The human rights of Britain’s favourite holiday destinations

"Behind the sparkling seas, the luxurious hotels and picturesque landscapes, there’s a darker world of tragedy and human rights abuse" – Amnesty International

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:

"Holidays are a time to relax and forget about life’s headaches, and we’re not expecting people to anxiously research the human rights situation of their holiday destinations."

"But behind the sparkling seas, the luxurious hotels and picturesque landscapes, there’s a darker reality of tragedy and human rights abuse."

"Holidaymakers may want to forget about hardship and injustice and that’s understandable – but when the tan has faded and the holiday photos are filed away, this is a good time to engage with the issues that affect the locals long after the tourists have gone home."

1 SPAIN: Number of British visitors in 2012: 11,110,000

Amnesty Human rights concerns:

• Excessive use of force by police during austerity protests.
• Lack of justice for victims – and their relatives – of the Franco dictatorship.
• Roma people forcibly evicted from their homes without adequate alternative accommodation.

2 FRANCE: Number of British visitors in 2012: 8,781,000

Amnesty Human rights concerns:

• Investigations into allegations of deaths in custody, torture and other ill-treatment by police are ineffective and inadequate.
• Since 2011 France has enforced a ban on the wearing of veils and burqas in public places, which Amnesty believes is an infringement of the rights of women in France to express their values, beliefs and identity.
• Thousands of Roma people have been left homeless after being forcibly evicted from informal settlements.
• The fast-track procedure for the assessment of asylum applications falls short of international standards.

3 UNITED STATES: Number of British visitors in 2012: 3,011,000

Amnesty Human rights concerns:

• The USA is a major user of capital punishment and last year 43 people were executed, the fifth highest number anywhere in the world.
• The US authorities are still holding 166 detainees at the notorious detention facility at Guantnamo Bay in Cuba. The vast majority have not been charged with an offence and most have been there for over ten years.
• At least 42 people across 20 US states died after being struck by police Tasers last year, bringing the total number of such deaths to 540 since 2001.
• Thousands of prisoners in the USA are held in solitary confinement in "super-maximum security" prisons, confined to small cells for 22-24 hours a day.
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4 IRELAND: Number of British visitors in 2012: 2,827,000

Amnesty Human rights concerns:

• Abortion is criminalised in Ireland, although a bill was passed very recently (The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill) to amend the law to allow access to abortion in extremely limited circumstances: where there is a grave risk to a woman’s life, health or of suicide. In all other circumstances, abortion remains criminalised.
• Prisons have been criticised for their "chronic overcrowding" and for being "vermin-infested", and people with severe mental health issues have been kept in prisons.
• Ireland has been criticised for "significant delays" in processing asylum applications.

5 ITALY: Number of British visitors in 2012: 2,630,000

Amnesty Human rights concerns:

• Roma people have been the victims of forced evictions by the authorities.
• Conditions in detention centres for irregular migrants are well below international standards. Migrant workers are exploited and vulnerable to abuses.
• Italy has no systematic measures to prevent human rights violations by police or to ensure accountability for them.
• The country’s Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex marriages conducted overseas have no standing in the Italian legal system.

6 GERMANY: Number of British visitors in 2012: 2,307,000

Amnesty Human rights concerns:

• There are concerns about the police’s use of excessive force against protesters and discriminatory behaviour toward people from ethnic minorities in Germany.
• The government has flouted international law by requesting "diplomatic assurances" as an apparent means to circumnavigate the international prohibition over sending people to countries where they face a risk of torture.
• Amnesty has criticised the country’s inadequate asylum system, particularly its use of fast-track measures at airports.

7 PORTUGAL: Number of British visitors in 2012: 1,900,000

Amnesty Human rights concerns:

• There have been reports of excessive use of force by the police against demonstrators and Roma people.
• The police have also been accused of ill-treating people held police custody.
• Domestic violence is a serious concern, with a reported increase in complaints by elderly victims of domestic violence.

8 NETHERLANDS: Number of British visitors in 2012: 1,900,000

Amnesty Human rights concerns:

• There is excessive use of immigration detention centres, where conditions largely mirror those in criminal detention facilities.
• Last October the coalition government proposed a partial ban on the wearing of full-face veils by women on public transport and in health centres, school and government buildings. This raised concerns that the prohibition would violate the freedoms of expression and religion of women who choose to wear the burqa or niqab as an expression of their identity or beliefs.
• Amnesty is concerned about the use of discriminatory practices by law-enforcement officials, such as ethnic profiling.

9 GREECE: Number of British visitors in 2012: 1,824,000

Amnesty Human rights concerns:

• Migrants and asylum-seekers face serious obstacles in registering their asylum applications and are often detained in squalid conditions for many months.
• Hate crimes on the basis of race and ethnicity have increased dramatically in the last year or so.
• Roma children are segregated or excluded from education in Greece, while Roma families have been evicted or threatened with eviction from their settlements.
• Gay rights activists say that homophobic violence has recently increased in Athens, with victims reporting that their attackers were members of extreme right-wing groups, including individuals from the far-right Golden Dawn party.

10 BELGIUM: Number of British visitors in 2012: 1,664,000

Amnesty Human rights concerns:

• Last year the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Belgium had violated the right to liberty and security of "L.B.", a man with mental health problems, by detaining him for over seven years in prison facilities which were inadequate for his condition. There are also concerns at overcrowding and poor sanitary facilities in many Belgian prisons.
• The country has a discriminatory law criminalising the concealing of the face in public (a "veil ban").
• Last year the European Committee of Social Rights said that Belgium had violated the non-discrimination clause of the European Social Charter in relation to the inadequate provision of sites for Travellers.

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