5. – 8.2. in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Tanger und Ceuta: transnational actions against the war against migrants +++ 14.2.2015 Refugee Protest Camp Hannover goes Berlin +++ From 25.2. on: Start of Push Back Frontex – Campaign +++ Refugee activists imprisoned +++ On the death of Khaled Idris Bahray +++ Greece – If elections could change anything? +++ On 18.3. in Frankfurt: Blockupy against ECB +++ Retrospect on Oury Jalloh- and Hamburg-demonstration +++ Campaign against strengthening of the asylum law +++ New Pro Asyl Stop-Dublin-Campaign +++ Outlook on March: from 24.3. on to the World Social Forum in Tunis…

Dear friends!

On the full table of contents, it can be seen already: quite a lot is going on and there is plenty to report in February. Besides a number of supra-regional meetings and appointments we want to promote in the Annex – initiated by the transnational action days on the anniversary of the Ceuta victims – there are three campaigns running or starting these days. We already broached these issues and the question why the asylum law is strengthening must be fought in the last newsletters: preventing the establishment of further grounds for applying a custody pending deportation remains crucial for the resistance against the local policy of deterrence. This focus furthermore allows us to bridge to the second campaign presented below: the campaign against the Dublin Regulation. It was launched by Pro Asyl in January and works on juridical and practical resistance against deportation to Italy and South East Europe as well as for the further strengthening of Church Asylum and an opposition to the new grounds for detention due to the Dublin Regulation.
Existing and planned asylum injustice – where could it be just better addressed and attacked as on the anti-Pegida protests. As it is – on the one hand – encouraging that except for some few cities in the East of Germany the right wing mob could not gain ground in the streets so that instead the few hundred racists face several thousands of counter-demonstrators from Lübeck to Freiburg.
But as already formulated in the last Kompass: on the other hand, there remains the danger that – while the media and even Merkel dissociate themselves from “xenophobic crowd” – the above mentioned asylum law strengthening are carried in the slipstream of this wide protests. Though, we need to make an issue out of this hypocrisy and to confront all those – especially within the social democrats and green party – who are co-responsible when refugees are supposed to end up behind bars just because they don’t have (correct) papers. We will also mention and we shall not forget that opposing refugees are again and again put in prison because of their protest.
Let’s now briefly talk about the third campaign that is being planned, which is – due to recent events – aimed against the EU Border Managment Agency. Its title is “Push Back Frontex” and we already wrote about this “scandal in the scandal” in the January-Newsletter. It is a German Border Official, Klaus Rösler, who – in the name of Frontex – criticizes the Italian Authorities for their rescue-policy in the central Mediterranean and call more or less publicly to leave them to die. A many-months campaign on this issue shall start on 25 February, when this Frontex official will appear at the Police Congress in Berlin. The concrete experiences of the WatchTheMed Alarmphone are last but not least the background of this initiative as they are regularly documented on http://watchthemed.net/. Our intended aim is to push back from the external borders if not to call for an abolishment of the Border Management.

At the same time exciting things happen at another external border, where Frontex has been covering politically for years the illegal push backs by the local coast guard: in Greece. With the great victory of Syriza, the “coalition of the radical left”, in the early elections in January new spaces of change emerge, not only in the fight against the brutal austerity and crisis policies but also against the inhumane detention and border regime. Although Syriza entered into a coalition with the right nationalists of the so-called “independent Greeks” (Anel) (or had to enter due to a lack of alternatives), at the moment a lot speaks for a break with the previous deterrence and detention policy of the previous Governments (see link below). The coming weeks will show whether elections can sometimes change something.

