Authorities Need to Learn Lessons to Avert Future Deaths at Sea

Ahead of the European Council meeting on 14-15 December, at which EU Heads of State are due to discuss the situation in Gaza and Israel, Amnesty International wrote a letter to President of the European Council Charles Michel, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and EU Heads of State, urging them to urgently call for a ceasefire by all parties in Gaza and Israel.

Responding to the outcome of bloc’s landmark Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act after a tense debate between European Union member states, the European Commission and the European Parliament, Mher Hakobyan, Advocacy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence said: 

On 8 December 2023, 70 civil society groups and 34 expert individuals sent an urgent letter to the Council of EU Member States, the European Commission and the European Parliament to urge them “Do not trade away our rights!” in the final trilogue (negotiation) on the landmark Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act.

Eighteen human rights organisations across Europe, alongside aid workers and survivors of human rights abuses, say that a crunch summit in Brussels on December 7th risks “opening the door to abuses across Europe” including racial profiling and pushbacks, in a “potentially irreversible attack” on the international system of refugee protection and the rule of law. 

Responding to EU lawmakers’ reluctance to ban the export of harmful and rights-violating Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies from the EU in the AI Act, Mher Hakobyan, Amnesty International’s Advocacy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence, said: 

An Amnesty International France and Omega Research Foundation investigative team discovered Chinese companies marketing illegal law enforcement equipment capable of inflicting torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, at Milipol, a military and police trade fair taking place this week in Paris.  

I am writing these words in exile. I left Cuba almost exactly a year ago, after months of being threatened by State Security to stop my work defending human rights inside Cuba. My story is the story of dozens of activists, journalists, political dissidents and non-conformist artists who in the last few years have been forced to board a plane. And in many cases, to also follow the migrant routes that cross half of the American continent to reach a safe place to start over.

The LGBTI+ community in Türkiye is increasingly the target of discrimination, intimidation and violence, said the European Commission in its 2023 Enlargement Package published last week. It also points out that the activities of LGBTI+ organisations continue to be unduly restricted, LGBTI+ people and human rights defenders continue to be targeted with legal sanctions for participating in Pride events, and LGBTI+ people continue to face hate speech, stigmatisation, and smear campaigns.

The prosecution of human rights defender Osman Kavala and four co-defendants in connection with mass protests a decade ago has been unfair and essentially a political show trial from the beginning, a group of nine non-governmental organisations including Amnesty International, said today ahead of an urgent debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, calling for Kavala’s release.

Amnesty International issued a letter to President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and Commissioner McGuinness, calling for EU action in light of India’s weaponization of laws against civil society.

Responding to the awarding of the 2023 Václav Havel Prize to Turkish prisoner of conscience, Osman Kavala, by the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Europe, Dinushika Dissanayake, said: