• L’Université face au déferlement numérique
    https://journals.openedition.org/variations/740
    Thomas Bouchet, Guillaume Carnino et François Jarrige

    En dépit des idéologies de l’horizontalité et du partage invoquées pour légitimer ces nouvelles technologies numériques, c’est bien l’imposition par en haut qui l’emporte dans les faits. L’université numérique ne constitue que l’un des éléments d’une politique plus vaste de numérisation à l’œuvre dans tous les domaines, mais elle en est l’un des laboratoires privilégiés. L’enseignement supérieur et la recherche sont ainsi au cœur de la récente loi « Pour une République numérique » adoptée par l’Assemblée nationale à la fin du mois de janvier 2016 et portée conjointement par le ministre de l’économie Emmanuel Macron et la secrétaire d’État au numérique Axelle Lemaire. Reposant largement sur un rapport remis par le Conseil du numérique – instance de lobbying créé en 2011 par le gouvernement Fillon, sous la présidence Sarkozy, afin de militer activement pour « la métamorphose numérique de la société » – ce texte de loi entend à la fois accroître les régulations afin de protéger les utilisateurs de l’internet, et créer les conditions d’un déploiement général du Net désormais pensé comme un « droit fondamental » pour tous les citoyens. La numérisation de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche est au cœur du texte de loi et les articles le concernant ont été parmi les plus discutés. Elle prévoit notamment de faciliter l’accès aux données publiques pour la recherche, de favoriser l’accès ouvert aux travaux de recherche financés sur fonds publics, mais aussi d’intensifier la « pédagogie numérique ». Au nom de l’accès universel au savoir – idéal que personne ne contestera – et de l’adaptation continue des formations au marché du travail et à ses besoins, le projet de loi prévoit aussi que les formations en ligne (notamment via les MOOC : Massive Open Online Courses) pourront se substituer aux cours dits en présentiel et devenir diplômantes : « La République doit s’appuyer sur les nouveaux moyens apportés par l’univers numérique pour donner à tous les habitants de tous nos territoires les moyens d’accéder aux formations indispensables à une adaptation permanente aux évolutions économiques et sociétales induites par la mondialisation numérique ».

    Ce texte est un peu daté...
    Depuis 2016 les choses se sont accélérées à coup d’injonctions de l’UE et du ministère de la recherche : https://seenthis.net/messages/851586

    #Open_access #numérisation #accès_ouvert #informatisation

    • Texte issu du numéro 19 de la revue Variations autour de la critique des humanités numériques.
      https://journals.openedition.org/variations/670

      Alors que le printemps arrive en Europe, Variations refleurit aussi, avec une nouvelle livraison. Le dix-neuvième numéro de la revue est celui d’une relance éditoriale autour d’un dossier thématique visant à nommer les impensés de la transformation numérique des sciences humaines et sociales. Dans le fourmillement actuel des travaux sur la question, il nous a semblé nécessaire de présenter les enjeux d’une approche critique des humanités numériques...

  • Les hommes ne détestent rien tant que le changement...

    Louis

    https://lavoiedujaguar.net/Les-hommes-ne-detestent-rien-tant-que-le-changement

    Les hommes ne détestent rien tant que le changement. On pourrait presque lire l’histoire humaine comme une lutte permanente pour le conjurer. Le génie humain pourrait presque se résumer à l’art de contenir et d’encadrer, tant bien que mal, l’écoulement du temps. Ce qui caractérise la modernité, c’est en fin de compte l’effondrement des digues temporelles traditionnelles, effondrement qui se caractérise par un double mouvement : le renforcement centripète d’un pôle de stabilité autour de l’État — le Léviathan de Hobbes relève bien d’un enracinement — couplé à un renforcement centrifuge de l’économie et du marché. Ces deux mouvements doivent être conçus ensembles, en interdépendance. Ce grand écart entre stabilité et mouvement, pour ainsi dire sur le plan horizontal, doit en outre être complété par un grand écart vertical dans la durée, qui permet de mettre face à face la déchirure du présent — résultant de l’opposition entre ces forces centripètes et centrifuges — et la promesse de leur réunification future à travers la mythologie du progrès. C’était du moins le cas dans la phase classique de la modernité (pour schématiser, du XVIe au XIXe siècle). (...)

    #changement #histoire #Hobbes #cataclysme #crise #Covid-19 #société #État #marché #modernité #économie #accélération #déséquilibre #révolution #Internationale_situationniste #capitalisme #Polanyi

  • L’accès et la circulation des savoirs se font dans un monde de plus en plus ouvert. Les données en libre accès se multiplient, mais leurs usages ne vont pas de soi… #numérique #internet #usages #openaccess

    https://sms.hypotheses.org/24810

    Open source, open educational resources, open data, open courses, ces différentes expressions anglophones traduisent la multiplication des données actuellement accessibles en mode ouvert sur le web. Elles modifient progressivement les modalités d’accès et de circulation des savoirs à l’ère des géants du numérique –les GAFAM. Dans les domaines de l’éducation comme des données publiques, leurs usages ne vont pas forcément de soi.

    Ces questionnements ont fait l’objet d’un ouvrage collectif coordonné par Luc Massou, Brigitte Juanals, Philippe Bonfils et Philippe Dumas, regroupant une sélection de communications sur les sources ouvertes numériques dans le secteur éducatif et social réalisées lors d’un colloque à l’université Aix-Marseille en 2016 (...)

    • La #science_ouverte doit être interrogée bien au-delà de ce premier discours consensuel sur l’ouverture des données et des publications (soit un mouvement contre les éditeurs privés et l’appropriation commerciale du savoir - mouvement qui, soit dit au passage, est en phase d’institutionnalisation depuis quelques années).
      Plusieurs points sont systématiquement refoulés : le coût écologique de l’ouverture des données, la gouvernance économique (volonté de réduire les coûts), la transformation (voir la destruction) des métiers d’éditeur et de bibliothécaire...
      Les politiques scientifiques d’évaluation sont également systématiquement passés sous silence (le fameux #publish_or_perish). Je vous invite à lire ce très bon texte de #Peter_Sloterdijk (https://seenthis.net/messages/54405) sur l’augmentation du plagiat comme conséquence du publish or perish (ou publier pour publier à défaut d’être lu : le pacte de non-lecture).
      Ce que l’ouverture des données va également permettre, c’est le recours massif aux robots (#machine_learning), seuls capables de rechercher les mots clefs souhaités dans un corpus numérique monstrueux. Cela pose et posera des questions épistémologiques qui ne sont pour le moment jamais évoqués dans cet appel à une science 2.0 (ou e-science) jamais nommée.

      P.-S. Je parle essentiellement ici des SHS.

      #informatisation #accès_ouvert #open_access

  • India chemical leak: more evacuations amid fears of second gas release | World news | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/india-chemical-leak-more-evacuations-amid-fears-of-second-gas-release

    lien vers
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/07/gas-leak-at-chemical-factory-in-india-kills-hospitalises-lg-polymers

    Indian officials have evacuated more people from the area around a chemical plant in the south of the country that leaked toxic gas, killing at least 11 people and sickening hundreds more.

    There was confusion about whether the wider evacuation orders were sparked by a renewed leak at the LG Chem factory in Andhra Pradesh, or by the fear that rising temperatures at the plant could lead to another leak.
    India’s chemical plant disaster: another case of history repeating itself
    Read more

    “The situation is tense,” N Surendra Anand, a fire officer in Visakhapatnam district, told Reuters, adding that people within a 5km (3.1 mile) radius were being moved out because of renewed emissions from the plant.

    However, LG Chem, which is owned by the Korean conglomerate LG, said on Friday the decision to extend the evacuation area from 3.5km had been ordered as a precaution.

    #Inde #pollution #accident_industriel

  • Los Angeles resettlement ministry maintains support for refugees and immigrants during pandemic - Episcopal News Service
    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#US#refugié#accueil

    https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2020/05/06/los-angeles-resettlement-ministry-maintains-support-for-refuge

    [Diocese of Los Angeles] For the Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Service, the resettlement ministry of the Diocese of Los Angeles, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant finding creative ways to aid society’s most vulnerable in the most challenging of circumstances.

  • Fuite de gaz meurtrière dans une usine en Inde
    https://www.la-croix.com/Monde/Fuite-gaz-usine-Inde-moins-six-morts-1-000-personnes-hospitalisees-2020-05

    Le styrène est un composé organique toxique utilisé notamment pour la fabrication de polystyrènes, dont LG Polymers India se présente comme l’un des principaux producteurs dans ce pays de 1,3 milliard d’habitants. Une forte exposition peut entraîner des syndromes de détresse respiratoire aiguë et le coma.

    Il doit être conservé à une température inférieure à 17°C. Mais la température à l’intérieur d’un réservoir avait grimpé à la suite de l’arrêt partiel de l’usine, en raison du confinement national décrété en Inde pour lutter contre la propagation du nouveau coronavirus, selon une responsable de la police locale.

  • Qatar’s migrant workers beg for food as Covid-19 infections rise | Global development | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/07/qatars-migrant-workers-beg-for-food-as-covid-19-infections-rise
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1f8bc485983dce288a3bc0f4b209185bd90b89ba/0_308_4711_2827/master/4711.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

    The plight of low-wage workers in Qatar is repeated across the Gulf, where economies are almost entirely dependent on millions of migrant workers from south and southeast Asia and east Africa. Kuwait has reportedly seen a surge in the number of suicides among migrants. Workers in the UAE have described being “trapped” without work or a way to return home, while Saudi Arabia has deported thousands of Ethiopian domestic workers. A coalition of human rights organisations wrote to governments in the Gulf in April, warning that low-paid migrant workers remain “acutely vulnerable” to infection. They urged governments to take steps to reduce the economic impact of the outbreak.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#Qatar#ArabieSaoudite#santé#travailleurs-migrants#travailleurs-domestique#Asie#AfriqueEst#isolement#santé-mentale#accès-santé#infection#revenu

  • Latest Tactic to Push Migrants From Europe ? A Private, Clandestine Fleet

    The government of Malta enlisted three privately owned fishing trawlers to intercept migrants in the Mediterranean, and force them back to a war zone, officials and a boat captain say.

    With the onset of the coronavirus, Malta announced that it was too overwhelmed to rescue migrants making the precarious crossing of the Mediterranean Sea, where the tiny island nation has been on the front line of the maritime migration route over the past decade.

    In secret, however, the Maltese authorities have worked hard to make sure no migrants actually reach the island.

    It dispatched a small fleet of private merchant vessels in April to intercept migrants at sea and return them by force to a war zone in Libya, according to information provided by the captain of one of the boats, a senior commander in the Libyan Coast Guard, and a former Maltese official involved in the episode.

    The three repurposed fishing trawlers are privately owned, but acted on the instructions of the Armed Forces of Malta, the captain and the others said.

    The clandestine operation, which some experts consider illegal under international law, is just the latest dubious measure taken by European countries in recent years to stem the migration from Africa and the Middle East that has sown political chaos in Europe and fueled a populist backlash.

    Since 2017, European states, led by Italy, have paid the Libyan government to return more migrants to Libya, hassled the private rescue organizations that try to bring them to Europe, and asked passing merchant vessels to intercept them before they enter European waters.

    But Malta’s latest tactic may be among the most egregious, maritime experts say, because it involved a designated flotilla of private vessels, based in a European port, that intercepted and expelled asylum seekers from international waters that fall within the responsibility of European coast guards.

    “Against a pattern of increased abuses against asylum seekers in recent years, this newest approach stands out,” said Itamar Mann, an expert in maritime and refugee law at the University of Haifa in Israel. “Its methods chillingly resemble organized crime, and indeed the operations of people smugglers, which European policymakers so adamantly denounce.”

    “The facts available raise serious concerns that we are seeing the emergence of a novel systematic pattern, such that may even put Maltese state officials in danger of criminal liability, at home or abroad,” Dr. Mann added.

    The Maltese government did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

    The activity was first documented on the evening of April 12, when three aging blue trawlers left the Grand Harbour in Valletta, the Maltese capital, within an hour of each other. The three boats — the Dar Al Salam 1, the Salve Regina and the Tremar — departed at the request of the Maltese authorities, according to the captain of the Tremar, Amer Abdelrazek.

    A former Maltese official, Neville Gafa, said he was enlisted by the government that same night to use his connections in Libya to ensure the safe passage of the first two boats to Libya.

    The boats did not submit paperwork to the immigration police, and switched off their satellite tracking devices soon after leaving port, maritime databases show.

    But their mission had already been determined, said Mr. Gafa, who said he had been asked by the Maltese prime minister’s chief of staff, Clyde Caruana, to help coordinate the operation. Mr. Caruana did not respond to requests for comment, but a government spokesman told The Times of Malta that Mr. Gafa had been asked to liaise with Libya on a separate matter that was unconnected to the episode.

    The trawlers were sent to intercept a migrant vessel attempting to reach Malta from Libya — and which had been issuing mayday calls for some 48 hours — and then return its passengers to Libya, Mr. Gafa said.

    The stricken migrant vessel was still in international waters, according to coordinates provided by the migrants by satellite phone to Alarm Phone, an independent hotline for shipwrecked refugees. But it had reached the area of jurisdiction of Malta’s armed forces, making it Malta’s responsibility under international maritime law to rescue its passengers and provide them with sanctuary.

    Two of the trawlers — the Dar Al Salam 1 and the Tremar — reached the migrant vessel early on April 14, guided by a Maltese military helicopter, Mr. Abdelrazek said. Several of the migrants had already drowned, according to testimony later gathered by Alarm Phone.

    The roughly 50 survivors were taken aboard the Dar Al Salam 1, Mr. Abdelrazek said.

    The Dar Al Salam 1 and the Salve Regina sailed to Tripoli on April 15, the former carrying the migrants and the latter carrying several tons of food and water, as a show of appreciation to the Libyan government, Mr. Abdelrazek and Mr. Gafa said. The Tremar waited in international waters, Mr. Abdelrazek said.

    The Maltese authorities told their Libyan counterparts that the Dar Al Salam 1 was in fact a Maltese vessel called the Maria Cristina, said Commodore Masoud Abdalsamad, who oversees international operations at the Libyan Coast Guard. To further obscure its identity, the boat’s crew had also painted over the ship’s name and flew a Maltese flag to confuse the Libyan Coast Guard.

    Though based physically in Malta and owned by a Maltese shipowner, the vessel is legally registered in Tobruk, a port in east Libya controlled by opponents of the authorities in Tripoli. The crew did not want to risk upsetting the Tripoli government by broadcasting its links to Tobruk, leading it to hide its name and home port, Mr. Abdelrazek said.

    After disembarking, the migrants were taken to a notorious detention center run by a pro-government militia, where migrants are routinely tortured, held for ransom or sold to other militias. The detention cells stand close to an arms depot, and the surrounding area was hit by shelling in December.

    Conditions at the detention center are “utterly appalling,” said Safa Msehli, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration, an arm of the United Nations. “People are caged in overcrowded hangars with barely any access to food or sanitation facilities.”

    “Many tell us of the abuse they endure and the inhumane ways in which they are exploited,’’ Ms. Msehli added. ‘‘Reports of migrants being used to load weapons, and the detention center’s proximity to a military facility, raise serious concerns over the safety of people detained there arbitrarily.”

    After departing Tripoli, the Dar Al Salam 1 turned its satellite identification system back on, and the boat resurfaced off the coast of Libya on the evening of April 15, data provided by Marine Traffic, a maritime database, shows.

    The owner of the Salve Regina, Dominic Tanti, declined to comment through an intermediary, and the owner of the Tremar, Yasser Aziz, did not return a message seeking comment.

    The owner of the Dar Al Salam 1, Carmelo Grech, did not to respond to multiple requests for comment sent by text, voice message and a letter hand-delivered to his apartment. But he has confirmed his boat’s involvement to a Maltese newspaper, and several outlets have already highlighted its role, including the Italian newspaper, Avvenire, and the Maltese blogger Manuel Delia.

    Mr. Grech and his boat have colorful histories, raising questions in Malta about why the government involved them in a state-led operation.

    Mr. Grech has previously recounted how he used the boat, then known as the Mae Yemanja, to bring supplies to Libyan rebels during the Libyan revolution in 2011. In 2012, court records show it was impounded after Mr. Grech was accused, though later acquitted, of smuggling contraband cigarettes from Libya to Malta.

    In 2015, Mr. Grech was detained by a Libyan faction for several days for what he later described as a misunderstanding over his visas.

    Maltese ship records obtained by The Times show that Mr. Grech canceled his boat’s registration in Malta last February, before repainting it to show it had been re-registered in Tobruk, for undisclosed reasons.

    Mr. Abdelrazek also has a criminal history, having been convicted in 2014 of forging documents, court records show.

    After appearing briefly in Malta last week, the Dar Al Salam 1 and the Salve Regina returned again to sea on Sunday.

    Their satellite trackers were once again switched off shortly afterward.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/world/europe/migrants-malta.html
    #privatisation #asile #migrations #réfugiés #frontières #contrôles_frontaliers #Malte #Méditerranée #push-backs #refoulement #refoulements #Libye

    –—

    Commentaire de @isskein via la mailing-list Migreurop :

    Depuis avril fonctionne une méthode pro-active : une #flotte_privée de 3 bateaux qui se chargent d’arrêter les bateaux de migrants et de les renvoyer vers la Libye.

    Un ancien officiel maltais, #Neville_Gafà, a été engagé par le Premier Ministre pour monter l’affaire avec ses contacts libyens

    il est entre autres responsable de la #tragédie_de_Pâques : le gouvernement a ignoré durant 48h un bateau qui se trouvait dans sles eaux internationales (mais dans la juridiction des Forces armées maltaises) , puis envoyé sa flotte privée, qui a pris à son bord 51 migrants dont 8 femmes et 3 enfants, à bord 5 cadavres ; 7 migrants s’étaient noyés auparavant. Ils ont été ramenés à Tripolii
    voir https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/the-faces-and-names-of-a-migration-tragedy.788723

    #mourir_en_mer #morts #décès

    –---
    Dans le mail reçu via la mailing-list Migreurop, Conni parle de #hotspot_mobile :

    Yesterday we got news from the Maltese media about a new strategy of the authorities to keep rescued migrants out: a floating hotspot on a cruise ship off their coast:
    https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/102051/rescued_migrants_to_be_kept_on_captain_morgan_vessel_outside_territor

    https://www.tvm.com.mt/en/news/rescued-migrants-will-remain-on-vessel-13-miles-outside-maltese-territorial-

    via @isskein

    • Rappel de Sara Prestianni sur l’utilisation des #hotspots_mobiles en #Italie (via mailing-list Migreurop, 01.05.2020) :

      The “hotspot boat” is the same system , used by Italy from April 17 , only for migrants have been intercepted by ships flying foreign flags, as decided in the inter-ministerial decree of 7 April.
      On board of the ship “hotspot” Rubattino - positioned in front of Palermo - there are at this moment almost 200 migrants, of the two rescues carried out by the ships Alan Kurdi and Aita Mari. All of them were negative to the Covid test, but it is not clear how long they will have to stay on the ship and where they will be transferred (at the beginning of the procedure there was talk of a relocation to Germany).
      Yesterday the Guarantor for the Rights of Italian Prisoners, in his bulletin, expressed concern about the establishment of these “floating” hotspots.
      http://www.garantenazionaleprivatiliberta.it/gnpl

      “The implementation of quarantine measures in extraordinary and exceptional places cannot lead to a situation of ’limbo’: migrant people are under the jurisdiction of the Italian State for the purposes of the health measures imposed on them, but at the same time they do not have the possibility - and for a period of time not indifferent - to exercise the rights that our country recognizes and protects. They cannot apply for asylum, they are not de facto - and at least temporarily - protected as victims of trafficking or unaccompanied foreign minors, nor can they have timely access to procedures for family reunification under the Dublin Regulation. - procedures which, moreover, have their own intrinsic deadlines.”
      The Guarantor also indicated that the experience of the ship “Rubattino” would not seem to remain an isolated case as the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport launched on 19 April a procedure for the chartering of vessels to be used for the assistance and health surveillance of migrants rescued at sea or arrived on the national territory as a result of autonomous boats.

      –---

      –-> sur les hotspots mobiles, voir aussi : https://seenthis.net/tag/hotspot_mobile

    • Abela admits coordinating private boats that returned migrants to Libya

      PM says Easter manoeuvre was a ’rescue’ not a pushback.

      Prime Minister Robert Abela has admitted commissioning a boat that returned migrants to war-torn Libya on Easter weekend but has insisted it was a rescue mission and not a pushback.

      A boat commissioned by Maltese authorities picked up a group of migrants in the search and rescue area earlier this month and returned them to the North African country.