It is sure though that the power institutions in Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt will use all their means of blackmail and leverage – with regard to the crisis and migration policies – in order to keep the new Greek government within the EU directives of exploitation and exclusion. Important is therefore what solidarity protests – such as the ones in Spain these last days – are launched in the rest of Europe against the troika and the border regime. In this respect the delayed opening of the new tower of the European Central Bank on 18 March in Frankfurt maybe considered to happen with a nearly perfect timing. The preparations for blockades and a mega demonstration in the Rhein-Main metropolis are proceeding at full speed in order to give a radical sign of Europe-wide, transnational solidarity. Noborder goes Blockupy – the antiracist contribution to the crisis protest – should therefore preferably turn out stronger this time, all according to the slogan for the current mobilisation: Achtzehn-Null-Drei, nimm dir frei! (March 18, take a day off!)

All the best,
the Kompass-Crew

Kompass-Newsletter Nr. 36 – February 2015 (pdf)

7 January in Dessau – Oury Jalloh Demonstration +++ 20 January in Munich – Action Day concerning NSU Process – “Keupstrasse is everywhere” +++ 31 January in Hamburg – “Never mind the papers” Demonstration +++ 4 to 8 February in Berlin – Transnational Action Days opposing the War against Migrants +++ Continuation of the Campaign against the sharpening up of Asylum Laws +++ Campaign against the Asylum Seekers’ Social Benefits Act +++ Hard times and right-wing mobilisations in Berlin +++ Perspectives: 18 March in Frankfurt for Blockupy, as of 24 March in Tunis for the World Social Forum …

Dear Friends!

Not only factually – as it had been last year – but also as far as the mass media were concerned, the theme of the turn of the year was the arrival and reception of refugees. No news broadcast went without this theme and this in the area of tension between new boat tragedies and (reactions against) Pegida. We already formulated some assessments on the subject in the December newsletter and combined a stock-taking review of 2014 with a first perspective on the chances and challenges for 2015.

A few additional remarks on the start of the year: According to the Italian Ministry of the Interior “167,462 refugees reached Italy by sea from 1 January up to 17 December 2014. This is an average of 477 a day.” This remains unparalleled for the central Mediterranean and until half-December the Italian authorities provided rescue operations up to far into the Libyan territorial waters . Thereupon “one of the top managers of Frontex, Klaus Rösler, demanded on 9 December 2014, from the international community and in particular from the Italian government, no longer to rescue boat people outside the Italian 30-mile coastal area when they broadcast Mayday calls. He referred rhetorically to the responsibility of the Libyan coast guard who – as is well-known – has not existed for months due to new military conflicts. In other words: on 9 December 2014 Klaus Rösler, from the highest position of an EU Agency, made an appeal to leave people to die massively”, see
http://ffm-online.org/2014/12/15/ertrinkenlassen-der-aufhaltsame-aufstieg-von-frontex-roesler/

Against this background an updated Frontex Campaign, to denunciate and force back the lethal policy of deterrence which is expedited by the German Frontex chief, would seem urgently required and, in view of the prevailing critical public opinion, also possible. It is an absolute mockery when in early January 2015 Frontex, of all organisations, blames the professional refugee helpers for a “new degree of cruelty”, because on several bigger refugee boats the crew left the ship in order to avoid their own criminalisation. Even though without a doubt unscrupulous business men are at work in the expensive migration trade across the Mediterranean, yet we will continue to put it clearly: the thousand-fold death at sea is a product of the EU border regime. This “European disgrace”, including the entire trade with risky sea crossings, could be history by tomorrow, if refugees and migrants were allowed to buy ordinary boat and plane tickets and thus to travel as safely and cheaply as tourists. The barbaric visa and border regime should and could be abolished immediately!
2014 in the area of Aegaen over 11.000 Boatpeople landed on Lesbos, another record number. In the Maroccan enclaves Ceuta and Melilla the year 2014 finished like it has started: more mass runs on the fences, see herefor the chronic at the end of the report:
https://beatingborders.wordpress.com/2014/12/31/as-2014-ends-more-migrants-overcome-the-obstacles-to-arrive-in-europe/

