• Left parties press for ‘urgent & immediate’ access for refugees
• Gov’t critics say right to asylum being denied those held in Ceuta, Melilla
Spain’s Congress of Deputies in Madrid is set to vote on Tuesday Oct 13th on a motion by left parties calling for the “urgent and immediate” transfer to mainland Spain of some 1,500 refugees and asylum seekers being held in Spain’s north-African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
The motion, put forward by the Izquierda Plural (IU-ICV-CHA) group of deputies, will call on the government to immediately put into place measures that will guarantee the right to asylum along with the regulatory framework for Spain’s Law of Asylum, the implementation of which has been stalled since 2009. The current regulatory framework dates to 1985.
The Izquierda Plural motion is in line with proposals submitted to Congress by leading immigration reform and pro-refugee organizations in Spain, including Médicos Sin Fronteras (Doctors Without Borders), CEAR (Spanish Commission for Aid to Refugees), Intermón Oxfam and the Servicio Jesuita a Migrantes (Jesuit Migrant Service), who have called on the government to proceed with its commitments to welcome and attend to the needs of immmigrants, especially those fleeing from armed conflicts in Syria and elsewhere.
Read full story in Spanish at Europa Press >>