      It is a crime under international law for states to return asylum seekers to a country where they are likely to face persecution.

      Speaking publicly about the controversy for the first time on Friday, Abela admitted the manoeuvre and defended the government’s actions.

      "There was no pushback,"he said.

      "There was a rescue of migrants. Had the Maltese government not coordinated, tens of lives would have died, because a [EU coastguard] Frontex plane just flew overhead and kept on going.

      “Malta’s ports are closed but it coordinated this rescue and ensured that the irregular migrants were taken to the port that was open.”

      The country, along with Italy, closed its ports, citing concerns about the spread of coronavirus.

      Former OPM official Neville Gafa claimed under oath this week that he had coordinated the pushback.

      Asked Gafa’s involvement, Abela said his only involvement was liaising with a contact he was claiming to have in Libya so that the rescue could be facilitated. He said Gafa was not paid or promised anything.

      Abela defended using a private boat, saying that a Search and Rescue convention stipulates the legal obligations of individual states that are not obliged to carry out the actual rescues but to coordinate such rescues.

      The obligations also state that countries can use their own assets or else send private assets to rescue boats in distress, he said.

      This week, Malta has commissioned a Captain Morgan tourist boat Europa II, to house migrants until a solution for their disembarkation is found.

      “We are ready to do anything to save lives. We have nothing to be ashamed of,” Abela said, adding that the cost for the Captain Morgan boat being used to temporarily house migrants outside Maltese waters will come from aid by the EU.

      “Malta’s position is clear and we know what our obligations are. We are going to remain firm on this. We are not a safe port and we cannot guarantee our resources for rescues.

      "We are duty bound to stick to this position. It is counterproductive to close port and airports to tourists but then open ports for irregular migrants. There are hundreds of thousands of people on the Libyan coast wanting to leave there and come to Lampedusa and Malta. We are obeying international rules,” he insisted.

      He said the migration problem should not be “Malta’s alone” and called for the EU to intervene.

      Earlier on Friday, Foreign Minister Evarist Bartolo told Times of Malta that “the EU was responsible for a huge push back of migrants to Malta”.

      He said its failure to set up an effective and fair solidarity mechanism to share the burden of welcoming irregular migrants means that Malta had borne a huge burden over the years.

      He quoted a letter from a United Nations official to him in which he admitted that Europe needed to adopt a more principled migration policy that will serve European needs, that does not penalise those seeking to cross, and that does not leave countries like Malta, which are trying to do the right thing, on their own.

      “If we continue to fail, more people, Libyans and non-Libyans, will be compelled to seek safety on the European side” because of the ongoing war and the economic consequences of Covid-19.

      Bartolo said that in the first three months of the year, 3,600 irregular migrants left the Libyan coast through the Central Mediterranean route. This is over 400 per cent more than in the same period in 2019. Some 1,200 came to Malta.

      He said Malta’s centres were “overflowing” and there is no room for more migrants.

      https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/abela-admits-coordinating-private-boats-that-returned-migrants-to.7893

    • Malte a affrété des navires privés pour renvoyer les embarcations de migrants vers la Libye

      Une enquête du New York Times révèle que les autorités maltaises ont affrété, depuis le mois d’avril, une flotte de navires privés afin d’empêcher les migrants d ’atteindre l’île et les renvoyer en Libye. Selon plusieurs experts, cette action est illégale.

      En pleine pandémie de coronavirus, Malte fait tout pour empêcher les embarcations de migrants d’atteindre l’île. A tel point que le gouvernement a discrètement dépêché en avril une flotte de navires marchands privés pour intercepter les migrants et les renvoyer en Libye, a révélé une enquête du New York Times publiée jeudi 30 avril.

      Selon le quotidien américain - qui s’appuie sur les témoignages d’un capitaine de l’un de ces bateaux, commandant en chef des garde-côtes libyens, et d’un ancien responsable maltais impliqué dans l’opération - les trois chalutiers de pêche affrétés appartiennent à des particuliers mais ont agi sur les instructions des forces armées maltaises.
      Une opération sur ordre du Premier ministre maltais

      L’opération a été documentée pour la première fois dans la soirée du 12 avril, écrit le New York Times, quand trois chalutiers ont quitté le port de la Valette, la capitale maltaise, sur ordre des autorités. Un ancien responsable maltais, Neville Gafa, a déclaré qu’il avait été enrôlé par le gouvernement le soir même pour utiliser ses relations en Libye et assurer le passage en toute sécurité des deux premiers chalutiers vers les ports libyens.

      Le Dar As Salam 1 et le Tremar, ont ainsi été envoyés pour intercepter une embarcation de migrants présente dans les eaux maltaises - qui avait émis des appels de détresse depuis deux jours - afin de les renvoyer en Libye, a précisé Neville Gafa. A bord du canot, se trouvait cinq cadavres.

      Le 15 avril, l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM) avait pourtant affirmé que les migrants avaient été interceptés par un navire marchand puis remis à des garde-côtes qui les avaient alors amenés au port de Tripoli.

      Le troisième chalutier, le Salve Regina, a quant à lui navigué vers Tripoli le 15 avril, transportant plusieurs tonnes de nourriture et d’eau, en guise de remerciement au gouvernement libyen, assure au quotidien américain le capitaine du Tremar, Amer Abdelrazek.

      Devant la justice maltaise, à la suite de la plainte lancée par plusieurs ONG contre le Premier ministre sur sa responsabilité dans la mort des cinq migrants, Neville Gafa a déclaré sous serment qu’il avait agi sur ordre du cabinet du Premier ministre.

      Une opération illégale

      « Dans une tendance à l’augmentation des abus contre les demandeurs d’asile ces dernières années, cette nouvelle approche se démarque », déclare au New York Times Itamar Mann, expert en droit maritime et des réfugiés à l’université de Haïfa, en Israël. « Ces méthodes ressemblent de façon effrayante au crime organisé, aux opérations de passeurs, que les décideurs européens dénoncent avec tant de fermeté », continue le chercheur pour qui cette opération est illégale eu égard au droit international.

      En effet, comme écrit le quotidien américain, une flotte de navires privées, basée dans un port européen, qui intercepte et expulse des demandeurs d’asile des eaux internationales relèvent de la responsabilité des garde-côtes européens.

      Cette opération « pourrait mettre les fonctionnaires de l’Etat maltais en danger de responsabilité pénale, dans le pays ou à l’étranger », signale encore Itamar Mann.

      https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/24485/malte-a-affrete-des-navires-prives-pour-renvoyer-les-embarcations-de-m

    • Malta-Libya #deal sets up centres ’against illegal migration’

      Coastguard, UN centres, EU help among items discussed

      Malta and Libya will be setting up units to coordinate operations against illegal migration, the government said on Thursday.

      These centres are expected to start operating within the coming weeks, however, the government provided no additional information.

      The announcement followed an unannounced trip by Prime Minister Robert Abela, Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri and Foreign Affairs Minister Evarist Bartolo to Tripoli, where they discussed migration with the Libyan government.

      The three met Fayez al-Sarraj who heads the UN-backed Government of National Accord as well as Mohammed Sheibani, deputy minister responsible for migration at the meeting in Tripoli.

      It was Abela’s first trip to war-torn Libya as prime minister.

      Sources said the meeting was held on the back of a new wave of Malta-Libya relations, and a change in approach.

      Discussions revolved around the need to push the EU to help Libya to train its coastguard, obtain funding for reception camps manned by the UN, as well as to build a realistic strategy to slow down the flow of migrants into Libya.

      “It was a positive meeting, though of course that doesn’t mean we’ve resolved the migration issue,” a source told Times of Malta.

      “Malta could be Libya’s bridge to the EU. We need to stop human trafficking as well as save lives at sea,” the source said.

      Valletta, diplomatic sources say, has been trying to build new bridges with the Libyan authorities to stem the tide of migrants leaving the North African coast.
      800,000 migrants in Libya

      In a statement issued later on Thursday, the government said that during the meeting Abela reiterated Malta’s position on the need to address and stop human trafficking. Malta, he added, was facing unprecedented and disproportionate flows and burdens.

      Meanwhile, al-Sarraj said that 800,000 migrants were currently in Libya and the country needed an effective long-term and holistic approach.

      Both leaders spoke about the need to strengthen cooperation to ensure that lives are not lost at sea and to combat human traffickers on the ground and at sea.

      According to Abela, the solution lies in concrete action on Libyan shores and its southern border. This would be done through addressing and stopping human trafficking, rather than focusing just on relocation of migrants to other countries.

      Signing a #memorandum_of_understanding, Malta and Libya agreed to set up a coordination unit in each country to assist in operations against illegal migration.

      The agreement also stipulates that Malta supports Libya when it comes to financial assistance through the upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework.

      https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/abela-ministers-return-from-libya-after-positive-migration-talks.79484

      #accord #centres

    • Mer méditerranée : Malte renforce sa coopération avec la Libye pour lutter contre « l’immigration illégale »

      Malte a signé un accord avec le gouvernement d’union nationale (GNA) libyen dans le but de renforcer « la lutte contre l’immigration illégale » en mer Méditerranée. Le texte prévoit la création de « centres de coordination » à Tripoli et La Valette qui seront opérationnels dès le mois de juillet.

      Malte tente par tous les moyens de limiter le flux de migrants qui débarquent sur ses côtes. Pour ce faire, les autorités maltaises et libyennes viennent d’acter la création de « centres de coordination » à Tripoli et à La Valette.

      Ces deux centres « offriront le soutien nécessaire à la lutte contre l’immigration illégale en Libye et dans la région méditerranéenne », selon un protocole d’accord entre Malte et le gouvernement d’union nationale (GNA) de Fayez al-Sarraj, et présenté au Parlement maltais mercredi 3 juin (https://www.independent.com.mt/file.aspx?f=206640).

      Financé par le gouvernement maltais, ces structures seront chacune dirigées par trois fonctionnaires et limiteront leur travail « au soutien et à la coordination », indique cet accord valable pour trois ans. Les centres devraient voir le jour dès le mois de juillet.
      « L’UE a la responsabilité de parvenir à un accord global avec la Libye »

      Malte, le plus petit État de l’Union européenne (UE), de par sa taille et sa population, se plaint depuis longtemps d’être obligé d’assumer à lui seul l’arrivée des migrants en provenance de la Libye, pays en guerre.

      Actuellement, plus de 400 migrants secourus en Méditerranée sont bloqués sur quatre navires touristiques affrétés par Malte juste à la limite de ses eaux territoriales, La Valette exigeant qu’ils soient ensuite pris en charge par d’autres pays européens.

      Le ministre maltais des Affaires étrangères, Evarist Bartolo, a déclaré au Parlement mercredi que « l’UE a la responsabilité de parvenir à un accord global avec la Libye afin de limiter l’immigration clandestine ».

      « Le nombre d’immigrants arrivant à Malte est disproportionné par rapport aux autres pays européens », a insisté le ministre. Selon lui, depuis 2005 l’Europe n’a accueilli que 1 700 migrants, tandis que 22 000 sont arrivés à Malte - seuls 8% des migrants en situation irrégulière sur l’île ont été relocalisés dans d’autres pays européens.

      Selon le protocole d’accord, Malte proposera à la Commission européenne une augmentation du soutien financier pour aider le GNA à sécuriser ses frontières sud et à démanteler les réseaux de trafiquants d’êtres humains.

      La Valette proposera également le financement de « moyens maritimes supplémentaires nécessaires » pour contrôler et intercepter les passeurs de migrants en Méditerranée.


      https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/25175/mer-mediterranee-malte-renforce-sa-cooperation-avec-la-libye-pour-lutt

    • Accordo Malta-Libia: insieme daranno la caccia ai migranti. Con i soldi Ue

      Centrali operative e pattugliamenti congiunti. Fonti Onu: è una regolazione dei respingimenti illegali. Intanto Frontex smentisce l’inchiesta di Malta sulla “#Strage_di_Pasquetta

      Dopo la scoperta degli accordi segreti con Tripoli, siglati tre anni fa, Malta ha deciso di uscire allo scoperto negoziando un memorandum siglato dal premier Robert Abela, fresco di archiviazione per le accuse di respingimento, e il presidente libico Fayez al Sarraj.

      I due Paesi daranno insieme la caccia ai migranti nel Mediterraneo, ma con nuovi fondi Ue da destinare a Tripoli.

      SCARICA QUI IL DOCUMENTO COMPLETO: https://www.avvenire.it/c/attualita/Documents/MOU%20with%20Libya.pdf

      E’ prevista la creazione di «centri di coordinamento» nel porto di Tripoli e a La Valletta che saranno operativi da luglio. In realtà le operazioni congiunte andavano avanti da anni, ma adesso sono state ufficializzate. Le strutture congiunte «forniranno il sostegno necessario alla lotta contro l’immigrazione clandestina in Libia e nella regione del Mediterraneo», si legge. Inizialmente Malta finanzierà interamente l’attivazione delle centrali operative, ognuna delle quali sarà guidata da tre funzionari dei rispettivi governi. Fin da subito, però, il premier Abela si impegna a ottenere dall’Ue fondi aggiuntivi da destinare alla cosiddetta Guardia costiera libica, che verrà ulteriormente equipaggiata.

      Nessuna menzione si fa riguardo alla necessità di ristabilire il rispetto dei diritti umani nei campi di prigionia libici. L’unico scopo, come del resto è sempre stato in questi anni anche per Italia e Ue, è quello di trattenere i profughi in cattività, a qualunque costo. «L’UE ha la responsabilità di raggiungere un accordo globale con la Libia», c’è scritto nell’accordo che, di fatto, appalta a Malta e Libia il controllo dell’intero Canale di Sicilia, ad esclusione delle ultime 12 miglia territoriali dalla costa di Lampedusa. Malta, lo stato più piccolo dell’Unione Europea (Ue) per dimensioni e popolazione, si è lamentato da tempo di essere costretto ad assumere da solo la responsabilità dell’arrivo dei migranti dalla Libia, un paese in guerra che secondo l’Onu in alcun modo può essere ritenuto un “porto sicuro”.

      Nelle settimane scorse una nuova serie di inchieste giornalistiche internazionali ha permesso di accertare che non solo Malta ha messo in mare da tempo una flottiglia di “pescherecci fantasma” incaricati di intercettare i barconi e ricondurli in Libia, ma che spesso le Forze armate dell’isola equipaggiano i gommoni, anche con motori nuovi, affinché raggiungano le coste siciliane.

      Nei giorni scorsi il Tribunale dell’isola aveva archiviato il procedimento contro il premier laburista Robert Abela e il capo delle forze armate, accusati della morte di 12 migranti nella “strage di Pasquetta”. Forte di questa “assoluzione”, Abela si è recato a Tripoli per sigillare l’intesa con il presidente al-Sarraj. Ma proprio uno dei punti chiave utilizzati dal giudice Joe Mifsud per cestinare le accuse, ieri è stato categoricamente smentito dall’agenzia Ue Frontex che ha risposto per iscritto alle domande di Avvenire. Secondo il magistrato, infatti, il coordinamento dei soccorsi in qualche misura era attribuibile non a Malta ma a Frontex che aveva individuato con un suo aereo i barconi. Da Varsavia, rispondendo con una nota ad “Avvenire”, l’agenzia ha precisato che “è il centro di salvataggio appropriato, non Frontex, a decidere se chiedere assistenza a qualsiasi nave della zona. E Frontex non aveva navi vicino a quest’area”. La responsabilità di intervenire, dunque, era di innanzitutto di Malta che invece per giorni ha ignorato gli Sos e ha poi inviato un motopesca quando oramai 7 persone erano affogate e altre 5 sono morte di stenti durante il respingimento dalle acque maltesi verso la Libia.

      Nel fine settimana di Pasqua l’aeroobile Eagle 1, tracciato e segnalato dal giornalista Sergio Scandura di Radio Radicale “stava svolgendo - spiegano da Frontex - una missione di sorveglianza ben al di fuori dell’area operativa dell’Operazione Themis di Frontex”. Nella nota un portavoce dell’agenzia Ue precisa poi che “Frontex gestisce operazioni congiunte, nonché la sorveglianza pre-frontaliera, che veniva eseguita dall’aereo in questione”. Secondo questa ricostruzione, che avrebbe meritato maggiore puntiglio investigativo anche per accertare eventuali responsabilità esterne a Malta, “in linea con il diritto internazionale, Frontex ha avvisato i centri di soccorso competenti dell’avvistamento di una nave che riteneva necessitasse di assistenza”, si legge ancora. Parole che hanno un significato preciso e costituiscono un’accusa verso chi era stato informato e doveva prestare quell’assistenza negata per giorni. Le autorità italiane hanno apposto il segreto alle comunicazioni intercorse. Silenzio che potrebbe essere presto scardinato da indagini giudiziarie. Lo stesso per Malta, che neanche nell’atto conclusivo dell’inchiesta ha voluto rendere pubbliche le comunicazioni con Roma e con Frontex che a sua volta ribadisce ad Avvenire che “è il centro di salvataggio appropriato, non Frontex, a decidere se chiedere assistenza a qualsiasi nave della zona. Tuttavia, desidero sottolineare qui che Frontex non aveva navi vicino a quest’area”.

      Il memorandum sta creando non poco dibattito nei vertici della Marina militare italiana. A Tripoli, infatti, si trova la nave Gorgona, ufficialmente incaricata di assistere la cosiddetta guardia costiera libica per conto di Roma. E certo i marinai italiani non vogliono finire a fare gli addetti alla manutenzione delle motovedette donate dall’Italia ma che tra pochi giorni si coordineranno con Malta. «Mentre l’obiettivo dichiarato nell’accordo vi è il benessere del popolo libico e di quello maltese, il benessere delle principali vittime, cioè migranti, richiedenti asilo e rifugiati, non viene mai menzionato», ha commentato sul portale cattolico Newsbook il giudice maltese Giovanni Bonelli, già membro della Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo. «Si potrebbe pensare - aggiunge - che questo memorandum si riferisca all’estrazione di minerali, non a degli esseri umani».Fonti delle Nazioni Unite contattate da “Avvenire” hanno reagito a caldo considerando l’intesa come una «regolamentazione di fatto dei respingimenti illegali».

      Negli anni scorsi più volte Avvenire ha documentato, anche con registrazioni audio, il collegamento diretto tra la Marina italiana e la Guardia costiera libica. Ma ora Malta si spinge oltre, ufficializzando una alleanza operativa che inoltre rischierà di causare conflitti con l’operazione navale europea Irini a guida italiana. Fonti delle Nazioni Unite contattate da Avvenire hanno reagito a caldo considerando l’intesa come una “regolamentazione di fatto dei respingimenti illegali”.

      https://www.avvenire.it/attualita/pagine/accordo-malta-libia-respingimento-migranti

    • Malta: Illegal tactics mar another year of suffering in central Mediterranean

      The Maltese government has resorted to dangerous and illegal measures for dealing with the arrivals of refugees and migrants at sea, which are exposing countless people to appalling suffering and risking their lives, Amnesty International revealed today in a report “Waves of impunity: Malta’s violations of the rights of refugees and migrants in the Central Mediterranean”. As Amnesty is launching this new report, despair is growing aboard the Maersk Etienne, which has been denied a port to disembark for over a month, after rescuing 27 people on a request from Maltese authorities

      The Maltese government’s change in approach to arrivals in the central Mediterranean in 2020 has seen them take unlawful, and sometimes unprecedented, measures to avoid assisting refugees and migrants. This escalation of tactics included arranging unlawful pushbacks to Libya, diverting boats towards Italy rather than rescuing people in distress, illegally detaining hundreds of people on ill-equipped ferries off Malta’s waters, and signing a new agreement with Libya to prevent people from reaching Malta.

      “Malta is stooping to ever more despicable and illegal tactics to shirk their responsibilities to people in need. Shamefully, the EU and Italy have normalized cooperation with Libya on border control, but sending people back to danger in Libya is anything but normal,” said Elisa De Pieri, Regional Researcher at Amnesty International.

      “EU member states must stop assisting in the return of people to a country where they face unspeakable horrors.”

      Some of the actions taken by the Maltese authorities may have involved criminal acts being committed, resulting in avoidable deaths, prolonged arbitrary detention, and illegal returns to war-torn Libya. The authorities also used the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to declare that Malta was not a safe place to disembark – to discourage people from seeking safety and a decent life in Europe.

      The abusive practices by Malta are part and parcel of wider efforts by EU member states and institutions to outsource the control of the central Mediterranean to Libya, in order that EU-supported Libyan authorities might intercept refugees and migrants at sea before they reach Europe.

