The Lesvos No Border camp is currently under way on the picturesque Aegean island, home to the less than picturesque Pagani detention centre. Pagani is, like many other Greek detention centres, a converted warehouse. Sited 5 km from Mitilini, the capital of Lesvos, it was originally designed to hold around 250 migrants but current numbers exceed 1,000, at least 200 of whom are unaccompanied children.
On 19 August, 160 of the unaccompanied minors detained in Pagani went on hunger strike to demand their immediate freedom. All of them are detained in just one room, where they share one toilet, many need to sleep on the floor due to lack of beds. Some of the minors are only eight or nine years old. 50 of them have been detained for over 2 months, the others have been in Pagani for several weeks already. Detention of minors is of course illegal under Greek and International law.
Video footage recorded by some of the children shows the room where they sleep, two or even three together, in a pile of bunk beds or in layers on the floor. In appalling scenes, children with severely wounded legs claim that there is no medical treatment. Other footage shows over 150 women and 50 babies crammed into to a single room 20 x 15 m with little or no exercise, fresh air or access to adequate food and medical care. [Video 1, 2, 3, 4]
Since the beginning of August a MSF team that includes a psychologist and translator has been working inside the detention centre. “We have seen that there is an urgent need for psychosocial support for many detainees inside the center," says Micky van Gerven, head of mission of the MSF project for migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in Greece. “Most of them have endured a very difficult and perilous journey to reach Greece and are faced with an uncertain future in the country."
MSF had previously operated in the camp provided primary health care and psychosocial support during the summer of 2008 but withdrew after interference from the Greek authorities made it impossible to continue their mission. They have only recently returned after an agreement was concluded with the national and local authorities to ensure collaboration and access for MSF to undocumented migrants in the camp.
However, following the recent new restrictive anti-immigration legislation doubling the length of detention and severely restricting appeals against deportation decisions, together with the mass arrests instituted across Greece, the numbers in the already overcrowded detention centres have gone through the roof.
On 21 August, with tension inside the detention centre escalating, 930 detainees, including women and children, also went on hunger strike demanding their release, hanging on balusters and crying for freedom. This resulted in the release of 38 refugees the same day, including a pregnant woman with little children. However, whilst they were issued with papers they received no other support and were stuck on the island with no ferry ticket and no money for food.
On 24th, the UNHCR director for Greece Giorgos Tsarbopoulos visited Pagani and talked to activists from the No Border camp who had gathered outside. Earlier on in the day he had called for the immediate closure of another camp on the island, the over-crowded Ministry of Health and Social Solidarity facility at Agiassos for unaccompanied minors. The UNHCR later released a statement deploring the conditions inside Pagani and, following representations, the Greek government agreed to remove all unaccompanied minors from the camp by the end of the month.
It is difficult to get a accurate picture of exactly what is going on inside the detention centre, but in the past week roughly 250 migrants have been released. They have been given 30 days to proceed with their journey or face being detained again. That is of course if they can manage to get off the island at the busiest time of the year when everyone tries to travel home from the large cities and all the ferries are booked. News has also reached the No Border Camp today (29 Aug) that 450 people are due to be either released or moved from the camp and that (somehow) ferry tickets have already been booked, but it is still to be confirmed.
To keep up to date with events at the Camp visit the camp website: http://lesvos09.antira.info/
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query lesvos. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query lesvos. Sort by date Show all posts
Saturday, 29 August 2009
Monday, 2 November 2009
Pagani Update
The Pagani detention centre on Lesvos has finally closed its door (for the time being). The Camp was the location of a No Border Camp this summer and has been the focus on an on-going campaign to close it down ever since. The final straw appeared to be the joint visit two weeks ago by a junior minister (from recently renamed 1984-style the Citizen's Protection Ministry) and a UNHCR delegation. The minister and the UNHCR both condemned conditions there and the new Greek government put a plan into operation to free many of the detainees and transfer the remainder to other centres.
Last Thursday saw the first releases, with people just being pushed out of the gates onto the cold streets. Many queued for ferry tickets but, as the next ferry wasn't until the next day, they faced the possibility of sleeping out in the streets. No Borders activists however, squatted a University building to allow migrants to spend the night in from the cold. Saturday saw the last 120 migrants issued with their registration papers and leave the camp for good. No doubt the Greek authorities will give it a quick makeover, a swift lick of paint and a new name, and it will be reopened for business in the near future but activists will continue to struggle against all detention prisons.
