To Ms Ylva Johansson, Commissioner for Home Affairs, European Commission

This briefing is submitted in accordance with Rule 9(2) of the Rules of the Committee of Ministers for the supervision of the execution of judgments, in advance of the 1377th meeting (June 2020) (DH) of the Ministers’ Deputies on the execution of judgments. Amnesty International seeks to assist the Committee of Ministers in its evaluation of the general and individual measures that the Turkish government needs to take to comply with the findings of the Kavala v. Turkey (application no. 28749/18) judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court). Accordingly, Amnesty International would like to share with the Committee of Ministers its concerns about a clear pattern of arbitrary, lengthy and punitive pre-trial detentions pursued for ulterior political ends, alongside abusive prosecutions based on broad and vague anti-terrorism legislation and other broadly applied criminal law provisions against human rights defenders and perceived government opponents and critics in Turkey.

Amnesty International letter sharing concerns about the treatment of Roma communities in Bulgaria and Slovakia during the COVID-19 pandemic and requesting the Council of Europe and European Commission’s support in taking these issues up with the national authorities.

Three fires have raged through the Vathy refugee camp on the Greek island of Samos destroying many tents and containers and leaving around 200 people homeless. Two fires on Sunday 26 April and one today, Monday 27 April, have destroyed much of the camp which houses almost 7000 asylum-seekers despite having a capacity for only 648. Greek authorities indicate that the Sunday fires started due to clashes between residents of the camp.

One year after the resumption of the armed conflict in Tripoli, and at a time when the humanitarian situation in Libya continues to deteriorate due to further military escalation and the spreading of the Covid-19 virus, Amnesty International, the Italian Recreational and Cultural Association (ARCI), Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (ASGI), Avocats Sans Frontières (ASF), Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EuroMed Rights), the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), Human Rights Watch (HRW), International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Lawyers for Justice in Libya (LFJL), Oxfam International, and Saferworld are calling on EU institutions to stop any actions trapping people in a country where they are in constant, grave danger.  

The COVID-19 pandemic is demonstrating all too well that unequal societies go hand-in-hand with human suffering, fragile economies and delicate democracies.

Dear Ministers,

People’s rights are being violated by governments in Europe and Central Asia, who are cracking down on protests and seeking to erode the independence of the judiciary to avoid accountability, Amnesty International said today as it published its annual review of human rights in the region.

European governments should urgently guarantee safe and timely access to abortion care for women and girls in the region during the COVID-19 pandemic, 100 nongovernmental organizations said today.  

Since 2012, an ongoing institutional reform has centralized court administration in Hungary as the government aims to weaken checks of the executive power and restrict established powers of independent institutions. While judges feel they still can adjudicate relatively freely, the institutional independence of the judiciary hand has been severely undermined and the judges are under attack from multiple direction – according to a new report published by Amnesty International Hungary today.

We, the undersigned organizations, jointly call on European governments to proceed immediately with the emergency relocation of unaccompanied children from the Reception and Identification Centres (RICs) on the Greek islands, with no discrimination, giving precedence to existing family links and the best interests of the child.

In the midst of violence at the Greek-Turkish border, at least two men were killed and a woman remains missing after Greek border forces reportedly fired live ammunition and tear gas against asylum-seekers and migrants. This occurred after Turkish authorities recklessly encouraged them to travel to Greece under false pretences, new research by Amnesty International has revealed.