Marie-Lou

Des oublis probables…
le maroilles, la boulette d’Avesnes

Et, hors catégorie, le ramequin (de Saint-Rambert-en-Bugey, c’est dire…) Se trouve, sous le manteau, sur le marché de Bourg-en-Bresse, mais réservé aux connaisseurs, il faut vraiment insister pour en obtenir un quand on n’a pas l’accent du pays.

▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramequin_(fromage)

Oui ce n’est pas normal qu’il n’y ait pas la boulette d’avesne, le puant de Lille…

Par ailleurs, le brie de Meaux n’est pas du tout puant, contrairement au brie de Meulin, gris, qui est beaucoup plus affiné et odorant.

Croûte collante, pâte moelleuse au lait cru, franche odeur piquante. Le fromage de Herve est une de nos spécialités dans l’Est de la Belgique. En wallon, hervien, froûmatch di Hèf. Autres délices, un peu plus doux, Remoudou, Trou d’Sottai, Bouquet des Moines, tartiner sur du pain avec un peu de sirop de Liège et accompagné d’une trappiste brune un régal...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Fromage-de-herve.jpg

@rastapopoulos et encore, dans les bries il y a eu des disparitions regrettables. Quand j’étais môme, chez mes grands parents maternels, au sud de la seine et marne, on mangeait du ville-saint-jacques. Une tuerie... Avec une croute brun clair marbrée de rouge, et une pâte qui tirait sur le rouge aussi.

C’est là : ▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville-Saint-Jacques#/maplink/0

La fabrication de ce brie particulier a cessé, comme le mentionne l’article wikipédia :
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville-Saint-Jacques

Le casu marzu, le fromage (à larves) le plus dangereux du monde
▻http://madame.lefigaro.fr/cuisine/le-casu-marzu-ce-fromage-infeste-de-larves-vivantes-021116-117584
▻https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x99zkt

#rhinos

#écocide #faune_sauvage

#recette #cuisine

La nature est pour certains individus méprisables un simple paysage ou une matière première. La disparition d’espèces comme ici les tortues et tellement d’autres m’attriste et surtout me donne un sentiment profond d’impuissance face à l’agonie de ma mère, ma Terre. Quelle race de merde, j’ai honte parfois d’en faire partie... :-((

#noir !

#enfance_volée

@reka Merci, belle découverte

 :-) j’ai eu une reproduction de ce tableau dans ma chambre pendant 10 ans - je pense - quand j’étais enfant... tellement de souvenirs, de temps passer a le regarder, le redessiner...
merci...

@reka Ca a été une de mes déceptions lors de l’exposition Bauhaus au musée des Arts Décoratifs l’année dernière, il y avait bien un jeu d’échecs sur ce modèle (un fac simile qui n’était même pas très bien fait) à vendre dans la boutique, mais à un prix invraisemblablement stratosphérique, et j’en avais le cœur gros, pour une fois que je trouvais une idée de cadeau originale pour mon gars, et qu’est-ce que j’aurais aimé jouer contre lui sur un tel jeu (ce soir le fils vient d’infliger un très beau 3-1 à son père, et pour obtenir le petit 1, le père a dû puiser dans ses absolues dernières ressources à ce jeu)

La prochaine fois que je passe le bout du nez à Montreuil on pourra jouer, je suis tellement nul que tu gagneras 3-0 même si je fais des efforts surhumains, ça rattrapera les impolitesses du fils envers son père !

@reka A vaincre sans péril, on finit par triompher sans gloire. Si tu passes à Montreuil il y a tant d’autres choses que nous pourrions faire et dont le bénéfice pour nous deux serait tellement plus grand !

A vaincre sans péril, on finit par triompher sans gloire

Je me demandais pourquoi, à chaque fois que je te lis, j’ai l’impression de faire un petit voyage dans la littérature du XVIIe ou XVIIIe siècle, mais je commence à comprendre :)

@reka Vil provocateur, tu as de la chance que ton céant soit géographiquement très éloigné de mon 46 fillette , non mais !

lire ça aussi à propos de cet article : ▻https://mastodon.eliotberriot.com/@eliotberriot/100633055572089222

@david2 Les projets les plus populaires sont portés par des boîtes avec des développeurs payés pour ça (parfois très bien payés d’ailleurs). En fait, le gros des contributions vient même de là (pour les distributions Linux, LibreOffice, Firefox et autres gros projets de ce genre), les développeurs amateurs qui font ça sur leur temps libre c’est pas forcément la norme.
Quant à l’article : je veux bien que l’auteur aille dire à mon patron qu’il faut donner des sous à ces projets. Se heurter à la réalité du capitalisme lui fera peut-être prendre conscience de certaines choses.
Par ailleurs je suis développeur et le soir quand je rentre chez moi, n’étant pas un geek forcené, je fais autre chose que faire du code. La seule fois où j’ai fais un logiciel libre j’étais au chômage, CQFD.

