about this very well) 12/
      The SC summarises numerous problems with Rwanda’s asylum processes (set out in more detail by the Court of Appeal), incl lack of training, “ingrained scepticism” towards some groups, lack of understanding of the Refugee Convention, lack of judicial independence etc 13/
      Why, you might ask by now, didn’t the Home Office know all this? Well, they shdve done, but it seems officials, under pressure (implicitly from ministers) did inadequate & one-sided research into Rwandan asylum processes, something which ultimately undermined the whole policy 14/
      The HO’s fallback argument was basically: “well, even if the Rwandan system is a mess, people won’t be going anywhere anyway”. The SC is as contemptuous as can be of this (to translate for non-legal folk, “somewhat surprising” is as dismissive as it gets) 15/
      Now we move to the Israel-Rwanda deal, a catastrophe for Rwanda’s credibility & thus for the HO case – and ofc a total disaster for those affected, who were routinely secretly expelled from Rwanda (some were also left without documents, effectively forced out, trafficked etc) 16/
      The HO, again, knew about this but wasn’t deflected from potentially repeating the same mistakes: its lame answer was that the Israel-Rw deal wasn’t even relevant bc the UK-Rw one was new. You might think that was also a “surprising” submission and so, it seems, did the SC 17/
      However sadly – if only because it would’ve been what we lawyers call “the ultimate banter outcome” – the Rwanda scheme is found not to be contrary to retained EU law [aspects of EU law which remain part of UK law], bc in fact the relevant provisions were abolished in 2020 18/
      It’s important to note that the SC doesn’t rule out that the Rwandan system could be improved, & it hasn’t found that the idea of a scheme like this is prohibited (it wasn’t asked to decide that). 19/
      But what are the prospects of that happening? The Court of Appeal previously pointed to a real need for thorough culture change in the Rwandan civil service & judiciary, & to an absence of any sort of roadmap for achieving it (in a state ofc uninterested in the rule of law). 20/
      For all the govt’s attempts to put a brave face on it & claim it’ll upgrade the Rwandan system, personally I don’t think flights will go soon, if ever (NB the idea that it would make a difference if there was a treaty w Rwanda is pie in the sky imho) 21/
      And whilst this decision is a disaster for Patel, Braverman, Johnson & Sunak & all else who supported the policy, it’s surely a catastrophe for Rwanda, whose record has been pored over in detail in the most public way. (I’ve never understood why they didn’t predict that.) 22/
      For the same reason I can’t personally see any other state wanting to line up to replace Rwanda, whatever ££ incentives are offered (and remember we still don’t know the full extent of these in respect of Rwanda). 23/
      Any attempt to amend or replicate this policy will almost certainly be scrutinised with great care & intensity by the courts, inspired by the example of the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court in this case.

      The government will not get an easy ride. 24/
      At the heart of this of course have been the asylum seekers left in a state of fear & anxiety by this appalling policy – principally those like our client who were actually on the June 2022 flight until the last minute – but also others directly or indirectly affected. 25/
      Let this, please, be a turning point in how we treat refugees, and the catalyst for working towards humane, non-racist immigration policies more broadly.

      Refugees welcome here, always. 26/
      Finally, tributes: the team at @Refugees
      – UNHCR – put together compelling evidence about Rwanda which formed the basis for this outcome. Its legal team presented that evidence with awesome clarity & force. 27/
      The legal team for the lead group of claimants (AAA etc) have been outstanding and although it’s invidious to single out anyone, I’m going to anyway, as no praise can be too high for the skill, dedication & humanity of the leading counsel for the AAA team, @RazaHusainQC 28/
      I was privileged to play a small part in this case, representing one of the co-claimants, “RM”, instructed by Daniel Merriman & Tim Davies of Wilsons LLP, alongside David Sellwood & Rosa Polaschek, led initially by Richard Drabble KC & in the SC by Phillippa Kaufmann KC 29/

      https://twitter.com/AlasdairMack66/status/1724776723160748310

    • La Cour suprême britannique juge illégal de renvoyer des demandeurs d’asile au Rwanda

      La Cour suprême britannique a confirmé mercredi 15 novembre l’illégalité du projet hautement controversé du gouvernement d’expulser vers le Rwanda les demandeurs d’asile, d’où qu’ils viennent, arrivés illégalement sur le sol britannique.

      Les hauts magistrats ont ainsi rejeté l’appel du gouvernement du Premier ministre Rishi Sunak et jugé que c’est à juste titre que la cour d’appel avait conclu que le Rwanda ne pouvait être considéré comme un pays tiers sûr.

      Le projet avait été rejeté par une cour d’appel britannique en juin dernier.

      La Cour suprême a rendu son jugement à l’unanimité.

      Pour justifier leur décision, les juges s’appuient sur le bilan rwandais en matière de droits de l’Homme et de traitement des demandeurs d’asile, rapporte notre correspondante à Londres, Émeline Vin. Selon eux, le Rwanda ne respecte pas ses obligations internationales, il rejette 100 % des demandes d’asile venant de Syriens, de Yéménites ou d’Afghans - qui fuient des zones de conflit.

      Ils reprochent aussi au pays de renvoyer des demandeurs voire des réfugiés dans leur pays d’origine, une pratique contraire à la Convention des Nations unies.

      Ce partenariat ferait courir des risques aux demandeurs d’asile et enfreint les lois britanniques.

      Cette décision est un coup dur pour le Premier ministre Rishi Sunak, qui doit faire face aux pressions de son parti conservateur et d’une partie de l’opinion publique sur la question de l’immigration, à moins d’un an des prochaines élections législatives.

      Même s’il avait hérité le projet de ses prédécesseurs, Rishi Sunak en avait fait le pilier de sa promesse de faire baisser l’immigration. Le gouvernement fraîchement remanié n’a pas encore dévoilé son « plan B » ; des sources ministérielles rejettent la possibilité de quitter la Convention européenne des droits de l’Homme.
      Kigali « conteste » la décision, Londres affiche vouloir poursuivre le projet

      Malgré ce revers juridique, Londres a affiché sa volonté de poursuivre le projet en question. Devant les députés, Rishi Sunak a indiqué que son gouvernement travaillait déjà à un « nouveau traité » avec Kigali. « S’il apparaît clairement que nos cadres juridiques nationaux ou nos conventions internationales continuent de nous entraver, je suis prêt à modifier nos lois et à réexaminer ces relations internationales », a-t-il ajouté, alors que certains élus de sa majorité réclament un retrait de la Cour européenne des droits de l’Homme (CEDH).

      Après l’annonce, Kigali aussi a immédiatement annoncé « contester » la décision juridique. « Nous contestons la décision selon laquelle le Rwanda n’est pas un pays tiers sûr pour les demandeurs d’asile et les réfugiés », a déclaré la porte-parole de la présidence rwandaise Yolande Makolo.

      Lors d’un entretien téléphonique, le Premier ministre britannique Rishi Sunak et le président rwandais Paul Kagame « ont réitéré leur ferme engagement à faire fonctionner (leur) partenariat en matière d’immigration et ont convenu de prendre les mesures nécessaires pour s’assurer que cette politique soit solide et légale », a indiqué Downing Street dans un communiqué.

      https://www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/20231115-la-cour-supr%C3%AAme-britannique-juge-ill%C3%A9gal-de-renvoyer-des-dema

    • Devant les députés, Rishi Sunak a indiqué que son gouvernement travaillait déjà à un « nouveau traité » avec Kigali. « S’il apparaît clairement que nos cadres juridiques nationaux ou nos conventions internationales continuent de nous entraver, je suis prêt à modifier nos lois et à réexaminer ces relations internationales », a-t-il ajouté, alors que certains élus de sa majorité réclament un retrait de la Cour européenne des droits de l’Homme (#CEDH).

      Darmanin, fais gaffe ! il est possible que les anglais tirent les premiers.
      Et, cela se lit le jour où l’on apprend que « Une directive en préparation sur les violences faites aux femmes prévoit de caractériser le viol par l’absence de consentement. L’objectif est de faire converger les législations européennes. Plusieurs Etats, dont la France, s’y opposent. »
      https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/11/15/emmanuel-macron-refuse-que-bruxelles-intervienne-dans-la-definition-du-viol_

      souveraineté en crise, chauvinisme en essor.

    • Envoyer les demandeurs d’asile au Rwanda ? La Cour suprême du Royaume-Uni dit non

      Dans une décision rendue mercredi 15 novembre, la plus haute juridiction britannique s’est prononcée sur le projet du gouvernement visant à expédier les migrants au Rwanda le temps de l’examen de leur demande de protection. Il n’en sera pas question pour l’instant.

      La décision était très attendue. Voilà près de deux ans que le Royaume-Uni avait signé un accord – informel – avec le Rwanda pour y expédier ses demandeurs et demandeuses d’asile, dans un contexte où les arrivées de migrant·es par la Manche atteignaient des niveaux records

      La nouvelle s’inscrivait dans un contexte de surenchère politique nauséabonde s’agissant de l’immigration, après que le gouvernement eut envisagé les pires scénarios possible pour repousser les exilé·es en mer et les empêcher d’atteindre les côtes anglaises.

      Mercredi 15 novembre, la Cour suprême s’est enfin prononcée, plusieurs mois après avoir été saisie. Cinq juges ont estimé, à l’unanimité, que le risque d’envoyer des demandeurs et demandeuses d’asile au Rwanda était trop grand : non seulement cela pourrait créer des inégalités de traitement dans les requêtes formulées par les exilé·es, mais ces personnes pourraient être renvoyées dans leur pays d’origine en cas de rejet de leur demande, alors même qu’elles pourraient y encourir un danger.

      Une pratique qui violerait le principe de « non-refoulement », qui interdit aux États d’expulser, « de quelque manière que ce soit », un·e réfugié·e « sur les frontières des territoires où sa vie ou sa liberté seraient menacées en raison de sa race, de sa religion, de sa nationalité, de son appartenance à un certain groupe social ou de ses opinions politiques ».

      Dans sa prise de parole, le président de la Cour suprême a rappelé l’importance de la Convention de Genève relative aux réfugié·es, dont le Royaume-Uni est signataire, de même que la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme et le droit international de manière générale, qui interdit de renvoyer des personnes en quête de protection dans leur pays d’origine sans qu’un examen sérieux de leur demande n’ait été réalisé au préalable.

      Le juge, Robert Reed, a également pris soin de souligner qu’il ne s’agissait pas d’une « décision politique » mais bien d’une question de droit, relevant de ce qui est légal ou non.
      Un risque trop grand pour les réfugié·es

      « Nous avons conclu qu’il existait des raisons sérieuses de croire qu’un risque réel de refoulement existait. Un changement est nécessaire pour éliminer ce risque, mais il n’a pas été démontré qu’il était en place actuellement », a-t-il justifié, rappelant les violations de droits humains régulièrement dénoncées au Rwanda, ainsi que les effets concrets déjà observés à l’occasion d’un autre accord similaire, signé entre le Rwanda et Israël, ayant mené à des refoulements réguliers de personnes exilées.

      « Si le Rwanda ne dispose pas d’un système adéquat pour traiter les demandes d’asile, les véritables réfugiés pourraient être renvoyés dans leur pays d’origine. En d’autres termes, ils feraient l’objet d’un refoulement », a complété le juge dans son propos.

      La requête du ministère de l’intérieur, qui contestait une décision antérieure de la cour d’appel, a ainsi été rejetée. Récemment, une grande campagne de communication lancée par le premier ministre Rishi Sunak ambitionnait d’« arrêter les bateaux » (stop the boats, en anglais), en s’appuyant notamment sur ce projet d’accord avec le Rwanda, qui devait avoir un effet « dissuasif » pour les personnes migrantes aspirant à rejoindre le Royaume-Uni.

      « J’ai promis de réformer non pas seulement notre système d’asile mais aussi nos lois. Nous avons donc introduit une législation sans précédent pour faire en sorte que les personnes arrivant illégalement soient placées en détention et expulsées en quelques semaines, soit vers le pays d’origine, soit vers un pays tiers sûr comme le Rwanda », avait déclaré le premier ministre lors d’un point organisé le 5 juin.

      La décision de la Cour suprême représente donc un sérieux camouflet pour le gouvernement britannique dans ce contexte, à l’heure où celui-ci faisait de la sous-traitance de l’asile une solution miracle.

      Mercredi, Rishi Sunak n’a pas tardé à réagir sur les réseaux sociaux, rappelant que lorsqu’il avait promis d’arrêter les bateaux, il « le pensait sérieusement ». « Il faut mettre fin à ce manège. Nous travaillons sur un nouveau traité international avec le Rwanda et nous le ratifierons sans tarder. Nous fournirons une garantie légale que ceux qui seront relocalisés vers le Rwanda seront protégés d’une éventuelle expulsion », a-t-il réaffirmé.

      En juin dernier, le premier ministre vantait également la possibilité de placer les demandeurs et demandeuses d’asile sur une barge, surnommée le « Bibby Stockholm » et installée dans le port de Portland, dans le sud de l’Angleterre. Celle-ci devait permettre, selon le gouvernement, de réaliser des économies en cessant d’héberger les demandeurs et demandeuses d’asile à l’hôtel : elle a finalement fait polémique.

      À peine installé·es à bord, les occupant·es ont alerté sur les conditions d’hygiène avant d’être évacué·es à la suite de la découverte d’une bactérie sur place. Le 26 octobre, un jeune Nigérian a tenté de mettre fin à ses jours lorsqu’il a appris qu’il serait transféré sur cette barge. Selon le quotidien The Guardian, deux décès « récents » s’apparentant à des suicides ont été répertoriés dans les hôtels hébergeant des exilé·es au Royaume-Uni cette année.

      https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/161123/envoyer-les-demandeurs-d-asile-au-rwanda-la-cour-supreme-du-royaume-uni-di

    • La Corte Suprema del Regno Unito giudica illegale l’accordo con il Ruanda

      Il Ruanda non è un paese sicuro dove trasferire i richiedenti asilo

      Mercoledì 15 novembre la più alta Corte del Regno Unito ha bloccato almeno per un periodo la volontà politica del governo di deportare i richiedenti asilo in paesi dell’Africa o in paesi extra Ue che non possono garantire per diversi motivi le tutele previste dal diritto internazionale.

      La Corte ha infatti stabilito che il Ruanda non è un Paese terzo sicuro in cui inviare i richiedenti asilo. Secondo tutte le organizzazioni che si battono per i diritti dei rifugiati e per i diritti fondamentali si tratta di un’enorme vittoria, un risultato ottenuto anche per merito della mobilitazione diffusa e che proteggerà i diritti di innumerevoli persone giunte nel Regno Unito in cerca di sicurezza e accoglienza.

      L’accordo tra Regno Unito e Ruanda era stato fortemente voluto nell’aprile del 2022 dall’allora primo ministro Boris Johnson (dimessosi poi il 9 giugno 2023 per aver mentito alla Camera dei Comuni in relazione ai festini a Downing street nel corso del lockdown). Nella pomposa conferenza stampa del 14 aprile 2022 l’ex premier disse: «Tutti coloro che raggiungono illegalmente il Regno Unito, così come coloro che sono arrivati illegalmente dal primo gennaio, possono essere trasferiti in Ruanda. […] Ciò significa che i migranti economici che approfittano del sistema d’asilo non potranno rimanere nel Regno Unito, mentre quelli che ne hanno veramente bisogno avranno […] l’opportunità di costruirsi una nuova vita in un paese dinamico».

      Quel giorno il Segretario di Stato per gli Affari Interni e il Ministro Ruandese per gli Affari Esteri e la Cooperazione Internazionale illustrarono l’accordo di cooperazione in materia di sviluppo economico e migrazioni, utilizzando la solita retorica – tanto cara anche al governo italiano – del contrasto all’immigrazione illegale, della necessità di controllare le frontiere e di reprimere le organizzazioni di trafficanti.

      Tuttavia, solo due mesi dopo, il 16 giugno 2022, la Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo (CEDU) bloccò, insieme alla proteste di diverse organizzazioni, il volo che avrebbe dovuto deportare i primi sette richiedenti asilo verso il paese africano.

      Le motivazioni alla base di quella decisione solo le stesse riprese mercoledì dalla Corte Suprema e prima ancora dalla Corte di Appello: ci sono motivi sostanziali per ritenere che i richiedenti asilo deportati in Ruanda corrano il rischio reale di essere rimpatriati nel loro Paese d’origine dove potrebbero subire trattamenti inumani e degradanti. Ciò porterebbe il Regno Unito a violare gli obblighi di non respingimento (non-refoulement) previsti dal diritto internazionale e nazionale.

      Emilie McDonnell di Human Rights Watch spiega che «la Corte Suprema ha richiamato l’attenzione sulla pessima situazione del Ruanda in materia di diritti umani, tra cui le minacce ai ruandesi che vivono nel Regno Unito, oltre alle esecuzioni extragiudiziali, alle morti in custodia, alle sparizioni forzate, alla tortura e alle restrizioni ai media e alle libertà politiche».

