��������

LONDON: European visa systems in the Schengen area are prohibitively strict for human rights figures seeking to enter the continent from impoverished and dangerous parts of the world, Amnesty International has said.

In a report, the organization called on Schenghen states to close the obstacles to rights and values that they claim to uphold.

The report identified 104 visa-restricted countries — mainly in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East — where human rights figures face substantial difficulty in accessing short-term European visas.

The applicants intend to travel to the 29 Schengen states in Europe for advocacy, networking, or to flee danger in their home countries, Amnesty said.

But through Schengen policies, they face “indirect discrimination” and are racialized as Black, Asian and Muslim, resulting in negative impacts on their mobility.

Erika Guevara Rosas, senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns at Amnesty, said: “The inability to access Schengen visas means that the voices and testimonies of human rights defenders from countries in the Global South are excluded from forums where decisions that deeply affect their lives are made.

“While Schengen states are entitled to decide who enters their territory, the impact of their visa systems on human rights defenders from 104 countries represents a clear disconnect between what they have committed to, through their guidelines and other commitments to protect human rights defenders, and what they actually do.”

Amnesty identified key barriers to entry for applicants seeking visas from the 104 countries. The first is deciding where to submit a visa application; many Schengen states lack diplomatic representations or agreements with the visa-restricted countries, meaning applicants must travel abroad to file their documents, the organization said.

Supporting documents also present another hurdle, as many applicants are from marginalized groups and lack the appropriate financial and employment statements, Amnesty added.

Schengen states can turn to the revised version of the EU Visa Handbook, published by the European Commission last year, for welcome changes to visa policy, Amnesty said.

The updated guidelines include practical examples of how Schengen states can aid visa applications by human rights figures.

The handbook should be “well disseminated and fully implemented,” including among visa officers outside Europe, the organization said.

Amnesty also called for the creation of a fast-track visa system designed for human rights activists outside Europe.

Rosas said: “Ensuring that human rights defenders have access to short-stay Schengen visas in a reliable, predictable, transparent and timely manner is indispensable to realize their right to defend rights without discrimination.”

In its report, Amnesty spoke to 42 international organizations, within and outside Europe, which have facilitated the journeys of hundreds of human rights figures to the Schengen area.

It also gathered testimonies from 32 human rights activists with firsthand experience of European visa processes.

GENEVA: The United Nations on Friday urged the United States to halt strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific allegedly carrying drug traffickers, and to prevent “extrajudicial killings.”

US strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific in recent weeks have killed at least 62 people on boats that Washington claims were ferrying drugs. Family members and victims’ governments have said some of them were fishermen.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said these people had been killed “in circumstances that find no justification in international law.”

“These attacks – and their mounting human cost – are unacceptable,” he said in a statement.

“The US must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats, whatever the criminal conduct alleged against them.”

President Donald Trump’s administration has said in a notice to Congress that the United States is engaged in “armed conflict” with Latin American drug cartels, describing them as terrorist groups as part of its justification for the strikes.

Tensions are mounting in the region with Trump saying he has authorized CIA operations in Venezuela, and that he is considering ground attacks against alleged drug cartels in the country.

“Countering the serious issue of illicit trafficking of drugs across international borders is – as has long been agreed among states – a law-enforcement matter, governed by the careful limits on lethal force set out in international human rights law,” Turk said.

“Under international human rights law, the intentional use of lethal force is only permissible as a last resort against individuals who pose an imminent threat to life.”

Turk stressed that “based on the very sparse information provided publicly by the US authorities, none of the individuals on the targeted boats appeared to pose an imminent threat to the lives of others or otherwise justified the use of lethal armed force against them under international law.”

He called for “prompt, independent, and transparent investigations into these attacks.”