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24 Jan  Issue 25/01

news Welcome to the year’s first edition of the Statewatch Bulletin. You may have already noticed, but 2025 has brought several changes to Statewatch. You can find explanations of these changes along with our regular newsletter content below, now in a friendlier format. As always, if you appreciate what we do, you can support us with a donation. Every contribution helps us deliver more independent news, information and analysis to people like you. Sincerely, The Statewatch team

make a donation >> why we changed our look At the start of the year we launched a new logo and visual identity. The changes follow discussions and iterations over the last year with our staff, board and contributors. Ultimately, we found agreement on a visual style that represents: where we come from (as activists, journalists and dissenters); and what we are up against (government secrecy). The beloved spyglass may be gone, but our mission remains the same. By bringing our work to a broader audience, our new visual identity will help us achieve it. how we're changing our newsletter We want to continue providing critical updates on civil liberties, human rights and democratic standards. In this tumultuous media landscape, email seems the most reliable and direct way to deliver that. We continue to host the mailing list, and your personal information, with GreenNet. However, we are now compiling the Bulletin with a third-party platform, Brevo. This is so we can compose more visual newsletters, to see whether our emails are opened, and how they are used. We would like to emphasise that none of this information is associated with any individual subscriber. Data is only collected with regard to the list as a whole. We made this change for two reasons: to compose more readable newsletters; and to get a sense of what interests everyone here. We will keep you informed of any future changes to the way the mailing list works. If you have remaining questions or concerns about these changes, please feel free to email comms@statewatch.org.  Deportations: New role for Frontex as EU pushes for more “voluntary” returns Special report by Hope Barker and Anas Ambri. It covers accelerated asylum and deportation procedures introduced in Bulgaria, and the not-so-voluntary nature of "assisted voluntary returns" (AVRs). read more >>   EU: Human rights must be “central guiding basis” for new AI guidelines This statement calls for the guidance on the definitions and prohibitions contained in the AI Act to be centred on upholding fundamental rights. read more >>   EU police cooperation with Egypt sacrifices "people's rights and freedoms" for security This open letter calls for a halt to police cooperation between Europol and Egypt. Amongst the signatories is the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). EIPR's director, Hossam Baghat, was arrested on terrorism charges the day the letter was published, thus underlining the importance of the letter's demands. read more >>   Why Statewatch is leaving X After over a decade of sharing research, exposing abuses of power, and engaging in critical conversations on the platform X, we’ve decided it’s time to take our leave. read more >>   Statement in support of Moussa Tchangari Along with members of Migreurop and multiple other organisations, we demand the immediate release of Moussa Tchangari. Moussa is a human rights defender and General Secretary of the organisation Alternative Espaces Citoyens. He was imprisoned on 3 January 2025 after a month in police custody. read more >>   Expansive EU defence, migration and security policy shifts are altering the EU’s nature Our researcher, Yasha Maccanico, examines the evolution of the EU’s security and defence policies for the organisation Ritimo. The article explores the “unprecedented amount of funding for security and defence purposes” in the EU’s budgets for the 2021-27 period. read more >>

what we're watching What we're watching is our bi-weekly round up of all the important news, events, and resources we've come across over the last two weeks. Find this resource useful? If so, please consider making a donation to support us. donate now to support our work >>

­ borders and frontiers Returns to Croatia, those "secret" and costly flights from Switzerland "Every year, Swiss authorities organise various so-called 'special flights' to return rejected asylum seekers. The flights are kept secret and have considerable costs. Italian language Swiss radio and television broadcaster RSI has found a deportee and collected the statements of asylum seekers expelled from Switzerland." Read more Militarizing Crimmigration "Donald Trump ran for election, and won, on the strength of his promises to close the U.S.-Mexican border, and to implement mass detention and deportation. These promises are not new. But the tools that he plans to use to accomplish those promises are." Read more The ‘enormous cost’ of returning Syrians from Germany "Germany is grappling with the future of Syrian refugees as talks on the hot-button issue of migration intensify ahead of its national election next month, but proposals to reassess their refugee status will likely fail due to major logistical and financial hurdles." Read more “... Here I Went Through Deportation – Which was also Torture for Me”: Air‐Deportations and Liberal Violence in Great Britain Timely article which includes first-hand testimonies and argues that deportation "per se" should be considered violence. Read more Egypt’s new asylum law: aided by EU support, fuelled by repression "Altogether, Egypt received approximately €10.2bn in aid and loans. Critics argue these funds, ostensibly aimed at addressing economic challenges, empower an authoritarian regime, emboldening its