Day of
Action for Freedom of Movement
15th
May 2010, Paris
(Meeting point for
the demo: Jaurès Metro Station, Line 2,
@ 2pm)
Barriers to freedom of
movement are on the rise
These days, it’s not just
migrants and sans-papiers who are being stopped and questioned by the
authorities, but precarious workers, and stigmatised youth alike; all
are being forced to undergo checks on identity and travel documents on
the basis of their physical appearance.
…Spread the
word & be vigilant…
Governments seek to
legitimise the increasing control and surveillance of the social sphere
each day via an expanding toolbox of security legislation.
It is by this
mechanism that the denunciation of men, women and children without legal
immigration status is encouraged: in the civil service, in the banks,
and even in the workplace.
The unemployed and
precarious are monitored, criminalised and penalised; communities are
divided, people are arrested in schools, those who commit the French
so-called ‘Crime of Solidarity’ are punished, and communities who resist
are ultimately vilified.
Time to
resist European ‘migration management’
Following a journey
lasting many months, the migrants in Calais seeking entry to the UK are
harassed, chased, or deported in a relentless routine. The destruction
of the ‘Jungle’ in Calais, and the systematic closure of all avenues of
solidarity by an inhumane police force, has forced the migrants onto the
streets, exposing them to yet more persecution.
In the European
policy of ‘migration management’, borders mean watchtowers and barbed
wire, and migrants are reduced to mere quotas. To realise their
objectives, the European Agency, Frontex – armed and in possession of
considerable powers – executes a merciless hunt of migrants in maritime,
aerial and terrestrial areas. This only forces people to seek
alternative and inevitably more fatal access routes (1,508 deaths at the
EU border were recorded in 2008 alone).
Freedom of movement
is prohibited and violently repressed for exiles fleeing war, corruption
and misery: all accesses to Europe are denied. The right to housing, to
work, to a decent existence for those who want to rebuild their lives
or rejoin family in Europe, are made a mockery of by oppressive European
legislation:
The Dublin II
Regulation allows for the systematic removal of an asylum-seeker to the
first country of entry, where their fingerprints were recorded (known as
the ‘EURODAC’ database). This is why Greece, a principal entry point of
Europe, in contravention of the European Convention of Human Rights,
takes in just 0.03% of asylum seekers.
The European Return
Directive ‘harmonises’ the duration of immigration detention across
Europe, expressly permitting detention for to up to 18 months (with the
exception of the UK which opted out and allows for near indefinite
detention).
Meanwhile, the new
Stockholm Programme, negotiated by the 27 Ministers of the Interior,
will harden existing measures. Under the pretext of the War on Terror,
EU nations are choreographing our descent into greater repression and
social control.
The guilty
parties
When the fight
against immigration becomes a business, deportation, detention, and the
rest of the security architecture becomes the source of (major) profit.
Men and women build the detention centres that imprison them, clean the
stations and trains in which they are monitored and arrested. They are
reduced to a mere workforce, one which can be picked up and discarded
without mercy. Cynicism has no borders…
BECAUSE FREEDOM OF
MOVEMENT IS THREATENED BY THE VERY EXISTENCE OF BORDERS.
NO BORDERS REJECTS
AND INTENDS TO FIGHT THE PRISON-LIKE, PROFIT-DRIVEN EUROPE WHICH
TRAMPLES ON OUR FREEDOM TO MIGRATE AND TO SETTLE.
FREEDOM OF
MOVEMENT AND SETTLEMENT FOR ALL!!!
ON SATURDAY
15TH MAY 2010, WE CALL ON EVERYONE TO PARTCIPATE IN A DAY OF MASS ACTION
AGAINST POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, INSTITUTIONAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ACTORS WHO
CONCEAL THEIR PROFITS BEHIND A SECURITISED AND REPRESSIVE EUROPE.
NO BORDERS!
NO NATIONS!