      L’esperta di diritti umani e diritto internazionale ricorda che nel 2022 Human Rights Watch scrisse al Ministro degli Interni del Regno Unito, chiarendo che il Ruanda non poteva essere considerato un Paese terzo sicuro, date le continue violazioni dei diritti umani. «L’Alto Commissariato delle Nazioni Unite per i Rifugiati (UNHCR) ha fornito prove schiaccianti dei problemi sistemici del sistema di asilo ruandese, della potenziale mancanza di indipendenza della magistratura e degli avvocati e del tasso di rifiuto del 100% per le persone provenienti da zone di conflitto, in particolare Afghanistan, Siria e Yemen, probabili Paesi di origine dei richiedenti asilo trasferiti dal Regno Unito. L’UNHCR ha inoltre presentato almeno 100 accuse di respingimento, una pratica che è continuata anche dopo la conclusione dell’accordo con il Regno Unito».

      La linea del governo inglese è stata bocciata in tutto e per tutto dalla Corte Suprema, anche nella parte relativa al monitoraggio dell’accordo: il tribunale ha dichiarato che “le intenzioni e le aspirazioni non corrispondono necessariamente alla realtà“.

      «La Corte ha ritenuto che il Ruanda non abbia la capacità pratica di determinare correttamente le richieste di asilo e di proteggere le persone dal respingimento», aggiunge Emilie McDonnell. «Questo dovrebbe essere un monito per gli altri governi che stanno pensando di esternalizzare e spostare le proprie responsabilità in materia di asilo su altri Paesi».

      Di sicuro questa sentenza metterà in difficoltà anche il governo austriaco che sta pensando di stringere un accordo simile con il Ruanda, ma anche lo stesso governo italiano che circa 10 giorni fa ha stipulato un protocollo illegale e disumano con l’Albania.

      https://www.meltingpot.org/2023/11/la-corte-suprema-del-regno-unito-giudica-illegale-laccordo-con-il-ruanda

    • L’asilo è un diritto, la Gran Bretagna deve rispettarlo: è un dovere

      La sua spregiudicata strategia di esternalizzazione ha subito un duro colpo ma molte questioni restano aperte. A partire dal tentativo del Regno Unito di disfarsi di ogni responsabilità sui rifugiati

      Con sentenza del 15 novembre 2023 la Corte Suprema del Regno Unito ha confermato “la conclusione della Corte d’Appello secondo cui la politica sul Ruanda è illegittima. Ciò in quanto ci sono motivi sostanziali per ritenere che i richiedenti asilo affronterebbero un rischio reale di maltrattamenti a causa del respingimento nel loro Paese d’origine se fossero trasferiti in Ruanda” afferma la Corte.

      Il Memorandum siglato tra il Regno Unito e il Ruanda il 6 aprile 2022 prevedeva che le domande di asilo presentate da chi arriva in modo irregolare nel Regno Unito, specie se attraverso il canale della Manica, sarebbero state tutte dichiarate inammissibili.

      Nel Memorandum si conveniva infatti di dare avvio ad un «meccanismo per la ricollocazione dei richiedenti asilo le cui richieste non sono state prese in considerazione dal Regno Unito, in Ruanda, che esaminerà le loro richieste e sistemerà o espellerà (a seconda dei casi) le persone dopo che la loro richiesta è stata decisa, in conformità con il diritto interno ruandese».

      Subito dopo si precisava altresì che «gli impegni indicati in questo Memorandum sono presi tra il Regno Unito e il Ruanda e viceversa e non creano o conferiscono alcun diritto a nessun individuo, né il rispetto di questo accordo può essere oggetto di ricorso in qualsiasi tribunale da parte di terzi o individui».

      Sarebbe stato il Regno Unito a determinare «i tempi di una richiesta di ricollocamento (in inglese il termine usato è relocation n.d.r.) di individui in base a questi accordi e il numero di richieste di ricollocazione da inoltrare» al Ruanda il quale sarebbe divenuto il solo Paese responsabile ad occuparsi della sorte dei richiedenti anche se con esso i richiedenti non hanno alcun legame.

      Anche in caso di accoglimento della loro domanda di asilo, non veniva prevista per i rifugiati alcuna possibilità di rientro verso la Gran Bretagna, nonostante si tratti del Paese al quale inizialmente avevano chiesto asilo. Nel valutare come illegale il Memorandum tra UK e il Ruanda, l’U.N.H.C.R. (Alto Commissariato delle Nazioni Unite per i Rifugiati) aveva sottolineato come “Gli accordi di trasferimento non sarebbero appropriati se rappresentassero un tentativo, in tutto o in parte, da parte di uno Stato parte della Convenzione del 1951 di liberarsi dalle proprie responsabilità”.

      Le sole inquietanti parole del Memorandum laddove precisa che le misure adottate “non creano o conferiscono alcun diritto a nessun individuo” sono sufficienti a far comprendere il livello di estremismo politico che caratterizzava il Memorandum nel quale l’individuo veniva spogliato dei suoi diritti fondamentali e veniva ridotto a mero oggetto passivo del potere esecutivo.

      Già la Corte Europea per i Diritti dell’Uomo aveva ritenuto, con misura di urgenza (caso N.S.K. v. Regno Unito del 14.06.22) di bloccare tutte le operazioni di trasferimento coatto dal Regno Unito al Ruanda per due principali ragioni: la prima è che il Ruanda non è in grado di garantire una effettiva applicazione della Convenzione di Ginevra e che quindi detto rinvio violerebbe l’art. 3 della CEDU che prescrive che «Nessuno può essere sottoposto a tortura né a pene o trattamenti inumani o degradanti».

      La seconda ragione riguarda l’impossibilità legale di contestare la decisione di trasferimento coatto verso il Ruanda; come sopra richiamato infatti, non solo non sarebbe stato possibile garantire alcuna effettività al ricorso, ma veniva negato alla radice lo stesso diritto di agire in giudizio.

      Nel rigettare il ricorso presentato dal premier Sunak la Corte Suprema del Regno Unito si è concentrata principalmente su due motivi di ricorso: a) il rischio di violazione del divieto di non respingimento; 2) la violazione del diritto dell’UE in materia di asilo. Sotto quest’ultimo profilo la Corte Suprema ha rigettato il ricorso correttamente evidenziando che, a seguito della Brexit, le disposizioni del diritto dell’Unione “hanno cessato di avere effetto nel diritto interno del Regno Unito quando il periodo di transizione è terminato il 31.12.2020”.

      Tanto il diritto interno che la Convenzione Europea sui Diritti dell’Uomo e le libertà fondamentali (CEDU), e in particolare l’art. 3, vanno però rispettati, e ad avviso della Corte “ le prove dimostrano che ci sono motivi sostanziali per ritenere che vi sia un rischio reale che le richieste di asilo non vengano esaminate correttamente e che i richiedenti asilo rischino quindi di essere rimpatriati direttamente o indirettamente nel loro Paese d’origine”.

      In un passaggio della sentenza la Corte afferma che “i cambiamenti strutturali e il rafforzamento delle capacità necessarie per eliminare tale rischio (il rischio che i rifugiati subiscano respingimenti illegali in Ruanda ndr) possono essere realizzati in futuro” (paragrafo 105). Tale espressione rinvia a un futuro ipotetico e non rappresenta alcuna apertura di credito verso le scelte del Governo.

      Nonostante ciò il Premier Sunak, per il quale la decisione finale assunta dalla Suprema Corte rappresenta una catastrofe politica, ha cercato di piegare a suo vantaggio tale passaggio della sentenza dichiarando in Parlamento che la Suprema Corte ha chiesto in realtà solo maggiori garanzie sul rispetto dei diritti dei richiedenti asilo in Ruanda e che il governo sta già lavorando a un nuovo trattato con il Ruanda e che esso sarà finalizzato alla luce della sentenza odierna.

      Probabilmente Sunak vende fumo per prendere tempo perché sa bene che i richiesti cambiamenti strutturali non sono realizzabili. Tuttavia la politica del governo inglese, almeno al momento, non sembra avviata verso un serio ripensamento e alcuni osservatori non escludono la possibilità che vengano adottate scelte ancora più estremiste come l’uscita unilaterale del Regno Unito dal Consiglio d’Europa, cessando dunque di essere parte contraente della Convenzione Europea dei Diritti dell’Uomo (come avvenuto per la Russia nel 2022).

      Uno scenario destinato ad incidere sui diritti dei migranti come su quelli dei cittadini britannici, che può apparire degno di uno scadente romanzo di fantapolitica, ma che in realtà non può essere escluso. Come non mi stancherò mai di ricordare, le violente politiche di esternalizzazione dei confini e l’attacco al diritto d’asilo stanno causando una profonda crisi a quel sistema giuridico di tutela dei diritti umani in Europa che fino a poco tempo fa tutti ritenevano inscalfibile.

      La Corte Suprema ha precisato nella sentenza che “in questo appello, la Corte deve decidere se la politica del Ruanda è legittima”. Rimane dunque irrisolta la più generale e scottante questione della legittimità o meno della politica del Governo inglese, di potersi disfare, completamente e ogni volta che lo desidera, della responsabilità giuridica del Regno Unito di esaminare le domande di asilo che pur vengono presentate sul suo territorio, delegando a tal fine, dietro pagamento, un compiacente paese terzo (sperando di poterne trovare, prima o poi, uno che non presenti gli aspetti critici del Ruanda).

      Si tratta dell’obiettivo generale che sta alla base della recentissima controversa legge approvata dal Parlamento inglese a nel luglio 2023 (Illegal Migration Act), successivamente quindi al Memorandum con il Ruanda, che all’art. 1.1 afferma che “scopo della presente legge è prevenire e scoraggiare la migrazione illegale, in particolare la migrazione per rotte non sicure e illegali, richiedendo la rimozione (“the removal” nel testo originale) dal Regno Unito di alcune persone che entrano o arrivano nel Regno Unito in violazione del controllo dell’immigrazione”.

      In una dichiarazione congiunta resa il 18.07.23 da UNHCR e dall’Ufficio delle Nazioni Unite per i Diritti Umani al momento dell’approvazione della legge, entrambe le agenzie delle Nazioni Unite hanno sostenuto che la nuova legge “è in contrasto con gli obblighi del paese ai sensi della legge internazionale sui diritti umani e dei rifugiati (….) la legge estingue l’accesso all’asilo nel Regno Unito per chiunque arrivi irregolarmente, essendo passato attraverso un paese – per quanto brevemente – dove non ha affrontato persecuzioni. Gli impedisce di presentare la protezione dei rifugiati o altre rivendicazioni sui diritti umani, indipendentemente da quanto siano convincenti le loro circostanze. Inoltre, richiede la loro rimozione in un altro paese, senza alcuna garanzia che saranno necessariamente in grado di accedere alla protezione. Crea nuovi poteri di detenzione, con una limitata supervisione giudiziaria”.

      La spregiudicata strategia della esternalizzazione del diritto d’asilo condotta dal governo del Regno Unito ha subito un duro colpo con la cancellazione del Memorandum con il Ruanda, ma moltissimi scenari problematici rimangono ancora aperti.

      Nel frattempo, come messo in luce dalle associazioni inglesi che operano nel campo della protezione dei rifugiati, il sistema inglese d’asilo sta collassando a causa della paralisi amministrativa prodotto dalle continue tentate riforme, e l’arretrato nella definizione delle domande di asilo ha superato i centomila casi pendenti.

      https://www.unita.it/2023/11/17/lasilo-e-un-diritto-la-gran-bretagna-deve-rispettarlo-e-un-dovere

  • Ventes d’#armes : la #France complice de la guerre à #Gaza
    https://www.humanite.fr/monde/crimes-de-guerre/ventes-darmes-la-france-complice-de-la-guerre-a-gaza

    En moyenne, Paris vend pour 20 millions d’euros par an de composants militaires à Israël. Ces exportations pourraient rendre notre pays complice des violations des conventions internationales et du droit humanitaire commises dans la guerre à Gaza.

    Gaza : Emmanuel Macron exhorte Israël à arrêter de tuer des civils « sans raison » ni « légitimité »
    https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/elysee/gaza-emmanuel-macron-exhorte-israel-a-arreter-de-tuer-des-civils-sans-raison-

    #duplicité #sans_vergogne

    • En même temps, on va peut-être commencer à respirer, en France, parce qu’il semble bel et bien avoir dit à la BBC : « So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop. » Ça me semble assez énorme :
      https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67356581

      Speaking the day after a humanitarian aid conference in Paris about the war in Gaza, Mr Macron said the “clear conclusion” of all governments and agencies present at that summit was “that there is no other solution than first a humanitarian pause, going to a ceasefire, which will allow [us] to protect... all civilians having nothing to do with terrorists”.

      “De facto - today, civilians are bombed - de facto. These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.”

      [edit - il y a la vidéo de l’entretien dans l’article, il répond dans un anglais pas transcendant, mais c’est très clair]

    • Non, pas d’ironie de ma part. Je déteste ce gugusse, mais pour le coup sa déclaration n’est pas anodine. Évidemment, trop tard, trop incohérent, trop « je décide seul de tout », mais c’est (beaucoup) mieux que rien.

      Au moins les gens arrêteront de se faire traiter d’antisémites quand ils se contenteront de dire la même chose que ce que vient de dire Macron. Plutôt que de commenter le retournement de veste de Macron, je suis surtout curieux de voir à quelle vitesse et avec quel entrain nos animateurs de plateaux vont adopter cette nouvelle posture officielle, alors que ça leur semblait si extraterrestre hier encore (je pense aux deux andouilles dont tu remarquais à quel point ils surjouaient l’indignation face à Villepin - je suis certain qu’en en moins de 24 heures ils vont apprendre à surjouer l’indignation quand quelqu’un refusera de condamner le massacre de civils palestiniens dans les bombardements israéliens).

      Sinon, je vois des gens qui commentent le titre de BFM (Gaza : Emmanuel Macron exhorte Israël à arrêter de tuer des civils « sans raison » ni « légitimité »), ironisant sur le fait qu’ainsi Macron suggérerait qu’il y a des situations où il y aurait des raisons et de la légitimité à tuer les civils. Or Macron n’a pas du tout dit ça, et la tournure est celle de BFM, pas du tout celle de sa déclaration.

      (Je n’aime pas Macron, mais ça ne rend service à personne de déformer ses propos. Surtout quand, enfin, on a un membre du G7 qui appelle ouvertement au cessez-le-feu et déclare comme illégitime le fait pour Israël de tuer enfants, femmes et vieillards.)

    • Un discours clair et fort de Clare Daly, députée irlandaise au parlement européen !
      Alors qu’une grande partie de la gauche française va aller manifester avec ceux qui soutiennent les crimes contre l’humanité à Gaza, Faure, Tondelier, Roussel, main dans la main avec Ciotti et Habib demain ! Répugnant.
      https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1723391585323274240/pu/vid/avc1/720x720/KIuM-33dIeLNpxdN.mp4?tag=12


      https://twitter.com/CharliesIngalls/status/1723391829473743281

      Violente charge de la députée irlandaise Clare Daly contre Ursula von der Leyen, la Présidente de la Commission européenne.

      De nombreux hauts fonctionnaires de l’Union européenne lui reprochent son soutien « inconditionnel » à Israël. Une pétition regroupant des centaines de signataires lui a même été adressée.

      Le 13 octobre, elle s’était rendu en Israël sans prévenir les capitales européennes de sa démarche, une initiative très peu appréciée à Bruxelles puisque la politique étrangères de l’UE n’est pas du tout dans ses prérogatives.

    • « Sous les injures, sous les menaces devenues permanentes, sous une terreur exercée contre nous aussi bien en France qu’à Bruxelles pour nous faire taire, ce que nous n’avons cessé de dire est aujourd’hui dit par le Président #Macron !

      #CessezLeFeu Maintenant ! #CeasefireInGazaNOW » Younous Omarjee

      https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1723236875719053312/vid/avc1/720x732/zdr-dEfl1dRKzIBI.mp4?tag=14

      https://twitter.com/younousomarjee/status/1723236967867920711
      Encore une fois, il faut dire merci à LFI d’avoir tenu la ligne qui était la bonne, malgré les attaques des médias, des adversaires et des alliés.

      Et il faut espérer que Macron soutienne la demande de cessez-le-feu pour de vrai. Pas seulement les mots, mais des actes.

      https://blogs.mediapart.fr/jadran-svrdlin/blog/091123/defile-de-faux-semblants-et-de-vrais-antisemites

    • Macron « exhorte Israël à cesser » les bombardements sur Gaza, Netanyahu lui répond sèchement - Nice-Matin
      https://www.nicematin.com/conflits/macron-exhorte-israel-a-cesser-les-bombardements-sur-gaza-netanyahu-lui-r

      Le Premier ministre israélien, Benjamin Netanyahu, a réagi aux propos de M. Macron, en soulignant que « la responsabilité de tout tort fait aux civils incombe au Hamas », qui a déclenché la guerre avec les massacres du 7 octobre et qui utilise des civils comme « boucliers humains ».