The external border of the EU was and will be hard-fighted especially in the southern part. The transnational action days from 4 to 8 February 2015 in Berlin (see below) are a first chance to take up this struggles from here and continue together. The inner German and transnational potential of antiracist movements looks more diverse and stronger than before but it there is still a lack of obliging higher level structures, which are able to develop a concrete strategy to push through. This is something we really need within the next month to kindle new dynamics for the struggle against the outer and also the inner borders. To give an example of the last one: the campaign against the tightening of asylum laws (see report below), which suggest more resistance against the widen of the custody pending deportation regime. It was written in the newsletter of December that it was a big effort of the movement in 2014 to stop the practice of custody pending deportation as an instrument for criminalization and blackmailing of refugees. This big step within the struggle of the inner borders we can’t give up again. The danger exists that the hardliners from the Departments of the Interior will walk so to speak in lee of the Pegida-debate and say yes to the cabinets draft containing the tightening. The motive could be a mixture of a putative delimination and so called “quitening down” of the right mob. There are less month to cross this plannings, with the help of the ongoing critical public and the potential of our movement we have a good chance. Let’s take it!
In this sense we wish a happy new year.

P.S.: With post script comes the link to a worth reading “Christmas greeting of the 1989s” – 25 years after wall fall – PEGIDA – Nie wieda! (“Pegida – never again”) Look http://www.taz.de/!151748/

All the best,
the Kompass-Crew

Kompass-Newsletter Nr. 35 – January 2015 (pdf)

+++ New Newspaper from Afrique-Europe-Interact +++ December 18th in Calais and Tunis +++ Chronology of manifold protests in November and December +++ View on 2014 +++ Campaign against the intensification of asylum laws +++ Refugee hunger strikes in Greece +++ Alarm Phone: first progress report +++ Outlook on 2015: 7.1. in Dessau, 6.2. in Berlin, 18.3. in Frankfurt, End of March to WSF in Tunis … +++

Dear Friends!

If our Newsletter had appeared at the beginning of the month, as usual, we would only just have been able to announce the many actions of these last days, but not been able to mobilize them. That is why we decided forthwith and very exceptionally to appear a few days later and to present a broader retrospective of the last weeks and the past months. The end of the year is an obvious occasion for taking stock and for assessment, also in order to sketch the challenges and possible perspectives for 2015. Accordingly our introduction is more elaborate this time, all the more because we wish to add a few lines on our own behalf.

Yet, let us start at the beginning:
*  Hardly a day passes without protest and resistance against the prevailing border regime. The last weeks have again been characterized by an awesome chain of antiracist activities that are often followed by headlines in the mass media. The scope reaches from the artist action of the first fall of a European wall in Berlin to the hunger strike of the Non-Citizens in Munich, from the demonstration against the Conference of Ministers of the Interior in Cologne to the persevering protest camp of the Sudanese refugees in Hannover, from the last-minute start of the campaign against the sharpening up of asylum laws to the successful church asylum of Lampedusa in Hanau. Symbolic protest and everyday resistance attack the prevailing refugee and migration policies at different levels and not only in Germany. We added an international meeting of sans papiers and migrants in Rome, hunger strikes in Greece and an interim report of the transnational project of the alarm phones as examples in the long list of brief messages and links below.

