Update:Eurocontrol suggests asking governments to get it to release flight data 23 December 2011 – In response to Access Info’s ongoing investigation into illegal “war on terror” rendition flights, the Director General of the European air traffic management body Eurocontrol, has written to Access Info researcher Lydia Medland stressing its readiness to release the data it holds if asked to do so by if Member States and that it does “try to be as transparent as possible.”

Information Request Finds New CIA Flights Showing Previous Rendition Inquiries Failed New documents indicating the movements of CIA flights through Europe demonstrate the need for new inquiries to be made into EU states’ complicity in the CIA’s secret prisons programme, according to legal action charity Reprieve. Data focusing on Lithuania, but linked to suspected CIA activity in a raft of other countries in Europe, North America, the Middle East and North Africa, has been identified by Reprieve and passed to the Lithuanian prosecutor.

Reprieve calls on Lithuania to re-open ‘torture site’ inquiry after discovering suspicious flight into Vilnius Notes to Editors: The role of European states in facilitating secret prison operations by the CIA was first revealed in 2005. Poland and Romania were named at this time as countries where the US had maintained secret prisons, while a third European country remained unidentified. In 2009, US-based ABC news published a series of articles which described a detention site in Lithuania, outside Vilnius, according to the testimony of former CIA officials. Lithuania responded to these allegations with a short parliamentary inquiry, completed 22 Dec.

Reprieve calls on Lithuania to re-open ‘torture site’ inquiry after discovering suspicious flight into Vilnius Vilnius, 29 September –  Legal action charity Reprieve is demanding that Lithuanian authorities revive their failed inquiry into CIA ‘black sites’ after a Freedom of Information request – made in conjunction with Access Info Europe – uncovered a mysterious flight into the country’s capital during the relevant period. The flight, which was either not noticed or not revealed by Lithuania’s two official inquiries into local rendition complicity, demonstrates the inadequacy of previous attempts to get to the bottom of damaging allegations that have been gathering

Access Info and Statewatch launch website design competition 17 June 2011: Access Info and Statewatch welcomes all designers and website creators to participate in a competition for the new AccessForRights website. The site aims to bring together activists from all areas of civil society, including of course individuals, who are interested in protecting our civil liberties. Access Info wants to use this website to encourage the public to file access to information requests to public bodies, that relate to our fundamental rights and freedoms. For example, the right to free speech, to freedom of assembly, or to privacy.