      People are then returned to Libya and arbitrarily detained in places where torture and other ill-treatment is highly likely. From the beginning of January to 27 August 2020 7,256 people were ‘pulled back’ to Libya by the EU-supported Libyan Coast Guard, which was often alerted of the presence of boats at sea by airplanes engaged in Frontex and other EU operations.

      The Easter Monday pushback

      The case of the “Easter Monday pushback” illustrates the desperate lengths to which the Maltese authorities are willing to go to prevent people arriving on their shores.

      On 15 April 2020, a group of 51 people, including seven women and three children, were unlawfully returned to Tripoli after being rescued in Malta’s search and rescue region by the commercial fishing boat Dar Al Salam 1.

      The boat, which had been contracted by the Maltese government, took those onboard back to Libya and handed them over to the Libyan authorities, exposing refugees and migrants – who had just survived a deadly shipwreck – to further risks to their life.

      Five people were dead when the vessel reached Libya, and the survivors reported that a further seven people were missing at sea. Survivors reported that those on board were not given medical assistance. In an official statement the Maltese authorities confirmed they had coordinated the operation.

      Lack of accountability in Malta

      While a magisterial inquiry into the case was conducted, it left many questions unanswered. It is still unknown how the 12 people died and how 51 were returned to Libya despite it being illegal to transfer people there. The magistrate conducting the inquiry did not hear the testimonies of the 51 people transferred to Libya, nor probe the chain of responsibility to contract the Dar El Salam 1 and instruct it to transfer people to Libya.

      The NGO Alarm Phone has evidence that other pushbacks by Maltese authorities may also have occurred in 2019 and 2020, which have not been investigated.

      EU and Italian cooperation with Libya

      Italy in particular has worked closely with Libya, having provided support to Libyan maritime authorities by providing vessels, training and assistance in the establishment of a Libyan SAR region to facilitate pullbacks by the Libyan coastguard.

      Despite intensifying conflict and the arrival of COVID-19 threatening the humanitarian situation of refugees and migrants in Libya, Italy has continued to implement policies to keep people in Libya. These include extending its Memorandum of Understanding on Migration with Libya aimed at boosting Libyan authorities’ resources to prevent departures, for another three years, extending its military operations in the region focusing on supporting Libya’s maritime authorities, and maintaining legislation and practices aimed at the criminalization of NGOs rescuing people in the central Mediterranean.

      The central Mediterranean is the latest border on which Amnesty International is highlighting abuses by EU member states authorities. In 2020, Amnesty International has also documented abuses on the borders between Croatia and Bosnia, and Greece and Turkey. The EU urgently needs an independent and effective human rights monitoring system at its external borders to ensure accountability for violations and abuses.

      “The European Commission must turn the page when they launch the New Pact on Migration and Asylum after the summer and ensure European border control and European migration policies uphold the rights of refugees and migrants,” said Elisa De Pieri.

      “The horrors faced by people returned to Libya must caution European leaders against cooperating with countries which don’t respect human rights. By continuing to empower abusers and to hide their heads in the sand when violations are committed, those EU leaders share responsibility for them.”

      https://www.amnesty.eu/news/malta-illegal-tactics-mar-another-year-of-suffering-in-central-mediterranean/#:~:text=The%20Maltese%20government%20has%20resorted,Malta's%20violations%20

    • Irlande du Nord : les accords de paix d’avril 1998
      https://journal.lutte-ouvriere.org/2023/04/12/irlande-du-nord-les-accords-de-paix-davril-1998_609602.html

      L’accord fut signé au terme de trente ans d’une guerre, appelée par euphémisme « Troubles », qui ravagea l’Irlande du Nord de 1968 à 1998. Aux origines du conflit se trouvait la volonté de la puissance coloniale britannique, au lendemain de la Première Guerre mondiale, de garder la main sur une partie de cette Irlande insurgée. En effet, pour mettre fin au soulèvement armé des nationalistes irlandais (1919-1921), les dirigeants de ce qui était alors le plus grand empire colonial au monde avaient scindé l’île en deux, concédant l’#indépendance à la plus grande part du territoire mais gardant le nord-est, plus industriel et plus riche que le reste de l’île. Londres pouvait garder sous tutelle cette « Irlande du Nord » grâce à une majorité protestante unioniste, c’est-à-dire favorable à l’union avec la Grande-Bretagne, contre les aspirations des nationalistes, largement majoritaires dans l’île mais en minorité au nord-est.

      À la fin des années 1960, une part croissante de la classe ouvrière catholique d’Irlande du Nord n’acceptait plus la pauvreté, le chômage, les inégalités criantes et les discriminations dont elle faisait l’objet. Les protestations, d’abord pacifiques au sein d’un mouvement pour les droits civiques et le droit au logement, furent brutalement réprimées par la police, puis par l’armée britannique d’occupation, comme lors du « #Bloody_Sunday », le « dimanche sanglant », de 1972. L’#État\britannique était ainsi responsable de l’escalade violente qui s’engageait. Parmi les unionistes, des milices se constituaient, suppléant les forces britanniques et ciblant souvent des catholiques de façon aveugle. Du côté des nationalistes, les organisations paramilitaires comme l’IRA s’érigeaient en bras armé des catholiques, frappant l’armée, les paramilitaires unionistes, ainsi que de nombreux civils lors d’attentats dans des centres commerciaux, des centres-villes, etc. Les Troubles allaient faire quelque 3 500 morts et 38 000 blessés, un bilan considérable à l’échelle d’une province de 1,5 million d’habitants. Aujourd’hui encore, de nombreuses familles gardent des séquelles de cette guerre. Et c’est d’abord au sein de la population que l’aspiration à la cessation des violences s’est exprimée.

      En 1998, l’accord de paix fut négocié sous la houlette du Premier ministre britannique #Tony Blair et, derrière lui, des États-Unis. Il était censé mettre un terme aux trente années de guerre civile. Pour cela, les dirigeants britanniques ont confié des prérogatives aux différents protagonistes du conflit. Les anciens paramilitaires ont enfilé le costume et obtenu des postes de pouvoir. Les partis nationalistes et unionistes ont obtenu un droit de veto dans les institutions locales, par conséquent souvent paralysées, comme c’est le cas aujourd’hui où le principal parti unioniste (#DUP) refuse de reconnaître sa défaite aux dernières élections. L’accord de 1998 prévoyait également l’ouverture de la frontière avec la #République_d’Irlande, une ouverture dont les unionistes se sont accommodés… jusqu’au #Brexit, qui s’est traduit, à leur grand dam, par la mise en place d’une frontière douanière entre l’Irlande du Nord et la Grande-Bretagne.

      L’#accord_de_1998 a figé les Nord-Irlandais dans deux « communautés » confessionnelles, #protestants et #catholiques, en créant des institutions partagées où leurs partis respectifs, unionistes et nationalistes, doivent siéger ensemble. Le poids de ces partis ainsi que celui des Églises font que la plupart des écoles restent ségréguées et que, encore aujourd’hui, des dizaines de « #murs_de_la_paix » séparent quartiers catholiques et protestants. La politique coloniale de « diviser pour régner » a éloigné ainsi les travailleurs les uns des autres pendant longtemps, mais n’a pas pu les empêcher d’entretenir d’innombrables liens de solidarité. Une partie des #Nord-Irlandais, qui côtoient dans leurs relations de travail, amicales voire familiales, des membres de « l’autre » #communauté, refusent désormais de s’inscrire dans ce #clivage_confessionnel gravé dans le marbre par les accords de 1998.

      Si la fin des affrontements a fait le bonheur des capitalistes qui font des affaires en Irlande du Nord, elle n’a mis fin ni aux inégalités, ni à la pauvreté, aujourd’hui plus importante qu’en #Grande-Bretagne. Le NHS, le système national de santé, est dans un état catastrophique dans la province d’Irlande du Nord où, par exemple, 6 000 patients attendent une opération depuis plus de cinq ans.

      Il y a donc quelque chose d’indécent à voir les dirigeants du monde impérialiste célébrer aujourd’hui l’accord sordide qu’ils négocièrent pour mettre fin à une guerre civile dont ils étaient largement responsables.

  • Opinion | Médecins pour la bonne conscience ?
    https://asile.ch/2019/12/06/opinion-medecins-pour-la-bonne-conscience

    Mandats fédéraux aux entreprises privées Les médecins ont été utilisés, de longue date, par les pouvoirs politiques pour vernir de blanc certaines pratiques assez sombres. Même les régimes totalitaires du 20e siècle ont eu besoin d’eux pour leur bonne conscience. Les dirigeants soviétiques, par exemple, utilisaient des psychiatres pour déclarer « fous » les opposants […]

    • On mentionne ici #Joseph_Ndukaku_Chiakwa alias #Alex_Khamma sur un vol spécial

      Depuis le décès d’un Nigérian, survenu le 17 mars 2010, juste avant l’embarquement dans un de ces vols, des médecins sont requis pour déclarer « Fit to fly » les personnes ainsi renvoyées et sont mandatés pour accompagner ces vols. On les a vus prêts à injecter des sédatifs¹ lorsque menottes et baillons ne suffisaient plus…

      #caricature #dessin_de_presse
      #fit_to_fly
      #asile #migrations #réfugiés #vols #avion #médecins #privatisation #expulsions #Suisse #médecine

    • Mandats privés | Médecins aux ordres du #SEM

      Dans le domaine médical et a fortiori lorsqu’il s’agit de renvois, la tension entre devoir de réserve et déontologie est à son comble. La société médicale #OSEARA vient de voir son mandat prolongé dans de drôles de circonstances. Ceci, alors qu’elle a été dénoncée pour son manque d’indépendance à l’égard du SEM, pour avoir par le passé administré des psychotropes prohibés lors de vols spéciaux et plus récemment pour avoir avalisé des expulsions hautement problématiques(1). Alertée par les pratiques de l’entreprise, un groupe de médecins indépendants appelle à documenter tout manquement lors de renvois.

      Le 9 juillet 2020, le SEM annonçait avoir interrompu la procédure d’adjudication du mandat de #prestations_médicales lancée en avril 2020 et avoir prolongé le contrat de l’entreprise OSEARA, qui assure cette prestation depuis 2012(2). Motif : les cinq propositions reçues en réponse à l’appel d’offres étaient trop chères.

      Suite aux critiques concernant la qualification des #médecins d’OSEARA de nouvelles règles avaient été édictées dans le cadre de l’appel d’offres, notamment l’obligation d’engager uniquement des #médecins_secouristes. Il avait également été décidé de séparer les mandats en deux lots et de les confier à deux entités séparées : l’une pour établir l’aptitude au renvoi des personnes, l’autre pour l’#accompagnement_médical durant les vols.

      De graves négligences(3) lors de renvois avaient également mis en lumière un conflit d’intérêts : OSEARA avait en effet une incitation à déclarer les personnes aptes à être renvoyées (« fit to fly ») dans la mesure où elle était ensuite rémunérée pour l’accompagnement médical du vol. Autre problème éthique, dénoncé par le Tages-Anzeiger(4) suite à une bavure à Zurich : l’entreprise n’était rémunérée que si la personne était déclarée apte au renvoi. « Dans la plupart des cas, un médecin d’OSEARA certifie la transportabilité et un autre accompagne le vol spécial. L’entreprise gagne donc deux fois plus dans ces cas. Si une personne est jugée inapte au transport, elle ne gagne rien. Le pourcentage de ceux qui sont jugés inaptes à voler est très faible. […] ».

      L’annonce de cette scission des mandats et le fait qu’OSEARA ne soit pas certifiée pour les services de secours(5) – l’excluant de fait d’un des mandats – ont eu un impact immédiat : le président du conseil d’administration d’OSEARA a annoncé sa démission de cette fonction en avril. Il estimait en outre « peu probable » que l’entreprise postule pour assumer uniquement l’un des mandats. Derrière le peu probable, on comprend peu rentable.

      Trois mois plus tard, c’est donc un rétropédalage total. Le SEM indique qu’« en fin de compte, [la scission] ne sera pas mis[e] en oeuvre car les avantages qu’[elle] présente ne suffisent pas à justifier le surcoût qu’il engendre. Le respect des normes médicales est également assuré dans le cadre des prescriptions du contrat en cours. » Peut-on les croire sur parole ?

      https://asile.ch/2020/12/23/dossier-privatisation-de-lasile-oseara-le-e-meilleur-rapport-qualite-prix-vrai

  • The business of building walls

    Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe is once again known for its border walls. This time Europe is divided not so much by ideology as by perceived fear of refugees and migrants, some of the world’s most vulnerable people.

    Who killed the dream of a more open Europe? What gave rise to this new era of walls? There are clearly many reasons – the increasing displacement of people by conflict, repression and impoverishment, the rise of security politics in the wake of 9/11, the economic and social insecurity felt across Europe after the 2008 financial crisis – to name a few. But one group has by far the most to gain from the rise of new walls – the businesses that build them. Their influence in shaping a world of walls needs much deeper examination.

    This report explores the business of building walls, which has both fuelled and benefited from a massive expansion of public spending on border security by the European Union (EU) and its member states. Some of the corporate beneficiaries are also global players, tapping into a global market for border security estimated to be worth approximately €17.5 billion in 2018, with annual growth of at least 8% expected in coming years.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAuv1QyP8l0&feature=emb_logo

    It is important to look both beyond and behind Europe’s walls and fencing, because the real barriers to contemporary migration are not so much the fencing, but the vast array of technology that underpins it, from the radar systems to the drones to the surveillance cameras to the biometric fingerprinting systems. Similarly, some of Europe’s most dangerous walls are not even physical or on land. The ships, aircrafts and drones used to patrol the Mediterranean have created a maritime wall and a graveyard for the thousands of migrants and refugees who have no legal passage to safety or to exercise their right to seek asylum.

    This renders meaningless the European Commission’s publicized statements that it does not fund walls and fences. Commission spokesperson Alexander Winterstein, for example, rejecting Hungary’s request to reimburse half the costs of the fences built on its borders with Croatia and Serbia, said: ‘We do support border management measures at external borders. These can be surveillance measures. They can be border control equipment...But fences, we do not finance’. In other words, the Commission is willing to pay for anything that fortifies a border as long as it is not seen to be building the walls themselves.

    This report is a sequel to Building Walls – Fear and securitization in the European Union, co-published in 2018 with Centre Delàs and Stop Wapenhandel, which first measured and identified the walls that criss-cross Europe. This new report focuses on the businesses that have profited from three different kinds of wall in Europe:

    The construction companies contracted to build the land walls built by EU member states and the Schengen Area together with the security and technology companies that provide the necessary accompanying technology, equipment and services;

    The shipping and arms companies that provide the ships, aircraft, helicopters, drones that underpin Europe’s maritime walls seeking to control migratory flows in the Mediterranean, including Frontex operations, Operation Sophia and Italian operation Mare Nostrum;
    And the IT and security companies contracted to develop, run, expand and maintain EU’s systems that monitor the movement of people – such as SIS II (Schengen Information System) and EES (Entry/Exit Scheme) – which underpin Europe’s virtual walls.

    Booming budgets

    The flow of money from taxpayers to wall-builders has been highly lucrative and constantly growing. The report finds that companies have reaped the profits from at least €900 million spent by EU countries on land walls and fences since the end of the Cold War. The partial data (in scope and years) means actual costs will be at least €1 billion. In addition, companies that provide technology and services that accompany walls have also benefited from some of the steady stream of funding from the EU – in particular the External Borders Fund (€1.7 billion, 2007-2013) and the Internal Security Fund – Borders Fund (€2.76 billion, 2014-2020).

    EU spending on maritime walls has totalled at least €676.4 million between 2006 to 2017 (including €534 million spent by Frontex, €28.4 million spent by the EU on Operation Sophia and €114 million spent by Italy on Operation Mare Nostrum) and would be much more if you include all the operations by Mediterranean country coastguards. Total spending on Europe’s virtual wall equalled at least €999.4m between 2000 and 2019. (All these estimates are partial ones because walls are funded by many different funding mechanisms and due to lack of data transparency).

    This boom in border budgets is set to grow. Under its budget for the next EU budget cycle (2021–2027) the European Commission has earmarked €8.02 billion to its Integrated Border Management Fund (2021-2027), €11.27bn to Frontex (of which €2.2 billion will be used for acquiring, maintaining and operating air, sea and land assets) and at least €1.9 billion total spending (2000-2027) on its identity databases and Eurosur (the European Border Surveillance System).
    The big arm industry players

    Three giant European military and security companies in particular play a critical role in Europe’s many types of borders. These are Thales, Leonardo and Airbus.

    Thales is a French arms and security company, with a significant presence in the Netherlands, that produces radar and sensor systems, used by many ships in border security. Thales systems, were used, for example, by Dutch and Portuguese ships deployed in Frontex operations. Thales also produces maritime surveillance systems for drones and is working on developing border surveillance infrastructure for Eurosur, researching how to track and control refugees before they reach Europe by using smartphone apps, as well as exploring the use of High Altitude Pseudo Satellites (HAPS) for border security, for the European Space Agency and Frontex. Thales currently provides the security system for the highly militarised port in Calais. Its acquisition in 2019 of Gemalto, a large (biometric) identity security company, makes it a significant player in the development and maintenance of EU’s virtual walls. It has participated in 27 EU research projects on border security.
    Italian arms company Leonardo (formerly Finmeccanica or Leonardo-Finmeccanica) is a leading supplier of helicopters for border security, used by Italy in the Mare Nostrum, Hera and Sophia operations. It has also been one of the main providers of UAVs (or drones) for Europe’s borders, awarded a €67.1 million contract in 2017 by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) to supply them for EU coast-guard agencies. Leonardo was also a member of a consortium, awarded €142.1 million in 2019 to implement and maintain EU’s virtual walls, namely its EES. It jointly owns Telespazio with Thales, involved in EU satellite observation projects (REACT and Copernicus) used for border surveillance. Leonardo has participated in 24 EU research projects on border security and control, including the development of Eurosur.
    Pan-European arms giant Airbus is a key supplier of helicopters used in patrolling maritime and some land borders, deployed by Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania and Spain, including in maritime Operations Sophia, Poseidon and Triton. Airbus and its subsidiaries have participated in at least 13 EU-funded border security research projects including OCEAN2020, PERSEUS and LOBOS.
    The significant role of these arms companies is not surprising. As Border Wars (2016), showed these companies through their membership of the lobby groups – European Organisation for Security (EOS) and the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD) – have played a significant role in influencing the direction of EU border policy. Perversely, these firms are also among the top four biggest European arms dealers to the Middle East and North Africa, thus contributing to the conflicts that cause forced migration.

    Indra has been another significant corporate player in border control in Spain and the Mediterranean. It won a series of contracts to fortify Ceuta and Melilla (Spanish enclaves in northern Morocco). Indra also developed the SIVE border control system (with radar, sensors and vision systems), which is in place on most of Spain’s borders, as well as in Portugal and Romania. In July 2018 it won a €10 million contract to manage SIVE at several locations for two years. Indra is very active in lobbying the EU and is a major beneficiary of EU research funding, coordinating the PERSEUS project to further develop Eurosur and the Seahorse Network, a network between police forces in Mediterranean countries (both in Europe and Africa) to stop migration.

    Israeli arms firms are also notable winners of EU border contracts. In 2018, Frontex selected the Heron drone from Israel Aerospace Industries for pilot-testing surveillance flights in the Mediterranean. In 2015, Israeli firm Elbit sold six of its Hermes UAVs to the Switzerland’s Border Guard, in a controversial €230 million deal. It has since signed a UAV contract with the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), as a subcontractor for the Portuguese company CEIIA (2018), as well as contracts to supply technology for three patrol vessels for the Hellenic Coast Guard (2019).
    Land wall contractors

    Most of the walls and fences that have been rapidly erected across Europe have been built by national construction companies, but one European company has dominated the field: European Security Fencing, a Spanish producer of razor wire, in particular a coiled wire known as concertinas. It is most known for the razor wire on the fences around Ceuta and Melilla. It also delivered the razor wire for the fence on the border between Hungary and Serbia, and its concertinas were installed on the borders between Bulgaria and Turkey and Austria and Slovenia, as well as at Calais, and for a few days on the border between Hungary and Slovenia before being removed. Given its long-term market monopoly, its concertinas are very likely used at other borders in Europe.

    Other contractors providing both walls and associated technology include DAT-CON (Croatia, Cyprus, Macedonia, Moldova, Slovenia and Ukraine), Geo Alpinbau (Austria/Slovenia), Indra, Dragados, Ferrovial, Proyectos Y Tecnología Sallén and Eulen (Spain/Morocco), Patstroy Bourgas, Infra Expert, Patengineeringstroy, Geostroy Engineering, Metallic-Ivan Mihaylov and Indra (Bulgaria/Turkey), Nordecon and Defendec (Estonia/Russia), DAK Acélszerkezeti Kft and SIA Ceļu būvniecības sabiedrība IGATE (Latvia/Russia), Gintrėja (Lithuania/Russia), Minis and Legi-SGS(Slovenia/Croatia), Groupe CW, Jackson’s Fencing, Sorhea, Vinci/Eurovia and Zaun Ltd (France/UK).

