Statewatch

14/01/2025

New: Frontex, "voluntary" deportations, & anti-solidarity

This special report delves into the European Commission's Pilot Projects in Bulgaria and Romania, designed to expedite asylum and deportation processes.

Key findings include...

• Assisted Voluntary Returns (AVR): While labelled “voluntary,” many returns occur in detention settings. This raises serious questions about consent and coercion.

• Frontex's expanded role: The agency has taken over return counselling. This means they send counsellors to detention centres to push detainees to "voluntarily" return to their country of origin. Critics argue this undermines rights protections and the concept of voluntariness.

• Structural concerns: Experts warn that the EU’s approach lacks adequate safeguards, exacerbating the risks of human rights violations.

This article also explores how these policies align with the broader EU migration framework, including the hashtag , and their potential to redefine the concept of “solidarity.”

Read the full article to learn more about these critical developments:

https://www.statewatch.org/news/2025/deportations-new-role-for-frontex-as-eu-pushes-for-more-voluntary-returns/



Image description:
Green cut-out image of a detention centre with green text that says: News. Frontex, "voluntary" deportations, and anti-solidarity. Special report by Hope Barker and Anas Ambri. 14 January

20/12/2024

This has been a busy year for both our core team and our contributors! Together, we published over 50 news articles and 20 analyses and supported 25 joint statements.

We also spoke at over a dozen events and hosted our first workshops on data protection in immigration and asylum.

But numbers aren't everything.

What impact we made:
• We started our with migration-control.info to fight the secrecy surrounding the EU's border and migration policies.
• We investigated EU agencies to increase accountability and prevent further harm.
• We collaborated with journalists, organisations, academics and activists to expose state activity and inform dissent.

That's just a snippet. Read more on what we did this year at the link.

Want to support this work? Donate today or become a Friend of Statewatch by making a recurring monthly gift.

For now, we're signing off until the new year. Then, we'll announce another project we've been working on!

Watch out for big changes in 2025.

A review of our work in 2024, and a call for your support in 2025.

16/12/2024

Statewatch is looking for new members to join our Board of Trustees 📢

At Statewatch, our vision is an open Europe of democracy, civil liberties, personal and political rights, free movement, freedom of information, equality and diversity.

We are looking for trustees that share this vision and want to help us achieve it.

Read more about the role and find out how to apply:

The Board of Trustees of Statewatch is looking for new members to work with us! Could you be the right person to help steer the ever-vital work of Statewatch?

13/12/2024

The Italian senate is discussing a bill that could be "the most serious attack to the freedom of protest ever waged in recent decades." So we signed a joint statement with 26 organisations from across Europe to condemn it.

The bill would criminalise protest roadblocks–particularly targeting climate and environmental movements. It would also increase punishments for resistance to major infrastructure projects.

The statement makes it clear:

This bill would "further criminalise and marginalise vulnerable communities, including immigrants, beggars, the homeless, Roma people, those residing in squats, and detainees"

Read more:

A bill under discussion in the Italian senate is "the most serious attack to the freedom of protest ever waged in recent decades," says a joint statement signed by 26 organisations from across Europe, including Statewatch. The bill, targeted at the climate and environmental movements, would criminal...

11/12/2024

A case has been filed at the International Criminal Court (ICC) demanding the prosecution of seven Israeli officials and one journalist, for the crime of incitement to genocide.

Earlier this year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that genocidal acts in Palestine, including incitement, were "plausible".

Incitement to genocide and genocide are two separate crimes under the Rome Statute, which sets out the remit and powers of the ICC.

The submission argues that incitement to genocide must be independently investigated and prosecuted - and because Israel has refused to do so, the ICC must take up the case.

A Franco-Israeli lawyer has filed a case with the International Criminal Court (ICC), calling for the prosecution of eight individuals for the crime of incitement to genocide: seven current and former high-ranking officials, and a journalist. The submission, obtained by Statewatch, is published here...

10/12/2024

A case has been filed at the ICC to prosecute Israeli officials for incitement to genocide 🚨

Dr. Omer Shatz, a Franco-Israeli lawyer has filed a case with the International Criminal Court (ICC), calling for the prosecution of eight individuals for the crime of incitement to genocide. These individuals are:
• Yoav Gallant, the former defence minister;
• Isaac Herzog, the president;
• Israel Katz, the defence minister;
• Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister;
• Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister;
• Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister;
• Zvi Yehezkeli, a television journalist; a
• Giora Eiland, former major general in the Israeli Defence Forces.

🖇️ We obtained and published the submission along with an overview of the contents, here: https://www.statewatch.org/news/2024/december/case-filed-at-icc-to-prosecute-israeli-officials-for-incitement-to-genocide/

10/12/2024

Today is Human Rights Day–commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. For many institutions, this is a day to pledge their ongoing commitment to these rights.

Yet, at Statewatch, we know how empty these commitments can be.

That’s why we are reaffirming our own pledge: to challenge these empty commitments and continue exposing the threats to human rights everywhere, especially by the states claiming to uphold them.

How we show our commitment ✅

We have shown our commitment to exposing and challenging state power and threats to human rights for the last 30+ years. And while others have spent Human Rights Day making empty promises, we have spent it working to fulfill ours.

• This year

We are spending this Human Rights Day hosting the second installment of a free workshop on data protection in immigration and asylum.

