| On 15-16 December, the Latvian Centre for Human Rights organized an international conference “Detention of asylums seekers and alternatives to detention: experiences from Central, Eastern and Northern Europe”. The conference was organized within the framework of project “Steps to freedom. Monitoring detention and promoting alternatives to detention in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic”. The conference aimed to address the problematic issues and good practices as concerns the detention of asylum seekers and alternatives to detention in the states covered by the project including the specifics of the Central, the Eastern and the Northern European region (Eastern migration route). The conference brought together around 60 participants, including the representatives of national immigration and judicial authorities and NGOs from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic as well as from Sweden and Hungary. Several representatives of the UNHCR and other international organisations, including the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention contributed to the conference. The representatives of the partner organisations (NGOs) made their presentations on the national situation as concerns the detention of asylum seekers. The international expert Daphné Bouteillet-Paquet presented the main conclusions from the comparative report on the situation in five EU member states with recommendations to the relevant authorities. The need for the continuation of monitoring detention in the context of changing policies was particularly highlighted at the conference. Conference agenda  Presentation by Jean-Etienne Kautzmann
Presentation by Daphne Bouteillet-Paquet Presentation by Miroslava Mittelmanova  Summary of report Detention of asylum seekers and alternatives to detention in Latvia
Summary of the national paper of the Czech Republic | 
