“THIS IS A SLOW DEATH”: An Urgent Appeal on the Plight of Afghan Refugees Indefinitely and Arbitrarily Detained in the UAE

For a year and a half, thousands of Afghan refugees fleeing Taliban persecution have been trapped in a de-facto detention facility in the United Arab Emirates. Evacuated from Afghanistan by private actors, the refugees have languished in prolonged arbitrary detention at an emergency evacuation compound in Abu Dhabi called the “Emirates Humanitarian City”. Evacuated, But […]

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A GDP Assessment of the Centre for Policy Studies’ Proposals for UK Detention Reform

On Monday 6 December, the London-based Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) released a report containing proposals for UK asylum reform. Titled Stopping the Crossings: How Britain can take back control of its immigration and asylum system, the report is an unambiguous attempt to spur a “radical policy shift and decisive action” to cut the number […]

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THE UKRAINE CRISIS Double Standards: Has Europe’s Response to Refugees Changed?

Global Detention Project, 2 March 2022 During the 2015 refugee “crisis,” the EU called for detaining arriving refugees for up to 18 months. Not so today in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The reasons for this difference point to an intractable challenge in Europe’s ability to embrace the international refugee protection regime.   […]

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Immigration Detention in the European Union

This book offers a unique comparative assessment of the evolution of immigration detention systems in European Union member states since the onset of the “refugee crisis.” By applying an analytical framework premised on international human rights law in assessing domestic detention regimes, the book reveals the extent to which EU legislation has led to the adoption of laws and practices that may disregard fundamental rights and standards. […]

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Physical Fences and Digital Divides: Final Report of the Global Detention Project Special Investigation into the Uses of Electronic Media in Today’s Migration Journeys

The “refugee crisis” helped spur a “tech turn” in how people travel across borders and how governments and others respond to these movements. Everyone from civil society organisations—including the Global Detention Project—and individual activists to humanitarian technologists, government officials, and international bureaucrats have experimented with social media and other new forms of digital technology to […]

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Crossing a Red Line

“Crossing a Red Line” is the final report of the Red Line Project, a collaborative initiative led by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee that was aimed at documenting the shift from “reception” to “detention” in EU border regions and the implications of this shift on asylum seekers. The project also counted on the participation of the Global Detention Project, the Bulgarian Foundation for Access to Rights, the Greek Council for Refugees, and the Italian Council for Refugees. […]

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Crossing a Red Line

Global Detention Project Annual Report 2019

The year 2019 marked the final year of the GDP’s first Strategic Plan. In this Annual Report, we discuss in detail how our strategy has shaped our activities and led us to become more engaged with activists, practitioners, policy-makers, scholars, and—critically—detainees and their families. […]

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