Portugal: municipal elections
A left which ic ready to etrumalal
A ler wnich is ready t o struggle!
Portugal: municipal elections
A left which ic ready to etrumalal
There is more. Less than a month before the Amsterdam police operation, the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council adopted a proposal (from the Dutch presidency) for "joint action". . This means co-operation in connection with events, such as "sporting competitions, music concerts, demonstrations and road blockades" , attracting many people from several member states
The Schengen Police and Security Working Group's draft handbook on police co-operation in the field of public order and security (SCH/1 (97) 36 rev 3 15.5.97) is more specific. It expressly states that co-operation can also relate to the movements and activities of groups, "irrespective of their size" ; which "may pose a threat to public order and security"
Information exchange is to be improved through the use of a standardised procedure. Questions in a "checklist" in the annex to the document relate to the estimated number of people participating in the event in question, the nature and composition of participating groups, their motives and intentions, their gathering places and times, their travel routes, their means of transport, etc. Furthermore the handbook provides the design of joint ad hoc "operational centres" to be set up in the member state hosting a particular event. This implies that at future EU Summits, police from other member states could officially be part of the police command structure in charge of maintaining public order and security, alongside the police of the hosting country. The "organised crime" pretext
In recent years the need to fight against "international organised crime" has been used as a pretext for gradually extending the powers of the police, introducing new types of offences and legitimising almost boundless gathering of personal data. The fight against "organised crime" has been the main argument justifying the creation of Europol and of a confusing mass of overlapping structures of police and security co-operation. The public was told that this legal and police re-armament was directed against criminal organisations of car thieves, immigrant smugglers, drug dealers, pedophiles and terrorists.
Few listened to the persistent warnings of civil liberties circles that such poorly defined terms as "criminal organisation", "organised crime" and "membership" in such an organisation opened wide the door to arbitrary infringements of the fundamental rights and liberties of innocent people.
The Amsterdam events are not likely to diffuse such concern. They show that in the EU, the mere expression of political dissent can indeed lead to you being treated as a presumed member of a criminal organisation, with all the ensuing consequences. Ranging from pro-active observation, computerised storage, processıng and exchange or sensıtive personal sing and exchange of sensitive personal data, to arbitrary detention and removal from an EU member state.
Recent Schengen and JHA documents appear in a new light against the background of the Amsterdam events: Take, for example, the EU Convention on Extradition signed last year. It provides, among other things, for the "automatic" extradition of a person on the grounds of contribution to or membership in a criminal organisation, without the need for any evidence indicating that the person concerned personally committed any offence.
Or the High Level Group's recent proposal for "joint action" to the effect that all EU-member states would commit themselves to make membership in a criminal organisation an offence under their national law.
The implications are obvious. The excessive police action against the protesters at the Amsterdam Summit looks. more and more like an advance test-run of emerging European structures of police and justice cooperation. So much for the "area of bre the Amsterdam Treaty ce " established Source: A longer version of this article was published in 'Fortress Europe?' - Circular Letter #51. The author can be contacted at Tel/Fax: +46/23 26777, E-mail: <[email protected]> For more information contact: The Coalition Toward a Different Europe PO Box 54, 1000 AB Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Tel: +31-20-4708833 Fax: +31-20-6763931 E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]