Dr Pietro Bartolo (2nd from right) meets with an Amnesty International delegation at Lampedusa hospital, 24 April 2015. © Amnesty International

18/05/2015 – The European Union is the world’s largest economy, the world’s largest trading block, and home to 500 million consumers. Every year, millions of euro worth of minerals flow into the EU from some of the poorest places on earth. No questions are asked about how they are extracted, or whether their trade fuels conflict in local communities. The EU has no legislation in place to ensure companies source their minerals responsibly. Now is the time for change.

Today we have seen the European Commission take a first step in shifting its Fortress Europe attitude towards the refugee crisis, but it will need to be implemented expansively and with the full backing of all EU member states.

Dilorom Abdukadirova. © Amnesty International

Uzbekistan Stop Torture action, October 2014. © Amnesty International

European leaders must ensure that refugees and migrants fleeing conflict and human rights abuses are never pushed back to Libya.

07/05/2015 – ‘Libya is full of cruelty’: Stories of abduction, sexual violence and abuse from migrants and refugees exposes the full horror and plight of refugees and migrants in Libya, many of whom are driven to risk their lives in treacherous sea crossings in a desperate attempt to reach sanctuary in Europe.

French authorities could soon be bugging peoples’ homes, cars and phone lines without approval from a judge, even where there is no reasonable suspicion that they have done anything wrong.

30/04/2015 – About 30 Roma, half of them children, are at imminent risk of being forcibly evicted once again by the local municipality of Eforie, in south-east Romania. Amnesty International, European Roma Rights Centre and Romani CRISS are calling on the Eforie municipality to refrain from carrying out any forced eviction.

In this day and age, it is shocking that Romani children in Slovakia are systematically segregated from non-Roma children and put in special schools.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL MEDIA ADVISORY