[JURIST] Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] on Thursday condemned Netherlands’ attempts to return Somali refugees [PDF] to areas controlled by Islamist terrorist group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (al-Shabaab) [NCTC backgrounder]. The report noted critically that Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK have also attempted forced returns to Somalia, but was particularly critical of Netherlands for its willingness to send failed asylum-seekers from Somalia back to conflict areas. Al-Shabaab, a radical Islamist group with affiliations to al Qaeda [JURIST news archives], is actively engaged in conflict with African Union [official website] and Somali troops. AI maintains that sending Somalis to areas under active control by al-Shabaab is a violation of international law, which requires that states must not return people to areas where their lives or freedoms are at real risk.

Somalia has struggled to stabilize after the collapse of its government in 1991. In the words of JURIST Guest Columnist Stoyan Panov, Somalia had been ravaged by an endemic, wide-spread internal conflict [JURIST op-ed] for more than 20 years. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in April urged Somali authorities to place a moratorium on the death penalty [JURIST report] after the execution of a man nine days after he allegedly murdered a town elder. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees released a report in March detailing the asylum trends in industrialized countries in 2013, indicating that Somalia was a top ten refugee origination zone [JURIST report]. Human Rights Watch released a report entitled “Here, Rape is Normal” in February, urging the Somali government to adopt reforms to help prevent sexual violence against women and provide support for victims.