Tag: European Union

THE BLACK BOOK OF PUSHBACKS

The Black Book of Pushbacks

by Border Violence Monitoring Network

To coincide with International Migrants Day on 18th December the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) have released a landmark publication on illegal border pushbacks. The ‘Black Book of Pushbacks’ brings together a wealth of evidence on these violations, analysing in detail the way that these brutal acts have become systematised at the external border and renewing calls to end impunity for perpetrating EU authorities.

CONTENTS OF THE ‘BLACK BOOK’

Pushbacks are illegal under international law, but member state authorities have long ignored such breaches of human rights which are contrary to the EU’s founding principles and international obligations. This ‘Black Book’ only includes incidents that have been directly recorded by BVMN; the real number of victims is likely to be much higher. The book covers:

  • A total of 892 group testimonies detailing the experiences of 12,654 people.
  • The violence many endured in Italy, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary along the so-called ‘Balkan route’ including maps, data, photos and other key information.
  • The types of suffering and violence perpetrated by border agents, member state police forces, soldiers – even guard dogs.
  • Documented incidents that could be clearly described as sadistic, merciless, humiliating and degrading treatment.

You can read the Black Book in full by downloading Volume I and Volume II here:

Download Volume I

Download Volume II

Urgent Call from Moria Camp for Help in Corona Times

Update 2/9/2020: This call was the second open letter to the EU and its member states to evict the Moria camp on the greek island of Lesvos in face of the pandemic threat. The inhabitants of the overcrowded camp have not received any answer so far, while everyone on the spot, including the support initiatives have by far reached their limits for months. In these circumstances, today, the first COVID-19 infection has been discovered in the camp.

  • To the European Union
  • To the Governments of European Countries
  • The European Public

Moria Camp, Lesvos April 16th 2020

We are addressing you from Moria Camp in Lesvos and ask for your help and support. Here in Lesvos almost 24.000 refugees currently live in highly inhuman conditions, with no services, only several hours of water per day and under deplorable hygienic conditions. We see, that now, after a long time, there is an ongoing discussion in the European public about us, about the circumstances we are living in. We would like to thank for all the solidarity, which we got in the last months and days from the European civil society, from all the people, who are not willing to abandon us in these times of the corona-crisis in their countries. We like to thank to all the politicians, communities, towns all over Europe, who declared, they like to receive refugees like us in their neighbourhoods. This give us hope and confidence, that the long and hard way we all have behind us, when we were forced to leave our home countries, was not in vain. We all came to Europe, because we want to live like human beings and because we could not stand the violence, the wars and the persecution we all faced. We were
coming, because our children deserve a better future, where they can live in safety, have access to health services, go to school and have the opportunity to make the most of their lives by using their abilities.

Now we are in a double crisis. We are hostages of circumstances, we are not
responsible for. At first the general living conditions in the Moria camp, which are really horrible and which are degrading us day by day. But now we face the problem of the pandemic danger, which we cannot stand alone. We began to organize our life in misery, we try to protect our dignity, but we cannot fight against a virus without minimal hygienic standards and possibilities to protect us. Any advise how to avoid the spread of Corona even sound illusionary to us:

How should we keep distance, if thousand have to wait for food every day, how to wash our hands, if no water is available? How can sick persons isolate if there is no place for that?


In the beginning of the crisis, we felt left abandoned and were totally unprepared. We took some measures to self-organize with the support from some, mainly local Greek NGOs to raise awareness and prepare for the worse. During the last weeks, we managed a lot of small steps, cleaned the camp, set up some hand washing stations, printed posters and leaflets and did other activities. While Corona spread in Greece and here in Lesvos, we expected the worst, because this virus in the camp would be like a death sentence for old, sick and other vulnerable individuals.

For the first time, we are able to breath in a bit of relief, since no new cases were reported on the island for more than two weeks. But this does not mean the danger vanishes. In contrary, Moria camp will stay vulnerable for many more months. But for us, the first phase of trying to keep the virus away by all means is over and now we are trying to prepare for the next period of time. In March here in Moria, refugees created several groups like the Moria Corona Awareness Team (MCAT) and Moria White Helmets. We worked very closely together with Greek and International NGOs as well as the local authorities. We also followed the demands and campaigns of the local Greek government for evacuation and call by ourselves to dissolve these camps in Lesvos, Chios, Samos and other islands as soon as possible. But we do see that this will not happen soon. Therefore, we suggest a two-folded strategy for the future. We urge Europe to evacuate the old, sick and vulnerable immediately because there is no protection for them here. This has to include unaccompanied or sick children with their families. In the meanwhile, many important steps can be taken to help the ones who will remain. The steps to address these issues are:

  • water (sewage/toilets, showers, and taps)
  • trash
  • isolation
  • food supply/food line
  • hygiene/disinfection
  • fire protection
  • security
  • awareness/education

This can and should be done with support of the European Union and EU governments, with the understanding that this is not a long-term solution. These camps violate the laws of international human rights and refugee rights. There should be a consensus among the European governments that these camps need to be dissolved as soon as possible, which realistically means after this Coronavirus pandemic. We, the refugees of Moria camp, under the guidance of MCAT and Moria White Helmets offer our support
and cooperation to any entity ready to assist in this endeavor on a temporary and provisionary level. This strategy also coincides with the desires of the Greek government who have long been requesting the EU’s assistance in taking in refugees, finding a long-term solution and relieving the pressure on the island and its people.

We know how much the Greek citizens on these islands have suffered during the last years and we also call on Europe to assist them in these difficult times. They also ask since a long for a sustainable solution instead of being left alone with this crisis. As we see it, the most plausible solution would be that the governments of the EU make cooperative contracts with the Greek government to provide aid, backing and technical support in order to fix what is fixable while the Coronavirus crisis is ongoing. At the
same time, it is also important to work towards evacuating as many people as possible. This being of the minors, the elderly and those with health conditions, and then working towards a long-term solution for evacuating the island and closing the camps once the crisis has passed. We welcome very much the first steps taken by the Greek Government now to get some of these vulnerable people out of the camps. By addressing the immediate structural needs in Moria camp on a short-term, temporary basis, time will be bought to find a more substantial solution for those currently residing
in Moria, paving the way for Moria and other hot spots to be permanently closed.

We need help to help ourselves. We are willing to do whatever we can do to protect all of us from the ongoing danger of the Coronavirus. We are in Europe and we need Europe to survive!


You can read this article also in the latest issue of Daily Resistance on page 4: https://www.oplatz.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Daily-Resistance-7.pdf

Invitation to a networking meeting to prepare protests – against the G20 Africa Partnership Conference – June 12th to 13th 2017 in Berlin

against the G20 Africa Partnership Conference - June 12th to 13th 2017 in Berlin

taz.de logo

Time:Wednesday, 25th of January 2017, 7 pm
Location: Aquarium (near Südblock)
Skalitzer Str. 6, U8/U12 Kottbusser Tor

german version bellow

Our initiative has been working on a criticism of the so-called ‘EU Migration Management’ launched in 2015. African and Asian states are forced to control and prevent migration. The European countries are drawing borders in Africa once again. Negotiations often take place in secret, bilaterally or on EU level (e.g. the so-called ‘Valetta Process’).
Security and life of millions of people are sold for couple of billion Euros.
Examples of the current policy of fortress Europe:

  • Provision of technical equipment for identification and surveillance
  • Equipment and training for police, border guards and (para)military troops
  • Readmission agreements and deportations even without passport papers and identification
  • Civil and military cooperation with non-democratic states, dictatorships, war criminals

We think our protest has to be voiced clearly.

There are different objectives and arguments and a variety of possible actions. We’d like to invite you to take part in the discussion and preparation of protests.

Contact for the present: buendnis_gegen_lager@riseup.net

Translations are planned, we’d like to ask for support.

EN_ Einladung Vernetzungstreffen EU Afrika Konferenz

DE_Einladung Vernetzungstreffen EU Afrika Konferenz

G20 calender for download

Einladung zu einem Vernetzungstreffen zur Vorbereitung von Protesten

– gegen die G20-Africa Partnership-Konferenz –

vom 12.-13. Juni 2017 in Berlin

Zeit: Mittwoch, 25.1.2017, 19 Uhr
Ort: Aquarium (neben Südblock), Skalitzer Str. 6, U8/U12 Kottbusser Tor

Eine Gruppe von Leuten beschäftigt sich seit einigen Monaten kritisch mit dem „EU Migrationsmanagement“ seit 2015. Afrikanische und asiatische Staaten werden genö-tigt, Auswanderung und Transitmigration zu kontrollieren und zu verhindern. Die europäischen Staaten ziehen wieder die Grenzen in Afrika.

Die Verhandlungen finden bilateral oder auf EU-Ebene (u.a. Valetta-Prozess) und häufig unter Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit statt.