Last Thursday saw the first releases, with people just being pushed out of the gates onto the cold streets. Many queued for ferry tickets but, as the next ferry wasn't until the next day, they faced the possibility of sleeping out in the streets. No Borders activists however, squatted a University building to allow migrants to spend the night in from the cold. Saturday saw the last 120 migrants issued with their registration papers and leave the camp for good. No doubt the Greek authorities will give it a quick makeover, a swift lick of paint and a new name, and it will be reopened for business in the near future but activists will continue to struggle against all detention prisons.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
News Digest
Having been out of action for the past week, due to circumstances beyond our control, we return with a digest of some of the news that you may have missed.
Malta, Italy and Libya:
The stretch of the Mediterranean between Libya and the Malta/Lampedusa area has long been a major route for clandestine migration into Europe, and the Maltese and Italian governments have long sought solutions to decreasing the numbers attempting to cross the sea from Libya. Italy and Libya have recently concluded a pact that saw them agree to operate joint naval patrols and for Italy to be able to return migrants (contrary to international law) directly to Libyan waters without processing any potential asylum applications.
At the same time the simmering political row between Italy and Malta over maritime jurisdiction has reached boiling point. The Italian island of Lampedusa is 200km south of Sicily and 130 km west of Malta (Malta itself is only 90 km from Sicily) and there has long been disputes over exactly who is responsible for dealing with migrant boats in the area, each having refused to take responsibility for vessels that they say are in the other's maritime 'search & rescue zone'.
Now both sides are taking an even hard line on dealing with each other, as well as with floundering migrants. Malta has long argued that it bears a burden out of all proportion to its size and its detention centres have been grossly overcrowded for years, whilst the recent increasingly repressive political atmosphere in Italy has seen the Italian navy even less likely to render humanitarian aid to migrants in trouble at sea. Now they merely tow them back to the African mainland.
The latest flare-up stems from an incident on 20 August when a boat with 5 exhausted and weakened Eritreans, including a 7-year old boy, landed on Lampedusa. The Eritreans claimed that they were the only survivors and that the other 73 passengers had all died of lack of food and water and been thrown overboard. The boat had left Libya 3 weeks before but had run out of fuel 3 days into the voyage. They had been given bread and water by a passing fishing boat at one point but apparently had refused assistance, other than life jackets and fuel, from an Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) vessel 2 days before they arrived at Lampedusa, saying they wished to continue on to Italy.*
Both the UNHCR and the Vatican were quick to express their outrage and blame both sides. However, that did not stop the Italian opposition from claiming the migrant's arrival on Italian territory as a failure of the Berlusconi regime's immigration policy, a policy that will see the migrants face a fine of €10,000.
Franco Frattini, Italy's Foreign Minister in turn blamed Malta, claiming it's search & rescue zone was "too large for tiny Malta", sparking a war of words with Maltese officials. He also turned his fire on the rest of the EU for not doing enough to stop the migrants from reaching Italy and not sharing the 'burden' of those that did. In response the EU's duty president, Swedish Premier Carl Bildt, promised that the matter would be discussed by EU foreign ministers at the end of October. A relocation project is also due to be unveiled in September by the EU justice commissioner, Jacques Barrot.
The mainstream Italian media were also not slow to get involved in the controversy, whipping themselves up into a frenzy, with Il Giornale claiming that Malta is the "most racist country in Europe." And, in an act of rank hypocrisy, the paper also warned of the threat of growing far-right and police brutality against immigrants in Malta. [video link]
In recent day more boats have been intercepted in the area. Two days ago 57 migrants were rescued by Italian coastguards off of Lampedusa. One was evacuated to the island suffering from dehydration whilst the remainder were taken to Sicily. And just today 79 Somalis landed in two groups on Malta, with one dead migrant from one of the groups being recovered from the sea.
It seems that however much the Italians and Maltese want to bicker over who is responsible for the migrants that make it across the Mediterranean alive, no one wants to take responsibility for the ones that fail in their quest for a better life. Migrants from across the world will continue to want to come to Europe however high EU governments high they build the walls of Fortress Europe and however loud they trumpet their desire to keep them out.
* The AFM has also released a photograph of the 20 August boat casting doubt on the migrants' story and claiming that it is far too small to have set sail with 78 passengers.
