Help us continue to fight human rights abuses. Please give now to support our work. Since they destroyed [the Calais camp] last year, there is no place to sleep or eat. Based on interviews with more than 60 asylum seekers and migrants in and around Calais and Dunkerque, and with two dozen aid workers working in the area, this report documents police abuse of asylum seekers and migrants, their disruption of humanitarian assistance, and their harassment of aid workersβbehavior that appears to be at least partly driven by a desire to keep down migrant numbers.
Police also disrupt the delivery of humanitarian assistance. International standards provide that police should only use force when it is unavoidable, and then only with restraint, in proportion to the circumstances, and for a legitimate law enforcement purpose.
Authorities have turned a blind eye to widespread reports of police abuse against asylum seekers and other migrants. Vincent Berton, the deputy prefect for Calais, strongly rejected reports that police used pepper spray and other force indiscriminately and disproportionately.
In March , local authorities barred humanitarian groups from distributing food, water, blankets, and clothing to asylum seekers and migrants.
A court suspended those orders on March 22, finding that they amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment. As of the end of June, authorities were allowing a single two-hour humanitarian distribution each day, in an industrial area near the former migrant camp. In addition, a local priest permitted a lunchtime distribution to take place on church grounds. Police regularly disrupted other distributions of humanitarian assistance.
