Europe's Murderous Borders

Europe’s murderous borders 1 Sommaire Migreurop tory, assigning them to «lod- gings» either through the law Numerous activists for the the mechanism that is at the or police harassment, detai- Migreurop---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 rights of foreigners witnessed heart of the European Union’s ning them to ensure the pos- a masterful illustration of the migration policy. sibility of sending them back, Foreword----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4 The work of the Methodological note-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7 absurdity of European migra- imprisoning them to punish tion policies in the mediatisa- network is struc- them for making it through, Illegal deportations at the Greek-Turkish border-------------------------------------------9 tion of the camp in Sangatte tured around four these may be, among others, I - Controlling, Stopping--------------------------------------------------------------------------------13 during the year 2000. The ef- axes: several forms embodied by II - Holding, Detaining----------------------------------------------------------------------------------19 fects of the obstacles placed in this «Europe of camps». At III - Returning, Expelling-------------------------------------------------------------------------------27 the way of the movement of 1. To collect information present, the police camp may IV - Dehumanising, Killing----------------------------------------------------------------------------32 people, and of the refusal to about a reality that is difficult even appear in the guise of receive migrants and refugees to capture because there is a humanitarian needs: in spite Oujda : Buffer zone between Morocco and Algeria, airlock to Europe---------------37 burst out into the broad dayli- will to conceal it, but also due of an official discourse that is I - Controlling, Stopping--------------------------------------------------------------------------------38 ght. Usually invisible due to to the geographical scale of compassionate and prone to II - Holding, Detaining----------------------------------------------------------------------------------44 their dispersal along the the phenomenon (camps in using euphemisms, it is no- III - Dehumanising, Killing----------------------------------------------------------------------------48 breadth of frontiers or billeted north Africa –Algeria, Mo- netheless nothing other that IV - Lending assistance, Resisting---------------------------------------------------------------------54 in sites that were concealed, rocco, Tunisia, Libya– or at the flip side of the same Eu- they suddenly became visible the eastern European borders ropean policy for the exclusion Calais and North of France : roving zone, England doors-----------------------------58 through their concentration in –particularly Ukraine– are of foreigners. I - Holding, Detaining in France----------------------------------------------------------------------60 the only (non)-place where hence a collateral effect of 3. To raise awareness about II - Controlling, Stopping-------------------------------------------------------------------------------61 their presence was tolerated. partnership policies between the Europe of camps and the III - Hiding, (seeking to) Make invisible-------------------------------------------------------------64 Very quickly, it appeared these countries and the Euro- mobilisations that oppose it IV - Holding, Detaining in the United Kingdom--------------------------------------------------66 that the camp of Sangatte, far pean Union or some of its by using all the means of di- V - Removing, Expelling--------------------------------------------------------------------------------68 from being an exception, was member states). vulgation that are available to VI - Dehumanising, Killing----------------------------------------------------------------------------74 merely a cog in the machinery 2. To name a reality that is us. From scientific seminars to VII - Lending assistance, Resisting-------------------------------------------------------------------78 of a Europe that was practi- multi-faceted and cannot be the photographs taken by ar- sing the large-scale exclusion reduced to the classic image of tists, from an article to a web- Lampedusa, sentinel’s Island of Europe----------------------------------------------------82 of foreigners. The need to sha- the camp surrounded by bar- site, the entire spectrum of the I - Lampedusa detention centre: a tradition of opacity and violation of migrants’ human re reflections and experiences bed wire. A camp, as it is un- media must be used so as to rights-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------85 led to the organisation, in No- derstood by Migreurop, may ensure that nobody ignores II - Comments on Italy’s foreign policy and the management of migration lows-----------92 vember 2002, of a seminar even be a process rather than a that the «great detention» and about the «Europe of camps» physical space: the exclusion the «great removal» of forei- at the European Social Forum and grouping together of fo- gners are a reality in the cur- in Florence. That was when reigners does not simply rent European Union. Migreurop was born, as a Eu- translate into the creation of 4. To act on a European ropean network of activists closed centres. «The Europe of scale to mobilise against the and researchers whose goal is camps» is the collection of «Europe of camps» by promo- to make the public aware of mechanisms that constitute ting exchanges between the generalisation of the de- points of forced interruption groups with a variety of prac- tention of foreigners who do along migratory routes. Stop- tices and goals, but which can not possess residence permits ping people from crossing a act together or side-by-side in and the proliferation of camps, border, from entering a terri- specific cases. 3 Introduction Since 2008, the Migreurop network has established a Borders Observatory 13 of the Universal Declara- shantytowns near to the ple who have died at the that is supported using a number of tools. In addition to the mailing list on tion of Human Rights report of Patras in Greece borders put together by tho- information on the violation of human rights at borders and the network’s calls solemnly), and by inhu- into which a thousand mi- se who criticise the «war website, Migreurop has launched a campaign for a Right of access to deten- mane travel conditions. grants were crammed until against migrants» thus only tion places for migrants (http://www.migreurop.org/breve129.html) and a While following the example the summer of 2009, or in reflect a part of the dead working group on the consequences of readmission agreements reached of nationals of rich coun- the «tranquillos» in the bodies, that are most often between the European Union and its neighbours (http://www.migreurop. tries who travel by aeropla- countryside around Oujda anonymous, which are org/rubrique271.html). 2009 is the year of publication of the Atlas of mi- ne, they could have entered where sub-Saharans waiting strewn along the main «mi- Europe after a flight lasting to find a way into Europe grants in Europe, which aims to be a «critical geography of border controls», gration routes» . The mariti- a few hours, these exiles are forced to survive, one me and land gateways into and of the first edition of the Annual report on the violation of human rights have spent a lot more to be can note the same conceal- Europe have thus been tur- at borders. left in medieval travel condi- ment, the same makeshift ned into cemeteries by poli- tions. Forced to advance shelters made of plastic and cies that nevertheless like to step by step, to multiply the rubbish bags, the same reco- present themselves as «ba- Foreword use of means of transport vered old clothing, the same lanced» and as being mar- that are as dangerous as they relegation into a sub-human ked by a concern for «co-de- For its first Annual report on the violation of human rights at borders, Migreurop are inappropriate (overloa- existence. velopment». has chosen to maintain the four symbolic poles of the misdeeds of the policy enacted ded boats, hiding places in Because the main com- by the European Union in the field of immigration and asylum. The Greek-Turkish lorries, walking through the mon denominator of these Refoulements, border, the Calais region in north-western France, that of Oujda in eastern Morocco most hostile regions…) and «adventurers’» exile is their violence, deten- to entrust their lives to those «reception» in the transit or and the island of Lampedusa in the far south of Italy, are as many stops, more or less tion, harassment who are enriched by the po- destination countries. lengthy, sometimes definitive, in the odyssey of thousands of people who, every year, licy of closed borders, in Whether, like the «exiles», Within the EU, the main by trying to reach Europe, seek to escape the fate that they have been dealt through spite of themselves, these they are within Europe, or legal tool for refoulement is chosen or forced exile. adventurers must embark whether, like the sub-Saha- known as «Dublin II». With upon a veritable ordeal of ran immigrants in Morocco, this regulation that allows Policies from the «undesirables». they are at its external edges, member states

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