G4S:
On 24 August G4S announced that its profits have soared since winning new contracts to run Brook House and Tinsley House IRCs at Gatwick airport. The 2 detention centres are expected to generate £10 million and £5m a year respectively for the company over the next five years.
In other news G4S was fined £5,000 after UK Border Agency officers found the firm had employing an illegal worker at its Glasgow offices. A spokesman for G4S claimed that it was an "isolated incident" after it was found an employee was working in excess of the 20 hours a week permitted for a resident on a student visa.
Netherlands:
In the early hours of 23 August part of the construction site of a new detention centre at the Fairoaksbaan, Rotterdam Airport in The Netherlands was set on fire. On-site offices used by the management of the planning and construction companies responsible for the construction were targeted in protest against the continuing construction of Fortress Europe and was planned to coincide with the start of the international No-Border Camp on the Greek island of Lesvos.
Canada, Roma & Fingerprints:
Canada has imposed swingeing visa restrictions on Czech citizens in an attempt to prevent Roma people form going to Canada to claim asylum. Canada's Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney, claimed the aim was to stop “economic migrants jumping the queue” who could easily move to “26 other Western democracies in the European Union.” He also paid lip-service to the fact that the Roma faced social and economic discrimination but that the Czech Republic was “in compliance with the European human rights law" and that there “is no policy of state-sponsored persecution against the Roma.”
This clearly ignores the fact that, whilst the Roma have the right to free movement within the EU, their chances of finding work in other countries is severly restricted because of widespread anti-Roma prejudice. And in the Czech Republic itself, despite recent anti-discrimination legislation designed to put the country in step with European Union human rights law, persecution of the Roma is on the increase.
Amnesty International recently said that, “Roma in the country continue to suffer discrimination at the hands of both public officials and private individuals, including in the areas of housing, education, health care and employment. Not only do they face forced evictions, segregation in education and racially motivated violence, but they have been denied justice when seeking redress for the abuses against them.”
Other recent news sees the signing of a data sharing agreement between the UK, Canada and Australia to share fingerprint data of people applying for asylum or resisting deportation. New Zeland and the United States are expected to sign-up in the near future, mirroring the type of cooperation between the five states that operates under the UK-USA Security Agreement on signals intelligence. It is not known whether this agreement will give the 4 non-EU countries access to Eurodac fingerprint data system.
Malta, Italy and Libya:
The stretch of the Mediterranean between Libya and the Malta/Lampedusa area has long been a major route for clandestine migration into Europe, and the Maltese and Italian governments have long sought solutions to decreasing the numbers attempting to cross the sea from Libya. Italy and Libya have recently concluded a pact that saw them agree to operate joint naval patrols and for Italy to be able to return migrants (contrary to international law) directly to Libyan waters without processing any potential asylum applications.
At the same time the simmering political row between Italy and Malta over maritime jurisdiction has reached boiling point. The Italian island of Lampedusa is 200km south of Sicily and 130 km west of Malta (Malta itself is only 90 km from Sicily) and there has long been disputes over exactly who is responsible for dealing with migrant boats in the area, each having refused to take responsibility for vessels that they say are in the other's maritime 'search & rescue zone'.
Now both sides are taking an even hard line on dealing with each other, as well as with floundering migrants. Malta has long argued that it bears a burden out of all proportion to its size and its detention centres have been grossly overcrowded for years, whilst the recent increasingly repressive political atmosphere in Italy has seen the Italian navy even less likely to render humanitarian aid to migrants in trouble at sea. Now they merely tow them back to the African mainland.
The latest flare-up stems from an incident on 20 August when a boat with 5 exhausted and weakened Eritreans, including a 7-year old boy, landed on Lampedusa. The Eritreans claimed that they were the only survivors and that the other 73 passengers had all died of lack of food and water and been thrown overboard. The boat had left Libya 3 weeks before but had run out of fuel 3 days into the voyage. They had been given bread and water by a passing fishing boat at one point but apparently had refused assistance, other than life jackets and fuel, from an Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) vessel 2 days before they arrived at Lampedusa, saying they wished to continue on to Italy.*
Both the UNHCR and the Vatican were quick to express their outrage and blame both sides. However, that did not stop the Italian opposition from claiming the migrant's arrival on Italian territory as a failure of the Berlusconi regime's immigration policy, a policy that will see the migrants face a fine of €10,000.
