19 November 2023 – The European Commission wants to agree “new anti-smuggling operational partnerships” with Tunisia and Egypt before the end of the year, despite longstanding reports of abuse against migrants and refugees in Egypt and recent racist violence endorsed by the Tunisian state. Material and financial support is already being stepped up to the two North African countries, along with support for Libya.

The plan for new “partnerships” is referred to in a newly-revealed annex of a letter from European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, that was sent to the European Council prior to its meeting in October and published by Statewatch.

Read the article on the website of Statewatch.

The European architecture for border surveillance has been continuously expanding in an attempt to detect, deter and repel refugees and migrants. For those who manage to enter, they are biometrically registered and screened against large-scale databases, raising serious concerns on privacy violations, data protection breaches and questions of proportionality. 

Recently Euromed Rights launched a new fact sheet with infographics on the use of Artificial Intelligence for border control and surveillance. The fact sheet is based on the report ‘Europe’s Techno Borders‘ which Euromed Rights and Statewatch published earlier this year.

[Taken from the Instagram of the Frachcollective] 20 October 2023 – Yesterday, 45 detained people on the move entered into a hunger strike protesting their detention at the Slovakian-Hungarian border town Medved’ov. Mostly Kurdish people from Iraq and Turkey, as well as people from Afghanistan, are detained since weeks, some for months, without any information on the reasons why or for how long.

The night before 30 riot police with dogs entered the detention center to intimidate people on the move who are demanding their freedom. Continue reading “Solidarity with uprising in Medved’ov migrant detention center (Slovakia)”

The European Union’s border agency, Frontex, facilitated the deportation of nearly 18,000 individuals from EU territory during the first half of 2023, marking an unprecedented peak. This surge in removals, executed through both scheduled flights and “voluntary” return procedures, demonstrates a 60% upswing in deportations compared to the corresponding period in 2022.

Read the full post on Statewatch’s website.

2 October 2023 – On 5 September Frontex awarded new framework contracts for manned aerial surveillance flights on land and coastline to the companies CAE Aviation (Luxembourg) and European SAO (Malta). Under this contract they will fly scheduled and unscheduled flights from a base airport on request, “to report objects and events of interest to a Coordination Centre designated by Frontex” in support of its operations.

The contracts have a duration of 24 months, with a (in principal automatic) renewal for the same period. The maximum value is €14 million, which can be increased with up to 50% – something that regularly happened with previous similar contracts. Frontex guarantees at least 400 flight hours. A representative for each company has to be present in its headquarters in Warsaw to plan flight activities and receive feedback. Continue reading “New Frontex contracts for aerial surveillance flights”

18 September 2023 – Abolish Frontex, a grassroots network of over 130 organisations and groups, strongly condemns the reaction of the European Union to the current migration situation on Lampedusa. The 10–Point Plan presented by European Commission president von der Leyen during her visit to the island on Sunday 17 September, at the invitation of Italy’s far right government, is merely another addition to Europe’s repressive and violent border and migration policies and will do nothing to help people on the move. Continue reading “Lampedusa: no to Frontex, no to migration cooperation with Tunisia”

While a number of complaints have been lodged against Frontex before the EU’s courts in different procedures (e.g., annulment, transparency, failure to act), the action for damages in casu, was the first of its kind concerning human rights responsibility of Frontex and had all the ingredients to prompt the General Court to finally clarify a number of pervasive and urgent questions concerning Frontex responsibility for complicity in unlawful human rights conduct. Instead, by conflating the wrongful conduct under scrutiny, the Court prevents a critical examination of Frontex’s conduct altogether. The significance of the case thus lies in the adopted approach by the Court, which, in effect, contributes to the systematic shielding of Frontex from any responsibility for contributions to human rights harms.

Read more at Verfassungsblog

Piraeus Metro Station – 6 pm

1 September 2023 – On Wednesday 14/6/2023, off the coast of Pylos, a fishing boat capsized, resulting in the death of more than 600 people. Testimonies of survivors revealed that hundreds of women and children were trapped in the hold of the fishing boat. The involvement of the Hellenic Coast Guard in the sinking of the vessel was immediate. Not only did they fail to rescue the passengers when their boat was already in distress, but based on the testimonies of the survivors, the capsizing of the boat occurred when the coastguards towed the boat with a rope. With no regard for human life, the coast guard watched hundreds of people drown from a distance and only began the rescue after two hours. After 104 survivors were brought ashore in Kalamata, the Greek police confiscated the mobile phones of 40 of the survivors in the Kalamata hospital and replaced them so that the evidence of the Hellenic Coast Guard’s responsibility for the sinking of the boat would disappear. According to the survivors, the phones were working and several of them contained a recording of the entire trip, including the Coast Guard’s fatal intervention. Continue reading “Saturday 2 September: Demonstration to the Hellenic Coast Guard and Frontex offices in Athens”