18 dicembre : Giornata internazionale dei migranti

Nella Giornata internazionale dei migranti (18 dicembre), attivisti in 17 città chiedono l’abolizione del regime di confine mortale nella UE.

16 dicembre 2021 – Nella Giornata Internazionale dei Migranti, questo sabato 18 Dicembre, si protesterà in 17 città in 9 paesi, contro l’Agenzia europea della guardia costiera e di frontiera, Frontex. Le azioni di protesta prevedono manifestazioni a Basilea, Berlino, Bruxelles, Napoli, Oujda, Salonicco e Vienna, tra le altre (vedi l’elenco completo sotto).

La rete Abolire Frontex, composta da 120 gruppi e organizzazioni, mette in primo piano il bilancio mortale del regime di confine europeo, che inquadra la migrazione come un problema e i migranti come minacce, e chiede l’abolizione di Frontex.

La Giornata Internazionale dei Migranti non non è un’occasione di festa: più di 44.764 persone sono morte nel tentativo di raggiungere la Fortezza Europa.

A Tripoli, in Libia, quasi 3000 rifugiati stanno protestando fuori dalla sede dell’UNHCR, in seguito alla detenzione di massa di 5000 persone e all’uccisione di sei persone all’inizio di Ottobre. Molti di loro hanno tentato di attraversare il Mar Mediterraneo nel tentativo di raggiungere l’Europa, ma sono stati riportati indietro dalla cosiddetta Guardia Costiera libica.

Frontex collabora con questa “guardia costiera” per costringere le persone a tornare in Libia, in campi di detenzione dove subiscono torture e altre gravi violazioni dei diritti umani.

Il nuovo corpo di guardie di frontiera armate di Frontex è già stato schierato in diversi paesi, aggiungendosi alla militarizzazione delle frontiere europee già in corso. L’agenzia ha anche contribuito a fermare i rifugiati nella traversata dalla Francia e dal Belgio al Regno Unito. Le politiche migratorie sempre più ostili del Regno Unito hanno di recente provocato la morte di 27 persone in movimento, quando il loro gommone si è capovolto nella Manica.

Nel frattempo, migliaia di persone stanno subendo violenze al confine tra Polonia e Bielorussia e sono respinti verso la Bielorussia. Invece di fornire loro aiuto e consentire loro un passaggio sicuro verso l’UE, Margaritis Schinas, vicepresidente della Commissione europea, ha proposto un piano per limitare a livello ufficiale il diritto di asilo sul confine bielorusso.

La rete Abolish Frontex sottolinea il coinvolgimento dell’UE nei respingimenti forzati. Un portavoce ha dichiarato: “Alimentando i conflitti, l’ingiustizia e il cambiamento climatico e incoraggiando il commercio di armi, l’UE è uno dei motivi per cui le persone sono costrette a lasciare le proprie case. Allo stesso tempo, l’UE e i suoi Stati membri stanno militarizzando i propri confini e conducendo respingimenti illegali. Frontex gioca un ruolo chiave in questo, e deve essere immediatamente abolito”.


Per richieste da parte dei media, inviare un’e-mail a press@abolishfrontex.org

Portavoce per:

Paesi Bassi – Amsterdam: Vincent de Jong (tutto incluso) – +31659087174 / info@allincluded.nl

Belgio – Bruxelles: Stephanie Demblon (Agir pour la Paix) +32495698273 /

stephanie@agirpourlapaix.be

Gli aggiornamenti sulle azioni saranno disponibili sui social media (Twitter/Instagram: @abolishfrontex/ Facebook: abolire Frontex)

L’elenco completo delle richieste della rete è disponibile qui: https://abolishfrontex.org/how/

Elenco delle azioni (vedi https://abolishfrontex.org/blog/2021/12/13/on-18-december-international-migrants-day/)

Austria

Vienna: Platz Der Menschenrechte, 13-17h – Manifestazione, con proiezione di film, discorsi al “muro della vergogna” sui respingimenti.

Belgio

Bruxelles: Rond-Point Robert Schuman (punto di partenza), 13-17h – Dimostrazione con azioni, passando da Frontex, istituzioni UE, aziende produttrici di armi e ambasciate, alla chiesa “Béguinage” occupata da parte di persone prive di documenti che erano in sciopero della fame in primavera.

Francia

Dunkerque: Gare de Dunkerque, 14h – Manifestazione a sostegno degli esiliati, si richiedono centri di accoglienza, di emergenza e alloggio.

Germania

Berlino: Bernauer Straße/Ackerstraße, 12h – Dimostrazione “Abolire Frontex”, di fronte al Parlamento e all’ufficio del Cancelliere.

Grecia

Chania (Creta): Piazza Agorà, 12h – Manifestazione in solidarietà con i rifugiati.

Chios (Nord Egeo): Città di Chios, 11h – Protesta #StopPushbacks. Salonicco: Kamara, 13h – Protesta “Locali e migranti per vivere insieme”.

