Luděk Stavinoha

More evidence of Europol's apparent disregard for legal norms and boundaries - this time from Lesvos, where its officers appear to be behaving like secret intelligence agents, misusing Frontex activities to interrogate migrants.

Frontex unlawfully shared thousands of people's personal data with Europol Under the banner of fighting migrant smuggling, Frontex has collected, and unlawfully siphoned to Europol, personal data for years—quietly drawing thousands of migrants, as well as EU citizens aiding ...

For years, human rights advocates have warned of the criminalisation of migrants & activists at Europe’s borders.
With @balkanizator.bsky.social & @lolahierro.bsky.social we shed light on the opaque role of Frontex and Europol in drawing thousands into this dragnet.
wearesolomon.com/mag/format/i...

Akhras, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, lost his home to an Israeli strike, in early 2024. He and his family have been displaced multiple times, living in tents where the canvas sweats from too many bodies pressed into too little space. He no longer sits in a white-walled office or wears a badge. But he continues to work, seeing some fifty patients a day, most of them children. One of his regular patients is a young girl, no older than fourteen, who survived a strike that killed her entire family. She woke up in an I.C.U., alone, unable to understand where everyone had gone. Now she sits in front of Akhras in silence, until she asks, again and again, if he can bring them back. He has no answer, only a pencil stub and a coloring book, which he hopes she can use to express and process her emotions.

Read this passage, please, about trying to provide therapy for trauma in Gaza, even though it should make you feel like you are stabbing needles into your eyes.

www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Open letter from UK university staff: Request for biometric deferral and safe evacuation of incoming Palestinian students and scholars from Gaza to UK Universities More than 40 students currently trapped in Gaza with full scholarships to UK Universities are asking for a safe route to come and study. We, the academic community hoping to welcome these scholars, ca...

An open letter has been launched today (27/7/25) for members of the UK academic community (academics and other university staff) to sign, to press the UK Home Office to facilitate safe passage out of Gaza for 40+ students with offers for UK universities.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Europol's deepening aversion to transparency We are alarmed by Europol arrogating to itself the right to develop surveillance tools, which are likely to dramatically transform the landscape of policing across the EU, in almost complete secrecy. ...

This rare insight into Europol's rogue day-to-day activities in EU-funded refugee camps comes from a heavily redacted Frontex document I obtained via FOI.
Given Europol's brazen disregard for transparency, it's unlikely the police agency will disclose further details:
euobserver.com/migration/ar...

For years, the EU’s border agency unlawfully transferred data on migrants and activists to Europol An investigation by several media outlets, including EL PAÍS, reveals that Frontex provided the European police agency with indiscriminate information on thousands of people, gathered from covert inte...

This comes on the back of our latest investigation with @lolahierro.bsky.social and @balkanizator.bsky.social, revealing Europol's apparent refusal to delete/restrict using data of more than 11,000 people Frontex had unlawfully shared since 2016.

english.elpais.com/internationa...

More evidence of Europol's apparent disregard for legal norms and boundaries - this time from Lesvos, where its officers appear to be behaving like secret intelligence agents, misusing Frontex activities to interrogate migrants.

You would think Frontex would be a bit more reticent about celebrating a collaboration based on violent pushbacks, beatings, and degrading treatment of migrants - as documented by its own Fundamental Rights Officer in more than 25 Serious Incident Reports since 2023.

For years, the EU’s border agency unlawfully transferred data on migrants and activists to Europol An investigation by several media outlets, including EL PAÍS, reveals that Frontex provided the European police agency with indiscriminate information on thousands of people, gathered from covert inte...

🚨 New investigation co-authored by our colleague @stavinoha.bsky.social: EU agencies #Frontex & #Europol unlawfully shared data, sweeping up migrants and #HumanRights defenders.

Published in @elpais.com, @lemonde.fr, Solomon, @netzpolitik.org

Read more: english.elpais.com/internationa...

Frontex in Serbia — a catalogue of 12 months of denials As the European Parliament's LIBE committee discusses its draft report on Frontex in Serbia on Thursday, we document 12 months of serious and escalating violence from Serbian authorities against peopl...

euobserver.com/migration/ar...

You would think Frontex would be a bit more reticent about celebrating a collaboration based on violent pushbacks, beatings, and degrading treatment of migrants - as documented by its own Fundamental Rights Officer in more than 25 Serious Incident Reports since 2023.

41 MEPs call upon the European Commission to initiate an independent inquiry into large-scale unlawful transfers of personal data between @frontex.bsky.social and @europol.europa.eu following our investigation for El Pais, Le Monde, Solomon, and Netzpolitik.

Based on our investigation with @lolahierro.bsky.social and @balkanizator.bsky.social into years of unlawful personal data transfers between Frontex and Europol, under the guise of EU 'counter-smuggling' efforts.

english.elpais.com/internationa...

Landmark ruling in Belgium!

Today, a Brussels court ruled that the Flemish government must block transit to Israel of all goods that can be used in military equipment, citing Israel's breaches of int'l law.

There can be no business as usual with a country committing genocide.

