Anyone who thinks refugee camps are a good idea has never lived in one: The importance of recognising refugees’ right to freedom of movement

Published: 25 Mar 2015

Freedom of movement is a critically important refugee right, and nearly all others are contingent upon it. Without freedom of movement, rights to employment, education, legal access, identity papers, travel documents, naturalisation, and many other fundamental entitlements are severely curtailed, if not completely blocked. This right is repeatedly articulated in international law, reiterated in domestic…

IRRI and other rights groups call on Egypt to end arbitrary detention of refugees

Published: 16 Mar 2015

(16 March 2015) Since February 9, 2015 a group of at least 30 Syrian, Palestinian-Syrian and Somali refugees detained at Karmooz police station in Alexandria – Egypt, began an open hunger strike to protest against their arbitrary detention. The refugees have been kept in continuous detention after receiving a deportation order by Egypt’s Homeland Security…

Release Human Rights Defender Christopher Ngoyi Mutamba

Published: 3 Mar 2015

The International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) was concerned to learn of the arrest, on the 21 January 2014, of Christopher Ngoyi Mutamba by part of the presidential guard while with fellow activists in an outdoor bar in Kinshasa. Mr. Ngoyi, a well-known and well respected human rights defender and the president of the NGO Synergie…