Italia

Catania: Piazza Maravigna, 16h – Manifestazione ‘No a Frontex: Fermiamo i naufragi ed i

respingimenti’ davanti all’ufficio di Frontex.

Milano: Piazza Mercanti – Distribuzione volantini, informazione su Frontex , collegamento con un attivista rientrato dai confini polacchi.

Napoli: Piazza del Plebiscito, ore 16 – Manifestazione “Abolire Frontex”.

Palermo: Piazza Vigliena-Quattro Canti, 16h – Manifestazione contro la situazione dei profughi in Libia e le politiche migratorie dell’UE. Con collegamento in diretta con l’azione di Cantania.

Pescara: Piazza Salotto, ore 17 – Incontro ‘Abolire Frontex’ con immagini dai confini europei,voci dai campi profughi.

Roma: Spazio Anarchico “Vettor Fausto”, 19h – Incontro con proiezione di proiezione del film “Quando nasci non puoi più nasconderti” di M.T. Giordana, e un dibattito pubblico.

Ventimiglia: Missione in Val Roya per un incontro con l’attivista Cédric Herrou e per fornire aiuto materiale per l’emergenza freddo.

Marocco

Oujda: L’Association d’Aide de Migrants en Situation Vulnérable – AMSV – sta organizzando

diverse attività presso la sua sede in Rue de Figuig résidence Gharnata, interventi, incontro con i rappresentanti delle associazioni di immigrati e stand simbolico di solidarietà in piazza 16 agosto.

Olanda

Amsterdam: Piazza Dam, 14h – Distribuzione volantini, in solidarietà con l’azione Refugees in Lybia.

Svizzera

Azioni in corso e altre attività nell’ambito della campagna per indire un referendum sul permanere del sostegno della Svizzera a Frontex.

Basilea: Theaterplatz, 16h – Dimostrazione ‘Nieder mit der EU-Aussengrenze! Gegen die

Gleichgültigkeit!’.

Foglio informativo: Frontex e l’industria militare e di sicurezza

22 Novembre 2021 – Frontex, l’agenzia europea della guardia di frontiera e costiera, ha relazioni sempre più strette con l’industria militare e della sicurezza. Da quando ha iniziato ad operare nel 2005 ha funzionato principalmente come intermediario tra l’industria e le autorità di confine degli stati membri della UE. Con il budget incrementato per prossimi 7 anni (2021-2027) è destinata a diventare un attore di riferimento per conto proprio.

Leggi il foglio informativo “Frontex e l’industria militare e di sicurezza” del gruppo di ricerca di Abolish Frontex

My University works with Frontex: not in my name

[by Michele Lancione, Full Professor of Political-Economic Geography, DIST, Turin – Italian version published in Altreconomia]

24 October 2021 – I am an academic from the Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST) of the Politecnico and the University of Turin. I am writing this text to publicly dissociate myself from the agreement signed between my Department, the Politecnico di Torino, Ithaca Srl and Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.

As an article published by the magazine Antreconomia points out, the agreement, which involves the production of cartography at my Department’s laboratories on behalf of Frontex, was announced on July 14, 2021, by press release. In the communiqué, it is stated that DIST and Ithaca will be involved in the production of digital cartography, infographic maps and map books useful for the Agency’s work“. On an intellectual and human level, I am not represented by the position of the institution I work for, which has chosen to define the agreement with Frontex as a project that “fits perfectly into the strategic objective of the Department”. The issue, however, is not only personal but political. Continue reading “My University works with Frontex: not in my name”

Frontex dehumanizing constitution of people on the move

[blog by Henrike Behrens-Scholvin and Anna Schliewen] Analyzing the Frontex annual reports of 2006 and 2019, to Frontex’ framing of people on the move and therefore a part of Frontex self-representation of the agency, are an important topic. As a joint term paper, we wanted to take a comparative look at the changing rhetoric of the Border Patrol Agency.

Frontex frames people on the move in categories that emphasize attribution and assignment, not naming their subject status and thus their lives as people and the vulnerability of those lives. Thus, in the 2006 report, people on the move are recorded as “nationalities” with their sole nationality or simply titled as “entries”. This assignment serves as a substitute for a designation of their identity. Continue reading “Frontex dehumanizing constitution of people on the move”

Call for evacuation of people from Libya

ENGLISH | ITALIANO | DEUTSCH | FRANÇAIS | NEDERLANDS

To: EU Commission, EU Parliament, EU Member States

15 October 2021 – Abolish Frontex supports the demands of more than 3000 refugees and migrants in Libya who have been protesting outside the UNHCR Community Day Centre since the beginning of October (Twitter: @RefugeesinLibya). They are demanding their immediate evacuation to safe countries following the recent raids and murders of migrants and refugees at the hands of detention centre guards and the Department for Combating Illegal Immigration (DCIM, part of the Libyan Ministry of Interior).

We received this statement from people in Libya:

Continue reading “Call for evacuation of people from Libya”

Sign our open letter in solidarity with Mimmo Lucano!