    In many cases, the actual costs of the walls and associated technologies exceed original estimates. There have also been many allegations and legal charges of corruption, in some cases because projects were given to corporate friends of government officials. In Slovenia, for example, accusations of corruption concerning the border wall contract have led to a continuing three-year legal battle for access to documents that has reached the Supreme Court. Despite this, the EU’s External Borders Fund has been a critical financial supporter of technological infrastructure and services in many of the member states’ border operations. In Macedonia, for example, the EU has provided €9 million for patrol vehicles, night-vision cameras, heartbeat detectors and technical support for border guards to help it manage its southern border.
    Maritime wall profiteers

    The data about which ships, helicopters and aircraft are used in Europe’s maritime operations is not transparent and therefore it is difficult to get a full picture. Our research shows, however, that the key corporations involved include the European arms giants Airbus and Leonardo, as well as large shipbuilding companies including Dutch Damen and Italian Fincantieri.

    Damen’s patrol vessels have been used for border operations by Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Portugal, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden and the UK as well as in key Frontex operations (Poseidon, Triton and Themis), Operation Sophia and in supporting NATO’s role in Operation Poseidon. Outside Europe, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey use Damen vessels for border security, often in cooperation with the EU or its member states. Turkey’s €20 million purchase of six Damen vessels for its coast guard in 2006, for example, was financed through the EU Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP), intended for peace-building and conflict prevention.

    The sale of Damen vessels to Libya unveils the potential troubling human costs of this corporate trade. In 2012, Damen supplied four patrol vessels to the Libyan Coast Guard, sold as civil equipment in order to avoid a Dutch arms export license. Researchers have since found out, however, that the ships were not only sold with mounting points for weapons, but were then armed and used to stop refugee boats. Several incidents involving these ships have been reported, including one where some 20 or 30 refugees drowned. Damen has refused to comment, saying it had agreed with the Libyan government not to disclose information about the ships.

    In addition to Damen, many national shipbuilders play a significant role in maritime operations as they were invariably prioritised by the countries contributing to each Frontex or other Mediterranean operation. Hence, all the ships Italy contributed to Operation Sophia were built by Fincantieri, while all Spanish ships come from Navantia and its predecessors. Similarly, France purchases from DCN/DCNS, now Naval Group, and all German ships were built by several German shipyards (Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, HDW, Lürssen Gruppe). Other companies in Frontex operations have included Greek company, Motomarine Shipyards, which produced the Panther 57 Fast Patrol Boats used by the Hellenic Coast Guard, Hellenic Shipyards and Israel Shipyards.

    Austrian company Schiebel is a significant player in maritime aerial surveillance through its supply of S-100 drones. In November 2018, EMSA selected the company for a €24 million maritime surveillance contract for a range of operations including border security. Since 2017, Schiebel has also won contracts from Croatia, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The company has a controversial record, with its drones sold to a number of countries experiencing armed conflict or governed by repressive regimes such as Libya, Myanmar, the UAE and Yemen.

    Finland and the Netherlands deployed Dornier aircraft to Operation Hermes and Operation Poseidon respectively, and to Operation Triton. Dornier is now part of the US subsidiary of the Israeli arms company Elbit Systems. CAE Aviation (Luxembourg), DEA Aviation (UK) and EASP Air (Netherlands) have all received contracts for aircraft surveillance work for Frontex. Airbus, French Dassault Aviation, Leonardo and US Lockheed Martin were the most important suppliers of aircraft used in Operation Sophia.

    The EU and its member states defend their maritime operations by publicising their role in rescuing refugees at sea, but this is not their primary goal, as Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri made clear in April 2015, saying that Frontex has no mandate for ‘proactive search-and-rescue action[s]’ and that saving lives should not be a priority. The thwarting and criminalisation of NGO rescue operations in the Mediterranean and the frequent reports of violence and illegal refoulement of refugees, also demonstrates why these maritime operations should be considered more like walls than humanitarian missions.
    Virtual walls

    The major EU contracts for the virtual walls have largely gone to two companies, sometimes as leaders of a consortium. Sopra Steria is the main contractor for the development and maintenance of the Visa Information System (VIS), Schengen Information System (SIS II) and European Dactyloscopy (Eurodac), while GMV has secured a string of contracts for Eurosur. The systems they build help control, monitor and surveil people’s movements across Europe and increasingly beyond.

    Sopra Steria is a French technology consultancy firm that has to date won EU contracts worth a total value of over €150 million. For some of these large contracts Sopra Steria joined consortiums with HP Belgium, Bull and 3M Belgium. Despite considerable business, Sopra Steria has faced considerable criticism for its poor record on delivering projects on time and on budget. Its launch of SIS II was constantly delayed, forcing the Commission to extend contracts and increase budgets. Similarly, Sopra Steria was involved in another consortium, the Trusted Borders consortium, contracted to deliver the UK e-Borders programme, which was eventually terminated in 2010 after constant delays and failure to deliver. Yet it continues to win contracts, in part because it has secured a near-monopoly of knowledge and access to EU officials. The central role that Sopra Steria plays in developing these EU biometric systems has also had a spin-off effect in securing other national contracts, including with Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Romania and Slovenia GMV, a Spanish technology company, has received a succession of large contracts for Eurosur, ever since its testing phase in 2010, worth at least €25 million. It also provides technology to the Spanish Guardia Civil, such as control centres for its Integrated System of External Vigilance (SIVE) border security system as well as software development services to Frontex. It has participated in at least ten EU-funded research projects on border security.

    Most of the large contracts for the virtual walls that did not go to consortia including Sopra Steria were awarded by eu-LISA (European Union Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice) to consortia comprising computer and technology companies including Accenture, Atos Belgium and Morpho (later renamed Idema).
    Lobbying

    As research in our Border Wars series has consistently shown, through effective lobbying, the military and security industry has been very influential in shaping the discourse of EU security and military policies. The industry has succeeded in positioning itself as the experts on border security, pushing the underlying narrative that migration is first and foremost a security threat, to be combatted by security and military means. With this premise, it creates a continuous demand for the ever-expanding catalogue of equipment and services the industry supplies for border security and control.

    Many of the companies listed here, particularly the large arms companies, are involved in the European Organisation for Security (EOS), the most important lobby group on border security. Many of the IT security firms that build EU’s virtual walls are members of the European Biometrics Association (EAB). EOS has an ‘Integrated Border Security Working Group’ to ‘facilitate the development and uptake of better technology solutions for border security both at border checkpoints, and along maritime and land borders’. The working group is chaired by Giorgio Gulienetti of the Italian arms company Leonardo, with Isto Mattila (Laurea University of Applied Science) and Peter Smallridge of Gemalto, a digital security company recently acquired by Thales.

    Company lobbyists and representatives of these lobby organisations regularly meet with EU institutions, including the European Commission, are part of official advisory committees, publish influential proposals, organise meetings between industry, policy-makers and executives and also meet at the plethora of military and security fairs, conferences and seminars. Airbus, Leonardo and Thales together with EOS held 226 registered lobbying meetings with the European Commission between 2014 and 2019. In these meetings representatives of the industry position themselves as the experts on border security, presenting their goods and services as the solution for ‘security threats’ caused by immigration. In 2017, the same group of companies and EOS spent up to €2.65 million on lobbying.

    A similar close relationship can be seen on virtual walls, with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission arguing openly for public policy to foster the ‘emergence of a vibrant European biometrics industry’.
    A deadly trade and a choice

    The conclusion of this survey of the business of building walls is clear. A Europe full of walls has proved to be very good for the bottom line of a wide range of corporations including arms, security, IT, shipping and construction companies. The EU’s planned budgets for border security for the next decade show it is also a business that will continue to boom.

    This is also a deadly business. The heavy militarisation of Europe’s borders on land and at sea has led refugees and migrants to follow far more hazardous routes and has trapped others in desperate conditions in neighbouring countries like Libya. Many deaths are not recorded, but those that are tracked in the Mediterranean show that the proportion of those who drown trying to reach Europe continues to increase each year.

    This is not an inevitable state of affairs. It is both the result of policy decisions made by the EU and its member states, and corporate decisions to profit from these policies. In a rare principled stand, German razor wire manufacturer Mutanox in 2015 stated it would not sell its product to the Hungarian government arguing: ‘Razor wire is designed to prevent criminal acts, like a burglary. Fleeing children and adults are not criminals’. It is time for other European politicians and business leaders to recognise the same truth: that building walls against the world’s most vulnerable people violates human rights and is an immoral act that history will judge harshly. Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is time for Europe to bring down its new walls.

    https://www.tni.org/en/businessbuildingwalls

    #business #murs #barrières_frontalières #militarisation_des_frontières #visualisation #Europe #UE #EU #complexe_militaro-industriel #Airbus #Leonardo #Thales #Indra #Israel_Aerospace_Industries #Elbit #European_Security_Fencing #DAT-CON #Geo_Alpinbau #Dragados #Ferrovial, #Proyectos_Y_Tecnología_Sallén #Eulen #Patstroy_Bourgas #Infra_Expert #Patengineeringstroy #Geostroy_Engineering #Metallic-Ivan_Mihaylov #Nordecon #Defendec #DAK_Acélszerkezeti_Kft #SIA_Ceļu_būvniecības_sabiedrība_IGATE #Gintrėja #Minis #Legi-SGS #Groupe_CW #Jackson’s_Fencing #Sorhea #Vinci #Eurovia #Zaun_Ltd #Damen #Fincantieri #Frontex #Damen #Turquie #Instrument_contributing_to_Stability_and_Peace (#IcSP) #Libye #exernalisation #Operation_Sophia #Navantia #Naval_Group #Flensburger_Schiffbau-Gesellschaft #HDW #Lürssen_Gruppe #Motomarine_Shipyards #Panther_57 #Hellenic_Shipyards #Israel_Shipyards #Schiebel #Dornier #Operation_Hermes #CAE_Aviation #DEA_Aviation #EASP_Air #French_Dassault_Aviation #US_Lockheed_Martin #murs_virtuels #Sopra_Steria #Visa_Information_System (#VIS) #données #Schengen_Information_System (#SIS_II) #European_Dactyloscopy (#Eurodac) #GMV #Eurosur #HP_Belgium #Bull #3M_Belgium #Trusted_Borders_consortium #économie #biométrie #Integrated_System_of_External_Vigilance (#SIVE) #eu-LISA #Accenture #Atos_Belgium #Morpho #Idema #lobby #European_Organisation_for_Security (#EOS) #European_Biometrics_Association (#EAB) #Integrated_Border_Security_Working_Group #Giorgio_Gulienetti #Isto_Mattila #Peter_Smallridge #Gemalto #murs_terrestres #murs_maritimes #coût #chiffres #statistiques #Joint_Research_Centre_of_the_European_Commission #Mutanox #High-Altitude_Pseudo-Satellites (#HAPS)

    Pour télécharger le #rapport :


    https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/business_of_building_walls_-_full_report.pdf

    déjà signalé par @odilon ici :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/809783
    Je le remets ici avec des mots clé de plus

    ping @daphne @marty @isskein @karine4

    • La costruzione di muri: un business

      Trent’anni dopo la caduta del Muro di Berlino, l’Europa fa parlare di sé ancora una volta per i suoi muri di frontiera. Questa volta non è tanto l’ideologia che la divide, quanto la paura di rifugiati e migranti, alcune tra le persone più vulnerabili al mondo.

      Riassunto del rapporto «The Business of Building Walls» [1]:

      Chi ha ucciso il sogno di un’Europa più aperta? Cosa ha dato inizio a questa nuova era dei muri?
      Ci sono evidentemente molte ragioni: il crescente spostamento di persone a causa di conflitti, repressione e impoverimento, l’ascesa di politiche securitarie sulla scia dell’11 settembre, l’insicurezza economica e sociale percepita in Europa dopo la crisi finanziaria del 2008, solo per nominarne alcune. Tuttavia, c’è un gruppo che ha di gran lunga da guadagnare da questo innalzamento di nuovi muri: le imprese che li costruiscono. La loro influenza nel dare forma ad un mondo di muri necessita di un esame più profondo.

      Questo rapporto esplora il business della costruzione di muri, che è stato alimentato e ha beneficiato di un aumento considerevole della spesa pubblica dedicata alla sicurezza delle frontiere dall’Unione Europea (EU) e dai suoi Stati membri. Alcune imprese beneficiarie sono delle multinazionali che approfittano di un mercato globale per la sicurezza delle frontiere che si stima valere approssimativamente 17,5 miliardi di euro nel 2018, con una crescita annuale prevista almeno dell’8% nei prossimi anni.

      È importante guardare sia oltre che dietro i muri e le barriere d’Europa, perché i reali ostacoli alla migrazione contemporanea non sono tanto le recinzioni, quanto la vasta gamma di tecnologie che vi è alla base, dai sistemi radar ai droni, dalle telecamere di sorveglianza ai sistemi biometrici di rilevamento delle impronte digitali. Allo stesso modo, alcuni tra i più pericolosi muri d’Europa non sono nemmeno fisici o sulla terraferma. Le navi, gli aerei e i droni usati per pattugliare il Mediterraneo hanno creato un muro marittimo e un cimitero per i migliaia di migranti e di rifugiati che non hanno un passaggio legale verso la salvezza o per esercitare il loro diritto di asilo.

      Tutto ciò rende insignificanti le dichiarazioni della Commissione Europea secondo le quali essa non finanzierebbe i muri e le recinzioni. Il portavoce della Commissione, Alexander Winterstein, per esempio, nel rifiutare la richiesta dell’Ungheria di rimborsare la metà dei costi delle recinzioni costruite sul suo confine con la Croazia e la Serbia, ha affermato: “Noi sosteniamo le misure di gestione delle frontiere presso i confini esterni. Queste possono consistere in misure di sorveglianza o in equipaggiamento di controllo delle frontiere... . Ma le recinzioni, quelle non le finanziamo”. In altre parole, la Commissione è disposta a pagare per qualunque cosa che fortifichi un confine fintanto che ciò non sia visto come propriamente costruire dei muri.

      Questo rapporto è il seguito di “Building Walls - Fear and securitizazion in the Euopean Union”, co-pubblicato nel 2018 con Centre Delàs e Stop Wapenhandel, che per primi hanno misurato e identificato i muri che attraversano l’Europa.

      Questo nuovo rapporto si focalizza sulle imprese che hanno tratto profitto dai tre differenti tipi di muro in Europa:
      – Le imprese di costruzione ingaggiate per costruire i muri fisici costruiti dagli Stati membri UE e dall’Area Schengen in collaborazione con le imprese esperte in sicurezza e tecnologia che provvedono le tecnologie, l’equipaggiamento e i servizi associati;
      – le imprese di trasporto marittimo e di armamenti che forniscono le navi, gli aerei, gli elicotteri e i droni che costituiscono i muri marittimi dell’Europa per tentare di controllare i flussi migratori nel Mediterraneo, in particolare le operazioni di Frontex, l’operazione Sophia e l’operazione italiana Mare Nostrum;
      – e le imprese specializzate in informatica e in sicurezza incaricate di sviluppare, eseguire, estendere e mantenere i sistemi dell’UE che controllano i movimento delle persone, quali SIS II (Schengen Information System) e EES (Entry/Exii Scheme), che costituiscono i muri virtuali dell’Europa.
      Dei budget fiorenti

      Il flusso di denaro dai contribuenti ai costruttori di muri è stato estremamente lucrativo e non cessa di aumentare. Il report rivela che dalla fine della guerra fredda, le imprese hanno raccolto i profitti di almeno 900 milioni di euro di spese dei paesi dell’UE per i muri fisici e per le recinzioni. Con i dati parziali (sia nella portata e che negli anni), i costi reali raggiungerebbero almeno 1 miliardo di euro. Inoltre, le imprese che forniscono la tecnologia e i servizi che accompagnano i muri hanno ugualmente beneficiato di un flusso costante di finanziamenti da parte dell’UE, in particolare i Fondi per le frontiere esterne (1,7 miliardi di euro, 2007-2013) e i Fondi per la sicurezza interna - Fondi per le Frontiere (2,76 miliardi di euro, 2014-2020).

      Le spese dell’UE per i muri marittimi hanno raggiunto almeno 676,4 milioni di euro tra il 2006 e il 2017 (di cui 534 milioni sono stati spesi da Frontex, 28 milioni dall’UE nell’operazione Sophia e 114 milioni dall’Italia nell’operazione Mare Nostrum) e sarebbero molto superiori se si includessero tutte le operazioni delle guardie costiera nazionali nel Mediterraneo.

      Questa esplosione dei budget per le frontiere ha le condizioni per proseguire. Nel quadro del suo budget per il prossimo ciclo di bilancio dell’Unione Europea (2021-2027), la Commissione europea ha attribuito 8,02 miliardi di euro al suo fondo di gestione integrata delle frontiere (2021-2027), 11,27 miliardi a Frontex (dei quali 2,2 miliardi saranno utilizzati per l’acquisizione, il mantenimento e l’utilizzo di mezzi aerei, marittimi e terrestri) e almeno 1,9 miliardi di euro di spese totali (2000-2027) alle sue banche dati di identificazione e a Eurosur (il sistemo europeo di sorveglianza delle frontiere).
      I principali attori del settore degli armamenti

      Tre giganti europei del settore della difesa e della sicurezza giocano un ruolo cruciale nei differenti tipi di frontiere d’Europa: Thales, Leonardo e Airbus.

      – Thales è un’impresa francese specializzata negli armamenti e nella sicurezza, con una presenza significativa nei Paesi Bassi, che produce sistemi radar e sensori utilizzati da numerose navi della sicurezza frontaliera. I sistemi Thales, per esempio, sono stati utilizzati dalle navi olandesi e portoghesi impiegate nelle operazioni di Frontex.
      Thales produce ugualmente sistemi di sorveglianza marittima per droni e lavora attualmente per sviluppare una infrastruttura di sorveglianza delle frontiere per Eurosus, che permetta di seguire e controllare i rifugiati prima che raggiungano l’Europa con l’aiuto di applicazioni per Smartphone, e studia ugualmente l’utilizzo di “High Altitude Pseudo-Satellites - HAPS” per la sicurezza delle frontiere, per l’Agenzia spaziale europea e Frontex. Thales fornisce attualmente il sistema di sicurezza del porto altamente militarizzato di Calais.
      Con l’acquisto nel 2019 di Gemalto, multinazionale specializzata nella sicurezza e identità (biometrica), Thales diventa un attore importante nello sviluppo e nel mantenimento dei muri virtuali dell’UE. L’impresa ha partecipato a 27 progetti di ricerca dell’UE sulla sicurezza delle frontiere.

      – La società di armamenti italiana Leonardo (originariamente Finmeccanica o Leonardo-Finmeccanica) è uno dei principali fornitori di elicotteri per la sicurezza delle frontiere, utilizzati dalle operazioni Mare Nostrum, Hera e Sophia in Italia. Ha ugualmente fatto parte dei principali fornitori di UAV (o droni), ottenendo un contratto di 67,1 milioni di euro nel 2017 con l’EMSA (Agenzia europea per la sicurezza marittima) per fornire le agenzie di guardia costiera dell’UE.
      Leonardo faceva ugualmente parte di un consorzio che si è visto attribuire un contratto di 142,1 milioni di euro nel 2019 per attuare e assicurare il mantenimento dei muri virtuali dell’UE, ossia il Sistema di entrata/uscita (EES). La società detiene, con Thales, Telespazio, che partecipa ai progetti di osservazione dai satelliti dell’UE (React e Copernicus) utilizzati per controllare le frontiere. Leonardo ha partecipato a 24 progetti di ricerca dell’UE sulla sicurezza e il controllo delle frontiere, tra cui lo sviluppo di Eurosur.

      – Il gigante degli armamenti pan-europei Airbus è un importante fornitore di elicotteri utilizzati nella sorveglianza delle frontiere marittime e di alcune frontiere terrestri, impiegati da Belgio, Francia, Germania, Grecia, Italia, Lituania e Spagna, in particolare nelle operazioni marittime Sophia, Poseidon e Triton. Airbus e le sue filiali hanno partecipato almeno a 13 progetti di ricerca sulla sicurezza delle frontiere finanziati dall’UE, tra cui OCEAN2020, PERSEUS e LOBOS.

