Calais Solidarity Protest Outside Brighton UKBA Office

Protesters stopped traffic outside of the UK Borders Agency Identity and Passport Services office in Fredrick Place, Brighton today in a display of support for the migrants in Calais. This last minute demonstration was organised following a public meeting held last night by Calais Migrants Solidarity

volunteers who were sharing their experiences of working with migrants in Calais over the summer.

As the meeting happened to coincide with the destruction of the Pashtun 'Jungle', feeling were running high and a dozen or so people agreed to reassemble today to protest outside the UKBA office here in town. There followed a short impromptu march round town to let all the local office staff on their lunch breaks know that not everyone is happy with the UK government's stance on the Calais migrants.

Destroying The Jungles: A False Solution

Joint Statement of organizations: La Belle Etoile, French Coalition for the Right of Asylum, GISTI, Secours Catholique, C’Sur, Salam, Migrants Fraternity Collective (Angres), Terre d’Errances Norrent-Fontes, Terre d’Errances Steenvoorde, Calais Migrant Solidarity, The Exiles of 10 ° (Paris), The Ligue de Droits de l’Homme (Pas-de-Calais Regional Federation), Medecins du Monde, Cimade, the Greens, NPA Calais, Amnesty International.

We, associations engaged daily with migrants, are convinced that the government plan to destroy jungles is ineffective and exacerbates the situation.

Smashing the shelters causes the scattering of camps, delivering migrants into the hands of criminal networks and does not settle anything at all . It is persisting in the error of 2002 (the closure of the Sangatte camp).

Since the speech of Mr. Besson at Calais in April, the visible number of migrants in Calais has fallen. Some went to England. Few were those able to apply for asylum in France. Most have fled the Police threats to Belgium and Holland, the others were scattered into nature. Forced to hide, they are more vulnerable than ever, without access to health care and food and delivered, against their will, into the only law of the mafias.

What will happen to those who are arrested in the coming days? Deported to their country of origin? Released into the wild without any information or help? Returned to Italy or Greece where the living conditions of refugees are dramatic?

The government offers assistance for voluntary return to countries at war and dictatorships. How many will agree to return to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea ... Knowing that in addition either voluntary return or forced return to some of these countries will prove diplomatically impossible ?

The government communicates a lot about the tradition of asylum in France but a small part of migrants had the opportunity to seek asylum. Most are prevented by the European Dublin II Regulation that France applies with zeal, without using the power it has to suspend its application. Since last April, only 170 asylum applications were filed in the sub-prefecture of Calais. Only 50 of them will be processed. The other applicants were sent back to the jungle and can be arrested at any moment and be deported by force, mainly to Italy and Greece where the living conditions of refugees are dramatic. In Greece, access to asylum is virtually impossible.

Mr Barrot, the European Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned the recent failures of EU policy on asylum.

It is necessary that the European states no longer abdicate responsibility to their neighbours. European solidarity must become a reality. The Dublin II Regulation has to change, it traps the refugees in a deadlock and leaves them unprotected.

To break the ‘law of the jungle’, we must put the European asylum system on its feet in stopping the denial of the protection needs of individuals and providing a mechanism enabling them to seek asylum in the country of their choice or where they have family, linguistic or cultural ties. Whatever their choice, we must also ensure their reception conditions consistent with the dignity of people by providing accommodation facilities open to all.

'Jungle' Zero Hour

Well it happened as anticipated. The massive PR event kicked off at 7:30 this morning as 600 police officers moved into action. The CRS surrounded the camp, forcing press and onlookers back, and ordinary Gendarmes went in to carry out the actual arrests. Most of the migrants who had remained in the 'Jungle' over the past few days had gathered before dawn around a fire with their improvised banners in English and Pashtu. "We need shelter and protection. We want asylum and peace. Jungle is our home", proclaimed one. They stood in silence as the police arrived. Few put up any resistance and some were even pulled from their beds.

Some No Borders activists and volunteers from the migrant solidarity groups in Calais (A vociferous and passionate group of human rights protesters chanted: "No border, no nation, stop deportation", as the BBC website put it), using a length of rope, had formed a human shield around a large group of traumatised teenage migrants. The CRS cut the rope and rushed them, knocking activists and migrants to the ground and it was then that the injuries seen in all the film and photo coverage occurred. The migrants were then led away to the waiting coaches and the bulldozers fired up to level the camp.

A total of 278 migrants, including 132 bewildered minors, were arrested along with one No Borders activist. The numbers of those injured have not been released yet. The adults taken away are believed to have been taken to various local police stations for processing. Those with take-able fingerprints will be check against Eurodac. If they have been registered in a 'Safe Third Country' (which, for some reason, Home Office ministers continue to call 'safe first country' - safe third country = first country of asylum under international law), they will be removed to a detention centre prior to deportation. If not, they will be offered the alternative of apply for asylum or take the International Organisation for Migration relocation grant bribe (this is paid to a third party, either to provide education in the country of return or as business start-up capital - no money is given directly to the migrant despite what the Daily Mail and BNP would have you believe).