*  It was an eventful and moving year. The large number of activities in November and December reflect what has characterized the entire year 2014: the internal and external borders of the EU are more controversial than ever, the social and political struggles of the migration movements have intensified enormously. The balance is nevertheless contradictory, the overall picture is more than complex. On the one hand far more refugees and migrants than in previous years managed to get to Europe, in defiance of all the Frontex-coordinated armament. At least in Germany, the processes of self- organisation of the refugees have continued to develop in many cities and the support has grown, from radical activists to circles of civil supporters. There are noticeable successes: countless Dublin deportations were stopped by court decisions, church asylums, blockades and protests or at the last minute in the airplane. And maybe the most unambiguous proof: no more than around 30 asylum seekers were kept in deportation detention in all of Germany by mid-November. In previous years there were thousands of them, never before their numbers were so low and the weapon of determent and extortion detainment as inadequate as today. The increasingly critical public opinion has contributed to this; since October 2013 the prevailing refugee policy is again and again fundamentally questioned even in the mass media. Most recent examples: even the criminalisation of the support to refugees was criticized in a special Panorama report and „Die Anstalt“ broke, after a brilliant presentation of lethal Frontex screening, at the end of the programme with the cabaret format and allowed a choir of Syrian refugees to sing.
On the other hand: The brutal state power at the external borders, particularly in the Aegean and at the fences of Ceuta and Melilla, has in no way been curbed, the number of deceased in the central Mediterranean was never before as high. In Germany the powers that be make mischief by increasing the number of ‘secure countries of origin’ with the Balkan states and by the state discourse of poverty migration, the division between justified ‘good’ and unjustified ‘bad’ refugees. And the recent cabinet decision of the big coalition intends to increase deportation detention and to create a strict ban on re-entrance in order to re-increase determent. The growing mobilisation of the right should be added to this. The election successes of the AfD stand for the spreading Sarrazynismus, and with Hogesa (‘Hooligans against Salafists’) and Pegida (“Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident’) the mob is taking to the streets again.

For months the polarisation of society can be felt more and more clearly: whereas far more people seek to change their abstract sympathy into concrete support, we see on the right the formation of a mixture of xenophobia and the hate against what is different. This polarisation appears as a challenge as well as a chance, because the necessary forcing back of the racist Monday demonstrations would remain reactive and defensive, if there would not be a simultaneous cornering and – if not stopping at least mitigating – of the aforementioned planned repressive set of laws in the forthcoming weeks. The critical public opinion can be counted on, the potential strength of the movement as well. Yet the activist spectrum of antiracist groups seems until now unable to achieve concerted coordination or even focussing. Efforts to that extent, be it at ‘Noborder last forever’ in Frankfurt in February, during the march to Brussels in June, or on the occasion of the 20th birthday of The Voice in Jena in October, have not been fruitful (yet). How the diversity is to be translated into more effective enforcement strategies thus remains one of the central challenges for 2015. The second challenge lies in the association with and broadening into further social and societal issues. Here too there are good initiatives. Whether from afrique-europe-interact as to the question of the looting of land, or in current solidarity demonstrations concerning Rojava, or concerning the crisis, precarity jobs and social strike with Blockupy – there are numerous lines of communication that ought to be mutually strengthened, in order to further develop an overall emancipatory perspective in and with the struggles for freedom of movement and equal rights.

*  Finally a few lines on our own behalf: soon our Newsletter has been appearing for three years, always at the start of the month, and since the last couple of editions also in English and French. The translations mostly arrive a few days later, but we consider the appearance in three languages a requirement for refugees and migrants to get more involved with this exchange and overview project. Though the question of a broader involvement has to be put forward more fundamentally. We do receive some approval and many consider the idea of a regular umbrella Newsletter good and important. But until now we, as production team, have remained a small circle and we mostly have had to check up on the reports and announcements. Instead, we do need active people from all spectrums, who will send us texts and references by themselves, who participate in the translations or the layout. It would be the best present to our third birthday in March, if we could find a few more people who would continually support the Kompass Newsletter Project.

All the best,
the Kompass Team
Kompass-Newsletter Nr. 34 (english, pdf)

+++ 4.11.: Solidarity-Actions against Push-Backs in Melilla +++ Boza: Movie about Morocco and March for Freedom +++ 20. – 23.11.: Bloccupy-Festival in Frankfurt +++ Starting the 28.11.: Anti-Isolation-Tour through Baden-Württemberg +++ Campaign against the tightening of the asylum law +++ Information about Oury Jalloh and Choucha +++ Review – Refugee struggles, protests against deportations, Alarm Phone in Hamburg, Berlin, Hannover, Darmstadt, Bremen +++

Dear Friends!

