The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal’s Judgment on

The Human Right to Health of Migrant and Refugee Peoples

(Berlin, 23-25 October 2020)

45° Session on the Violations of the Human Rights of Migrant and Refugee Peoples

The Judgment and the Recommendations formulated by the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) on The Human Right to Health of Migrant and Refugee Peoples (Berlin hearing 23-25 October 2020) have been publicly presented on December 16th 2020. The Indictment and the program of the Berlin hearing were forwarded by the Secretariat of the PPT to the German Government and the European Commission, who were the indicted parties, but did not answer to the invitation to participate and present their positions.

According to the terms of reference of the Indictment – formulated by a network of German organisations coordinated by the national IPPNW, and shared by several movements, organisations and institutions from European countries – the focus of the Berlin hearing was on the violations of the fundamental rights of the people of migrants and refugees in Germany. Health care was the main area investigated and documented as indicator of human rights. Criminal responsibilities of the country and European competent institution and representatives were also been determined.

The Jury of the PPT included high level magistrates, lawyers, academic experts from 5 European countries and included in its consideration and assessment the indispensable updated scenario of the factual evidences and of the normative developments of the last three years, which have been the object also of an intensive monitoring and judging activity of the PPT through its Sessions in Barcelona, Palermo, Paris, London, Brussels.

The detailed report of the decisions of the PPT is articulated in specific sections dedicated to the documentation of the facts in Germany and in Europe: the normative, socio-political, juridical contexts which have been the main determinants of the tragic and systemic violations of human and peoples’ rights and of their impunity; the qualification of the responsibilities from the point of view of binding international laws and treaties, as well as with respect to constitutional national and European obligations. The PPT document also contains recommendations on the priorities which should be adopted. As forcefully stressed in the public presentation of the Judgment, a concrete sign of a way forward is a must – in a scenario which is tragically affecting migrants and refugees, but is also, progressively and deeply, destroying the human and humane identity of the European institutions and societies.

The evidence presented by the testimonies and reports from the routes and frontiers where the whole spectrum of crimes fully corresponding to the technical juridical qualification of “against humanity” are happening (from direct killing, to torture, to trafficking, to expulsion to no safe places and regimes, to a specifically severe violation of women lives and dignity) have been overwhelming. What across the chronicles could sometimes appear a fragmented situation, must be qualified, with an emphasis already underlined in 2017 in Palermo, as a “systemic crime” – a  juridical category which is included in the statute of the PPT as an indicator of higher (criminal?) severity, of the structured characteristics of the violations. Beyond the personal responsibilities and actors, who should already be prosecuted, the PPT stresses and submits to the attention of the civil society, as well as to the representatives of national and international law, that what happens is the product of a necropolitics. In addition, there is the gravity of a lack of instruments to address the criminal accountability of these policies as well as to address the impunity for a crime which is truly an ongoing genocide. This reality is visible, explicitly planned and confirmed, as it has become, incredibly very clear in the September 2020 EU Pact on Migration and Asylum which is specifically and extensively taken into consideration in the Judgment of the Berlin Hearing.

The PPT Judgements, although not considered as legally binding, their evidences and declarations of responsibilities are submitted to the ‘legal institutions’, and also more directly they are conceived as instruments of  conscience and struggle for all those peoples, movements, subjects who are fully and intensely aware that all humans are, by definition, subjects of the human right to move, to be citizen of all places where the right to life and dignity could be respected, or at least pursued.

A human rights tribunal will take place in Berlin from October 23-25, 2020. Where we are hearing human rights violations of migrant and refugee peoples on acces to health.

 

There is a growing atmosphere of resentment directed at migrants and refugees: Asylum laws are being tightened, the European Union (EU) continuously attempts to seal external borders. Although the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its outstanding moral standards, including commitment to human rights, this very same EU allows thousands of people to die while crossing its borders. Sick, traumatised or pregnant people are frequently deported. Many refugees experience ever stricter asylum laws and racial discrimination, even from medical personnel, leading to a denial of their right to healthcare. These violations of the human right to health endangers these vulnerable people unacceptably. We are bringing charges on human rights violations of migrant and refugee peoples in the following areas: Access to health care Consequences of living standards in mass accommodation on mental and physical health Residence status, deportation and health  Criminalisation civil humanitarian assistance Germany‘s responsibility regarding the European policy of sealing external borders Racism, gender and age specific aspects are cross sectional topics throughout the indictment.

