UNHCR has acknowledged in its December update note that Hungary does no longer deny in-merit examination of asylum claims where the applicants have previously transited through Serbia or Ukraine, and consequently has amended its previous position from October 2012 where it urged Member States to stop sending back to Hungary applicants who had transited Serbia. According to UNHCR, those applicants have ceased to be detained or returned to Serbia or Ukraine.
The British High Court decided this week that a group of Tamils the UK Border Agency intended to deport back to Sri Lanka should stay in the United Kingdom until an upcoming Country Guidance case concerning the safety of returned failed asylum seekers in Sri Lanka is decided. As the High Court considered that the guidance on Sri Lanka was being considered virtually afresh and that the existing country guidance will have to change, the suspension on the removal of all Tamil failed asylum seekers was ordered.
The applicant, Moshood Abiola Balogun, is a Nigerian national who was born in 1986 and has been living in the United Kingdom since the age of three. Convicted of serious drugs-related offenses, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment in 2007 and informed of the authorities intention to deport him. His appeal against deportation was rejected by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in March 2008.
Last week the Council reached an agreement with the European Parliament on the Schengen Governance legislative proposals, which include a regulation on a monitoring mechanism to verify the application of the Schengen acquis and an amendment to the Schengen Borders Code regarding the temporary reintroduction of border control at internal borders in exceptional circumstances. These will include serious threat to public policy or internal security and serious deficiencies relating to the external border controls.
The European Court of Human Rights and the EU Fundamental Rights Agency launched this week their Handbook on European Law relating to asylum, borders and immigration.
The applicant is a Georgian national. She entered Greece in 2005 with a three-month residence permit which she overstayed. In 2009 she was arrested and placed in detention with a view to her expulsion. The authorities decided on her expulsion and ordered her detention pending execution for a maximum of six months. While in detention, she submitted an asylum application. She repeatedly challenged her detention, complaining at the same time about her detention conditions.
The negotiating group of the 47 Council of Europe member states and the European Union has agreed on a draft instrument for the accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights. Through this instrument, the European Union accedes to the European Convention on Human Rights, to its Protocol and to Protocol no. 6. The main features of the agreement are the following:
The applicant is an Uzbek national who was arrested in Russia in July 2010 and detained with a view to his extradition to Uzbekistan, where he was wanted on charges of public appeals to overthrow the constitutional order in connection with his presumed membership of the banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir religious organisation. The Uzbek extradition request was accepted by the Russian authorities. However, the decision to extradite him was quashed by the Supreme Court and Mr. Zokhidov was released in April 2011.
UNHCR published a Guide on Working with Men and Boy Survivors of Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Forced Displacement. The Guide emphasizes that sexual violence and rape can be used as a weapon of war against men as well as women, that it is inflicted on men as a means of disempowerment, dominance and undermining concepts of masculinity, discussed triggers for survival sex. The Guide further provides with a number of indicators for identification of survivors.