      Il ruolo chiave di queste società di armamenti in realtà non è sorprendente. Come è stato dimostrato da “Border Wars” (2016), queste imprese, in quanto appartenenti a lobby come EOS (Organizzazione europea per la sicurezza) e ASD (Associazione delle industrie aerospaziali e della difesa in Europa), hanno ampiamente contribuito a influenzare l’orientamento della politica delle frontiere dell’UE. Paradossalmente, questi stessi marchi fanno ugualmente parte dei quattro più grandi venditori europei di armi al Medio Oriente e all’Africa del Nord, contribuendo così ad alimentare i conflitti all’origine di queste migrazioni forzate.

      Allo stesso modo Indra gioca un ruolo non indifferente nel controllo delle frontiere in Spagna e nel Mediterraneo. L’impresa ha ottenuto una serie di contratti per fortificare Ceuta e Melilla (enclavi spagnole nel Nord del Marocco). Indra ha ugualmente sviluppato il sistema di controllo delle frontiere SIVE (con sistemi radar, di sensori e visivi) che è installato nella maggior parte delle frontiere della Spagna, così come in Portogallo e in Romania. Nel luglio 2018, Indra ha ottenuto un contratto di 10 milioni di euro per assicurare la gestione di SIVE su più siti per due anni. L’impresa è molto attiva nel fare lobby presso l’UE. È ugualmente una dei grandi beneficiari dei finanziamenti per la ricerca dell’UE, che assicurano il coordinamento del progetto PERSEUS per lo sviluppo di Eurosur e il Seahorse Network, la rete di scambio di informazioni tra le forze di polizia dei paesi mediterranei (in Europa e in Africa) per fermare le migrazioni.

      Le società di armamenti israeliane hanno anch’esse ottenuto numerosi contratti nel quadro della sicurezza delle frontiere in UE. Nel 2018, Frontex ha selezionato il drone Heron delle Israel Aerospace Industries per i voli di sorveglianza degli esperimenti pilota nel Mediterraneo. Nel 2015, la società israeliana Elbit Systems ha venduto sei dei suoi droni Hermes al Corpo di guardie di frontiera svizzero, nel quadro di un contratto controverso di 230 milioni di euro. Ha anche firmato in seguito un contratto per droni con l’EMSA (Agenzia europea per la sicurezza marittima), in quanto subappaltatore della società portoghese CEIIA (2018), così come dei contratti per equipaggiare tre navi di pattugliamento per la Hellenic Coast Guard (2019).
      Gli appaltatori dei muri fisici

      La maggioranza di muri e recinzioni che sono stati rapidamente eretti attraverso l’Europa, sono stati costruiti da società di BTP nazionali/società nazionali di costruzioni, ma un’impresa europea ha dominato nel mercato: la European Security Fencing, un produttore spagnolo di filo spinato, in particolare di un filo a spirale chiamato “concertina”. È famosa per aver fornito i fili spinati delle recinzioni che circondano Ceuta e Melilla. L’impresa ha ugualmente dotato di fili spinati le frontiere tra l’Ungheria e la Serbia, e i suoi fili spinati “concertina” sono stati installati alle frontiere tra Bulgaria e Turchia e tra l’Austria e la Slovenia, così come a Calais e, per qualche giorno, alla frontiera tra Ungheria e Slovenia, prima di essere ritirati. Dato che essi detengono il monopolio sul mercato da un po’ di tempo a questa parte, è probabile che i fili spinati “concertina” siano stati utilizzati presso altre frontiere in Europa.

      Tra le altre imprese che hanno fornito i muri e le tecnologie ad essi associate, si trova DAT-CON (Croazia, Cipro, Macedonia, Moldavia, Slovenia e Ucraina), Geo Alpinbau (Austria/Slovenia), Indra, Dragados, Ferrovial, Proyectos Y Tecnología Sallén e Eulen (Spagna/Marocco), Patstroy Bourgas, Infra Expert, Patengineeringstroy, Geostroy Engineering, Metallic-Ivan Mihaylov et Indra (Bulgaria/Turchia), Nordecon e Defendec (Estonia/Russia), DAK Acélszerkezeti Kft e SIA Ceļu būvniecības sabiedrība IGATE (Lettonia/Russia), Gintrėja (Lituania/Russi), Minis e Legi-SGS (Slovenia/Croazia), Groupe CW, Jackson’s Fencing, Sorhea, Vinci/Eurovia e Zaun Ltd (Francia/Regno Unito).

      I costi reali dei muri e delle tecnologie associate superano spesso le stime originali. Numerose accuse e denunce per corruzione sono state allo stesso modo formulate, in certi casi perché i progetti erano stati attribuiti a delle imprese che appartenevano ad amici di alti funzionari. In Slovenia, per esempio, accuse di corruzione riguardanti un contratto per la costruzione di muri alle frontiere hanno portato a tre anni di battaglie legali per avere accesso ai documenti; la questione è passata poi alla Corte suprema.

      Malgrado tutto ciò, il Fondo europeo per le frontiere esterne ha sostenuto finanziariamente le infrastrutture e i servizi tecnologici di numerose operazioni alle frontiere degli Stati membri. In Macedonia, per esempio, l’UE ha versato 9 milioni di euro per finanziare dei veicoli di pattugliamento, delle telecamere a visione notturna, dei rivelatori di battito cardiaco e sostegno tecnico alle guardie di frontiera nell’aiuto della gestione della sua frontiera meridionale.
      Gli speculatori dei muri marittimi

      I dati che permettono di determinare quali imbarcazioni, elicotteri e aerei sono utilizzati nelle operazioni marittime in Europa mancano di trasparenza. È dunque difficile recuperare tutte le informazioni. Le nostre ricerche mostrano comunque che tra le principali società implicate figurano i giganti europei degli armamenti Airbus e Leonardo, così come grandi imprese di costruzione navale come l’olandese Damen e l’italiana Fincantieri.

      Le imbarcazioni di pattugliamento di Damen sono servite per delle operazioni frontaliere portate avanti da Albania, Belgio, Bulgaria, Portogallo, Paesi Bassi, Romania, Svezia e Regno Unito, così come per le vaste operazioni di Frontex (Poseidon, Triton e Themis), per l’operazione Sophia e hanno ugualmente sostento la NATO nell’operazione Poseidon.

      Al di fuori dell’Europa, la Libia, il Marocco, la Tunisia e la Turchia utilizzano delle imbarcazioni Damen per la sicurezza delle frontiere, spesso in collaborazione con l’UE o i suoi Stati membri. Per esempio, le sei navi Damen che la Turchia ha comprato per la sua guardia costiera nel 2006, per un totale di 20 milioni di euro, sono state finanziate attraverso lo strumento europeo che contribuirebbe alla stabilità e alla pace (IcSP), destinato a mantenere la pace e a prevenire i conflitti.

      La vendita di imbarcazioni Damen alla Libia mette in evidenza l’inquietante costo umano di questo commercio. Nel 2012, Damen ha fornito quattro imbarcazioni di pattugliamento alla guardia costiera libica, che sono state vendute come equipaggiamento civile col fine di evitare la licenza di esportazione di armi nei Paesi Bassi. I ricercatori hanno poi scoperto che non solo le imbarcazioni erano state vendute con dei punti di fissaggio per le armi, ma che erano state in seguito armate ed utilizzate per fermare le imbarcazioni di rifugiati. Numerosi incidenti che hanno implicato queste imbarcazioni sono stati segnalati, tra i quali l’annegamento di 20 o 30 rifugiati. Damen si è rifiutata di commentare, dichiarando di aver convenuto col governo libico di non divulgare alcuna informazione riguardante le imbarcazioni.

      Numerosi costruttori navali nazionali, oltre a Damen, giocano un ruolo determinante nelle operizioni marittime poiché sono sistematicamente scelti con priorità dai paesi partecipanti a ogni operazione di Frontex o ad altre operazioni nel Mediterraneo. Tutte le imbarcazioni fornite dall’Italia all’operazione Sophia sono state costruite da Fincantieri e tutte quelle spagnole sono fornite da Navantia e dai suoi predecessori. Allo stesso modo, la Francia si rifornisce da DCN/DCNS, ormai Naval Group, e tutte le imbarcazioni tedesche sono state costruite da diversi cantieri navali tedeschi (Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, HDW, Lürssen Gruppe). Altre imprese hanno partecipato alle operazioni di Frontex, tra cui la società greca Motomarine Shipyards, che ha prodotto i pattugliatori rapidi Panther 57 utilizzati dalla guardia costiera greca, così come la Hellenic Shipyards e la Israel Shipyards.

      La società austriaca Schiebel, che fornisce i droni S-100, gioca un ruolo importante nella sorveglianza aerea delle attività marittime. Nel novembre 2018, è stata selezionata dall’EMSA per un contratto di sorveglianza marittima di 24 milioni di euro riguardante differenti operazioni che includevano la sicurezza delle frontiere. Dal 2017, Schiebel ha ugualmente ottenuto dei contratti con la Croazia, la Danimarca, l’Islanda, l’Italia, il Portogallo e la Spagna. L’impresa ha un passato controverso: ha venduto dei droni a numerosi paesi in conflitto armato o governati da regimi repressivi come la Libia, il Myanmar, gli Emirati Arabi Uniti e lo Yemen.

      La Finlandia e i Paesi Bassi hanno impiegato degli aerei Dornier rispettivamente nel quadro delle operazioni Hermès, Poseidon e Triton. Dornier appartiene ormai alla filiale americana della società di armamenti israeliana Elbit Systems.
      CAE Aviation (Lussemburgo), DEA Aviation (Regno Unito) e EASP Air (Paesi Bassi) hanno tutte ottenuto dei contratti di sorveglianza aerea per Frontex.
      Airbus, Dassault Aviation, Leonardo e l’americana Lockheed Martin hanno fornito il più grande numero di aerei utilizzati per l’operazione Sophia.

      L’UE e i suoi Stati membri difendono le loro operazioni marittime pubblicizzando il loro ruolo nel salvataggio dei rifugiati in mare. Ma non è questo il loro obiettivo principale, come sottolinea il direttore di Frontex Fabrice Leggeri nell’aprile 2015, dichiarando che “le azioni volontarie di ricerca e salvataggio” non fanno parte del mandato affidato a Frontex, e che salvare delle vite non dovrebbe essere una priorità. La criminalizzazione delle operazioni di salvataggio da parte delle ONG, gli ostacoli che esse incontrano, così come la violenza e i respingimenti illegali dei rifugiati, spesso denunciati, illustrano bene il fatto che queste operazioni marittime sono volte soprattutto a costituire muri piuttosto che missioni umanitarie.
      I muri virtuali

      I principali contratti dell’UE legati ai muri virtuali sono stati affidati a due imprese, a volte in quanto leader di un consorzio.
      Sopra Steria è il partner principale per lo sviluppo e il mantenimento del Sistema d’informazione dei visti (SIV), del Sistema di informazione Schengen (SIS II) e di Eurodac (European Dactyloscopy) e GMV ha firmato una serie di contratti per Eurosur. I sistemi che essi concepiscono permettono di controllare e di sorvegliare i movimenti delle persone attraverso l’Europa e, sempre più spesso, al di là delle sue frontiere.

      Sopra Steria è un’impresa francese di servizi per consultazioni in tecnologia che ha, ad oggi, ottenuto dei contratti con l’UE per un valore totale di più di 150 milioni di euro. Nel quadro di alcuni di questi grossi contratti, Sopra Steria ha formato dei consorzi con HP Belgio, Bull e 3M Belgio.

      Malgrado l’ampiezza di questi mercati, Sopra Steria ha ricevuto importanti critiche per la sua mancanza di rigore nel rispetto delle tempistiche e dei budget. Il lancio di SIS II è stato costantemente ritardato, costringendo la Commissione a prolungare i contratti e ad aumentare i budget. Sopra Steria aveva ugualmente fatto parte di un altro consorzio, Trusted Borders, impegnato nello sviluppo del programma e-Borders nel Regno Unito. Quest’ultimo è terminato nel 2010 dopo un accumulo di ritardi e di mancate consegne. Tuttavia, la società ha continuato a ottenere contratti, a causa del suo quasi monopolio di conoscenze e di relazioni con i rappresentanti dell’UE. Il ruolo centrale di Sopra Steria nello sviluppo dei sistemi biometrici dell’UE ha ugualmente portato alla firma di altri contratti nazionali con, tra gli altri, il Belgio, la Bulgaria, la Repubblica ceca, la Finlandia, la Francia, la Germania, la Romania e la Slovenia.

      GMV, un’impresa tecnologica spagnola, ha concluso una serie di grossi contratti per Eurosur, dopo la sua fase sperimentale nel 2010, per almeno 25 milioni di euro. Essa rifornisce ugualmente di tecnologie la Guardia Civil spagnola, tecnologie quali, ad esempio, i centri di controllo del suo Sistema integrato di sorveglianza esterna (SIVE), sistema di sicurezza delle frontiere, così come rifornisce di servizi di sviluppo logistico Frontex. L’impresa ha partecipato ad almeno dieci progetti di ricerca finanziati dall’UE sulla sicurezza delle frontiere.

      La maggior parte dei grossi contratti riguardanti i muri virtuali che non sono stati conclusi con consorzi di cui facesse parte Sopra Steria, sono stati attribuiti da eu-LISA (l’Agenzia europea per la gestione operazionale dei sistemi di informazione su vasta scale in seno allo spazio di libertà, di sicurezza e di giustizia) a dei consorzi di imprese specializzate nell’informazione e nelle nuove tecnologie, tra questi: Accenture, Atos Belgium e Morpho (rinominato Idemia).
      Lobby

      Come testimonia il nostro report “Border Wars”, il settore della difesa e della sicurezza, grazie ad una lobbying efficace, ha un’influenza considerabile nell’elaborazione delle politiche di difesa e di sicurezza dell’UE. Le imprese di questo settore industriale sono riuscite a posizionarsi come esperti della sicurezza delle frontiere, portando avanti il loro discorso secondo il quale la migrazione è prima di tutto una minaccia per la sicurezza che deve essere combattuta tramite mezzi militari e securitari. Questo crea così una domanda continua del catalogo sempre più fornito di equipaggiamenti e servizi che esse forniscono per la sicurezza e il controllo delle frontiere.

      Un numero alto di imprese che abbiamo nominato, in particolare le grandi società di armamenti, fanno parte dell’EOS (Organizzazione europea per la sicurezza), il più importante gruppo di pressione sulla sicurezza delle frontiere.

      Molte imprese informatiche che hanno concepito i muri virtuali dell’UE sono membri dell’EAB (Associazione Europea per la Biometria). L’EOS ha un “Gruppo di lavoro sulla sicurezza integrata delle frontiere” per “permettere lo sviluppo e l’adozione delle migliori soluzioni tecnologiche per la sicurezza delle frontiere sia ai checkpoint che lungo le frontiere marittime e terrestri”.
      Il gruppo di lavoro è presieduto da Giorgio Gulienetti, della società di armi italiana Leonardo, Isto Mattila (diplomato all’università di scienze applicate) e Peter Smallridge di Gemalto, multinazionale specializzata nella sicurezza numerica, recentemente acquisita da Thales.

      I lobbisti di imprese e i rappresentanti di questi gruppi di pressione incontrano regolarmente le istituzioni dell’UE, tra cui la Commissione europea, nel quadro di comitati di consiglio ufficiali, pubblicano proposte influenti, organizzano incontri tra il settore industriale, i policy-makers e i dirigenti e si ritrovano allo stesso modo in tutti i saloni, le conferenze e i seminari sulla difesa e la sicurezza.

      Airbus, Leonardo e Thales e l’EOS hanno anche assistito a 226 riunioni ufficiali di lobby con la Commissione europea tra il 2014 e il 2019. In queste riunioni, i rappresentanti del settore si presentano come esperti della sicurezza delle frontiere, e propongono i loro prodotti e servizi come soluzione alle “minacce alla sicurezza” costituite dall’immigrazione. Nel 2017, queste stesse imprese e l’EOS hanno speso fino a 2,56 milioni di euro in lobbying.

      Si constata una relazione simile per quanto riguarda i muri virtuali: il Centro comune della ricerca della Commissione europea domanda apertamente che le politiche pubbliche favoriscano “l’emergenza di una industria biometrica europea dinamica”.
      Un business mortale, una scelta

      La conclusione di questa inchiesta sul business dell’innalzamento di muri è chiara: la presenza di un’Europa piena di muri si rivela molto fruttuosa per una larga fetta di imprese del settore degli armamenti, della difesa, dell’informatica, del trasporto marittimo e delle imprese di costruzioni. I budget che l’UE ha pianificato per la sicurezza delle frontiere nei prossimi dieci anni mostrano che si tratta di un commercio che continua a prosperare.

      Si tratta altresì di un commercio mortale. A causa della vasta militarizzazione delle frontiere dell’Europa sulla terraferma e in mare, i rifugiati e i migranti intraprendono dei percorsi molto più pericolosi e alcuni si trovano anche intrappolati in terribili condizioni in paesi limitrofi come la Libia. Non vengono registrate tutte le morti, ma quelle che sono registrate nel Mediterraneo mostrano che il numero di migranti che annegano provando a raggiungere l’Europa continua ad aumentare ogni anno.

      Questo stato di cose non è inevitabile. È il risultato sia di decisioni politiche prese dall’UE e dai suoi Stati membri, sia dalle decisioni delle imprese di trarre profitto da queste politiche. Sono rare le imprese che prendono posizione, come il produttore tedesco di filo spinato Mutinox che ha dichiarato nel 2015 che non avrebbe venduto i suoi prodotti al governo ungherese per il seguente motivo: “I fili spinati sono concepiti per impedire atti criminali, come il furto. Dei rifugiati, bambini e adulti, non sono dei criminali”.

      È tempo che altri politici e capi d’impresa riconoscano questa stessa verità: erigere muri contro le popolazioni più vulnerabili viola i diritti umani e costituisce un atto immorale che sarà evidentemente condannato dalla storia.

      Trent’anni dopo la caduta del muro di Berlino, è tempo che l’Europa abbatta i suoi nuovi muri.

      https://www.meltingpot.org/La-costruzione-di-muri-un-business.html

    • How the arms industry drives Fortress Europe’s expansion

      In recent years, rising calls for deterrence have intensified the physical violence migrants face at the EU border. The externalization of the border through deals with sending and transit countries signals the expansion of this securitization process. Financial gains by international arms firms in this militarization trend form an obstacle for policy change.

      In March, April, and May of this year, multiple European countries deployed military forces to their national borders. This was done to assist with controls and patrols in the wake of border closures and other movement restrictions due to the Covid-19 crisis. Poland deployed 1,460 soldiers to the border to support the Border Guard and police as part of a larger military operation in reaction to Covid-19. And the Portuguese police used military drones as a complement to their land border checks. According to overviews from NATO, the Czech Republic, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands (military police), Slovakia, and Slovenia all stationed armed forces at their national borders.

      While some of these deployments have been or will be rolled back as the Corona crisis dies down, they are not exceptional developments. Rather, using armed forces for border security and control has been a common occurrence at EU external borders since the so-called refugee crisis of 2015. They are part of the continuing militarisation of European border and migration policies, which is known to put refugees at risk but is increasingly being expanded to third party countries. Successful lobbying from the military and security industry has been an important driver for these policies, from which large European arms companies have benefited.

      The militarization of borders happens when EU member states send armies to border regions, as they did in Operation Sophia off the Libyan coast. This was the first outright EU military mission to stop migration. But border militarization also includes the use of military equipment for migration control, such as helicopters and patrol vessels, as well as the the EU-wide surveillance system Eurosur, which connects surveillance data from all individual member states. Furthermore, EU countries now have over 1,000 kilometers of walls and fences on their borders. These are rigged with surveillance, monitoring, and detection technologies, and accompanied by an increasing use of drones and other autonomous systems. The EU also funds a constant stream of Research & Technology (R&T) projects to develop new technologies and services to monitor and manage migration.

      This process has been going on for decades. The Schengen Agreement of 1985, and the subsequent creation of the Schengen Area, which coupled the opening of the internal EU borders with robust control at the external borders, can be seen as a starting point for these developments. After 2011, when the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ led to fears of mass migration to Europe, and especially since the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015, the EU accelerated the boosting and militarising of border security, enormously. Since then, stopping migration has been at the top of the EU agenda.

      An increasingly important part of the process of border militarization isn’t happening at the European borders, but far beyond them. The EU and its member states are incentivizing third party countries to help stop migrants long before they reach Europe. This externalising of borders has taken many forms, from expanding the goals of EUCAP missions in Mali and Niger to include the prevention of irregular migration, to funding and training the Libyan Coast Guard to return refugees back to torture and starvation in the infamous detention centers in Libya. It also includes the donation of border security equipment, for example from Germany to Tunisia, and funding for purchases, such as Turkey’s acquisition of coast guard vessels to strengthen its operational capacities.