Franco Frattini, Italy's Foreign Minister in turn blamed Malta, claiming it's search & rescue zone was "too large for tiny Malta", sparking a war of words with Maltese officials. He also turned his fire on the rest of the EU for not doing enough to stop the migrants from reaching Italy and not sharing the 'burden' of those that did. In response the EU's duty president, Swedish Premier Carl Bildt, promised that the matter would be discussed by EU foreign ministers at the end of October. A relocation project is also due to be unveiled in September by the EU justice commissioner, Jacques Barrot.
The mainstream Italian media were also not slow to get involved in the controversy, whipping themselves up into a frenzy, with Il Giornale claiming that Malta is the "most racist country in Europe." And, in an act of rank hypocrisy, the paper also warned of the threat of growing far-right and police brutality against immigrants in Malta. [video link]
In recent day more boats have been intercepted in the area. Two days ago 57 migrants were rescued by Italian coastguards off of Lampedusa. One was evacuated to the island suffering from dehydration whilst the remainder were taken to Sicily. And just today 79 Somalis landed in two groups on Malta, with one dead migrant from one of the groups being recovered from the sea.
It seems that however much the Italians and Maltese want to bicker over who is responsible for the migrants that make it across the Mediterranean alive, no one wants to take responsibility for the ones that fail in their quest for a better life. Migrants from across the world will continue to want to come to Europe however high EU governments high they build the walls of Fortress Europe and however loud they trumpet their desire to keep them out.
* The AFM has also released a photograph of the 20 August boat casting doubt on the migrants' story and claiming that it is far too small to have set sail with 78 passengers.
G4S:
On 24 August G4S announced that its profits have soared since winning new contracts to run Brook House and Tinsley House IRCs at Gatwick airport. The 2 detention centres are expected to generate £10 million and £5m a year respectively for the company over the next five years.
In other news G4S was fined £5,000 after UK Border Agency officers found the firm had employing an illegal worker at its Glasgow offices. A spokesman for G4S claimed that it was an "isolated incident" after it was found an employee was working in excess of the 20 hours a week permitted for a resident on a student visa.
Netherlands:
In the early hours of 23 August part of the construction site of a new detention centre at the Fairoaksbaan, Rotterdam Airport in The Netherlands was set on fire. On-site offices used by the management of the planning and construction companies responsible for the construction were targeted in protest against the continuing construction of Fortress Europe and was planned to coincide with the start of the international No-Border Camp on the Greek island of Lesvos.
Canada, Roma & Fingerprints:
Canada has imposed swingeing visa restrictions on Czech citizens in an attempt to prevent Roma people form going to Canada to claim asylum. Canada's Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney, claimed the aim was to stop “economic migrants jumping the queue” who could easily move to “26 other Western democracies in the European Union.” He also paid lip-service to the fact that the Roma faced social and economic discrimination but that the Czech Republic was “in compliance with the European human rights law" and that there “is no policy of state-sponsored persecution against the Roma.”
This clearly ignores the fact that, whilst the Roma have the right to free movement within the EU, their chances of finding work in other countries is severly restricted because of widespread anti-Roma prejudice. And in the Czech Republic itself, despite recent anti-discrimination legislation designed to put the country in step with European Union human rights law, persecution of the Roma is on the increase.
Amnesty International recently said that, “Roma in the country continue to suffer discrimination at the hands of both public officials and private individuals, including in the areas of housing, education, health care and employment. Not only do they face forced evictions, segregation in education and racially motivated violence, but they have been denied justice when seeking redress for the abuses against them.”
Other recent news sees the signing of a data sharing agreement between the UK, Canada and Australia to share fingerprint data of people applying for asylum or resisting deportation. New Zeland and the United States are expected to sign-up in the near future, mirroring the type of cooperation between the five states that operates under the UK-USA Security Agreement on signals intelligence. It is not known whether this agreement will give the 4 non-EU countries access to Eurodac fingerprint data system.
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Greece: One Way & It's Out
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the European Union to "hold Greece accountable for acts contrary to international and European human rights and refugee law" and said that "it needs to act fast, as the lives of many are at risk." Bill Frelick, the Director of HRW's Refugee Policy Program also said, "It appears Greece is doing everything it can to close the door on persons who seek protection in Europe, no matter how vulnerable they are."
