Media briefing: the human rights reality of Britain's favourite holiday destinations

‘Behind the sparkling seas, the luxurious hotels and picturesque landscapes, there’s a darker world of tragedy and human rights abuse’ - Kate Allen

The following is a short briefing on some of the key human rights issues affecting the most popular holiday destinations for UK holidaymakers.

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:

“Holidays are a time to relax and forget about life’s headaches, and we’re not expecting people to anxiously research the human rights situation of their holiday destinations.

“But behind the sparkling seas, the luxurious hotels and picturesque landscapes, there’s a darker reality of tragedy and human rights abuse.

“Holidaymakers may want to forget about hardship and injustice and that’s understandable - but when the tan has faded and the holiday photos are filed away, this is a good time to engage with the issues that affect the locals long after the tourists have gone home.”

TOP TEN COUNTRIES VISITED BY UK TOURISTS

1: SPAIN

Number of British visitors in 2012: 11,110,000

Leading attractions: Antoni Gaudí’s distinctive architecture at Barcelona’s Park Güell, the Sagrada Familia cathedral and the Casa Batlló; the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia contemporary art museum in Madrid; Granada’s Moorish Alhambra palace complex; the lively, and less lively, beach resorts along much of Spain’s coast.

 

Human rights concerns:

• Excessive use of force by police during austerity protests.

• Lack of justice for victims - and their relatives - of the Franco dictatorship.

• Roma people forcibly evicted from their homes without adequate alternative accommodation.

Case: On 11 July last year a freelance journalist, Paloma Aznar, was hit by a rubber bullet and injured while covering miners’ demonstrations in Madrid. She was wearing her journalist tag with her camera round her neck. She said police were not wearing any visible identification and were shooting rubber bullets directly at the crowd after some demonstrators became violent. Video footage showed police using batons against people lying on the pavement and firing rubber bullets at close range.

2: FRANCE

Number of British visitors in 2012: 8,781,000

Leading attractions: the iconic Eiffel Tower, the Musée du Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur and the Cathédrale de Notre Dame de Paris, all in Paris; the French Riviera.

Human rights concerns:

• Investigations into allegations of deaths in custody, torture and other ill-treatment by police are ineffective and inadequate.

• Since 2011 France has enforced a ban on the wearing of veils and burqas in public places, which Amnesty believes is an infringement of the rights of women in France to express their values, beliefs and identity.

• Thousands of Roma people have been left homeless after being forcibly evicted from informal settlements.

• The fast-track procedure for the assessment of asylum applications falls short of international standards.

Case: Mohamed Boukrourou, a 41-year-old Moroccan man, died soon after being arrested in Valentigney (Doubs) on 12 November 2009 after he’d become agitated in a chemist’s shop. Reportedly, four police officers restrained Boukrourou on the ground outside the chemist’s before carrying him into a police van. A witness said she saw the police stamping on Boukrourou inside the van, as well as kicking and beating him. Soon after a doctor declared Boukrourou dead and the same evening police told family members that he’d died of a heart attack following an accident. Despite prolonged efforts from the family there has been no proper accountability in the case.

3: UNITED STATES

Number of British visitors in 2012: 3,011,000

Leading attractions: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manhattan’s vast Central Park, and the High Line Public Park, all in New York City; the Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles’ Venice Boardwalk.

Human rights concerns:

• The USA is a major user of capital punishment and last year 43 people were executed, the fifth highest number anywhere in the world.

• The US authorities are still holding 166 detainees at the notorious detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. The vast majority have not been charged with an offence and most have been there for over ten years.

• At least 42 people across 20 US states died after being struck by police Tasers last year, bringing the total number of such deaths to 540 since 2001.

• Thousands of prisoners in the USA are held in solitary confinement in “super-maximum security” prisons, confined to small cells for 22-24 hours a day.

