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.
African states have requested an urgent debate at the UN Human Rights Council.
A new report from Alarm Phone, Borderline Europe, Mediterranea and Sea-Watch.
An open letter coordinated by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR).
A new report, Race and Racism in English Secondary Schools, argues that increasing the number of police in schools has particularly negative affects on black and other ethnic minority pupils.
Since May 2018, EU institutions have been discussing changes to the Visa Information System (VIS), a large-scale database that holds data on tens of millions of applicants for short-stay Schengen visas. The proposed changes would introduce a number of new features, including a direct role for Europol in decision-making, if the Commission and Council get their way. This would be a significant extension of the agency's powers. There are further concerns about the agency becoming a "black box" for data from third countries that might be used against travellers to the EU.
The approval of the new Frontex Regulation in November 2019 implied an increase of competences, budget and capabilities for the EU's border agency, which is now equipping itself with increased means to monitor events and developments at the borders and beyond, as well as renewing its IT systems to improve the management of the reams of data to which it will have access.
Only 18 out of 40 NGOs working in migrant and refugee centres
"C-118/20 JY concerns the procedure for acquisition of Austrian nationality, and more specifically at which moment during the procedure the previous nationalities have to be lost, and whether this is in conformity with the rules on EU citizenship."
With Privacy International, Fundaciòn Datos Protegidos and Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D), we produced a joint submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, in response to their call for input on how digital technologies deployed in the context of border enforcement and administration reproduce, reinforce, and compound racial discrimination.
The Guardian has revealed that European Commission officials were fearful of disclosing everything they knew about a mechanism they had funded in Croatia for monitoring violations of fundamental rights at the borders.
The Belgian government plans to reduce the number of soldiers deployed on the streets. They were originally deployed in 2015. The proposals have caused alarm amongst the Jewish community in Brussels.
A briefing paper from the Robert Schuman Foundation looks at how emergency measures implemented during the novel coronavirus pandemic have granted power to government executives at the expense of parliamentary oversight.
A new report by Saferworld looks at the rise of the counter-terrroism policy within the UN institutions.
Answers to Parliamentary questions shed some light on Europol's use of software made by controversial US company Palantir.
The European Court of Human Rights has overturned the criminal conviction by French courts of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigners. The pro-Palestinian activists were convicted "for incitement to economic discrimination, on account of their participation in actions aimed at boycotting products imported from Israel."
Tineke Strik, the Green MEP responsible for overseeing the passage through the European Parliament of the 'recast Return Directive', which governs certain common procedures regarding the detention and expulsion of non-EU nationals, has prepared a report on the implementation of the original 2008 Return Directive. It criticises the Commission's emphasis, since 2017, on punitive enforcement measures, at the expense of alternatives that have not been fully explored or implemented by the Commission or the member states, despite the 2008 legislation providing for them.
Dozens of civil society organisations have called on the EU institutions to reverse proposed cuts to the EU's Rights and Values Programme.
"The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is deeply concerned about persistent reports of pushbacks and collective expulsions of migrants, in some cases violent, at the European Union (EU) border between Greece and Turkey. International media reports and footage showing the use of marine rescue equipment to expel migrants across the Eastern Aegean Sea are especially disturbing."
"Thousands of people have taken to Europe’s streets not only to protest the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in the US but to denounce police brutality and structural racism, which is an issue on this side of the Atlantic as well."
"A European privacy body said it "has doubts" that using facial recognition technology developed by U.S. company Clearview AI is legal in the EU."
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