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The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that France failed to provide an effective remedy to an individual held in inhumane detention conditions. The individual ended up owing the state €237 after having to pay for an expert to inspect the cell in which they were detained.
Liz Fekete of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) argues that campaigns for migrant and refugee rights have often taken an implicitly 'abolitionist' approach - but that now is the time to make abolitionist demands more prominently, in order to dismantle the 'law and order' approach to immigration that has caused, and continues to cause, so much harm to individuals and society more broadly.
"Few know as much about the daily horrors facing migrants and refugees in Libya as Giulia Tranchina. For years, the London-based immigration solicitor specialised in asylum and human rights work has been in daily contact with refugees in Libya via messaging apps, spending much of her free time trying to expose their plight. Tranchina’s work on Libya has been covered by numerous international media, including The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Associated Press, The Times, The New York Times and many others. In this interview, Tranchina discusses European efforts to keep refugees and migrants from crossing the Mediterranean and how UN agencies often fail to protect them."
The European Commission has now published a study undertaken on its behalf by Milieu Consulting. It concerns the direct exchange of personal data between Europol and private parties, in particular online service providers.
The event, organized by ASGI in the framework of the projects Sciabaca and Oruka, was held in Lagos, Nigeria from 25 to 27 February 2020.
The EU border agency, Frontex, recently awarded contracts for border surveillance by drone to the companies Airbus, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit. For Airbus and IAI, the contracts follow on from trial flights conducted in 2018. The surveillance arrangement will see one of the three companies contracted for specific missions in response to calls from Frontex. The agency expects to seek "2000-3000 contracted hours [of surveillance] in total" every year; the deal will initially run for two years but maybe extended for two more.
Internal emails obtained by EUobserver show that the Greek authorities ordered that a group of people be pushed back to Turkey. The case came to public attention earlier this year when a Danish coast guard vessel operating in the Aegean as part of a Frontex mission refused to carry out the orders. Despite mounting evidence, the Greek government continues to deny that its officials have ever been involved in any form of pushback, and the revelations also raise questions for EU border agency Frontex.
The Undercover Policing Inquiry, which was set up in 2015 to investigate undercover policing operations in England & Wales since 1968, has been mired in controversy from the start. At the beginning of November, hearings finally began - but they remain shielded from public view. Despite the best efforts of campaigners to ensure that the transcripts published are made more accessible, this is no substitute for genuine public hearings, as Donal O'Driscoll demonstrates in a recent article.
Member states' home affairs ministers met recently to discuss the future of Europol and adopted a ten-point document on the policing agency's role and activities. The document sets out the member states' priorities for the future of Europol - the ability to process more data, simplified cooperation with non-EU states, and more engagement with new technologies such as AI - and has now been formalised into a Council Resolution. The Commission is due to publish a new legal proposal for the agency soon, despite the current legal basis only having come into force in 2017.
The German Presidency of the EU has made a 'European Police Partnership' one of its policy priorities. Part of this involves trying to ensure that member states insert as much data as possible into the Schengen Information System (SIS) and the Europol Information System (EIS). The Presidency has developed a "roadmap" for ensuring data quality in the EU's policing and migration databases, which includes common standards for biometric data and "mobile devices" for law enforcement officials. Work is underway to increase the use of automation by national units dealing with SIS data, and the Presidency is aiming to coordinate "change management" at the national level for the implementation of new rules on the SIS.
The UK government is running a secret "clearing house" for freedom of information requests that is used to coordinate which information to release and to whom, according to a new report. The unit shares information on journalists and organisations making requests, leading one shadow cabinet minister to describe it as being involved in "blacklisting". A legal challenge has been launched by openDemocracy, who have published the report detailing the government's attacks on freedom of information, and the law firm Leigh Day.
In the face of well-founded accusations from NGOs and journalists, the Greek government has continuously and vehemently denied that its officials engage in pushbacks at the borders. Now the Council of Europe's anti-torture committee (CPT) has documented the practice and it also demanding that it halt - but the Greek government is sticking to the same line.
In the smouldering ruins of the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesvos, a journalist found a logbook kept by employees of the International Organization for Migration tasked with looking after unaccompanied minors. Although unaccompanied children were housed in a so-called "safe zone", entries in the book reveal it to be anything but.
The European Ombudsman is taking aim at alleged human rights violations at the EU's borders. As well as a recently-announced inquiry into Frontex's compliance with its fundamental rights obligations, the watchdog agency is to investigate the alleged failure by Croatia to set up a human rights monitoring mechanism at the borders following receipt of EU funds, and the European Commission's failure to ensure that the country did so.
Three recent reports take a close look at the ways in which the increasing use of digital technologies in migration management and border control can compound existing forms of discrimination and inequality, at the same time as creating and contributing to new types of discrimination.
EU law enforcement structures have been making moves to take advantage of new technologies for policing purposes. One aspect of this includes setting up an "Innovation Lab and Innovation Hub" at Europol, which will both monitor emerging technologies and their usefulness for law enforcement, and take part in projects aiming to develop new ways of using those technologies for the police. This includes AI, machine learning, big data and augmented reality.
Frontex has issued 21 calls for tender with an estimated value of over €210 million since the entry into force of its new Regulation in December 2019.
Join Statewatch and the Transnational Institute (TNI) on Monday 14 December for the third and final webinar in the series covering Statewatch’s report ‘Deportation Union: Rights, accountability and the EU's push to increase forced removals’.
On Tuesday last week, an extraordinary Frontex Management Board meeting was called by Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson, following allegations that the agency has been involved in illegal pushbacks of migrants from Greece. During the meeting, the Commission presented questions for Frontex to answer by the end of the month, when another Management Board meeting will be held. A "sub-group" has now been set up by the Board to investigate allegations of abuse and other matters.
Key information systems will be lost even if a security deal is struck before 31 December, National Crime Agency says
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