AYS Daily Digest 25/06/2021 — Days of action in Samos
Cyprus asks for European help//Croatian police pushes family back to minefield//Demonstration In camp near Šid
FEATURE
Days of action on Samos
Friday was the second of the three days of action against illegal pushbacks organized by Stop Pushbacks and other local organizers. All our solidarity is with the people fighting on the ground!
The people called for the end of pushbacks, deportations, and the other operations of the border regime. The group marched through the streets of Vathi, chanting “No borders, no nations, stop deportations” while carrying a banner that read, “On the fence of Evros, on the bottom of the Aegean, rests the security of every European.”
The demonstration passed the port authority of Samos, which has engines allegedly taken from people’s boats during pushbacks stacked against it.
Learn more about what is going on in Samos from this video (only in Greek).
LIBYA
After abuse revelations, scrutiny over EU’s role in Libya
The open secret that the EU is helping to fill detention centers full of torture in Libya by pushing people back is getting harder to tamp down after last week’s revelations of widespread sexual abuse. The European Commission said that the centers need to close, but many are pointing out that as long as the EU continues to cooperate with the Libyan Coast Guard on returns and sends the country money, it has no moral position to stand on.
SEA
Europe turns a blind eye to two distress cases
Yesterday, Sea-Watch’s Moonbird spotted two wooden boats in distress at sea. Although they were near Italian ships, those vessels made no effort to rescue the people (in fact the Coast Guard claimed they had no capacity), who were later pushed back to Libya to uncertain fates.
AlarmPhone were contacted by a separate group in Maltese waters whose boat was taking in water and needed immediate rescue. Although AlarmPhone immediately contacted the Maltese authorities, as of this morning, no effort was made to help the people.
The Open Arms is free!
After two and a half months of administrative detention, the Open Arms is finally free! The ship is returning to Castellon for some basic maintenance and will be returning to the Mediterranean as soon as possible.
CYPRUS
Cyprus asking for relocation help
Cyprus asked the European Union to relocate Syrian people seeking asylum on the island, claiming that the arrivals were no longer sustainable. The island country also asked the EU to help stop arrivals from Turkey.
There have already been several documented instances of Cypriot authorities pushing people back to Lebanon, but also to Turkey, illegally.
GREECE
Updates from Lesvos
A local Neo-Nazi in Lesvos, previously elected to Mytilene’s local council, has now been linked to a catering company that has a concession for the camp. Apparently this person has no objection to the presence of people on the move when he can profit off of them.
One of the many ways that COVID has impacted people on the move is in limiting the recourse that children have if they are misclassified as an adult. One of the only ways they can regain minor status is through a first-instance interview with a case worker, but most of these interviews are now carried out over phone calls with no video so case workers cannot assess an applicant’s age.
The defence lawyers of the Moria 6 published a statement outlining the unfair nature of the trial and calling for their freedom. They described the intimidation of defence lawyers with searches, the court’s decision to bar impartial observers and the media, and the violations of the defendants’ rights.
Another unjustly convicted person was Hanad Abdi Mohammad, who was sentenced to 142 years in prison for steering the boat he was on to safety, saving the people on board. His case received attention in the New York Times.
Updates from the land border
This is the sad story of Sardar Ebrahimnejad and his wife Mehri Nabizadeh, Iranian Kurds, who tried to cross from Turkey to Greece with their young children. During the difficult crossing on foot during a heat wave, Mehri suffered cardiac arrest and passed away. Passing cars did not stop to help despite her husband’s efforts to flag them down. Her body was finally repatriated, but the trauma her family has been put through and their loss will never go away.
More pushbacks?
A group of 65 people contacted AlarmPhone after they were stranded for three days on a rocky islet called Fragkos in the Dodecanese. Overnight, the Hellenic Coast Guard claimed that they tried to find the people but could not, which is impossible since the place is so small. Hopefully, they did not conduct an illegal pushback, although the circumstances are certainly suspicious.
CROATIA
Children’s lives endangered after pushback to minefield
Story via SOS Balkanroute:
Our helper Nisvet from Bužim gave us terrifying news this morning. Shortly before midnight, another Iranian family was violently pushed back by Croatian police officers to Bosnia. The police brought the family directly in front of a minefield, left over from the Bosnian war. Nisvet was even in the Bosnian war and accordingly knows exactly where most minefields are located in the Krajina region. “The Croats know where the mines are and of course we also know. But they just left the ignorant people in front of a minefield in the middle of the night”, Nisvet writes.
Even 25 years after the Bosnian war, many minefields have still not been demined, posing a huge danger to refugees in the forests of Bosnia. “It’s lucky nothing happened to them”, writes Nisvet, who picked up the family in the nearest village during the night and took them back to where they found a roof over their head even before the “game attempt”: in a deserted school.
Not even mined areas stop the Croatian police from preventing refugees entry into the allegedly “human rights-respecting” EU. Not only did the Croatian authorities deport the family to the border in the darkness in a difficult area, but they also beat them and robbed them of €150.
Among the members of the family from Iran who risked their lives on the run yesterday, there are three children between four and five years old, a mother, her brother and a friend. They have been persecuted in their country for religious reasons, as they belong to the Sunni faith of Islam, thus forming a minority in Iran. “They told me that because they are Sunni, they only make €200 per month and that they have no future in Iran”, Nisvet, also the family father of two children, tells us. Currently, the family is in the area around Bužim where they were received by Nisvet and provided with a little food as best as possible.
