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 our RSS feed to get instant alerts.
"The EU Border Agency’s air surveillance could have triggered unlawful deportations at external borders. Such operations took place off Libya and Bosnia-Herzegovina."
"Two Germans are in extradition custody in Slovenia and Italy at the request of Turkish authorities. Both come from Turkey and were granted asylum in Germany for political persecution and later citizenship. Interpol should have withdrawn the request. The BKA, however, concealed the asylum status of the two."
"The case concerned the conditions of detention of Syrian, Afghan and Palestinian nationals in the “hotspots” of Vial and Souda (Greece), and the lawfulness of their detention in those camps."
"France is poised to become the first European country to use facial recognition technology to give citizens a secure digital identity -- whether they want it or not."
"Greece is desperately seeking to halt the refugees and migrants flows and intensifies its contacts with Turkey and the European Union. Migration Policy Minister, Giorgos Koumoutsakos, is meeting with the Turkish Interior Minister and high ranking officials of the Foreign Ministry in Ankara on Thursday."
"Stranded in misery, from the Aegean sea to the Strait of Dover - 300 people arrive in a single day to the overcrowded island camps in Greece, the situation on verge of cracking - Turkey-EU grey area spreading to the fourth year / about 400 people stranded in the woods of Grande Synthe"
"Migration minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos is visiting Ankara on Thursday to discuss the recent spike in migrant arrivals on the Greek islands with Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu."
"Bulgaria’s prosecutor general should reject a call from a political party in the country’s governing coalition to disband the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC), Human Rights Watch said today. The party has been in legal battles for years with the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee over its stance on anti-discrimination issues."
"The government has confirmed it plans to prorogue Parliament next Tuesday and hold a Queen's Speech on 14 October."
"The migration issue continues to dominate the EU corridors of power and its agenda."
"UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is today calling on Greece to urgently move thousands of asylum-seekers out of dangerously overcrowded reception centres on the Greek Aegean islands."
"Hundreds of asylum seekers protested conditions at Greece’s biggest migrant camp on Lesbos on Tuesday after a woman was killed in a fire there, marching towards the island’s capital before being halted by police."
In 2017, European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) were most commonly used for offences falling within the categories of theft and criminal damage (2,649 EAws); fraud and corruption (1,538); and drugs (1,535), although not all member states provided the European Commission with the requested information.
"Hungary rejected a claim by the European Union’s rotating presidency that all member states have agreed to tie the bloc’s funding to rule-of-law conditions."
A letter from civil society organisations to Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations.
"...what if instead of just bringing more perpetrators to justice, the widespread perception of law enforcement’s genetic omniscience was also preventing crimes from happening in the first place? Or to put it slightly differently, what if the fear of being done in by DNA is actually holding potential offenders back from criminal behavior? This would seem like an extremely difficult effect to measure, but some researchers are using sophisticated analysis of crime data to argue that it is real, and that it results in lower recidivism rates."
"On 2 October, the European Parliament committee for Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) will hear the French Commissioner-designate Sylvie Goulard, whose Internal Market portfolio will include a new Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space..."
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