THIS WEEK IN PROTEST — Clashes With Police at Austrian Alps, April 4, 2016.
Pro-Refugee Protesters clashed with police forces using smoke bombs.
Each week, people around the world take streets of their cities to remind their governments that their voices matter. In this series I want to collect the best images from protests around the world.
TRENDING HASHTAGS — #OVERFORTRESS
BRIEF
Hundreds of people gathered near Brenner — a small city surrounded by Alps. It’s not a place where you usually see clashes with police, smoke bombs colouring the air and political slogans against European Union, but that was what happened on Sunday.
People were protesting against FRONTEX. In 2004, European Union adopted FRONTEX — joined effort by EU governments to manage their external borders. And now it’s using it to stop refugees crossing the borders from Greece, Austria and Germany.
What’s Happening?
EU governments have reached a deal with Turkey two weeks ago to deport refugees from Greece back to Turkey. However, refugees still try to cross the borders and free movement across EU is still in lock down.
Left-wing groups are still holding protests in Austria, France and UK forcing their governments to stop what they call “discrimination against refugees”
PROTESTERS’ WORDS:
“We are slowly becoming ‘fortress Europe’, our governments first invaded and destroyed Syria, Libya and Iraq and then when people started fleeing violence they shut the doors in front of them. I don’t want to live in fortress Europe.”
“Answer these simple questions. What would you do if your home is destroyed by Western planes? What would you do if ISIS knocks your door tomorrow? You would flee and it’s our duty as Europeans to open our doors”
What People at Protest Say?
“Europe is slowly becoming a totalitarian state, where the problems are being solved by scapegoating a certain group of people.” said another protesters, who went to Alps from Vienna to express her solidarity with demonstrators. As members of every pro-refugee movement across Europe — the protesters in Alps told me the same argument — that blaming refugees for economic and social problems is not a solution.
What Can Happen?
#RefugeesWelcome is #BlackLivesMatter of Europe. Both movements grow incredibly fast, and some say that it’s the fastest growing protest movement over the past three decades.
In Germany, the movement was able to force the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel to take a pro-refugee stance and allow the migrants in. It’s likely that with the growth of the movement some other governments such as of France or Britain will also shift their policies to help migrants fleeing the hands of Islamic State.
This post wouldn’t be possible without of help of great of Globalproject.info people, who shared their pictures in this blog.
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