C’est un peu paradoxal de dire « je n’ai jamais cru au logiciel libre » sur une plateforme faite avec des logiciels libres, non ?

Personne dans le LL ne demande aux gens de travailler sans rémunération, mais certain·es le font parce tel est leur bon plaisir (et parce qu’illes en ont la possibilité), d’autres sont payé·es pour écrire du logiciel libre… c’est des situations variées, ça pose plein de problèmes, mais ça existe.

Je voudrais poser la question autrement. Est-ce qu’on veut que notre société se développe de manière plus harmonieuse, en permettant à tout un chacun·e de pratiquer l’activité intellectuelle de son choix — l’écriture de logiciel au même titre que tous les arts, hobbys, pratiques sportives et culturelles ? Et en ce cas, de quoi a-t-on besoin pour permettre à plus de gens de participer (d’avoir du temps, de la disponibilité mentale, un cadre qui permette de valider son travail et de progresser…).

Dans le sport pour prendre un exemple, ou au jeu d’échecs, on peut en faire librement, ou dans le cadre de clubs, de fédérations, ou encore en pratique professionnelle. Pour la pratique de la poésie c’est plus restreint. (Perso je n’ai jamais cru à la poésie : pas rentable.)

Merci. Pour le coup @james , Le thread Mastodon que tu cites a été posté dans forum de l’article de Frama, et tant mieux, car c’est vraiment pas très pratique de lire ça sur Mastodon (faut faire « show more » à toutes les lignes).

Ah tiens, rigolo, j’expliquais à des amis combien il était important d’émuler une communauté si on veut qu’un logiciel qu’on a créé survive, je ne sais toujours pas s’il faut considérer le faire pendant ou après les 3 étapes décisives
– on a une bonne idée
– on la code
– on la distribue (avec sa doc)
Réussir à créer en collectif c’est respecter aussi les contributions de chacun·e, soutenir l’émulation des unes et des autres pour que chacun·e y trouve son compte.
J’en suis arrivée à la conclusion qu’il est difficile dans un monde masculin aussi concurrentiel que l’on croit à un projet porté par une seule personne, surtout si c’est une femme. Je suis persuadée maintenant qu’un réseau même de petite échelle doit exister en amont pour élargir ensuite son espace. Pour mon expérience, ne trouvant pas de comparse, j’ai mené des projets seule et mes idées devaient être bonnes puisque la plupart ont été reprises, et mon nom effacé.

je me méfie beaucoup de tout logiciel, payant ou gratuit, qui donne l’impression de n’être soutenu que par une ou deux personnes.

Je voudrai juste rappeler que Freehand était soutenu par Macromedia, société multimillionnaire rachetée par Adobe qui l’a assassiné en deux temps trois mouvements, laissant sur le carreau les utilisateurs·trices qui avaient misé sur sa pérennité depuis le tout début. Pour ma part, j’ai utilisé le logiciel pendant quinze ans en pensant qu’il serait increvable et pérenne... Je suis toujours en train de chercher des solutions (pas trop chères) pour réouvri des milliers de fichiers et les mettre à jour pour pouvoir travaillr avec sur Illustrator :)

En fait il faudrait définir le sens de l’expression « je ne crois pas à… ». Pour ma part je crois qu’il faut essayer, mais ne crois guère que ça ait des chances de marcher. Est-ce-que ça veut dire que j’y crois, ou que je n’y crois pas, je n’arrive pas le savoir :) Je crois aussi à la poésie révolutionnaire.

Pour ce qui est de la pérennité, pas mieux que Reka. L’informatique est de toute évidence une construction fragile — mais si la communauté ou l’entreprise qui soutient un logiciel doit disparaître, au moins avec le libre tu ne restes pas sans recours.

Alleluyah. Le registre de la croyance est-i le plus adapté pour décrire ce dont on parle ici ?

Il y a une similitude avec d’autres pratiques collectives, ou militantes, où les personnes impliquées sont des intérimaires, comme par exemple dans les pratiques artistiques ou certaines formes de recherche universitaire ou je sais pas moi le quotidien de pleins d’auteurs de roman policier.