11 October 2021 – The Abolish Frontex network has written an open letter to the Italian government in solidarity with Mimmo Lucano, the mayor who was recently convicted to 13 years in prison for his support for people on the move. The letter was signed  by 172 civil society groups and organisations.


ENGLISHITALIANO | عربي | DEUTSCH | FRANÇAIS | NEDERLANDS |فارسی

To: 
Mr Mario Draghi, President of the Ministers Council
Ms Luciana Lamorgese, Minister of Interior
Ms Marta Cartabia, Minister of Justice

As civil society groups and organisations, we were disgusted by the first-degree sentence given to Domenico ‘Mimmo’ Lucano by the court of Locri and express our full solidarity with Mimmo. The sentence is shameful and unjust and embodies the rightwing and racist migration policies that are being entrenched in Europe. We are calling on the Italian government and all concerned authorities to exonerate Domenico Lucano immediately and to stop its hostile migration policies. 

Continue reading “Sign our open letter in solidarity with Mimmo Lucano!”

Organizing against militarism from Israel to Europe

[Jonathan Hempel, ROAR] By the end of 2020, a total of 82.4 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced from their homes according to the UNHCR. The number of forcibly displaced persons globally has doubled since 1990 and is likely to increase significantly in the coming decades due to a convergence of factors, including armed conflict and other forms of violence, as well as climate breakdown, which will compound pressures to migrate.

Displacement occurs in the context of a capitalist economic system in which profits are made both through the sale of arms that are instrumental in causing conflicts and wars, and through the militarization of migrant routes and borders. Alongside the steady increase in the value of the arms trade and the spiraling number of forcibly displaced persons, the market for border security is growing with an expected worth of US$65-68 billion by 2025. War is highly profitable and the war on migrants is becoming increasingly so too.

Read the whole article on the ROAR website

Frontex steps over European Parliament, makes final push for legal fees against NGO

[Blog from FragDenStaat] In April, the EU Parliament told Frontex to drop their demand against us for the payment of € 10,520 in legal fees. The EU border force has chosen to disregard EU Members of Parliament – again.

EU border police force Frontex has reinstated its demand we pay € 10,520.76 in legal fees, setting Monday 4 October 2021 as a final deadline and threatening forceful recovery in case of non-payment.

By doing so, Frontex is choosing to disregard the European Parliament, which twice this year (in April and again in June) called on Frontex to drop its demand for legal fees. The Parliament had warned Frontex legal threats like these create a chilling effect on civil society, and had instructed the border agency to refrain from seeking payment, in our case and ever again in the future.

The Parliament’s instructions, however, seem of little importance to Frontex, who has decided to push for the payment of the legal fees regardless. Frontex is demanding from us the payment of € 10,520.76 in legal fees after we lost our lawsuit against the agency, in which we seeked disclosure of the vessels Frontex deployed in the Central Mediterranean in the summer of 2017.

Read the whole blog at the website of FragDenStaat and this Twitter thread to see how an attempt to pay the money in cash to Frontex in Brussels resulted in an evacuation of their offices.

Frontex: 16 years of a humanitarian and political disaster

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Sunday 3 October 2021 marks the anniversary of the death of over 360 people on the move, during a shipwreck off Lampedusa in 2013, and as such is a day of commemoration. Also on this day, in 2005, the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex started operating in the Polish capital Warsaw. This is not reason for celebration or festivities: Frontex has left a track record of death and destructed lives in its sixteen years of existence.
Frontex started as a small agency, supporting and coordinating border security between EU member states. Now it is the EU agency with the largest budget, dominating EU border operations, building its own 10,000 person strong armed border police force (Standing Border Guard Corps) and increasing cooperation with non-EU-countries, including many authoritarian regimes. The first batches of its new Standing Corps have been deployed to assist with border security and control work in Italy, Greece, Spain, the Western Balkans, Lithuania and Latvia, as well as at several airports. This signals a new more active field role for the agency, next to its own main operations. Those have concentrated on stopping migrants from crossing the Mediterranean, essentially pushing people on the move to more dangerous routes and into the hands of unscrupulous smugglers. With its growing role and mandate, Frontex has increasingly become involved in pushbacks, violence and other human rights against people on the move. 

Continue reading “Frontex: 16 years of a humanitarian and political disaster”

Defund Frontex, Build a European Search and Rescue Programme

Over the past 15 years, border police force Frontex has grown to become the EU’s most powerful agency. With a budget of € 5.6 billion and an army of 10,000 border guards due by 2027, Frontex is the key actor in implementing – as well as advancing – Fortress Europe’s deadly policies.
During this 15-year period, in which the EU decided to devote unlimited resources into the creation and expansion of its border giant, the Mediterranean Sea became, and currently remains, the world’s deadliest migration route.
These are two events – the growth of Frontex and an ever-mounting number of deaths at sea – that must be read as one: a political choice being made and carefully planned by the EU and its Member States, to protect borders over lives.

Continue reading “Defund Frontex, Build a European Search and Rescue Programme”

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