Upon returning he bought them bread, bureks, doughnuts, milk, water and drinks at the bakery. Today he will take care of the family again thanks to your donations. “It’s so sad: they can’t go back to their home country or forward. They have tried 23 times by now and are completely desperate. Thanks to all who support us so that we can at least ensure their survival here in Bosnia”, says the still visibly excited Nisvet.
Thanks to Nisvet and everyone who helps!
SERBIA
Protests in Šid camp
Inhabitants of a camp near the town of Šid organized an impromptu demonstration after their friend was denied medical attention by staff. A young man complained of severe stomach pain, but the staff said there was no ambulance or a doctor, even though it was within the hours that a camp doctor was supposed to be working. The people closed the road until someone finally called an ambulance, which took the patient to the hospital to treat him for a bad colon problem. People should not have to block a road and beg just for basic medical attention!
ITALY
Ten people sentenced to prison for forging reception center papers
Ten people in Milan were involved in a scheme where they forged documents to obtain the management of reception centers for people on the move. They defrauded the government of at least nine million euros, while the people who lived in their care were barely given any resources to survive. They saw barely a cent of funding that was supposed to go to their legal assistance, food, language instruction, and more. The people also have alleged mafia ties.
The Italian government sent an official communication to the European Council saying that ships should take rescued people to the countries whose flags they fly. While Europe does need to increase cooperation instead of abandoning people on the move and Southern European nations, it makes little logistical sense for a ship to take people who often need urgent medical attention on a circular journey to their port of origin instead of the nearest land.
FRANCE
Solidarity with the occupation in Paris
The organization Les Midis du Mie, along with dozens of isolated women and children, occupied the forecourt of Paris’s Hotel de Ville. They were protesting against the years of government inaction and brutality that has left so many people on the streets, despite the French state’s obligation to provide housing to asylum seekers. Solidarity!
BELGIUM
400 people still on hunger strike since May
Hundreds of people are still on hunger strike, protesting for regularization that is made impossible by the current system. They gathered in Bruxelles’ Saint John the Baptist at the Beguinage. The government’s official line is still that they will not grant mass regularization “under pressure”—but all of this could have been avoided if they had given each individual case a fair chance.
GERMANY
New centralization of foreigner’s data could lead to leaks
In a draft bill that the German Bundesrat considered on Friday, all personal data about foreigners living in Germany would be stored at the Central Registry for Foreigners. This contrasts with the stringent data protections German citizens enjoy. Experts warn that not only is this a violation of people’s privacy rights, breaches of this central database could be especially harmful to asylum seekers, whose reasons for seeking asylum, including political activities and sexualities, would be stored in this database. Previously, people’s asylum files and court files were stored in local offices, while only their basic information was on the central database. While centralizing the database could make asylum applications more efficient, as things often get lost in the mail between different offices, it also gives thousands of people access to intimate information about people on the move.
DENMARK
Updates on xenophobic policies
This article follows the human impacts of Denmark’s decision to strip some Syrian people of protection, despite real evidence that they would be in danger if they went back. Sadly, this is just the culmination of decades of xenophobia at all levels of society.
Denmark’s deals with Rwanda continue. The Scandinavian country agreed to take in 200 quota refugees from Rwanda, mostly women, children, and LGBT people. However, this news is hard to celebrate what with the news of Denmark’s moves to externalize asylum.
UK
Stop the New Plan for Immigration!
Women for Refugee Women is calling on UK residents to contact their local MPs and get them to take a stand against the harmful New Plan and learn from women on the move. Learn more about their plan here.
EU/FRONTEX
Europe’s externalization of borders continues
EU leaders’ stern warning about “instrumentalizing” Syrian people was probably lost on Erdogan, as the blow was softened by a 3.5 billion euro aid package. The billion-euro package, which also includes smaller financial windfalls for Jordan and Lebanon, is given with the goal of keeping people on the move in those countries. When it comes to locking people on the moveout, the EU has no qualms about cooperating with the increasingly dictatorial Erdogan, whose actions affect Turkish citizens and people on the move trapped in his country, or with other unsavory leaders.
Frontex updates
Frontex is due to take over “voluntary” repatriation duties from the European agency ERINN—although its involvement begs the question of how voluntary these already sketchy procedures will be. However, the Austrian government’s main concern per this document is that the transition could interrupt voluntary returns and that member states are not using Frontex enough.
European migration authorities will also expand the use of “battlefield information” to track alleged foreign fighters. More on this legal situation here, from Statewatch.
GENERAL
Lesvos calling caravan
Last week, Lesvos Calling organized a caravan called Balkanroute Calling, where over 100 people gathered at the EU’s external border in Croatia to call for the end of Frontex and pushbacks. Learn more about this wonderful solidarity effort in this video.
WORTH READING
Some of our favorite weekly roundups are out. ECRE’s Weekly Bulletin can be found here and you can read ELENA’s Weekly Legal Update here.
What is “the new liberal consensus” on refugee protection? A new book called The Arc of Protection attempts to analyze the post-2016 political landscape, and its main ideas are deftly laid out in this book review.
This article unpacks how digitizing Europe’s already deadly border only increases discrimination against people on the move.
Finally, round out your reading with a chuckle. Although this article is from a satirical site and meant as a joke, the policies this version of the EU puts forward are not far from the real thing.
WORTH LISTENING TO
The latest episode of No Name Kitchen’s podcast is out! You can listen to it here.
WORTH ATTENDING
On Saturday, 26 June, at 3:30 pm CET, From the Sea to the City is hosting their latest panel called “Frontex & EU Complicity in Human Rights Violations in the Central Mediterranean.” Learn more about the panel here. You can read more about one of the conference co-organizers here.
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