Folgende Organisationen sind schon dabei | Alliance partners already involved

  • Ärzte der Welt
  • BAfF, Bundesweite Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Psychosozialen Zentren für Flüchtlinge und Folteropfer
  • Borderline-europe – Menschenrechte ohne Grenzen e.V.
  • Deutsche Aidshilfe
  • Flüchtlingsrat Brandenburg
  • InEUmanity
  • International Women Space
  • IPPNW e.V.
  • Medibüro Berlin
  • Medico International
  • Respect
  • vdää
  • Women in Exile e.V.
  • Yaar e.V.

Weiterführende Informationen | Further information:

Kontakt zum Bündnis | Contact to the alliance: Susanne Dyhr, [email protected]

Facebook: facebook.com/ppt_berlin

Twitter: @ppt_berlin

A human rights tribunal will take place in Berlin from October 23-25, 2020.

Inspired by solidarity between migrants, refugees and human rights organizations and other social movements towards equality and an inclusive society, more than 30 migrant and refugee organisations, endorsed by 100 movements, networks and organisations from different European countries launched the 45th Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) on the Violations with Impunity of the Human Rights of Migrant and Refugee Peoples in Barcelona in 2017.

Since then, five hearings have been held on diverse issues in several European cities – (Barcelona (July 2017), Palermo (December 2017), Paris (January 2018), Barcelona (July 2018), London (November 2018), Brussels (April 2019) . These Hearings aim to give visibility to the migrant and refugee peoples from all backgrounds as subjects of fundamental human rights; to identify and judge the chain of co-responsibility in the violation of those rights experienced throughout the whole migratory journey and to highlight the urgent need for fundamental change in respect of the human rights of migrant and refugee peoples and to promote appropriate mechanisms for access to justice.

The PPT is a Human Rights  Opinion Tribunal which draws its mandate from the Charter of Algiers – the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Peoples – elaborated in 1976 in Algiers.

We have seen Europe’s migration policy of exclusion being constructed year after year – a policy that has resulted in a sweeping rollback of people’s human rights. We have also seen right-wing populist and racist ideas becoming more and more socially acceptable all over Europe. We constantly hear about the deadly consequences of these policies and appalling human rights violations – including those concerning health and physical and mental well-being of migrant and refugee peoples throughout their journeys to Europe and within different countries in Europe including Germany. While some of these violations have been made public and are well-documented, political and legal consequences are rare.

Building on this experience and the framework of the PPT, we, a growing coalition of activists, refugee and migrant self-organizations and health and human rights organizations, make this Call to hold a public Tribunal Hearing on the issue of Human Rights and Health in Germany in October 2020.

The PPT is a process that is being built from below, with the people most involved and most directly affected. We believe that it’s important to count on as many voices as possible to bring different perspectives and experiences together. In this regard, this coalition makes a strong call to address the connections between the crisis of health care and its effects on the rights of migrants, refugees and citizens alike in the context of exclusionary politics, austerity regimes and neoliberal restructuring. Although already in the planning since 2019, the Berlin Hearing with its focus on the Human Right to Health, takes on additional significance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic – which makes very visible the role of migrant and refugees both as frontline essential workers or high risk casualties.

The PPT Berlin Hearing aims to facilitate migrant and refugee movements to develop new alliances with other social movements and with health professionals and workers as well as academia, art and other related sectors.

Why focus on Health?

Health is a basic need of human beings and social communities. We start from a holistic concept of health which goes beyond health care to emphasize the social and political conditions necessary for a heathy life. The human right to health means that everyone has the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, which includes access to all medicalservices, sanitation, adequate food, decent housing, healthy working conditions, and a clean environment.

We think that the precarious developments described above not only concern migrants and refugees but all of us and our democracy in several ways. We fear that the “necropolitics” on the borders of Europe which lets people seeking refuge in Europe die deliberately at sea or in the desert as well as the criminalization of solidarity are compromising our collective health as societies.  These policies and practices lead to conditions that normalise violence, dehumanise social relations, weaken democratic and egalitarian values and punish empathy, civic engagement and solidarity. But we also believe that the issue of health can bring the struggle of refugees and migrants and other social movements together.

