"The number of migrants crossing the English Channel by boat is small - it pales in comparison to those making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean - but there has been a small spike in crossings in recent months."
"Undercover policing, however, is just one weapon in an entire armoury of political policing. The undercover policing scandal, which the Spycops in context papers are a response to, cannot be adequately understood without a wider historical view of the British state’s counter-subversion apparatus."
"A police spy appears to have misled a public inquiry about sexual relationships he had with two women while he was undercover."
At the end of December three new Regulations governing the Schengen Information System II (SIS II), the EU's largest database and information system for law enforcement and migration purposes, came into force.
"Drawing on new research material from ten European countries, Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives brings together a range of detailed accounts of the legal and bureaucratic processes by which asylum claims are decided."
"From unlawful killings, arbitrary detention and torture, to gang rape, slavery, and human trafficking, the report covers a 20-month period up to August 2018, and details a terrible litany of violations and abuses committed by a range of State officials, armed groups, smugglers and traffickers against migrants and refugees."
"This weekend a truly extraordinary story was unearthed regarding the machinations of the ‘Integrity Initiative’ (II), a British think tank funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the tune of £2.2m."
"A police force has admitted passing video footage and other information about disabled anti-fracking protesters to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)..."
"Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has said he would send proposals to the government aimed at changing German deportation laws in an effort to make it easier to send criminal foreigners back to their home countries."
"Anti-Semitic violence in the German capital reached new highs over 2018, with newly published statistics showing that at least five anti-Semitic incidents were reported weekly in Berlin alone. In total, 295 incidents were reported to the authorities in 2018 by mid-December – 24 of them were violent."
"This [racial profiling at the borders between the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and mainland UK] is likely to become worse after Brexit, for a larger number of people, whatever solution is reached about the border."
"European police should access computers and telephones with Trojan programs. Europol is now building up a "decryption platform“ in The Hague."
"Earlier this year a group of activists known as the Stanstead 15 were charged under terror related law for peacefully stopping a deportation flight in March 2017."
A critique of RAT (Racial Awareness Training).
"The Schengen Information System contains 79 million entries on persons and objects. These can now also be used by the EU agencies. A new regulation allows simple police officers to question people without a lawyer."
Including: • UNHCR (31.12.18): 112,852 refugees arrived in the EU by sea and 6,782 by land • When governments turn against volunteers - the case of AYS • 'Its an Act of Murder': How Europe Out sources Suffering as Migrants Drown
"14 associations signed an open letter to French President Emmanuel Macron denouncing the failure of the state in the protection and sheltering of migrants."
"Despite the bad weather, dozens of undocumented migrants made the short but perilous crossing to the Aegean islands from Turkey in the last few days of the year."
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