Beitrag vom 25.08.2017

The Times

Migrant crisis: Facebook publishes torture used to extort ransom

People-smugglers and slave-trading gangs are using Facebook to broadcast the abuse and torture of migrants to extort ransom money from their families.

Footage that has remained on the social media site for months shows Libyan gangmasters threatening the lives of migrants who have fled their homelands, often in the hope of reaching Europe.

The UN migration agency condemned the technology giant and publisher as irresponsible for ¬allowing it to be used by smugglers “to advertise their services, entice vulnerable people on the move and then exploit them and their families”.

Harrowing footage shared on Facebook showed emaciated and injured migrants, mostly Somalis and Ethiopians, huddled in a concrete cellar describing the abuse they have suffered and pleading for their lives.

The International Organisation for Migration said clips of the video had been sent to the captives’ relatives using the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp, along with demands that they pay as much as $US 10,000 or face their loved one being killed.

The video showed a young ¬Somali man lying face down on the floor with a heavy concrete block on his back. “I was asked for $US8000,” he said. “They broke my teeth. They broke my hand. I have been here for 11 months. They put this stone on me for the last three days. It’s agony.”

A young Ethiopian, Nur Ali Awale, said that he had been held captive for 15 months. “They beat me with iron bars,” he said. “They ordered me to pay $US8300 and my family cannot afford to pay that.” Another cried out: “My brother, my brother, we are dead! I beg you, do whatever you can.”

Footage of tortured migrants pleading for their lives was sent to relatives with demands of up to $US10,000.

The video was posted on Facebook on June 9 and remained ¬online yesterday although the company removed a number of other pages and posts related to smuggling that were flagged by The Times this week. “It is irresponsible for tech companies like Facebook to ignore this issue,” Mohammed Abdiker, IOM’s ¬director of operations and emergencies, said.

“It’s hard to believe that the tech giants cannot put some real effort into stopping these smugglers from using their platforms for racketeering.”

Facebook was also criticised for failing to prevent smugglers from advertising their services despite concerns raised more than two years ago when the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean was gathering pace.

Since then there has been a significant increase in the number of adverts placed online. Europol, the European police agency, said that it had received reports of about 1150 social media accounts “openly advertising or being associated with organised migrant smuggling” last year, compared with 148 in 2015. It said that smugglers were using Facebook to target “vulnerable migrants with attractive and unrealistic offers for ‘safe’ sea crossings”.

Although posting such content is a breach of Facebook’s rules, the company does not proactively seek it out and instead relies on users to report it to its moderators. Facebook pages for would-be migrants looking to travel to Europe include offers of fake documents that can be used to claim asylum, such as Syrian and Palestinian family documents, passports, university degree certificates, driving licences and marriage certificates.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said: “People-smuggling is illegal and any posts, pages or groups that co-ordinate this activity are not ¬allowed on Facebook. We encourage people to keep using our reporting tools to flag this kind of behaviour so it can be reviewed and swiftly removed by our global team of experts, who work with law enforcement agencies around the world.” It had no comment to add on the hosting of the video showing the abuse of migrants.