    • Macron en plusieurs actes :

      Lundi, soutien « inconditionnel » à Israël.

      Mardi, il propose que la France participe à une coalition internationale pour détruire le Hamas.

      Mercredi, il ne fait pas voter une proposition à l’ONU de cessez-le-feu humanitaire.

      Jeudi, il fait voter une proposition à l’ONU de cessez-le-feu humanitaire… et exporte des armes vers Israël.

      Vendredi, il envoie un porte-hélicoptères pour prendre en charge les blessés de Gaza… capacité 4 personnes.

      Samedi, il explique qu’Israël doit tout arrêter et s’émeut des morts civils, lui qui voulait le mardi participer à une coalition internationale et apportait un soutien « inconditionnel ».

      Dimanche, il ne participera pas à la marche contre l’antisémitisme.

      Toute cette séquence résume Emmanuel Macron. Aucune cohérence. Aucune colonne vertébrale. Et par conséquent, et depuis longtemps, plus aucune crédibilité à l’internationale.

  • Boris Johnson asked scientists if hair dryer could kill Covid, says ex-aide
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-67287003

    In his statement, Mr Cummings said the former prime minister “did not want us to ’antagonise’ the media by calling out false stories”. Staff, he wrote, were even unsure whether “he was not himself the source of false stories”.

    “A low point was when he circulated a video of a guy blowing a special hair dryer up his nose ’to kill Covid’,” he wrote.

    He said Mr Johnson shared the Youtube clip - since deleted - in a WhatsApp group with Sir Chris, England’s chief medical officer (CMO), and Sir Patrick, then the government’s chief scientific adviser (CSA).

    He then “asked the CSA and CMO what they thought”, he added. The statement does not detail what response - if any - was given by the advisers.

    Ces génies qui nous gouvernent.

  • Que disaient les « #experts » ?

    #in_retrospect

    2019 :

    Corruption ou pas, Netanyahu reste le favori des législatives en Israël | Euronews
    https://fr.euronews.com/2019/04/09/legislatives-en-israel-la-corruption-connais-pas-netanyahu-reste-favori

    […] un vieux routier, un carriériste rusé et fin #stratège

    Israël : « Netanyahou est un redoutable #stratège » - Jeune Afrique
    https://www.jeuneafrique.com/mag/762096/politique/israel-netanyahou-est-un-redoutable-stratege

    Netanyahou est malin. Il va tenter de convaincre ses alliés nationalistes d’accepter le plan Trump en misant sur le fait que les Palestiniens vont très certainement le rejeter, étant donné la partialité des États-Unis. Mon sentiment est que Netanyahou utilisera ce refus comme prétexte pour amorcer l’annexion d’une partie de la Cisjordanie. C’est un redoutable stratège.

    2021 :

    Benyamin Netanyahou : un dirigeant #habile qui a remodelé Israël - BBC News Afrique
    https://www.bbc.com/afrique/monde-57468725

    Fin stratège politique

    Et j’en passe…

    #MSM #garde_à_vous

  • China Square: The cheap Chinese shop at the centre of Kenya row
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-64809423

    6.3.2023 by Victor Kiprop - Kenyan small and medium enterprise traders hold placards and shout slogans during a protest against Chinese nationals owning businesses that engage in import, manufacture and distributionImage source, EPA
    Image caption,

    Protesters wanted China Square to permanently shut its doors

    A Chinese-owned shop selling cheap household goods at the centre of a dispute in Kenya has reopened after a counterfeit complaint against it was dismissed. The row got to the heart of a debate about whether this kind of outlet hurts or helps Kenyans.

    Blowing whistles and vuvuzelas, Kenyan petty traders marched in their hundreds to the deputy president’s office in Nairobi to demand an end to what they called a “China invasion”.

    The China Square shop that had become a hit with consumers because of its cheap goods was the focus of their anger. Its rapid success had rekindled long-held fears about competition from abroad.

    The shop, which is in a mall on the outskirts of Nairobi, had already shut its doors, albeit temporarily, by the time of last week’s protest as controversy swirled around it.

    Barely five weeks into trading, it had become a social media phenomenon. Its low prices compared to what the petty traders were charging and convenient location made it very attractive.

    But some small-scale traders, who form a vital part of Kenya’s economy, began to notice business dropping off.

    “We want the Chinese out of Kenya. If the Chinese become the manufacturers, distributors, retailers and even hawkers, where will Kenyans go?” an unnamed trader told journalists at the protest.

    Peter Sitati, who imports and sells beauty equipment in Nairobi, was one of those at the demonstration.

    He says a plastic pedicure stool that costs around $43 (£35) in his shop, retailed at China Square for about $21, effectively undercutting him by more than 50%.

    “Many Kenyan businesses are going to close their shops and our economy will collapse,” Mr Sitati argued.

    Peter Sitati says he is not able to sell his goods at China Square’s lower prices

    Pressed to explain why he was charging so much more, he said he was covering the taxes and duty he was charged and thought that he might be buying the goods from China at a higher price than China Square.

    Despite being asked by the BBC, China Square did not explain how it set its prices, but it might be benefitting from being able to buy in bigger quantities.

    It may also have a more direct relationship with the manufacturers. A lot of the smaller Kenyan traders have to go through middle men and may be charged more as a result.

    China Square founder Lei Cheng insisted he had done nothing wrong.

    “My business is legal and is centred on healthy competition. We have cooperated with all government directives of opening a business in Kenya and we are here to break the monopoly,” Mr Lei said.

    He added that his business took more than $157,000 in its first two weeks.

    “The people who are fighting us feel threatened because Kenyans now know we exist and we are not exploiting them in pricing.”

    ’Quality goods, affordable prices’

    Some Kenyan shoppers are on the retailer’s side.

    “China Square should be allowed to operate. They’re selling quality goods at affordable prices,” Sharon Wanjiku said.

    “The cost of living is very high at the moment and these prices are exactly what we need.”

    The swift popularity of the shop followed by the controversy caught the attention of the government, with one minister saying it should cease operating as a retailer.

    “We welcome Chinese investors to Kenya but as manufacturers not traders,” Trade Minister Moses Kuria said on Twitter on the Friday before China Square shut down.

    It remains unclear why the shop did close its doors to customers. There were suspicions that it had been put under some pressure by the authorities.

    A statement from China Square said it was closing to “re-evaluate and replan our company strategy” and that it was “considering a possibility of co-operating with local traders”.

    But at the end of last week, Kenya’s Anti-Counterfeit Authority said it had investigated a complaint that China Square was selling fake goods but had found no evidence that that was the case.

    On Monday, the Kenya Chinese Chamber of Commerce (KCCC) welcomed the re-opening of China Square after discussions were held with the government, however it did not go into details of what the talks were about.

    “The Chamber looks forward to an equal and fair treatment of all businesses across [the] board to ensure a conducive business environment for all,” the KCCC statement said, but it did not say if any new agreement had been made.

    Image source, EPA
    Image caption,

    The protest against China Square attracted a large crowd

    Some fear that the row over the shop has sent out the wrong message about the economy and the interest in investment.

    Korir SingOei, from the ministry of foreign affairs, has been seeking to reassure potential investors, saying that Kenya welcomes money from outside and does not discriminate where it comes from.

    Wu Peng, the top diplomat for Africa at China’s Foreign Ministry, was pleased with the clarification and said a “non-discriminatory investment environment is vital to the healthy development of bilateral practical co-operation”.

    Kenya has in the past struggled to find a middle ground between attracting foreign investment and promoting free trade while protecting local traders from what some see as unfair competition.

    “Stopping foreigners from doing legitimate business in Kenya is retrogressive. We need to see how to build the capacity of Kenyans to be able to produce competitive products,” says Kenyan economist Gerrishon Ikiara.

    Deportations

    The Kenya Investment Promotion Act, which sets conditions for foreign investors, requires an investment to be beneficial to the country through things such as new jobs, the transfer of new skills or technology, or the use of local raw materials or services.

    There is no data available to show how many Chinese traders or people are in Kenya, but there has been growing anti-Chinese sentiment in recent years. This has been partly due to allegations that individual Chinese people in Kenya have been racist, as well as fears of Chinese traders taking businesses and jobs from Kenyans.

    In 2019, the Kenyan authorities deported seven Chinese nationals who had been operating in two markets in Nairobi, accusing them of not having work permits and saying they could not operate in a sector that had been reserved for locals.

    In 2020, four Chinese men were deported after being accused of caning a Kenyan man working at a Chinese restaurant.

    President William Ruto has so far steered clear of the matter, but ahead of his election last year he promised to deport Chinese nationals engaging in business that can be done by Kenyans.

    “We have agreements with different countries on what level of business or work is to be done by locals and which one is allowed, where one must have [a] work permit, to foreigners. And that level is not selling in kiosks, retail or roasting maize,” Mr Ruto said last June.

    China Square is clearly not working out of a kiosk, but its re-opening continues to present a challenge to the petty traders, whose complaints have not gone away.

    #économie #commerce #Afrique #Chine #Kenya

  • Prix Nobel de la paix 2023 : Qui est Narges Mohammadi et pourquoi a-t-elle été choisie - BBC News Afrique
    https://www.bbc.com/afrique/monde-67029609

    En annonçant sa décision, le comité Nobel norvégien a déclaré que Mme Mohammadi, 51 ans, était récompensée pour sa lutte contre l’oppression des femmes en #Iran.

    Son combat a eu un « coût personnel énorme », a déclaré la présidente du comité, Berit Reiss-Andersen.

    Elle a précisé que Mme Mohammadi purgeait actuellement une peine de 31 ans de prison en Iran et qu’elle avait reçu 154 coups de fouet.

    Trita Parsi sur X :

    🧵Difficult to think of anyone deserving the Nobel Prize more than #NargesMohammadi!! It’s a major blow against the repressive government in Iran - but also against Diaspora figures who have slandered Mohammadi and sought to hijack the women’s movement in Iran.

    https://twitter.com/tparsi/status/1710293782648807499

  • What you need to know about #Covid as new #variant rises - BBC News
    https://www.bbc.com/news/health-66848549

    La vaccination au RU ne sera disponible qu’aux plus de 65 ans (et aux immuno-déprimés)

    The reality is then that most under-65s will now end up boosting their immunity not through vaccination, but through catching Covid many times.

    Le site Naked Capitalism :

    “Reality” is another one of those words. When you hear “reality” think “artificial construct” (building social or symbolic capital for the propagator).

  • Colorado family members die trying to live ’off the grid’ - BBC News
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66321392

    Three members of a Colorado family died while attempting to live “off the grid” in the Rocky Mountains, family members and investigators say.

    The emaciated remains of sisters Christine and Rebecca Vance and the latter’s 14-year old son, were found in a remote campsite this month.

    On Tuesday a coroner ruled that they probably died from starvation or exposure during the cold winter.

    #darwin_awards #tristesse

  • Guerre en Ukraine : Que sont les bombes à fragmentation et pourquoi les #États-Unis les envoient-ils en Ukraine ? - BBC News Afrique
    https://www.bbc.com/afrique/monde-66142108

    Parce que les leurs sont gentilles.

    Les armes à sous-munitions russes auraient un « taux de ratés » de 40 %, ce qui signifie qu’un grand nombre d’entre elles restent dangereuses sur le terrain, alors que le taux moyen de ratés est estimé à près de 20 %.

    Le Pentagone estime que ses propres bombes à sous-munitions ont un taux de ratés inférieur à 3 %.

    #sans_vergogne

  • Environnement : La « poussière magique » qui peut aider à lutter contre le réchauffement climatique - BBC News Afrique
    https://www.bbc.com/afrique/monde-66112214

    Cette année, UNDO prévoit d’épandre 185 000 tonnes de #basalte et espère, d’ici à 2025, avoir éliminé un million de tonnes de #CO₂.

    C’est encore une goutte d’eau dans l’océan par rapport aux émissions.

    En 2022, on estime que le monde a rejeté environ 37 milliards de tonnes de CO₂ dans l’atmosphère.

    #climat

  • Drowning in Lies. Greece tries to cover up its own role in the #Pylos shipwreck by tampering with evidence

    On the night of 13 June, a vessel carrying around 750 men, women and children mainly from Pakistan, Egypt and Syria capsized in the Central Mediterranean, in Greek waters. The Greek authorities had been aware of the overloaded vessel the day before because Europe’s border agency Frontex and activists had warned them.

    Instead of rescuing the people, the Greek coast guard stayed close to the boat and observed it from the sky with a helicopter, ignoring Frontex’s offer for help. They sent commercial vessels to the area and later a coast guard boat.

    Shortly after the coast guard vessel arrived on the scene, the overloaded boat capsized. Only 104 men survived. All the others, including all the women and children on board, drowned.

    Survivors alleged that their vessel was towed by the Greek coast guard boat, causing the fatal wreck. The Greek coast guard and the government strongly denied these allegations and claimed the boat was never towed.

    We decided to collect as many survivor testimonies as possible and try to establish what really happened, and whether there had been efforts to cover up the truth.
    METHODS

    Finding visual evidence to determine the cause of the shipwreck was nearly impossible since it happened on the high seas and commercial vessels and surveillance planes were sent away by the Greek authorities. Videos survivors might have had on their phones were no longer accessible due to water damage or because they lost their phones.

    We decided to put a team together, including journalists from the same regions as the passengers, and carried out 17 interviews with survivors – the largest number collected in a single investigation into the wreck so far – to compare their accounts. We also spoke to sources inside the European border agency Frontex.

    We obtained crucial court documents containing two sets of testimonies given by the same nine survivors. They spoke first to the Greek coast guard and later to a local Greek court.
    STORYLINES

    Documents and witness testimony obtained by Lighthouse Reports, Der Spiegel, Monitor, SIRAJ, El País, Reporters United and The Times show the Greek coast guard tampered with official statements to conceal their role in the wreck and pressured survivors into naming certain people as the smugglers.

    Nine survivors were asked by the coast guard to give witness statements just hours after the wreck. On analysing the documents, we discovered that critical parts of several testimonies contain identical phrases.

    The documents reveal that the translator used during one of the survivor’s interviews with the coast guard is a member of the coast guard himself. Other translators were local residents who spoke Arabic and other languages, who were sworn in on the day.

    In the documents, eight survivors are stated to have blamed the capsizing on factors unrelated to towing. Four of them are stated to have testified – in nearly identical wording – that the boat capsized because it was “old” and “there were no life jackets”. Their interviews were translated by three different interpreters.

    None of the survivors interrogated by the coast guard blamed the coast guard at all, according to the transcriptions. But in a later round of questioning by a Greek court of the same nine survivors, six of them are stated to have said the coast guard towed the boat shortly before it capsized.

    We spoke to two of the nine survivors who testified; they told us that the coast guard had omitted the parts of their testimony mentioning towing.

    “They asked me what happened to the boat and how it sank. I told them the Greek coast guard came and tied the rope to our boat and towed us and caused the capsizing of the boat,” said one survivor. “They didn’t type that in my testimony. When they presented it at the end I couldn’t find this part.”

    He added that the coast guard pressured him to single out certain people as the smugglers in charge of the operation. This claim is supported by our analysis of the documents: two answers to the coast guard’s questions about smugglers contain identical sentences.

    Another survivor who testified said he also blamed the shipwreck on towing when asked by the coast guard, but still signed the deposition at the end despite knowing it did not reflect what he said, because he felt “terrified”.

    Sixteen out of the seventeen survivors we spoke to said the coast guard attached a rope to the vessel and tried to tow it shortly before it capsized. Four also claimed that the coast guard was attempting to tow the boat to Italian waters, while four reported that the coast guard caused more deaths by circling around the boat after it capsized, making waves that caused the boat’s carcass to sink.

    While Europe and its border agency Frontex have largely backed Greece on its border practices and said following the shipwreck that they believed the coast guard did everything it could to save the people who drowned, Frontex is now doubting the official version

    The border agency has circulated an internal report on the incident based on survivor testimony, in which survivors state that the Greek coast guard was to blame for the drownings, according to sources.

    https://www.lighthousereports.com/investigation/drowning-in-lies
    #Grèce #naufrage #asile #migrations #décès #morts #tragédie #mourir_aux_frontières #morts_aux_frontières #14_juin_2023 #Méditerranée #Mer_Méditerranée #13_juin_2023
    #Lighthouse_reports #enquête #contre-enquête

    Sur ce naufrage voir ce fil de discussion:
    https://seenthis.net/messages/1006608

    • Survivors: ‘Greek coastguard was next to us when boat capsized’

      Two Syrian refugees recall their harrowing journey and pin blame on the coastguard for the devastating shipwreck.

