Kompass – AntiRa – Newsletter Nr. 65, December 2017/January 2018
+++ 18.12. Action-day in many cities: Stop Europe funding slavery in Libya. Stop Wars on Migrants’ +++ Citizen-Asylum (Bürgerasyl) against deportations to Afghanistan +++ 7. January 2018 in Dessau: Oury Jalloh Demonstration – It was murder! +++ 8./10./12. January 2018 in Szeged: Solidarity with Ahmed from Röszke11 +++ 2.-4. February 2018 in Kassel: We`ll Come United and Solidarity City Meeting +++ Alarm Phone: Solidarity Messages for those in Transit +++ Central Mediterranean Sea: AP, Sea Watch, SOS Med, Amnesty … +++ Newspaper from Afrique-Europe-Interact +++ Greece: Freedom to the 35 arrested at Moria +++ Borderviolence: Monitoring against Push Backs on the Balkanroute +++ Review: Transnational Social Strike in Berlin, Networking Meeting about Church-Asylum in Augsburg+++ Outlook: Yallah-Exhibition moves on, We`ll Come United Meeting and Summer School +++
Dear friends!
He is pleading to abolish the whole system of residence permits and he argues offensively for the right for freedom of movement for everybody. He critizises the distinction and split between economical motivated migration and refugees and he follows a consistent approach of human rights. Leoluca Orlando, who was elected in June 2017 again as mayor from Palermo, was invited to Kassel for a peace conference in the beginning of December. And he delivered a very impressive speech against the racist spirit of the time. Orlando personifies on an institutional level the demands, on which we are active in the grassroot approach of solidarity cities in hopefully more and more initiatives: for the unconditional right to come and to stay and for a municipal social infrastructure, which is available for all inhabitants in the same way.
To struggle persistently for this “concrete utopia” in a local frame just appears as the most effective counter-pole against the dominant national or supranational policy of exclusion and deportation. While the Dublin-regime tightens up, countless church groups offer protected spaces by church asylum. Through the great selforganisation of refugees near Osnabrück (we reported several times about their protest with whistles) it was possible in the meanwhile in more than 80 cases, that the date for their planned readmission – mostly to Italy – expired. And more and more initiatives for citizen-asylum stand up to the deportation-flights to Afghanistan, currently as well to Pakistan. They offensively call for civil disobedience and – if necessary – to hide affected refugees in solidarity against the charter of shame.
With tenacity against the barbarity of the border regime: this picture characterizes in an escalated way also the situation in the whole mediterranean area. Refugees, who made it to the greek islands despite intensified surveillance from Turkey, are confronted with a second merciless border. The greek government – blackmailed by EU – hazards the consequences of people freezing to death in tents than to give them the permission for travelling to the mainland. In the central Mediterranean sea the EU-funding of Libyan militias, who occasionally call themselves coastguards, led to a curb of arrivals in Italy, literally with might and main. In the same time the criminalization of sea-rescue makes the deadliest border of the world even more killing. Leoluca Orlando made a clear statement on this as well: the responsible persons for this crime have to be brought to trial. Escaped from detention and slavery in Libya nevertheless boats get through, Italy will remain – according statistics – the main country of arrival in 2017. In comparison to last year three times more departures of boats happened from the coast of Morocco in direction of Spain. Thousands of people left in tiny boats within last weeks to eke out a better live.
We`ll Come United – that and in which way all these struggles belong together, able to strengthen each other, was demonstrated by the parade last September in Berlin. The evaluation in November consequentially went over immediately into preparations for next year. Three German wide meetings and conferences are already appointed for the next months. Moreover a “swarming mobilization” is planned particularly into the various communities of refugees and migrants with the intention, to bring even more power and swing onto the streets in September 2018 for the second parade of our daily struggles.
In this spirit we wish already a happy new year.
The Kompass-Crew