      Next to the direct consequences of European border externalisation efforts, these policies cause and worsen problems in the third party countries concerned: diverting development funds and priorities, ruining migration-based economies, and strengthening authoritarian regimes such as those in Chad, Belarus, Eritrea, and Sudan by providing funding, training and equipment to their military and security forces. Precisely these state organs are most responsible for repression and abuses of human rights. All this feeds drivers of migration, including violence, repression, and unemployment. As such, it is almost a guarantee for more refugees in the future.

      EU border security agency Frontex has also extended its operations into non-EU-countries. Ongoing negotiations and conclusions of agreements with Balkan countries resulted in the first operation in Albania having started in May 2019. And this is only a small part of Frontex’ expanding role in recent years. In response to the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015, the European Commission launched a series of proposals that saw large increases in the powers of the agency, including giving member states binding advice to boost their border security, and giving Frontex the right to intervene in member states’ affairs (even without their consent) by decision of the Commission or Council.

      These proposals also included the creation of a 10,000 person strong standing corps of border guards and a budget to buy or lease its own equipment. Concretely, Frontex started with a budget of €6 million in 2005, which grew to €143 million in 2015. This was then quickly increased again from €239 million in 2016 to €460 million in 2020. The enormous expansion of EU border security and control has been accompanied by rapidly increasing budgets in general. In recent years, billions of euros have been spent on fortifying borders, setting up biometric databases, increasing surveillance capacities, and paying non-EU-countries to play their parts in this expansion process.

      Negotiations about the next seven-year-budget for the EU, the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027, are still ongoing. In the European Commission’s latest proposal, which is clearly positioned as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the fund for strengthening member states’ border security, the Integrated Border Management Fund, has been allotted €12.5 billion. Its predecessors, the External Borders Fund (2007-2013) and the Internal Security Fund – Borders (2014-2020), had much smaller budgets: €1.76 billion and €2.70 billion, respectively. For Frontex, €7.5 billion is reserved, with €2.2 billion earmarked for purchasing or leasing equipment such as helicopters, drones, and patrol vessels. These huge budget increases are exemplary of the priority the EU attaches to stopping migration.

      The narrative underlying these policies and budget growths is the perception of migration as a threat; a security problem. As researcher, Ainhoa Ruiz (Centre Delàs) writes, “the securitisation process also includes militarisation,” because “the prevailing paradigm for providing security is based on military principles: the use of force and coercion, more weapons equating to more security, and the achievement of security by eliminating threats.”

      This narrative hasn’t come out of the blue. It is pushed by right wing politicians and often followed by centrist and leftist parties afraid of losing voters. Importantly, it is also promoted by an extensive and successful industrial lobby. According to Martin Lemberg-Pedersen (Assistant Professor in Global Refugee Studies, Aalborg University), arms companies “establish themselves as experts on border security, and use this position to frame immigration to Europe as leading to evermore security threats in need of evermore advanced [security] products.” The narrative of migration as a security problem thus sets the stage for militaries, and the security companies behind the commercial arms lobby, to offer their goods and services as the solution. The range of militarization policies mentioned so far reflects the broad adoption of this narrative.

      The lobby organizations of large European military and security companies regularly interact with the European Commission and EU border agencies. They have meetings, organise roundtables, and see each other at military and security fairs and conferences. Industry representatives also take part in official advisory groups, are invited to present new arms and technologies, and write policy proposals. These proposals can sometimes be so influential that they are adopted as policy, almost unamended.

      This happened, for instance, when the the Commission decided to open up the Instrument contributing to Security and Peace, a fund meant for peace-building and conflict prevention. The fund’s terms were expanded to cover provision of third party countries with non-lethal security equipment, for example, for border security purposes. The new policy document for this turned out to be a step-by-step reproduction of an earlier proposal from lobby organisation, Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD). Yet, perhaps the most far-reaching success of this kind is the expansion of Frontex, itself, into a European Border Guard. Years before it actually happened, the industry had already been pushing for this outcome.

      The same companies that are at the forefront of the border security and control lobby are, not surprisingly, also the big winners of EU and member states’ contracts in these areas. These include three of the largest European (and global) arms companies, namely, Airbus (Paneuropean), Leonardo (Italy) and Thales (France). These companies are active in many aspects of the border security and control market. Airbus’ and Leonardo’s main product in this field are helicopters, with EU funds paying for many purchases by EU and third countries. Thales provides radar, for example, for border patrol vessels, and is heavily involved in biometric and digital identification, especially after having acquired market leader, Gemalto, last year.

      These three companies are the main beneficiaries of the European anti-migration obsession. At the same time, these very three companies also contribute to new migration streams to Europe’s shores through their trade in arms. They are responsible for significant parts of Europe’s arms exports to countries at war, and they provide the arms used by parties in internal armed conflicts, by human rights violators, and by repressive regimes. These are the forces fueling the reasons for which people are forced to flee in the first place.

      Many other military and security companies also earn up to hundreds of millions of euros from large border security and control projects oriented around logistics and transport. Dutch shipbuilder Damen provided not only many southern European countries with border patrol vessels, but also controversially sold those to Libya and Turkey, among others. Its ships have also been used in Frontex operations, in Operation Sophia, and on the Channel between Calais and Dover.

      The Spanish company, European Security Fencing, provided razor wire for the fences around the Spanish enclaves, Ceuta and Melilla, in Morocco, as well as the fence at Calais and the fences on the borders of Austria, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Frontex, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), and Greece leased border surveillance drones from Elbit and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). These are Israeli military companies that routinely promote their products as ‘combat-proven’ or ‘battlefield tested’ against Palestinians.

      Civipol, a French public-private company owned by the state, and several large arms producers (including Thales, Airbus, and Safran), run a string of EU-/member state-funded border security projects in third party countries. This includes setting up fingerprint databases of the whole populations of Mali and Senegal, which facilitates identification and deportation of their nationals from Europe. These are just a few examples of the companies that benefit from the billions of euros that the EU and its member states spend on a broad range of purchases and projects in their bid to stop migration.

      The numbers of forcibly displaced people in the world grew to a staggering 79.5 million by the end of last year. Instead of helping to eliminate the root causes of migration, EU border and migration policies, as well as its arms exports to the rest of the world, are bound to lead to more refugees in the future. The consequences of these policies have already been devastating. As experts in the field of migration have repeatedly warned, the militarisation of borders primarily pushes migrants to take alternative migration routes that are often more dangerous and involve the risks of relying on criminal smuggling networks. The Mediterranean Sea has become a sad witness of this, turning into a graveyard for a growing percentage of refugees trying to cross it.

      The EU approach to border security doesn’t stand on its own. Many other countries, in particular Western ones and those with authoritarian leaders, follow the same narrative and policies. Governments all over the world, but particularly those in the US, Australia, and Europe, continue to spend billions of euros on border security and control equipment and services. And they plan to increase budgets even more in the coming years. For military and security companies, this is good news; the global border security market is expected to grow by over 7% annually for the next five years to a total of $65 billion in 2025. It looks like they will belong to the very few winners of increasingly restrictive policies targeting vulnerable people on the run.

      https://crisismag.net/2020/06/27/how-the-arms-industry-drives-fortress-europes-expansion
      #industrie_militaire #covid-19 #coronavirus #frontières_extérieures #Operation_Sophia #Eurosur #surveillance #drones #technologie #EUCAP #externalisation #Albanie #budget #Integrated_Border_Management_Fund #menace #lobby_industriel #Instrument_contributing_to_Security_and_Peace #conflits #paix #prévention_de_conflits #Aerospace_and_Defence_Industries_Association_of_Europe (#ASD) #Airbus #Leonardo #Thales #hélicoptères #radar #biométrie #identification_digitale #Gemalto #commerce_d'armes #armement #Damen #European_Security_Fencing #barbelé #European_Maritime_Safety_Agency (#EMSA) #Elbit #Israel_Aerospace_Industries (#IAI) #Civipol #Safran #base_de_données

      –—

      Pour @etraces :

      Civipol, a French public-private company owned by the state, and several large arms producers (including Thales, Airbus, and Safran), run a string of EU-/member state-funded border security projects in third party countries. This includes setting up fingerprint databases of the whole populations of Mali and Senegal, which facilitates identification and deportation of their nationals from Europe

    • GUARDING THE FORTRESS. The role of Frontex in the militarisation and securitisation of migration flows in the European Union

      The report focuses on 19 Frontex operations run by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (hereafter Frontex) to explore how the agency is militarising borders and criminalising migrants, undermining fundamental rights to freedom of movement and the right to asylum.

      This report is set in a wider context in which more than 70.8 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced, according to the 2018 figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (UNHCR, 2019). Some of these have reached the borders of the European Union (EU), seeking protection and asylum, but instead have encountered policy responses that mostly aim to halt and intercept migration flows, against the background of securitisation policies in which the governments of EU Member States see migration as a threat. One of the responses to address migration flows is the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (hereafter Frontex), established in 2004 as the EU body in charge of guarding what many have called ‘Fortress Europe’, and whose practices have helped to consolidate the criminalisation of migrants and the securitisation of their movements.

      The report focuses on analysing the tools deployed by Fortress Europe, in this case through Frontex, to prevent the freedom of movement and the right to asylum, from its creation in 2004 to the present day.

      The sources used to write this report were from the EU and Frontex, based on its budgets and annual reports. The analysis focused on the Frontex regulations, the language used and its meaning, as well as the budgetary trends, identifying the most significant items – namely, the joint operations and migrant-return operations.

      A table was compiled of all the joint operations mentioned in the annual reports since the Agency was established in 2005 up to 2018 (see annexes). The joint operations were found on government websites but were not mentioned in the Frontex annual reports. Of these operations, we analysed those of the longest duration, or that have showed recent signs of becoming long-term operations. The joint operations are analysed in terms of their objectives, area of action, the mandates of the personnel deployed, and their most noteworthy characteristics.

      Basically, the research sought to answer the following questions: What policies are being implemented in border areas and in what context? How does Frontex act in response to migration movements? A second objective was to analyse how Frontex securitises the movement of refugees and other migrants, with the aim of contributing to the analysis of the process of border militarisation and the security policies applied to non-EU migrants by the EU and its Member States.

      https://www.tni.org/en/guarding-the-fortress

      Pour télécharger le rapport_
      https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/informe40_eng_ok.pdf

      #rapport #TNI #Transnational_institute

    • #Frontex aircraft : Below the radar against international law

      For three years, Frontex has been chartering small aircraft for the surveillance of the EU’s external borders. First Italy was thus supported, then Croatia followed. Frontex keeps the planes details secret, and the companies also switch off the transponders for position display during operations.

      The European Commission does not want to make public which private surveillance planes Frontex uses in the Mediterranean. In the non-public answer to a parliamentary question, the EU border agency writes that the information on the aircraft is „commercially confidential“ as it contains „personal data and sensitive operational information“.

      Frontex offers EU member states the option of monitoring their external borders using aircraft. For this „Frontex Aerial Surveillance Service“ (FASS), Frontex charters twin-engined airplanes from European companies. Italy first made use of the service in 2017, followed a year later by Croatia. In 2018, Frontex carried out at least 1,800 flight hours under the FASS, no figures are yet available for 2019.

      Air service to be supplemented with #drones

      The FASS flights are carried out under the umbrella of „Multipurpose Aerial Surveillance“, which includes satellite surveillance as well as drones. Before the end of this year, the border agency plans to station large drones in the Mediterranean for up to four years. The situation pictures of the European Union’s „pre-frontier area“ are fed into the surveillance system EUROSUR, whose headquarter is located at Frontex in Warsaw. The national EUROSUR contact points, for example in Spain, Portugal and Italy, also receive this information.

      In addition to private charter planes, Frontex also uses aircraft and helicopters provided by EU Member States, in the central Mediterranean via the „Themis“ mission. The EU Commission also keeps the call signs of the state aircraft operating there secret. They would be considered „sensitive operational information“ and could not be disclosed to MEPs.

      Previously, the FOIA platform „Frag den Staat“ („Ask the State“) had also tried to find out details about the sea and air capacities of the member states in „Themis“. Frontex refused to provide any information on this matter. „Frag den Staat“ lost a case against Frontex before the European Court of Justice and is now to pay 23,700 Euros to the agency for legal fees.

      Real-time tracking with FlightAware

      The confidentiality of Frontex comes as a surprise, because companies that monitor the Mediterranean for the agency are known through a tender. Frontex has signed framework contracts with the Spanish arms group Indra as well as the charter companies CAE Aviation (Canada), Diamond-Executive Aviation (Great Britain) and EASP Air (Netherlands). Frontex is spending up to 14.5 million euros each on the contracts.

      Finally, online service providers such as FlightAware can also be used to draw conclusions about which private and state airplanes are flying for Frontex in the Mediterranean. For real-time positioning, the providers use data from ADS-B transponders, which all larger aircraft must have installed. A worldwide community of non-commercial trackers receives this geodata and feeds it into the Internet. In this way, for example, Italian journalist Sergio Scandura documents practically all movements of Frontex aerial assets in the central Mediterranean.

      Among the aircraft tracked this way are the twin-engined „DA-42“, „DA-62“ and „Beech 350“ of Diamond-Executive Aviation, which patrol the Mediterranean Sea on behalf of Frontex as „Osprey1“, „Osprey3“ and „Tasty“, in former times also „Osprey2“ and „Eagle1“. They are all operated by Diamond-Executive Aviation and take off and land at airports in Malta and Sicily.

      „Push-backs“ become „pull-backs“

      In accordance with the Geneva Convention on Refugees, the EU Border Agency may not return people to states where they are at risk of torture or other serious human rights violations. Libya is not a safe haven; this assessment has been reiterated on several occasions by the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees, among others.

      Because these „push-backs“ are prohibited, Frontex has since 2017 been helping with so-called „pull-backs“ by bringing refugees back to Libya by the Libyan coast guard rather than by EU units. With the „Multipurpose Aerial Surveillance“, Frontex is de facto conducting air reconnaissance for Libya. By November 2019, the EU border agency had notified Libyan authorities about refugee boats on the high seas in at least 42 cases.

      Many international law experts consider this practice illegal. Since Libya would not be able to track down the refugees without the help of Frontex, the agency must take responsibility for the refoulements. The lawyers Omer Shatz and Juan Branco therefore want to sue responsibles of the European Union before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

      Frontex watches refugees drown

      This is probably the reason why Frontex disguises the exact location of its air surveillance. Private maritime rescue organisations have repeatedly pointed out that Frontex aircrafts occasionally switch off their transponders so that they cannot be tracked via ADS-B. In the answer now available, this is confirmed by the EU Commission. According to this, the visibility of the aircraft would disclose „sensitive operational information“ and, in combination with other kinds of information, „undermine“ the operational objectives.

      The German Ministry of the Interior had already made similar comments on the Federal Police’s assets in Frontex missions, according to which „general tracking“ of their routes in real time would „endanger the success of the mission“.

      However, Frontex claims it did not issue instructions to online service providers to block the real-time position display of its planes, as journalist Scandura described. Nonetheless, the existing concealment of the operations only allows the conclusion that Frontex does not want to be controlled when the deployed aircraft watch refugees drown and Italy and Malta, as neighbouring EU member states, do not provide any assistance.

      https://digit.site36.net/2020/06/11/frontex-aircraft-blind-flight-against-international-law
      #avions #Italie #Croatie #confidentialité #transparence #Frontex_Aerial_Surveillance_Service (#FASS) #Multipurpose_Aerial_Surveillance #satellites #Méditerranée #Thermis #information_sensible #Indra #CAE_Aviation #Diamond-Executive_Aviation #EASP_Air #FlightAware #ADS-B #DA-42 #DA-62 #Beech_350 #Osprey1 #Osprey3 #Tasty #Osprey2 #Eagle1 #Malte #Sicile #pull-back #push-back #refoulement #Sergio_Scandura

    • Walls Must Fall: Ending the deadly politics of border militarisation - webinar recording
      This webinar explored the trajectory and globalization of border militarization and anti-migrant racism across the world, the history, ideologies and actors that have shaped it, the pillars and policies that underpin the border industrial complex, the resistance of migrants, refugees and activists, and the shifting dynamics within this pandemic.

      - #Harsha_Walia, author of Undoing Border Imperialism (2013)
      - #Jille_Belisario, Transnational Migrant Platform-Europe (TMP-E)
      - #Todd_Miller, author of Empire of Borders (2020), Storming the Wall (2019) and TNI’s report More than A Wall (2019)
      - #Kavita_Krishnan, All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA).
      https://www.tni.org/en/article/walls-must-fall
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8B-cJ2bTi8&feature=emb_logo

      #conférence #webinar

    • Le business meurtrier des frontières

      Le 21ème siècle sera-t-il celui des barrières ? Probable, au rythme où les frontières nationales se renforcent. Dans un livre riche et documenté, publié aux éditions Syllepse, le géographe Stéphane Rosière dresse un indispensable état des lieux.

      Une nuit du mois de juin, dans un centre de rétention de l’île de Rhodes, la police grecque vient chercher une vingtaine de migrant·e·s, dont deux bébés. Après un trajet en bus, elle abandonne le groupe dans un canot de sauvetage sans moteur, au milieu des eaux territoriales turques. En août, le New York Times publie une enquête révélant que cette pratique, avec la combinaison de l’arrivée aux affaires du premier ministre conservateur Kyriakos Mitsotakis et de la diffusion de la pandémie de Covid-19, est devenue courante depuis mars.

      Illégales au regard du droit international, ces expulsions illustrent surtout le durcissement constant de la politique migratoire de l’Europe depuis 20 ans. Elles témoignent aussi d’un processus mondial de « pixellisation » des frontières : celles-ci ne se réduisent pas à des lignes mais à un ensemble de points plus ou moins en amont ou en aval (ports, aéroports, eaux territoriales…), où opèrent les polices frontalières.
      La fin de la fin des frontières

      Plus largement, le récent ouvrage de Stéphane Rosière, Frontières de fer, le cloisonnement du monde, permet de prendre la mesure d’un processus en cours de « rebordering » à travers le monde. À la fois synthèse des recherches récentes sur les frontières et résultats des travaux de l’auteur sur la résurgence de barrières frontalières, le livre est une lecture incontournable sur l’évolution contemporaine des frontières nationales.

      D’autant qu’il n’y a pas si longtemps, la mondialisation semblait promettre l’affaissement des frontières, dans la foulée de la disparition de l’Union soviétique et, corollairement, de la généralisation de l’économie de marché. La Guerre froide terminée annonçait la « fin de l’histoire » et, avec elle, la disparition des limites territoriales héritées de l’époque moderne. Au point de ringardiser, rappelle Stéphane Rosière, les études sur les frontières au sein de la géographie des années 1990, parallèlement au succès d’une valorisation tous azimuts de la mobilité dans le discours politique dominant comme dans les sciences sociales.

      Trente ans après, le monde se réveille avec 25 000 kilomètres de barrières frontalières – record pour l’Inde, avec plus de 3 000 kilomètres de clôtures pour prévenir l’immigration depuis le Bangladesh. Barbelés, murs de briques, caméras, détecteurs de mouvements, grilles électrifiées, les dispositifs de contrôle frontalier fleurissent en continu sur les cinq continents.
      L’âge des « murs anti-pauvres »

      La contradiction n’est qu’apparente. Les barrières du 21e siècle ne ferment pas les frontières mais les cloisonnent – d’où le titre du livre. C’est-à-dire que l’objectif n’est pas de supprimer les flux mondialisés – de personnes et encore moins de marchandises ni de capitaux – mais de les contrôler. Les « teichopolitiques », terme qui recouvre, pour Stéphane Rosière, les politiques de cloisonnement de l’espace, matérialisent un « ordre mondial asymétrique et coercitif », dans lequel on valorise la mobilité des plus riches tout en assignant les populations pauvres à résidence.

      De fait, on observe que les barrières frontalières redoublent des discontinuités économiques majeures. Derrière l’argument de la sécurité, elles visent à contenir les mouvements migratoires des régions les plus pauvres vers des pays mieux lotis économiquement : du Mexique vers les États-Unis, bien sûr, ou de l’Afrique vers l’Europe, mais aussi de l’Irak vers l’Arabie Saoudite ou du Pakistan vers l’Iran.