      “The boat was too heavy,” he told Al Jazeera.

      “We were sitting next to each other, and there was a constant fear of sinking.”

      On the derelict blue ship that was soon to hit international headlines, he saw about 750 people crammed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, unable to move. They had all hoped to eventually reach Europe.

      In a few days, he would see hundreds of these people drown as a Greek coastguard ship floated nearby.

      Ahmed fled Syria with his friend Mohammed*, 23. They both asked to use pseudonyms because they fear the Greek government would punish them for speaking out about what they saw that night.

      They are two of the 104 survivors of the shipwreck off the coast of Pylos, Greece. Seventy-eight people have been confirmed dead.

      Like hundreds of other people on board, their third companion, Mohammed’s cousin, was never found.

      Their path to the central Mediterranean was taken in many steps. Ahmed and Mohammed said they left home hoping for a future without violence.

      Their journey took them to Lebanon, then Egypt and Libya.

      They spent about a month in Libya, where smugglers kept them closed up in an apartment with Egyptians, Pakistanis and other Syrians also making the journey.

      Mohammed said the smugglers beat the Egyptians and Pakistanis, constantly cursing and insulting them.

      Finally, in the first days of June, they were told, “You are leaving today.”

      They were put on the back of trucks that drove to the shore, were loaded onto small boats and were taken to a trawler, the Adriana, out in deeper waters.

      “They were beating people there,” Ahmed said.

      “They were beating them while taking them to the lower deck of the boat. … It was very bad down there. It smelled of diesel and fish. You couldn’t breathe.”

      Ahmed and his companions managed to pay a bribe of $200 to get themselves a spot on the upper deck.

      But wherever the passengers sat on the ship, they were wedged together.

      Women and children were kept below in the hold. From their cramped spot on the top deck, the young men could see the sea.
      ‘People were starting to lose consciousness’

      From the second day of the voyage, the boat’s engine started breaking down.

      “They would repair it, and after a while, it would break down again,” Mohammed said. “Every time they repaired it, it would stop again after two to three hours.”

      After the second day at sea, food and water ran out. Panic began to percolate across the ship.

      “At that time, people were starting to lose consciousness,” Ahmed said.

      “They were falling on the ground. They were fainting. Some were shaking. We were seeing tens, hundreds of people in this state.”

      They heard fights were breaking out all across the boat due to hunger, thirst and fear.

      “Me, Ahmed and my relative who is now missing were always trying to keep our spirits up,” Mohammed said. “When someone cried, we made jokes. ‘We will make it,’ we were saying to ourselves. But everyone was going crazy.”

      By the fourth day, they heard disturbing news from the hold.

      “Some people coming up from below said, ‘There are dead people down there,’” Ahmed said.

      “They said there were six dead bodies on the boat. Five bodies were down below, and we didn’t see them. One was on the upper deck. We saw him.”

      Ahmed and Mohammed said the passengers started telephoning the Italian authorities and the Greek coastguard to ask for help.

      “From the fourth day onwards, the Greek coastguard had been aware of us,” Mohammed said.

      By the fifth day, June 13, they said it looked like the Adriana had stopped moving completely.

      In the afternoon, a helicopter flew overhead.

      The passengers could not understand from the deck, but it was the Greek coastguard. In the afternoon, one and then another commercial ship passed by and tossed those on board water over the waves.

      “People were saying: ‘Take us with you.’ They were saying, ‘No.’” Mohammed said. “We asked for help, but they refused to help us.”

      A Greek coastguard vessel finally approached the fishing trawler around midnight in the first minutes of June 14, the friends said. “‘Follow us,’ they told us. We followed them,” Mohammed said.

      “Half an hour later, our boat stopped completely. It could not move. They came back and tied us to their boat.”

      Ahmed and Mohammed said the coastguard started to tow their stalled-out trawler, but it took a sharp turn, and the Adriana heaved precariously left, then right, then capsized.

      “They were right next to us when it capsized. In the moment it sank, they moved away from us. They deliberately made us sink,” Mohammed said. “We were standing on top of the boat, and we were able to see everything clearly.”

      Tossed into the dark Mediterranean Sea, hundreds of people tried to find something to cling onto, some way to survive. “People were holding onto me,” Ahmed said.

      “I was going under the water and getting away from people. Every time I got away, I would come across someone else, and they would hold onto me to save themselves. When someone grabbed onto me, we both went underwater together.”

      After an hour and a half, Ahmed said he spotted an inflatable coastguard boat and swam towards it.

      “They were 200 or 300 metres [220 to 330 yards] away from us,” he said. “I swam to them and got into the boat. They did not come close to us to save us. They were standing far away, and those who could swim were going towards them, like me.”

      As he made his way towards the inflatable boat, Ahmed had to push aside bodies floating in the water.

      Once taken to the larger coastguard boat, Ahmed was reunited with Mohammed. The two hugged each other, overwhelmed and elated to have found each other.

      They started asking about their third companion. He had not made it, and they realised how incomplete their relief was.

      The survivors of the shipwreck were taken ashore. Mohammed said that when they were first held in the Greek city of Kalamata, the authorities came to take his testimony of the tragedy three or four times.

      “When we told them that we had been towed with a rope, they stopped,” he said. “They were saying that the problem was our boat. They wrote our statements with their own words. They did not write down what we said. They made us say it and write it down.”

      Ahmed said no officials have ever taken his testimony.
      ‘Accountability vacuum’

      Both men are now in the Malakasa refugee camp, 40km (25 miles) north of Athens. They are awaiting their asylum claims to be processed. Mohammed is desperate for news of his cousin, even if that news is confirmation he is dead.

      Ahmed’s and Mohammed’s accounts contradict the account of the Greek coastguard, which has said the passengers of the Adriana refused aid, it was only immobile for about 20 minutes before it capsized and the coastguard had not towed the boat prior to it capsizing.

      Survivors’ accounts line up with other evidence.

      The Greek investigative website Solomon has published emails showing that the Greek authorities had been notified that the ship was in distress by 6pm (15:00 GMT) on June 13. And tracking data published and verified by the BBC and The New York Times show that the trawler was not moving for at least seven hours before it capsized.

      When asked to comment on allegations that the coastguard towed the boat and was involved in the shipwreck, the Greek Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy told Al Jazeera: “The required information is part of the investigation procedure that is being conducted under strict confidentiality based on the instructions given by the prosecutor of the Supreme Court. Regarding the details of the operation plan of the Hellenic coastguard, no further comments can be made by our service.”

      Fingers have been pointed at the Greek coastguard for both the shipwreck and its large death toll.

      “It has been evidenced that the Hellenic coastguard uses a range of tactics to move boats they have intercepted at sea into different territorial areas to avoid responsibility for search and rescue and the lodging of their applications for international protection,” said Hope Barker, a policy analyst at the Border Violence Monitoring Network.

      “Whilst this usually includes towing boats back to Turkish territorial waters, it is equally likely that if the boat was closer to Italian territorial waters, they would try to transfer it there instead.”

      The organisation is calling for an independent investigation and for Frontex, the European Union’s border agency, to withdraw from Greece.

      “Violations of fundamental rights by the Hellenic coastguard are routine and systematised operations that have proven to be under-investigated by the Greek state. There is an accountability vacuum that allows these actions to continue unabated,” Barker said.

      In Malakasa, Mohammed said he cannot stop thinking about the moment the boat capsized and the screams of the people around him. He does not know how he survived in the water.

      “I shouted Ahmed’s and my cousin’s names for a while,” he said. “In that moment, I heard a voice screaming, ‘Mother! Mother!’ I asked that person for his name, and he said, ‘Fuat’.

      “He and I told each other our names, so that whichever of us survived would be able to bring the news to the other’s family.”

      https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/7/5/survivors-greek-coastguard-was-next-to-us-when-boat-capsized

    • Under the unwatchful eye of the authorities’ deactivated cameras: dying in the darkest depths of the Mediterranean

      A collaborative investigation by Solomon, Forensis, The Guardian and ARD presents the most complete tracing, to date, of the course that the fishing vessel Adriana took until it ultimately sank, causing over 600 people to drown − while under the supervision of Greek and European authorities. A document reveals that according to Frontex recommendations, the Coast Guard vessel was obligated to record the operation on video.

      In the early hours of June 14, the state-of-the-art cameras of the Coast Guard vessel ΠΠΛΣ-920 were off.

      The deadliest shipwreck within the Greek Search and Rescue Zone, one of the largest the Mediterranean has ever seen, was reportedly not visually detected.

      Only hours before, aerial photos of the overloaded fishing vessel were taken. Nearby tankers recorded videos before they were ordered to leave the scene. There were satellite images that captured its movement.

      But the exact circumstances in which the Adriana capsized off Pylos, killing more than 600 people, remain unclear three weeks on.

      In affidavits and interviews, some of the 104 survivors attributed the sinking of the fishing vessel to an attempt by the Hellenic Coast Guard to tow it to Italian waters.

      The Coast Guard emphasizes that it saved human lives, and maintains that the fishing vessel overturned due to a disturbance by the passengers.

      Solomon, in a joint investigation with the research group Forensis, The Guardian and German public broadcaster ARD reveals: the Coast Guard vessel ΠΠΛΣ-920, the only vessel present at the time the Adriana capsized, was obligated to “document its operation by video-recording” in accordance with a 2021 Frontex document which recommends that the Greek authorities record their operations continually.

      If this had been done, today there would be answers to the questions that the victims’ families are still asking.

      The ΠΠΛΣ-920 cameras were supposed to record

      By midday on June 13, the Greek and Italian authorities and Frontex (the European Border and Coast Guard Agency), were aware of the overloaded fishing vessel, which had been sailing aimlessly for four days in the central Mediterranean – its only means of navigation was a compass and the position of the sun.

      The activist network Alarm Phone had also relayed to the authorities the desperate SOS of some 750 men, women, and children — mostly from Pakistan, Egypt and Syria — who, lacking potable water, were using their shoelaces to lower containers into the sea: “They are urgently asking for help”.

      ΠΠΛΣ-920, the Coast Guard vessel which received the order to depart from the port of Souda, Crete to assist, has been the pride of the Coast Guard since 2021. European funding covered 90% of its cost, and it is one of the best-equipped vessels available in Greece.

      And it could not be in better hands: earlier this year, in March, its captain was awarded for “his valuable contribution to the protection of maritime borders and human life at sea.”

      According to the Coast Guard, ΠΠΛΣ-920, like its three sister ships (ΠΠΛΣ-900, ΠΠΛΣ-910 and ΠΠΛΣ-930), has two state-of-the-art thermal camera systems. According to the Coast Guard, however, when the fishing vessel capsized, the cameras were not in operation because the crew’s attention was focused on the rescue efforts.

      “When we have an incident, we try to have the ability to operate seamlessly. Making some crew members ‘inactive’ so that they can record a video, you understand, is unethical,” Coast Guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou stated on June 15, justifying why the incident was not recorded on video.

      However, one of the three former and current Coast Guard officers who spoke to us during our investigation, said that these cameras do not require constant manual operation and they exist exactly for this reason – to record such incidents.

      But there is still a critical issue: a document reveals that, according to Frontex recommendations in March 2021, the Coast Guard vessel was obligated to record the operation.

      The document states that “if feasible, all actions taken by Frontex assets or Frontex co-financed assets… should be documented by video consistently.”

      The cost of the ΠΠΛΣ-290, one of four state-of-the-art vessels purchased for €55.5 million, has been 90% financed through Frontex. It is designated to be “available for four months a year, for Frontex missions outside of Greek waters.”

      Frontex had recommended the visual recording of operations, during a meeting where representatives from Greece were present as well as from other European countries, following complaints of human rights violations by the Coast Guard.

      The complaints that were assessed during the meeting referred to the exact same practice, attributed to ΠΠΛΣ-920: towing vessels of asylum seekers outside of Greek waters.
      We created a 3D model of the Adriana

      Solomon, Forensis, The Guardian and ARD worked together and after analyzing a wealth of evidence, we present the most complete picture to date, of the Adriana’s course up to the time of its sinking.

      We collected more than 20 survivor accounts and analyzed material derived from, among others, witness statements, official reports from the Coast Guard and Frontex, deck logs of the Coast Guard vessel and tankers in transit, aerial photographs and data on the position and movement of ships and aircraft. We also secured exclusive footage from the commercial vessels that were in the area and spoke to sources at Frontex, the Coast Guard, and rescuers.

      The analysis of this information resulted in a detailed chronology of the events that occurred on June 13 and 14, an interactive map showing Adriana‘s movement, as well as a 3D model of the fishing vessel.

      With the help of the 3D model, we were able to do what no official authority or journalistic investigation has done so far: to conduct in-person interviews with survivors of the wreck, using the visual impression of this body of data.

      Using the method of situated testimony, the survivors placed themselves in the 3D model of the ship, indicated their location on the deck, and recalled the events that unfolded before the sinking of the Adriana: from the alleged towing to its capsize.

      In this way, we were able to cross-reference accounts of what happened in the presence of the Coast Guard vessel, based on each person’s eyewitness account.
      Main conclusions

      Eleven critical findings emerge from the joint investigation:

      – Frontex offered to help three times. A Frontex source stated that the Coast Guard did not respond to any of the three requests for assistance.

      - The records of ΠΠΛΣ-920 are incoherent and raise questions. For example, while it is reported that immediately before the sinking, the fishing vessel was moving west, it actually appears to be moving for about an hour (00:44 – 01:40) in a southerly direction at a speed of only 0.6 knots. In addition: since, according to the Coast Guard, the fishing vessel’s engine had stopped working at 00:44, why was the preparation of life-saving equipment carried out an hour later, at 01:40?

      - While the fishing vessel’s engine was running but there was no navigation capability, according to testimonies, ΠΠΛΣ-920 approached the vessel and gave directions to Italy. A survivor stated: “[a crew member] told us that the Greek ship would go ahead of us and lead us to Italian waters. He told us that in two hours we would be in Italy.” ΠΠΛΣ-920 directed the fishing vessel from a distance, which followed until its engine broke down again.

      – According to Syrian survivors on deck, when the engine broke down, masked men from ΠΠΛΣ-920 boarded the fishing vessel and tied a blue rope to the stern. The above-mentioned testimonies are also consistent with an entry in the ΠΠΛΣ-920 deck logbook, which mentions the participation of a four-member team from the Special Missions Unit in the operation.

      - According to the same survivors, there were two brief attempts to tow the fishing vessel. The first time the rope broke. The second time the ΠΠΛΣ-920 increased its speed and the fishing vessel rocked to the right, then to the left, then to the right again and flipped onto its right side.

      – The Pakistani survivors were located in the interior of the ship, and could not see what was happening. They stated, however, that while the fishing vessel’s engine was not working, they felt a sharp forward thrust “like a rocket” — a sensation that corroborates the use of a rope for towing.

      – Testimonies in this investigation support testaments presented by other journalistic investigations, as well as survivor statements included in the official case file: this action appears to have led to the capsize and eventual sinking of the ship.

      - The fishing vessel capsized and survivors climbed on top of it. ΠΠΛΣ-920 left the scene, creating waves that made it more difficult for the survivors to stay afloat.

      – After withdrawing, ΠΠΛΣ-920 directed its floodlights on the shipwreck site. Survivors tried to swim to the Coast Guard vessel, but the distance was too great.

      – ΠΠΛΣ-920 began the rescue operation 30 minutes after the sinking, and only after the fishing vessel had completely disappeared from the water’s surface.

      - Survivors claim that their phones (which were protected in plastic cases) contain visual material from the incident. Immediately after the rescue, according to the same testimonies, Coast Guard officers confiscated their phones, which have not been returned to them.

      https://vimeo.com/843117800

      Survivor accounts of the towing

      In the deck log of ΠΠΛΣ-920, which we have seen, there is no mention of any towing attempt. The Coast Guard captain reports that they approached the fishing vessel to offer assistance, received no response, and followed it “from a discreet distance”.

      This is disputed by the accounts of the survivors, some of whom not only tell of a rope that was tied to the fishing vessel, but they all mention its color: blue.

      This investigation documents, for the first time, the blue cable that was used by ΠΠΛΣ-920, which can also be seen in earlier photos of the vessel.

      The estimation that the attempt to tow the fishing vessel by the ΠΠΛΣ-920 led to its sinking is underlined by the statements of survivors, that form part of the case file which is available to the journalists that participated in this investigation.

      “Then the Greek ship came and threw the rope which was tied to the front of our ship,” says a survivor who was on the deck.

      The Coast Guard started towing the fishing vessel, he adds, and “when it was going slowly the fishing vessel was fine, but instead of approaching the Greek ship we were moving away. When they hit the gas, I’m sorry to say, that’s when our ship sank.”