C’est à dire que parfois les personnes sont rémunérées pour contribuer, parfois pas, parfois c’est la possibilité de choisir à quoi on passe son temps que permet la protection sociale des travailleurs qui leur permet de s’impliquer. C’est variable. Aussi parce que le logiciel libre se developpe de manière massive à partir des années 2000 (pour aller vite) période d’achèvement d’atomisation du marché du travail salarié. Et que le fait de pouvoir travailler en permance sur quelque chose qui fasse sens pour soi s’étiole progressivement. Et que contribuer au LL, c’est tellement demandeur qu’on ne peut le faire que si ça fait sens, parce qu’il est quasi impossible d’être rémunéré au nombre d’heures passées.

La question derrière étant : est-ce que tout travail doit être rémunéré quand on a assez pour vivre ? est-ce qu’on doit travailler seulement sur des projets rentables ? Qu’est-ce que le bien commun auquels les logiciels libres pourraient être attachés ? Est-ce que d’autres moyens de subsistance que le salariat peuvent permettre à chacun de se consacrer à des projets de bien commun ? etc...

#climat

Une traduction est disponible ici :
►https://www.letemps.ch/sciences/avons-perdu-combat-contre-changement-climatique

Et si toutefois, l’article n’est plus disponible :
▻http://ovh.to/X9Ztk5Y

... voire en cas que en snth: ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/715454

déjà là :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/713125

#paysages_nus #paysage_vides #nuages et merci !

Merci ! Tiens @philippe_de_jonckheere , petite question : est-ce que tu sais comment agit « le petit curseur du logiciel de retouche numérique, qui permet de gommer un peu, beaucoup, passionnément le voile atmosphérique » ? Je n’ai pas de tel petit curseur dans mon logiciel bio (darktable), et ça m’intéresserait grandement de savoir sur quel(s) paramètres il agit...

(intuition en postant la question : compression des hautes luimères ?...)

@ericw Je n’en ai aucune idée. Ça fait un peu l’effet, en plus doux (encore qu’il faille faire attention) qu’un filtre polarisant dont tu peux régler au pourcent près l’intensité. Du coup, non seulement les nuances lointaines gagnent en couleur, sont plus foncées, mais en plus elles paraissent plus nettes. En revanche comment c’est obtenu numériquement, je ne le sais pas du tout. En revanche ton intuition me paraît juste, mais sans doute incomplète. Désolé.

#Sarah_Mardini #délit_de_solidarité #Lesbos #Grèce

#gorafi_encore_plagie
Mais en vrai, comment dire... Plus envie de rire.

GRÈCE : LA POLICE ARRÊTE 30 MEMBRES D’UNE ONG D’AIDE AUX RÉFUGIÉS

La police a arrêté, mardi 28 août, 30 membres de l’ONG grecque #ERCI, dont les soeurs syriennes Yusra et Sarah Mardini, qui avaient sauvé la vie à 18 personnes en 2015. Les militant.e.s sont accusés d’avoir aidé des migrants à entrer illégalement sur le territoire grec via l’île de Lesbos. Ils déclarent avoir agi dans le cadre de l’assistance à personnes en danger.

Par Marina Rafenberg

L’ONG grecque Emergency response centre international (ERCY) était présente sur l’île de Lesbos depuis 2015 pour venir en aide aux réfugiés. Depuis mardi 28 août, ses 30 membres sont poursuivis pour avoir « facilité l’entrée illégale d’étrangers sur le territoire grec » en vue de gains financiers, selon le communiqué de la police grecque.

L’enquête a commencé en février 2018, rapporte le site d’information protagon.gr, lorsqu’une Jeep portant une fausse plaque d’immatriculation de l’armée grecque a été découverte par la police sur une plage, attendant l’arrivée d’une barque pleine de réfugiés en provenance de Turquie. Les membres de l’ONG, six Grecs et 24 ressortissants étrangers, sont accusés d’avoir été informés à l’avance par des personnes présentes du côté turc des heures et des lieux d’arrivée des barques de migrants, d’avoir organisé l’accueil de ces réfugiés sans en informer les autorités locales et d’avoir surveillé illégalement les communications radio entre les autorités grecques et étrangères, dont Frontex, l’agence européenne des gardes-cotes et gardes-frontières. Les crimes pour lesquels ils sont inculpés – participation à une organisation criminelle, violation de secrets d’État et recel – sont passibles de la réclusion à perpétuité.

