Libya abuses migrants, EU turns blind eye-group

NEW YORK, Sep 13 (Reuters) Asylum seekers are among the thousands of African migrants deported by Libya in recent years, an abuse effectively ignored by European nations in their dealings with Tripoli, Human Rights Watch said.

''Libya is not a safe country for migrants, asylum seekers and refugees,'' the group's director of refugee policy, Bill Frelick, said in a statement headlined ''Libya: Migrants abused, but Europe turns blind eye''.

''Once welcomed as cheap labour, sub-Saharan Africans in Libya now face tightened immigration controls, detention and deportation,'' said the statement, announcing a report on the issue by the New York-based rights group.

Oil producer Libya often expels foreigners who enter illegally or lack proper papers, many of them migrants who come for work or who use Libya as a gateway to Europe.

From 2003 to 2005, the Libyan government repatriated about 145,000 undocumented foreigners, according to official figures.

But Rights Watch said many of those expelled were asylum seekers, some of whom were returned to countries where they could face persecution or torture such as Eritrea and Somalia.

Both countries deny torture.

The report said a major problem was Libya's refusal to introduce an asylum law or procedure. Libya has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the government makes no attempt to identify refugees or others needing international protection.

Officials in Tripoli were not available for comment.

The report quoted Libyan officials as saying Libya did not offer asylum because none of the foreigners needed protection.

One told Rights Watch they fear offering asylum when the government was trying to reduce the number of foreigners.

If Libya provided asylum, foreigners 'would come like locusts', the report quoted one official as saying.

''We do not have political refugees,'' Assistant Secretary of Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation (Foreign Affairs) Sa'id Eribi Hafiana, told Human Rights Watch. ''The problem is Africans who came in the framework of illegal immigration.'' The report said the European Union (EU), eager for Libyan help in its effort to keep migrants out, did not give adequate regard to migrants' rights or the need to protect refugees and others at risk of abuse on return to their home countries.

''The European Union is working with Libya to block these people from reaching Europe rather than helping them to get the protection they need,'' Frelick said.

About 600,000 foreigners live and work legally in Libya, a country of five million. But another 1 million are in Libya without proper documentation, the report said.

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