Cases: former UK resident Shaker Aamer, 44, has been held at Guantánamo Bay without charge or trial for 11-and-a-half years. Via his lawyers, Aamer has alleged he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including severe beatings, while held in secret US detention in Afghanistan in early 2002, and claims he has been further mistreated at Guantánamo. Along with over 100 other Guantánamo detainees, he has reportedly been on hunger strike for several months to protest at his continued detention.

4: IRELAND

Number of British visitors in 2012: 2,827,000

Leading attractions: the Guinness Storehouse brewery, St Stephen’s Green Park, and the Old Library, all in Dublin; the West Coast and the picturesque city of Galway.

Human rights concerns:

• Abortion is criminalised in Ireland, although a bill was passed very recently (The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill) to amend the law to allow access to abortion in extremely limited circumstances: where this a "real and substantial" risk to a woman's life, including from the threat of suicide. In all other circumstances, abortion remains criminalised.

• Prisons have been criticised for their overcrowding, for lack of in-cell sanitation and health care, and for violence between prisoners in some facilities. People with severe mental health issues have also been kept in prisons.

• Ireland has been criticised for “significant delays” in processing asylum applications.

Case: last year 32-year-old Savita Halappanavar died after being refused an abortion despite being in a life-threatening medical condition. Savita was admitted to hospital in Galway in October 2012 while miscarrying. Her request for an abortion was denied and a week later she died from septicaemia. The case led to widespread protests in Ireland, the UK, India and elsewhere. Subsequently the Irish Parliament passed the controversial amendment to the law mentioned above.

5: ITALY

Number of British visitors in 2012: 2,630,000

Leading attractions: the Colosseum and the Trevi Fountain in Rome; Vatican City’s St Peter’s Basilica Church; the canals of Venice, and the world-class art galleries of Florence. 

Human rights concerns:

• Roma people have been the victims of forced evictions by the authorities.

• Conditions in detention centres for irregular migrants are well below international standards. Migrant workers are exploited and vulnerable to abuses.

• Italy has no systematic measures to prevent human rights violations by police or to ensure accountability for them.

• The country’s Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex marriages conducted overseas have no standing in the Italian legal system.

Case: “Sunny” (not his real name) - an undocumented Indian migrant worker in the Lazio region who works without a contract - told Amnesty: “I work 9-10 hours a day from Monday to Saturday, then five hours on Sunday morning, for three Euros an hour. The employer should pay me 600-700 Euros a month and my plan was to send 500 Euros a month to my father, mother and sister in India. However, the employer has not been paying me my full salary for the past seven months. He gives me just 100 Euros a month for living expenses. My family in India had to ask for money from other families.”

6: GERMANY

Number of British visitors in 2012: 2,307,000

Leading attractions: the Reichstag in Berlin; the DDR and Jewish museums and the recently deserted Kunsthaus Tacheles art squat, also in Berlin; Cologne cathedral; Munich’s Oktoberfest.

Human rights concerns:

• There are concerns about the police’s use of excessive force against protesters and discriminatory behaviour toward people from ethnic minorities in Germany.

• The government has flouted international law by requesting “diplomatic assurances” as an apparent means to circumnavigate the international prohibition over sending people to countries where they face a risk of torture.

• Amnesty has criticised the country’s inadequate asylum system, particularly its use of fast-track measures at airports.

Case: Khaled el-Masri, a 44-year-old German national of Lebanese origin, was a victim of the CIA-led rendition programme when he was seized while on a trip to Macedonia in 2003. He was taken to Afghanistan and allegedly tortured in a US-run prison near Kabul airport. During his ordeal el-Masri says he was interrogated by a native German-speaker who identified himself only as “Sam”. Though a parliamentary inquiry was later set up to look into his case, the German government failed to disclose all the documents related to affair. None of the individuals against whom there is evidence of involvement in el-Masri’s case have been held publicly accountable.

7: PORTUGAL

Number of British visitors in 2012: 1,900,000

Leading attractions: Riverside precinct Belém, the wide avenues of the Baixa district, the hilltop fortifications of Castelo de São Jorge, the Jardim da Estrela garden, all in Lisbon; and Cascais’ Guincho beach.

