Statewatch

Staff

To contact individual staff members, replace [at] with @.

Alamara Khwaja Bettum (Executive Director)

Alamara has been with Statewatch since December 2025. She is a qualified immigration lawyer in the UK, specialising in asylum, family reunion, and human rights. Prior to Statewatch, Alamara worked with migrants and refugees for over ten years in both the humanitarian field in Iraqi Kurdistan and the legal sector in the UK. In addition to her legal expertise, she brings experience in policy development, advocacy, capacity building and anti-racism.

Email: alamara [at] statewatch.org

Chris Jones (Researcher)

Chris has been working for Statewatch since 2010 and in September 2020 was appointed as Executive Director. As of February 2026, he stepped back from the role to focus solely on research. He specialises in issues relating to policing, migration, privacy and data protection and security technologies.

Email: chris [at] statewatch.org

Romain Lanneau (Consultant Researcher)

Romain Lanneau has been working for Statewatch since 2022. He is a legal researcher, publishing on the topics of migration, asylum, and the use of new technologies for public policies. As an independent consultant, he worked for the European Network Against Racism, Fair Trials International and Data Rights. In addition to leading investigation and producing research, Romain has been assisting activists with strategic litigation on digital rights issues. He holds a LLM in International Migration and Refugee Law from the University of VU Amsterdam as well as a Master degree in Public International Law from the University of Lyon III.

Email: romain [at] statewatch.org

Frey Lindsay (Consultant Journalist)

Frey has been writing and coordinating our outsourcing borders bulletin on EU externalisation since 2025. Prior to Statewatch, Frey covered migration and borders for a decade. During his time as a journalist for the BBC World Service, he reported on the rise of anti-migration policies, Europe's border and surveillance technologies, Mediterranean search and rescue, and the exploitation of individuals by corporate and state powers worldwide. He has also written for openDemocracy, Thomson Reuters, and InfoMigrants. 

Email: frey [at] statewatch.org

Giacomo Zandonini (Consultant Journalist)

Giacomo is currently with us as part of the 2026 Bertha Challenge Fellowship, and is conducting research into the impact of digital surveillance on communities across Europe. He is an investigative reporter whose has exposed corporate interests and the expansion of state surveillance networks across Europe and West Africa. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Politico, Internazionale, The New Humanitarian, and more. He is the co-founder of the Fada Collective and received a special mention at the European Press Prize (2024).

Email: giacomo [at] statewatch.org

McKensie Marie (Head of Communications)

McKensie joined Statewatch in early 2024 to lead its communications efforts, shaping and implementing our communications strategy. She manages external outreach and oversees all aspects of our communication work. With experience as a communications specialist, designer, copywriter, and researcher, McKensie has worked with NGOs and charities across Europe and North America. 

 

Email: mckensie [at] statewatch.org

Rahmat Tavakkoli (Finance & Administration Worker)

Rahmat joined Statewatch in September 2021 to take care of our financial and administrative procedures, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and contribute to the smooth running of the office and the organization.

Email: admin [at] statewatch.org

 

Trustees

Marie-Laure Basilien-Gainche

Marie-Laure Basilien-Gainche is Professor of Law at the University Jean Moulin Lyon 3, honorarium member of the Institut Universitaire de France, and fellow of the Institut Convergence Migrations. Her researches focus on the exigencies of the rule of law and their limitations in cases of exceptions: the situations of serious crises which allow the concentration of powers and restriction of rights (e.g. the use of the state of emergency), and the areas of legal confinement which are conducive to abuses of power and rights infringements (e.g. camps and centres where migrants and refugees are detained). She is member of the editorial board of various reviews and is involved in numerous academics networks regarding human rights law. You can find more information about her activities and publications on her personal webpage.

Laure Baudrihaye-Gérard

Laure is a lawyer based in Brussels, where she works on EU and Belgian criminal justice policy. She qualified as a solicitor in London, specialised in EU law and worked in private practice in both London and Brussels before studying criminology. After participating in several academic research projects, Laure joined Fair Trials, a criminal justice watchdog, in 2018. As Legal Director for Europe, she led on EU advocacy, strategic litigation in European courts and the coordination of a European-wide network of criminal defence lawyers, civil society and academic organisations. She has also been working as a prison monitor since 2019 in a large pre-trial detention prison in Brussels, and since 2020 heads up the appeals committee that adjudicates on complaints from detained people against the prison administration.

