No Border Camp 2016

-PROTEST AT THE TURKISH BORDER – 

 

Turkish border is now the focal point of an ideological clash which has turned into action. The clash is between those who want to push imperialist politics, and activists or migrants, who fight for the free movement of people. The Turkish situation is now more complex than ever and is worsening the situation for many people already in precarious situations, due to the recent EU-Turkey agreement that calls for the deportation of all people found in EU territory who haven’t requested asylum from the Greek authorities.

The No Border Camp has been organizing the demonstration at the Turkish border for weeks. Yesterday, we started from the university at around 10.30am to reach the border between Greece and Turkey, aiming to arrive in Evros. After travelling for approximately 6 hours, the caravan composed of approximately 300 people was stopped in the village of Kastanias, 1km from the Turkish border. From there, we started to march, singing and screaming slogans in various languages, demanding the borders be opened and the end of deportations. After a while, we found ourselves in front of a line of police blocking our path. The march clashed with this border imposed by the authorities.

Our action intended to have a symbolic meaning around an ideological platform. Every border that divides and distinguishes between populations cannot achieve anything other than to strengthen socioeconomic models, which have proved unsustainable for everyone other that those belonging to elistist authoritarian groups of so-called “first world” states. We believe that nobody can legitimately decide the will of another person, choose where they want to live, or decide on the conditions that “allow” or prevent a person to live where in the world they they choose. Laws increase the gaps between people where bridges should be built; in a less figurative sense, laws stigmatise and kill. For all these reasons, among others, the No Border Camp preplanned the goal of attacking the borders. All of the borders. Whether they are metal fences or psychological barriers, a line of cops or pieces of paper.

Against all authorities and all borders.

REPORT FROM THE PROTESTS AT GREEK DETENTION CENTRES

Wednesday (20 July)

More than 1,000 activists from the No Border Camp in Thessaloniki visited detention centres in Xanthi and Paranesti to show solidarity with people being held in detetion.

Nineteen buses left the camp in the morning and headed to the detention centre in Paranesti with a delegation of doctors, lawyers and international volunteers. There they marched in order to gain access to the centre. The Paranesti centre has a capacity of 620 people; according to the detainees, right now, there are between 300 and 400 people staying there, notably from Pakistan, Algeria and Morocco. Detention centres in Greece hold migrants who do not have the correct documents and people who are identified as economic migrants and not as political refugees. These people, because they are not classified as political refugees, are considered “illegal”.

These centres are called pre-removal detention cetnres. They were created in 2012 to deport people, but they are systemically used to keep asylum seekers locked up. Detention centres in Greece have maximum capacity of 6000-7000 people; they are in fact prisons where migrants are detained for months without knowing anything about their legal situation or how long their asylum process will take.

Thanks to the pressure of the solidairty march, an internationl delegation of doctors, lawyers and activists, managed to get into the centre where they were able to document the physical and psychological conditions suffered by the detainees.
PARANESTI DETENTION CENTER

After visiting the centres, there is no doubt in our mind that Paranesti detention centre functions as a prison. Detainees are seperated according to ethnicity in rows of warehouses and surrounding the site they are closed in by high metal fencing andbarbed wire. Each detainee receives 5.80EUR fpocket money (the price of one meal is about 3EUR which they must pay for themselves, so it is not even enough for two meals a day). There is internet access in the camp but cameras in mobile phones are confiscated.

The situation is tragic. The detention centre has the distinct feel of a concentration camp, conjuring up uncanny images of the past. One of the warehouses is used to house minors (under 18s). There are 13 boys between 15 and 18 years old, that have been stuck in the camp for months, alone, without family members, and with no access to information about their future. They are Pakistani and they are not considered to be refugees fleeing conflict or political persecution. However the situaiton in Pakistan is dangerous, as there are some less visible conflicts, which are not officially recognised internationally. It is scandalous that young men are put into detention, just because they are considered irregular immigrants. Note that these people have not commited a crime, as such, but have been accused of “illegally” entering the country.

We met a group of 6 Pakistani detainees, who are part of a religious minority (Ahmadiyya Muslim Community). They were persecuted in their country, and as such should legally be recognised as having political refugee status. Instead, they are detained in this centre without knowing what will happen to them and whether they will have to face their persecutors again.

