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"They started kicking everybody, including women & elderly people, to throw them inside the...boats, even a 2-month-old baby." A year after Frontex boss Hans Leijtens said abuses like these kept him "awake at night", plus ça change... For @lemonde.fr w/ @grillmeier.bsky.social tinyurl.com/2b4dpkh5

The real question is: who inside Frontex leaked this video to the right-wing press, given that Frontex always denies access to such surveillance videos on 'public security' grounds in response to freedom of information requests?

bsky.app/profile/stav...

"They started kicking everybody, including women & elderly people, to throw them inside the...boats, even a 2-month-old baby." A year after Frontex boss Hans Leijtens said abuses like these kept him "awake at night", plus ça change... For @lemonde.fr w/ @grillmeier.bsky.social tinyurl.com/2b4dpkh5

Last year, Frontex director Hans Leijtens said he was getting "impatient" with Greece's human rights track record. W/ @grillmeier.bsky.social, we found that, since then, continuous reports of violent pushbacks have led to no meaningful action from the EU border agency. www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decod...

Our investigation shows that the numerous alerts issued by Frontex's internal rights watchdog (FRO) over the past year have not only gone largely unheeded - Frontex is planning to enlarge its mission for the years to come. With @stavinoha.bsky.social at @lemonde.fr

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"Greek authorities feel completely safe, not implementing recommendations, because I think they're quite assured that Frontex will stay" - MEP @tinekestrik.bsky.social, member of the LIBE Committee tasked with scrutinising Frontex, told us. www.lemonde.fr/article-offe...

Reviewing internal records obtained via FOI, we found that repeated alerts by Frontex's own Fundamental Rights Office, not just about pushbacks, but Greece's failure to comply with basic rights safeguards - such as cameras on Frontex co-financed vessels - have gone unheeded.

Last year, Frontex director Hans Leijtens said he was getting "impatient" with Greece's human rights track record. W/ @grillmeier.bsky.social, we found that, since then, continuous reports of violent pushbacks have led to no meaningful action from the EU border agency. www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decod...

More than three years after Hans Leijtens vowed to make Frontex more transparent - this is the state of play: its most senior decision-making body insulated from virtually any public scrutiny.

More than three years after Hans Leijtens vowed to make Frontex more transparent - this is the state of play: its most senior decision-making body insulated from virtually any public scrutiny.

For years, Europol invoked the 'international relations' exception to refuse access to exchanges with other EU bodies like Frontex. This seemed like BS to me. So I complained to the European Ombudswoman last year, who has now confirmed that Europol was wrong.

Excessive delays, redactions, refusals - there are not many wins in the struggle to make Europol more transparent. But, after years of legalistic gaslighting, Europol now finally acknowledges that its interpretation of EU law was erroneous all along; and has vowed to amend its internal FOI rules.

The famous "Wedges" paper was used repeatedly to shut us up when we argued against the continued use of fossil fuels, and, esp, against carbon capture and storage and the mass use of bioenergy. "But these eminent scientists say ..." Now we learn BP co-authored it. www.propublica.org/article/wedg...

BP not only funded the research behind the influential “Wedges” climate science paper, but company execs even tried to revise versions of it. “Chaps, I have had a go at rewriting the paper,” a BP climate adviser wrote the researchers at one point.

Just when you think you've seen all the absurdities from Frontex's 'transparency' office...you learn that the EU border agency is fighting 'criminals' by redacting sub-heading (of the minutes of its Fundamental Rights Compliance Panel). Orwell wept, once again.

This is part of Frontex's reply to my FOI appeal. For background see: bsky.app/profile/stav...

Just when you think you've seen all the absurdities from Frontex's 'transparency' office...you learn that the EU border agency is fighting 'criminals' by redacting sub-heading (of the minutes of its Fundamental Rights Compliance Panel). Orwell wept, once again.

For the first time, former high-ranking insiders have blown the whistle on Europol's 'shadow IT' system that, for years, operated w/ basic security and privacy safeguards required under EU law. Our investigation tells the story of how Europol appears to have gone rogue: correctiv.org/en/europe/20...