Program Hearing Brussels

   

Session on the Human Rights of Migrants and Refugee Peoples

 9 April 2019   9.00 to 13.00

 

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, BRUSSELS

ROOM ASP 1G2

 (Interpretation:  EN, FR, ES, DE, IT, NL, EL, SV)

   

NOTE Getting your Badge to enter the EP: The entry to the European Parliament is at the Simone Veil entrance of the ASP building - on the side of the Place Luxembourg. GUE/NGL people will wait those who need a badge, on the stairs of this entrance, with a poster of the event, from 8:15 to 8:45. So people need to get to the Parliament at 8.00 am

NOTE: Please bring your banners, posters, publications etc for display at the Parliament and at the Demo

Programme

09:00 – 09:45 Welcoming words and introduction 

  • Gabi Zimmer, President of GUE/NGL
  • Claude Moraes, Chair of the Comittee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
  • Jille Belisario, Transnational Migrant Platform-Europe
  • Braulio Moro, France Amerique Latine (FAL)
  • Simona Fraudatario, Gianni Tognoni, Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal

09:45 - 11:15 Report and perspectives of the PPT deliberations

The PPT Session on migrants and refugee people
Philippe Texier, President of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal

Legal strategies for Italian and European responsibility
Antonello Ciervo, Chiara Favilli, Luca Masera (Asgi)

Policies of criminalisation, conscription and marginalisation
Frances Webber, Human Rights lawyer and Vice-Chair of the Institute of Race Relations

Crimes of the system: a vacuum in international law
Perfecto Andrés Ibáñez, member of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal

Looking forward: concluding Declaration and comments by the panel of judges
Bridget Anderson, Luciana Castellina, Mireille Fanon-Mendès-France , Claire-Marie Lievens, Patricia Orejudo

11:15 - 11:45 Citizens’ networks as example of "civil disobedience"

Adham Darawsha, Councillor for CultureS and Democratic Participation, City of Palermo

Miguel Roldan, fire fighter – case of criminalisation of solidarity.

11 :45- 12:40 Interventions of participant parliamentarians and social movements: Going Forward to political action

Moderators: Brid Brennan (TNI) and MEP Miguel Urbán (GUE/NGL)

Moderation: Brid Brennan, TNI (Ireland) & MEP Miguel Urban, Podemos (Spain)

  • Root Causes - Forced displacement of Migrant and Refugee People
    Free Trade & Investment Agreements, War, Climate Change
    Mohammed Hakech (LVC/Morocco); Samah Ibrahim Representative of UAWC/Palestine; Lamine Bathily (Sindicato Popular de Vendedores Ambulantes-Barcelona);Clara Osagiede (RMT/TU/UK)
  • Journeys & Borders – Dead & Disappeared (Med & Aegean Sea)
    Crime against Humanity Role of Corporations in Border Wars
    Representative of Sea Watch, Germany; Imed Soltani (Land for All/Tunis); Monica Vargas (TNI/Spain); Driss El Korchi (MCDC/Belgium)
  • Fortress Europe – Hostile Environment
    Detention, Deportation, Racism and Islamophobia
    Liz Fekete (IRR/UK), Renata Molina (FAL/France); Hatem Gheribi (Watch the Med AlarmPhone/Europe)
  • Gender Rights / Women Organising
    Fatou Secka (Equis-MG/Spain); Petra Snelders (Respect/Europe); Angie Garcia (Waling Waling/UK); Jara Henar (Stop Mare Mortum)
  • Youth & Children
    Luciano Banchio (Espacio del Inmigrante/Spain); Glen Sangcap (CFMW/Italia)
  •  Resistance & Alternatives, Transnational Activism and Solidarity
    LAB representative (Basque Country); Khadija Najlaoui (UNITE/UK); Nonoi Hacbang (TMP-E/Europe); Cristina Brovia; Deborah Valencia (MELISSA /Greece)

12:40 – 13 :00 Conclusions 

  • Franco Ippolito, on the behalf of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal
  • Federico Pacheco, La Via Campesina
  • MEP Marie-Christine Vergiat, member of the Subcommittee for Human Rights
  • Hosted in the European Parliament by

 

 More than 500 organisations have worked together in solidarity with the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal

For more information please contact: [email protected]

 

Evidence presented by Liz Fekete on behalf of the PPT at the APPG on Race and Community & APPG on
Migration Putting People First: Protecting Public Services from the Hostile Environment,
4 April 2019, Committee Room 9, Palace of Westminster.

