After a visit to Kybartai Foreigners’ Registration Centre (FRC), the Head of the Seimas Ombudsmen’s Office Erika Leonaitė published a report on the conditions in which Lithuania keeps asylum seekers.
“Taking into account the circumstances established during monitoring visits regarding the human rights situation of foreigners held in Kybartai FRC, as well as relevant international standards and legal acts in force in the Republic of Lithuania, the Seimas Ombudsperson concludes that the conditions of foreigners in Kybartai FRC are equivalent to inhuman or degrading treatment,” the office said in a statement on Monday evening.
Such treatment is “prohibited under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment”, it added.
According to the report, the nature and degree of restrictions applied to foreigners accommodated in Kybartai FRC “are equivalent to detention”.
Asylum seekers in Kybartai FCC sector A, the biggest in the facility, are kept in “significantly smaller living space than the minimum requirement per person”, lack privacy, are subjected to strict restrictions on movement and lack of hygiene, according to the report.
Moreover, Leonaitė pointed out that “the right of foreigners to be informed about their rights and obligations, the decisions made regarding them, and access to legal aid is not adequately guaranteed; therefore, foreigners are often in ignorance”.
According to the Seimas Ombudsperson, the state must ensure that migrants are provided with at least minimum conditions that meet their human dignity.
“While visiting Kybartai with the team, we met people of different nationalities, cultures, and backgrounds, held in crowded conditions without even the slightest degree of privacy, suffering from uncertainty about their future,” Leonaitė said in the statement.
The visits of the Seimas Ombudsperson and the employees of the Human Rights Division of the Seimas Ombudsmen’s Office to Kybartai FRC were carried out on 14-16 December 2021, 22-23 December 2021, and on 12 January 2022.
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