AYS News Digest 5/5/23: Greek police shoot an unarmed man in the head, no one reports anything
Protests on Samos // The violence of externalisation, as carried out by Tunisian authorities // Protests in Rabat about the non-investigation of disappeared people on the move // Aggressive legal reforms in Italy: harsher punishments for scape-goated ‘boat drivers’, harder to gain protections // Germany to vote on externalisation policies — on the brink of funding border fences for Fortress Europe? // Call for volunteers at Calais Food Collective & much more
FEATURE
A policeman shot an asylum seeker in the head in Greece, and no one has mentioned it
In Greece, a pattern has been emerging. Serious criminal offences carried out against people on the move go unreported, unmentioned and unseen by the general public. The latest incident — leaving a man in critical condition — has been ignored, the police scape-goating him as a ‘smuggler’ with no justification for the label.
The course of events goes as follows:
- A man, driving a car containing seven people, arrives in Greece. The passengers — ‘illegal immigrants’ according to the Greek police — intend to LEGALLY seek asylum.
- The Greek police claim the man ‘disobeyed a stop sign’ and ‘sped off, making dangerous manoeuvres’
- The man stopped the car, and attempted to escape on foot along with the other passengers.
- He was then shot in the head.
This is an unacceptable, inexplicable act of violence. Where does it come from? A polarising, fear-mongering and xenophobic discourse against ‘smugglers’ and ‘illegal immigrants’ that warrants self-defence, even when there is no threat present.
Not one national Greek newspaper mentioned this: the shooting of an unarmed man in the head, who posed no threat, by a Greek policeman with live ammunition.
How can such a state of affairs become possible, let alone frequent?
For further detail, see below:
The asylum seekers of Samos camp — a peaceful protest, a petition for rights
People held in Samos Closed Controlled Access Centre (CCAC) are protesting. Their protest is non-violent, banning vandalism and abusive language. They want to be heard, and to express their dissatisfactions. Their main complaints are
- Speed: they petition against the length of time it takes to receive asylum rulings. PoMs detained in Samos CCAC ask that asylum decisions be made within one month of their interviews.
- The restriction of movement. Contrary to UNHCR regulations, movement is severely restricted from Samos CCAC. In other camps, detention is limited to 25 days before people must be released. On Samos, only poor health gives people access to cards that will permit freedom of movement. The people in detention are not criminals, but seek protection. Their freedom of movement is a right they ought not have to protest for.
- Racism. They note that positive applications are more often received by white asylum seekers, suggesting that West Africans — from Sierra Leone, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo and Uganda to name a few — are disproportionately unsuccessful in their asylum claims.
- Food. They note that it is insufficient to sustain them, leaving them hungry.
SEARCH AND RESCUE
The lived experience of border externalisation
The externalisation of borders (a strategy whereby states instigate measures beyond their own borders in order to prevent or deter the entry of foreign nationals), as mentioned in our last digest, is Europe’s primary political tendency at the moment.
Externalisation and securitisation is most visible in the public communication of EU states with third countries, with whom they make deals. Acts of ‘deterrence’ — as EU terminology puts it — with European support, are visible below.
The video footage shows a Tunisian ‘coast guard’ vessel slamming into a boat carrying numerous PoMs in open water, with one man hitting people indiscriminately with a stick. This is the reality of ‘externalisation and securitisation’ — a blind eye that exonerates European nations from direct participation in human rights abuses. Their consent and encouragement, however, is clear from the proliferation of such deals with third countries.
The Mediterranean route is currently incredibly active:
RESQSHIP in continuous operation
In the course of one evening, RESQSHIP the Nadir assisted 234 people from six boats in distress in the Mediterranean. Three people remain missing.
MOROCCO
Protests in Rabat: Why have you not investgated the fates of our lost loved ones?
On 4th May, a group of protestors gathered at the foreign ministry building in Rabat, urging authorities to investigate the disappearances of family members during their attempts to cross to Europe.
Fatima Ouahbi, told AFP that 800 PoM (Moroccans, sub-Saharan Africans, Syrians and Sudanese people) had gone missing since 2014.
There have also been significant protests over similar failures to investigate disappearances by families in Zarzis, Tunisia.
These protests took place as Alarm Phone report that bodies are washing up on many coastal areas of Morocco, including Mohammedia, Kénitre and Benslimane.
ITALY
The so-called ‘Cutro Decree’: aggressive anti-migration law in Italy
Italy’s right-wing government have enshrined new laws, under which ‘boat drivers’ — scapegoats for the EU’s border regime — are now held responsible for any “death or injury as a consequence of illegal immigration”, and can receive 20–30 years in prison.
Moreover, it will become far harder to obtain the “special protection” permits necessary for PoMs to reside in Italy. These protections can no longer become work permits, depriving people of the chance to make an honest living. It obliges people to work irregularly.
On top of this, laws that were often cited to prevent deportations have been amended or removed; the chance of deportation is far higher.
These laws are in line with the illegal practice of the Italian authorities to assign distant ports to civil fleet rescue ships, in direct contravention to international law:
- MSF Sea remind us that “The government responsible must make every possible effort to reduce the duration for which the survivors remain on the assisting vessel in line with the Guidelines of the Treatment of Persons Rescued at Sea”.
Meanwhile, in Lampedusa
Another body — likely the victim of the double shipwreck in late April — has washed ashore.
Today alone, 247 people have landed on Lampedusa.
GERMANY
Willkommen to Fortress Europe? Let’s hope not.
As we wrote about on Thursday, Germany’s coalition government is hoping to push through a European asylum reform, which would see the severe externalisation of Europe’s borders. ProAsyl describe this possible new reality, which the EU Council will vote on next month, on 8th June:
“Refugees reach a country on the EU’s external border. They ask for asylum. They are immediately arrested. From this moment on, all you see of Europe are walls, barbed wire and security guards.”
This dystopian reality is looming. On 10th May, the German chancellery will meet to discuss the financial costs of migration policies, and Nancy Faesner (SPD) and Lindher (FDP) have made their positions clear. They want to limit the number of refugees entering Germany, and are willing to fund the EU’s external border fences to achieve this if necessary.
If you are a German resident, please use ProAsyl’s tool to email your SPD, Green and FDP party executives, petitioning against these proposed reforms.
FRANCE
Call for volunteers — particularly French speakers and people with driving licences — in Calais
WORTH READING
A reminder to read this article by Joyeux Mugisho on the vicious circle that aid work can enforce, denying agency and indpendence to displaced populations who are forced to rely on aid.
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