On 3-4 November 2018, migrants’ rights groups, trades unionists and race experts came together to put the ‘hostile environment’ on trial at the fourth European session of the Permanent People’s Tribunal on the violations with impunity of the human rights of migrant and refugee peoples. An expert jury heard testimony from witnesses drawn from frontline services, academia, migrants’ networks and, crucially, migrants and refugees themselves, including former immigration detainees, care workers, cleaners and domestic workers.

What did this public opinion tribunal teach us and what did it reveal?

From the outset I should say that the evidence we received and heard both as written and oral testimony pointed to the fact that the issue of public services could not be divorced from the hostile environment of employer sanctions, the criminalisation of work and workplace exploitation. Denial of services and a nativist approach to migrant workers goes hand in hand. And that’s the main message of the PPT that I am bringing here today.

The PPT foregrounded the widespread subcontracting and outsourcing which leads to the creation of ‘sites without rights’ or ‘spaces for exploitation’. We heard from witnesses repeatedly how ‘migrant’ status puts people outside the protection of public services andthe law, including labour laws – witness the failure to enforce the minimum wage for migrant workers and the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board in 2013.

Testimony from trades unionists and workers in specific sectors showed how migrants can be virtually disenfranchised: hotels and housekeeping, warehousing, road haulage, in food and agriculture, in construction (where bonded labour is even used) and in care and domestic work, where a mainly legal female workforce faces sex, race and class discrimination, usually with no access to legal remedies.

The creation of illegality is intimately tied to the deterrence logic of the hostile environment which dissuades people from accessing public services including health care. It starts with the conscription of employers, landlords, university staff and medics, into surveillance and enforcement. But we heard too how it builds on the legal measures that have criminalised work since the 1990s - the ban on work for asylum seekers, the introduction and intensification of employer sanctions, salary thresholds for settlement and family reunification, the creation in 2016 of a new criminal offence of illegal working.

I am sure the APPG on Race & Community has been addressing some of these issues, such as how employer sanctions affect immigration enforcement through raids on mainly small, BAME-owned workplaces. One witness, Bobby Chan of the Min Quan Advocacy Group, claimed the law has been weaponised by Home Office officials with unchecked power to close a business down. He told how frequent raids, accompanied by physical brutality, were in fact a legalised shakedown rather than real immigration enforcement, with those arrested being released within minutes but employers expected to pay fines of £20,000 a time. This is leading to contempt for the law.

A number of witnesses described the perverse impact of immigration rules. Kent Refugee Help explained how the ‘no recourse to public funds’ rule creates crime, by creating destitution. Leeds Migrant Action and Dr Jon Burnett of Swansea University spoke of the ‘captive labour’ of detained asylum seekers, denied permission to work in the UK but performing nearly a million hours of menial work in detention without the protection of labour laws, at less than a seventh of the minimum wage. This again leads to contempt for the government, an exploitative employer which argues that it is fine to pay detainees £1 an hour because ‘this is not work, but a way of passing time’.

Yes, the evidence presented to the PPT pointed to the dangers in data sharing and the shameful exclusion from services, but it also highlighted the need to understand how government policy and law provide the structures for super-exploitation. Creating a climate of fear where the sick and undocumented are too frightened to access public services places enormous power in the hands of unscrupulous employers and also creates divisions among NHS staff, with some workers, as Dr Neal Russell explained, willingly using racial profiling to decide who should pay for services within a charging system that is out of reach for poorly paid migrant workers. (This same doctor was one of several who returned medals awarded for fighting Ebola in West Africa because they believe creating fear and mistrust in the NHS is wrong and that ‘collectively, as human beings we should never allow anything to stand in the way to access to health care’)

All the written evidence presented to the PPT can be found on the website of the Transnational Migrants Platform where we will also download videos of some of the testimony. Next week we are meeting in the European parliament to discuss our findings with parliamentarians and our colleagues in Barcelona, Palermo and Paris who also organised hearings. Although the UK is the only country where the hostile environment has officially been acknowledged as a state policy objective, it is practised in effect in every EU country, and by the EU which has announced its intention to suspend search and rescue in the Mediterranean. The EU is complicit in sending boat people back to Libyan detention centres where they are subjected to forced labour (yes, the issue of labour exploitation returns!), as well as sexual abuse, trafficking and torture including electric shocks, burns, lashes and even flaying.

The PPT indictment, by immigration expert Frances Webber, is available in the current issue of the IRR’s journal Race & Class.We will be bringing out a book including all the testimonies next year. The courage and commitment of the witnesses who appeared before the PPT is acknowledged by all of us who took part as the driver of the judgment which is now being finalised and will be delivered to the Home Office shortly.

