Advocacy groups have filed a complaint against Ghana at West Africa’s highest human rights court, accusing the country of assisting the United States in deporting people to countries where they could face persecution, torture, or other serious harm.
The complaint was filed on Monday at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice in Abuja on behalf of 27 of at least 60 deportees sent to Ghana since September under Washington’s “third-country” removal policy. The policy is used for individuals whom US judges have ruled cannot be deported directly to their home countries because of the risks they face there.
According to the complaint, the deportees informed Ghanaian authorities that they had been granted legal protections in the United States. Despite this, most were deported from Ghana within hours or days of their arrival and sent back to the countries they had originally fled. Others were left stranded in third countries without the means to continue their journeys.
Under the US third-country removal policy, individuals who cannot legally be returned to their home countries because US courts have determined they would likely face torture, persecution, or other serious human rights abuses are instead deported to third countries.
“No person should be returned to a place where they face persecution, torture or serious threats to their dignity and safety,” said Oliver Barker-Vormawor, senior partner at the Ghanaian law firm Merton & Everett LLP.
The lawsuit was filed by Merton & Everett LLP in collaboration with Cornell Law School’s Transnational Disputes Clinic and the Global Strategic Litigation Council, a coalition of non-governmental organisations.
The ECOWAS Court of Justice serves as the highest judicial body of the 12 member regional bloc.
Deportees ‘Hiding in Their Home Countries’ or Living in ‘Limbo’
The complaint alleges that Ghana violated both domestic and regional laws by facilitating the removal of deportees to countries deemed unsafe, according to a statement issued by the advocacy groups.
While Ghana has confirmed that its agreement with the United States applies to West African nationals, it has not disclosed the terms of the arrangement. Shortly after the agreement came into effect, the US lifted visa restrictions it had previously imposed on Ghana.
The advocacy groups are asking the court to compel Ghana to make the agreement public and prevent it from accepting any future deportees under the deal.
Earlier in June, a similar case was filed before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights seeking to halt US deportations to Equatorial Guinea, another country used as a transit point for African deportees.
That case was brought on behalf of 14 deportees, several of whom remain detained in Equatorial Guinea under conditions the complaint describes as “amounting to arbitrary and indefinite detention.”
In the Ghana case, the advocacy groups said none of the 27 deportees remained in the country.
“Many now remain in hiding in their home countries or have fled to third countries where they wait in limbo,” the complaint states.
Beatrice Njeri, a litigator for the Global Strategic Litigation Council representing the deportees, told Reuters that the legal action is also intended to discourage other ECOWAS member states from entering into similar deportation agreements with the Trump administration.
The group is seeking at least $100,000 in compensation for each deportee from Ghana, in addition to other forms of reparations.
Source: Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and Reuters
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