2014 is a year of historical fights for the right of freedom of movement. Once again we can notice this by looking at the recent occasions all over the Mediterranean Sea and especially between Morocco and Spain. The fights at the border in Melilla keep on going on undiminished, despite and against the brutal violence of the Spanish border police.
A current link to a short and impressive video:
http://www.20minutos.tv/videoplayerjw/ipGQZ359/a/

And in this context at the same time there will be protest actions in Rabat and Berlin (see below) on November the 4th. In this newsletter a film worth seeing is presented which is called “Boza” made by a Tunesian activist. In the movie a link from the Moroccan forests to the protest march from Strasbourg to Brussels is drawn.
Along with hints to the Bloccupyfestival, to an Anti-Isolation-Tour, news to Oury Jalloh and Choucha and the starting campaign against the planned tightening of the asylum law we also made a small review of protests and self-organized activities in different cities.

All the best,
the Kompass-Crew

Newsletter Nr. 33 – November 2014 (pdf)

+++ Actions for Commemoration and Protest at Lampedusa Anniversary +++ “Watch The Med Alarm Phone” starts on 10th October +++ Lampedusa In HH: Emancipation Days on 10./11.10 +++ AntiRa-Conference in Stuttgart on 18.10. +++ News from Tanger/Marocco +++ Report on the nationwide meeting on EU-working migration in Munich +++ Blockupy-Festival in November in Frankfurt +++

Dear Friends!

These days shocking news from the Mediterranean Sea intermingle with the commemoration of the maritime disaster on the 3rd October 2013 near Lampedusa: the death at sea does not come to an end. Even if at this case Mafia structures should be held responsible for this mass murder, it was only possible thanks to the background of an EU border and visa-regime forcing refugees and migrants on theses dangerous routes. What we already formulated in our last newsletter now becomes evident in official documents: „Frontex plus“ in the central Mediterranean sea focuses intentionally on less rescue and therefore more letting-die.

In many cities commemoration ceremonies or protest actions against the national and European policies of exclusion and expulsion will take place in the beginning of October (see below). And as presented in our September Newsletter the „Watch-the-Med-Alarm“-Phone starts its services the 10th October. It’s the ambitious try to intervene in real-time in the injustices at sea through a new transnational everyday structure (see more below).
Finally, this newsletter contains a short report on the nationwide meeting on EU-working migration in Munich as well as the first invitation to the Festival in Frankfurt in November.

All the best,
the Kompass-Crew
Contact: kompass-notify@antira.info

Newsletter Nr. 32 – October 2014 (pdf)

+++ From Mare Nostrum to Frontex Plus +++ “Watch The Med Alarm
Phone” in preparation +++ from 1.-5.10. in Jena: 20 Years of
Voice Refugee Forum +++ 12.-14.9. in Hamburg: Europe Of The Arriving
+++ 20./21.9. in Munich: National meeting about EU – labour migration
+++ Blockupy-meeting in Frankfurt (14.9.) and in Brussels (26.9.) +++
Review August: w2eu and JoG on Lesbos +++ Advanced notice for
October: Baden-Württemberg-AntiRa-conference in Stuttgart +++

Dear friends!

By now over 100.000 Boatpeople have landed in Italy coming over the central Mediterranean Sea, mostly intercepted or saved by “Mare Nostrum”. Several times we wrote about this ambivalent sea rescue operation in our newsletter and recently a paper has been published which we strongly recommend again:
http://afrique-europe-interact.net/index.php?article_id=1193&clang=0
“Frontex Plus” is the new magic formula which will replace Mare Nostrum until end of November. The fact that the Border Agency Frontex – accurately related to as “mobile barbed wire” – will take over the control makes clear in which direction the EU-migration policy goes: less rescue and more let-them-die (see below for more information). It makes even more important that public criticism and practical resistance against the deadly border regime do not weaken. Around the 3rd October, the anniversary of the Lampedusa-“tragedy”, various activities are being planned, and the attempt of setting up an alternative alarm system for the Mediterranean seems to be specifically ambitious (see below).