Permanent Peoples' Tribunal Hearing
The Human Rights of Migrant and Refugee Peoples

 EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, BRUSSELS
on Tuesday 9thApril from 9.00-13.00
Room ASP 1G2

 

 

Panel of judges 

 

 

Bridget Anderson (UK)

Professor of migration, mobilities and citizenship at Bristol University, Anderson is also Director of Migration Mobilities Bristol (https://migration.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/). She has been Professor of migration and citizenship and research director at COMPAS in Oxford. She has a DPhil in sociology and previous training in philosophy and modern languages. She has explored the tension between labour market flexibilities and citizenship rights, and pioneered an understanding of the functions of immigration in key labour market sectors. She is the author of Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Controls(Oxford University Press, 2013) and Doing the Dirty Work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour(Zed Books, 2000). She coedited Who Needs Migrant Workers? Labour Shortages, Immigration and Public Policy with Martin Ruhs(Oxford University Press, 2010 and 2012), The Social, Political and Historical Contours of Deportationwith Matthew Gibney and Emanuela Paoletti (Springer, 2013), and Migration and Care Labour: Theory, Policy and Politicswith Isabel Shutes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Anderson has worked closely with migrants’ organisations, trades unions and legal practitioners at local, national and international level. I'm

 Perfecto Andrés Ibáñez (Spain)

Magistrate of the Supreme Court of Spain and director of the magazine “Jueces para la Democracia”. He is member of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal.

Luciana Castellina (Italy)

Born in Rome in 1929, graduated in law, journalist, deputy of the Chamber of Deputies and the European

Parliament between 1976 and 1999, former vice-president of the Parliamentary Delegation for Central

America and for South America, president of the Culture, and External Economic Relations Committee of the European Parliament. She was vice president of the International League for the Rights of the People,

currently the honorary president of the ARCI, an Italian cultural and social association.

 

Mireille Fanon Mendes France (France)

President of the Frantz-Fanon Foundation and member of the Working Group of experts for people of African descent of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations

Franco Ippolito (Italy)

President of the Lelio Basso Foundation and former President of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. Section President and previously Secretary-General of the Supreme Court of Cassation. He has been the Secretary-General of the Associazione Nazionale dei Magistrati, the President of Magistratura Democratica, President of the Associazione Italiana Giuristi Democratici, a member of the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, and Director-General of the judicial organisation of the Justice ministry. He has written essays and lectures in national and international courses in the field of jurisdictional guarantees and of judicial organisation. He has taken part in numerous international missions in Europe and Latin America (in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico and Peru).

Claire-Marie Lievens (Belgium)

Legal adviser in foreigners and asylum law for the Human Rights League in Belgium (Ligue des Droits Humains).

Luis Moita (Portugal)

He is a Professor of International Relations at the Autonomous University of Lisbon, where he is the Director of the OBSERVARE research centre which publishes an annual report and of the bi-annual scientific publication JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations. He directed the Portuguese NGO CIDAC, Amilcar Cabral Information and Documentation Centre, for 15 years. He is a founder member of the Portuguese Council for Refugees. He has cooperated with the Basso Foundation since the 1980s and is a member of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. 

Patricia Orejudo (España)

Professor of Private International Law University of the Complutense University of Madrid. Lawyer specialized in Human Rights. PHD in Law. She has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses, in many other centres in Spain, Europe and Latin America. Member of the state campaign for the closure of Detention Centres for Migrants and the Sol Legal Commission. She has worked in Women's Link Worldwide, a non-profit organization that uses the power of the law to promote and defend the rights of women and girls, as a senior lawyer, and has collaborated with the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR). Investigate issues mainly related to migration from a gender perspective.

Philippe Texier (France)

President of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, he has been an expert consultant of the French Court of Cassation, from 1997 to 2012. He was also a member of the Committee for Social, Economic and Cultural Rights of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which he chaired from 2008 to 2009. He was an independent expert of the Commission for Human Rights in Haiti from 1988 to 1990 and the Director of the United Nations missions in El Salvador, ONUSAL (1991-1992).

