Bruxelles No Border Camp – Action Round Up

(Translated from the French by the Internet)

The camp-in-a-train-station

No Border Camp has been the subject of fierce repression, preventing the majority of public actions (such as demonstrations on Wednesday and Friday, and the “game-action” on Thursday) and many others. Despite this repression and violence in police stations, a number of actions have taken place. This is an attempt to list … To be completed?

 No Border Camp has been the subject of fierce repression, preventing the majority of public actions (such as demonstrations on Wednesday and Friday, and the “game-action” on Thursday) and many others. Despite this repression and violence in police stations, a number of actions have taken place. This is an attempt to list … To be completed?

Police Station Windows Smashed

Cons STIB (Brussels transport company, participates in roundups of undocumented immigrants): Machines to control and sell the tickets were destroyed in three subway stations (http://cettesemaine.free.fr/spip/article.php3?id_article=3515). Other inspection machines were damaged in the trams.

Several buildings of companie involved in the deportation machine were tagged and had their windows broken: CarlsonWagonLit and Randstatd (http://bxl.indymedia.org/articles/128), Serco (http://bxl.indymedia.org/articles/147), Sodexho (http://bxl.indymedia.org/articles/ 236), Steria (http://bxl.indymedia.org/articles/244), Dalkia (http://switzerland.indymedia.org/de/2010/10/77904.shtml).

A meeting of Frontex was blocked by activists before they are arrested, the building has tagged ETEA (http://www.vimeo.com/15401376).

Action against Frontex has also held in Brussels Airport (http://bxl.indymedia.org/articles/227). ”

A police station was attacked, broken windows, two policemen and damaged several of their cars endomagées (http://bxl.indymedia.org/articles/211).

” The facade of the Embassy of Italy was covered with shit and graffiti to protest against the deportation of Italian politics of Roma and cons recent agreements with Libya on immigration (http://bxl.indymedia.org/ articles/196).

 A symbolic action took place against the offices of BP’s lobbying in Brussels (http://bxl.indymedia.org/articles/197). ”

 Sodexho, providing food in many prisons and detention camps, received a visit from a group of people who poured 40 liters of oil into the lobby (http://bxl.indymedia. org/articles/180). ”

The building of the Cultural Attache of southern Germany has been “redecorate” in protestagainst the repression of a demonstration Thursday in Stuttgart cons S21 (http://linksunten.indymedia.org/de/node/26075). ”

A recruitment session of the Brussels police has been disrupted by several activists, by those who had been arrested on Wednedsay. (http://bxl.indymedia.org/articles/239). ”

The doors of the IOM (International Organisation for Migration) were blocked with glue (http://bxl.indymedia.org/articles/262). ”

On Saturday, October 2, the demo Closing No Border Camp brought together nearly 1,500 participants on arrival at the Bourse (http://bxl.indymedia.org/articles/257). ” “Actions of conversation” were held throughout the week with people from different districts of Brussels. Numerous meetings were held on the camp in the streets and in cells. A lot of visitors now know the city … and police. Projects have been outlined. It only depends on us not to leave all these meetings and common desires disappear …

No Borders Global Round Up: Haiti, Calais, Italy, Switzerland, London…

As the dubious motives of the U.S. led aid effort in Haiti are revealed, it’s become clear that the issue of “security” and “migration management” are much higher up the agenda than any humanitarian motive. : the U.S. has stated it will accept no Haitian refugees, and a Naval Blockade, including an Air Craft Carrier has been set up to stop fleeing Haitian’s reaching the coast of Florida, where , just in case any do make it immigration authorities have cleared space in a 600-bed detention center in Miami, and the naval base at Guantanamo Bay is also being prepared to hold those who try to flee. Some may say that since the U.S. has been continuing meddling in Haiti’s affairs  for most of the 20th and 21st Centuries-  including Coups’ and support of dictators –  it should bear some extra responsibility for what happens next. It  may turn out that it does – buit in the guise of  a U.S. military-corporate invasion on the scale  not seen since Iraq. See “>Seamus Milne’s analysis for a  broader overview of the situation.

Meanwhile in Calais: “On January 19th tents were distributed to migrants because the cold weather plan was suspended and the BCMO gymnasium closed. migrants launched a movement protest on the morning of the closure by burning a few blankets and banners, so the evening after the distribution of tents they decided to sleep next to BCMO. half an hour later fifty uniformed police riot made a line outside the camp, saying that if migrants do not leave they would destroy everything .After negotiation they agreed that migrants could leave with tents in the direction of the old jungle and they would not stop anyone and destroy any tents … migrants and activists were going to install the new camp escorted by the Police who showed us the place where they would not intervene… Yet they arrested 6 people at 2 am and came back at 7am” An urgent appeal has been issued for anyone who can to  to Calais to try to stop the authorities worst behaviour. More at: http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com.

In Rosarno, Italy at least 37 we’re  wounded,in a migrant revolt, including 18 police officers.

In one of the “worst-ever incidents” of racial unrest in Italy, the violence broke out on Thursday evening after white youths in a car fired air rifles at a group of immigrants returning from working on farms.

