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"Container" cells, inhumane treatment! Immigrants are not goods!

Politiko 2025-04-12 15:57:24

"Container" cells, inhumane treatment! Immigrants are not goods!

By Eduard Halimi

In Albania, in an isolated area of ​​Gjadra, structures officially called "reception centers" for immigrants but which in reality are armored container cells. received the first 50 immigrants yesterday, according to an epic agreement for the lack of transparency between Italy and Albania.
Accompanied by handcuffs and over 80 Albanian and Italian police officers, the handcuffed immigrants will remain locked up in the container center for up to 180 days, under strict police control.
There is no court in Gjadra. There are no law offices or lawyers. They do not yet have an office where they have the right to seek asylum. They are in handcuffs and armored container cells, but not for any crime; they have not killed anyone, they have not stolen, they are not drug traffickers! Their only "guilt": they are poor, tired of their governments and the lack of a future in their countries, they have sacrificed, like many Albanians, for a better life.
Their children, mothers, sisters, brothers may have seen the images of them handcuffed, escorted to the prison with container cells in Gjadra. I don't believe they know anything about the agreement. We, the lawyers, know very little either. I don't know how they will explain to them and perhaps even to themselves that they have done nothing criminal, except for the desperate request for a better life, but a controversial political agreement between countries they do not know brought them to a member state of the Council of Europe, Albania, where they are seeking international protection.
Today they are located on Albanian soil, but according to the government, under Italian jurisdiction. An absurd construction, with cells where goods are kept, not human beings. An "innovative" agreement according to the Italian government and an epic compromise for international support for our government tired of scandals in 12 years.
• Decision 2/2024 – A heavy shadow over the justice of the Constitutional Court
Although with a strong lack of transparency, the agreement that the Italians call “innovative” was unsuccessfully challenged by the opposition in the Constitutional Court two years ago.
Yesterday, when they arrived, I started reading decision no. 2/2024, where the Constitutional Court refused to see the agreement as a human rights issue. The judicial majority decided that the “Albania-Italy” protocol “does not create new restrictions” and does not need ratification.
I have followed this issue closely. I have written before. The epic lack of transparency forced the GJK to orient itself according to the words of the deputies in the Laws Committee. They did not receive information. They did not see the camp, the containers. Neither did the deputies who signed them.
I had a very difficult time professionally accepting the reasoning in paragraph C.1.2, points 50 and following of the decision that the agreement does not affect human rights. I know many of the members of the Constitutional Court. But honestly, I had a hard time agreeing with them. How can it not be called a restriction of human rights when immigrants are locked up for 6 months in container cells, without a court decision, without the right to a lawyer or asylum? Do immigrants have the right to habeas corpus, to address a court against detention? Do they have the right to have a lawyer? How will they find one? Online? What about the asylum application online?
How could those members of the Constitutional Court or their advisors not have knowledge, or in the worst case, refuse to read the decisions of the ECHR that have spoken clearly:
• Hirsi Jamaa v. Italy (2012) – Italy was convicted of collective return of immigrants to Libya without individual assessment.
• MSS v. Belgium and Greece (2011) – detention and camp conditions were considered inhuman and degrading.
• Khlaifia v. Italy (2016) and Rahimi v. Greece (2011) – detention without due process and without access to legal protection is a systemic violation of the ECHR. Have you
read the “CoE Guide to the Rights of Migrants and Asylum Seekers”, which my colleague Bianku quotes in his article yesterday, regarding the conditions of detention and respect for fundamental rights?
It is true that the CoE and the ECHR have issued strong warnings against placing migrants in detention or detention facilities without due process and guarantees of rights and clearly emphasize that asylum seekers must have immediate access to legal aid, individual risk assessment and humane living conditions.
They all emphasize: people are not goods. They cannot be kept in container cells, escorted in handcuffs, and held in isolation awaiting deportation.
Therefore, decision 2/24 is deeply disturbing, with serious shadows over justice, as it denies reality by aiming at compromise towards the political pact and as such is a dangerous step towards an inhumane precedent and outside any international standard.
* "Container" cells: Masked prison
"Nemo alteri inferat quod ipse ferre nolit."
(Let no one inflict on another what he himself would not accept to endure.)
I belong to that class of people who have sensitivity towards immigrants. This has nothing to do only with my profession and passion for justice, but also with my people. My people, who have suffered inhuman treatment on their skin, who have half of their population abroad in emigration, once by ship, from the mountains, and today by raft to England. They do not flee out of desire, they do not abandon willingly; they flee for a better life, with sublime sacrifices. I belong to this people who do not know xenophobia, but know how to be sensitive because they remember their immigrant sister/brother, cousin, friend, friend. Therefore, the treatment of the immigrants who arrived yesterday causes in me a feeling of compassion, as well as revolt. Revolt also against the silence. Revolt also against those who approved this inhuman treatment in Albania. To those MPs and members of the Constitutional Court who approved it!
What did they think yesterday evening when they saw 50 unfortunate people in handcuffs heading to the "container" cells? Did they think as if they had their family in their bodies? As if their family members, or themselves, were there in the container cells? Not by doing nothing, like the unfortunate people who arrived yesterday, but as if they were accused of crimes? Did they listen to the mayor of Tirana who also committed political suicide by attacking the minister of justice, severely discrediting the media and the lawyers who helped him, just to avoid coming to the detention centers of Tirana, even though there are 3 and with much better conditions than the prison with container cells? Would they call the container cells "Alcatraz" if they themselves or their family members were isolated there? The term "reception center" is a cynical disguise. And I have been and am firm in my belief that no one can be treated inhumanely, even if accused of crimes, or convicted of anything, let alone the unfortunate ones who came and were shackled to be placed as if they were goods.
No. People are not goods. They are not stored in containers for 6 months. They have history, families, fears, dignity and rights. This dehumanizing treatment is offensive to the very foundations on which Europe was built after the Second World War.
But is it possible, under EU legislation on returns, to send someone against their will to a country where they do not originate or through which they have not passed? Mario Gulielmetti, professor in migration issues, says NO. “An agreement with a third country would be a necessary precondition for the implementation of this scenario, as would a review of EU rules. The risk of violating the principle of non-refoulement is high. Scenario three poses major legal and practical challenges. It is questionable whether this scenario is compatible with EU values.”
“Container cells are a symbol of failure” – writes the famous Italian colleague Nicola Canestrini – a system that is unable to manage its crisis in a humane and rights-respecting manner.
*​Conclusions
I know that politics is the art of compromise, but I have long been proud to be free. Free to express, to speak and to say what I feel. And the treatment of immigrants as goods is outrageous.
There is no fair interpretation of the Constitution when containers replace freedom. When silence replaces justice.
"Prison should not be transformed into a space of humiliation for anyone. We need a justice system rooted in dignity, not in dehumanization".
And for this we will have to speak out and not remain silent in the face of this inhuman treatment, for anyone, but today it was the turn of the unfortunate immigrants placed in container cells".

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