Die Sicherheit und das Leben von Millionen von Menschen soll mit vielen Milliarden Euro verkauft werden.

Beispiele der aktuellen Abschottungspolitik:

– Lieferung von technischem Geräten zur Identifikation und zur Überwachung
– Ausrüstung und Training für Polizei, Grenzschutzbehörde und (para)militärischen Truppen
– Rücknahmeabkommen und Abschiebungen auch ohne Passpapiere und Identifikation
– Zivile und militärische Kooperation mit undemokratischen Staaten, Diktaturen, Kriegsverbrechern

Wir denken, dass unsere Kritik deutlich werden muss.

Es gibt verschiedene Adressaten, verschiedene Argumente, verschiedene Ausprägungen der politischen Arbeit. Beteiligt euch an der Diskussion und der Vorbereitung von Protesten.

Kontakt (vorläufig): buendnis_gegen_lager@riseup.net

Übersetzungen sind eingeplant, wir bitten um Unterstützung.

G20 Kalender zum download

The sealing off of the ‘Balkan borders’

Balkan borders

Photo: Gavgelija, Robert Atanasovski, AFP

The EU has finally struck a deal with the Turkish government at 29.10.2015 in which 3 bilion Euros per yer, visa liberalizations and unfrozen EU membership negotiations, negotiations that the EU froze with Turkey in 2005 under pretense of  R. Erdoğans government style as authoritative, will be exchanged for the Turkish role as an external Schengen border ‘guardian’. With this EU again proved that its interests have to be protected at all costs, quickly ignoring previous comments regarding the current Turkish president R. Erdoğan, as well as his increased surpression of Kurdish people, media critics and activists in the recent years. Political Machiavellism labels and continue to label Western politics throughout the history and it doesn’t leave out other political actors around the globe.

Dobova lager (Croatian-Slovenian border)

[wpvideo PfLVMCzj]

This video was taken in Dobova (Slovenia) a few days ago. This is not just a sole example of the mistreatment of the incoming people. The situations in camps change through days – sometimes they are empty and next day filled with new people arriving from Croatia.

The situation at Šentilj/Spielfeld (Slovenian-Austrian border) is different, as people often get trapped in ‘no-mans land’ between Slovenian and Austrian borders, while waiting for the permission to cross the border. ‘Officially’ people have the possibility to stay in camps, but due to the lack of information, it is often though that waiting at the ‘no-mans land’ will result in the quicker crossing of the border. This often develops in the long hour waiting in the cold weather.

We must demand open borders for everyone!

The construction of the European Union’s immigration system

Unser Europa hat keine Grenzen

Unser Europa hat keine Grenzen

These days it is getting obvious that the European Union, a supranational entity supposedly built on the values of freedom and peace, is putting a stamp on it’s mostly non-existant immigration and asylum system. That the European leaders selectively apply such values only for the economic and political elites is nothing new. New and surprising aren’t even the new changes for the immigration and asylum laws that are being developed under the privileged position by the technocratic elites in Berlin and Brussels. We must never forget how many people continue to die while trying to cross Mediterranean every year, because of the already existing legal framework.

The European Union is enforcing it’s borders (again)

Yesterday, 15.10.2015, late at night an Afgan refugee has been shot by the Bulgarian border control police, after 50 refugees tried to cross the border Sredets to Bulgaria from Turkey. Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs is using an excuse that the refugees didn’t obey the orders to stop and even though they were not armed the Bulgarian police was compelled to use such force (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/16/afghan-refugee-shot-dead-police-turkey-enter-bulgaria).

This is of course nothing new and surprising for how the EU’s member states deal with the influx of people trying to come within its borders. Let us just remember the rubber bullet shootings by the Spanish border police in February 2014, when an unknown number of people trying to reach “Spanish” side of Ceuta drowned. This is the reality of the European Union’s immigration and asylum system which rather spends money to enforce its borders than help the people who are fleeing desperation from their settings, which is a direct product of Western Europe’s colonialism and decades of interventions by the world superpowers in the 20th century.

If we read the Frontex budget report for the years 2014 and 2015, we see an increased budget injections in external border controls. Citing Statewarch and EU’s budget expenditures to Frontex:

The 2015 budget of EU border agency Frontex has been increased by 17.5%, from €97 million to €114 million, with the largest share of the extra funding going towards Joint Operations at Sea Borders.’

(source: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2015/feb/eu-frontex-budget%202015.htm; http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/About_Frontex/Governance_documents/Budget/Budget_2015.pdf).

