RIGHTS-EUROPE:  Seeking Refuge Could Become Criminal
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BRUSSELS, Feb 1 (IPS) - Plans by the European Union to allow police to  study data on asylum-seekers have run into difficulty amid  concerns that the move could result in victims of persecution  being treated as criminal suspects.
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Prosecutors are seeking the arrest of a former Italian left-wing militant and convicted murderer who found refuge in France after escaping from prison in the 1980s, the French Justice Ministry said Sunday.
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Â· Internet industry asked to help curb illegal materialÂ· Terror bill proposes new powers against suspects
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ATHENS (Der Spiegel) - According to recent reports resulting from October fact-finding missions conducted by the German Working Group on Refugees, Pro Asyl, and the Greek Group, Lawyers for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants, the Greek coast guard has not only been rejecting but torturing asylum seekers that are arriving in ever greater numbers on the Aegean coast.  Refugee organisations are demanding a response at the European level. ...refugee seekers' boats, often barely afloat, are being forced out of Greece's territorial waters. Some passengers are being set ashore on uninhabited islands on the Turkish Greek border region, provided with no water or food... It is hardly a secret that Greece has shown reluctance recently to accept refugees and asylum seekers. Earlier this year, the Mediterranean country was lampooned for the fact that it turned down almost all of the asylum applications it received from Iraqis fleeing violence back home.  But now it looks as though Greece may be in blatant violation of human rights norms. Reports released this month by Greek and German refugee organisations suggest that the Greek coast guard in the Aegean Sea has been systematically maltreating and obstructing asylum seekers arriving on their shores. Fact-finding missions conducted in summer and October of 2007 by Pro Asyl and Lawyers for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants found that refugee seekers' boats, often barely afloat, are being forced out of Greece's territorial waters. Some passengers are being set ashore on uninhabited islands on the Turkish Greek border region, provided with no water or food.  The investigative missions visited three detention centers on Greek islands and found the conditions to be "degrading and inhuman." In one case, on the island of Chios, there were reports of electric shock treatments, mock executions and beatings. In an independent report, the Greek branch of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), described the detention center on Samos, an island less than two kilometers from the Turkish coast, as being "deplorable" and demanded that the government close it down. Fully 391 people were found living in a room designed for 120. The staff consisted of one doctor, one social worker and a caretaker. Read more...
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Human rights defenders face arrest and  torture in China, and the European Union should raise the issue  at a summit with Beijing's leaders this week, Amnesty  International said in a new report Monday.
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On one hand there is the European Union, demanding Turkey reform its criminal code. On the other, a powerful group of conservative Muslims who insist such changes should include criminalizing adultery.
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BEIRUT - Mahmoud Khalifa has tried five times to sneak into Europe. Each time, he was caught and sent back to Lebanon, the country where he was born but is denied some of the most basic rights because he is a Palestinian refugee.
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STRASBOURG, France  - European lawmakers demanded   on Thursday that their governments reveal the location of   secret CIA prisons after U.S. President George Bush admitted   Washington held terror suspects in jails abroad.
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Croatia faces a new challenge to its record on refugee return in the European Court of Human Rights.
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EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini says member states must show solidarity dealing with refugees.
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European Justice and Home Affairs ministers are to start talks on whether asylum seekers could be processed outside the EU.
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A European high court fails to see the obvious. Quelle surprise!
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Rebellion over 42-day detention as threat of legal challenge looms
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The European Commission will propose tomorrow that all foreign travelers entering and leaving Europe, including U.S. citizens, should be fingerprinted. If approved by the European Parliament, the measure would mean that precisely identifying information on tens of millions of citizens will be added...
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Human rights defenders face arrest and torture in China, and the European Union should raise the issue at a summit with Beijing's leaders this week, Amnesty International said in a new report Monday.
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Part of imminent 'ambitious counter terrorism package' European Union Justice, Freedom (sic) &amp; Security Commissioner Franco Frattini yesterday turned up the volume on terror threats, ahead of the EU's adoption of "an ambitious counter terrorism package" next month. Terrorists, said Frattini, seek new technology, could deploy bioterrorism with devastating effect, and if they got hold of weapons of mass destruction "the consequences would be catastrophic."â¦
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Â· Citizens lives being put at risk, claims agency headÂ· Minister calls on public to inform on suspects