      Les dispositifs de contrôle frontalier sont des outils parmi d’autres d’une « implacable hiérarchisation » des individus en fonction de leur nationalité. Comme l’a montré le géographe Matthew Sparke à propos de la politique migratoire nord-américaine, la population mondiale se trouve divisée entre une classe hypermobile de citoyen·ne·s « business-class » et une masse entravée de citoyen·ne·s « low-cost ». C’est le sens du « passport index » publié chaque année par le cabinet Henley : alors qu’un passeport japonais ou allemand donne accès à plus de 150 pays, ce chiffre descend en-dessous de 30 avec un passeport afghan ou syrien.
      Le business des barrières

      Si les frontières revêtent une dimension économique, c’est aussi parce qu’elles sont un marché juteux. À l’heure où les pays européens ferment des lits d’hôpital faute de moyens, on retiendra ce chiffre ahurissant : entre 2005 et 2016, le budget de Frontex, l’agence en charge du contrôle des frontières de l’Union européenne, est passé de 6,3 à 238,7 millions d’euros. À quoi s’ajoutent les budgets colossaux débloqués pour construire et entretenir les barrières – budgets entourés d’opacité et sur lesquels, témoigne l’auteur, il est particulièrement difficile d’enquêter, faute d’obtenir… des fonds publics.

      L’argent public alimente ainsi une « teichoéconomie » dont les principaux bénéficiaires sont des entreprises du BTP et de la sécurité européennes, nord-américaines, israéliennes et, de plus en plus, indiennes ou saoudiennes. Ce complexe sécuritaro-industriel, identifié par Julien Saada, commercialise des dispositifs de surveillance toujours plus sophistiqués et prospère au rythme de l’inflation de barrières entre pays, mais aussi entre quartiers urbains.

      Un business d’autant plus florissant qu’il s’auto-entretient, dès lors que les mêmes entreprises vendent des armes. On sait que les ventes d’armes, alimentant les guerres, stimulent les migrations : un « cercle vertueux » s’enclenche pour les entreprises du secteur, appelées à la rescousse pour contenir des mouvements de population qu’elles participent à encourager.
      « Mourir aux frontières »

      Bénéfices juteux, profits politiques, les barrières font des heureux. Elles tuent aussi et l’ouvrage de Stéphane Rosière se termine sur un décompte macabre. C’est, dit-il, une « guerre migratoire » qui est en cours. Guerre asymétrique, elle oppose la police armée des puissances économiques à des groupes le plus souvent désarmés, venant de périphéries dominées économiquement et dont on entend contrôler la mobilité. Au nom de la souveraineté des États, cette guerre fait plusieurs milliers de victimes par an et la moindre des choses est de « prendre la pleine mesure de la létalité contemporaine aux frontières ».

      Sur le blog :

      – Une synthèse sur les murs frontaliers : http://geographiesenmouvement.blogs.liberation.fr/2019/01/28/lamour-des-murs

      – Le compte rendu d’un autre livre incontournable sur les frontières : http://geographiesenmouvement.blogs.liberation.fr/2019/08/03/frontieres-en-mouvement

      – Une synthèse sur les barricades à l’échelle intraurbaine : http://geographiesenmouvement.blogs.liberation.fr/2020/10/21/gated-communities-le-paradis-entre-quatre-murs

      http://geographiesenmouvement.blogs.liberation.fr/2020/11/05/le-business-meurtrier-des-frontieres

    • How Private Security Firms Profit Off the Refugee Crisis

      The UK has pumped money to corporations turning #Calais into a bleak fortress.

      Tall white fences lined with barbed wire – welcome to Calais. The city in northern France is an obligatory stop for anyone trying to reach the UK across the channel. But some travellers are more welcome than others, and in recent decades, a slew of private security companies have profited millions of pounds off a very expensive – an unattractive – operation to keep migrants from crossing.

      Every year, thousands of passengers and lorries take the ferry at the Port of Calais-Fréthun, a trading route heavily relied upon by the UK for imports. But the entrance to the port looks more like a maximum-security prison than your typical EU border. Even before Brexit, the UK was never part of the Schengen area, which allows EU residents to move freely across 26 countries. For decades, Britain has strictly controlled its southern border in an attempt to stop migrants and asylum seekers from entering.

      As early as 2000, the Port of Calais was surrounded by a 2.8 metre-high fence to prevent people from jumping into lorries waiting at the ferry departure point. In 1999, the Red Cross set up a refugee camp in the nearby town of Sangatte which quickly became overcrowded. The UK pushed for it to be closed in 2002 and then negotiated a treaty with France to regulate migration between the two countries.

      The 2003 Le Toquet Treaty allowed the UK to check travellers on French soil before their arrival, and France to do the same on UK soil. Although the deal looks fair on paper, in practice it unduly burdens French authorities, as there are more unauthorised migrants trying to reach the UK from France than vice versa.

      The treaty effectively moved the UK border onto French territory, but people still need to cross the channel to request asylum. That’s why thousands of refugees from conflict zones like Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia have found themselves stranded in Calais, waiting for a chance to cross illegally – often in search of family members who’ve already made it to the UK. Many end up paying people smugglers to hide them in lorries or help them cross by boat.

      These underlying issues came to a head during the Syrian crisis, when refugees began camping out near Calais in 2014. The so-called Calais Jungle became infamous for its squalid conditions, and at its peak, hosted more than 7,000 people. They were all relocated to other centres in France before the camp was bulldozed in 2016. That same year, the UK also decided to build a €2.7 million border wall in Calais to block access to the port from the camp, but the project wasn’t completed until after the camp was cleared, attracting a fair deal of criticism. Between 2015 and 2018, the UK spent over €110 million on border security in France, only to top it up with over €56 million more in 2018.

      But much of this public money actually flows into the accounts of private corporations, hired to build and maintain the high-tech fences and conduct security checks. According to a 2020 report by the NGO Care4Calais, there are more than 40 private security companies working in the city. One of the biggest, Eamus Cork Solutions (ECS), was founded by a former Calais police officer in 2004 and is reported to have benefited at least €30 million from various contracts as of 2016.

      Stéphane Rosière, a geography professor at the University of Reims, wrote his book Iron Borders (only available in French) about the many border walls erected around the world. Rosière calls this the “security-industrial” complex – private firms that have largely replaced the traditional military-industrial sector in Europe since WW2.

      “These companies are getting rich by making security systems adaptable to all types of customers – individuals, companies or states,” he said. According to Rosière, three-quarters of the world’s border security barriers were built in the 21st century.

      Brigitte, a pensioner living close to the former site of the Calais Jungle, has seen her town change drastically over the past two decades. “Everything is cordoned off with wire mesh," she said. "I have the before and after photos, and it’s not a pretty sight. It’s just wire, wire, wire.” For the past 15 years, Brigitte has been opening her garage door for asylum seekers to stop by for a cup of tea and charge their phones and laptops, earning her the nickname "Mama Charge”.

      “For a while, the purpose of these fences and barriers was to stop people from crossing,” said François Guennoc, president of L’Auberge des Migrants, an NGO helping displaced migrants in Calais.

      Migrants have still been desperate enough to try their luck. “They risked a lot to get into the port area, and many of them came back bruised and battered,” Guennoc said. Today, walls and fences are mainly being built to deter people from settling in new camps near Calais after being evicted.

      In the city centre, all public squares have been fenced off. The city’s bridges have been fitted with blue lights and even with randomly-placed bike racks, so people won’t sleep under them.

      “They’ve also been cutting down trees for some time now,” said Brigitte, pointing to a patch near her home that was once woods. Guennoc said the authorities are now placing large rocks in areas where NGOs distribute meals and warm clothes, to prevent displaced people from receiving the donations. “The objective of the measures now is also to make the NGOs’ work more difficult,” he said.

      According to the NGO Refugee Rights Europe, about 1,500 men, women and minors were living in makeshift camps in and around Calais as of April 2020. In July 2020, French police raided a camp of over 500 people, destroying residents’ tents and belongings, in the largest operation since the Calais Jungle was cleared. An investigation by Slate found that smaller camps are cleared almost every day by the French police, even in the middle of winter. NGOs keep providing new tents and basic necessities to displaced residents, but they are frustrated by the waste of resources. The organisations are also concerned about COVID-19 outbreaks in the camps.

      As VICE World News has previously reported, the crackdown is only pushing people to take more desperate measures to get into the UK. Boat crossings reached record-highs in 2020, and four people have died since August 2020 while trying to cross, by land and sea. “When you create an obstacle, people find a way to get around it,” Guennoc said. “If they build a wall all the way along the coast to prevent boat departures, people will go to Normandy – and that has already started.” Crossing the open sea puts migrants at even greater risk.

      Rosière agrees security measures are only further endangering migrants.“All locks eventually open, no matter how complex they may be. It’s just a matter of time.”

      He believes the only parties who stand to profit from the status quo are criminal organisations and private security firms: “At the end of the day, this a messed-up use of public money.”

      https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx8yax/how-private-security-firms-profit-off-the-refugee-crisis

      En français:
      À Calais, la ville s’emmure
      https://www.vice.com/fr/article/wx8yax/a-calais-la-ville-semmure

    • Financing Border Wars. The border industry, its financiers and human rights

      This report seeks to explore and highlight the extent of today’s global border security industry, by focusing on the most important geographical markets—Australia, Europe, USA—listing the human rights violations and risks involved in each sector of the industry, profiling important corporate players and putting a spotlight on the key investors in each company.

      Executive summary

      Migration will be one of the defining human rights issues of the 21st century. The growing pressures to migrate combined with the increasingly militarised state security response will only exacerbate an already desperate situation for refugees and migrants. Refugees already live in a world where human rights are systematically denied. So as the climate crisis deepens and intersects with other economic and political crises, forcing more people from their homes, and as states retreat to ever more authoritarian security-based responses, the situation for upholding and supporting migrants’ rights looks ever bleaker.

      States, most of all those in the richest countries, bear the ultimate responsibility to uphold the human rights of refugees and migrants recognised under International Human Rights Law. Yet corporations are also deeply implicated. It is their finance, their products, their services, their infrastructure that underpins the structures of state migration and border control. In some cases, they are directly involved in human rights violations themselves; in other cases they are indirectly involved as they facilitate the system that systematically denies refugees and migrants their rights. Most of all, through their lobbying, involvement in government ‘expert’ groups, revolving doors with state agencies, it becomes clear that corporations are not just accidental beneficiaries of the militarisation of borders. Rather they actively shape the policies from which they profit and therefore share responsibility for the human rights violations that result.

      This state-corporate fusion is best described as a Border Industrial Complex, drawing on former US President Eisenhower’s warning of the dangers of a Military-Industrial Complex. Indeed it is noticeable that many of the leading border industries today are also military companies, seeking to diversify their security products to a rapidly expanding new market.

      This report seeks to explore and highlight the extent of today’s global border security industry, by focusing on the most important geographical markets—Australia, Europe, USA—listing the human rights violations and risks involved in each sector of the industry, profiling important corporate players and putting a spotlight on the key investors in each company.
      A booming industry

      The border industry is experiencing spectacular growth, seemingly immune to austerity or economic downturns. Market research agencies predict annual growth of the border security market of between 7.2% and 8.6%, reaching a total of $65–68 billion by 2025. The largest expansion is in the global Biometrics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) markets. Markets and Markets forecasts the biometric systems market to double from $33 billion in 2019 to $65.3 billion by 2024—of which biometrics for migration purposes will be a significant sector. It says that the AI market will equal US$190.61 billion by 2025.

      The report investigates five key sectors of the expanding industry: border security (including monitoring, surveillance, walls and fences), biometrics and smart borders, migrant detention, deportation, and audit and consultancy services. From these sectors, it profiles 23 corporations as significant actors: Accenture, Airbus, Booz Allen Hamilton, Classic Air Charter, Cobham, CoreCivic, Deloitte, Elbit, Eurasylum, G4S, GEO Group, IBM, IDEMIA, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Mitie, Palantir, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Serco, Sopra Steria, Thales, Thomson Reuters, Unisys.

      – The border security and control field, the technological infrastructure of security and surveillance at the border, is led by US, Australian, European and Israeli firms including Airbus, Elbit, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Airbus, Leonardo and Thales— all of which are among the world’s major arms sellers. They benefit not only from border contracts within the EU, US, and Australia but also increasingly from border externalisation programmes funded by these same countries. Jean Pierre Talamoni, head of sales and marketing at Airbus Defence and Space (ADS), said in 2016 that he estimates that two thirds of new military market opportunities over the next 10 years will be in Asia and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Companies are also trying to muscle in on providing the personnel to staff these walls, including border guards.

      - The Smart Borders sector encompasses the use of a broad range of (newer) technologies, including biometrics (such as fingerprints and iris-scans), AI and phone and social media tracking. The goal is to speed up processes for national citizens and other acceptable travellers and stop or deport unwanted migrants through the use of more sophisticated IT and biometric systems. Key corporations include large IT companies, such as IBM and Unisys, and multinational services company Accenture for whom migration is part of their extensive portfolio, as well as small firms, such as IDEMIA and Palantir Technologies, for whom migration-related work is central. The French public–private company Civipol, co-owned by the state and several large French arms companies, is another key player, selected to set up fingerprint databases of the whole population of Mali and Senegal.

      – Deportation. With the exception of the UK and the US, it is uncommon to privatise deportation. The UK has hired British company Mitie for its whole deportation process, while Classic Air Charter dominates in the US. Almost all major commercial airlines, however, are also involved in deportations. Newsweek reported, for example, that in the US, 93% of the 1,386 ICE deportation flights to Latin American countries on commercial airlines in 2019 were facilitated by United Airlines (677), American Airlines (345) and Delta Airlines (266).

      - Detention. The Global Detention Project lists over 1,350 migrant detention centres worldwide, of which over 400 are located in Europe, almost 200 in the US and nine in Australia. In many EU countries, the state manages detention centres, while in other countries (e.g. Australia, UK, USA) there are completely privatised prisons. Many other countries have a mix of public and private involvement, such as state facilities with private guards. Australia outsourced refugee detention to camps outside its territories. Australian service companies Broadspectrum and Canstruct International managed the detention centres, while the private security companies G4S, Paladin Solutions and Wilson Security were contracted for security services, including providing guards. Migrant detention in third countries is also an increasingly important part of EU migration policy, with the EU funding construction of migrant detention centres in ten non-EU countries.

      - Advisory and audit services are a more hidden part of public policies and practices, but can be influential in shaping new policies. A striking example is Civipol, which in 2003 wrote a study on maritime borders for the European Commission, which adopted its key policy recommendations in October 2003 and in later policy documents despite its derogatory language against refugees. Civipol’s study also laid foundations for later measures on border externalisation, including elements of the migration deal with Turkey and the EU’s Operation Sophia. Since 2003 Civipol has received funding for a large number of migration-related projects, especially in African countries. Between 2015 and 2017, it was the fourth most-funded organisation under the EU Trust Fund. Other prominent corporations in this sector include Eurasylum, as well as major international consultancy firms, particularly Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers, for which migration-related work is part of their expansive portfolio.

      Financing the industry

      The markets for military and border control procurement are characterized by massively capital intensive investments and contracts, which would not be possible without the involvement of financial actors. Using data from marketscreener.com, the report shows that the world’s largest investment companies are also among the major shareholders in the border industry.

      – The Vanguard Group owns shares in 15 of the 17 companies, including over 15% of the shares of CoreCivic and GEO Group that manage private prisons and detention facilities.

      - Other important investors are Blackrock, which is a major shareholder in 11 companies, Capital Research and Management (part of the Capital Group), with shares in arms giants Airbus and Lockheed Martin, and State Street Global Advisors (SsgA), which owns over 15% of Lockheed Martin shares and is also a major shareholder in six other companies.

      - Although these giant asset management firms dominate, two of the profiled companies, Cobham and IDEMIA, are currently owned by the private equity firm Advent International. Advent specialises in buyouts and restructuring, and it seems likely that it will attempt to split up Cobham in the hope of making a profit by selling on the component companies to other owners.

      - In addition, three large European arms companies, Airbus, Thales and Leonardo, active in the border security market, are partly owned by the governments of the countries where they are headquartered.

      In all cases, therefore, the financing depends on our money. In the case of state ownership, through our taxes, and in terms of asset management funds, through the way individual savings, pension funds, insurance companies and university endowments are directly invested in these companies via the giant Asset Management Funds. This financing means that the border industry survives on at least the tacit approved use of the public’s funds which makes it vulnerable to social pressure as the human rights costs of the industry become ever more clear.
      Human rights and the border industry

      Universal human rights apply to every single human being, including refugees and migrants. While the International Bill of Human Rights provides the foundation, including defining universal rights that are important in the context of migration, such as the right to life, liberty and security of person, the right to freedom from torture or cruel or inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, and freedom from discrimination, there are other instruments such as the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention or Geneva Convention) of 1951 that are also relevant. There are also regional agreements, including the Organisation of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that play a role relevant to the countries that have ratified them.

      Yet despite these important and legally binding human rights agreements, the human rights situation for refugees and migrants has become ever more desperate. States frequently deny their rights under international law, such as the right to seek asylum or non-refoulement principles, or more general rights such as the freedom from torture, cruel or inhumane treatment. There is a gap with regard to effective legal means or grievance mechanisms to counter this or to legally enforce or hold to account states that fail to implement instruments such as the UDHR and the Refugee Convention of 1951. A Permanent Peoples Tribunal in 2019 even concluded that ‘taken together, the immigration and asylum policies and practices of the EU and its Member States constitute a total denial of the fundamental rights of people and migrants, and are veritable crimes against humanity’. A similar conclusion can be made of the US and Australian border and immigration regime.

      The increased militarisation of border security worldwide and state-sanctioned hostility toward migrants has had a deeply detrimental impact on the human rights of refugees and migrants.

      – Increased border security has led to direct violence against refugees, pushbacks with the risk of returning people to unsafe countries and inhumane circumstances (contravening the principle of non-refoulement), and a disturbing rise in avoidable deaths, as countries close off certain migration routes, forcing migrants to look for other, often more dangerous, alternatives and pushing them into the arms of criminal smuggling networks.

      – The increased use of autonomous systems of border security such as drones threaten new dangers related to human rights. There is already evidence that they push migrants to take more dangerous routes, but there is also concern that there is a gradual trend towards weaponized systems that will further threaten migrants’ lives.

      – The rise in deportations has threatened fundamental human rights including the right to family unity, the right to seek asylum, the right to humane treatment in detention, the right to due process, and the rights of children’. There have been many instances of violence in the course of deportations, sometimes resulting in death or permanent harm, against desperate people who try to do everything to prevent being deported. Moreover, deportations often return refugees to unsafe countries, where they face violence, persecution, discrimination and poverty.

      - The widespread detention of migrants also fundamentally undermines their human rights . There have been many reports of violence and neglect by guards and prison authorities, limited access to adequate legal and medical support, a lack of decent food, overcrowding and poor and unhealthy conditions. Privatisation of detention exacerbates these problems, because companies benefit from locking up a growing number of migrants and minimising costs.

      – The building of major migration databases such as EU’s Eurodac and SIS II, VIS gives rise to a range of human rights concerns, including issues of privacy, civil liberties, bias leading to discrimination—worsened by AI processes -, and misuse of collected information. Migrants are already subject to unprecedented levels of surveillance, and are often now treated as guinea pigs where even more intrusive technologies such as facial recognition and social media tracking are tried out without migrants consent.

      The trend towards externalisation of migration policies raises new concerns as it seeks to put the human costs of border militarisation beyond the border and out of public sight. This has led to the EU, US and Australia all cooperating with authoritarian regimes to try and prevent migrants from even getting close to their borders. Moreover as countries donate money, equipment or training to security forces in authoritarian regimes, they end up expanding and strengthening their capacities which leads to a rise in human rights violations more broadly. Nowhere are the human rights consequences of border externalisation policies clearer than in the case of Libya, where the EU and individual member states (in particular Italy and Malta) funding, training and cooperation with security forces and militias have led to violence at the borders, murder, disappearances, rape, enslavement and abuse of migrants in the country and torture in detention centres.

      The 23 corporations profiled in this report have all been involved in or connected to policies and practices that have come under fire because of violations of the human rights of refugees and migrants. As mentioned earlier, sometimes the companies are directly responsible for human rights violations or concerns. In other cases, they are indirectly responsible through their contribution to a border infrastructure that denies human rights and through lobbying to influence policy-making to prioritize militarized responses to migration. 11 of the companies profiled publicly proclaim their commitment to human rights as signatories to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), but as these are weak voluntary codes this has not led to noticeable changes in their business operations related to migration.