      The same survivor estimates that the fishing boat capsized due to the “pulling from the Greek ship, because then our ship began to lean to one side. And I, who was standing in a corner, slipped into the water with a relative of mine, who died.”

      Another survivor who was also on the deck, but at the stern and without full visibility, says in his testimony that “it was night, the guys in front told me that they tied the rope, but I could feel the motion too, because then we moved, but not for more than two minutes.”

      “Then we said stop-stop because our ship is leaning,” he says, adding, “I think we sank due to the fact that our boat was in bad condition and overloaded and that it shouldn’t have been towed.”

      In another testimony, the description of the towing attempt is concise: “On the last day the Greek ship threw us a rope and tied us to their ship. The Greek one turned right, then ours overturned and we fell into the water.”

      We contacted the Coast Guard, asking questions about the timeline of the shipwreck and asking them to comment on the findings of our investigation. At the time of publication, we have not received a response.
      Why didn’t Greece respond to Frontex?

      The picture of what actually happened would be more complete if the ΠΠΛΣ-920 was not the only vessel present during the incident.

      According to the captain of the merchant ship Faithful Warrior, at 00:18 the Coast Guard’s Search & Rescue Coordination Center gave him permission to depart the scene, thus removing the last witness present. The Faithful Warrior left at 00:30, about 15 minutes before the fishing vessel’s engine stopped working, according to Coast Guard records.

      Frontex, which operates in the central Mediterranean, had informed the Greek authorities about the fishing vessel early in the afternoon, and had offered to help.

      Specifically, at 19:35 (local Greek time) Frontex offered to assist with the Eagle I aircraft. Afterwards, the Greek side asked Frontex to assist in a search and rescue incident south of Crete, where 80 people were in danger. The vessel in question was spotted by the Frontex Heron drone at 22:50.

      At 00:34, Frontex again offered to provide assistance with the Eagle I and a few minutes later, at 00:52, it also offered the Heron. According to a Frontex source who spoke to our joint investigation, the Greek authorities did not respond to any request to send aerial assets to the overloaded fishing vessel.
      Fabricated testimonies?

      Concerns have also been raised about the possible alteration of survivors’ testimonies.

      Survivors gave two rounds of statements: first to the Coast Guard and then to an investigator. Both versions are available to Solomon and the international colleagues who participated in this investigation.

      While there are no references to the attempted towing of the fishing vessel in the survivor testimonies recorded by the Coast Guard, the same survivors spoke about it in the second interview with the investigator.

      Also, when describing the shipwreck, the testimonies that appear to have been given to the Coast Guard by two survivors of different nationalities, are the same, word for word: “There were too many people in the boat, which was old and rusty … that’s why it capsized and sank in the end.”
      Inside the hold

      The TikTok video shows his older brother hugging him tightly and kissing him, before he enters the airport, dragging along his suitcase.

      He had flown from Karachi to Dubai, and from Dubai to Alexandria, Egypt. From there he boarded another plane that took him to Benghazi, Libya, where he spent over ten days locked in a trafficker’s hideout, before he was taken to board the Adriana.

      When he saw the old fishing boat he couldn’t believe it — he thought the trip to Italy would also be by plane. He wanted to go back to Pakistan, but the traffickers wouldn’t let him.

      Inside the Adriana, Abdul traveled on the lowest of three levels, in suffocating conditions where he had to sit with his knees bent. “To get from one place to another, you had to step on people.”

      Conditions were similar on the middle level, where about 300 people were reportedly crammed in, with more than 200 people still on deck. The testimonies speak of another, separate space inside the fishing vessel, where women and children were located. No women were among the 104 people that were rescued.

      The Pakistani travelers had paid a total of €8,000-€10,000 each for the long journey to Europe – Abdul’s family of rice farmers had sold their land to finance his trip.

      Abdul had learned to swim in the canals around his family’s crops – when the Adriana sank, it was his ability to swim that allowed Abdul to reach the Coast Guard vessel and save himself.

      As he walks along in Athens, Abdul’s relatives call him, asking what’s the name of the city he’s in. He tells us about his family, but he also shows us photos of loved ones who perished: he was onboard the Adriana with 14 of his friends and his uncle. Only he survived.

      And of his 350 fellow Pakistanis who were also in the hold with him, only 12 were rescued. “Beautiful people were lost,” says Abdul.

      People who participated in the investigation: Christina Varvia, Lydia Emmanouilidou, Katy Fallon, Ebrahem Farooqui, Armin Ghassim, Sebastian Heidelberger, Stefanos Levidis, Andreas Makas, Stavros Malichudis, Iliana Papangeli, Corina Petridi, Timo Robben, Georgia Skartadou, Sulaiman Tadmory, George Christides.

      https://wearesolomon.com/mag/format/investigation/under-the-unwatchful-eye-of-the-authorities-deactivated-cameras-dying-

    • Greek shipwreck: hi-tech investigation suggests coastguard responsible for sinking

      Research into loss of trawler with hundreds of deaths strongly contradicts official accounts – while finding a failure to mobilise help and evidence that survivor statements were tampered with

      Attempts by the Greek coastguard to tow a fishing trawler carrying hundreds of migrants may have caused the vessel to sink, according to a new investigation by the Guardian and media partners that has raised further questions about the incident, which left an estimated 500 people missing

      The trawler carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the coast of Greece on 14 June. There were 104 survivors.

      Reporters and researchers conducted more than 20 interviews with survivors and drew on court documents and coastguard sources to build a picture of missed rescue opportunities and offers of assistance that were ignored. Multiple survivors said that attempts by the Greek coastguard to tow the vessel had ultimately caused the sinking. The coastguard has strenuously denied that it attempted to tow the trawler.

      The night that the trawler capsized, 47 nautical miles off Pylos, in south-western Greece, was reconstructed using an interactive 3D model of the boat created by Forensis, a Berlin-based research agency founded by Forensic Architecture, which investigates human rights violations.

      The joint investigation by the Guardian, German public broadcaster ARD/NDR/Funk and Greek investigative outlet Solomon, in collaboration with Forensis, has given one of the fullest accounts to date of the trawler’s course up to its sinking. It unearthed new evidence such as a coastguard vessel moored at a closer port but never dispatched to the incident and how Greek authorities failed to respond not twice, as previously reported, but three times to offers of assistance by Frontex, the EU border and coastguard agency.

      Forensis mapped the final hours before the sinking, using data from the coastguard’s log and the testimony of the coast guard vessel’s captain, as well as flight paths, maritime traffic data, satellite imagery and information from videos taken by nearby commercial vessels and other sources. The ship’s last movements contradict the coastguard and reveal inconsistencies within the official account of events, including the trawler’s direction and speed.

      Crucially, the investigation showed the overcrowded trawler started moving westward on meeting the single Greek coastguard vessel sent to the scene. According to multiple survivor testimonies given to the Guardian and Greek prosecutors, the coastguard had told the migrants it would lead them to Italy – clashing with the official version that the trawler started moving west of its own accord. The investigation also showed the trawler had turned to the south and was almost stationary for at least an hour until, survivors said, a second and fatal towing attempt took place.
      Survivors use the 3D model of the boat to describe what happened on the night of the 14 June.

      Two survivors used the 3D model to describe the towing itself, while three others, who were sitting inside or on the vessel’s lower deck, described being propelled forward “like a rocket”, but with the engine not operating. That suggests a towing attempt.

      Another survivor separately said he heard people shouting about a rope being attached by the “Greek army” and described being towed for 10 minutes shortly before the trawler sank. “I feel that they have tried to push us out of Greek water so that their responsibility ends,” a survivor said after considering the map of events and reflecting on his memories of the night.

      Maria Papamina, a lawyer from the Greek Council for Refugees, one of two legal organisations representing between 40 and 50 survivors, said that there had been two towing attempts recounted to her team. Court documents also show that seven out of eight survivors gave accounts to the civil prosecutor of the presence of a rope, towing and a strong pull, in depositions conducted on 17 and 18 June.

      The exact circumstances of the sinking cannot be conclusively proved in the absence of visual evidence. Several survivors testified to having had their phones confiscated by the authorities and some mentioned having filmed videos moments before the sinking. Questions remain over why the newly acquired Greek coastguard vessel at the scene did not record the operation on its thermal cameras. The vessel, called the 920, was 90% financed by the EU to bolster the capabilities of Frontex in Greece and is part of the EU border agency’s joint operations in the country. Frontex recommends that “if feasible, all actions taken by … Frontex co-financed assets should be documented by video consistently”.

      In official statements the Greek coastguard said the operation was not recorded because the crew’s focus was on the rescue operation. But a source within the coastguard said cameras do not need constant manual operation and are there precisely to capture such incidents.

      The presence of masked men, described by two survivors as attaching a rope to the trawler, is also documented in the ship’s log, which includes an entry about a special ops team known as KEA joining the 920 that night.

      According to coastguard sources, it would not be unusual to deploy KEA – typically used in risky situations such as suspected arms or drug smuggling at sea – given the vessel’s unknown status, but one source said that their presence suggested the vessel should have been intercepted on security and maritime safety grounds alone.

      One source described the failure to mobilise help closer to the incident as “incomprehensible”. The 920 was deployed from Chania, in Crete, about 150 nautical miles from the site of the sinking. The source said the coastguard had somewhat smaller but still capable vessels, based in Patras, Kalamata, Neapoli Voion and even Pylos itself. The 920 was ordered by coastguard HQ to “locate” the trawler at about 3pm local time on 13 June. It finally made contact close to midnight. An eyewitness official confirmed another vessel was stationed in Kalamata on 14 June and could have reached the trawler within a couple of hours. “It should have been a ‘send everything you’ve got’ situation. The trawler was in clear need of assistance,” the source said.

      The Greek coastguard and Frontex were alerted to the trawler on the morning of 13 June. Both agencies had photographed it from the air but no search and rescue operation was conducted – according to the Greek side, because the boat had refused assistance. Authorities received an urgent SOS said to have been relayed to them at 5.53pm local time by the small boats emergency hotline Alarmphone, which was in contact with people on board.

      Two of the coastguard sources told the Guardian they believed towing was a likely reason for the boat capsizing. This would not be without precedent. In 2014, an attempt to tow a refugee boat off the coast of Farmakonisi cost 11 lives. Greek courts cleared the coastguard, but the European court of human rights passed a damning judgment in 2022.

      Allegations have also been made that survivors’ statements were tampered with. Two rounds of testimonies were given – first to the coastguard and then to a civil prosecutor – both seen by the Guardian. Testimonies to the coastguard by two separate survivors of different nationalities are word for word the same when describing the sinking: “We were too many people on the boat, which was old and rusty … this is why it capsized and sank in the end.”

      Under oath to the civil prosecutor, days later, the same survivors describe towing incidents and blame the Greek coastguard for the sinking. The same Syrian survivor who stated in his coastguard testimony that the trawler capsized due to its age and overcrowding would later testify: “When they stepped on it, and I am sorry to mention this, our boat sank. I believe the reason was the towing by the Greek boat.”

      Brussels has asked for a “transparent” investigation into the wreck, while there is frustration within Frontex, which repeatedly offered assets to Greek authorities – a plane twice and later a drone – but received no reply. Although Frontex is facing mounting calls to pull out of Greece, the Guardian understands it is considering less drastic measures such as discontinuing co-financing of Greek coastguard vessels.

      The Coast Guard said it “would not comment on operational issues or the ongoing investigation which is confidential according to a Supreme Court Order.”

      Nine Egyptians on the trawler have been arrested on charges including involuntary manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and migrant smuggling; they deny wrongdoing. According to Guardian information, the accused testified there were two towing attempts, the second resulting in the sinking of the boat. A brother of one of the accused said his sibling paid about £3,000 to be on the boat, amounting to proof, he said, that he was not a smuggler.

      In Greece and beyond, survivors and victims’ families are trying to understand what happened. Three Pakistani survivors said they flew from Pakistan through Dubai or Egypt to Libya. Two believed they would fly from Libya to Italy and were shocked on seeing the trawler. “I can’t sleep properly. When I sleep I feel as if I am sinking into the water and will die,” one said.

      Nearly half of the estimated 750 people on board are thought to have been Pakistani citizens taking an emerging people-smuggling route to Italy. Pakistani authorities estimate that 115 came from Gujranwala in the east of the country, a region known for its rice plantations and cotton fields but deeply mired in Pakistan’s economic crisis.

      Ahmed Farouq, who lives on the outskirts of the city of Gujranwala, lost his son in the Pylos shipwreck. Talking of the alleged towing, he saids: “They wanted it to sink. Why didn’t they save the people first? If they don’t want illegal migrants, let them deport us, but don’t let us drown.”

      https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jul/10/greek-shipwreck-hi-tech-investigation-suggests-coastguard-responsible-f

    • Greek coastguard ’pressured’ disaster survivors to blame Egyptian men

      New evidence found by BBC News casts further doubt on the Greek coastguard’s version of events surrounding last month’s deadly migrant boat sinking, in which up to 600 people died.

      Two survivors have described how the coastguard pressed them to identify nine Egyptians on board as traffickers.

      A new video of the overcrowded boat foundering at sea also challenges the Greek coastguard’s account.

      It was taken when the boat was said to be on a “steady course”.

      BBC Verify has confirmed the footage was filmed when the coastguard claimed the boat was not in need of rescue - and was in fact filmed by the coastguard itself.

      We have also confirmed that the larger vessel in the background is the oil tanker Faithful Warrior, which had been asked to give supplies to the migrant boat.

      The official Greek coastguard account had already been challenged in a BBC Verify report - but now we have seen court documents which show serious discrepancies between survivors’ witness statements taken by the coastguards, and the in-person evidence later presented to a judge.

      A translator has also come forward with his account of a people-smuggling investigation last year, after another group of migrants were rescued by the coastguard. He describes how witnesses from that incident were intimidated by the coastguard. The legal case collapsed before it could reach trial.

      The revelations raise fresh questions about how the Greek authorities handle such disasters.

      Both the Greek coastguard and Greek government did not comment and declined our requests for interview.
      A map of a section of the Mediterranean Sea showing the possible route taken by the migrant boat off the coast of Libya, near the city of Tobruk. The possible route shows the last approximate location of the boat before it sunk and the path taken by the Faithful Warrior, which had made contact with the boat. Also shown is the Greek port city of Pylos.

      Survivors ’silenced and intimidated’

      Soon after the 14 June sinking, nine Egyptian men were detained and charged with manslaughter and people-smuggling.

      But two survivors of the disaster say migrants were silenced and intimidated by Greek authorities, after suggesting the coastguards may have been to blame for the tragedy.

      For the past month, allegations have been made that the coastguard used a rope to tow the fishing vessel, causing it to sink.

      The two survivors we spoke to in Athens - who we are calling Ahmad and Musaab to protect their identities - say that is what happened.

      “They attached a rope from the left. Everyone moved to the right side of our boat to balance it,” says Musaab. “The Greek vessel moved off quickly causing our boat to flip. They kept dragging it for quite a distance.”

      The men described how they spent two hours in the water before being picked up by the coastguard.

      When I ask how they knew it was that amount of time, Musaab says his watch was still working so he could tell.

      Once on land, in Kalamata, they claim the coastguard told survivors to “shut up” when they started to talk about how the Greek authorities had caused the disaster.

      “When people replied by saying the Greek coastguard was the cause, the official in charge of the questioning asked the interpreter to tell the interviewee to stop talking,” says Ahmad.

      Ahmad says those rescued were told to be grateful they hadn’t died.

      He says there were shouts of: “You have survived death! Stop talking about the incident! Don’t ask more questions about it!”

      he men say they are scared to speak out publicly because they fear they too will be accused like the Egyptians.

      “If there was a fair system in place, we would contribute to this case,” says Ahmad.

      The men told us they had both paid $4,500 (£3,480) for a spot on the boat. Ahmad’s younger brother was also on board. He is still missing.
      Collapsing court cases

      As well as this testimony given to us by survivors, we have seen court documents which raise questions about the way evidence is being gathered to be presented in court.

      In initial statements from five survivors, none mentioned the coastguard trying to tow the migrant vessel with a rope. But days later, in front of a judge, all explained that there had been a failed attempt to tow it.

      One initial statement reads:

      But the same witness later told a judge:

      BBC Verify has not spoken to these witnesses and so we can’t say why their accounts changed.

      The Greek coastguard initially denied using a rope - but later backtracked, admitting one had been used. But it said it was only to try to board the vessel and assess the situation. It said this was at least two hours before the fishing vessel capsized.

      Eighty-two people are confirmed dead in the sinking, but the United Nations estimates as many as 500 more lost their lives.

      The Greek authorities say the charged Egyptian men are part of a smuggling ring and were identified by fellow passengers. They face up to life imprisonment if found guilty.

      Some survivors allege some of the nine suspects mistreated those on board - while other testimony says some were actually trying to help.

      But Ahmad and Musaab told us the coastguard had instructed all of the survivors to say that the nine Egyptian men were to blame for trafficking them.