The public hearings of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on “The Hostile environment” held in London on 3rd and 4th November 2018 form part of a process of investigation which has lasted more than two years and has produced texts and judgments for the opening session in Barcelona (7th- 8th July 2017) and from Palermo (18th- 20th December 2017), Paris (4th – 5th January 2018) and Barcelona (29 June- 1 July 2018).
The earlier proceedings and the resulting judgments have provided an indispensable background and framework for the panel of judges at the London session, along with detailed factual and juridical support and integration of the evidence submitted to it. The main overall findings, presented orally at the conclusion of the hearings, are set out in the points which follow. The full text of the judgment, with detailed factual evidence and formal attribution of responsibility, will be made available shortly.
  1. The direct testimonies of the witnesses, together with the written and oral presentations of the experts, provide robust and comprehensive documentation of the dramatic and systematic violations of the fundamental rights to life and dignity of migrants and refugees, both as individuals and as a group, indicated in the Indictment as the target and victims of a spectrum of repressive legislation and policies enacted by the UK government over the last several years.
  2. The evidence and documentation clearly establish that the violations of fundamental individual and collective rights presented to the PPT are the deliberate, planned and systematic expression of repressive policies which, translated into legal provisions and norms, affect the full spectrum of the concrete rights which must be recognised in all human beings: rights to life, to dignity, to health, to work, to education.
  3. In all the critical domains of their existence, migrants and refugees appear to be the victims of an ever deeper and more pervasive political, juridical and cultural transformation of a society which accepts and promotes the reversal of the values of democracy, of binding obligations for Governments and of basic principles of international law as affirmed and enforced in the corresponding international instruments. Economic and security-driven legal measures are given priority and prevail over the inviolable legitimacy of the individual and collective rights belonging to human beings, which are denied.
  4.  The contemporary migration and asylum regime demonstrates a deliberate historical amnesia, ignoring the destructive consequences of British colonialism and the ways in which this continues to underpin the massive inequalities of contemporary global political economy. These inequalities are a key factor in impelling human mobility.
  5.  A policy which has defined itself as promoting a “hostile environment” corresponds to the non-recognition of migrants and refugees as people and members of society despite the disparate nature of their origins and of the causes of their migrations, displacements and expulsions. The transformation of persons exercising their fundamental right to migrate into ‘others’, aliens, potential or real enemies, invaders and aggressors, both in attitudes and in concrete behaviours such as labour contracts, reproduces categories of colonialism and slavery.
  6. A further reason for concern, and a confirmation of the direct responsibility of UK institutions, emerges from the documentation of the administrative and bureaucratic rigidity in the application of unjustifiable and opaque rules designed for the repressive control of people, the direct product of global models of development which pretend to bear no responsibility for the violations to the dignity of life, specifically of the most fragile individuals and groups.
  7. The London session has focused on the situation of migrants and refugees in the real life of a democratic society that can be considered as a model. The testimonies presented – factually so well documented, with a lucidity which could not exclude a deep emotional participation – are highly consistent in terms of severity and for their characteristics of systematicity and continuity with the findings of the previous sessions devoted to other aspects and steps of the migration process in the EU. The responsibility of the several institutions referred to in the testimonies and illustrated in the expert reports, have appeared to the panel of judges well proven, having regard to official norms and political documents. As mentioned above, the juridical (criminal and civil) definition of responsibility for the violations, with a careful assessment of the causal determinants and actors, will be the subject of the full report. But it is clear that the basic crime of denial of the rights to life, to dignity, and to the rule of law, can be considered ascertained beyond any reasonable doubt. Further, it is clear from the evidence heard in previous sessions, in different scenarios and modalities, and confirmed in some ad hoc reports in this session, that the UK situation is not unique, but rather is an expression of the broader processes and institutional responsibilities vested not only in the countries and the central institutions of the EU but also in the diffuse geographical and political scenarios where economic and environmental poverty, armed conflict and wars oblige human beings to become peoples without rights facing legal and racist violence, and the further violence of systematic impunity.
  8. This summary account of the public hearings and experience of the London session of the PPT would not be complete without underlining other even more impressive evidence in opposition to violations and impunity. The evidence the PPT has heard demonstrates the creativity and resistance of individuals and communities who, in a hostile environment, affirm and document that solidarity is not a crime but a resource, constantly renewed and shared as a perspective of “another future” – striving for new transnational strategies of action and solidarity among migrants and refugees themselves and with citizens. Beyond any repressive process of “identification”, migrants and refugees affirm their identity as human subjects and, through their common experience and their solidarity, their identity as a people. The PPT can be only one of the processes in support of their peaceful struggles for life and dignity.
Rome, 22 November 2018

