Dear Mr Schmidt,

The European Court of Human Rights ruled on December 10, 2019 that Osman Kavala, a civic leader, has been arbitrarily detained in Turkey since November 2017. The court said that his detention has been carried out and prolonged in bad faith for unlawful purposes, in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, and that he should be immediately released.

The EU’s new foreign affairs chief must draw a line under the EU’s complicity in human rights abuses in Libya, Amnesty International said today, ahead of the Foreign Affairs Council meeting on 9 December. With the situation in Libya on the agenda, Amnesty International is urging High Representative Joseph Borrell to pursue accountability for human rights violations in Libya and end policies which contribute to the suffering of refugees and migrants.

LIBYA: EU MUST PRIORITIZE ENDING THE CYCLE OF IMPUNITY AND REFOCUS MIGRATION COOPERATION ON PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Following a vote today rejecting a that would have forced women seeking an abortion to view an ultrasound scan of the embryo or foetus, Amnesty’s Senior Campaigner on Women’s Rights, Monica Costa Riba, said:

The European Union’s top court has today cast serious doubts over the independence of the bodies responsible for disciplining and nominating judges, Poland’s Supreme Court Disciplinary Chamber and the National Council of the Judiciary. Responding to the news from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, said:

On 11 November 2019, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch submitted a joint third-party intervention to the European Court of Human Rights in a case involving Libya’s abuses against migrants during operations at sea and upon return to the country in November 2017. 

One year after the killing of Mexican human rights defender (HRD) Julián Carrillo, our organisations call for the European Union (EU) and its member states to step up efforts toward justice for his killing and to reinforce their support to HRDs throughout the country.

Ahead of the appeal hearing tomorrow of Pierre Mumber, a mountain guide who offered hot tea and warm clothes to four West African asylum seekers in the Alps and was then convicted of “facilitating irregular entry”, Amnesty International is calling for the conviction to be overturned.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued its landmark judgment in the case of D.H. and Others v. Czech Republic (“D.H.”) on November 13, 2007. More than a decade since the judgment and three years after the new legislation was put in place in September 2016, the Czech authorities still fail to abolish systemic discrimination of Roma children in education. 

I watched on as EU high representative Federica Mogherini and Vitalina Koval, an LGBTI rights activist from Ukraine, shook hands.

In this submission, Amnesty provides comments on the Introductory Memorandum published by the Committee of Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, in preparation of the forthcoming baseline study on drug policy and human rights in Europe. The current document presents human rights standards relevant to the several issues covered in the Memorandum and recommends additional topics that the organization considers to be crucial to be included in any future draft of the study.