Those without identifiable fingerprints will probably be dispersed to detention centres around the country* and held till their fingerprints can be taken and checked against the Eurodac database. The minors will be sent to the Metz-Queuleu detention centre, notorious for its high attempted suicide rate long before 16-year-old Nabil L. hanged himself in September 2008. In fact the detention of minors in France has become a bit of a cause célèbre in recent months.

So what will happen to those migrants that left the 'Jungle' before it was deforested today? Many have gone to other 'Jungles' and squats and some reports are of a large number near the Tunnel entrance earlier today. Some may well have also been detained during the raids at Grand Synthe and Graveline or have tries their luck further up and down the coast. Some too will no doubt start to drift back into Calais, once the media storm has died down, to find the dunes fenced off with razor wire and set up camp elsewhere. No doubt also the CRS will make every effort to keep them off balance with raids and arrests, but we all know that those migrants, together with the hundreds already en-route, will be there in an ever-shifting underground population as long as the border exists.

Oh, and we've had the usual hypocrisy and cant from British politicians. We've had Alan Johnson saying he was "delighted" that the 'Jungle' was gone, this from a man who has said that Britain would help genuine asylum seekers (as opposed to taking any of the migrants from Calais) knowing that they have little or no chance of reaching the UK's shores and that almost all would have come through Greece and Italy and have next to no chance of being granted refugee status in either country. Woolas was also doing the rounds of the TV and radio studios at lunchtime today, trotting out the old "these people have no right to claim asylum in the UK, in fact I seriously doubt if they are genuine asylum seekers anyway" argument and trying to blame everything on the people-traffickers. Then, to add insult to injury, he smugly trotted out this line: "Don't try to get in unless you are a genuine asylum seeker, which we work with the UN to look after"!


* The norm for mass arrests in Calais has been for the Coquelles detention centre to be used once it has been emptied (with the migrants currently held there being transferred to other centres) . This has not happened this time.

Calais: Latest News III

No Borders and Calais Migrant Solidarity activists have been busy in and around the 'Jungles' and squats. Police are continuing to raid the camps but on Saturday night activists managed to prevent yet another CRS raid on the Ethiopian squat (the police seem to have a particular aversion to being photographed whilst brutalising migrants and this has become a useful tool for people monitoring the police's activities and trying to prevent arrests). The CRS were forced to leave without having detained anyone but those at the Etiopian camp were the very same ones that had been arrested the day before and released just that morning, which points up what activists have claimed all along - that the raids and arrests are harassment pure and simple.

In other news, at the request of the people in the main Pashtun 'Jungle' paint, brushes and sheets have been supplied by activists so that the migrants can make banners against the destruction of the 'Jungle', against deportations and in support of their human rights. They have also built a large fire which is acting as a beacon, drawing in supporters and the media to the camp.

Calais: Une Ville Occupée

In the run-up to the expected destruction of the main 'Jungle' zone on Tuesday morning, Calais is coming to resemble an occupied city by the hour. More and more military trucks have arrived, the CRS presence has increased and the streets are crawling with unmarked police cars (PAF - border police? BAC - Brigade Anti-Criminalité?). The Telegraph has even claimed that the army will use flame throwers. Its beginning to sound more like a re-enactment of the Sands of Iwo Jima rather than the Battle of Algiers in the Zones des Dunes!

And to top it all, Besson is expected in town tomorrow. Its obviously too good a photo opportunity to miss - first over the top come dawn. Or maybe he'll ride into the Pashtun 'Jungle' in the turret of a tank? And no doubt Calais own Iron Lady, Natacha Bouchart*, will be up there too, with her headscarf and tin hat à la Thatcher. She has already volunteered to mop-up the all the smaller 'Jungles', the squats in Calais itself, and has already claimed responsibility for the destruction of the Ethiopian squat (le squat Pagniez, where the arrested migrants have returned over the weekend after being released from detention, only to find all their possessions that they had left behind trashed by the CRS).

What ever happens in the next days, one thing is certain, this problem will not go away. Greece, as it has consistently done over the years, will not take any of the migrants that have passed through its territory (as the majority of the migrants in Calais most certainly have), Dublin II or no Dublin II. Which means either large-scale deportation flights or Green Cards all around. France may have deported 17,000 people in the first 7 months of the year, and its aim may be to deport 27,000 over the year as a whole, but they will find it difficult to return many of the migrants given that they come from war zones.

And inevitably the migrants will return, 'Jungles' will spring up elsewhere and the humanitarian associations in and around Calais will be left to pick up the pieces long after the media circus has left. Just as they were post Sangatte. Plus ça change...


