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Statewatch is publishing Frontex's report on its forced removal operations in the first half of 2020, along with the observations of the agency's fundamental rights officer (FRO). The FRO report highlights a number of problems: a failure to correctly brief escorts on fundamental rights; not enough monitors available to cover all flights and not enough monitors on each flight; a failure to protect dignity and privacy during strip searches; wrongful disclosure of medical data to escorts; improper treatment of vulnerable groups; and problematic use of force and coercive measures. On this latter point, the FRO's report notes that: "A few monitors found that unauthorized coercive measures were used (steel shoes, helmets)."
The Council of the EU and the European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on the text of the proposed Regulation on addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online, a controversial proposal that raises numerous fundamental rights concerns. The announcement comes following a series of secret "trilogue" meetings. Numerous organisations, including Statewatch, have previously called for changes to the text in order to protect individual rights; it remains to be seen what is in the final Regulation, which now has to be approved by votes in the Council and the Parliament as a whole.
The EU's justice and home affairs agencies - which include Frontex, Europol, the European Police College, Eurojust and others - regularly cooperate through the JHA Agencies Network. Their annual meeting in mid-November focused on "digitalisation" in the fields of law enforcement, border control and justice, including "Artificial Intelligence and digital capacity building, training tools and innovative learning."
Over 5,600 Afghan asylum seekers in Germany have had negative decisions on their applications for protection overturned by the courts in the first nine months of 2020, according to a report published by InfoMigrants. This represents a success rate for appeals of almost 60%; there were 9,557 appeals overall against negative asylum decisions in the same period. A politician from The Left (Die Linke), who submitted a parliamentary question that led to the government publishing the figures, says that they point to a need for a change in asylum decision-making policies.
Public statement from the Migreurop network in response to the allegations of Frontex's involvement in and/or knowledge of pushbacks at the Greek-Turkish sea border.
The UK Home Office's "Digital Services at the Border programme," which aims "to provide UK Border Force staff with better information to make decisions about people crossing the border and to track goods entering and exiting the UK," has cost hundreds of millions of pounds since it was launched in 2014 but has so far produced no results, according to a report by the National Audit Office (NAO). A recent pilot project saw the new systems being used on just 20% of passengers who passed through six of the seven ports at which they were deployed, and the Home Office "now has 16 months to introduce its new systems, including delivering the more technically complex aspects of the programme which it has previously struggled with," warn the NAO.
A petition for the resignation of Frontex executive director Fabrice Leggeri, launched by the campaigning organisation We Move Europe, has gained over 57,000 signatures within one week.
EU institutions are in the middle of secret negotiations on new rules that would simplify the removal of “terrorist content” hosted online, but there are serious concerns that some of the measures would breach fundamental rights standards.
Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, has issued a press release calling for the immediate freeing of Julian Assange from Belmarsh prison, where he is being held pending proceedings to try to extradite him to the United States of America, and where there has been an outbreak of COVID-19. Melzer remarks that "Mr. Assange is not a criminal convict and poses no threat to anyone, so his prolonged solitary confinement in a high security prison is neither necessary nor proportionate and clearly lacks any legal basis."
The Renew Europe group in the European Parliament, which brings together liberal MEPs from across the EU, has called for strengthening the powers of EU policing agency Europol, to turn it into a "European FBI". The group says that Europol must be "fully equipped to fight against ever-evolving and new types of crimes and threats" - including by "giving Europol the right to on its own initiative conduct and coordinate cross-border investigations," a move which EU member states have recently dismissed; it is generally seen as encroaching too far on national sovereignty. The Renew Europe position paper has been published in the run-up to a forthcoming legal proposal from the European Commission which will set out a host of possible new powers for Europol.
Research by Unicef has found that the UK's youth justice system is breaching the human rights of young people and failing in its aims. The organisation has found that non-white children are over-represented, poor conditions in detention facilities, "widespread" use of practices such as "solitary confinement, tasers and spit-hoods," and problems with the age of criminal responsibility in all four UK nations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales), which remains below the UN's recommended age of 14.