Parmi les membres de l’ONG grecque arrêtés se trouve Yusra et Sarah Mardini, deux sœurs nageuses et réfugiées syrienne qui avaient sauvé 18 personnes de la noyade lors de leur traversée de la mer Égée en août 2015. Depuis Yusra a participé aux Jeux Olympiques de Rio, est devenue ambassadrice de l’ONU et a écrit un livre, Butterfly. Sarah avait quant à elle décidé d’aider à son tour les réfugiés qui traversaient dangereusement la mer Égée sur des bateaux de fortune et s’était engagée comme bénévole dans l’ONG ERCI durant l’été 2016.

Sarah a été arrêtée le 21 août à l’aéroport de Lesbos alors qu’elle devait rejoindre Berlin où elle vit avec sa famille. Le 3 septembre, elle devait commencer son année universitaire au collège Bard en sciences sociales. La jeune Syrienne de 23 ans a été transférée à la prison de Korydallos, à Athènes, dans l’attente de son procès. Son avocat a demandé mercredi sa remise en liberté.

Ce n’est pas la première fois que des ONG basées à Lesbos ont des soucis avec la justice grecque. Des membres de l’ONG espagnole Proem-Aid avaient aussi été accusés d’avoir participé à l’entrée illégale de réfugiés sur l’île. Ils ont été relaxés en mai dernier. D’après le ministère de la Marine, 114 ONG ont été enregistrées sur l’île, dont les activités souvent difficilement contrôlables inquiètent le gouvernement grec et ses partenaires européens.

►https://www.courrierdesbalkans.fr/Une-ONG-accusee-d-aide-a-l-entree-irreguliere-de-migrants

#grèce #asile #migrations #réfugiés #solidarité #délit_de_solidarité

▻http://www.unhcr.org/news/videos/2016/6/575150247/teamrefugees-yusra-mardini.html

http://www.unhcr.org/thumb1/575154e34.jpg

Arrest of Syrian ’hero swimmer’ puts Lesbos refugees back in spotlight

Sara Mardini’s case adds to fears that rescue work is being criminalised and raises questions about NGO.

Greece’s high-security #Korydallos prison acknowledges that #Sara_Mardini is one of its rarer inmates. For a week, the Syrian refugee, a hero among human rights defenders, has been detained in its women’s wing on charges so serious they have elicited baffled dismay.

The 23-year-old, who saved 18 refugees in 2015 by swimming their waterlogged dingy to the shores of Lesbos with her Olympian sister, is accused of people smuggling, espionage and membership of a criminal organisation – crimes allegedly committed since returning to work with an NGO on the island. Under Greek law, Mardini can be held in custody pending trial for up to 18 months.

“She is in a state of disbelief,” said her lawyer, Haris Petsalnikos, who has petitioned for her release. “The accusations are more about criminalising humanitarian action. Sara wasn’t even here when these alleged crimes took place but as charges they are serious, perhaps the most serious any aid worker has ever faced.”

Mardini’s arrival to Europe might have gone unnoticed had it not been for the extraordinary courage she and younger sister, Yusra, exhibited guiding their boat to safety after the engine failed during the treacherous crossing from Turkey. Both were elite swimmers, with Yusra going on to compete in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The sisters, whose story is the basis of a forthcoming film by the British director Stephen Daldry, were credited with saving the lives of their fellow passengers. In Germany, their adopted homeland, the pair has since been accorded star status.

It was because of her inspiring story that Mardini was approached by Emergency Response Centre International, ERCI, on Lesbos. “After risking her own life to save 18 people … not only has she come back to ground zero, but she is here to ensure that no more lives get lost on this perilous journey,” it said after Mardini agreed to join its ranks in 2016.

After her first stint with ERCI, she again returned to Lesbos last December to volunteer with the aid group. And until 21 August there was nothing to suggest her second spell had not gone well. But as Mardini waited at Mytilini airport to head back to Germany, and a scholarship at Bard College in Berlin, she was arrested. Soon after that, police also arrested ERCI’s field director, Nassos Karakitsos, a former Greek naval force officer, and Sean Binder, a German volunteer who lives in Ireland. All three have protested their innocence.

The arrests come as signs of a global clampdown on solidarity networks mount. From Russia to Spain, European human rights workers have been targeted in what campaigners call an increasingly sinister attempt to silence civil society in the name of security.

“There is the concern that this is another example of civil society being closed down by the state,” said Jonathan Cooper, an international human rights lawyer in London. “What we are really seeing is Greek authorities using Sara to send a very worrying message that if you volunteer for refugee work you do so at your peril.”

