This annual report reflects important achievements and contributions of the Social Action Centre/No Borders Project during 2011.

Download full version (PDF): here.

6 February 2012

The Ukrainian Refugee Council (URC) has requested that Ukrainian authorities immediately grant URC member organizations access to migrants detained in Zhuravychi Migrants Accommodation Centre (Volyn region).

Source: Human Rights Watch site

(Moscow, February 1, 2012) - The Ukrainian authorities should immediately stop police harassment and threats against Somali asylum seekers held at the Zhuravychi Migrant Accommodation Centre, Human Rights Watch said today. In a letter sent to the Ukrainian authorities, Human Rights Watch also called for the immediate release of all Somali asylum seekers who are being held in administrative detention pending deportation.

Source: UNHCR site

UNHCR remains concerned about the situation of detainees, including many asylum-seekers and minors who are currently held in two detention centres in the Volyn and Chernigiv regions[1] of Ukraine. Their situation remains problematic even after several visits of UNHCR staff and NGO lawyers and Government officials. To obtain clarity more visits and interviews are scheduled for the coming weeks.

Amnesty International has urged the Ukrainian authorities to stop the ill-treatment of a group of detained asylum-seekers and their supporters, who were attacked by security forces attempting to forcibly end a hunger strike.

Ethnic profiling—the use of racial, ethnic, or religious characteristics as a way of singling people out for police or security checks. In the United States, debate over its fairness and effectiveness has raged for years. In the United Kingdom, it's in the headlines.

In most of the rest Europe, it's a different story. Despite its widespread use by police forces and the festering resentment in affected communities, ethnic profiling is rarely examined; aside from the UK, no European government collects information on the ethnicity of those stopped by police.

But the Open Society Justice Initiative has documented the prevalence and impact of profiling in Europe, assembling evidence that shows it is not only unfair, but an ineffectual way of fighting crime.

This text is an English translation of a Chapter 10 of a report "Human Rights in activities of Ukrainian Police - 2010" compiled by the Association of Ukrainian Monitors of Human Rights Observation in the Activities of Law-Enforcement Agencies (UMDPL).
Original (Ukranian language): http://umdpl.info/index.php?id=1292003204

Migrants and asylum seekers, including children, risk abusive treatment and arbitrary detention at the hands of Ukrainian border guards and police, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Some migrants recounted how officials tortured them, including with electric shocks, after they were apprehended trying to cross into the European Union or following their deportation from Slovakia and Hungary.

Amnesty International is concerned that six people including Amnesty International activists and former prisoners of conscience were held for three days in incommunicado detention in Ukraine. Two of them report that they were subjected to beatings and all were detained in very poor conditions without access to a lawyer or any possibility to contact the outside world between Wednesday night and Saturday evening, when they were released.

Upbeat reports about police search operations demonstrate contempt for Ukraine’s Constitution and human rights. The “No Borders” Project reiterates that Ukraine’s authorities are obliged to protect the rights of asylum seekers, and not violate the principle of the presumption of innocence.

Kyiv (Ukraine) – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees continues to be concerned about the situation of a Kyrgyz national who was denied access to Ukrainian territory in Boryspil airport where she arrived by the flight from Kazakhstan on 29 March 2012.

Statement of the international transborder meeting in Turkey, made on March 18, 2012 in front of Edirne detention centre

Kyiv (Ukraine) – The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has noted that on 3 March 2012 European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ordered Ukrainian authorities in response to a petition to the Court under Rule 39 that 3 stowaways on the ship docked at Mykolayiv seaport (2 from Eritrea, 1 from Ethiopia) should be allowed to disembark from the vessel and be granted access to asylum procedure to exercise their right to seek asylum.

Further information on UA: 29/12 Index: EUR 50/002/2012 Ukraine Date: 22 February 2012

URGENT ACTION

detained asylum-seekers stop hunger strike

The strike, held in protest by the group of Somali asylum-seekers and migrants, against their illegal detention and alleged ill-treatment, lasted for six weeks. The strike was halted by the group on 17 February after they received assurances from the State Migration Service that their asylum applications would be considered.

UNHCR is relieved to hear that the hunger strikes have ended at both detention centres in the Volyn and Chernigiv regions of Ukraine. The detainees, including many asylum-seekers and minors, were protesting against the length of their detention and demanded that the authorities consider their asylum claims in compliance with international standards.

Source: Human Rights Watch site

(Moscow, February 1, 2012) - The Ukrainian authorities should immediately stop police harassment and threats against Somali asylum seekers held at the Zhuravychi Migrant Accommodation Centre, Human Rights Watch said today. In a letter sent to the Ukrainian authorities, Human Rights Watch also called for the immediate release of all Somali asylum seekers who are being held in administrative detention pending deportation.

Source: UNHCR site

UNHCR remains concerned about the situation of detainees, including many asylum-seekers and minors who are currently held in two detention centres in the Volyn and Chernigiv regions[1] of Ukraine. Their situation remains problematic even after several visits of UNHCR staff and NGO lawyers and Government officials. To obtain clarity more visits and interviews are scheduled for the coming weeks.

Amnesty International has urged the Ukrainian authorities to stop the ill-treatment of a group of detained asylum-seekers and their supporters, who were attacked by security forces attempting to forcibly end a hunger strike.

To: Vitaliy Zakharchenko, Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine

Dear Mr. Zakharchenko:

We are writing to raise our concern about the arbitrary detention of some or all of a group of 125 Somali nationals detained at the  Zhuravychi Migrant Accommodation Centre (MAC). Some of them are  registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees  (UNHCR) or the Ukrainian authorities as asylum seekers. Around 80  have told UNHCR they want to apply for asylum in Ukraine, but have  not been allowed to do so.

Below is a part of Human Rights Watch report 2012 about the situation with human rights in Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan’s human rights record remains appalling, with no meaningful improvements in 2011. Torture remains endemic in the criminal justice system. Authorities continue to target civil society activists, opposition members, and journalists, and to persecute religious believers who worship outside strict state controls.

Freedom of expression remains severely limited. Government-sponsored forced child labor during the cotton harvest continues. Authorities continued to deny justice for the 2005 Andijan massacre in which government forces shot and killed hundreds of protestors, most of them unarmed.

Reacting to the pro-democracy Arab Spring movements, the Uzbek government increased the presence of security forces across the country and widened its already-tight control over the internet. Despite the government’s persistent refusal to address concerns about its abysmal record, the United States and European Union continued to advance closer relations with the Uzbek government in 2011, seeking cooperation in the war in Afghanistan.