Human Rights Watch respectfully presents your government with the enclosed briefing paper: 'Iraqi Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Displaced Persons: Current Conditions and Concerns in the Event of War' (February 13, 2003). Human Rights Watch does not take a position on the legal justifiability of war, including possible U.S.-led military action in Iraq. Our work in conflict situations focuses on the potential harm to civilians. In this vein, we prepared this paper at this critical juncture, to brief the media and public, and to remind relevant governments of their duties to protect and assist Iraqi refugees and displaced persons. Now is the time when humanitarian planning to minimize the harm of a possible armed conflict in Iraq can and should be undertaken. Such planning should include full respect for the human rights of all Iraqis - including those already seeking or enjoying asylum in Europe.

In particular, we would like to draw your attention to the recommendations addressed to "governments outside the region" and to "donor governments and intergovernmental humanitarian agencies." In this letter, we summarize these recommendations and comment on additional information received since the issuance of the enclosed briefing paper. We invite your government to share with Human Rights Watch any information or comments relating to these recommendations or to other steps you may currently be taking to prepare for a possible refugee crisis in the Middle East.

Barriers to entry in Europe and treatment of Iraqi asylum seekers
If widespread forced displacement occurs as a result of conflict in Iraq, then barriers preventing asylum seekers from reaching western Europe - where individual refugees may, for example, have family members - should be lifted as far as possible. Interdicted boats carrying Iraqi migrants in the Mediterranean, for example, should not be returned to their point of embarkation but received into Europe. We also urge all European governments to ensure that Iraqi asylum seekers arriving by air, sea or land are not detained, except in exceptional circumstances and in accordance with international standards. Nor should they be excluded from refugee status except in accordance with the specific and limited provisions of the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention).

Iraqi asylum seekers in your territory should have their claims processed as normal, as long as practicably possible. At present, there are no grounds for suspension of asylum processing, or for delaying the issuance of Iraqi asylum decisions. We would be grateful to receive your assurances that such suspension or deliberate delay is not in fact occurring.

Temporary protection and increased resettlement
Human Rights Watch urges the European Union Council of Ministers to activate its Directive on temporary protection only when there is an imminent or actual threat of European asylum systems being overwhelmed by new Iraqi applicants. It would be helpful at this time if your government could clarify its interpretation of what might constitute an "imminent" refugee influx in the context of a possible conflict in Iraq.

With or without activation of the E.U. Directive, each European government should now be preparing to offer possible emergency evacuation/resettlement places, additional to any annual quotas, which may be required either to meet the protection needs of particularly vulnerable Iraqis or if protection in any part of the region should prove ineffective. We believe that positive political leadership on the part of your government - explaining to your constituents the possible humanitarian necessity for such resettlement and urging them to welcome Iraqi refugees and asylum seekers with generosity and respect, rather than fear - would play a decisive role in the success of such a resettlement program.

Suspension of returns to Iraq
In addition, any returns of Iraqis to their region, on "safe third country" or similar grounds, should be suspended as a matter of both principle and pragmatism. We are deeply concerned about the implications of proposals made by the U.K. government to return all asylum seekers to "regional protection centers," in, among other countries, Turkey. These proposals would shift the responsibility of refugee protection to the countries in Europe least well suited to shouldering the burden. They are particularly alarming against the backdrop of a potentially large-scale humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

If armed conflict should occur, Human Rights Watch recommends that any policy permitting return of rejected asylum seekers to northern Iraq or to any other part of the country should be suspended for at least the duration of the conflict, and that subsidiary status should be granted to persons in need of protection but falling outside the scope of the U.N. Refugee Convention. In the event that your government decides to suspend processing of all Iraqi claims during the conflict, we would urge you to make every effort to grant those asylum seekers an adequate level of rights, including freedom of movement, during their wait in your country.

When - and if - the end of a possible conflict in Iraq may allow for return of rejected asylum seekers, and/or individuals with temporary protection, all Iraqis must have the right to lodge new asylum claims relating to any possible changed circumstances in Iraq, and they should be provided with full access to independent sources of information concerning human rights conditions in their home area when making such claims. No forced returns of refugees or persons who received temporary protection should be contemplated until conditions allow for voluntary return in true safety and dignity.

Assistance to countries neighboring Iraq, in particular Turkey and Iran
In addition, we ask European governments to provide countries neighboring Iraq, particularly Iran and Turkey, with every possible incentive to accept refugees who may arrive at their frontiers. Clear commitments of substantial material support should be made immediately, so that these countries will have the confidence to deliver protection from day one and for as long as it is necessary.

The Iranian government continues to express a strong preference for assisting displaced Iraqis on the Iraqi side of the border, and we are extremely concerned that Iranian border guards should not forcibly turn back people approaching the border with the likely wish to seek international protection. It is a welcome development, however, that Iran is also reportedly arranging for nineteen refugee camps to be established on Iranian territory. European governments should now be playing an active role in assisting with this important preparatory work. Through this assistance, they should try to ensure: that there are contingency plans in case the camp locations, within only a few kilometers of the Iraqi border, come under threat; that refugees' rights, including those of women and children, will be respected within the camps; and that Iran's longer-standing Iraqi refugee population, living mainly in urban centers, will not become subject to forced encampment or increased discrimination during any crisis.

We also urge your government to press Turkey to accept asylum seekers at its border with Iraq, today and in the event of war. The Turkish authorities say that they will keep their borders closed to refugees and will establish centers for receiving internally displaced persons in Northern Iraq, clearly as a pre-emptive alternative to refugee protection in Turkey. Human Rights Watch is concerned that border closures may exacerbate Turkey's egregious record of abusive treatment of asylum seekers and migrants at border crossings. In 2001, Turkish officials forcibly returned ninety-three asylum seekers and three recognized refugees to a place where they were unsafe. Between November 2001 and January 2002 at Turkish borders, at least four asylum seekers were shot and killed by Turkish border police, twenty-six froze to death in remote mountain crossings, and scores were drowned.

Moreover, since issuing the enclosed briefing paper, Human Rights Watch has received further disturbing reports from Turkey that five hundred village guards are being trained under the name of "Lightning Group" (Simsekler Grubu) for service in Northern Iraq, possibly at the centers for internally displaced persons/ would-be refugees. The Turkish parliamentary commissions on unsolved political killings and internal migration recommended the abolition of these guards, as has the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Committee on Migration, Refugees and Demography. The village guard system is allegedly implicated in a wide variety of crimes and human rights violations, including drug smuggling, abduction, extortion, rape, killings and "disappearances." In the past eight months alone, a period of relative calm, village guards have shot and killed three returning villagers in Nurettin village, Mus, in July 2002, and two returning villagers and one child in Ugrak, Diyarbakir, in September 2002. The Turkish government should not be allowed to use paramilitary forces such as village guards in Northern Iraq, and especially not in the management of refugee movements. Furthermore, no assistance offered to internally displaced persons should be used as justification for refoulement or closed borders, or to prevent displaced persons from seeking international protection.

In light of such information and the likelihood of other protection failures occurring in a volatile region, we urge your government to regard access to asylum in Europe as a vital component in the international response to a possible Iraqi crisis. We urge you to read the enclosed briefing paper and to act upon those recommendations relating to your own refugee and immigration policies.

We look forward to constructive dialogue with you and your colleagues on these issues as events in the Middle East unfold.

Yours sincerely,