Anniversary Marks Ongoing Assault on Women’s Rights, Rule of Law

The Pegasus Project revealed how spyware sold by the cybersurveillance company NSO Group to state clients has been used to target activists, journalists, lawyers, and politicians. In this briefing document, Amnesty International outlines key measures urgently needed to ensure greater regulation over the cybersurveillance industry, accountability for human rights violations and more independent oversight over this opaque industry. Given the wide-ranging impact of these revelations, we would urge the EU and its member states to draw on both their internal and foreign policy instruments to address these abuses, and ensure robust and meaningful regulation over the cybersurveillance industry.

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Six international human rights groups – Amnesty International, the Burundi Human Rights Initiative, DefendDefenders (East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project), Human Rights Watch, Protection International Africa and TRIAL International – condemned the decision of the Court of Appeal of Ngozi on 29 September to uphold the conviction and five-year prison sentence of Burundian lawyer Tony Germain Nkina following an unfair trial.

Libyan security forces and militias in Tripoli have used unlawful lethal force and other violence in an unprecedented roundup of over 5,000 men, women and children from Sub-Saharan Africa and are holding them in horrid conditions where torture and sexual abuse are rampant, said Amnesty International. 

Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal has today ruled that Polish law takes primacy over EU law, and breaches of EU law in Poland can no longer be referred to the EU Court of Justice, by Polish courts. Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office said:

Responding to a new investigation by Lighthouse Reports which documents how authorities in several European Union (EU) countries have violently rounded up migrants and asylum-seekers and summarily returned them to countries outside EU borders, Jelena Sesar, Balkans Researcher at Amnesty International said:

Ahead of the high-level Resettlement Forum which you have convened on 7 October, Amnesty International would like to share our assessment of the decisive actions that the EU and participating states need to take to enable the safe passage and evacuation of Afghans at risk from Afghanistan and its neighbouring countries. Whilst calling on you to do your utmost to secure pledges from participating states for much needed resettlement of refugees who come from Afghanistan and beyond, we urge you to ensure this event is a ground breaker for coordinated and sustained evacuations of Afghan nationals at heightened risk of retaliation by the Taliban.

Ahead of the EU ‘Forum for providing protection to Afghans at risk’ being held on 7 October with the UK, USA and Canada, Amnesty International is calling for the EU and participating states to evacuate and resettle Afghans at risk from Afghanistan and neighbouring countries.

In December 2020, the European Commission presented its long-awaited proposal for a Battery Regulation. The Regulation is in the framework of the European Green Deal, and is the first initiative under the new Circular Economy Action Plan.

Ahead of the first EU-Saudi Arabia meeting on human rights on 27 September, Amnesty International is calling on EU leaders to hold Saudi Arabia’s government to account for its campaign to silence dissent, which has accelerated in recent months.

As humanitarian needs in Afghanistan continue to escalate, we appeal to the EU to place protection at the centre of its response. We are disappointed by the absence of leadership at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 31 August and Interior Ministers’ continued focus on preventing people from arriving in the EU, instead of providing pathways to protection. While the majority of Afghan refugees will seek safety in the region, the EU should be sharing, rather than shirking, the responsibility to offer them protection. Ahead of the Resettlement Forum currently planned for early October, we call on EU states to expand safe pathways for people in need of protection, including through an ambitious and additional resettlement programme for Afghan refugees and a flexible use of other available pathways to safety.