HRW has been documenting the on-going policy of the Greek state to systematically denying migrants access to Internationally agreed asylum rights and of illegally expelling them to third countries. (See: 'Stuck in a Revolving Door' for a previous HRW Report on 'pushbacks') The same organisation has also documented the routine miscategorisation of unaccompanied children as adults, allowing them to be detained in conditions that would be considered to inhumane and degrading, if they had been correctly identified as children, prior to deportation.
In the wake of the far right anti-immigration parties gains in the EU elections last month and an impending general election, likely to take place next year, the Greek government are desperate to occupy some of the moral low-ground and increase anti-immigration repression in order to stay in power.
In addition to an immigration policy that already refuses all but a handful of asylum applications (recent figures show only about 1.3% of applications are accepted*), the government has abolished any meaningful means of appeal against asylum decisions, causing the UNHCR to pull out its previous cooperation in implementing the process, as well as increasing the maximum length of administrative detention for migrants from 6 months to 12 months, and certain circumstances up to 18 months.
Since mid July, the Greek authorities have significantly increased their operations against migrants and asylum seekers. The Patras camp has been destroyed and many of its occupants arrested, leaving numerous migrant children who managed to escape the clutches of the Greek police in hiding in abysmal conditions under constant fear of being detained. Numerous ex-army bases have been opened up as detention centres and large numbers of detainees have been moved from major cities and islands in the south and east to camps in the north prior to illegal expulsion to Turkey.
However not all Greeks are content to stand by as the government ramp up the repression. On 23 July activists blockaded the ferry from Lesvos, the venue for a No Border camp at the end of next month, preventing the transfer of 63 migrants to camps in the north. There have also been numerous solidarity demonstrations in Athens, Thessaloniki and other Greek cities with people defending the migrant communities against the numerous vicious attacks from state-sponsored fascist thugs.
In separate news, Arivan Abdullah Osman, a 29 year old Kurdish migrant who had been in a coma since 3 April, died in hospital on Monday. Arivan had been brutally beaten by Hellenic Coast Guard officers after he tried to board a ferry in Igoumenitsa bound for Italy. According to eyewitnesses he had previously been turned away from the port but returned only to be arrested and have his head repeatedly bounced off the cement at the port, causing internal bleeding from which he never recovered.
* Last year only 379 people were granted asylum out of nearly 29,080 applications. The same Eurosat figures showed that Greece had the EU's fifth highest number of applications (the 4th highest relative to population size), with France top with 41,800 asylum applications and the UK second with 30,500 (figure for new applicants only).
HRW has been documenting the on-going policy of the Greek state to systematically denying migrants access to Internationally agreed asylum rights and of illegally expelling them to third countries. (See: 'Stuck in a Revolving Door' for a previous HRW Report on 'pushbacks') The same organisation has also documented the routine miscategorisation of unaccompanied children as adults, allowing them to be detained in conditions that would be considered to inhumane and degrading, if they had been correctly identified as children, prior to deportation.
In the wake of the far right anti-immigration parties gains in the EU elections last month and an impending general election, likely to take place next year, the Greek government are desperate to occupy some of the moral low-ground and increase anti-immigration repression in order to stay in power.
In addition to an immigration policy that already refuses all but a handful of asylum applications (recent figures show only about 1.3% of applications are accepted*), the government has abolished any meaningful means of appeal against asylum decisions, causing the UNHCR to pull out its previous cooperation in implementing the process, as well as increasing the maximum length of administrative detention for migrants from 6 months to 12 months, and certain circumstances up to 18 months.
Since mid July, the Greek authorities have significantly increased their operations against migrants and asylum seekers. The Patras camp has been destroyed and many of its occupants arrested, leaving numerous migrant children who managed to escape the clutches of the Greek police in hiding in abysmal conditions under constant fear of being detained. Numerous ex-army bases have been opened up as detention centres and large numbers of detainees have been moved from major cities and islands in the south and east to camps in the north prior to illegal expulsion to Turkey.
However not all Greeks are content to stand by as the government ramp up the repression. On 23 July activists blockaded the ferry from Lesvos, the venue for a No Border camp at the end of next month, preventing the transfer of 63 migrants to camps in the north. There have also been numerous solidarity demonstrations in Athens, Thessaloniki and other Greek cities with people defending the migrant communities against the numerous vicious attacks from state-sponsored fascist thugs.