XANTHI DETENTION CENTER

After that, the protest moved to the detention centre in Xanthi where prior to the solidarity march there has been rioting against the proposal to extend the period of detention. Xanthi detention centre has a capacity of 580 people. To show solidarity to the detainees and to respond to the violence commited against them by the authorities inside the camp (some detainees told us about episodes of beatings), some activists cut through the barbed wire around the periphery of the building. The situation escalated into a fight with the police, and more fences were cut, in order get closer to the centre and shout slogans and word of support through the loudspeaker, against the unfair and senseless situation in which migrants are confined.

Detainees responded to activists with enthusiasm, joining in the singing and shouting of slogans before getting pushed away from the windows of the building by the authorities.

The detention centres are an explicit violation of fundamental human rights. We believe in a world where there are no borders or resistriction on the free movement of people, a world in which there are no 1st and 2nd class citizens, just individuals whose diginity and survival must be protected and ensured.

“Our love for freedom is stronger than your prison”!

Stay human!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 21th of July some thousands of people from all over the world with and without papers protested against borders and the procedure of deportation according to the EU-Turkey deal (March 2016) answering the call of No Border camp.

Besides the bigger demonstrations there were also decentral actions against the Suisse, Spanish and Philippine consulate as well as flag burnings and graffiti actions in the city. At the end of the day everybody returned singing in many languages and dancing to the No Border Camp.
The conditions in the relocation centers all over Greece are critical and in many cases inhuman. In Greece there are more than 57.000 refugees (official number) staying in over 40 camps. Half of them are around Thessaloniki. And the number is still increasing.

Many denounce the lack of legal and medical support and the insufficient sanitation. In many cases there isn’t even enough clothes and the food provided by the military is not good for children. The situation is so unbearable that some people would even prefer to return to Syria instead of staying in the relocation centers.
Besides the relocation centers there are many detention centers in Greece as well. These entirely closed and isolated camps were created 2012 in Greece as part of a system to systematically deport people with denied asylum applications.

There are about 6,000 – 7,000 people staying in these prison like camps for many months without any information about their legal status and not knowing what will happen to them or how long they will have to stay.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Ελληνικά.

In dozens of announced workshops and informal meetings activists from all over Europe and beyond started last weekend with fruitful exchange and a lot of discussions on practical projects and initiatives to struggle for freedom of movement. Groups from Skopje, Sofia, Belgrade, Budapest, Zagreb and Ljubljana but also from Izmir, Tunis, Zurich and Malmö, from various italian, austrian, german and of course greek cities came together in a two days Balkanroute Networking meeting. In a great transnational composition it was possible to evaluate the last months developments and to think and plan for future initiatives. Three examples: Selforganised refugee activists from Thessaloniki presented their new call center project from refugees to refugees, friends from Serbia and Hungary promoted together the campaign against the criminalization of the Röscke 11, the idea for a common alarm- and info-phone across the whole Balkan was drafted.
Since Friday night of course the attempt of a new military coup in Turkey was a big topic, the friends from Istanbul and Izmir were and still are confronted with an uncalculable Situation in which they have to return after the camp. Nevertheless they tried to share their estimations about an even stronger and more repressive Erdogan regime and it was possible to reflect the EU-Turkey Deal and to discuss steps of further resistance.
Transnational activities against Frontex and Dublin, the question of sustainable activism or the idea of an multilingual online platform for the collective memory of migrant struggles: a wide spectrum of experiences and proposals could be rediscussed also on Monday and Tuesday, while every day convois started to visit the isolated “relocation camps” with thousands of stucked refugees and migrants. All the time the printed version of the great trilingual noborder newspaper could be distributed and used to invite refugees to join. Many took the chance and came to the Noborder Camp at the university area to share their experiences, to raise their demands, to enjoy the cultural program and the common time to build more contacts all over Europe. Of course it is not easy to bridge the various realities and interests all the time and some conflicts came up to handle the responsibilities for all visiting refugees and mainly due to their limited opportunities in the prepared program to speak about their daily problems. But finally more workshops and assemblies of refugees could be established as well, improvisation and spontaneous self organisation anyway is the challenge in such a huge Noborder camp…
Also first direct actions took place in these first days, for example in front of a main TV station to get more public attention to the demands of the stucked refugees. More demonstrations and protests are planned for the next days, while about 1200 activists are on the campus in the meanwhile, after 5 buses with 270 people coming from the Spanish state arrived as well on Monday night in Thessaloniki.
And just now, Wednesday morning, we are starting with 20 big buses and additional vans and cars in a convoi to protest in front of two detention camps in northern Greece and to express our solidarity with the refugees and migrants against their planned deportation.

no one is illegal Hanau

Picture below: new great wall painting at the campus in Thessaloniki

Bulgaria, Sofia, 10th July 2016, Protest in front of detention centre in Busmantzi

On 10th July the 4th in general – but the only one in the last 6 years – protest in front of and against the detention center in Busmantzi, a village near Sofia, happened.