repressive policies against refugees and dissenters alike" Read more Deadly borders at the gates to Europe “The Bulgarian border police impeded the rescue of three migrant minors whose life was in danger. The bodies, abandoned in the woods in the snow and partly eaten by animals, were recovered by the Collettivo Rotte Balcaniche and by No Name Kitchen some time later.” Read more Libya expels 600 Nigeriens in ‘dangerous and traumatising’ desert journey ''Leaders like [Viktor] Orbán, [Giorgia] Meloni, or Trump applaud such efficient cruelty. It’s no accident; it’s the design. The EU pays to erase migrants, to make suffering invisible, and to wash its hands while others do its dirty work.” Read more Frontex: war against migrants with Israeli drones. The EU wants to strengthen sea borders “’Israel Aerospace Industries is proud to have been chosen by Airbus as a sub-contractor in the Frontex programme,’ declared Moshe Levy, a former coronel in the Israeli air force and current vice-president and general manager of the aerial military sector of the industrial group IAI.” Read more EU: The biggest battles headed for Brussels  A new law on deportations to replace the 2008 Returns Directive is likely to be proposed this year. The European Commission will also seek to make progress with plans for “return hubs” (deportation camps outside the EU). Read more Bosnia initials deal allowing EU border guards to operate in country "Bosnia and Herzegovina initialled an agreement with the European Union's border agency Frontex on Wednesday providing for technical assistance and deployment of EU guards on its borders to control and prevent illegal migration and cross-border crime." Read more coercion and control France spearheads member state campaign to dilute European AI regulation “Governments successfully lobby for freedom to surveil citizens in public spaces, target border areas with AI systems and exploit predictive policing algorithms, internal documents obtained by Investigate Europe reveal.” Read more Egyptian Government Sends Clear Message Ahead of UN Review: Human Rights Reform Off the Table "Egyptian authorities have given every possible signal over the past few months that human rights reform is off the table."  Read more Italy: Ramy's Milan and that of the red zones Article that brings together the death during a police pursuit of Ramy Elgaml in Milan, the creation of exclusion zones in city centres for new year's eve festivities, and the coming approval of a draconian security decree. Read more UK: Serious crime laws to be overhauled to combat people-smuggling gangs "These orders are part of a stronger approach to organised crime which will form part of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. This new approach will level up our response to serious crime including organised immigration crime, with new powers mirroring those which are already used to disrupt other harmful criminality such as knife crime, slavery and trafficking." Read more UK government appeals court order for Sean Brown inquiry "High Court judge Mr Justice Humphreys ruled in mid-December that a public inquiry into the murder was now necessary to satisfy the UK’s obligations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).The UK government lodged a notice of appeal on 31 December 2024" Read more Europe Quietly Prepares for World War III "With warnings swirling over a possible war with Russia in a matter of years, NATO's European members have already started laying the groundwork for defenses, should Russian troops set foot on alliance soil." Read more UK: Palestine activists face the British state of terror "Anti-terror powers have intensified against Palestine activists and more recently against Kurdish activists, with raids, detentions, and restrictions imposed. Les Levidow uncovers the political motives behind this repression and calls for united resistance to challenge the counter-terror regime." Read more Too much information: Changes to how DNA is collected are at the heart of Russia’s latest encroachment on civil liberties “Since the start of the year, Russians have no longer had to commit a serious criminal offence to end up on the country’s DNA database — this will now happen to anyone who commits even a civil misdemeanour.” Read more Italy: The death of Ramy Elgaml and that festival of lies that is so reminiscent of Genoa in 2001 Two young men on a moped who did not stop were chased for eight kilometres and crashed. One of them (Ramy) died. Audio recordings indicate that they may have wilfully been made to fall. Read more UK to launch world first sanctions regime to snare people smugglers travelling upstream “The UK will develop a new sanctions regime to cripple people smuggling crime rings and starve them of illicit finance fuelling their operations.” Read more UK: Funding gap for women’s centres will mean more prison sentences, experts warn "Women’s centres work with thousands in crisis, playing a central role in keeping vulnerable women out of prison. But two significant streams of government funding will end in March 2025, even though ministers have announced plans to reduce the number of women being locked up." Read more War and the future of war "What emerging trends can we identify in modern warfare, and how will new technologies shape future conflict and the military operating environment?" Read more Syria: how the British media keep the British people in ignorance "The great unmentionable truth is that a huge swathe of journalists, who generally see themselves as independent, truth-seeking, disputatious professionals, are actually extremely incurious and soft on established power." Read more Greece jailed “Pylos 9” despite knowing they were innocent as Egypt prosecuted the real smugglers “Greek authorities knew from Egyptian officials