      “They were imprisoned and were wrongly accused by the Greek authorities as an attempt to cover their crime,” says Musaab.

      A Greek Supreme Criminal Court deputy prosecutor is carrying out an investigation, but calls - including from the UN - for an international, independent inquiry have so far been ignored. The European Commission has indicated it has faith in the Greek investigation.

      But Ahmad and Musaab are not alone in their concerns about the Greek coastguard.
      Interpreter comes forward to BBC

      When the nine Egyptian men were arrested in the hours after the shipwreck, it was widely reported as an example of efficient detective work by the Greek authorities.

      But for Farzin Khavand it rang alarm bells. He feared history was repeating itself.

      He says he witnessed Greek coastguards put two innocent Iranian men in the frame for people-smuggling last year, following the rescue of 32 migrants whose boat had got into trouble crossing from Turkey.

      Mr Khavand, a UK citizen who speaks Farsi and has lived in the Kalamata area for 20 years, acted as a translator during the coastguard’s investigation into what happened then.

      He says the migrants - 28 from Afghanistan and four from Iran - explained that they had set off from Turkey and been at sea for eight days before being rescued.

      During this time, the Greek coastguard had approached the boat, before leaving, he was told.

      Two Arabic-speaking men had abandoned the boat after the engine blew up, Mr Khavand was told by the Afghan migrants. They said that most people on board had taken turns to try to steer the stricken boat to safety - including the two accused Iranians, who had paid to be on board like everyone else.

      “They [the Iranian men] were highly traumatised,” Mr Khavand said.

      “They were repeating to me that they’d never even seen an ocean before they set off in Turkey. And they kept being told they were the captain and they said: ’We know nothing about the boat. We can’t even swim.’”

      One of the two accused - a man called Sayeed who was facing a long prison sentence - had been rescued with his young son, explained Mr Khavand.

      “I asked him ’Why did you take a six-year-old child on a boat?’ And he said the smugglers told us it’s only two hours’ journey.”

      Mr Khavand relayed their accounts to the coastguard, exactly as it had been told to him - but he says when he saw the transcripts, the Afghans’ testimony had changed. He fears they altered their stories after pressure from the Greek authorities.

      He says the Iranians told him that some of their fellow Afghan passengers had been leaned on by the coastguard to name them as the people-smugglers - to avoid being “treated unpleasantly”, threatened with prison, and being “returned to the Taliban”.

      The case eventually collapsed. Mr Khavand says he was not willing to assist the Greek coastguard again. He says when Sayeed and his son were released from custody the €1,500 (£1,278) that had been confiscated from them was not returned.

      “The scene ended with me thinking I don’t want to do this again because they were not trying to get to the bottom of the truth. They were trying to pick a couple of guys and accuse them of being people smugglers.”

      All of these accusations were put to the Greek authorities by the BBC - but we have received no response. Our request for an interview with Greece’s minister of maritime affairs - who oversees the coastguard - was also rejected.
      Greece previously accused of human rights violations

      Kalamata lawyer Chrysanthi Kaouni says she has seen other criminal cases brought against alleged people smugglers which have troubled her.

      She has been involved in more than 10 such cases, she tells us.

      “My concerns are around the translations, the way evidence is gathered and - later on - the ability of the defendants to challenge this evidence,” she said.

      “Because of these three points, I don’t think there are enough safeguards according to the international law, and in the end I don’t believe justice is done.”

      A new study has found that the average trial in Greece for migrants accused of people smuggling lasted just 37 minutes and the average prison sentence given was 46 years.

      The study, commissioned by The Greens/European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament, looked at 81 trials involving 95 people - all of whom were tried for smuggling in eight different areas of Greece between February 2020 and March 2023.

      The study claims verdicts were reached often on the testimony of a single police or coastguard officer and, in more than three-quarters of the cases, they didn’t appear in court for their evidence to be cross-examined.

      Ahmad says he and the other survivors now want authorities to recover the shipwreck and the people that went down with it, but they have been told it’s too difficult and the water is too deep.

      He compares this to the vast amounts of money and resources spent on searching for five people on the Titan submersible in the North Atlantic in June.

      “But we were hundreds,” he says. “It’s not just a ship. It’s our friends and family.”

      https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66154654

    • Italy warned of dead children on migrant ship hours before it capsized

      The findings of an investigation by Welt am Sonntag and

      POLITICO raise questions about whether the authorities knew the boat was in distress earlier than they admitted.

      Early on the morning of the Adriana’s final day at sea, the Italian authorities sent a troubling warning to their EU and Greek colleagues: Two children had died aboard the overloaded migrant boat.

      The alert was sent at 8:01 a.m. UTC, just over an hour after the Italians initially spotted the vessel at 6:51 a.m., an investigation by Welt am Sonntag and POLITICO found. The ship would later stall out in the ocean and capsize that night, killing hundreds of migrants on board.

      The new details are revealed in an internal document at the EU border agency Frontex and seen by Welt, part of a “serious incident report” Frontex is compiling on the tragedy.

      The findings raise questions about whether the authorities knew of serious distress on the boat much earlier than they have admitted. The document further complicates the timeline European authorities have given about the boat — Frontex has said its own plane was the first to discover the Adriana at 9:47 a.m., while the Greek government has said it was alerted around 8 a.m.

      According to the internal document, Rome’s warning went to both Frontex and the Greek coast guard’s central office for rescue operations in Piraeus, which sits on the coast near Athens. Yet despite the alert, the Greek authorities did not send a coast guard vessel to the boat until 7:40 p.m., nearly 12 hours later. The boat then capsized around 11 p.m., roughly 15 hours after Rome’s notice first came through, leaving approximately 600 people dead.

      Survivors have said the Greek coast guard’s attempts to attach ropes to the ship caused it to capsize — accounts Greek officials say are not definitive. Only 104 people were brought to shore alive.

      Frontex declined to comment on the internal document showing the Italian warning, citing the “ongoing investigations” and referring to a June 16 statement. That statement lists a chronology of events starting at 9:47 a.m. with the Frontex plane spotting the boat.

      Dimitris Kairidis, Greece’s newly appointed migration minister, told POLITICO in Brussels that he had not seen the Frontex note, and he neither confirmed nor denied that Athens had received the Rome alert mentioning dead children.

      There is, he said, an “independent judicial investigation,” and if anyone is found responsible, “there will definitely be consequences.”

      “But until then,” he added, “we should not rush to conclusions and bow to political pressure.”

      Asked for comment, the Greek government referred to a statement on its coast guard website from June 14, which mentions information coming from Rome around 8 a.m. It doesn’t say whether that information included a warning about dead children on board.

      The Italian government did not respond to a request for comment.

      Greece has faced mounting political pressure over the tragedy.

      German lawmaker Clara Bünger, a member of The Left, is pushing for a review of the drama that unfolded off the shore of Pylos.

      She told Welt that “upon sighting such an overcrowded boat, Frontex should have immediately issued a mayday distress signal; even more so if Frontex knew that there were already Tuesday morning about two dead children on board.”

      That this didn’t happen, she added, is “outrageous and unforgivable.”

      Frontex has been trying to rehab its reputation under new Director Hans Leijtens, but Bünger argued he is on a doomed mission. Frontex, she argued, should just be dissolved.

      “This project has failed miserably,” she said.

      Erik Marquardt, a German European Parliament member from the Greens, pointed out that Germany chairs the Frontex Management Board.

      “I expect the German government to enforce full transparency here,” he said.

      The European Commission, the EU’s executive, said it does not comment on “ongoing investigations” or “leaks.”

      But the Commission stressed: “The facts about the tragic incident off the coast of Pylos must be clarified. That is the priority now.”

      https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-warned-greece-of-dead-children-on-migrant-ship-hour-before-it-capsize

    • Frontex und Athen wussten 15 Stunden vor Bootsdrama von toten Kindern an Bord

      Mitte Juni starben vor der griechischen Küste 600 Migranten, als ihr Boot kenterte. Über die Verantwortung für die schlimmste Katastrophe seit Jahren im Mittelmeer wird seitdem gestritten. Nun kommt heraus: Eine wichtige Information zu den wahren Abläufen wird nach Informationen von WELT AM SONNTAG bewusst zurückgehalten.

      Die EU-Grenzschutzagentur Frontex sowie die griechische Regierung verschweigen die wahren Abläufe eines Bootsdramas im Juni mit rund 600 Toten. Wie WELT AM SONNTAG und das ebenfalls zum Axel-Springer-Verlag gehörende Nachrichtenunternehmen „Politico“ erfuhren, muss die hochdramatische Situation vor der griechischen Küste Athen und den Grenzschützern viel früher bewusst gewesen sein als bislang bekannt.

      Frontex hatte in einer Stellungnahme mitgeteilt, als Erstes habe ein agentureigenes Flugzeug das völlig überladene Boot um 9.47 Uhr (UTC) entdeckt. Allerdings soll das Boot – so geht es aus einem internen Frontex-Dokument hervor – bereits um 6.51 Uhr erstmals gesichtet worden sein – und zwar durch italienische Behörden.

      Um 8.01 Uhr alarmierte die Seenotrettungstelle Rom demnach sowohl Frontex als auch die Leitstelle in Piräus, von wo aus Rettungseinsätze der griechischen Küstenwache gesteuert werden. Noch brisanter: Bestandteil dieses Alarms war die Information, dass an Bord des Bootes bereits zwei Kinder verstorben seien. Wie Italien an seine Informationen zu der Existenz des Bootes und den toten Kindern gelangte, ist unklar.

      Der Alarm ist nach Informationen von WELT AM SONNTAG Teil der Notizen des noch in Arbeit befindlichen „Serious Incident Report“, der das Aktenzeichen 12595/2023 trägt. Trotz des Alarms aus Roms unternahmen die griechischen Behörden lange nichts. Erst gegen 19.40 Uhr traf ein Schiff der Küstenwache in der Nähe der Migranten ein.

      Das Boot kenterte schließlich gegen 23 Uhr, 15 Stunden nach dem Alarm aus Rom. Unmittelbar davor hatten griechische Küstenwächter Seile an das Boot angebracht, was – so berichteten Überlebende – zum Kentern geführt habe. Nur 104 Menschen wurden lebend an Land gebracht.

      WELT AM SONNTAG konfrontierte Frontex mit den Informationen zu dem Alarm aus Rom. Wann ging dieser ein? Was war die Reaktion der Agentur? In einer schriftlichen Antwort hieß es, man könne „aufgrund von laufenden Ermittlungen“ kein Statement abgeben, das über jenes vom 16. Juni hinausgeht. Darin wird die Chronologie der Ereignisse geschildert – mit 9.47 Uhr als Startpunkt, der Sichtung des Bootes durch ein Frontex-Flugzeug.

      Der neu ernannte griechische Migrationsminister Dimitris Kairidis sagte in Brüssel, er habe die Frontex-Notiz nicht gesehen; weder bestätigte noch dementierte er, dass Athen diese Information aus Rom erhalten hat. Er erklärte, dass „eine unabhängige gerichtliche Untersuchung“ stattfinde. Sofern jemand für schuldig befunden werde, „wird es definitiv Konsequenzen geben.

      Bis dahin solle man „keine voreiligen Schlüsse ziehen und sich dem politischen Druck beugen“. Am Freitag verwies Athen auf ein Statement auf der Küstenwache-Webseite vom 14. Juni, in dem eine Info zu dem Boot aus Rom gegen acht Uhr erwähnt wird. Von toten Kindern kein Wort. Die italienische Regierung beantwortete eine Anfrage zu dem Sachverhalt nicht.

      Der Druck aus der Politik auf die Behörde und Athen wächst derweil. Die Linken-Bundestagsabgeordnete Clara Bünger, die auf eine Aufarbeitung des Pylos-Dramas drängt, sagte WELT AM SONNTAG: „Beim Sichten eines derart überfüllten Bootes hätte Frontex sofort einen Mayday-Notruf machen müssen. Das gilt umso mehr, wenn Frontex wusste, dass es am Dienstagmorgen bereits zwei tote Kinder an Bord gab.“ Dass das nicht geschehen ist, sei „ungeheuerlich und unverzeihbar“. Frontex-Direktor Hans Leijtens hätte angekündigt, er wolle Vertrauen wiederherstellen und Menschenrechte achten: „Dieses Vorhaben ist krachend gescheitert.“ Bünger sagte, Frontex sei nicht reformierbar – und forderte die Auflösung.

      Der EU-Parlamentarier Erik Marquardt (Grüne) verwies darauf, dass Deutschland den Vorsitz im Frontex-Verwaltungsrat hat: „Ich erwarte von der Bundesregierung, dass sie hier vollständige Transparenz durchsetzt.“ Derartige Versprechen seitens Leijtens würden bislang nicht eingehalten.

      Die EU-Kommission ließ verlauten, man äußere sich „weder zu laufenden Untersuchungen noch zu Leaks“, machte aber klar: „Die Fakten über den tragischen Vorfall vor der Küste von Pylos müssen geklärt werden. Das ist jetzt die Priorität.“

      https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article246382076/Migration-Frontex-und-Athen-wussten-15-Stunden-vor-Bootsdrama-von-toten-Kindern

    • Pylos shipwreck: the Greek authorities must ensure that effective investigations are conducted

      In a letter to the Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, published today, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, stresses that Greece has the legal obligation to conduct effective investigations into the Pylos shipwreck, which resulted in the death of more than 80 persons with many hundreds still missing, to establish the facts and, where appropriate, to lead to the punishment of those responsible.

      The Commissioner expresses concern about reports of pressure having been exercised on survivors and about allegations of irregularities in the collection of evidence and testimonies, which may have led to a minimisation of the focus on certain actors in this tragedy, including the Greek Coast Guard. In the case of Safi and Others v. Greece, the European Court of Human Rights spelled out the parameters of an effective investigation into a similar event. Among those parameters, the Commissioner notes that independence is critical to securing the trust of the victims’ relatives, the survivors, the public and Greece’s international partners. While stressing that investigations cannot be limited to the role of alleged smugglers, she requests clarifications on the scope of the investigations initiated after the shipwreck.

      Referring to the right of missing persons’ families to know the truth, the Commissioner seeks information on the efforts made to ensure that the remains of deceased migrants are located, respected, identified, and buried.

      Expressing concerns at restrictions on survivors’ freedom of movement and the way asylum interviews have been conducted, she requests information on the concrete measures that Greece has taken to abide by its human rights obligations regarding reception conditions and access to the asylum procedure.

      "In my view, the shipwreck of 14 June is unfortunately not an isolated incident”, writes the Commissioner. This should prompt a reconsideration of the approach to refugees and migrants arriving by sea at the political, policy and practical level. In this context, the Commissioner urges the Prime Minister to ensure that Greece abides by its international obligations regarding search and rescue, both under maritime law and human rights law.

      Finally, the Commissioner reiterates her call for the Greek government to actively create and maintain an enabling legal framework and a political and public environment which is conducive to the existence and functioning of civil society organisations and to the work of human rights defenders and investigative journalists, and to stop their criminalisation and other forms of harassment.

      https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/-/pylos-shipwreck-the-greek-authorities-must-ensure-that-effective-investigations

      Pour télécharger la lettre:
      https://rm.coe.int/letter-addressed-to-the-prime-minister-of-greece-by-dunja-mijatovic-co/1680ac03ce

      #conseil_de_l'Europe

    • Après le naufrage d’un bateau avec 750 personnes à bord au large de la Grèce, une enquête de la médiatrice européenne sur le rôle de Frontex

      #Emily_O’Reilly, dont le rôle est de demander des comptes aux institutions et aux agences de l’Union européenne, a annoncé avoir ouvert cette procédure à la suite du naufrage survenu en juin, le pire en Méditerranée depuis 2016.

      Un peu plus d’un mois après le pire naufrage d’un bateau de migrants depuis 2016 en Méditerrannée, survenu mi-juin au large de la Grèce et qui a fait des centaines de morts, la médiatrice européenne a annoncé, mercredi 26 juillet, avoir ouvert une enquête afin de « clarifier le rôle » de Frontex, l’agence de l’Union européenne (UE) chargée des frontières, dans les opérations de sauvetage.

      « Alors que le rôle des autorités grecques fait l’objet d’une enquête au niveau national, celui de Frontex dans les opérations de recherche et de sauvetage doit également être clarifié », a souligné dans un communiqué Emily O’Reilly. Le rôle de la médiatrice est de demander des comptes aux institutions et aux agences de l’UE.

      « Il a été signalé que Frontex avait bien alerté les autorités grecques de la présence du navire et proposé son assistance ; mais, ce qui n’est pas clair, c’est ce qu’elle aurait pu ou aurait dû faire d’autre », a-t-elle ajouté.