But amid concerns about heavy-handed tactics humanitarians face, Greek police say there are others who see a murky side to the story, one ofpeople trafficking and young volunteers being duped into participating in a criminal network unwittingly. In that scenario,the Mardini sisters would make prime targets.

Greek authorities spent six months investigating the affair. Agents were flown into Lesbos from Athens and Thessaloniki. In an unusually long and detailed statement, last week, Mytilini police said that while posing as a non-profit organisation, ERCI had acted with the sole purpose of profiteering by bringing people illegally into Greece via the north-eastern Aegean islands.

Members had intercepted Greek and European coastguard radio transmissions to gain advance notification of the location of smugglers’ boats, police said, and that 30, mostly foreign nationals, were lined up to be questioned in connection with the alleged activities. Other “similar organisations” had also collaborated in what was described as “an informal plan to confront emergency situations”, they added.

Suspicions were first raised, police said, when Mardini and Binder were stopped in February driving a former military 4X4 with false number plates. ERCI remained unnamed until the release of the charge sheets for the pair and that of Karakitsos.

Lesbos has long been on the frontline of the refugee crisis, attracting idealists and charity workers. Until a dramatic decline in migration numbers via the eastern Mediterranean in March 2016, when a landmark deal was signed between the EU and Turkey, the island was the main entry point to Europe.

An estimated 114 NGOs and 7,356 volunteers are based on Lesbos, according to Greek authorities. Local officials talk of “an industry”, and with more than 10,000 refugees there and the mood at boiling point, accusations of NGOs acting as a “pull factor” are rife.

“Sara’s motive for going back this year was purely humanitarian,” said Oceanne Fry, a fellow student who in June worked alongside her at a day clinic in the refugee reception centre.

“At no point was there any indication of illegal activity by the group … but I can attest to the fact that, other than our intake meeting, none of the volunteers ever met, or interacted, with its leadership.”

The mayor of Lesbos, Spyros Galinos, said he has seen “good and bad” in the humanitarian movement since the start of the refugee crisis.

“Everything is possible,. There is no doubt that some NGOs have exploited the situation. The police announcement was uncommonly harsh. For a long time I have been saying that we just don’t need all these NGOs. When the crisis erupted, yes, the state was woefully unprepared but now that isn’t the case.”

Attempts to contact ERCI were unsuccessful. Neither a telephone number nor an office address – in a scruffy downtown building listed by the aid group on social media – appeared to have any relation to it.

In a statement released more than a week after Mardini’s arrest, ERCI denied the allegations, saying it had fallen victim to “unfounded claims, accusations and charges”. But it failed to make any mention of Mardini.

“It makes no sense at all,” said Amed Khan, a New York financier turned philanthropist who has donated boats for ERCI’s search and rescue operations. To accuse any of them of human trafficking is crazy.

“In today’s fortress Europe you have to wonder whether Brussels isn’t behind it, whether this isn’t a concerted effort to put a chill on civil society volunteers who are just trying to help. After all, we’re talking about grassroots organisations with global values that stepped up into the space left by authorities failing to do their bit.”

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dfda97afb0be8069e54daa62e04af602207ce7fa/0_22_5450_3271/master/5450.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=a40a6f7b27a13e3db90966ebc0b4f4ef#.jpg https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/02bbfb68eeac0b7263a24ed2b1671bfe29593e30/0_0_3543_2126/master/3543.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=dc6f681ac5d87bcac57d7463fb0d07d4#.jpg

#Sarah_Mardini

The volunteers facing jail for rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean

The risk of refugees and migrants drowning in the Mediterranean has increased dramatically over the past few years.

As the European Union pursued a policy of externalisation, voluntary groups stepped in to save the thousands of people making the dangerous crossing. One by one, they are now criminalised.

The arrest of Sarah Mardini, one of two Syrian sisters who saved a number of refugees in 2015 by pulling their sinking dinghy to Greece, has brought the issue to international attention.

The Trial

There aren’t chairs enough for the people gathered in Mytilíni Court. Salam Aldeen sits front row to the right. He has a nervous smile on his face, mouth half open, the tongue playing over his lips.

Noise emanates from the queue forming in the hallway as spectators struggle for a peak through the door’s windows. The morning heat is already thick and moist – not helped by the two unplugged fans hovering motionless in dead air.

Police officers with uneasy looks, 15 of them, lean up against the cooling walls of the court. From over the judge, a golden Jesus icon looks down on the assembly. For the sunny holiday town on Lesbos, Greece, this is not a normal court proceeding.