Bridget Anderson - Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship at Bristol University. She formerly held the post of Professor of Migration and Citizenship and Research Director at COMPAS in Oxford. She has a DPhil in Sociology and previous training in Philosophy and Modern Languages. She has explored the tension between labour market flexibilities and citizenship rights, and pioneered an understanding of the functions of immigration in key labour market sectors. She is the author of Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Controls (Oxford University Press, 2013) and Doing the Dirty Work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour (Zed Books, 2000). She coedited Who Needs Migrant Workers? Labour Shortages, Immigration and Public Policy with Martin Ruhs (Oxford University Press, 2010 and 2012), The Social, Political and Historical Contours of Deportation with Matthew Gibney and Emanuela Paoletti (Springer, 2013), and Migration and Care Labour: Theory, Policy and Politics with Isabel Shutes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Bridget Anderson has worked closely with migrants’ organisations, trades unions and legal practitioners at local, national and international level.

 

Wah-Piow Tan - A Balliol educated human rights solicitor in London representing Chinese migrants in the UK since 180s. A former political prisoner and exile from Singapore, Wah-Piow is well known since his youth as a student leader, activist, writer and public speaker advocating democratic reforms in Singapore. Most recently, in August 2018, he enjoyed unprecedented extensive media coverage following his 80 minutes discussion with the new Malaysian Prime Minister on the subject of expanding the democratic space in Southeast Asia. In 1980, Wah-Piow attended the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) hearing on The Philippines in Antwerp as an observer.

Maureen Byrne is a Councillor. She is a retired full time Equality Officer in Unite the Union. She has been on the Employment Tribunal panel for 30 years. Currently she is Employment Law adviser for the Stansted Airport Branch. Maureen is chairperson for the Bury St Edmund’s Women’s Aid Refuge and Local Association for Mental and Physical Handicapped Charity, a group supporting young people with special needs. She is the Town Council Chairperson of the Personnel Committee.

Dr Eddie Bruce Jones AB (Harvard); MA (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin); JD (Columbia); LLM in Public International Law (KCL is currently  acting dean and  Lecturer in Law at Birkbeck College, University of London  where he teaches and researches in the areas of human rights, comparative discrimination law, racism, sexuality and migration. He is an academic fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, a member of the New York state bar and a trustee of the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group. He serves with a collective of lawyers on the Independent Commission on the Death of Oury Jalloh in Germany (on police brutality and due process) and is the Sexuality and Gender Identity Resource Co-ordinator for the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Network based in Oxford

Leah Bassel - is a member of Haringey Welcome, a campaign group working for fairness, dignity and respect for migrants and refugees in the London borough of Haringey.  Leah researches the political sociology of migration, intersectionality and citizenship as Professor of Sociology at the University of Roehampton. Her books include Refugee Women: Beyond Gender versus Culture (Routledge, 2012), The Politics of Listening: Possibilities and Challenges for Democratic Life (Palgrave, 2017), and Minority Women and Austerity: Survival and Resistance in France and Britain co-authored with Akwugo Emejulu (Policy Press 2017).  She is currently co-Principal Investigator, with Akwugo Emejulu, of the Open Society-funded project Women of Colour Resist and has also led projects funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the British Academy.  Before pursuing an academic career, Leah was an emergency outreach worker in Paris where she provided humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers and created a circus camp project for refugee youth.  She holds a DPhil from the Refugee Studies Centre/Nuffield College, University of Oxford and a BA and MA from McGill University, Canada.  

Enrico Pugliese - is Professor of sociology of work, (Emeritus) at Sapienza- University of Rome, faculty member of the Graduate school in applied sociology, University of Rome La Sapienza. He is also research associate at Irpps (Istituto di ricerche sulla popolazione e le politiche sociali), National research council, Rome. He has been Professor of Sociology of work  at  the University of Napoles  "Federico II" where he served as chairman of the department of sociology and then as dean of the faculty of sociology. He has been visiting professor in several European and American Universities. He has been also meember of the National commission of inquiry on work at the Consiglio nazionale dell’economia e del lavoro, chairman of the Commission for drafting the immigration law of the Regione Campania. He has also been member of the advisory Commission of the City Mayor of Napoli for immigration policy. His main research interests include: international migration, Italian migration in Europe, third world immigration in Italy, migration policies, labour market with special reference to precarious employment and unemployment. His recent publications on migration include: Quelli che se ne vanno (Those who leave), Il mulino 2018, and International Migrations and the Mediterranean in Andreotti, Benassi, Kazepov (eds) Western Capitalism in transition, Manchester University Press 2018.