      Le patron de Frontex, Hans Leijtens, a salué l’ouverture de cette enquête, assurant être prêt à coopérer « en toute transparence » pour expliquer le rôle de son agence. « Si nous ne coordonnons pas les opérations de recherche et de sauvetage, sauver des vies en mer est essentiel. Nous apportons une aide aux autorités nationales lorsque cela est nécessaire », a-t-il ajouté dans un message sur X (ex-Twitter).

      Partage d’informations entre Frontex et les autorités nationales

      Le chalutier vétuste et surchargé, qui était parti de Libye, a fait naufrage au large du sud de Grèce dans la nuit du 13 au 14 juin. Il transportait environ 750 personnes à son bord, mais seule une centaine de migrants ont survécu.

      Depuis le naufrage, les interrogations sont tournées autour de la lenteur de l’intervention des gardes-côtes grecs et sur les causes du chavirement de l’embarcation.

      Par cette enquête sur le rôle de Frontex, Mme O’Reilly veut en particulier se pencher sur le partage d’informations entre l’agence européenne et les autorités nationales en matière d’opérations de recherche et de sauvetage.

      Elle la coordonnera aux côtés du médiateur grec, Andreas Pottakis, qui a « la compétence d’examiner » la façon dont les autorités grecques se sont occupées du bateau Adriana.

      Mi-juillet, les eurodéputés ont réclamé l’élaboration d’une « stratégie de recherche et de sauvetage fiable et permanente » des migrants en Méditerranée. Dans une résolution transpartisane, dépourvue de caractère contraignant, ils ont appelé Bruxelles à apporter aux Etats membres de l’UE un « soutien matériel, financier et opérationnel » pour renforcer leurs capacités de sauvetage en mer.

      Les élus du Parlement européen citaient les chiffres de l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM), selon laquelle plus de 27 600 personnes ont disparu en Méditerranée depuis 2014.

      https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/07/26/naufrage-d-un-bateau-de-migrants-au-large-de-la-grece-la-mediatrice-europeen

    • Smuggler, Warlord, EU ally

      The lead smugglers behind the Pylos shipwreck are closely linked to General Khalifa Haftar, the Libyan warlord who EU leaders are partnering with to curb migration

      On the night of 13 June, a vessel carrying around 750 men, women and children mainly from Pakistan, Egypt and Syria capsized in Greek waters. Only 104 men survived. All women and children died.

      In an earlier investigation we revealed Greek coastguard efforts to cover up their role in the fatal shipwreck. The country’s naval court has since launched a preliminary investigation into the coastguard’s response to the sinking, with no arrests or suspensions of officers so far.

      The only arrests made were those of nine Egyptians, accused in a separate inquiry of being part of the smuggling network behind the deadly voyage. They were charged with six counts including illegal trafficking of foreigners, organisation crime and manslaughter by negligence.

      Using the contacts and documents already available to us, we pursued a follow-up investigation to establish the truth about any smugglers behind the fatal sea crossing, with the aim of identifying the key players and establishing the extent to which the nine Egyptians in prison in Greece are actually responsible.
      METHODS

      Lighthouse Reports, Der Spiegel, SIRAJ, El País and Reporters United used the previously established relationships with survivors and their families, as well as a network of sources in Libya, to investigate the smuggling network behind the Pylos wreck.

      We also looked into the ongoing court case against nine alleged smugglers, analysing confidential court documents and speaking to five of the families of those arrested.
      STORYLINES

      While investigating the circumstances that led to the shipwreck and Greece’s responsibility in it, we spoke to 17 survivors.

      Many named the key smugglers involved in organising the trip during our interviews with them – none of them were people on board the ship.

      Some were Eastern Libyan nationals with ties to the region’s powerful ruler, Khalifa Haftar.

      One name stood out: Muhammad Saad Al-Kahshi Al-Mnfi. Three sources identified him as a key player in the smuggling operation: a survivor, a lower level smuggler and a Libyan insider all gave his name.

      Al-Kahshi works for a special forces navy unit called the “frogmen”, run by a family member of his, Bahar Al-Tawati Al-Mnfi. Al-Tawati Al-Mnfi works under the direct orders of Khalifa Haftar.

      One survivor explained that Al-Kahshi Al-Mnfi used his position to issue the licence that allowed the boat (which came from Egypt) to navigate in Libyan waters and made sure the Libyan coast guards were paid to shut off the marine radar devices that detect ship movements to allow the departure.

      We found that the network goes far beyond Al-Kahshi Al-Mnfi.

      Survivors, insiders and analysts explained that the trip was organised with wide ranging support from powerful people reporting to Haftar.

      Libya expert Jalel Harchaoui said the “migrant business” had been flourishing in Eastern Libya in the last 18 months. “Haftar cannot say that he’s not aware,” he added. “He can’t say that he’s not involved.”

      “All trips are overseen by his son, Saddam Haftar” said one survivor. “Saddam leads the cooperation himself or assigns one of the frogmen battalions [this may have been the case for the Pylos trip] or the 2020 battalion, depending on who has more migrants to pay the fees.”

      Five survivors who flew from Syria to Libya describe how immigration officials facilitated their arrival at Benghazi’s military airport. One said: “At the airport, a person took my passport, went to immigration office, put a stamp and took us outside”.

      There was a curfew in Eastern Libya on the night of departure (حظر التجول ليلاً في طبرق الليبية), yet the survivors we interviewed said that it was at night that they, along with hundreds of passengers, were taken to a small bay near Wadi Arzouka, east of Tobruk, and boarded onto the vessel.

      Militias supported by Khalifa Haftar are not only involved in smuggling, they are also active in illegal “pullbacks” of migrants in EU waters.

      At least two pullbacks (in May and July this year) were carried out by a militia (Tariq Bin Ziyad) controlled by Haftar’s son, including one in Maltese waters.

      At least four of the people who died in the Pylos shipwreck were on the boat that was pulled back by the Tariq Bin Ziyad militia on 25 May, according to family members.

      These findings raise serious questions about EU member states’ migration prevention policies.

      It is known by EU authorities that Eastern Libyan militias answering to Haftar carry out both pullback and smuggling operations. The IOM and the UNHCR briefed EU officials on an increase in departures from eastern Libya , describing them as a “lucrative source of income for the eastern Libyan rulers involved”.

      In spite of this, Italy and Malta are making deals with Haftar to prevent migration.

      In May, Haftar met with Italian PM Meloni to discuss migration related issues and in June Italy’s interior minister said they would ask Haftar to collaborate in stopping departures.

      The same month, for the first time, a Maltese delegation met Haftar in Benghazi to discuss security challenges in the region, with particular emphasis on irregular migration.

      Internal EU documents show the commission is looking for ways to curb arrivals from Benghazi’s airport with the collaboration of local operators.

      Harchaoui described Italian efforts to encourage Khalifa Haftar to stop departures as “bribery” and pointed to “a very clear admission of how Italy intends to work and what it promised to Haftar: if you reduce the human smuggling volumes, we will inject capital”.

      Meanwhile, there’s growing evidence that nine Egyptians imprisoned for trafficking in Greece are being scapegoated.

      We spoke to the families of five of the nine Egyptians under arrest – all of them say that they were passengers, not smugglers.

      Three of them provided evidence that their relatives paid for their trip, indicating that it’s highly unlikely that they were involved in organising the smuggling operation.

      We were able to verify the identity of a smuggler who asked one of the accused men for money ahead of the trip.

      We previously found that witness testimony provided to the coast guard had been tampered with, including survivors’ answers to questions about smugglers.

      In the documents, two answers to questions about smugglers contain identical sentences.

      Those who were interrogated by the coast guard mentioned being pressured to place the blame on the nine Egyptians later indicted.

      https://www.lighthousereports.com/investigation/smuggler-warlord-eu-ally

    • Naufrage au large de la Grèce : deux ONG pointent les défaillances des autorités grecques

      Dans un rapport publié le 3 août, Amnesty International et Human Rights Watch reviennent sur les circonstances troubles du drame survenu aux portes de l’Europe dans la nuit du 13 au 14 juin, qui a coûté la vie à au moins six cents personnes. Les associations réclament une enquête « efficace, indépendante et impartiale ».

      C’est un naufrage qui a d’abord marqué les esprits de par son ampleur : pas moins de 750 personnes se trouvaient à bord d’un bateau de pêche en bois, L’Adriana, au moment où il a chaviré, dans la nuit du 13 au 14 juin, au large de Pýlos en Grèce. Partie de Tobrouk en Libye pour rejoindre l’Italie, l’embarcation surchargée transportait des ressortissants syriens, égyptiens, palestiniens ou pakistanais, dont de nombreuses femmes et enfants placés dans la cale pour être « à l’abri » des éventuelles intempéries ou du soleil.

      Mais on retient aussi les circonstances troubles dans lequel il s’est produit. Très vite après le naufrage, des premières voix parmi la centaine de rescapés se sont élevées pour pointer le rôle potentiel des gardes-côtes grecs dans ce drame.

      Mediapart a documenté, dès le 17 juin, cette version différente de celle avancée par les autorités du pays. Une enquête de la BBC est venue l’appuyer, puis le New York Times a suivi : des témoignages de survivant·es attestent que les gardes-côtes ont non seulement tardé à organiser un sauvetage, mais ont aussi tenté de tirer le bateau à l’aide d’une corde, pouvant ainsi avoir contribué à le faire chavirer.

      Après un déplacement de neuf jours en Grèce et une vingtaine d’entretiens réalisés avec des exilé·es sur place, Amnesty International et Human Rights Watch ont relevé également les « disparités extrêmement préoccupantes » entre les récits des survivant·es du Pýlos et la version des événements livrée par les autorités.

      Les survivant·es interrogé·es par les deux ONG « ont systématiquement déclaré que le navire des gardes-côtes grecs envoyé sur les lieux avait attaché une corde à L’Adriana et l’avait remorqué, le faisant tanguer, puis chavirer », peut-on lire dans le rapport d’enquête publié conjointement ce jeudi 3 août.

      Aux ONG, les responsables des gardes-côtes ont de leur côté affirmé que leurs équipes s’étaient approchées du bateau, reconnaissant avoir utilisé une corde, mais qu’après de « premières négociations », les passagers avaient repoussé la corde pour poursuivre leur trajet.
      Le rôle des gardes-côtes grecs et de Frontex interrogé

      Une version contredite par le témoignage des survivant·es interrogé·es : « Peu importe leur position sur le bateau, les survivants disent tous avoir ressenti le mouvement du bateau une fois tracté, qui avançait alors très vite alors que le moteur ne fonctionnait plus, précise Alice Autin, chercheuse pour la division Europe et Asie centrale à Human Rights Watch. Tous sont d’accord pour dire que c’est cela qui a fait vaciller le bateau, avant de le faire chavirer. »

      Frontex a par ailleurs déclaré avoir repéré l’embarcation dès la veille du naufrage, ce qui a poussé certains acteurs à s’interroger sur le rôle de l’agence européenne de surveillance des frontières. Pourquoi n’est-elle pas intervenue pour venir en aide aux passagers ? A-t-elle bien alerté les autorités grecques pour qu’une opération de recherche et de sauvetage soit menée en urgence ?

      Dans un communiqué, Frontex a précisé que l’un de ses avions de surveillance « avait immédiatement informé les autorités compétentes », sans toutefois intervenir, au prétexte que les exilé·es avaient refusé « toute aide ». Le lendemain du drame, le patron de l’agence Hans Leijtens était en déplacement en Grèce pour « mieux comprendre ce qu’il s’était passé », et voir comment ses équipes pouvaient aider les autorités grecques, précisant que le fait de « sauver des vies était leur priorité ».

      Une version qui ne semble pas avoir convaincu la médiatrice européenne, qui a décidé, le 24 juillet dernier, d’ouvrir une enquête de sa propre initiative pour interroger le rôle de Frontex dans les opérations de recherche et de sauvetage à la suite du naufrage survenu en Grèce.

      « Il est clair que Frontex a joué un rôle important dans la mission de recherche et de sauvetage du point de vue de la coordination. À ce titre, je pense qu’il est possible de clarifier davantage son rôle dans de telles opérations », a déclaré dans une lettre ouverte Emily O’Reilly, qui occupe le poste de Médiateur européen.

      « Il a été signalé que Frontex avait bien alerté les autorités grecques de la présence du navire et proposé son assistance ; mais ce qui n’est pas clair, c’est ce qu’elle aurait pu ou aurait dû faire d’autre », a-t-elle souligné. Frontex s’est dite prête à coopérer « en toute transparence ».

      « Cela posera des questions importantes sur le rôle, les pratiques et les protocoles de l’agence dans le contexte des opérations [en mer] et sur les mesures qu’elle a prises pour se conformer à ses obligations en matière de droits fondamentaux et aux lois de l’UE », estiment Amnesty International et Human Rights Watch.
      Des appels à l’aide ignorés

      Les deux ONG s’interrogent aussi sur l’aide que les gardes-côtes grecs auraient pu apporter aux migrant·es dans les heures ayant précédé le naufrage. De hauts responsables des gardes-côtes leur auraient affirmé que « les personnes à bord du bateau limitaient leur demande d’aide à de l’eau et de la nourriture » et avaient exprimé leur volonté de poursuivre leur route vers l’Italie.

      Mais les survivant·es interrogé·es par Amnesty International et Human Rights Watch ont « déclaré que les passagers avaient demandé à être secourus » et qu’ils avaient entendu d’autres personnes à bord de l’embarcation appeler à l’aide lors d’un échange avec un téléphone satellite, plusieurs heures avant le naufrage. Certains auraient enlevé leur T-shirt pour le secouer en l’air et appeler à l’aide, d’autres auraient hurlé à l’attention des deux navires marchands croisés avant le drame.

      « Des récits concordent pour dire que des personnes ont perdu la vie à bord du bateau avant le naufrage et que l’un des corps a été placé sur le pont supérieur au-dessus de la cabine pour signifier l’urgence de la situation », poursuit Alice Autin d’Human rights watch. Et d’ajouter : « Les gardes-côtes grecs avaient la responsabilité de venir en aide aux passagers du bateau et il apparaît au vu des résultats de notre enquête qu’il y a des doutes sur la manière dont cela s’est déroulé. »

      Plusieurs survivants ont enfin déclaré que les autorités leur auraient confisqué leur téléphone après le naufrage, poursuivent les ONG. Or, certaines personnes auraient « tout filmé ». Ces téléphones pourraient, s’ils réapparaissaient, servir dans le cadre de l’enquête ouverte par la justice grecque.

      « Il est essentiel d’analyser ce qu’ils contiennent pour faire toute la lumière sur le déroulement des faits », conclut Alice Autin. Amnesty International et Human Rights Watch réclament une enquête « efficace, indépendante et impartiale ».

      https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/030823/naufrage-au-large-de-la-grece-deux-ong-pointent-les-defaillances-des-autor

    • Greece: Disparities in accounts of Pylos shipwreck underscore the need for human rights compliant inquiry

      Starkly divergent accounts from survivors and Greek authorities around the circumstances of the deadly Pylos shipwreck, underscore the urgent need for an effective, independent, and impartial investigation, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today. 

      The disparities between survivors’ accounts of the Pylos shipwreck and the authorities’ version of the events are extremely concerning

      The fishing vessel, Adriana, was carrying an estimated 750 people when it sank on 14 June off the coast of Pylos. In the aftermath, accounts from several of the 104 survivors suggest that the vessel was towed by a Greek coast guard boat, causing the fatal wreck.  The Greek authorities have strongly denied these claims.

      “The disparities between survivors’ accounts of the Pylos shipwreck and the authorities’ version of the events are extremely concerning” said Judith Sunderland, Associate Europe and Central Asia Director at Human Rights Watch.

      “The Greek authorities, with support and scrutiny from the international community, should ensure that there is a transparent investigation to provide truth and justice for survivors and families of the victims, and hold those responsible to account.”  

      A delegation from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch visited Greece between 4 and 13 July 2023 as part of ongoing research into the circumstances of the shipwreck and steps toward accountability. They interviewed 19 survivors of the shipwreck, 4 relatives of the missing, and nongovernmental organizations, UN and international agencies and organizations, and representatives of the Hellenic Coast Guard and the Greek Police.

      The organizations’ initial observations confirm the concerns reported by several other reputable sources as to the dynamics of the shipwreck. Survivors interviewed by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch consistently stated that the Hellenic Coast Guard vessel dispatched to the scene attached a rope to the Adriana and started towing, causing it to sway and then capsize. The survivors also consistently said that passengers asked to be rescued, and that they witnessed others on the boat plead for a rescue by satellite phone in the hours before their boat capsized.  

      In a meeting with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, senior officials of the Hellenic Coast Guard said individuals on the boat limited their request for assistance to food and water and expressed their intention to proceed to Italy. They said the crew of the Coast Guard vessel came close to the Adriana and used a rope to approach the boat to assess whether passengers wanted help, but that after the first “negotiations”, passengers threw the rope back and the boat continued its journey.