Human Rights Watch has warned that the government's closure of the Collective Contre l'Islamophobie en France (Collective Against Islamophobia in France, CCIF) undermines "basic human rights and liberties including freedom of expression, association, and religion, and the principle of nondiscrimination". The CCIF is one of a number of organisations that has been targeted for closure by the government of Emmanuel Macron in the wake of the murder of schoolteacher Samuel Paty. The CCIF has announced is intention to challenge the government's decision in court. The organisation is not currently functioning, leaving 500 cases it was taking care of in limbo.
A draft copy of the conclusions of the European Council meeting due to be held this Thursday and Friday includes statements on COVID-19, climate change, security, and relations with the USA and the "Southern Neighbourhood" - but, at the moment, nothing about Brexit. The UK and EU are engaged in last-minute talks to try to agree a trade deal, which will need to be approved by the European Council (and the European Parliament) if it is to take effect at the beginning of 2021.
The text of forthcoming Council Conclusions on Internal Security and European Police Partnership have been agreed, with formal approval due at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 14 December. The Conclusions emphasise the upgrading of databases and increasing law enforcement officials' access to information and personal data; the need to make use of new technologies (such as artificial intelligence) and to undermine encryption; ensure closer cooperation with non-EU states and with military operations; call for new means and methods to address transnational organised crime; and stress (yet again) the need for reinforced cooperation to deal with terrorism. A separate set of Conclusions, included as an annex, set out measures for stepping up cross-border police cooperation.
Certain aspects of migration to EU states for the purpose of highly-skilled employment are governed by a 2009 law known as the 'Blue Card' Directive. In 2016, the Commission published a proposal to replace those rules, but negotiations between the Council and Parliament stalled. Recently, however, a number of secret "trilogue" meetings between Council and Parliament negotiators have been held, and the German Presidency of the Council is looking to find a way to reach agreement on the legislation.
The Socialists & Democrats group in the European Parliament, made up of centre-left parties from across the EU, is demanding calling for Fabrice Leggeri, director of EU border agency Frontex, to quit. The MEPs consider that Leggeri's performance at a recent hearing of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee, where "he failed to answer questions relating to the agency's involvement in pushbacks at the EU's external borders," warrants his resignation.
Along with a forthcoming Council Resolution on encryption, the German Presidency has produced "Recommendations for a way forward on the topic of encryption." Like the Resolution, the Recommendations underscore the importance of encryption whilst emphasising the need to find ways to circumvent it. The Presidency appears to belive this will be possible through "a lasting dialogue between Member States, the technology industry, civil society and academia," in order "to develop further a consistent regulatory framework across the EU that would allow competent authorities to carry out their operational tasks."
In a document recently circulated to member state delegations in the Council, the German Presidency presents the "state of play" on five issues relating to terrorism: the use of the European Arrest Warrant; support for victims of terrorism; the possibility of the cumulative prosecution of foreign terrorist fighters; digitalisation (including cross-border access to e-evidence and the digitalisation of criminal justice cooperation); and online hate speech (covering the current EU legal framework and "possible next steps").
Passengers at Dakar airport have recently passed through exit checks only to find themselves confronted by French and Spanish officials demanding to see their papers. The officials have reportedly been deployed as "mentors" for Senegalese border guards; their presence is part of "a joint operational program" between Senegal and the EU. Passengers at the airport say they did not see any Senegalese officials accompanying the French and Spanish guards - which raises questions over how exactly the "mentoring" program works - and have expressed indignation that foreign officials are deployed in such a manner, highlighting that it is impossible to imagine the situation in reverse.
Frontex, the EU’s border and coast guard agency, has launched a case against independent activists Luisa Izuzquiza and Arne Semsrott, who last year lost a court case against the agency seeking greater transparency over its border control operations.
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