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About Statewatch
Follow us on and
Statewatch
services - with links to 11 free resources (pdf)
Statewatch is a non-profit-making voluntary
group founded in 1991 to monitor the development of the EU state
and civil liberties. It is comprised of lawyers, academics, journalists,
researchers and community activists. Its European network of
contributors is drawn from 18 countries. Statewatch encourages
the publication of investigative journalism and critical research
in Europe the fields of the state, justice and home affairs,
civil liberties, accountability and openness.
One of Statewatch's primary purposes is
to provide a service for civil society to encourage informed
discussion and debate - through the provision of news, features
and analyses backed up by full-text documentation so that people
can access for themselves primary sources and come to their own
conclusions.
Statewatch is the research and education
arm of a UK registered charity and is funded by grant-making
trusts and donations from individuals. You can support
our work by making a donation.
For more information, read our brochure
(pdf). If you are interested in contributing work to Statewatch,
please get in touch.
Work with us
We are currently have a vacancy for a researcher.
For more details, see here.
A
wide audience
Statewatch's services are very widely used:
- The Statewatch website has over 200,000
unique visitors each month, over 1 million "hits" and
visit, on average, over 20,000 separate pdf/URLs are visited
each month. Thousands of people are signed up to our e-mail
list (10,260) and follow us on Twitter
(7,491) at 30 November 2018.
- The Statewatch
database contains over 34,300 items from 1991 - ongoing
Website access and usage
- 2017: 1,341,194
users sessions and 20,264,295 hits
- 2016: 1,155,540 user sessions, 12,089,510
hits
- 2015: 858,601 user sessions,14,730,845
hits
- 2014: 817,219 user sessions,10,088,230
hits
- 2013: 931,851 user sessions, 9,578,024
hits
- 2012: 959,237 user sessions, 7,305,161
hits
- 2011: 1,198,831 user sessions, 10,288,301
hits
- 2010: 2,070,595 user sessions, 11,306,982
hits
- 2009: 1,263,573 user sessions, 7,305,161
hits
- 2008: 1,232,435 user sessions, 9,896,072
hits
- 2007: 1,693,941 user sessions, 6,464,960
hits
- 2006: 1,341,158 user sessions, 5,446,221
hits
- 2005: 979,772 user sessions,
4,076,016 hits
Awards and praise
Statewatch has received six Awards for
its work:
- 2011:
Liberty awards Statewatch & Tony Bunyan the human rights
"Long Walk" Award: "For dedication to openness,
democracy and informed debate about European institutions, keeping
us reliably informed and suitably engaged for the last 20 years.
Their network of independent volunteers has become one of the
most respected and reliable sources of investigative journalism
and critical research in the fields of the state, justice, home
affairs and civil liberties in the European Union."
- 2004:
European Voice newspaper, Brussels: Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor,
selected by a distinguished panel as one of the "EV50",
one of the fifty most influential people in the European Union
over the year for Statewatch's work on civil liberties and the
"war on terrorism"
- 2001:
European Voice newspaper, Brussels: Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor,
selected by a distinguished panel as one of the "EV50",
one of the the fifty most influential people in the European
Union over the year for Statewatch's work on access to documents
in the EU
- 2001:
The European Information Association gave Statewatch the "Chadwyck-Healey
Award for achievement in
European Information" for its work on openness and the new
code of access to EU documents
- 1999:
Privacy International gave Statewatch an award for its work in
exposing EU-FBI telecommunications surveillance plans
- 1998:
The Campaign for Freedom of Information gave Statewatch an Award
for its work on fighting for EU openness (access to documents)
A wide range of individuals and groups
have praised our work:
- "The campaign group Statewatch has
performed great service over the years monitoring the activities
of the European Union in the area of civil liberties. Its communications
are a source of detailed, solidly researched, information on
which NO2ID among many others (of all political persuasions)
has come to rely" - No2ID,
UK
- "Statewatch provides a tremendous
service rooting out documents which most of us have no idea how
to get hold of!" - European
Information Association
- "We believe that, in general, Statewatch
is a paradigm of sound scholarship" - Foundation
for Critical Thinking
- "A systematic job of researching
this. It's the one source you need in Europe. It collects a lot.
This is very serious. It's following the process for several
years. So for any journalist training we do, doing FOI issues,
that would be the one address to go to and say have a look there"
- Wilfried Ruetten, Director of the European
Journalism Centre, on Statewatch's work on FOI in the
EU
- "Statewatch has persistently and
systematically over two decades, brought to public attention
(through its exemplary website and thorough expert opinions,
evidence and otherwise) the hidden and barely visible activities
of EU executive power in its various components and manifestations.
Often working behind the scenes, quietly, with little or no public
funding.. individuals, such as Tony Bunyan, Professor Steve Peers
and Dr Ben Hayes and others, have tirelessly worked to bring
information and facts into the public domain" - Professor
Deirdre Curtin in her book 'Executive Powers of the European
Union' (Oxford, 2009)
- "Statewatch's work in highlighting
developments at the EU level over the past 30 years for the benefit
of organisations like ICCL across Europe has proven invaluable"
- Irish Council for Civil Liberties
- "Statewatch is the most reliable
source of comment and official documents - many not publicly
available until request by Statewatch - on the most controversial
areas of EU policy. It currently has the best coverage from around
Europe of the "Mos maiorum"Joint Police Operation coordinated
by the Italian Presidency, aimed at tackling illegal immigration
to the EU." (INFO-EUROPA is
edited by Patrick Overy at the European Documentation Centre,
University of Exeter and Eric Davies of Eurojargon Enterprises,
October 2014)
- Steve Peers (Professor of Law, University
of Essex) in the 4th Edition of EU Justice and Home Affairs Law
(2016):"I am, as before, indebted to Tony Bunyan and
Statewatch for continued advice and assistance."
History
The predecessor to Statewatch was "State Research" (1977-1982)
(pdf) It produced a bi-monthly bulletin, carried out in-depth
research, maintained a library and provided speakers. State Research
monitored the UK state and civil liberties ,state agencies -
Special Branch and MI5. racism, surveillance, protests and the
activities of MI6 and the CIA.
Partners
As well as working with our contributors
group, Statewatch works with a wide range of other organisations.
We are a
member of:
We have also collaborated with a range
of groups and organisations on particular projects and reports:
Funders
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