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.
"This live position paper provides an overview of the risks and impact of COVID-19 on racial inequalities within the UK. It outlines an urgent call to action, including specific recommendations for civil society and its funders, to put BAME communities at the heart of their response to ensure it addresses root issues and maximises impact. If you are working across any of the principles or issues we have highlighted, please let us know. You can contact us through charitysowhite@gmail.com and a member of our team will get back to you."
"Statement by Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden"
"Europe's data protection watchdog has called for a single coronavirus app to be used across the EU, instead of every country making its own. Several countries are developing tracking apps, but privacy advocates warn of the dangers they might pose."
"Representatives of the European Commission and Member States discussed the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the judiciary. They also exchanged information on measures taken by Member State's governments to prevent its spread. "
"In the midst of violence at the Greek-Turkish border, at least two men were killed and a woman remains missing after Greek border forces reportedly fired live ammunition and tear gas against asylum-seekers and migrants."
"The European Commission closes today [2 April 2020] infringement procedures against eight Member States as they transposed EU rules on Passenger Name Record data into national law."
Samos Voice published letter by Professor Chris Jones
"The referral to the court of appeal of 39 cases of potential wrongful prosecution of subpostmasters, for theft, fraud and false accounting, is the biggest group of probable miscarriages of justice in UK history, according to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). This group will get even bigger, with 22 more cases under review and only delayed because they were more recently taken up by the CCRC, and more potential applicants have contacted the CCRC in the days since the historic announcement was made. “This is completely unprecedented,” Helen Pitcher, chairman at the CCRC, told Computer Weekly. She said the previous biggest group referral comprised 10 cases."
"The Home Secretary has today (Monday 30 March) announced that Ken McCallum has been appointed as Director General of MI5. He will become MI5's eighteenth Director General and succeeds Sir Andrew Parker, who has been Director General since 2013 and retires in April. Ken McCallum is an MI5 officer with almost 25 years of experience across the full spectrum of the organisation's national security and intelligence work. His first ten years was focussed on Northern Ireland-related terrorism, with his work contributing to the peace process remaining a career highlight. Senior operational roles in countering Islamist extremist terrorism followed, and a period leading on cyber security, where he expanded MI5 engagement with the private sector."
"The Greek hotspots in which exiles are crammed without any protection of their rights or from the pandemic are an example of the precarization of their trajectories by the security policies of States. Migreurop denounces the violence inflicted onto exiles in the name of the “war against the virus”, their unequal treatment with regard to the pandemic, and demands the immediate closure of all spaces of migrant detention in order to ensure their right to be protected."
"Officials in Greece have placed a second migrant camp near Athens under lockdown after an Afghan resident tested positive for the coronavirus, the migration ministry said."
Gerald Knaus, the man widely considered responsible for coming up with the EU-Turkey Deal that has trapped thousands of people in squalid conditions on Greek islands, is now calling for those camps to be evacuated.
Citing COVID-19, Authorities Arbitrarily Detain New Arrivals
A paper from the Centre for European Policy Studies looks at whether the right to privacy will be violated in the name of addressing the coronavirus pandemic.
Portugal is granting temporary rights to people with pending residency applications, including asylum-seekers, residence until at least 1 July.
A report from the Greek-Turkish border.
An article by the director of the GLOBSEC think-tank.
More news on the new powers granting the Hungarian government the ability to rule by decree.
Professor Steve Peers sets out what the Northern Ireland Protocol will actually mean regarding checks at the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland.
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