Outside the court, international media has unpacked their cameras and unloaded their equipment. They’ve come from the New York Times, Deutsche Welle, Danish, Greek and Spanish media along with two separate documentary teams.

There is no way of knowing when the trial will end. Maybe in a couple of days, some of the journalists say, others point to the unpredictability of the Greek judicial system. If the authorities decide to make a principle out of the case, this could take months.

Salam Aldeen, in a dark blue jacket, white shirt and tie, knows this. He is charged with human smuggling and faces life in jail.

More than 16,000 people have drowned in less than five years trying to cross the Mediterranean. That’s an average of ten people dying every day outside Europe’s southern border – more than the Russia-Ukraine conflict over the same period.

In 2015, when more than one million refugees crossed the Mediterranean, the official death toll was around 3,700. A year later, the number of migrants dropped by two thirds – but the death toll increased to more than 5,000. With still fewer migrants crossing during 2017 and the first half of 2018, one would expect the rate of surviving to pick up.

The numbers, however, tell a different story. For a refugee setting out to cross the Mediterranean today, the risk of drowning has significantly increased.

The deaths of thousands of people don’t happen in a vacuum. And it would be impossible to explain the increased risks of crossing without considering recent changes in EU-policies towards migration in the Mediterranean.

The criminalisation of a Danish NGO-worker on the tiny Greek island of Lesbos might help us understand the deeper layers of EU immigration policy.

The deterrence effect

On 27 March 2011, 72 migrants flee Tripoli and squeeze into a 12m long rubber dinghy with a max capacity of 25 people. They start the outboard engine and set out in the Mediterranean night, bound for the Italian island of Lampedusa. In the morning, they are registered by a French aircraft flying over. The migrants stay on course. But 18 hours into their voyage, they send out a distress-call from a satellite phone. The signal is picked up by the rescue centre in Rome who alerts other vessels in the area.

Two hours later, a military helicopter flies over the boat. At this point, the migrants accidentally drop their satellite phone in the sea. In the hours to follow, the migrants encounter several fishing boats – but their call of distress is ignored. As day turns into night, a second helicopter appears and drops rations of water and biscuits before leaving.

And then, the following morning on 28 March – the migrants run out of fuel. Left at the mercy of wind and oceanic currents, the migrants embark on a hopeless journey. They drift south; exactly where they came from.

They don’t see any ships the following day. Nor the next; a whole week goes by without contact to the outside world. But then, somewhere between 3 and 5 April, a military vessel appears on the horizon. It moves in on the migrants and circle their boat.

The migrants, exhausted and on the brink of despair, wave and signal distress. But as suddenly as it arrived, the military vessel turns around and disappears. And all hope with it.

On April 10, almost a week later, the migrant vessel lands on a beach south of Tripoli. Of the 72 passengers who left 2 weeks ago, only 11 make it back alive. Two die shortly hereafter.

Lorenzo Pezzani, lecturer at Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths University of London, was stunned when he read about the case. In 2011, he was still a PhD student developing new spatial and aesthetic visual tools to document human rights violations. Concerned with the rising number of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Lorenzo Pezzani and his colleague Charles Heller founded Forensic Oceanography, an affiliated group to Forensic Architecture. Their first project was to uncover the events and policies leading to a vessel left adrift in full knowledge by international rescue operations.

It was the public outrage fuelled by the 2013 Lampedusa shipwreck which eventually led to the deployment of Operation Mare Nostrum. At this point, the largest migration of people since the Second World War, the Syrian exodus, could no longer be contained within Syria’s neighbouring countries. At the same time, a relative stability in Libya after the fall of Gaddafi in 2011 descended into civil war; waves of migrants started to cross the Mediterranean.

From October 2013, Mare Nostrum broke with the reigning EU-policy of non-interference and deployed Italian naval vessels, planes and helicopters at a monthly cost of €9.5 million. The scale was unprecedented; saving lives became the political priority over policing and border control. In terms of lives saved, the operation was an undisputed success. Its own life, however, would be short.

A critical narrative formed on the political right and was amplified by sections of the media: Mare Nostrum was accused of emboldening Libyan smugglers who – knowing rescue ships were waiting – would send out more migrants. In this understanding, Mare Nostrum constituted a so-called “pull factor” on migrants from North African countries. A year after its inception, Mare Nostrum was terminated.