that the “Pylos 9” were not part of a smuggling network – yet these men spent a year behind bars.” Read more resistance and solidarity German Supreme Court sends six antifascists to pre-trial detention, solidarity actions in several cities "Seven people wanted for attacks on right-wing extremists turned themselves in on Monday. Arrest warrants have been issued for them from Germany and Hungary. All of them face trial in Budapest with very high penalties." Read more Venice, 500 people attend the Amnesty report presentation on genocide in Gaza According to agreements struck between Amnesty and the Veneto-based university before Christmas, the report presentation should have taken place in one of the latter's halls, but two days before the meeting, the university changed its mind and withdrew its consent due to a letter from the Jewish community that contested the use of the word genocide in the event's title, accusing Amnesty of antisemitic bias. Read more To face the tragedies in the Channel, we march for justice and dignity "2024 at the French-British border ended with a terrible balance sheet, 89 people - men, women and children - have died, mostly after attempts to cross the Channel in makeshift vessels, and others due to the living conditions that they are kept in. In solidarity with the people blocked at the border, and in order to denounce the policies that are enacted there, we call for a large march on the coming 11 January in Calais. Read more Echoes from the Central Mediterranean. 10 Years of Struggle! News round-up in this January 2025 issue, that calls for transnational actions, analyses the Comores route, reports on a shipwreck that could have been prevented, looks at Salvini's Open Arms trial, reports on criminalisation (El Hiblu 3 trial in Malta) and amplifies the voices of Refugees in Libya. Read more Protesters in Calais condemn UK policies to stop Channel crossings "They say increased surveillance and policing on French beaches is forcing displaced people to turn to riskier routes during attempted crossings, setting off inland from canals or from further down the coastline, increasing the threat to life as more hours are spent in dangerous conditions." Read more Security bill: relatives of the victims of mass killings against the norm that shields secret a license to commit crimes, an offence to the Constitution" "Relatives of the victims of the Mafia and terrorism express 'strong concern, and also indignation, for what article 31 of the Security ddl [bill] proposes', which is being discussed in the senate after approval by the chamber of deputies. It is the norm that strengthen secret services' undercover activities, allowing agents not just to participate in terrorist-subversive associations, but also to lead and direct them, even to recruit new members." Read more secrecy and transparency Legal Recommendations to Strengthen Access to Documents in France “Despite its constitutional status, the current legal framework regulating this right falls significantly short of the benchmarks established by the Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents (Tromsø Convention) and other international best practices.” Read more surveillance and snooping UK: GPS tagging of asylum seekers is ineffective, government report finds "Putting electronic tags on asylum seekers is ineffective and doesn’t stop people absconding from immigration bail, a government report has found.Some migrants who crossed the Channel in small boats were tagged under a Home Office pilot, labelled “appalling” and “draconian” by refugee charities, from July 2022 to December 2023.The controversial trial was subjected to a legal challenge, which eventually deemed the pilot unlawful." Read more Chaos in the Iran affair. Belloni leaves as head of the secret services Elisabetta Belloni resigns as head of DIS, the department that coordinates and oversees the intelligence services, a post that she has held since 2021. Despite claims that it was for "personal reasons", tensions with other influential figures and marginalisation in the Cecilia Sala affair may have played a part. Read more Infiltrats (Undercover) How four police officers who infilitrated social movements in Catalonia were discovered. In Catalan with Spanish, English, German and French subtitles. Read more Inside Cognify, the ‘prison of the future’ where AI rewires your brain “A new prison concept proposes bombarding criminals with artificial memories from the perspective of their victims – what could go wrong?” Read more UK: GPS expansion pilot evaluation “This evaluation compared behaviours of tagged and non-tagged asylum seekers and suggested that electronic monitoring did not improve their compliance.” Read more “Belloni was not up to the chief after Cecilia Sala was freed An extraordinary attack by foreign affairs minister Tajani against the outgoing head of DIS (Department of Security Information), Elisabetta Belloni, who resigned due to personal tensions and her marginalisation in the Sala case. Read more UK and Norway join forces to counter eavesdropping “The UK and Norwegian governments are to share best practice and new technologies to detect and expose eavesdropping devices.” Read more Switzerland to introduce air passenger database “Switzerland is to introduce a national air passenger database following parliamentary approval.” Read more Passenger information: EU adopts regulations to improve border security and fight terrorism “Under the new regulation on the collection and transfer of API, airlines must transmit passenger data – including travel document data, flight details and baggage information – to the authorities before passengers reach the EU’s external borders.” Read more Statewatch 88 Fleet Street, EC4Y 1DH, London This email was sent to statewatch@gn.apc.org