Joined by lawyers, activists, and members of civil society from across Europe, we are providing guidance on how to use data protection to combat the unjust collection and exchange of data about migrants and asylum seekers at borders.

Too often, secret data is wielded as a means for states to avoid their human rights obligations. Through data protection law, we are revealing a critical route to redress.

• Previous years

In 2023, we spent Human Rights Day writing about the expansive new police powers hidden behind the EU’s migrant smuggling proposals, the proposals to crack down on pro-Palestinian action, and the billions of euros going to strengthen the EU’s border system.

In 2021, we spent it supporting an independent journalist to expose the human rights disaster caused by Greece moving refugees into the prison-like facilities of “closed controlled access centres”. The atrocities of Greek actors have only continued to worsen, and this year we helped expose Frontex’s complicity in their human rights abuses.

In 2019, we were busy analysing the increasing surveillance powers of Frontex – a development states have continued to support despite the evidence of human rights abuses.

How you can support ❇️

You can support our commitment to human rights, civil liberties, and democratic standards in Europe by becoming a Friend of Statewatch and making a monthly contribution.

Your contribution will help us hold states accountable to their commitments.

Make a donation now: https://www.statewatch.org/donate/

Make a donation to Statewatch

10/12/2024

This week, a new EU law on the criminalisation of migrant smuggling will be examined by the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council.

The "Facilitation Directive" law ostensibly targets people facilitating the "unauthorised entry, transit or residence" of people into the EU.

Similar laws have been used to criminalise humanitarian action and solidarity. The Council’s Directive seem to increase the chances of criminalisation, making prosecutions more likely.

Here are some main points from the Council's text and what they mean for the criminalisation of migration and solidarity:

1) It opens the door to stricter criminalisation.

It emphasises that national laws can go beyond this Directive for "more extensive incrimination". This includes:

• allowing national law to exclude any requirement at all for a "financial or material benefit"
• allowing national law to override the protection of migrants under international law, which says migrants shouldn’t be punished just for being part of a criminalised act.

2) It gives a broad scope for criminalisation.

In the Directive, individuals can be criminalised for even "indirectly" receiving a perceived benefit. This is, of course, worsened by the potential for national law to exclude the requirement entirely.

3) It allows the criminalisation of family members giving assistance.

Despite appearing to ban the criminalisation of assistance to family members crossing borders, the Council text does the opposite.

It also no longer requires states to account for “the different particular circumstances of dependency and the special attention to be paid to the best interests of children.”

Read our detailed analysis here:

Next week, a new EU law on the criminalisation of migrant smuggling will be examined by the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council. The Council is due to approve its position for negotiations with the European Parliament. The existing law has been criticised for failing to prevent the criminalisatio...

06/12/2024

Vient de paraître : Traduction en de notre bulletin sur l'externalisation, numéro 03.

Il couvre les dernières discussions des groupes de travail du de l'UE sur le sujet et comprennent deux analyses :

1) sur les priorités de l'UE pour le
2) sur les accords de migration autour de la Méditerranée centrale.

ENGLISH:
Just out: translations of our , Issue 03.

These cover the latest EU Council Working Group discussions on the topic and include two analyses:

1) on EU priorities for
2) on migration agreements around the Central Mediterranean.

https://www.statewatch.org/outsourcing-borders-monitoring-eu-externalisation-policy/bulletin-3/

29/11/2024

Our latest with makes documents from the highly secretive Coordination Group on Migration (CGM) public.

What is the CGM?

The CGM is a body in which the Commission and member states coordinate their spending on external migration projects. It falls under the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI – Global Europe) and the Member States’ bilateral cooperation instruments.

What is in the documents?

These documents should be of interest to anyone seeking to understand, investigate or challenge the EU’s external migration control agenda. They provide information on projects, priorities and useful pointers for further investigation.

They also expose how funds for development aid are instead used for harmful migration-related projects.

Up to 10% of this €80 billion budget is supposed to be used for migration-related projects, subverting the purpose of development aid. Rather than being normalised, this needs to be opposed.

Read more here: https://buff.ly/3ZsHjtZ

25/11/2024

🚨 The 4th issue of the is out now!

This issue covers changes to deportation law and the effects of Frontex-led reintegration policies in The Gambia and Nigeria. It also makes over 15 documents from EU institutions public.

The first analysis on deportation law reviews possible 2025 changes to the EU’s “Returns Directive”. We obtained documents that show how potential changes would likely reduce safeguards and increase the use of coercive methods to deport people to countries deemed unsafe.

This would continue the dangerous expansion of policies that undermine human rights.

Likewise, the second analysis dives into the effects and failings of Frontex-led reintegration policies in The Gambia and Nigeria. It shows how these policies, under the guise of supporting “voluntary returns”, work to maintain racist and oppressive global divisions:
• In The Gambia, grassroots organisations struggle to avoid exploitation.
• In Nigeria, Frontex border controls restrict rights and hinder free movement within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

The analyses and the documents they refer to are now available at the link below. In addition to these, we have published several documents concerning the EU’s Coordination Group on Migration. This secretive body coordinates EU and member state spending on external migration control.

Find it all here: https://www.statewatch.org/outsourcing-borders-monitoring-eu-externalisation-policy/bulletin-4/