Jonathan Bloch

Jonathan Bloch studied law at the University of Cape Town and the London School of Economics. He was politically involved in South Africa in the worker and student movement and remains active in human rights circles in the UK. From 2002 until 2014 he chaired the Canon Collins Educational and Legal Assistance Trust, one of the largest scholarship awarding organisations in South Africa. He was a councillor in the London Borough of Haringey 2002-14. He has co-authored several books on intelligence. He owns and runs a worldwide financial information business across four continents.

Victoria Canning

Victoria Canning is senior lecturer in Criminology at the University of Bristol. She has spent over a decade working on the rights of women seeking asylum, specifically on support for survivors of sexual violence and torture with NGOs and migrant rights organisations. She recently completed an ESRC Research Leaders Fellowship focussing on harmful practice in asylum systems in Britain, Denmark and Sweden, and the gendered implications thereof. Vicky has experience researching in immigration detention in Denmark and Sweden, as well as Denmark’s main deportation centre. She is currently embarking on a study of torture case file datasets with the Danish Institute Against Torture which aims to create a basis from which to better identify and thus respond to sexual torture and sexualised torturous violence with refugee survivors of torture more broadly.

Nadine Finch

Nadine was a member of the Statewatch contributors group for a number of years and also previously a trustee. She was a human rights barrister between 1992 and 2015 and an Upper Tribunal Judge from 2015 to 2020. She is now an Honorary Senior Policy Fellow at the University of Bristol and an Associate at Child Circle, a children's rights NGO based in Brussels.

The EU has been mulling sending people rescued in the Mediterranean directly to coastal states outside of Europe, according to an internal EU document.

Leaked to EUobserver on Thursday (29 January) by the London-based watchdog Statewatch, the paper proposes creating a “place-of-safety arrangement” that would effectively offshore responsibility for rescued migrants.

The ideas were floated by the Danish EU presidency in a paper dated 7 November and discussed internally at the Council, representing member states.

Full story here: Leaked EU paper envisions dumping migrant sea rescues onto non-European states

Statewatch is currently supported by:

• AI Collaborative
• Friends of Statewatch and one-off individual donations
• Garden Court Chambers
• Oak Foundation
• Open Society Foundations
• Privacy International
• Brot für die Welt, Medico International, Miseror, Pro Asyl

If you appreciate our work, please become a Friend of Statewatch - regular individual donations are the best way to keep our work trustworthy, independent and free to access.

"Statewatch is an indispensable resource for documents on civil rights and migration in the EU. We have used information gathered from Statewatch for our lawsuit against Frontex and couldn't work as efficiently without the great Statewatch database. If Statewatch didn't exist, it would have to be invented."

Arne Semsrott, Director, FragDenStaat (German freedom of information platform)

Një raport i brendshëm i Bashkimit Evropian, i siguruar nga organizata monitoruese Statewatch, zbulon planet dhe prirjet për forcimin e mëtejshëm të kontrollit të kufijve dhe politikave të migracionit në zonën Schengen gjatë gjysmës së parë të vitit 2025, me theks të veçantë te dëbimet, mbikëqyrja dhe militarizimi i kufijve.

Full article: Raport i brendshëm i BE-së: Schengeni po kthehet në një fortesë

See our story: Schengen borders: more deportations, surveillance and militarisation in the works

Non solo la Groenlandia e il Venezuela. Donald Trump vuole mettere le mani sui dati più sensibili dei cittadini italiani ed europei. Database di polizia con impronte digitali, dati biometrici e altri dati finirebbero nelle mani del Department of Homeland Security sotto cui operano gli agenti dell’Ice, la controversa polizia di frontiera Usa, finita sui...

Full article (paywalled): Ue-Usa: l’accordo per i dati privati di tutti gli europei

The story makes use of our work on the EU-USA Enhanced Border Security Partnership.

Nun hat die NGO Statewatch ein bislang als vertraulich eingestuftes Dokument des EU-Rates veröffentlicht, welches die Pläne der damaligen dänischen EU-Ratspräsidentschaft zur Ausweitung der Beschattung von Reisenden in Europa aufzeigt. Dabei werden in dem Schreiben mit dem Titel "Reiseinformationen: Ein möglicher Weg vorwärts" auch Einschätzungen der Mitgliedstaaten zusammengefasst, die zuvor schriftlich eingeholt wurden. Plan des dänischen Vorstoßes ist unter anderem die "Nutzung von Reiseinformationen über die Strafverfolgung hinaus, zum Beispiel für das Grenzmanagement und die Migration".

