2020

Launched in 1999 and updated regularly, Statewatch News includes our own reporting and writing as well as articles, announcements, documents and analyses from elsewhere on civil liberties, EU policies and state practices. You can receive updates in your inbox by signing up to our mailing list, or use an RSS feed to get instant alerts.

29 September 2020

UK: Renewal of the Coronavirus Act: Emergency powers need parliamentary scrutiny

Six months after it was passed into law, the Coronavirus Act is due to come before parliament for a vote on its renewal. However, renewing the act would allow the government to continue passing new laws without any parliamentary scrutiny of individual measures. This would mean the continuation of what one former Supreme Court judge has called government by decree.

29 September 2020

Bulgaria will relocate some refugees from Moria, but racism and xenophobia make it a tough destination

Bulgaria has agreed to accept 70 unaccompanied minors affected by the fire in the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesvos. However, conditions for migrants and refugees are problematic - the use of detention is widespread, and racism and xenophobia are deeply rooted in Bulgarian society, argues Milana Nikolova.

29 September 2020

EU: Head of Europol supervisory group wants to create a "European FBI"

Europol should become "a kind of European FBI", according to Boris Pistorius, the interior minister of the German state of Lower Saxony and one of the co-chairs of Europol's Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group. "In the medium term, it must also have its own executive powers," he has said.

28 September 2020

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25 September 2020

EU: No human rights monitoring for 20% of Frontex's deportation flights in 2019

There were no human rights monitors present on 20% of the deportation charter flights coordinated by Frontex in 2019, according to an agency report being published today by Statewatch.

25 September 2020

Frontex: Report on cooperation with third countries in 2019

The report gives an overview of Frontex's engagement with non-EU states during 2019 on issues such as surveillance, risk analysis and training. It was circulated to the European Commission, Council of the EU and European Parliament in June 2019.

24 September 2020

Tony Bunyan retires as Director of Statewatch after 30 years

A personal message from Tony Bunyan.

23 September 2020

EU: The new "pact" on migration and asylum - documentation, context and reactions

The Commission has published its long-awaited 'Pact on Migration and Asylum', along with a host of legislative proposals, guidance and other texts. Parts of the proposals will "abolish the rule of law at the external borders," according to one human rights group.

23 September 2020

Deportations from Europe: individual stories told in new publication

The Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) has published a booklet of stories of people in Lagos and Benin City, Nigeria, and Bamako, Mali, who have been deported from Europe.

22 September 2020

Council of the EU: German Presidency seeking common position on encryption and law enforcement

Efforts are ongoing to establish a common EU position on finding ways around encrypted communications for the purpose of law enforcement. A document circulated by the German Presidency says "the weakening of encryption by any means (including backdoors) is not a desirable option." Instead, the intention is to find "legal and technical solutions" through a dialogue with technology service providers, member states, academic experts and others.

22 September 2020

IOM: Migration in West and North Africa and across the Mediterranean: Trends, risks, development and governance

A new 500-page collection of studies published by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) examines new developments in migration within North and West Africa, and from there across the Mediterranean.

22 September 2020

Greece: Lesvos-Moria nightmare for thousands of refugees

Over a week after the fire that gutted the Moria camp on Lesvos, formerly housing some 13,000 refugees, little had been done to address the problem.

22 September 2020

France: Legal action against police facial recognition technology

La Quadrature du Net are taking the French state to court for allowing the use of facial recognition technology on a database containing more than eight million individual images.

21 September 2020

UK: Home Office 'has no idea how many people are in the UK illegally'

A report by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has condemned the Home Office's immigration enforcement activities, saying that the body bases its work on “anecdote, assumption and prejudice” rather than evidence.

21 September 2020

Call for the immediate evacuation of Moria

In support for exiles living on the island of Lesbos, Migreurop is a signatory of a Tribune initiated by European personalities published in Libération’s newspaper of 11 September 2020.

17 September 2020

Webinar: Deportation Union: revamped return policies and reckless forced removals

Join Statewatch and TNI on 28 September for the first webinar of a three-part series accompanying the publication of the report 'Deportation Union: Rights, accountability and the EU's push to increased forced removals'.

17 September 2020

UK: David Davis MP demands access to secret hearings on torture

The British Conservative MP David Davis is taking legal action to gain access to proposed secret court hearings on the UK's involvement in torture.

17 September 2020

Internal Frontex report: agency moves forward with "standing corps" recruitment despite COVID-19 delays

The Council Working Party on Frontiers met last week, on Wednesday 9 September, in part to review a Frontex report outlining the “current state of play of the main activities related to the establishment of the standing corps and description of the plans for the future”. The report covers the recruitment of permanent staff, the secondment of member state border guards, training, uniforms, and equipment of the new standing corps, who will have executive powers - for example, to permit or refuse entry - at the EU's borders.

 

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