At the same time, from 1st to 5th October, an anniversary conference will take place in Jena: 20 years of “The Voice Refugee Forum”. “The Voice” planted the first tracks of refugee resistance in Germany 20 years ago. Since then it spread the experiences of self organisation – for example since 2000 in showing civil disobedience against the residence requirement -, without it the today’s diversity of refugee struggles wouldn’t even be conceivable (below more information and in particular a donation appeal for the conference).
Furthermore you will find in this newsletter a short review about the impressive “Back-to-the-borders-II”-project on Lesbos as well as advanced notices for several working sessions and festivals. On the furher developments of the protests and struggles in Berlin, Hamburg, Hannover, Rhein-Main … please follow the links in the last newsletters.

All the best,
the Kompass-crew

Kompass-Newsletter September 2014 (pdf)

+++ From 14.7. to 27.8.: Float tour with Women in Exile +++ After the schools´ squatting in Berlin…+++ Daily struggles against Dublin III +++ Stop Deportation Camp in Eisenhüttenstadt from 26.8. to 1.9. +++ Frankfurt/M to dying in the Mediterranean +++ Further announcements for the coming weeks: Nationwide gathering for working migration in the EU in Munich, Blockupy transnational in Brüssel, 20 years The Voice in Jena, Baden-Württemberg-AntiRa-Conference in Stuttgart +++

Dear friends!

When this newsletter went to press at the occupied school in Berlin was still a fight going on and if the eviction will be enforced by all means was not clear yet. Further down you will find some more summarized information about this and the current mobilization.
Refugee women become loud: On July 14th a action tour with a refugee boat has begun. This tour is a cooperation of Heinz Ratz and ´Women in Exile` who will be on the tour through the Lagers through whole august (check the link for the dates further down).

For the call “Time to Act – Abolish Dublin” here a direct link:
http://dublin2.info/files/2014/06/dublin-call-2014.de_.pdf
In many cities the fight against Dublin III ist a major field for actions; there are blockings against Dublin deportations and in more and more cities there is asylum given by churches as a protected place to endure the time limit of six months after which Germany is in charge of the asylum cases instead of deporting to Italy or Hungary. Further down more information and a hint to the recently published judgement by the Federal Court of Justice in which incarceration due to the Dublin Regulation are forbidden.

This is in only very little time the second juristical success against custody pending deportation after the European Court of Justice forbid this kind of detention. If these positive decisions bring tendencies for the closure of custody pending deportation or only a reformation like it is practiced by some counties and governmental circles tell will not be decided in the court room.
In fact it is more protest and resistance needed and that´s why we want to refer to the ´Stop Deportation Camp` in Eisenhüttenstadt in the end of august and to the 20-year annivesary of ‘The Voice Refugee Forum’ in Jena in the beginnig of october: the fight against deportation and custody pending deportation will be a major part in both of the events.

http://kompass.antira.info was created in 2011 as a platform for overview and information for and about the antiracist movement to introduce the diverse antiracist initiatives in a wide range and to give thus a better access for interested people. With this newsletter we want to take a further step to intensify and broaden networks. We really like to receive announcements and reports of non-regional events and actions.

Something on our own behalf:
In the last months we could realize to publish this newsletter in three different languages (d, en, fr).
We are very happy about this and we ask everybody to spread the links appropriately.
Still we are looking for people who could work on translations. To keep on publishing this newsletter it is also very necessary to have people who want to contribute in the contents, technique and layout.

All the best,
the Kompass Crew

Newsletter Nr. 30 – August 2014 in english (pdf)

March of refugees and Sans Papiers (immigrants without papers) in Brussels +++ Fight for the school in Berlin and Lampedusa in Hamburg +++ Time to act – Resistance against Dublin II/III +++ International migrant struggles +++ From July 14^th: Rafting tour with Women in Exile +++ Other announcements for the upcoming weeks +++

Dear friends!