In diffrence with the last protest in solidarity with migrants in Sofia city centre, this one was targeted more to the people who are detained there and not as much to bulgarian society in general. This aim was actually successful, as many detained people inside showed up at the bared windows and waved banners demanding “Freedom now!”

The protesters were accepted very well and real communication was established – providing a phone number on which some of the detained people called, sharing their problems with food and medicine conditions, papers and detention in general. Several cases have been already solved.

The protesters shouted different slogans in solidarity with ALL migrants (without the hypocritical division between refugees and “illegal” immigrants), against Fortress Europe, against borders, nations, deportations, fences, police and racist gangs. We were shouting also “Freedom” in arabic and farsi, as well as „Solidarity with all people without papers” in french. Statements in bulgarian, english, french, arabic and farsi were read too. The participants in the protest were equipped with helium balloons and fireworks. Balloons with “Freedom”, written in different lanquages, were let in the air.

The general position of the participants in the protest, locals and internationals, was both against hypocritical racist EU policy but also against brutal police repression of Bulgarian state too. We didn’t face serious problems with police and even after the protest all of us went in front of police station in Sofia to demand immediate liberation of some of our comrades who’ve been arrested on the previous night without any charges. But this is part of another story which ended good as well…

The protest in front of Busmantzi detention center was also small part of the big number of other actions in many of the Balkan countries, from Slovenia through Serbia, which will culminate in the No Border camp in Thessaloniki this month. On the other hand it pointed toward the local situation in Bulgaria where not many actions happen and where migrants still continute to face brutal police repression and racist violence. We will never stop shouting “You are not alone!” and “Freedom now!”. This is not the policy of country that we can be proud with.

Not in our name! Solidarity with ALL migrants!

No nations, borders, deportations, fences, cops and dirty racists!

FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT NOW!

Sunday July 17, 19:00

“Workers struggles and migrants: the case of VIOME occupied and self-maanaged factory.”

Disruptive Film Programs
(Sherry Millner/Ernie Larsen)

Note: Border Crossers will be repeated as the fourth program

ONE:
Nearly Now/Almost Then: Collective films/Collective struggles
Saturday, July 16, 21:00

La Commune, Armand Guerra, Cinema of the People, 1914, excerpt.

Prayer of Fire, Mosireen Collective, 2010

Nouvelle Societe No. 6, Medvedkine Group, 1969

Abounaddara films, selection of short videos (2010-2015) including:

My School, After the Image, The Intellectual and His Militia, National Dialogue,

Solitary Cell

The Land Belongs to Those Who Work It, Chiapas Media Group, 2005

Year Zero Iranian Women’s Liberation Movement, Year Zero, Iranian Women &

Women of the Political & Psychoanalytical Group, Iran/France, 1979

Return to Work at the Wonder Factory, Jacques Willement, 1968

Xochimilco in 1914, Los Viumasters, 2010

TWO & FOUR:
BORDER-CROSSERS
Monday, July 18 and Saturday, July 23

Unforgetttable Memory, Lin Wei 2010

Suprematist Kapital, James T. Howe & Yin-Ju Chen, 2006

41 Shots, Millner & Larsen, 2000

N’Entre Pas Sans Violence Dans La Nuit

(Don’t Go Gentle Into the Night), Sylvain George, 2005

J’ai Huit Ans (I Am Eight Years Old), Paul Masson & Olga Poliakoff, 1961

Inventory, Zelimir Zilnik, 1975

Barbs and Razors, Millner & Larsen, 2016

A Plate of Sardines, Omer Amiralay, 1997

THREE:
CREATING SITUATIONS
Tuesday, July 19

Predators in the Aviary, Millner & Larsen, 2011

Can Dialectics Break Bricks? , Rene Vienet, 1973