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.
Official documents obtained by Privacy International (PI) show the extent to which EU aid and development funds are being used to enhance states' surveillance capabilities and coercive powers. This includes internet monitoring, wiretapping tools, and national biometric systems designed to bolster the EU's ability to deport people. PI along with 13 other civil society organisations from Africa and Europe, including Statewatch, are calling for change.
The report calls on the government to "urgently take action to protect the human rights of Black people, including within healthcare, criminal justice, nationality and immigration and democracy."
On 22 October, the European Commission gave a presentation to an "informal videoconference" of the Council's Strategic Committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum (SCIFA). The presentation explains the different types of "solidarity" that will be available for member states under the proposed Asylum and Migration Management Regulation, such as relocation of asylum applicants and "return sponsorship".
The UK parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights has published a scrutiny report of the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill. The Committee recommends a number of changes, including clear limits on the crimes that may be committed during undercover/covert activity and specification of who may commit criminal acts, amongst other things.
Three recent studies commissioned by the European Parliament.
Plans to increase police presence in schools have caused disquiet amongst pupils, parents and campaigners. Police officers were introduced to schools in 2002 as part of the "tough on crime" agenda introduced by New Labour and have stayed ever since. They are known as "school based police officers" (SBPOs).
Ever since 2014, when the Court of Justice of the EU struck down the Data Retention Directive - which required the mandatory retention of telecommunications metadata by service providers, in case it was of interest to law enforcement authorities - member states have been keen to reintroduce an EU-wide retention obligation. The Commission's position has varied over time. A recent study carried out for the Commission, following a request from the Council, looks at the situation in 10 member states and aims to contribute to the arguments for a new EU regime.
The European Parliament's research service has produced a substitute impact assessment for proposed additional rules for the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS). Amongst other things, it finds that the proposal to check applicants for travel authorisations against a criminal records system is "a serious interference" with privacy and data protection. The ETIAS was examined in detail in a recent Statewatch publication, Automated Suspicion.
The government's visa rules are having a significant impact upon peoples' lives in the midst of the pandemic, and are reportedly taking heavy toll on the workforce in the health service, where almost 14% of staff are not British nationals.
Open letter on the proposed Regulation on Terrorist Content Online, coordinated by Liberties. Signed by 16 organisations including Statewatch.
A week of action against the EU's new Pact on Migration and Asylum is taking place this week, led by the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on Violations of the Rights of Migrant and Refugee People and Europe Must Act. The groups are calling for a Global Solidarity Pact in place of the EU's Migration Pact, to halt the criminalisation of migrants and to ensured the rights and dignity of all people. Due to the pandemic, most actions will take place online, but some 'real-life' activities are planned.
A new paper published by the Transnational Institute examines how France's state of emergency - originally declared in November 2015 as a temporary, exceptional measure - has become permanent, and the effects on individual rights.
Press release issued on 3 November by the Collectif des Organisations de la Société Civile et Aceturs de la Migration (C.O.C.S.A.M.), known as Lu waral lii. Translated with permission by Statewatch.
Discussions in the Council on the measures proposed as part of the EU's new 'Pact on Migration and Asylum' are ongoing. The aim is to find consensus on key points prior to Justice and Home Affairs Council meetings in November and December. The German Presidency set out its thinking on the proposals in a discussion paper circulated on 28 October, and published here. Externalisation, deportations, operations against migrant smuggling and tougher border controls are high on the Presidency's agenda.
Unofficial translation of a statement published by the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (Collectif Contre l’Islamophobie en France, CCIF), which the French interior minister stated was an "enemy of the republic", along with 50 other Muslim organisations, following the murder of the schoolteacher Samuel Paty in October.
The ECHR has ruled that evidence obtained via torture and ill-treatment inflicted by private individuals renders criminal proceedings unsafe, as is the case when it is inflicted by public officials.
The latest newsletter from Inicijativa Dobrodošli!/Welcome! Initiative covers the European Commission's plans to visit Croatia in light of news of fundamental rights violations at the borders; pushbacks at the Greek borders; deaths at sea; and police violence in Trieste against anti-racist demonstrators countering a far-right protest.
The Council and the Parliament have reached agreement on new rules that would link payments from the EU budget to conditions related to the rule of law in the member states. The final text, negotiated in secret trilogues - a long-standing anti-democratic practice of the EU law-making process - is not yet public and still has to be signed off by the Council and Parliament.
Mediapart was able to consult the files of several refugees from the Chechen community facing the withdrawal of their asylum status, something most often done on the basis of "white notes" transmitted by the intelligence services.
Press release from Patrick Breyer MEP (Pirate Party Germany, Greens/European Free Alliance) on the proposed Regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online. Negotiations between the Council and Parliament are close to being finalised, but many dangerous provisions remain in the text, which is being pushed through in the wake of recent terrorist attacks.
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