      This preventable tragedy demonstrates the bankruptcy of EU migration policies predicated on the racialized exclusion of people on the move and deadly deterrence

      Greek authorities have opened two criminal investigations, one targeted at the alleged smugglers, and another into the actions of the coast guard. It is vital for these investigations to comply with international human rights standards of impartiality, independence, and effectiveness. 

      To enhance the credibility of judicial investigations both in practice and perception, they should be under the supervision of the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office. Further, Greek authorities should ensure that the Greek Ombudsman’s office is promptly provided with information and resources necessary to carry out its functions as the National Mechanism for Investigating Incidents of Arbitrariness, in relation to any disciplinary investigation.   

      Several survivors said that the authorities confiscated their phones following the shipwreck but did not give them any related documentation or tell them how to retrieve their property. Nabil, a survivor of Syrian origin, told the organisations, “It’s not only the evidence of the wreck that has been taken from me, it is my memories of my friends who were lost, my life has been taken from me”. 

      The Greek authorities’ longstanding failure to ensure accountability for violent and unlawful pushbacks at the country’s borders raises concerns over their ability and willingness to carry out effective and independent investigations.

      Lessons should be learned from the European Court of Human Rights 2022 decision about the 2014 “Farmakonisi” shipwreck, in which survivors argued that their boat had capsized because the Hellenic Coast Guard used dangerous maneuvers to tow them towards Turkish waters. The Court condemned Greece for the authorities’ failures in handling rescue operations and for shortcomings in the subsequent investigation of the incident, including how victims’ testimony was handled.  

      In view of the seriousness and international significance of the Pylos tragedy, Greek authorities should seek out and welcome international and/or European assistance and cooperation in the conduct of national investigations as an additional guarantee of independence, effectiveness and transparency.  

      A full and credible investigation into the shipwreck should seek to clarify any responsibility for both the sinking of the ship and delays or shortcomings in the rescue efforts that may have contributed to the appalling loss of life. The investigation should involve taking the testimonies of all survivors, under conditions that guarantee their trust and safety.

      All forensic evidence, such as traces of communications, videos, and photographs, should be collected, assessed and safeguarded to facilitate accountability processes. Any property, such as cell phones, taken from survivors for investigative purposes should be appropriately logged and returned within a reasonable amount of time.  

      All of those involved in or with knowledge of the incident, including the Hellenic Coast Guard, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), the captains and crews of the two merchant vessels, and others who took part in the rescue operation after the shipwreck should be invited or required to testify, as appropriate, and should cooperate fully and promptly with the investigations.

      To ensure this is the last, and not the latest, in an unconscionably long list of tragedies in the Mediterranean, the EU should reorient its border policies towards rescue at sea and safe and legal routes

      In parallel to the national investigation, the EU Ombudsman has announced that it will open an inquiry into the role of Frontex in search and rescue (SAR) activities in the Mediterranean, including in the Adriana shipwreck. This will pose important questions about the agency’s role, practices and protocols in the context of SAR operations and on what actions it has taken to comply with its fundamental rights obligations and EU laws during this and other shipwrecks.

      Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are continuing to investigate the Pylos shipwreck and demand justice for all those harmed.

      “This preventable tragedy demonstrates the bankruptcy of EU migration policies predicated on the racialized exclusion of people on the move and deadly deterrence,” said Esther Major, Amnesty International’s Senior Research Adviser for Europe.

      “To ensure this is the last, and not the latest, in an unconscionably long list of tragedies in the Mediterranean, the EU should reorient its border policies towards rescue at sea and safe and legal routes for asylum seekers, refugees and migrants.”  

      Background 

      As part of their ongoing investigation, the organizations have sent letters requesting information to several key entities, including the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy, the Prosecutors of the Supreme Court and of the Piraeus Naval Court and Frontex.

      On 13 June 2023, Frontex said its surveillance plane spotted the Adriana at 09:47 UTC (12:47 EEST/in Athens) and alerted authorities in Greece and Italy. In the following hours, two merchant vessels and later a Hellenic Coast Guard vessel interacted with the Adriana. After the boat capsized at around 2 a.m. EEST on 14 June, only 104 survivors, including several children, were rescued.

      The Prosecutor of Kalamata ordered the arrest of nine Egyptian nationals who survived the shipwreck on charges of smuggling, membership in an organized criminal network, manslaughter, and other serious crimes.

      Following an order by the Head of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Piraeus Naval Court, a prosecutor is currently conducting a preliminary investigation into the conditions of the shipwreck and the potential punishable offences by members of the Hellenic Coast Guard. The organizations have sought information with the Greek Minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy about any disciplinary investigation opened into the actions of members of the Hellenic Coast Guard.

      https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/08/greece-disparities-in-accounts-of-pylos-shipwreck-underscore-the-need-for-h

  • #Environnement : Le risque inattendu que les #panneaux_solaires peuvent créer - BBC News Afrique
    https://www.bbc.com/afrique/monde-65930288

    L’année dernière, des chercheurs de l’Université de Leicester ont annoncé qu’ils avaient découvert comment extraire l’argent des unités photovoltaïques à l’aide d’une forme de solution saline.
    Mais jusqu’à présent, ROSI est la seule entreprise de son secteur à avoir porté son opération à un niveau industriel.

    De plus, la technologie est coûteuse. En Europe, les importateurs ou les producteurs de panneaux solaires sont responsables de leur élimination lorsqu’ils deviennent inutilisables. Et beaucoup préfèrent broyer ou déchiqueter les déchets, ce qui est beaucoup moins coûteux.

    Defrenne reconnaît que le recyclage intensif des panneaux solaires n’en est qu’à ses débuts. Soren et ses partenaires ont recyclé un peu moins de 4 000 tonnes de panneaux solaires français l’année dernière.

    Mais il est possible de faire beaucoup plus. Il en a fait sa mission.

    « Le poids de tous les nouveaux panneaux solaires vendus l’année dernière en France était de 232 000 tonnes, donc lorsqu’ils seront usés dans 20 ans, c’est la quantité qu’il me faudra collecter chaque année. »

    À ce moment-là, mon objectif personnel est de faire en sorte que la France soit à la pointe de la technologie dans le monde".

  • #Science et #nutrition : Le seul endroit au monde où l’on peut manger de la #viande_cultivée_en_laboratoire - BBC News Afrique
    https://www.bbc.com/afrique/monde-65905964

    Depuis que le premier hamburger cultivé en laboratoire a été dévoilé à Londres en 2013, une création qui a coûté pas moins de 330 000 dollars, des dizaines d’entreprises du monde entier se sont lancées dans la course à la commercialisation de viande cultivée à des prix raisonnables.

    Jusqu’à présent, seul Eat Just a réussi à faire approuver la vente de son produit au public après que les régulateurs de Singapour, le seul pays au monde à autoriser la vente de viande cultivée en laboratoire, ont donné leur feu vert à son poulet en décembre 2020.

    Mais il reste un long chemin à parcourir avant que le produit ne soit largement disponible.

    […]

    Les doutes portent non seulement sur la possibilité d’augmenter la production, mais aussi sur les qualités écologiques de l’industrie, remises en question par les scientifiques.

    En théorie, la réduction de la dépendance à l’égard des terres et du bétail pour la production de viande devrait permettre de réduire les émissions de #carbone. Mais à l’heure actuelle, la technologie nécessaire pour créer de la viande cultivée requiert une telle quantité d’#énergie qu’elle en annule tous les avantages.

    Une étude de l’Université de Californie Davis a même estimé que le processus produit 4 à 25 fois plus de dioxyde de carbone que la viande de bœuf normale [selon une étude encore en pre-print*]. Cependant, East Just qualifie l’étude de « défectueuse ».

    Lorsque la BBC a demandé à l’entreprise si le projet pouvait échouer, Josh Tetrickz, de Eat Just, a répondu : « Bien sûr ». « Produire de la viande de cette manière est nécessaire et très incertain », a-t-il déclaré.

    « Ce n’est pas simple. C’est compliqué. C’est quelque chose qui n’est pas garanti et il est possible que cela ne fonctionne pas. Mais l’autre option pour nous serait de ne rien faire. Nous avons donc décidé de prendre un pari et d’essayer ».

    De nombreux investisseurs ont décidé de faire le même pari. On estime que 2,8 milliards de dollars ont été investis depuis le début de l’année dans le développement de la viande cultivée.

    Toutefois, si les efforts visant à faire de la viande cultivée plus qu’une alternative de niche pour les riches du monde développé dépendent des investissements des entreprises privées, cela pourrait ne pas suffire.

    Les gouvernements, a souligné M. Tetrick, devront investir « un montant significatif d’argent public » dans la viande cultivée afin qu’elle puisse concurrencer la viande conventionnelle.

    « C’est comme la transition vers les énergies renouvelables.... C’est le projet d’une vie, voire de plusieurs vies », a-t-il déclaré.

    Selon Ricardo San Martin, de l’université de Berkeley, le financement public et privé des entreprises de viande cultivée se tarira si ces entreprises ne se « regardent pas dans le miroir » rapidement et ne présentent pas des prévisions réalistes aux investisseurs.

    "À moins qu’il n’y ait une voie claire vers le succès à un moment donné dans l’avenir, les investisseurs et les gouvernements ne voudront pas dépenser de l’argent pour quelque chose qui n’est pas scientifiquement prouvé.

    * Environmental impacts of cultured meat : A cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment | bioRxiv
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.21.537778v1

  • How to tip around the world
    https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230606-how-to-tip-around-the-world

    7.6.2023 by Mike MacEacheran - From China to Denmark, countries around the world have different ways to show appreciation. Here’s five spots with their own distinctive tipping traits, plus advice on how much to tip.

    The ongoing debate about tipping culture in the United States has been reignited with the recent news that employees at the first-ever unionised Apple Store in the US are proposing asking for tips. It has sparked intense debate about tipping culture in North America, which people believe is getting out of control. Already, buzzwords like “guilt tipping”, “tipping fatigue”, “tip creep”, “viral tip shaming” and “tipflation” are creeping into the lexicon.

    The divisive practice has spread across the world – most recently causing controversy in Spain – but not everywhere embraces the culture with such vim and vigour as Americans do. In France, “service compris” means the gratuity is already included in the bill. In other places, particularly in East Asia, the lack of any tipping tradition is a source of pride.

    To highlight the age-old tipping dilemma, here are places with their own distinctive tipping traits, each picked because of what they say about the culture of appreciation and how their tipping attitudes reflect wider aspects of society.

    Japan

    Received wisdom has it that Japan is the sort of ascetic paradise where litter is unheard of, imperfection (or wabi-sabi) is honoured and social consciousness is elevated into an art form (don’t walk while eating; be quiet on public transport; don’t point with hands or chopsticks; don’t blow your nose in public – the list goes on).

    It’s also a place where tipping isn’t just uncommon; it’s considered embarrassing and awkward. And, since the Japanese have a tip-free service culture, it really needs to be spelled out to the foreign visitor with a think-twice warning: do so and you’ll cause offence.

    “Even if travellers are told Japan doesn’t tip, some people are still keen to show their appreciation with money – but it doesn’t work like that,” said James Mundy of UK-based tour operator InsideJapan Tours. “It’s common for people to leave money for waiting staff at restaurants, then be chased down a road and given their money back. Many cannot understand people do their job with pride, and an ’oishikatta’ (it was delicious), or a ’gochiso sama’’thank you for preparing the meal) will go down very well. Money doesn’t always talk.”

    The Japanese revulsion to tipping is palpable. Shokunin kishitsu, which roughly translates to “the craftsmanship”, flows through many aspects of Japanese life and is a philosophy perfected by many in tourist-facing industries, from hotel bellhops to food cart vendors to sushi chefs. Service is about the bare necessities of doing a job with pride, and appreciation is most commonly shown through compliments (preferably in Japanese) or by bowing.

    But one exception applies: in ryokans, Japan’s traditional tatami-matted guesthouses, travellers can leave money for the nakai san (the kimono-wearing server who prepares your food and futon), but only when done properly. Don’t hand over a tip in person; instead seal pristine notes in a specially decorated envelope.

    Egypt

    A deeply entrenched social norm in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia is the concept of baksheesh, meaning a tip or charitable alms. It can be solicited outright by a taxi driver or tour guide, or whispered suggestively from a street corner bazaar, but ultimately means the same thing: a present or small tip is called for, regardless of the service given.

    Wrongly interpreted it can be translated as begging. But giving alms to the poor is one of the five tenets of Islam and understanding that will deepen a traveller’s grasp of this part of the world, with the benefactor supposedly made holier by the action.

    In Egypt, such handouts are commonplace for restaurant workers, taxi drivers, tour guides and hotel staff, but also door openers, bathroom attendants, security personnel and shopkeepers. A deeper look at baksheesh also reveals it is part of a loosely defined pay-it-forward system, in which tour guides and hotel concierges from Cairo to Aswan can give preferential treatment, ensure top-notch service and grant favours if tipped in advance. Dollars are welcome, as are Egyptian Pounds, and US$1-2 (or E£30-40) is enough to let loose a welcome grin.

    In these circumstances, it is not uncommon for a key to a locked temple door in the Valley of the Kings to miraculously appear, or for an out-of-bounds museum toilet to suddenly be open to visitors again. And travellers won’t find that insight in many tourist brochures.

    China

    Even in the most modern of China’s megalopolises, like Beijing and Shanghai, there is a sense of superstition and tradition. Gratuities are not expected – far from it – and, while it seems hard to credit in a country obsessed with technological breakthrough and the world of tomorrow, here tipping was once prohibited.

    Indeed, one of the tenets of China is all people are equal and none is a servant to another; and implying superiority over someone else has long been a taboo. And while China is increasingly a country of grand hotels and circus-style restaurants, tipping – particularly in lesser-visited cities and towns – still exists somewhere between being ill-mannered and a bribe.

    But the growth of Chinese tourism, as well as the assimilation of many Western customs, is leading to incremental change, according to Maggie Tian, general manager of China for Australian-based tour operator Intrepid Travel.

    “While tipping in China historically was considered rude, times are changing,” she explained. “The Chinese still aren’t in the habit of tipping, but gratuities are now acceptable, especially in bigger cities where there are many foreign residents and visitors. If you’re visiting, tipping porters, tour guides and bartenders a small amount for exceptional service or special support is welcome. Despite the history, locals will be appreciative.”

    United States

    Few countries take tipping culture as seriously as the US. It is ingrained in the national psyche as much as the Super Bowl, and, at times, it can be hard for a foreign traveller to measure or explain this spirit.

    It’s now custom to add 20-25% to a bill, and tipflation presents challenges for both locals and visitors alike. Indeed, these days, the amount given and expected has increased exponentially and the rise of digital tipping options has added to the complexity.
    Tipping advice

    While every country has different rules around gratuities, and the process can sometimes seem like a minefield, it’s important to always be respectful to other cultures when travelling.

    If service staff are underpaid and depend on a daily cycle of gratuities, it is also true that more retailers, from gas stations to Starbucks, are now adding an optional service charge to once straightforward counter sales. The crux is pretty much anything – with service or not – can cost extra. There are many ways to do it wrong (not tipping per drink while sat at a bar will see a patron fail to get served, for instance), and yet just one way to do it right.

    “The US has a tipping culture like nowhere else,” said Peter Anderson, managing director at travel concierge service Knightsbridge Circle. "In New York recently, I bought a bottle of water from a shop and when paying was asked for a tip. But I picked up the water myself, took it to the counter and paid, and yet I was expected to leave 20%. In too many places, it is just a way of paying staff a lower wage and passing more cost onto the customer.

    While the US is seeing a no-tipping movement and a shift towards more equitable compensation methods for staff, progress has been slow. For now, realise that while tipping is legally voluntary in the US, hourly wages for wait staff and other frontline tourism workers is often sub-minimal. And it always pays to be nice, especially when travelling as an ambassador for your own homeland.
    While tipping is not a tradition in Denmark, most people will round up the bill in a restaurant (Credit: Alexander Spatari/Getty Images)

    While tipping is not a tradition in Denmark, most people will round up the bill in a restaurant (Credit: Alexander Spatari/Getty Images)

    Denmark

    Commonly labelled one of the world’s happiest countries for its egalitarian society, community generosity and benevolence to others, it might come as a surprise to learn the Danish are by and large a nation of non-tippers.

    Chiefly, the reasons are twofold: citizens benefit from higher GDP per capita and a better welfare system than in most other countries around the globe, meaning service staff, taxi drivers and frontline workers aren’t dependent on tips in the same way; and service is normally included on the bill at restaurants and hotels.

    But while tipping isn’t tradition, it’s a norm in Denmark – and across wider Scandinavia – to round up a bill in a restaurant as a token gesture. And crucially, like almost everywhere in Europe these days, above-and-beyond service is commonly rewarded with either a monetary tip or the loyalty of repeat visits, which are equally worth their weight in gold.