Bridget Anderson (UK)

Bridget Anderson is Professor of Migration and Citizenship and Research Director at COMPAS. She has a DPhil in Sociology and previous training in Philosophy and Modern Languages. She has explored the tension between labour market flexibilities and citizenship rights, and pioneered an understanding of the functions of immigration in key labour market sectors. She is the author of Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Controls (Oxford University Press, 2013) and Doing the Dirty Work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour (Zed Books, 2000). She coedited Who Needs Migrant Workers? Labour Shortages, Immigration and Public Policy with Martin Ruhs (Oxford University Press, 2010 and 2012), The Social, Political and Historical Contours of Deportation with Matthew Gibney and Emanuela Paoletti (Springer, 2013), and Migration and Care Labour: Theory, Policy and Politics with Isabel Shutes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Bridget Anderson has worked closely with migrants’ organisations, trades unions and legal practitioners at local, national and international level.

 

Laia Serra (Estado español)

Criminal lawyer, works in human rights, non-discrimination, hate crimes and gender violence. Member of the Defence Commission of the Lawyers Association of Barcelona, ​​of Women Lawyers and of the Catalan Association for the Defence of Human Rights, which is part of the Catalan Coordination for the Prevention and Complaint of Torture, and regularly collaborates with different feminist collectives. She has advised the Observatory against Homophobia since 2007 and the Association for Assistance to Sexually Assaulted Women (AADAS) since 2014. She has intervened in political advocacy campaigns such as the eradication of rubber bullets in Catalonia, the non-introduction of guns Taser in the armament of the Mossos d'Esquadra, the access to assisted reproduction of all women, and the change of health care model for transgender people. She has intervened in several court cases related to the limits on freedom of expression, the criminalization of protest and gender violence through social networks. Collaborates in the drafting of the Regulations for the Deployment of the Law against Catalan LGBTI phobia and in legal opinion articles with El Diario.es, La Directa, El Punt Avui and Pikara Magazine.

 

Stasa Zajovic (Montenegro)

Feminist activist, pacifist and member of the Montenegrin LGBT Movement, co-founder and coordinator of the organization Women in Black of Belgrade created in 1991 at the beginning of the war in Yugoslavia. In Belgrade, during the war in the former Yugoslavia, she was one of the activists who led the silent vigils of Women in Black that took place regularly every week from 1991 to 1997 as a nonviolent protest against the war; the politics of the Serbian regime; nationalism; militarism and all forms of hate, discrimination and violence. She is one of the organizers of the Women's Court, Sarajevo, in May 2015.

Patricia Orejudo (Estado español)

Professor of Private International Law University of the Complutense University of Madrid. Lawyer specialized in Human Rights. PHD in Law. She has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses, in many other centres in Spain, Europe and Latin America. Member of the state campaign for the closure of Detention Centres for Migrants and the Sol Legal Commission. She has worked in Women's Link Worldwide, a non-profit organization that uses the power of the law to promote and defend the rights of women and girls, as a senior lawyer, and has collaborated with the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR). Investigate issues mainly related to migration from a gender perspective.

 

Marina Forti (Italia)

Journalist based in Rome. She worked with the daily newspaper “il manifesto” for 30 years, mostly as a Foreign Correspondent and later Foreign Editor. She traveled in Iran, South Asia and South East Asia. She started the column “TerraTerra” (“Earth to Earth”) on environmental justice and the conflicts for the natural resources. Her book La signora di Narmada (Feltrinelli 2004) was awarded the Elsa Morante Prize for Communication. Her latest book is “Il cuore di tenebra dell'India” (Bruno Mondadori 2012). She contributes regularly to Internazionale.it.

 

Teresa Almeida Cravo (Portugal)

Assistant Professor in International Relations at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra and a Researcher at the Centre for Social Studies. She is currently co-coordinator of the PhD Programme Democracy in the XXIst Century and coordinator of the Master’s degree in International Relations – Peace, Security and Development Studies, both at the University of Coimbra. She holds a PhD from the Department of Politics and International Studies of the University of Cambridge. In the last years, Teresa has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Westminster, in the UK, at the University of Monash, in Australia, and a Predoctoral Fellow and later an Associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Her research interests include peace and conflict, security and development, interventionism, and foreign policy, particularly within the Lusophone context.