Full article: Ausweitung der Passagierdatenspeicherung: EU plant Überwachung von sämtlichen Reisewegen

Our story: EU member states want to expand police surveillance of travel

 

The digital surveillance of travelers within the EU is to be significantly expanded. What has so far primarily concerned air passengers, many member states want to extend to almost all cross-border means of transport. An internal document of the EU Council, published by the civil liberties organization Statewatch, reveals the plans of the former Danish EU Council Presidency for the further development of the shadowing of tourists and business travelers. The paper, initially classified as confidential, clarifies that security authorities are aiming for "transport-neutral" surveillance.

Full article: Surveillance of travel routes: EU plans to expand passenger data storage 

Our story: EU member states want to expand police surveillance of travel

"The aim of this long-controversial Enhanced Border Security Partnership (EBSP) is to grant US authorities direct and far-reaching access to biometric data stored in the police databases of EU member states.

In return, the EU is now seeking comparable access to US datasets. A document drafted by the Danish Council Presidency, published by the British civil liberties organization Statewatch, outlines the corresponding strategic roadmap for this transatlantic data deal."

Full story: Biometrics Deal: EU Council Paves Way for US Data Exchange

"Behind the technical language of “partnerships” and “migration management” lies a harsher reality: sudden removals, separated families, and weakened legal protections for deportees.

In this edition of The Insight Vodcast, we speak with Frey Lindsay of Statewatch to explain what the EU wants from Nigeria, how this deportation system operates, and why it matters far beyond Europe’s borders."

Watch and listen here: Why Europe Is Quietly Deporting Nigerians

"Frey Lindsay, an investigative journalist with Statewatch told our correspondent that over the last decade, and “increasingly in recent years, the EU has funneled hundreds of millions of euros at least (by some counts over a billion euros) to countries in North Africa, including Libya, Tunisia and Morocco, under so-called ‘migration partnerships’. In most cases, these projects can best be seen as the EU paying authorities in those countries to act as its external border guards, emboldened to forcibly and often violently intercept and detain people attempting to seek shelter in Europe. The European Commission has largely turned a blind eye to the extreme violence, forced labour, kidnapping, detention, sexual violence, murder and other atrocities committed against African migrants that these funds are complicit in."

Read the full story: Battered by EU’s border bandits

You can find our full annual report and accounts on the website of the Charity Commission.

Seeking optimism in troubling times

2024 made even clear what many of us have been saying for some time: authoritarianism and racism are firmly on the rise, and despite many brave and important struggles against it, definitive responses are yet to be found. Our work throughout the year reflected this ongoing tension; it also shows reasons for optimism, despite the gloomy political outlook.

We exposed, reported on and analysed ongoing attempts to undermine the rule of law, basic rights and liberties, and democratic safeguards: plans to offshore asylum processing; the influencing of police and internal security officials over new laws; increased surveillance powers; and crackdowns on protest and free speech. In doing so, we continued to provide a vital resource for activists, advocates, journalists and others.

That reporting and analysis is, in and of itself, a form of opposition to these nefarious developments. Within the terms of our charitable status, we also gave our support to movements and campaigns seeking to oppose them more directly: amongst others, those demanding that states uphold the rights of refugees and the right to asylum; halt new measures for ethnic profiling; ensure democratic scrutiny of border externalisation policies; ban invasive and authoritarian surveillance technologies; and to halt European governments’ complicity in breaches of international law in Palestine.

That complicity has helped to further derail and undermine the international norms and institutions created to halt military violence against civilians and civil infrastructure. This has had horrifying consequences for those subject to displacement, and to attacks on the ground and from the air. Faced with widespread popular protest against these positions, many European governments have resorted to unjustifiable restrictions on protest and freedom of speech, including through the use of criminal and anti-terrorism laws.

It is however by no means an entirely new situation. Foreign policy has always been linked to domestic repression and rights abuses.

It was demonstrations against the Vietnam War in 1968 that led to the formation of Britain’s Special Demonstration Squad, an undercover police unit tasked with infiltrating and undermining left-wing and progressive movements. Europe’s strategic alliance with Turkey means supporters of Kurdish autonomy and independence continue to face suspicion (at the very least) from European authorities. The ‘war on terror’ was and is animated by racism and criminalisation, in particular against Muslims – but it was prefigured by history, such as the British response to campaigns for self-determination in Ireland and other colonies.

As Tony Bunyan, Statewatch’s founder, Director (1991-2020) and Director Emeritus (2020-24) wrote in 2006:

Five years on we know that the ‘war on terrorism’ is going to be permanent, not temporary. This is not just because of 11 March 2004 (Madrid), 7 and 21 July 2005 (London) and terrible terrorist bombings elsewhere. It is also because the pre-conditions for further attacks persist and show no signs of abating – Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, US militarism, Guantanamo Bay, rendition and global free market economics which perpetuate poverty and gross inequality.

