[NextGenderation]
-------------------------------
to sign the manifesto, send your name to
marta@???
-------------------
Manifesto
Against European border policy, for the closure of the
Centers for the
Internment of Foreigners,
for the release of those arrested in the Zona Franca
(Barcelona) this
Saturday 24 June.
Since last autumn, the images of horror being produced
by the present
European border regimes continue
to arrive via the press, television, blogs. The
deaths at the fences
of Ceuta and Melilla, the deportations
to the middle of the Sahara desert, the shipwrecks on
the coasts of the
Canary Islands, the bilateral agreements
through which certain African countries accept
deportations of persons
not citizens of their countries in exchange
for large sums of money, the mobilization by the EU of
naval and air
patrols to control the coasts of the Canary Islands
and Western Africa...speak to us of an undeclared war
set loose against
the exterior borders of Europe against
those men and women who dare to travel to Europe in
search of a better
life.
Migration from South to North, much like the earlier
migration from the
country to the city, presents itself
as an irreversable process. Nonetheless, the European
Union insists
upon approaching this question in persistently
repressive terms. This does not occur only 'out
there', at the
European exterior borders, and in the countries of
transit which are sub-contracted to manage the
movement of persons
towards Europe. Rather it happens more and more
in our cities: identity controls are ever more
frequent whether at the
exit of the metro, in the travel agency or at the post
office. The objective is not so much to identify and
expell all those
non-EU migrants without a residency permit as it is to
guarantee that the threat of deportation serve as a
permanent blackmail
for all, to maintain an ever larger section of the
population in a subaltern status. Thus migrant
non-EU citizens who
live and work in the EU watch as their legal status,
their
security and their freedom of movement are subjected
to the
arbitrariness characteristic of
legislation of exception. Fear and uncertainty
impregnate their lives
but also our cities,
settling in as the new atmosphere.
The events of last Saturday in the Internment Center
for Foreigners
being constructed in the Zona Franca
of the Port of Barcelona, are one more expression of
the repressive,
exclusively police/military mode
which characterize the present border policies of the
Zapatero
government and all the governments of the
EU. This is clearly illustrated by their location:
nothing better
exemplifies the arbitrariness and
the denial of rights which the border regimes imply
than the Internment
Centers for Foreigners. In these
prisons for immigrants they can hold for up to 40 days
persons whose
only crime is to exist and to wish
to inhabit, work and live in a place other than where
they were born.
The new Internment Center being build
in the Zona Franca of Barcelona, which has room for
twice as many
detainees as the presently existing
one, is located in an isolated place, far from the
nuclei of the city
and difficult to get to, thus both perfecting
the horror and tucking it out of sight of the
well-intentioned.
But the events of Saturday clearly demonstrate the
repressive
orientation of the border policy
through the police response to those who dare to point
out the borders,
against those who, having been
born here, raise their voices and say that this
policy,supposedly
created in the interest of our security,
does not represent us. The arrest of the 59 persons
who entered the
Internment Center in construction, among
them two lawyers and two journalists, the abusive
accusations, the
humiliating treatment in the police stations,
the extension of the arrest for over 48 hours in
response to a pacific
action can do nothing but
inspire our indignation and rejection.
For these reasons, the signatories below, in
solidarity with all those
who immigrate to Europe and who
are greeted by humiliations, subalternity and blows,
and in solidarity
with the hundred men and women from
all over Europe who realized Saturday's peaceful
action in order to
direct public attention to the new internment
center before it is inaugurated, and thus to extend
the movement
against internment centers in Europe, demand:
- the immediate release of all those arrested, and the
removal of all
charges against them;
- the declaration of Barcelona as a city free of
Internment Centers for
Foreigners;
- the unconditional regularization of all the
immigrants in Europe;
- the end of the police/military border policy.
(to sign send name to marta@??? )
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