In late 2014, Mare Nostrum was replaced by Operation Triton led by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, with an initial budget of €2.4 million per month. Triton refocused on border control instead of sea rescues in an area much closer to Italian shores. This was a return to the pre-Mare Nostrum policy of non-assistance to deter migrants from crossing. But not only did the change of policy fail to act as a deterrence against the thousands of migrants still crossing the Mediterranean, it also left a huge gap between the amount of boats in distress and operational rescue vessels. A gap increasingly filled by merchant vessels.

Merchant vessels, however, do not have the equipment or training to handle rescues of this volume. On 31 March 2015, the shipping community made a call to EU-politicians warning of a “terrible risk of further catastrophic loss of life as ever-more desperate people attempt this deadly sea crossing”. Between 1 January and 20 May 2015, merchant ships rescued 12.000 people – 30 per cent of the total number rescued in the Mediterranean.

As the shipping community had already foreseen, the new policy of non-assistance as deterrence led to several horrific incidents. These culminated in two catastrophic shipwrecks on 12 and 18 April 2015 and the death of 1,200 people. In both cases, merchant vessels were right next to the overcrowded migrant boats when chaotic rescue attempts caused the migrant boats to take in water and eventually sink. The crew of the merchant vessels could only watch as hundreds of people disappeared in the ocean.

Back in 1990, the Dublin Convention declared that the first EU-country an asylum seeker enters is responsible for accepting or rejecting the claim. No one in 1990 had expected the Syrian exodus of 2015 – nor the gigantic pressure it would put on just a handful of member states. No other EU-member felt the ineptitudes and total unpreparedness of the immigration system than a country already knee-deep in a harrowing economic crisis. That country was Greece.

In September 2015, when the world saw the picture of a three-year old Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, washed up on a beach in Turkey, Europe was already months into what was readily called a “refugee crisis”. Greece was overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the Syrian war. During the following month alone, a staggering 200.000 migrants crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey to reach Europe. With a minimum of institutional support, it was volunteers like Salam Aldeen who helped reduce the overall number of casualties.

The peak of migrants entered Greece that autumn but huge numbers kept arriving throughout the winter – in worsening sea conditions. Salam Aldeen recalls one December morning on Lesbos.

The EU-Turkey deal

And then, from one day to the next, the EU-Turkey deal changed everything. There was a virtual stop of people crossing from Turkey to Greece. From a perspective of deterrence, the agreement was an instant success. In all its simplicity, Turkey had agreed to contain and prevent refugees from reaching the EU – by land or by sea. For this, Turkey would be given a monetary compensation.

But opponents of the deal included major human rights organisations. Simply paying Turkey a formidable sum of money (€6 billion to this date) to prevent migrants from reaching EU-borders was feared to be a symptom of an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude pervasive among EU decision makers. Moreover, just like Libya in 2015 threatened to flood Europe with migrants, the Turkish President Erdogan would suddenly have a powerful geopolitical card on his hands. A concern that would later be confirmed by EU’s vague response to Erdogan’s crackdown on Turkish opposition.

As immigration dwindled in Greece, the flow of migrants and refugees continued and increased in the Central Mediterranean during the summer of 2016. At the same time, disorganised Libyan militias were now running the smuggling business and exploited people more ruthlessly than ever before. Migrant boats without satellite phones or enough provision or fuel became increasingly common. Due to safety concerns, merchant vessels were more reluctant to assist in rescue operations. The death toll increased.
A Conspiracy?

Frustrated with the perceived apathy of EU states, Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) responded to the situation. At its peak, 12 search and rescue NGO vessels were operating in the Mediterranean and while the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) paused many of its operations during the fall and winter of 2016, the remaining NGO vessels did the bulk of the work. Under increasingly dangerous weather conditions, 47 per cent of all November rescues were carried out by NGOs.

Around this time, the first accusations were launched against rescue NGOs from ‘alt-right’ groups. Accusations, it should be noted, conspicuously like the ones sounded against Mare Nostrum. Just like in 2014, Frontex and EU-politicians followed up and accused NGOs of posing a “pull factor”. The now Italian vice-prime minister, Luigi Di Maio, went even further and denounced NGOs as “taxis for migrants”. Just like in 2014, no consideration was given to the conditions in Libya.

Moreover, NGOs were falsely accused of collusion with Libyan smugglers. Meanwhile Italian agents had infiltrated the crew of a Save the Children rescue vessel to uncover alleged secret evidence of collusion. The German Jugendrettet NGO-vessel, Iuventa, was impounded and – echoing Salam Aldeen’s case in Greece – the captain accused of collusion with smugglers by Italian authorities.