Global freedom of movement, papers for all and no deprivation of rights or exploitation – with these demands, refugees and so called Sans Papiers (immigrants without papers) from several European countries came together in Brussels for the march for freedom at the end of June. More than 1.000 active participants coming from all parts of the migrant struggles protested together in transnational unity with multilingual slogans and in a dancing to angry, but anyway strong atmosphere. But apart from few discussions and working-groups, the action camp was dominated by tension and internal arguments. The actually great potential could only rarely be used productively, because the differences in terms of content as well as the various organizational structures in competitive positions polarized the participants too much. Even though the multitude of migration movements did not (yet) come together as hoped, there were many valuable encounters and new connections (as you can see below). As already described in the last newsletter, the march itself represented the union of a strong transnational group, which will influence the ongoing and upcoming fights from Berlin or Calais to Tunis or Melilla…

On the borders of the EU territory, the social resistance grew stronger: Frontex, as symbol of the armament build-up, has metaphorically its back against the wall. In defiance of the surveillance program Eurosur and of all the forward shifting, the migration movements are less stoppable than ever. The recurring pictures impressively present the increasing social fight for freedom to move: Hundreds of migrants unitedly attack and surmount the fences of the Spanish enclave in Morocco. At the same time, round about 60.000 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Italy in the first six months of 2014, far more than in the whole year of 2013. The Italian government reacted since October 2013 with marine action to the critique on the mass of deaths in front of Lampedusa. But since the “boatpeople” cannot be sent back to Libya, “mare nostrum”, as the operation is called, becomes more and more an unintentional rescue program. It is as well a success – paid with tremendous sorrow – of the continuously growing migration movement as the consequence of the North African upheavals that swept away the European watchdog regime in Maghrib.

On board the marine boats in the Mediterranean Sea as well as inside the refugee camps on Sicily, more and more refugees successfully refuse to be fingerprinted. The united action against Dublin II/III starts more than ever already on the arrival on the outer borders. And undiminished, the resistance against these “inner borders of the EU” continues in many places (see short reports).In Hesse, a light aircraft had to be chartered in the middle of June to impose Dublin deportations to Italy with force. The three affected refugees from Eritrea had repeatedly successfully refused the forced transport by scheduled airliner. The racist persecution enthusiasm of the authorities also reflects a desperate deterrent attempt, so that the resistance against deportation does not spread. Having this in mind, Welcome to Europe recently published a new appeal called “Time To Act” summing up the different action options. It ends with the appeal to support for the possible return of the deported from Italy, Hungary or Poland and to reinforce the transnational network structure. So: With this in mind: Solidarité avec les Sans Papiers! (Solidarity with the immigrants without papers!”)

All the best,

the Kompass Crew

Newsletter July 2014 (pdf)

+++ 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 /

Kompass-Newsletter Nr. 28_June 2014_(pdf)

+++ Come to Kehl-Strasbourg on 18 May: Start of the March of Refugees and Sans Papiers to Brussels +++ Struggles against Dublin II/III – e.g. on 8 May in Frankfurt +++ Movements of Migration at the external borders +++ From 15 May: International Days of Action of Blockupy +++ End of May, BuKo 36 in Leipzig +++ Review April: O-Platz Berlin and Lampedusa in Hamburg +++ Preview June: Residency Right Demonstration of Youth without Borders to the Interior Ministers Conference in Bonn, Refugee Women Conference in Frankfurt, Week of Action Brussels …

Dear Friends!

All of you for whom it is possible, should come to Kehl on Sunday, 18 May, to support the start of the March of Refugees and Sans Papiers at the first border crossing to Strasbourg. The march to Brussels will take more than five weeks and it is desired that people should also participate in stages of the march, e.g. during the weekend of 1 June, when the march will stop at the highly symbolic town of Schengen. Continue reading →