AYS News Digest 5/7/23: Appeal against instrumentalisation of people on the move
Fifty-five organisations raising alarm over restrictive law changes / SOS Humanity needs funds to continue SAR work / Greece continues with pushbacks, ABR June report reveals / racist rhetoric against people on the move in Tunisia results in racialized violence / UK’s fight against the proposed illegal Illegal Migration Bill / Podcasts and more news
FEATURE
55 NGOs signed a joint release over the proposed changes to EU law in response to ‘instrumentalisation’ of displaced people on the move.
This is in response to Belarus and its use of people on the move as a tool of political pressure against the EU. Counter-proposals from Germany and others will, as expected, impose even more restrictions on vulnerable persons, and trash human rights still further as this issue becomes even more of a political football.
EU
A very important reminder of where the money is:
Money spent by the EU on migration policy becoming ‘complex’ to track — expert
SEA/AIR SEARCH AND RESCUE
SOS Humanity’s urgent call for funding, to allow the next mission of HUMANITY 1 to proceed, was met by a funding drive in Oldenburg. Although this is good news, it shows the increasing challenges that NGOs face to sustain their work in the current financial climate.
GREECE
In the meantime, the Greek policy of pushback continues, with 57 documented pushbacks recorded for June, according the the Aegean Boat Report:
UK
The UK Government’s proposed illegal Illegal Migration Bill has been repeatedly voted against in the House of Lords, the unelected chamber which reviews and approves legislation passed in the more or less elected House of Commons.
The Bill is not dead yet, but has taken a severe hit this week. Also, the more extreme wing of the ruling Conservative Party are starting to distance themselves from Home Secretary Suella Braverman over her racism, failure to deliver on her racist rhetoric and generally being unhinged.
Care4Calais commented:
“(…) the Lords voted against the government’s barbaric plans to remove time limits on detent for children and pregnant women.
The plans would mean that children and pregnant women refugees could be held indefinitely while the government waited to remove them from the UK. Peers want unaccompanied children to be held for no more than 24 hours and pregnant women held no more than 72 hours.
They also voted to ban the deportation of LGBT migrants and modern slavery survivors.”
WORTH READING & LISTENING TO
- a story about the increasing hostility being perpetrated against Sub-Saharan people on the move in Tunisia, heightened following the recent death of an Sfax local in street violence. The authoritarian regime of President Kais Saied has recently ramped up racist rhetoric against people on the move, leading to the current climate of racialized violence — Tunisia: Hundreds of African migrants detained and expelled — InfoMigrants
- The latest episode of Jaz O’Hara’s ‘Asylum Speakers’ podcast dropped on Tuesday, featuring the story of Imad Al Arnab, a successful Syrian restauranteur who had to flee, and then re-establish a restaurant in London: 50. Imad’s Syrian Kitchen with Imad Al Arnab — Asylum Speakers Podcast with Jaz O’Hara: Stories of Migration
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