You'd think that Frontex-the EU's €1 billion border and *coastguard* agency-would manage to cover at least the basics of humanitarian assistance. Apparently not. Apparently, they'd have much to learn from the grassroots SAR teams they crowded out from the shores of Greek islands ten years ago.

Frontex unlawfully shared thousands of people's personal data with Europol Under the banner of fighting migrant smuggling, Frontex has collected, and unlawfully siphoned to Europol, personal data for years—quietly drawing thousands of migrants, as well as EU citizens aiding ...

For years Frontex gathered data and automatically passed it unlawfully to Europol. With @stavinoha.bsky.social & @lolahierro.bsky.social we investigated how this dragnet scooped up thousands of people, migrants and EU activists.
wearesolomon.com/mag/format/i...

I feel this scoop did not get all the attention it deserves yet:

Un grupo de eurodiputados pide a Bruselas una investigación independiente tras las revelaciones de EL PAÍS sobre la transferencia ilegal de datos de Frontex a Europol Más de 40 miembros de la Eurocámara exigen que se borren los datos personales transmitidos y que se impidan nuevas cesiones

By @lolahierro.bsky.social for @elpais.com: elpais.com/internaciona...

Full letter available here: left.eu/app/uploads/...

41 MEPs call upon the European Commission to initiate an independent inquiry into large-scale unlawful transfers of personal data between @frontex.bsky.social and @europol.europa.eu following our investigation for El Pais, Le Monde, Solomon, and Netzpolitik.

...and @lolahierro.bsky.social !

Great work by @stavinoha.bsky.social and @balkanizator.bsky.social shedding light on a widely overlooked (and unlawful) programme to feed Europol's database with data collected by Frontex, including those of activists and journalists.

Beyond Glastonbury’s Gaza Controversy Chants against the Israeli military led by the punk-rap duo Bob Vylan have drawn outrage, but the underlying story is one of mounting horror at the war from artists and the public

"The politicians and journalists who were hitherto untroubled by the industrial-scale killing of Gazans suddenly discovered a faith in the sanctity of life, and their imaginations took flight."

Beyond Glastonbury’s Gaza Controversy by @idreesahmad.bsky.social.

newlinesmag.com/argument/bey...

"To repeat: simply to say the words 'I stand with Palestine Action' is now an offence. If I were to say those words, I could be sent to jail. So could you. And so could you, and so could you. And so could everyone."

Frontex unlawfully shared thousands of people's personal data with Europol Under the banner of fighting migrant smuggling, Frontex has collected, and unlawfully siphoned to Europol, personal data for years—quietly drawing thousands of migrants, as well as EU citizens aiding ...

Cross-border investigation: @lemonde.fr, @elpais.com, and @netzpolitik.org reveal how, between 2016 and 2023, @frontex.bsky.social illegally transferred the personal data of over 13,000 people to Europol.

Published by @wearesolomon.bsky.social 👇

wearesolomon.com/mag/format/i...

Frontex unlawfully shared thousands of people's personal data with Europol Under the banner of fighting migrant smuggling, Frontex has collected, and unlawfully siphoned to Europol, personal data for years—quietly drawing thousands of migrants, as well as EU citizens aiding ...

Here is how #Frontex unlawfully shared thousands of people’s personal data with #Europol

Investigation conducted by Solomon, the French newspaper Le Monde, the Spanish newspaper El País, and the German outlet Netzpolitik.

wearesolomon.com/mag/format/i...

Geflüchtete und Aktivist:innen: Frontex schickte jahrelang unrechtmäßig Daten an Europol Frontex hat jahrelang personenbezogene Daten gesammelt und unrechtmäßig an Europol weitergeleitet. Tausende Personen, darunter EU-Bürger:innen, die Geflüchtete unterstützen, gerieten durch groß angele...

Many thanks to the teams at @elpais.com @lemonde.fr @wearesolomon.bsky.social & @netzpolitik.org for making this story happen.

@lydiaemman.bsky.social @malichudis.bsky.social @supergalactica.bsky.social Iliana Papangeli & Maxime Vaudano.

netzpolitik.org/2025/gefluec...

EU’s Frontex Tripped in Its Plan for ‘Intrusive’ Surveillance of Migrants Frontex and the European Commission sidelined their own data protection watchdogs in pursuing a much-criticised expansion of “intrusive” data collection from migrants and refugees to feed into Europol...

Serious questions about evasion of accountability arise, too. FOI documents reveal that senior EU officials had coordinated to misled MEPs about the scale of unlawful Frontex-Europol data transfers during a hearing that followed our earlier investigation: balkaninsight.com/2022/07/07/e...

For @gesanchez.bsky.social - leading expert on smuggling - 'EU agencies often justify harvesting personal data from migrants by claiming it is necessary to combat sophisticated...smuggling networks. This creates the illusion that the data is actually reliable or useful. We know it's neither.'

Frontex revised its protocols after a probe by the EU data protection watchdog in May 2023. To Europol's chagrin, it is no longer passing data 'automatically'. But, crucially, Europol is refusing to confirm it will 'restrict' or 'delete' data - unlawfully shared by Frontex - as required by law.