In September last year, Tony passed away. Though age slowed him towards the end of his life, his commitment to the cause never wavered: he was constantly planning, plotting and proposing. He was born in 1941, and his early experiences and involvement in political activism in the 1960s and 1970s profoundly influenced his outlook on the world for the rest of his remarkable life. He made profound contributions to the struggle against state secrecy and for civil liberties, and while he himself never set foot outside Europe, he was deeply-aware of and informed by political events and struggles elsewhere in the world.

He took this view with him when he founded Statewatch, along with a similar-minded group of other activists, journalists and lawyers in 1991. We have always been primarily concerned with the state of civil liberties in the European Union and the UK, but Europe is not an isolated island – the very reason it remains one of the richest parts of the world is because plunder, exploitation and expropriation carried out elsewhere.

This history, the present it has created, and the implications of both are becoming increasingly well-known – though there of course legions of people doggedly opposed to honest discussion and dissection of the legacies of racism, colonialism and empire.

It is this latter group that have been in the political ascendancy for some time now. Halting their ongoing attacks on rights and liberties is no small task, but it is more urgent than ever. It would be simple to say that the results of failing to do so do not bear thinking about – but, in fact, the results of failure can already be seen, from Los Angeles, to the Mediterranean Sea, to Gaza.

With that in mind, it might seem difficult to be optimistic. Yet there are still many reasons for optimism. They can be seen throughout the campaigns and movements we worked alongside throughout 2024, and will continue to provide information and analysis to in the future. And they can be seen in the growing number of groups and organisations that, regardless of growing state repression, continue to stand up for the rights of themselves and others.

It is these struggles that Statewatch has always sought to support with its work. Into 2025 and beyond we will build upon our legacy and past achievements, to increase our role in the struggle against state secrecy and repression, for rights and freedoms, and, ultimately, for a better world.

"IOM, the UN’s migration agency, is claiming UN immunity to justify its refusal to release documents about its EU-funded Assisted Voluntary Returns and Reintegration (AVRR) programme in Greece.

(...)

Chris Jones, executive director at the pro-transparency NGO Statewatch, said IOM’s position was a “structural absurdity”.

“International organisations are now carrying out what are, in effect, sensitive state functions,” he told The New Humanitarian. “Yet they remain insulated from the very accountability mechanisms that supposedly bind states.”"

Full story: IOM uses UN immunity to avoid scrutiny of Greek returns

"Predloge, ki so jih podprli notranji ministri Unije, za začetek predstavi Lindsay Frey, raziskovalni novinar pri nevladni organizaciji Statewatch."

An interview with Statewatch Researcher, Frey Lindsay, on the EU's deportation and border externalisation plans.

Read our monthly bulletin, Outsourcing Borders, to find out more about these topics.

"Die britische NGO Statewatch hat ein Ratsdokument mit Positionen der EU-Mitgliedstaaten zu den geplanten Verhandlungen über die sogenannte Enhanced Border Security Partnership (EBSP) mit den Vereinigten Staaten veröffentlicht. Es zeigt die Differenzen über den von Washington seit drei Jahren geforderten transatlantischen Zugriff auf Polizeidatenbanken und darin enthaltene Fingerabdrücke und Gesichtsbilder."

Full story: EU-Staaten uneins über US-Zugriff auf Polizeidaten

See our article here: US searching for “security threats” in European data: not a problem for EU member states

"Selon une enquête fouillée publiée en septembre par l’ONG britannique Statewatch, Europol a multiplié ces dernières années les échanges et collaborations avec plusieurs géants du numérique, souvent sans cadre contractuel clair ni contrôle public effectif. Le rapport cite notamment Microsoft, Palantir Technologies, Cellebrite DI Ltd., Clearview AI, Thomson Reuters Special Services, Amazon Web Services et Hewlett Packard Enterprise."

Full story: Europol, une technopolice de plus en plus insaisissable

See our article here: Behind closed doors: Europol’s opaque relations with tech companies

 

"Europol is intensifying its cooperation with US tech companies. The civil rights organization Statewatch criticizes this alliance in a research report as opaque and a source of massive conflicts of interest. The cooperation is reportedly so close that Microsoft employees already have their own workstations at the EU police agency's headquarters in The Hague."

Full story: How Europol is cozying up to Microsoft, Palantir, Clearview & Co. 

See our article here: Behind closed doors: Europol’s opaque relations with tech companies