* Bouchart has finally given examples of the "zone of lawlessness" - two attempted thefts!

Calais: Latest News II

According to the Nord Littoral, the main Pashtun 'Jungle' will begin to be dismantled next Tuesday, when Ramadan has ended. This is backed-up by the arrival of major police reinforcements in the area along with a number of bulldozers. So far however, the mobilisation of medical, interpreters and immigration department workers has not been observed. Already the Ethiopian 'Jungle' is empty and the police have thrown all the bedding and other equipment into the street. No one knows where the 30-40 people that were living there are.

Today volunteers from the various humanitarian associations have been in the main 'Jungles' giving what advice they can. Besson says that an "individual solution"* would be found for each and every migrant but that is of not comfort to the migrants, they are as desperate to get out of the 'Jungle' as Besson is to get rid of it. Needless to say as the migrants' situation gets ever more precarious those that prey on the, the traffickers, have upped their prices.

Also today, the Immigration Department released the text of a letter Besson sent to his European counterparts urging "the elaboration of a new doctrine of engagement for maritime operations", conducted in the Mediterranean by Frontex, that stopped all migrants from reaching European shores. Maybe he is aiming for a job in the Italian Government now?

There has been a lot of rhetoric flying around recently, most of it unedifying and some of it definitely contradictory. For example, what ever happened to 'Opération à Blanc' (Operation in White i.e. with health workers), the October dress rehearsal for the full scale dismantlement of the camps that was announced by Besson at the beginning of the month? Where is the evidence to back up the constant references to violence from the migrants that has apparently turned Calais into a "zone of lawlessness"?

Besson on Tuesday repeated these allegations on Tuesday as has Natacha Bouchart, the mayor of Calais, on repeated occasions but no one seems able to come up with any verifiable reports of such violence. However one thing is abundantly clear, the only people that appear to be being terrorised at the moment are the migrants being driven into hiding for fear of being returned to war-zones across the world or trying one last desperate attempt to cross the Channel.

Someone also needs to get their figure right. Besson on Wednesday: About 170 people had made requests for asylum in France this year and been issued with temporary leave to remain and accommodation, plus a further 180 had accepted voluntary return to their country of origin. prefect of Pas-de-Calais, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian on 25 August: 152 cases of asylum applications have been filed since the beginning of May, but only one agreed with 43 temporary residence permits. Surely M. Besson is being 'economic with the truth'? As the latest CFDA (Coordination Française pour le Droit d'Asile) press statement says, "How could Eritreans accept a "voluntary" repatriation to their country? Why would Afghans or Sudanese accept, under ... Dublin II, their transfer to Greece, regularly denounced and condemned for repeated abuse and bad treatment of asylum seekers and migrants in general?"

Here's something else that it looks as though the French authorities have not been too frank about either; whilst many of those in the 'Jungles' have slipped away out of sight, a lot of those who remain in there have already made asylum applications and are waiting for the current two and a half months Office Français d’Immigration et d’Intégration backlog in processing applications, having refused the offer of accommodation in a government hostel. Also many migrants who already have their 'green cards' chose to stay in the 'Jungle' rather than anywhere else.

A few other thoughts: if Calais' 'Jungles' and squats are cleared all at the same time, where will they put everyone? There just aren't enough paces in the French detention estate to accommodate all the Calais migrants? Maybe that is why they left it so long before going into action, hoping that the numbers would be lower as people had disappeared? Maybe they are going to revert to mass deportation after all, without processing papers and asylum applications? Deporting people without processing fully any applications or without checking to see if they have been in a 'safe third country' prior to arriving in France happens far more often that the French authorities will admit. Alternatively, they could just destroy all the camps and leave the migrants 'homeless' as they did after Sangatte was closed.

In other news on Calais, the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, has said the UK government should consider granting entry to those who already have large families here. Inevitably, the UK Borders Agency stock reply was that the closure of the camps were "matters for the French government". Now that's a surprise isn't it? Sounds just like the UK Government line in 2002 before they agreed to take the majority of the migrants when the Sangatte camp was closed.


* This may just be PR as France has fallen foul of EU human right legislation over attempts that fall foul of Article 4 forbidding the "collective expulsion of foreigners". [See: Nov 08]

Brighton Calais Information Night & Fundraiser

Calais Migrant Solidarity is holding a Calais Information Night with short films and a question and answer session with activists who have spent the summer monitoring police and working with the migrants in Calais.

Tuesday 22 September 8.00 - 11.00 pm

Members and Guest only.

Calais Migrant Solidarity Fundraising Gig on Friday 2 October 8.00 pm till late.

Sak-less Jack & The Lovely Brothers plus DJs.

Entry by donation.

Members and guests only.