The Warsaw noborder collective and occupied social center Syrena invites all to a week of actions against Frontex and Euro Apartheid 2012. Throughout the week starting on May 18th we will engage in creative interventions in public space around Warsaw and various other activites, including film screenings, discussions, book presentations and concerts.
A 9-year-old girl and her grandfather have gone missing in their effort to cross the freezing Evros river from Turkey to Greece on a boat (with another nine sans papiers immigrants) which was overturned Meanwhile, a boy of 3, child of sans papiers immigrants, was saved and is being kept at the University Hospital of Alexandroupolis. The boy is in a very good condition. The boy had been saved by a sans papiers immigrant and his compatriot, both of whom were arrested by the police in Orestiada. It is they who informed the police about a shipwreck with nine passengers.
Failure of Greek authorities to set up migrant reception centers is jeopardizing mission
Officials of the European Union’s border monitoring agency Frontex are becoming increasingly frustrated with the failure of Greek authorities to contribute to their illegal immigration crackdown efforts at the Turkish border and are considering suspending the operation, Skai understands.
According to the agency’s executive director, Ilkka Laitinen, EU member states that have been contributing to a Frontex operation in the border region of Evros with manpower and equipment are becoming reluctant to continue their efforts as Greek authorities have failed to set up new migrant detention centers as promised.
A report issued by the agency showed that detentions at the Greek-Turkish land border increased by 20 percent in October compared to the same month last year. A statement issued by Frontex referred to “an absolute monthly record of 9,600 illegal border crossings.” “Average detections were over 300 irregular migrants crossing that border on a daily basis,” it said. The agency attributed the “dramatic development” to a combination of factors including the absence of sufficient detention facilities both in Greece and Turkey and the lack of adequate agreements for the readmission of immigrants from specific countries of origin.
Source: Ekathimerini
The bodies of two sans papiers migrants were washed ashore on Wednesday on the banks of the Evros river, northeastern Greece, on the Greek-Turkish borders. The first body was identified to be that of an 18 year-old Pakistani man and the other possibly of Asian nationality. According to initial police estimations, the two young men drowned while attempting to cross the river in order to enter into Greece from Turkey. Another sans papiers migrant’s body was discovered on Tuesday in a farming area near Orestiada, close to Evros river.
Fuck you Frontex! As said in a former statement:
Frontex: Blood on your hands, now also in Evros region. In the end, not really surprising… Oh, you are just a coordinator?! What do you guys in Warsaw and at the border think, whose cameras and patrols forced the dead to hide themselves so long and so far from urban terrain that they froze to death?
Today, the nobordercats crossdressed the monument of the borderguard and his german shepdog in Svilengrad (Bulgaria). “This is an action aignst Frontex”, explaned nobordercat Matze. Frontex is the EU border agency, which was established to tackle the so called “illegal migration”. The Frontex officers already arrived in Bulgaria. They train the bulgarian border police to build up fortress europe. Frontex is also operating with RABITS – Rapid Border Intervention Teams – for example at the turkish/greek border. They are hunting refugees.
Nobordercat Felicitas explains: “Rabbits instead of RABITS”.
Freedom of movement! NO BORDER!
From 25th to 29th of August 2011 a Nobordercamp will take place in the borderregion between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.
Following the EU eastward expansion, countries like Bulgaria and Romania are progressively cracking down on those that try to cross their borders and rampantly working against freedom of movement. The Bulgarian government’s current target date for joining the Schengen agreement is 2012. The border control between Bulgaria and Turkey is cited as the biggest problem Bulgaria is faced with in order for the country to join Schengen. Following the participation of Bulgarian border police in FRONTEX operations along the Greek-Turkish border, there is talk of extending the agency’s operations to the border between Bulgaria and Turkey.
These developments, together with the deterioration of the migrants’ situation in neighboring Greece, are the two immediate reasons for organizing a No Border camp at the border between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey in the coming summer. The camp will run from the 25th August until the 29th of August 2011.
Videos:
Demonstration at Brussels Airport
Blockade of the entrance to the closed detention centre
Demonstration at Brussels Airport and at the entrance of the closed detention centre against collective expulsion by the EU agency Frontex: At Brussels Airport 60 people protested against the collective expulsion of 61 Nigerians and Congolese by Frontex, the European Agency for management of the external borders. The deportees are 9 Nigerians and 3 Congolese who are in detention centers in Belgium and 49 from Great Britain, Germany, France, Switserland, Poland, Sweden and Norway.
The demonstrators are protesting against what they called a “flight of shame”: “Belgium hires for this collective expulsion a full Airbus plane, which will depart from the military airport of Melsbroek. It was seven years ago that Belgium rented such a big plane to send asylum seekers collectively back to their country. This way Belgium cooperates with the European anti-immigration politics. We must protest against this in every possible way.”
The protesters are demanding a radically different European migration policy and the closure of all detention centers for refugees. According to them, people there are illegally detained without any legal assistance, while they often have committed no crime at all. The demonstrators took their protest message first in the departure lounge and then into the airport arrival hall. That went on a noisy but orderly manner so that no incidents occurred.
Furthermore, there were again protests at Warsaw, where the Frontex headquarter is located.
There cannot be democracy without global freedom of movement
The dynamic of the Arab spring is emanating into the entire world. The movements of revolt in the Maghreb encourage and give hope, not only because despotic regimes that have been believed invincible were chased away. Although the direction of further developments remain open it is obvious that the domino effect of the Tunisian jasmine revolution swiftly brought back the old insight that history is driven from below. The struggles are directed against the day-to-day poverty as well as against general oppression, they are as much about better living conditions as they are about dignity, in short: “bread and roses”.
WARSAW, February 14—The Agency is aware of the migratory situation in Lampedusa and is monitoring it closely via the Frontex Operational Office (FOO) in Piraeus, Greece. Two Frontex staff members have been dispatched from the FOO to Lampedusa to liaise with local authorities and monitor the situation on the ground. As of Monday February 14, Frontex has not received a formal request for assistance from the Italian Government, however, the Warsaw HQ is ready to take action and is preparing an appropriate operational response in the event of it being requested. Frontex senior management is also in close contact with the relevant authorities at the European Commission.
Statement by Simone Toller (researcher of “Human Rights Watch”) which was published in “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (a big German Newspaper):
The European Court of Human Rights ruled last week that Belgium had violated the rights of an Afghan asylum seeker when it returned him to Greece, finding that the conditions in which he was held were inhuman and degrading. Germany had announced a few days earlier that it was suspending returns of asylum seekers to Greece for a year to give Greece time to “improve conditions.” Yet, border police from several EU countries, including Germany, are deployed to the Greek-Turkish border, where they transport migrants in windowless vans to these same degrading and inhuman conditions in Greek detention centers.