“Two immigrants were slightly injured by the gunfire. ‘Those guys were firing at us as if it was a fairground,’ a Moroccan identified as Kamal told La Repubblica newspaper. ‘They were laughing, I was screaming, other cars were passing by but nobody stopped.’

In Zurich, police raided and demolished an autonomously run school where undocumented migrants held language classes. The raid came as the Swiss government admitted that its harsh treatment of undocumented asylum- seekers has partly failed, and following an announcement that it is again planning a revision of federal asylum law. Several police officers, half of them in riot gear, stormed the Autonomous School Zurich (ASZ) Thursday. After chasing away the squatters and holding off protesting supporters with pepper spray, officers started confiscating teaching materials and technical utilities. The police partly demolished the single-storey building and removed its windows, leaving it uninhabitable. The ASZ had started operating at the Allenmoos School on Zurich’s outskirts last April, when activists squatted the empty building. The autonomous school operated according to do-it-yourself principles. Anyone could take, or offer, courses for free. As a result, a broad variety of training ranging from open-source computer courses to classes in solar energy fundamentals was available.

London: On Saturday 23rd January there will be two demonstrations called by London No Borders  in London. One will be at St. Pancras, where the UK (e-)border agency put up their controls in the middle of London. The second one will be at Piccadilly Circus where, while commuters, tourists and clubbers stare at the never-ending stream of commercials at ground level, they themselves are under constant observation by security and police in their cosy CCTV headquarters below ground.

French Authorities Bulldoze Dunkirk Migrant Camp

WHY WE ARE GOING TO CALAIS:

Wednesday June 17th: These images may look like they are taken in Palestine, but they are in fact from just across the Channel.

(report is google translation)

Wednesday June 17 to 9:00 am, the national police, the PAF, and agents of the autonomous port of Dunkirk have destroyed the refugee camps opposite the ferry terminal in Dunkirk

The camp housed hundreds of migrants.

The migrants “housed” here were mainly new arrivals, mostly teenagers.

The method is well established, and always the same scenario of destruction that runs in a loop at Dunkirk in years.

Nobody had time to salvage anything from the destructive crush gear tents, huts, food, clothing, and above all personal belongings, papers, money, photos of a baby mama …. there is certainly a desire to create a climate of terror and insecurity among refugees.

For years, the State, in Dunkirk, destroyed the camps but does not solve the problem

No Border Camp Calais

At the end of January, two No Borders activists from South Wales joined with others from Bristol, Brighton, London, Leeds and Newcastle to visit Calais and Lille in north-east France to begin organising for the No Border camp that is planned to happen in the region of Calais in late June this year.

Why Calais?

In 2002 an agreement between UK and French governments meant that the Red Cross running Sangatte centre in Calais was shut down. Sangatte had provided shelter for up to 2000 people and since its closure the situation for migrants in the Calais region has reached crisis point. Migrants including large groups from Afghanistan, Eritrea Iraq, Sudan and Palestine gather in Calais before attempting to cross the channel in search of a better life in the UK. Some migrants cross clinging on to the underside of lorries, some attempt to walk the length of the channel tunnel, with considerable risk to their lives. (There is a recent video from france24)

Whilst in Calais, we met with two local humanitarian groups who distribute free food to migrants. There is no state support available to migrants in Calais and it is against the law to help so called ‘illegal’ migrants here, so these volunteers risk arrest daily by simply feeding people. In the wind and rain on a piece of wasteland near the port, we witnessed the Catholic group La Belle Etoile giving packages of bread from a small van to hundreds of queueing migrants.

The same day we visited the kitchens of the SALAM Association, where volunteers prepare hot food for around 500-600 migrants each night, every night and serve from a van behind a warehouse close to the port. That evening, we were shocked by the number of migrants we saw, most were men, at the food distribution point and felt that what we were witnessing in Calais was a humanitarian crisis. Speaking to some of the migrants we learnt how up to 1000 people without status are living in woods near to the ferry port, this being known as ‘the jungle’, all waiting for a chance to travel to the UK in whatever way they can. They told us how police regularly destroy or burn their temporary structures and put tear gas in their tents. They told us how they have been caught by police before and driven to isolated places miles from Calais and left there.

Many of the men we spoke with were from Afghanistan. One had worked for the British Army as a translator and has had to flee his village as the Taliban have threatened him for being a ‘traitor’. Others had family with status in the UK that they were trying to reach. Another Afghani man told us how this wasn’t a choice to be in Calais as there “is no choice” for them; they have not chosen to have to leave their countries but have been forced to.

And the state repression of migrants in Calais looks set to get worse. At the end of January this year during a visit to Calais, the French immigration minister Eric Besson stated that he wants to see an ‘exclusion zone’ for migrants in the region.

no-borders-camp2Activists from both the UK and France have been working together to plan for a no border protest camp in Calais at the end of June this year. There is an organising meeting on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th March in Calais to discuss the political and practical aspects of the camp and its mobilisation. The meeting is open to any individuals or groups who act in solidarity with migrants and their struggle for freedom of movement. No Borders South Wales ( as are Bristol No Borders) will be taking part in the process, if your interested in attending the No Border Camp please get in touch.