In separate news, Arivan Abdullah Osman, a 29 year old Kurdish migrant who had been in a coma since 3 April, died in hospital on Monday. Arivan had been brutally beaten by Hellenic Coast Guard officers after he tried to board a ferry in Igoumenitsa bound for Italy. According to eyewitnesses he had previously been turned away from the port but returned only to be arrested and have his head repeatedly bounced off the cement at the port, causing internal bleeding from which he never recovered.
* Last year only 379 people were granted asylum out of nearly 29,080 applications. The same Eurosat figures showed that Greece had the EU's fifth highest number of applications (the 4th highest relative to population size), with France top with 41,800 asylum applications and the UK second with 30,500 (figure for new applicants only).
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Calais No Border Camp 23-29 June
The Calais No Border camp is a joint venture between French and Belgian activists and migrant support groups and the UK No Borders Network. It aims to highlight the realities of the situation in Calais and Northern France; to build links with the migrant communities; to help build links between migrants support groups; and lastly, but not least, to challenge the authorities on the ground, to protest against increased repression of migrants and local activists alike.This camp calls for the freedom of movement for all, an end to borders and to all migration controls. We call for a radical movement against the systems of control, dividing us into citizens and non-citizens, into the documented and the undocumented.
Why Calais?
We have chosen Calais for two main reasons; it is an important location in the history, development and practice of European migration controls and has long been a major bottleneck for those seeking to get to Britain. But more importantly, it is also a focus of the struggle between those who would see an end to all migration into the EU, and those trying to break down the barriers between peoples, the borders that prevent the freedom of movement for all, not just the privileged few.
Since the mid-nineties tens of thousands have lived in destitution, sleeping rough in Calais, waiting for their chance to cross the channel to England. Between 1999 and 2002 the Red Cross ran a centre at neighbouring Sangatte but this was forced to close after political pressure from France and Britain. Since then, the massive police presence and repression in Calais has forced thousands of men woman and children to wander the Calais region and all along the North coast of France, Belgium and Holland. They are routinely brutalised by the police; tear-gassed, beaten, arrested and repeatedly interned at the nearby Coquelles detention centre. The police regularly burn their shelters and the few meagre possessions that they contain. The local groups that support the migrants by providing food and other humanitarian aid are coming under increasing attack from the police and a number of activists have been arrested in recent months. Meanwhile British Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has been calling for the construction of a permanent holding/detention centre for migrants in Calais docks.
The Bigger Picture
Calais however remains only one small part of the overall picture of European migration controls, a major internal border within the hi-tech EU borders regime. Since the beginning of the decade, the EU been attempting to build 'Fortress Europe'; externalising EU borders into Africa and Asia with EU border guards patrolling the Mediterranean, in Libya and off the West Coast of Africa courtesy of the Frontex borders agency; and via the European Neighbourhood Policy, where countries from the Ukraine all the way round the Mediterranean to Morocco are now paid by the EU to do its migration prevention work for it.
Migrants’ Rights Are Workers’ Rights
Through this system of border controls, authorities create two kinds of migrants: a small number of ‘skilled’ migrants, who are designated as ‘useful’ to the state; and a massive number of undocumented workers who have no rights and are therefore exploitable as cheap labour. Thus is our fight for freedom of movement also a fight for the rights of all workers.
Transnational Solidarity Works!
Building links and working together allows us to share information between us on a transnational level. It also allows us to exploit the fault-lines and cracks in Fortress Europe. Last November, transnational solidarity helped to prevent the planned deportation of Afghans from Calais to Kabul.
Campaigning Against Borders
This camp will continue the tradition of the No Border camps across the world since the late 1990s and, like the camp taking place this year in Lesvos in August, it will be a space to share information, skills, knowledge and experiences; a place to plan and take action together against the system of borders which divides us all. For centuries European imperial powers have exploited the land, resources and people of the majority world to become wealthy and powerful, leaving war, environmental destruction and massive inequality in their wake. Those who attempt the journey to the UK or elsewhere in Europe are challenging this injustice by their movement. The situation in Calais is a result of the compromise and conflict of interest between French and UK immigration policy and we call on groups, networks and individuals here to take action across Europe and to become part of a global movement of solidarity that defends their right to choose where they move.
Equal Rights For All!!
*No One Is Illegal. Freedom Of Movement And The Right To Stay For All*
http://calaisnoborder.eu.org/
http://london.noborders.org.uk/calais2009
UK e-mail contact: calais@riseup.net
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