The attacks to delegitimise NGOs’ rescue efforts have had a clear effect: many of the NGOs have now effectively stopped their operations in the Mediterranean. Lorenzo Pezzani and Charles Heller, in their report, Mare Clausum, argued that the wave of delegitimisation of humanitarian work was just one part of a two-legged strategy – designed by the EU – to regain control over the Mediterranean.
Migrants’ rights aren’t human rights

Libya long ago descended into a precarious state of lawlessness. In the maelstrom of poverty, war and despair, migrants and refugees have become an exploitable resource for rivalling militias in a country where two separate governments compete for power.

In November 2017, a CNN investigation exposed an entire industry involving slave auctions, rape and people being worked to death.

Chief spokesman of the UN Migration Agency, Leonard Doyle, describes Libya as a “torture archipelago” where migrants transiting have no idea that they are turned into commodities to be bought, sold and discarded when they have no more value.

Migrants intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard (LCG) are routinely brought back to the hellish detention centres for indefinite captivity. Despite EU-leaders’ moral outcry following the exposure of the conditions in Libya, the EU continues to be instrumental in the capacity building of the LCG.

Libya hadn’t had a functioning coast guard since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011. But starting in late 2016, the LCG received increasing funding from Italy and the EU in the form of patrol boats, training and financial support.

Seeing the effect of the EU-Turkey deal in deterring refugees crossing the Aegean Sea, Italy and the EU have done all in their power to create a similar approach in Libya.
The EU Summit

Forty-two thousand undocumented migrants have so far arrived at Europe’s shores this year. That’s a fraction of the more than one million who arrived in 2015. But when EU leaders met at an “emergency summit” in Brussels in late June, the issue of migration was described by Chancellor Merkel as a “make or break” for the Union. How does this align with the dwindling numbers of refugees and migrants?

Data released in June 2018 showed that Europeans are more concerned about immigration than any other social challenge. More than half want a ban on migration from Muslim countries. Europe, it seems, lives in two different, incompatible realities as summit after summit tries to untie the Gordian knot of the migration issue.

Inside the courthouse in Mytilini, Salam Aldeen is questioned by the district prosecutor. The tropical temperature induces an echoing silence from the crowded spectators. The district prosecutor looks at him, open mouth, chin resting on her fist.

She seems impatient with the translator and the process of going from Greek to English and back. Her eyes search the room. She questions him in detail about the night of arrest. He answers patiently. She wants Salam Aldeen and the four crew members to be found guilty of human smuggling.

Salam Aldeen’s lawyer, Mr Fragkiskos Ragkousis, an elderly white-haired man, rises before the court for his final statement. An ancient statuette with his glasses in one hand. Salam’s parents sit with scared faces, they haven’t slept for two days; the father’s comforting arm covers the mother’s shoulder. Then, like a once dormant volcano, the lawyer erupts in a torrent of pathos and logos.

“Political interests changed the truth and created this wicked situation, playing with the defendant’s freedom and honour.”

He talks to the judge as well as the public. A tragedy, a drama unfolds. The prosecutor looks remorseful, like a small child in her large chair, almost apologetic. Defeated. He’s singing now, Ragkousis. Index finger hits the air much like thunder breaks the night sounding the roar of something eternal. He then sits and the room quiets.

It was “without a doubt” that the judge acquitted Salam Aldeen and his four colleagues on all charges. The prosecutor both had to determine the defendants’ intention to commit the crime – and that the criminal action had been initialised. She failed at both. The case, as the Italian case against the Iuventa, was baseless.

But EU’s policy of externalisation continues. On 17 March 2018, the ProActiva rescue vessel, Open Arms, was seized by Italian authorities after it had brought back 217 people to safety.

Then again in June, the decline by Malta and Italy’s new right-wing government to let the Aquarious rescue-vessel dock with 629 rescued people on board sparked a fierce debate in international media.

In July, Sea Watch’s Moonbird, a small aircraft used to search for migrant boats, was prevented from flying any more operations by Maltese authorities; the vessel Sea Watch III was blocked from leaving harbour and the captain of a vessel from the NGO Mission Lifeline was taken to court over “registration irregularities“.

Regardless of Europe’s future political currents, geopolitical developments are only likely to continue to produce refugees worldwide. Will the EU alter its course as the crisis mutates and persists? Or are the deaths of thousands the only possible outcome?

▻https://theferret.scot/volunteers-facing-jail-rescuing-migrants-mediterranean

v. aussi :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/778722