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A new report from the Migreurop network looks at the changing practices of informal administrative detention used by four EU member states in 2019. A key argument of the report is that the detention of non-nationals is increasingly taking place "outside or at the margins of existing legal frameworks."
A report in The New York Times says that Frontex officials have been discouraging the filing of reports on pushbacks at the Greek-Turkish border.
Fabrice Leggeri, the executive director of Frontex, has signalled his approval for a working group set up by the agency's Management Board that will look into recent allegations of pushbacks at the Greek-Turkish border taking place with the agency's knowledge. However, the main focus of the working group seems to be the issue of "hybrid threats" to internal security. The relationship between the agency's alleged involvement in illegal activity and the possible existence of "hybrid threats" is unclear.
The family of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane have condemned the UK government's decision not to order a public inquiry into his death as "astonishing, arrogant and cruel".
On 28 November, the UK and France signed the latest agreement aimed at cracking down on irregular migration across the Channel. The plan includes a doubling of the number of French police patrolling the coastline and the deployment of "cutting edge surveillance technology - including drones, radar equipment, optronic binoculars and fixed cameras."
"The legislation creates therefore avenues for disentangling, splitting the relation between physical presence of an asylum applicant on a territory and the set of laws and fundamental rights associated to it, namely a protective legal order, access to rights and to a jurisdiction enforcing those rights. It creates a sort of ‘lighter’ legal order, a lower density system, which facilitates the exit of the applicant from the territory of the EU, creating a sort of shift from a Europe of rights to the Europe of borders, confinement and expulsions."
Press release published by Rights & Security International, for a new report on detention camps in North East Syria where people are being held indefinitely due to European governments' failure to repatriate their citizens.
The report finds that the CJEU's case law on the extradition of EU citizens to non-EU states "raises several practical and legal issues" - including with regard to the scope of CJEU case law and consultation between the states making and dealing with the extradition requests.
Announcement from the Don't Extradite Assange campaign, which is hosting a public event on Saturday 28 November to mark the tenth anniversary of Wikileaks' publication of thousands of US diplomatic cables.
A declaration calling for "technical solutions for gaining access to encrypted data" through cooperation between states, industry and "other stakeholders" is due to be approved by the Council's Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER), the final step before receiving formal sign-off at the December meeting of justice and home affairs ministers. The declaration sets out the Council's policy stance on obtaining access for state authorities to encrypted data, but does not establish any new binding measures. However, the declaration notes that a "regulatory framework... could be further assessed." Here we are publishing the declaration itself - which is currently secret - along with previous versions of the document, so it is possible to see how it has changed over time.
The Spanish Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo) has written to the interior ministry to demand the immediate closure of the camp set up by the government in the port of Arguineguín on Gran Canaria to host migrants who have arrived by sea. The Ombudsman says that the camp is putting people's physical integrity at risk, and people have been detained for longer than permitted by law. It would be possible for the Ombudsman to take legal proceedings in the case of inaction. The interior ministry insists it is working to dismantle the camp, which was set up following the recent arrival of large numbers of people via the crossing from West Africa.
Leaks to the Danish media have revealed that the country's intelligence agency is cooperating with the US National Security Agency to tap underseas telecommunications cables. The XKEYSCORE system was revealed in documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
On Wednesday the European Parliament voted in favour of a report that says the provision of development aid by the EU should depend on recipient states' compliance with "migration management" measures. A last-minute amendment by the MEP responsible for the file reversed the original position of the report. Human rights groups have condemned the move.
The Global Terrorism Index 2020, which "provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism over the last 50 years, placing a special emphasis on trends over the last decade." The report highlights a "surge in far-right political terrorism, even though the absolute number of far-right attacks remains low when compared to other forms of terrorism."
Press release from FIDH, ECCHR and Redress.
A report by an international group of academics finds that although the Italian government took steps to release people from immigration detention due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the reduction "has been governed by selective logics of social control. Logics which have ultimately established a sort of ‘hierarchy of detention deservingness.’" This logic is centred on "gendered and racialised notions of 'vulnerability' and 'dangerousness'," with women and asylum-seekers released first, with other groups - homeless people, those with criminal records - continuing to be held and even being placed in detention during the pandemic.
In mid-September, prior to the European Commission's publication of the new 'Pact on Migration and Asylum', the Mediterranean Subsaharan Migration Trade Union Network issued a set of recommendations. The group called for a number of positive measures, including an increase in safe and legal channels for migrants to seek work in the EU, the simpification of entry conditions, more possibilities for individuals to regularize their status within the EU, an end to the detention of migrants, a halt to externalization policies and transparency over readmission agreements.
Five documents discussed by the Council of the EU's Working Party on Integration, Migration and Expulsion in March this year.
The Meijers Committee of experts on international immigration, refugee and criminal law have analysed a number of the proposals published as part of the European Commission's Pact on Migration and Asylum. The committee examines the Asylum Screening Regulation, the Asylum Procedures Regulation, the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation, the Crisis and Force Majeure Regulation, the Strategy on the Future of Schengen and provide some general comments. Serious concerns are expressed over the proposals, in particular with regard to the use of detention, limits to legal assistance for individuals seeking protection, a lack of oversight mechanisms and the situation for unaccompanied children, amongst other things.
A new report documents the nearly-300 border-related deaths in and around the English Channel since 1999. The report, by the Institute of Race Relation, the Permanent People's Tribunal London and Gisti, aims to "challenge the idea that the result of this massacre is misfortune" and lays the blame squarely on the action - and inaction - of the British and French authorities. It seeks to document the stories of those that have died at the border and calls for fundamental changes to the model of criminalisation and securitisation employed on both sides of the Channel.
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