Human rights concerns:

• There have been reports of excessive use of force by the police against demonstrators and Roma people.

• The police have also been accused of ill-treating people held police custody.

• Domestic violence is a serious concern, with a reported increase in complaints by elderly victims of domestic violence.

Case: in March last year the police reportedly used excessive force against peaceful demonstrators during anti-austerity protests. Two journalists received medical treatment after allegedly being beaten by police at a demonstration in Lisbon.

8: NETHERLANDS

Number of British visitors in 2012: 1,900,000

Leading attractions: the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House Museum, House of Bols Dutch Gin Museum, the sprawling Vondelpark, and the former convent Begijnhof, all in Amsterdam; Rotterdam’s famous harbour, and cycling holidays in the Dutch countryside.

Human rights concerns:

• There is excessive use of immigration detention centres, where conditions largely mirror those in criminal detention facilities.

• Last October the coalition government proposed a partial ban on the wearing of full-face veils by women on public transport and in health centres, school and government buildings. This raised concerns that the prohibition would violate the freedoms of expression and religion of women who choose to wear the burqa or niqab as an expression of their identity or beliefs.

• Amnesty is concerned about the use of discriminatory practices by law-enforcement officials, such as ethnic profiling.

Case: in 2010 the Dutch authorities attempted to forcibly return an unspecified number of people to Baghdad despite serious dangers posed by ongoing insecurity and instability in Iraq. The attempt was only averted after an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights, with the court writing to the Dutch government about the issue. The Dutch parliament initially voted to ignore the European Court but a government minister later said it would comply with it.

9: GREECE

Number of British visitors in 2012: 1,824,000

Leading attractions: the Acropolis in Athens; the archaeological sites of Delphi and Delos; the Aegean and Mediterranean islands; and the ruins of Knossos in Crete.

Human rights concerns:

• Migrants and asylum-seekers face serious obstacles in registering their asylum applications and are often detained in squalid conditions for many months.

• Hate crimes on the basis of race and ethnicity have increased dramatically in the last year or so.

• Roma children are segregated or excluded from education in Greece, while Roma families have been evicted or threatened with eviction from their settlements.

• Gay rights activists say that homophobic violence has recently increased in Athens, with victims reporting that their attackers were members of extreme right-wing groups, including individuals from the far-right Golden Dawn party.

Case: there have been violent attacks against migrants and asylum-seekers, their homes, shops and unofficial places of worship. In August last year, an Iraqi national was fatally stabbed; a criminal investigation was ordered but no perpetrator was identified.

10: BELGIUM

Number of British visitors in 2012: 1,664,000

Leading attractions: the Grand Place central square, the Musée Magritte, the pedestrianised Rue des Bouchers and the Musée d’Art Ancien, all in Brussels; the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp.

Human rights concerns:

• Last year the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Belgium had violated the right to liberty and security of “L.B.”, a man with mental health problems, by detaining him for over seven years in prison facilities which were inadequate for his condition. There are also concerns at overcrowding and poor sanitary facilities in many Belgian prisons.

• The country has a discriminatory law criminalising the concealing of the face in public (a “veil ban”).

• Last year the European Committee of Social Rights said that Belgium had violated the non-discrimination clause of the European Social Charter in relation to the inadequate provision of sites for Travellers.

Case: the Belgian government has been criticised for using evidence that may have been obtained by torture in the trial of a terrorism suspect called Lahoucine El Haski. He was convicted in 2006 of participating in terrorist activities on the basis of testimonies of witnesses interrogated in third countries, including Morocco. Last year the European Court of Human Rights found that there was a “real risk” that statements used against him from Morocco may have been obtained through torture or other ill-treatment, and that the Belgian courts should have excluded such evidence.

