On 18 October 2021, refugees and asylum seekers detained at Melbourne’s Park Hotel held a protest against their detention at the hotel during a COVID-19 outbreak. The detained decried their shared sleeping quarters, cramped eating and recreation spaces, and the fact that many of them are medically vulnerable. Three positive cases had been confirmed and […]
Detention Blog
Libya: Covid-19 and Detention
There have been numerous recent reports of mass raids targeting migrants and asylum seekers across Libya, resulting in thousands of people being detained in western Libya during the first week of October. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), 5,152 migrants were detained in the raids, which were described by Libyan authorities as part […]
Lithuania: Covid-19 and Detention
In July 2021, Lithuania accused Belarus of using vulnerable migrants and asylum seekers as political pawns in its ongoing spat with the EU by pushing them across the border into Lithuania and other neighbouring countries. The EU had previously imposed sanctions on Belarus in June over an “escalation of serious human rights violations and the […]
Libya: Covid-19 and Detention
The UN’s Independent Fact-Finding Mission to Libya has found that over the past five years, numerous official agencies and non-state actors have committed such extreme levels of violence and human rights abuses that there are reasonable grounds for concluding that war crimes have been committed as well as crimes against humanity. The mission, which based […]
Greece: Covid-19 and Detention
On 18 September 2021, Greece opened the first of five new facilities to confine asylum seekers and migrants on the Island of Samos, close to the border with Turkey. Similar facilities are planned on the islands of Leros, Lesbos, Kos, and Chios. Fully funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund of the European Union, […]
Australia: Covid-19 and Detention
Previously one of the countries in the world least affected by COVID-19, Australia has been struggling to contain outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant across the country over recent months. The States of New South Wales, Victoria and Canberra have all experienced extended periods of lockdown over the past weeks. Immigration detention centres have […]
Egypt: Covid-19 and Detention
On 10 September, reports from human rights groups and independent journalists began circulating about Egypt’s efforts to remove two asylum seekers who had been detained for several years but who had purportedly been cleared for deporation back to Eritrea–in violation of Egypt’s international treaty obligations–where they would likely face torture and possibly execution. According to […]
![“A woman measuring the body temperature of a man after having entered through the gate into al-Qanater prison on 27 December, 2020 [KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images]” Middle East Monitor, “Egypt denies allegations of covid outbreak in prisons,” 6 January 2021, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210106-egypt-denies-allegations-of-covid-outbreak-in-prisons/](https://globaldetentionproject.org:3000/api/gdpUploadFiles/sources/download/Qanater-Prison-December-2020.jpeg)
Poland: Covid-19 and Detention
Poland has experienced important reductions in the number of arriving asylum seekers since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: in 2020, there were 2,803 asylum applications, compared with 4,096 in 2019. According to the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, as of 1 January 2021, there were 1,319 persons holding valid residence cards for refugees, […]
Afghanistan: Covid-19 and Detention
The plight of Afghan migrants and asylum seekers in deportation procedures across the globe has received renewed attention since U.S. and other international military forces completed their evacuations from the country in August 2021, effectively ceding control of the country to the Taliban. In recognition of the vulnerabilities these people would face back in Afghanistan, […]
Italy: Covid-19 and Detention
The Italian statistics bureau (Instituto Nazionale di Statistica) reported in July that the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a more than 30 percent decrease of migration entries in 2020 in comparison to the annual averages from the previous five years. On the other hand, by April 2021, Italy experienced more than 5,300 migrant and refugee […]
