Jun 24, 2022 | News
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), in coordination with the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) organized a workshop on 17 and 18 June 2022 with the Attorney General, Chief Attorneys (CAs) and other senior governmental legal personnel, with a view to ensuring effective and coordinated monitoring of places of detention. Detention monitoring is essential to prevent torture, ill-treatment and other human rights violations, in line with Nepal’s legal obligations under the Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Workshop participants highlighted the importance of implementation of international law and standards on monitoring places of detention, including the revised Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners (Mandela rules) and standards concerning children in detention. The Constitution of Nepal also prohibits “physical or mental torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” against persons arrested or detained.
Mar 17, 2022 | Agendas, Events, News, Video clips
Immigration detention of children is unlawful according to international law and States are obliged to implement alternatives to detention. One of the best solutions for unaccompanied children is their placement into mainstream child protection systems, which already works well in some countries in the EU, an ICJ webinar was told.
Jun 25, 2021 | News
The undersigned organizations express their deep concern about the continued disappearance of dentist and former parliamentarian, Mostafa Al-Naggar, on its 1000th day, and call on the Egyptian authorities to immediately disclose any information related to his whereabouts and to reveal his fate.
هذا البيان المشترك متوفر باللغة العربية أيضاً
The former parliamentarian, Mustafa Al-Naggar, a dentist and former head of the Justice Party, travelled to the southern Egyptian governorate of Aswan on September 27, 2018. Since then, his whereabouts and fate remain unknown. According to his wife, the last phone call between her and Mustafa Al-Naggar was on September 28, 2018, when he told her that he was in Aswan, and after that, the communication with him was cut off.
However, on October 10, 2018, his wife received a phone call from an unknown person on her home land line who told her that Al-Naggar had been arrested. Accordingly, on October 12, 2018, the family telegraphed the Public Prosecutor regarding his disappearance, and Mostafa Al-Naggar’s lawyers filed a complaint with the Aswan Prosecution on October 31, bearing the No. 1010 of 2018 Aswan petitions. The State Information Service issued a statement on October 18, 2018, denying that the security services had arrested Al-Naggar.
The Administrative Court of the State Council decided to accept a lawsuit filed by the family of Dr. Al-Naggar to reveal his whereabouts. According to the lawyer of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, the Circle of Rights and Freedoms in the State Council ruled on January 20, 2020 to “stop the implementation of the negative decision and oblige the Minister of Interior to disclose the place of detention of dentist and former parliamentarian Mustafa Al-Naggar” in lawsuit No. 56032/73 J, which was filed by Shaima Ali Afifi, Dr. Al-Naggar’s wife.
The ruling council of the International Parliamentary Union had issued a decision in November 2020 regarding the disappearance of Mustafa Al-Naggar, in which it expressed its concern about the failure of the Egyptian authorities to take any measures towards revealing the fate of the former parliamentarian, and calling on the Ministry of Interior to open an investigation into his disappearance.
During its session held in May 2021, the same Council reiterated its continuing concern about the Egyptian authorities’ unwillingness to disclose Mustafa Al-Naggar’s whereabouts. The same Council renewed its call on the Ministry of Interior to take the investigation into his disappearance seriously, and to take the necessary measures to locate him.
It should be noted that Dr. Al-Naggar suffers from asthma and kidney stones, and depriving him of treatment may put his life at risk. We also note that Mustafa Al-Naggar has taken legal measures to appeal the ruling by the Cairo Criminal Court issued on December 30, 2017, against him and others in absentia, imposing a sentence of three years’ imprisonment following the “insulting the judiciary case” (in case No. 478 of 2014). On 15 October 2015 the court of cassation upheld the prison sentence.
The undersigned organizations call upon the Egyptian authorities to immediately disclose any information related to Mustafa Al-Naggar’s whereabouts and fate, as well as on the Public Prosecution – as the investigative body entrusted with following up and investigating citizens’ complaints – to immediately and urgently investigate the complaints submitted by his family, and on security forces to immediately stop the practice of enforced disappearance against Egyptian citizens, and those who oppose government policies, and immediately disclose the places of detention of the forcibly disappeared.
Signatory organizations
Stop Enforced Disappearance Campaign
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information
Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
Committee for Justice
Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms
Egyptian Front for Human Rights
Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
El-Nadim Center
Freedom Initiative
Human Rights Watch (HRW)
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
Intersection Association for Rights and Freedoms
Rafto Foundation
World Organisation against Torture (OMCT)
Contact:
Said Benarbia, Director, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme, t: +41-22-979-3817; e: said.benarbia(a)icj.org
Asser Khattab, Research and Communications’ Officer, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme, e: asser.khattab(a)icj.org
Jun 21, 2021 | Agendas, Events, News
Children should never be detained in immigration context. Immigration detention of children is never in their best interests and is not justifiable, said experts during a transnational workshop on Alternatives to detention vs. alternative forms of detention of migrant children held by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and partners on June 17 and 18.
“Instead of detaining children, case management should be used instead, and a community assistance and placement model should be used for families and children as an effective alternative to detention. Unaccompanied children should be placed within the mainstream care system,” Karolína Babická, legal adviser at the ICJ said.
During the workshop experts and practitioners from seven EU countries and international experts explored good and bad practices of alternatives to detention. In particular, the principle of the ‘best interests of the child’ was discussed as well as procedures for age assessment, and specific alternative arrangements for the care of children in migration, such as the return houses in Belgium, and regular reporting.
The group further explored ways to include unaccompanied migrant children in the mainstream child-care system rather than under the management of immigration authorities. The case-management and community placement model by the International Detention Coalition (IDC) was discussed in detail.
It was agreed that children must have access to procedural rights, including the right to be heard and to participate, access to information and to legal assistance and legal aid, access to interpretation, effective remedy and a guardian. Best interest of the child assessments as well as age assessment must be done through a rights-based approach, following child-friendly procedures and safeguards.
Any alternatives to detention applied by states should be monitored and regularly evaluated to ensure these do not constitute alternative forms of detention.
The workshop took place as part of the CADRE project and will be followed by second and third workshop as well as by on-line conferences and national trainings during the second year of duration of the project.
See the agenda here: Agenda CADRE Transnational workshop_17-18 June_final
May 12, 2021 | Advocacy, News
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the Turkey Litigation Support Project (TLSP) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have intervened before the European Court of Human Rights in a case concerning the arrest and pre-trial detention of Turkish opposition politician Selahattin Demirtaş, on a series of charges relating to the exercise of his freedom of political expression. The applicant alleges that his pre-trial detention was arbitrary and unlawful.
In the intervention, the organisations underline that restrictions on freedom of expression, widespread detention and criminal prosecution under expansive anti-terrorism laws, and the impact on democratic debate and rights protection are now well documented in Turkey. This is particularly striking, and the repercussions serious, when opposition politicians are targeted for their expressions of opinion and engagement in democratic debate.
The interveners address:
- the nature and application of anti-terror criminal laws in Turkey and the implications for protection of the right to liberty (Article 5(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)) and freedom of expression (Article 10 ECHR) and for the limitation on use of restrictions on rights (Article 18 ECHR); and
- the effectiveness of the individual application procedure to the Turkish Constitutional Court as a remedy in detention cases, in particular in cases concerning the exercise of freedom of expression, in light of delays, the erosion of the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, and non-compliance of lower courts with the Constitutional Court’s decisions that protect Convention rights.
Full text of the intervention can be downloaded here.