SOME OF THE WORLD’S OTHER FAVOURITE DESTINATIONS

MALDIVES

Number of International tourist arrivals in 2012: 958,000

Almost three times more people visited the Maldives last year than actually live there (the country has a population of 330,000), and tourism is the country’s largest economic industry. It is particularly popular with honeymooners.

Leading attractions: apart from the beaches … Maldives’ oldest mosque Hukuru Miskiiy, the National Art Gallery, the National Stadium, and the Sultan’s Park which surrounds the National Museum, all in the capital city of Malé.

Human rights concerns:

• In a report issued last year called “The other side of paradise”, Amnesty documented attacks carried out by the police using truncheons and pepper-spray to crack down on largely peaceful demonstrations.

• There are reports that detainees have been tortured.

• In May this year two juvenile offenders were sentenced to death despite this being contrary to international law.

Case: in a notorious case from earlier this year, a 15-year-old girl believed to have been raped by her step-father was charged with fornication and sentenced to a flogging sentence of 100 lashes. After an international outcry, the Maldivian government said it recognised that the girl was a victim of sexual abuse and that her rights would be “fully protected”.

SRI LANKA

Number of International tourist arrivals in 2012: 1,006,000

Leading attractions: apart from the beaches … Colombo’s Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara Buddhist temple, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy, Yala National Park, Anuradhapura’s sacred Bodhi tree the Sri Maha Bodhi, and the spectacular World’s End viewpoint in Horton Plains National Park.

Human rights concerns:

• Despite mounting evidence that government forces carried out mass war crimes as their troops crushed the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) at the end of the decades-long civil war in 2009, there has been no independent investigation into these events, some of which took place on or near the beaches of north-eastern Sri Lanka.

• Unlawful detentions, torture and enforced disappearances are rife.

• The authorities use a controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act to detain people for lengthy periods without charge or trial.

• In November Sri Lanka will host the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting and Amnesty is calling on President Mahinda Rajapaksa to address human rights before the meeting takes place (see the six-point plan recommended by Amnesty: http://campaigns.amnesty.org/campaigns/security-with-human-rights/tell-the-truth).

Case: Prageeth Eknaligoda, a Sri Lankan journalist, cartoonist and political analyst, has been missing since he left work in January 2010, just days before the country’s last presidential election. He had been critical of the government before his disappearance. A white van was reportedly seen by local residents at the time Eknaligoda disappeared. “White van kidnappings” are notorious in Sri Lanka and are often associated with silencing critical voices.

Meanwhile, the UNITED KINGDOM is ranked as the world’s eighth-most popular destination, with 29.3 million visitors in 2012.

Leading attractions: the National and Tate galleries, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the 2012 Olympic Park, all in London; an abundance of castles including Cardiff, Edinburgh, Windsor; the historic university cities of Oxford and Cambridge; the Lake District, Peak District and the Cotswolds.

Human rights concerns:

• The highly controversial Justice and Security Act (allowing “secret courts”) recently passed into law despite opposition from hundreds of lawyers and numerous human rights organisations. Amnesty said the measures are an affront to the principles of open justice and are “Kafkaesque”.

• The recently-enacted Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act has raised fears that changes to legal aid will seriously restrict access to justice, particularly for overseas victims of abuses by UK multinational companies.

• Toxic language about human rights in the UK is common. While often lauding human rights in a foreign context, some politicians treat them with contempt at home, as do sections of the media. In some quarters there has been an almost continuous drumbeat of threats to “scrap the Human Rights Act” and to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.

Case: a 43-year-old - who can only be publicly identified as “G” - has been subjected to detention or required to live under highly restrictive conditions over a ten-year period, based in large part on secret evidence he has never seen. “G” told Amnesty: “I want justice: the opportunity to defend myself, in a fair trial […] I am not even allowed to know the evidence the state claims to have against me.”

Note to editors:

All UK tourist figures are from the Office of National Statistics.

The international tourism figures are from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation.

The tourist attractions listed includes information from the Lonely Planet guide.