Madrid/London, 19 December 2013 - Access Info Europe, over 110 civil society organisations across the world, together with individual leaders and thinkers including Aruna Roy and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, have expressed concern that secret mass surveillance and the persecution of whistleblowers contradict the ideals of “open government”. The statement has been sent just as a White House Review Panel recommended that the US National Security Agency should be stripped of its power to collect telephone records in bulk. The groups are calling on Open Government Partnership (OGP) member governments to include specific commitments in their OGP Action Plans to overhaul

London, 1 November 2013 - OGP civil society organisations have expressed their concern, in a public statement made today, about the contraditions between recent revelations on disproportionate government surveillance on the one hand, and their OGP commitment to more transparent, accountable, responsive and effective government, on the other. It comes after the final plenary session on the first day of the London OGP Summit when Indian Human Rights campaigner Aruna Roy challenged US Secretary of State John Kerry on the revelations of mass surveillance of populations around the world by the US government. You can read a copy of the

Information obtained by Access Info Europe as part of the Rendition project with UK NGO Reprieve, using access to information in order to get information on secret CIA flights, has been used by REDRESS and the Human Rights Monitoring Institute (HRMI) to bring to court a complaint calling for an investigation into allegations that Mustafa al-Hawsawi was illegally transferred to and secretly detained and tortured in Lithuania as part of the CIA-led programme. Access Info Europe together with Reprieve gathered data on flights associated with "extraordinary rendition" - the covert transfer of prisoners by the USA from locations in Europe

Access Info Europe and The Global Detention Project Begin 33-Country Right to Information Investigation Geneva/Madrid – 14 March 2013 – Access Info Europe and the Global Detention Project have today submitted 66 information requests to 33 governments as part of an initiative aimed at improving transparency of immigration detention practices. The organisations have requested statistics regarding the numbers and types of detainees, as well as details about where people are detained for immigration-related reasons. Immigration detention is the deprivation of liberty of non-citizens for reason related to their residency status. It typically involves locking up asylum seekers and irregular immigrants

Madrid, 19 February 2013 – Concerned at the lack of transparency around the growing use of force by police in protest situations, Access Info Europe has presented access to information requests in 41 countries, asking for details ranging from the use of equipment such as rubber bullets, batons and water cannons, to training of police officers and evaluation reports on the policing of protests. In the context of the economic crisis, Europe is seeing a rising number of street protests, some of which have been accompanied by violence. It is essential that civil society and the media have sufficient information

Debate on Lithuanian Nuclear Power Deal Centres on Access to Information It is unacceptable to shield a nuclear project from Freedom of Information says Access Info Europe Vilnius, 22 November 2012– At a high-level debate in Lithuania (20 November 2012), Access Info Europe strongly criticised an anti-freedom of information clause in the public-private partnership agreement on the Visaginas nuclear power plant between the government of Lithuania and Hitachi corporation. Access Info said that the confidentiality provisions represented particularly dangerous practice and risked stifling public debate around the important issue of nuclear power.

  Portugal’s role in the “war on terror” under focus as human rights groups request information about 39 suspected CIA flights 11 September 2012, Madrid/London – On the anniversary of attacks which lead to the “War on Terror”, human rights groups Access Info Europe and Reprieve asked the Portuguese Government to disclose information about CIA flights passing through Portuguese airspace as part of the “War on Terror” rendition programme. Investigations by Reprieve have confirmed that Portugal played a central role as a staging point for these flights. The human rights groups, which are investigating flights relating to prisoner transfers within

New collection of rendition data brings together records of hundreds of victims and shows involvement of 45 countries Madrid/London, 22 May 2012 – A global repository of information on rendition and secret detention was launched yesterday (21 May) with a collection of records concerning hundreds of victims and 6500 rendition flights. Extensive data on rendition flights collected by Access Info Europe forms a substantial part of the information being launched by The Rendition Project. The project, led by UK academics and human rights organization Reprieve, is the largest of its kind and collates all information about rendition currently in the

   To:    Thorbjorn Jagland          General Secretary          Council of Europe Copy: Secretariat and Members of the CDMSI          Secretariat and Members of CODEXTER                                                                                    Brussels, 8 February 2012   Concerns: Press Freedom and Anti-Terrorism LawsDear Mr Jagland,We write to you on behalf of the undersigned civil society and professional groups, which are all either observers at the CDMSI or active in the field of press freedom and civil rights in Europe.In May 2009, Ministers responsible for Media and New Communication Services of the Council of Europe committed in Reykjavik to “review national legislation and/or practice on a regular basis