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.
New powers given to UK police forces as part of the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic are being unlawfully and unevenly applied.
The European Parliament has voted to approve two agreements allowing Frontex operations outside the EU: one between the EU and Serbia, and the other between the EU and Montenegro.
"The UK’s new joint biosecurity centre, an independent body monitoring the coronavirus threat level, is to be set up by a senior counterterror official in the running to become the next chief of MI6, the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service.
"In a letter addressed to the Chair and members of the National Council Committee on Security Policy, made public today, the Commissioner invites parliamentarians to review the draft Federal Law on Police Counterterrorism Measures in order to ensure that all human rights standards are respected.
"The 12-page paper drafted by the EU presidency under Croatia provides a broad overview of terror threats emanating from returning foreign terrorist fighters, right-wing terrorists and - to a much lower extent - the far-left.
"Threatened by food shortages and health risks, Rome gives a six-month amnesty for thousands of undocumented migrants.
"This double drive – expertise-based but with a visible concern for public opinion – seems to really guide the communication of the government, in which Mark Rutte constantly acts as explainer-in-chief of what he has dubbed an ‘intelligent lockdown’, taking his audience step-by-step through the rationales of measures taken."
"The Home Office has decided to make it more difficult for European residents to become British citizens. EU citizens with settled status who apply for naturalisation now have to provide evidence that they have been living in the UK legally, according an update to government nationality policy released on 15 May.
"More and more migrants are crossing, Europe is closing its ports and no humanitarian ships are carrying out rescues. As the coronavirus pandemic dominates headlines, activists fear the Mediterranean is the scene of an overlooked “tragedy”.
"The French government should take urgent and concrete steps to end discriminatory police stops, 24 local, national, and international organizations said on Wednesday in an open letter sent to French authorities.
NGOs say infections among arriving refugees show urgent need to move more migrants from Moria camp to mainland.
"This is a damning indictment of Hungary’s treatment of asylum-seekers. Today the EU Court has made clear: Hungary held two families seeking asylum in a border transit zone for more than a year, giving them no opportunity to have their situation reviewed by a court, and with no option to lawfully leave that zone of their own free will in any direction. In doing so, Hungary broke EU law.
"The mandatory 14-day self-quarantine rule on international flight arrivals, first imposed on 16 March, is extended to the end of May, the Civil Aviation Authority said on Monday (18 May), AMNA reported.
"As the European Union struggles to agree on a joint response to the coronavirus crisis, calls for solidarity are colliding with the reluctance of wealthier northern states to come to the aid of struggling states in the south.
"The UK's highest court has said Gerry Adams was imprisoned illegally by the British government when he was interned without trial in the early 1970s.
"The government has privately conceded there will be post-Brexit checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea, months after Boris Johnson insisted there would be no such trade barriers.
"The Rapporteur, therefore, advises the Parliament to reject the Council draft implementing decision and to request the Council not to adopt its draft implementing decision and not to take any decision in this regard until guarantees from the UK as regards full reciprocity and data protection are obtained and the new legal framework for the new partnership cooperation with the United Kingdom is negotiated and concluded."
"The Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) expresses its deeep concern over the new draft law that inter alia amends asylum legislation, which was submitted for public consultation amidst a public health crisis, at a time when the main concern is the protection of asylum seekers and the entire population from the risks and effects of the pandemic, and while concerns for asylum seekers who remain in overcrowded sites and/or in administrative detention in the midst of the pandemic are increasing."
Including: Council considers action on "non-removable" irregular migrants / Analysis: Rights denied during Greek asylum procedure suspension / Refugees and European human rights law: Expelled from Humanity / Analysis: As the fiction of a Libyan search and rescue zone begins to crumble, EU states use the coronavirus pandemic to declare themselves unsafe / Leaving people behind - Proposals for the reorganisation of the Common European Asylum System
The Croatian Presidency of the Council has raised the prospect of EU measures to deal with "non-removable" irregular migrants - people who for a variety of reasons "end up in a situation of prolonged illegal stay, which can last for a number of years."
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