The EU leaders are currently discussing of giving Turkey 3 billion financial resources and other political-social benefits for its citizens (e.g. better VISA-FREE travel). The idea is to keep (at least) 2 million refugees within Turkey’s borders and ask for its help with enforcing EU’s external borders (source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/15/big-decisions-unlikely-migration-summit-eu-leaders).

Turkey is suppose to be a so called safe county, but we all know that is on the verge of a small civil war (mostly with Kurdish people or people with different political orientation), if we just look at the events that happened few days ago in Ankara, where more than 100 people were killed by most likely state sponsored suicide bombing. Citing The Guardian newspaper:

Turkey is currently the main source of the 700,000 people who have entered the EU this year. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is to travel to Istanbul on Sunday for talks with the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, only two weeks before a crucial general election in Turkey, leaving her open to charges that she is boosting the victory chances of his governing Justice and Development party.’

(source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/15/big-decisions-unlikely-migration-summit-eu-leaders).

But the borders are not just on the edges of the Fortress Europe, but also inside it. They are the borders that separate people, who are illegalized by the fascist European Union’s immigration and asylum system, from European citizens. The good example and a symptom of such system is LaGeSo which dehumanizes people to non-beings, who are supposedly claiming benefits from the German state. But let us not forget that Germany is benefiting from such system and has historical and recent responsibilities towards countries that people flee from.

This is why making the so called “refugee” crisis, named by the EU’s institutions and mainstream media, a political issue that must directly adress the EU’s fascist immigration and asylum system, its neo-colonial practices and capitalist-neoliberal development in the recent years. No, there is no “refugee crisis”, but only European xenophobia towards human beings!

Next post will focus on the recent happening at the Balkan route borders and camps.

Until then: Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here!!

MÜLTECİLERE KARŞI SAVAŞ/ The War Against Refugees

Turgay Ulu Statement

Turgay Ulu – Illustration: Benjamin Bertram

Hypocritical policies have been made over the image of the Kurdish child – -photographed like lying on the beach. He died trying to escape the war and massacre in Kobane. The governments, who caused people to flee the countries where they had lived, have started a competition over how humanist they are by crying over him. Germany, the leader of the EU countries, was on the front line as the leading actor of this “humanitarian theatre.”

“Let them die, this is a good deterrence”

GENEVA (30 October 2014) – Allowing people to die at Europe’s borders just because of their administrative status is a complete disregard for the value of human life, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, François Crépeau, said today urging the British authorities to reconsider its decision not support search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.

The United Kingdom Government announced earlier this week they will not support any future search and rescue operations to prevent migrants and refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, stating that such operations can encourage more people to attempt the dangerous sea crossing to enter Europe.

Governments that do not support the search and rescue efforts have reduced themselves to the same level as the smugglers,” the human rights expert stressed. “They are preying on the precariousness of the migrants and asylum seekers, robbing them of their dignity and playing with their lives.”

Migrants are human beings and just like the rest of us they too have rights. They too have the right to live and thrive,” Mr. Crépeau said. “To bank on the rise in the number of dead migrants to act as deterrence for future migrants and asylum seekers is appalling. It’s like saying, let them die because this is a good deterrence.”

18.12. Global Day of Action

18.12. has been the third Global Action Day against racism and for the Rights of Migrants, Refugees and displaced People. Get Inforamtion about this transnational Refugee Uprise: http://globalmigrantsaction.org/

In the morning of 18th the Refugees Activists and Friends from Oranienplatz Protest Camp in Berlin gave an suprising press conference in the eu-house at Brandenburger Tor. At the same time the Brandenburger Tor was blocked for one hour to make everyone listen the demands:

Stopp killing Refugees at the european Borders! Stopp Deportations! Freedom of Movement for everyone!

The Brandenburger Tor in the very center of the city is the symbol of reunification of germany and the former border of east and west germany. Now the germans and tourists and all other privileged citizens can move freely through this and many other borders but refugees are being criminalized and isolated from society when they practice their human right for freedom of movement!

In the evening people met again at Alexanderplatz at Rotes Rathaus (City hall) to demonstrate towards the european house once more.

This day was the opening of the campain of a transnational network of Refugee Movements towards the european parliament elections may 2014 and the european migrations summit june 2014, both in bruxelles.

See you at the european wide Protest March to bruxelles! Freedom not frontex!

13-refugeeaction-0606-5d497 Auswahl_002 

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