+++ March of refugees and Sans Papiers on Tour – Come to Brussels! +++ Melilla/Sicily: Movements of migration at the external European borders +++ 7.6.: forth ‚Stop Dublin II/III‘-demonstration in Frankfurt +++ 12.6.: Residency Right Demonstration of Youth Without Borders to the Interior Ministers Conference in Bonn +++ 20. – 22.6.: Refugee Women Conference in Frankfurt +++ Nationwide network against deportations +++ Review on the May protests and Blockupy +++ As of 14.7.: Rafting-tour with Women In Exile +++ Further announcements for the next months +++
Dear friends!
“Pour la liberte, c’est la marche des sans papiers, de Strasbourg à Brussels à pied!” (“For freedom, this is the march of the Sans Papier, by foot from Strasbourg to Brussels!”) – this slogan rang out in all the towns the March For Freedom passed through after its start on 18th May in Alsace. Passing several stations around Saarbrücken the march reached Schengen on 1st June and transformed this symbolic place into a protest zone against the EU-border regime (see short report below).
Up to now, between 60 to 150 people took part in the march, up to 400 went along for the kick up and around 200 joined the group in Schengen. This is surely less than expected at first, but the mixed composition of the group brings together various experiences: During the first two week, refugees from the Oranienplatz in Berlin and a delegation from Tunesia, self-organized protesters and supporters from different cities and countries have grown together to a power-team and this ambitious project – see also http://freedomnotfrontex.noblogs.org – keeps on deserving all our solidarity.
Doesn’t this march represent the transnational political tip of a socio-political iceberg? On 28th May hundreds of migrants attacked once more the fences of Melilla – see an impressive video here http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/melilla-ansturm100.html – and only two days later 3.000 Boat people reached Sicily within 24 hours. Already up to now (beginning of June) – which only the start of “season” – more migrants reached Italy than in the whole year of 2013! This is the context in which the march takes place and on which it directly refers with it’s solidarity statements and actions (as the 1st June in Schengen).
Additionally, new protest flare up across Europe. In May there have been insurrections in several British deportation prisons and demonstrations against detention in Debrecen and Bologna, Afghan refugees protesting for their rights with an hunger strike in Ankara and in Calais the situation for transmigrants is getting worse due to evacuations; a new hunger strike of an non-citizen-group in Berlin, demonstrations against Dublin II/III in Frankfurt, protest camps in Hannover and several Bavarian towns, a Sit-In by ‘Lampedusa in Hamburg’ (see short reports and further links below): As well in Germany the Refugee protests keep moving.
Can we succeed to generate further dynamics, a stronger mobilization and more public attention out of the march? Now during the coming days in Luxembourg where it will encounter the EU-Interior Ministers and also from the 20th June on in Brussels, where an action week is going to be prepared? For the 26th June on the occasion of the EU-summit of the heads of governments we a planning a major demonstration and a counter-summit on migration and a conference focusing on transnational perspectives is scheduled for the 27th and 28th June. Get mobilized and come to Brussels!
All the best,
the Kompass-Crew /