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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
Two men who were subject to an attempted illegal pushback by the Greek coastguard have been sentenced to 50 years in prison. An appeal hearing is pending.
Over 110 people died after being shipwrecked in the Central Mediterranean over the course of a week in early November. Meanwhile, almost 500 people lost their lives attempting to reach the Canary Islands from Senegal in one week in late October. Seven years ago, following a similar tragedy, EU officials promised that beefing up Frontex and increasing border surveillance would help prevent such incidents.
"The House of Commons Justice Committee has recommended that children who enter the criminal justice system should receive a much wider range of treatments because of the complexity of their needs and the seriousness of the crimes they commit."
The EU's Counter-Terrorism Coordinator (CTC) provided detailed submissions to the Council for last Friday's "statement on the recent terrorist attacks in Europe". The CTC's recommendations are wide-ranging and not all of them made it into the final statement. However, many of them seem likely to be included in the forthcoming Council Conclusions on 'Internal Security and European Police Partnership'.
Statewatch is publishing a Council document setting out the German Presidency's thoughts and proposals on the proposed Regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online. The Council and Parliament are currently holding secret "trilogue" discussions and it is expected that the text of the Regulation - which contains some highly-controversial measures, for example on automated filtering of uploads - will be agreed soon. Member states have been applying renewed pressure on the EP to finalise the rules, following terrorist attacks in Paris and Austria.
"A new French security bill proposes to forbid the dissemination for “malicious purposes” of images of police officers doing their jobs. Supporters of the legislation say it would protect officers from malevolent personal attacks using social media. Detractors say it threatens to make it harder for journalists and NGOs to report on police wrongdoing."
EU justice and home affairs ministers recently adopted a statement in response to the recent terrorist attacks in France and Austria. It asserts a need "to combat all forms of violence which target people on the basis of their actual or supposed ethnic origin, or their religious belief or on the basis of other types of prejudice," and then goes on to single out migrants (explicitly) and Muslims (implicitly) as a problem, whilst demanding more of the same security measures that have been developed over the last 30 years. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and French President Emmanuel Macron have both recently made very clear statements about the need to suppress "political Islam".
A new campaign is calling for a ban on live facial recognition in public places. The #ReclaimYourFace campaign is building on existing national successes in Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Serbia. The call comes as the EU is moving towards publishing proposals for new rules on the use of artificial intelligence.
A six-year old boy recently drowned after a boat on which he was travelling ran into trouble off the coast of Samos. The Greek authorities are charging his father with "suspicion of endangering a life" and he could face ten years in prison. The pilot of the boat was also arrested, on smuggling charges, "a ridiculous charge as nearly all those who steer the boats are those who cannot afford to pay the full fare".
DW report on a new study conducted by a team of criminologists at the University of Bochum. The main conclusion is that "people from ethnic minorities are structurally disadvantaged by the police." Police violence is experienced by many people in Germany, including at demonstrations and other mass events. However, members of ethnic minorities often experience brutality elsewhere, and a lack of evidence makes it difficult to bring complaints or prosecutions.
Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England, has published a set of reports showing how the children’s residential social care system is broken and is failing many of the most vulnerable children, in particular those who are most at risk of falling through gaps in the system and becoming victims of criminal or sexual exploitation. Today’s reports are the start of a series of interventions by the Children’s Commissioner this month on the issue of children’s social care.
A new report by the Network for Police Monitoring looks at the policing of the Black Lives Matter protests in the UK that arose following the killing of George Floyd in the USA. "Netpol concludes that the policing of these protests was institutionally racist."
A set of draft Council Conclusions on internal security and a Joint Statement responding to recent terrorist attacks in France and Austria (the latter now approved by member states' representatives) call for boosting the powers of policing, security and border agencies. Increased access to information for frontline police officers, the use of artifical intelligence for law enforcement, and further calls to undermine encryption are featured in both documents.
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".
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