      The most prominent examples of direct human rights abuses come from the corporations involved in detention and deportation. Classic Air Charter, Cobham, CoreCivic, Eurasylum, G4S, GEO Group, Mitie and Serco all have faced allegations of violence and abuse by their staff towards migrants. G4S has been one of the companies most often in the spotlight. In 2017, not only were assaults by its staff on migrants at the Brook House immigration removal centre in the UK broadcast by the BBC, but it was also hit with a class suit in Australia by almost 2,000 people who are or were detained at the externalised detention centre on Manus Island, because of physical and psychological injuries as a result of harsh treatment and dangerous conditions. The company eventually settled the case for A$70 million (about $53 million) in the largest-ever human rights class-action settlement. G4S has also faced allegations related to its involvement in deportations.

      The other companies listed all play a pivotal role in the border infrastructure that denies refugees’ human rights. Airbus P-3 Orion surveillance planes of the Australian Air Force, for example, play a part in the highly controversial maritime wall that prevents migrants arriving by boat and leads to their detention in terrible conditions offshore. Lockheed Martin is a leading supplier of border security on the US-Mexico border. Leonardo is one of the main suppliers of drones for Europe’s borders. Thales produces the radar and sensor systems, critical to patrolling the Mediterrean. Elbit Systems provides surveillance technologies to both the EU and US, marketed on their success as technologies used in the separation wall in the Palestinian occupied territories. Accenture, IDEMIA and Sopra Steria manage many border biometric projects. Deloitte has been one of the key consulting companies to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency since 2003, while PriceWaterhouseCoopers provides similar consultancy services to Frontex and the Australian border forces. IBM, Palantir and UNISYS provide the IT infrastructure that underpins the border and immigration apparatus.
      Time to divest

      The report concludes by calling for campaigns to divest from the border industry. There is a long history of campaigns and movements that call for divestment from industries that support human rights violations—from the campaigns to divest from Apartheid South Africa to more recent campaigns to divest from the fossil fuel industry. The border industry has become an equally morally toxic asset for any financial institution, given the litany of human rights abuses tied to it and the likelihood they will intensify in years to come.

      There are already examples of existing campaigns targeting particular border industries that have borne fruit. A spotlight on US migrant detention, as part of former President Trump’s anti- immigration policies, contributed to six large US banks (Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Fifth Third Bancorp, JPMorgan Chase, SunTrust, and Wells Fargo) publicly announcing that they would not provide new financing to the private prison industry. The two largest public US pension funds, CalSTRS and CalPERS, also decided to divest from the same two companies. Geo Group acknowledged that these acts of ‘public resistance’ hit the company financially, criticising the banks as ‘clearly bow[ing] down to a small group of activists protesting and conducting targeted social media campaigns’.

      Every company involved or accused of human rights violations either denies them or says that they are atypical exceptions to corporate behavior. This report shows however that a militarised border regime built on exclusion will always be a violent apparatus that perpetuates human rights violations. It is a regime that every day locks up refugees in intolerable conditions, separates families causing untold trauma and heartbreak, and causes a devastating death toll as refugees are forced to take unimaginable dangerous journeys because the alternatives are worse. However well-intentioned, any industry that provides services and products for this border regime will bear responsibility for its human consequences and its human rights violations, and over time will suffer their own serious reputational costs for their involvement in this immoral industry. On the other hand, a widespread exodus of the leading corporations on which the border regime depends could force states to change course, and to embrace a politics that protects and upholds the rights of refugees and migrants. Worldwide, social movements and the public are starting to wake up to the human costs of border militarisation and demanding a fundamental change. It is time now for the border industry and their financiers to make a choice.

      https://www.tni.org/en/financingborderwars

      #TNI #rapport
      #industrie_frontalière #militarisation_des_frontières #biométrie #Intelligence_artificielle #AI #IA

      #Accenture #Airbus #Booz_Allen_Hamilton #Classic_Air_Charter #Cobham #CoreCivic #Deloitte #Elbit #Eurasylum #G4S #GEO_Group #IBM #IDEMIA #Leonardo #Lockheed_Martin #Mitie #Palantir #PricewaterhouseCoopers #Serco #Sopra_Steria #Thales #Thomson_Reuters #Unisys
      #contrôles_frontaliers #surveillance #technologie #Jean-Pierre_Talamoni #Airbus_Defence_and_Space (#ADS) #smart_borders #frontières_intelligentes #iris #empreintes_digitales #réseaux_sociaux #IT #Civipol #Mali #Sénégal #renvois #expulsions #déportations #Mitie #Classic_Air_Charter #compagnies_aériennes #United_Airlines #ICE #American_Airlines #Delta_Airlines #rétention #détention_administrative #privatisation #Broadspectrum #Canstruct_International #Paladin_Solutions #Wilson_Security #Operation_Sophia #EU_Trust_Fund #Trust_Fund #externalisation #Eurasylum #Deloitte #PricewaterhouseCoopers #Vanguard_Group #CoreCivic #Blackrock #investisseurs #investissement #Capital_Research_and_Management #Capital_Group #Lockheed_Martin #State_Street_Global_Advisors (#SsgA) #Cobham #IDEMIA #Advent_International #droits_humains #VIS #SIS_II #P-3_Orion #Accenture #Sopra_Steria #Frontex #Australie

    • Outsourcing oppression. How Europe externalises migrant detention beyond its shores

      This report seeks to address the gap and join the dots between Europe’s outsourcing of migrant detention to third countries and the notorious conditions within the migrant detention centres. In a nutshell, Europe calls the shots on migrant detention beyond its shores but is rarely held to account for the deeply oppressive consequences, including arbitrary detention, torture, forced disappearance, violence, sexual violence, and death.

      Key findings

      – The European Union (EU), and its member states, externalise detention to third countries as part of a strategy to keep migrants out at all costs. This leads to migrants being detained and subjected to gross human rights violations in transit countries in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, West Asia and Africa.

      – Candidate countries wishing to join the EU are obligated to detain migrants and stop them from crossing into the EU as a prerequisite for accession to the Union. Funding is made available through pre-accession agreements specifically for the purpose of detaining migrants.

      – Beyond EU candidate countries, this report identifies 22 countries in Africa, Eastern Europe, the Balkans and West Asia where the EU and its member states fund the construction of detention centres, detention related activities such as trainings, or advocate for detention in other ways such as through aggressively pushing for detention legislation or agreeing to relax visa requirements for nationals of these countries in exchange for increased migrant detention.

      - The main goal of detention externalisation is to pre-empt migrants from reaching the external borders of the EU by turning third countries into border outposts. In many cases this involves the EU and its member states propping up and maintaining authoritarian regimes.

      – Europe is in effect following the ‘Australian model’ that has been highly criticised by UN experts and human rights organisations for the torturous conditions inside detention centres. Nevertheless, Europe continues to advance a system that mirrors Australia’s outsourced model, focusing not on guaranteeing the rights of migrants, but instead on deterring and pushing back would-be asylum seekers at all costs.

      - Human rights are systematically violated in detention centres directly and indirectly funded by the EU and its member states, including cases of torture, arbitrary and prolonged detention, sexual violence, no access to legal recourse, humanitarian assistance, or asylum procedures, the detention of victims of trafficking, and many other serious violations in which Europe is implicated.

      - Particularly horrendous is the case of Libya, which continues to receive financial and political support from Europe despite mounting evidence of brutality, enslavement, torture, forced disappearance and death. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), implement EU policies in Libya and, according to aid officials, actively whitewash the consequences of European policies to safeguard substantial EU funding.

      - Not only does the EU deport and push back migrants to unsafe third countries, it actively finances and coercively pushes for their detention in these countries. Often they have no choice but to sign ‘voluntary’ agreements to be returned to their countries of origin as the only means of getting out of torturous detention facilities.

      - The EU implements a carrot and stick approach, in particular in its dealings with Africa, prolonging colonialist dynamics and uneven power structures – in Niger, for example, the EU pushed for legislation on detention, in exchange for development aid funding.

      – The EU envisages a greater role for migrant detention in third countries going forward, as was evidenced in the European Commission’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum.

      - The EU acts on the premise of containment and deterrence, namely, that if migrants seeking to reach Europe are intercepted and detained along that journey, they will be deterred from making the journey in the first place. This approach completely misses the point that people migrate to survive, often fleeing war and other forms of violence. The EU continues to overlook the structural reasons behind why people flee and the EU’s own role in provoking such migration.

      – The border industrial complex profits from the increased securitisation of borders. Far from being passive spectators, the military and security industry is actively involved in shaping EU border policies by positioning themselves as experts on the issue. We can already see a trend of privatising migrant detention, paralleling what is happening in prison systems worldwide.

      https://www.tni.org/en/outsourcingoppression

      pour télécharger le rapport :
      https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/outsourcingoppression-report-tni.pdf

      #externalisation #rétention #détention #détention_arbitraire #violence #disparitions #disparitions_forcées #violence #violence_sexuelle #morts #mort #décès #Afrique #Europe_de_l'Est #Balkans #Asie #modèle_australien #EU #UE #Union_européenne #torture #Libye #droits_humains #droits_fondamentaux #HCR #UNHCR #OIM #IOM #dissuasion #privatisation

    • Fortress Europe: the millions spent on military-grade tech to deter refugees

      We map out the rising number of #high-tech surveillance and deterrent systems facing asylum seekers along EU borders.

      From military-grade drones to sensor systems and experimental technology, the EU and its members have spent hundreds of millions of euros over the past decade on technologies to track down and keep at bay the refugees on its borders.

      Poland’s border with Belarus is becoming the latest frontline for this technology, with the country approving last month a €350m (£300m) wall with advanced cameras and motion sensors.

      The Guardian has mapped out the result of the EU’s investment: a digital wall on the harsh sea, forest and mountain frontiers, and a technological playground for military and tech companies repurposing products for new markets.

      The EU is central to the push towards using technology on its borders, whether it has been bought by the EU’s border force, Frontex, or financed for member states through EU sources, such as its internal security fund or Horizon 2020, a project to drive innovation.

      In 2018, the EU predicted that the European security market would grow to €128bn (£108bn) by 2020. Beneficiaries are arms and tech companies who heavily courted the EU, raising the concerns of campaigners and MEPs.

      “In effect, none of this stops people from crossing; having drones or helicopters doesn’t stop people from crossing, you just see people taking more risky ways,” says Jack Sapoch, formerly with Border Violence Monitoring Network. “This is a history that’s so long, as security increases on one section of the border, movement continues in another section.”

      Petra Molnar, who runs the migration and technology monitor at Refugee Law Lab, says the EU’s reliance on these companies to develop “hare-brained ideas” into tech for use on its borders is inappropriate.

      “They rely on the private sector to create these toys for them. But there’s very little regulation,” she says. “Some sort of tech bro is having a field day with this.”

      “For me, what’s really sad is that it’s almost a done deal that all this money is being spent on camps, enclosures, surveillance, drones.”

      Air Surveillance

      Refugees and migrants trying to enter the EU by land or sea are watched from the air. Border officers use drones and helicopters in the Balkans, while Greece has airships on its border with Turkey. The most expensive tool is the long-endurance Heron drone operating over the Mediterranean.

      Frontex awarded a €100m (£91m) contract last year for the Heron and Hermes drones made by two Israeli arms companies, both of which had been used by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip. Capable of flying for more than 30 hours and at heights of 10,000 metres (30,000 feet), the drones beam almost real-time feeds back to Frontex’s HQ in Warsaw.

      Missions mostly start from Malta, focusing on the Libyan search and rescue zone – where the Libyan coastguard will perform “pull backs” when informed by EU forces of boats trying to cross the Mediterranean.

      German MEP Özlem Demirel is campaigning against the EU’s use of drones and links to arms companies, which she says has turned migration into a security issue.

      “The arms industries are saying: ‘This is a security problem, so buy my weapons, buy my drones, buy my surveillance system,’” says Demirel.

      “The EU is always talking about values like human rights, [speaking out] against violations but … week-by-week we see more people dying and we have to question if the EU is breaking its values,” she says.

      Sensors and cameras

      EU air assets are accompanied on the ground by sensors and specialised cameras that border authorities throughout Europe use to spot movement and find people in hiding. They include mobile radars and thermal cameras mounted on vehicles, as well as heartbeat detectors and CO2 monitors used to detect signs of people concealed inside vehicles.

      Greece deploys thermal cameras and sensors along its land border with Turkey, monitoring the feeds from operations centres, such as in Nea Vyssa, near the meeting of the Greek, Turkish and Bulgarian borders. Along the same stretch, in June, Greece deployed a vehicle-mounted sound cannon that blasts “deafening” bursts of up to 162 decibels to force people to turn back.

      Poland is hoping to emulate Greece in response to the crisis on its border with Belarus. In October, its parliament approved a €350m wall that will stretch along half the border and reach up to 5.5 metres (18 feet), equipped with motion detectors and thermal cameras.

      Surveillance centres

      In September, Greece opened a refugee camp on the island of Samos that has been described as prison-like. The €38m (£32m) facility for 3,000 asylum seekers has military-grade fencing and #CCTV to track people’s movements. Access is controlled by fingerprint, turnstiles and X-rays. A private security company and 50 uniformed officers monitor the camp. It is the first of five that Greece has planned; two more opened in November.

      https://twitter.com/_PMolnar/status/1465224733771939841

      At the same time, Greece opened a new surveillance centre on Samos, capable of viewing video feeds from the country’s 35 refugee camps from a wall of monitors. Greece says the “smart” software helps to alert camps of emergencies.

      Artificial intelligence

      The EU spent €4.5m (£3.8m) on a three-year trial of artificial intelligence-powered lie detectors in Greece, Hungary and Latvia. A machine scans refugees and migrants’ facial expressions as they answer questions it poses, deciding whether they have lied and passing the information on to a border officer.

      The last trial finished in late 2019 and was hailed as a success by the EU but academics have called it pseudoscience, arguing that the “micro-expressions” the software analyses cannot be reliably used to judge whether someone is lying. The software is the subject of a court case taken by MEP Patrick Breyer to the European court of justice in Luxembourg, arguing that there should be more public scrutiny of such technology. A decision is expected on 15 December.

      https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/dec/06/fortress-europe-the-millions-spent-on-military-grade-tech-to-deter-refu

  • #métaliste sur les #villes-refuge

    –-> v. aussi cette compilation : https://seenthis.net/messages/675436

    Le #HCR se félicite du soutien de 175 villes à travers le #monde entier en faveur des réfugiés
    https://seenthis.net/messages/791115
    #Cities#WithRefugees

    Projet de recherche du #PUCA « L’accueil, la circulation et l’installation des migrants » :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/817229

    Quel rôle pour les villes dans l’accueil et l’intégration des demandeurs d’asile et réfugiés ?
    https://www.vuesdeurope.eu/num/quel-role-pour-les-villes-dans-laccueil-et-lintegration-des-demandeurs-d

    Cities of refuge research

    A research project that explores and explicates the relevance of international human rights, as law, praxis and discourse, to how local governments in Europe welcome and integrate refugees.

    https://citiesofrefuge.eu

    An EU solution, or a local one ?
    –-> une section d’un article publié dans l’article « Germany sees political controversy over rescuing refugees from Greece » :
    https://www.dw.com/en/germany-greece-refugees-asylum-controversy/a-54538520

    Table-ronde organisée lors d’une conférence du réseau Fearless Cities sur les villes-refuge :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/899744

    L’accueil des réfugiés peut-il devenir une #politique_locale ?
    https://seenthis.net/messages/927177

    Visualisation : Cities and civil society networks for a Welcoming Europe


    https://seenthis.net/messages/928867

    Europe welcomes - A decent and humane asylum policy is possible in Europe


    https://seenthis.net/messages/967233

    #ville-refuge #migrations #asile #réfugiés #solidarité #résistance

    ping @isskein

  • Liste de liens autour d’#accords_de_réadmission entre pays européens...

    Mini liste sur la question des accords de réadmission signés entre différents pays européens afin de pouvoir expulser les migrants...

    #accord_de_réadmission #accord_bilatéral #frontières #expulsions #renvois #refoulement #migrations #asile #réfugiés #réadmission #frontière_sud-alpine #push-backs #refoulements #accords_bilatéraux #réadmission #Alpes #montagne
    ping @isskein

    • Entre la #France et l’#Italie :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/730361

      Il s’agit de l’#accord_de_Chambéry. Décret n° 2000-923 du 18 septembre 2000 portant publication de l’accord entre le Gouvernement de la République française et le Gouvernement de la République italienne relatif à la #coopération_transfrontalière en matière policière et douanière, signé à Chambéry le 3 octobre #1997
      https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000766303

      voir aussi le rapport ASGI :
      https://medea.asgi.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/all-4-scheda-DM-5-agosto_def.pdf
      signalé ici :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/892443

    • Entre l’#Espagne et la #France:
      –-> #accord_de_Malaga signé le 26 novembre 2002 entre la France et l’Espagne.

      https://seenthis.net/messages/901308

      –---

      Un accord signé entre la France et l’Espagne prévoit de renvoyer tout migrant se trouvant sur le territoire français depuis moins de quatre heures.

      http://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/13368/france-19-migrants-interpelles-dans-un-bus-en-provenance-de-bayonne-et

      –---

      Concernant l’accord entre l’Espagne et la France, voici un complément, reçu via la mailing-list Migreurop:

      C’est un accord de réadmission bilatéral signé entre la France et l’Espagne (comme tas d’autres) qui prévoit la réadmission des nationaux ou de ressortissants de pays tiers ayant transité par le territoire de l’un de ces pays.

      L’article 7 de cet accord prévoit :
      Les autorités responsables des contrôles aux frontières des deux Parties contractantes réadmettent immédiatement sur leur territoire les étrangers, ressortissants d’Etats tiers, qui sont présentés par les autorités des frontières de l’autre Partie, dans les quatre heures suivant le passage illégal de la frontière commune.

      Il a été signé le 26 novembre 2002, et concernant la France, publié par le décret n° 2004-226 du 9 mars 2004.

      Vous trouverez sur le site de Migreurop, d’autres accords signés par la France (et aussi par d’autres pays de l’UE),

      http://www.migreurop.org/article1931.html

      –---

      Francia devolvió a España casi 16.000 migrantes en solo cinco meses (2021)

      Para expulsar a los inmigrantes que entran irregularmente a su territorio, Francia y España se valen de un acuerdo bilateral de 2002 (https://elpais.com/politica/2018/11/02/actualidad/1541179682_837419.html) que les permite la devolución en las cuatro horas siguientes al paso de la frontera. El acuerdo contempla una serie de garantías, como que los inmigrantes sean entregados a la policía española o que se formalice por escrito su devolución. Los datos de la policía francesa no especifican cuántos inmigrantes han sido devueltos sobre la base de este acuerdo bilateral, pero fuentes policiales y los propios inmigrantes han señalado que la mayor parte se realiza sin que medie un solo trámite.

      https://seenthis.net/messages/912645

    • Press Release: Court find Slovenian state guilty of chain pushback to Bosnia-Herzegovina

      Civil initiative Info Kolpa, a key member of the Border Violence Monitoring Network, are sharing here the landmark judgement issued on 16th July 2020 by the Slovenian Administrative Court. The findings prove that the national police force carried out an illegal collective expulsion of a member of a persecuted English-speaking minority from Cameroon who wanted to apply for asylum in Slovenia.

      The court heard the experience of the applicant, J.D., who was held in a Slovenian police station for two days and denied access to asylum, despite making three verbal requests. After this procedural gatekeeping, the applicant was readmitted to Croatia – under an agreement described by the Slovenian Ombudswoman as “against the European legal order”. From Croatia, J.D. was chain refouled to Bosnia-Herzegovina, a pattern analysed in a feature length report by InfoKolpa published in May 2019.

      The Administrative Court found that the Republic of Slovenia violated the applicant’s right to asylum (Article 18 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights), the prohibition of collective expulsions (Article 19 § 1) and the principle of non-refoulement (Article 19 § 2):

      “that no one shall be removed, expelled or extradited to a State in which he or she is in serious danger of being subjected to the death penalty, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

      The court ruled that the police had not informed J.D. of his asylum rights, as mandated to do so, in clear breach of domestic and EU law. The pushback also breached the prohibition of collective expulsion because the applicant was not issued a removal order, nor given translation and legal aid prior to his readmission to Croatia. In regards to the chain refoulement, the judgement found “sufficiently reliable reports on possible risks from the point of view of Article 3 of the ECHR” in both Croatia where the applicant was initially removed, and also in Bosnia-Herzegovina where he was subsequently pushed back. This is inline with evidence provided by BVMN in 2019 showing that 80% of recorded pushback cases from Croatia breached law on torture or inhumane and degrading treatment.

      In a groundbreaking step, once the judgment becomes final, it will oblige the Republic of Slovenia to allow the applicant to enter the country and file an application for international protection without delay, as well as provide €5,000 in compensation. Commenting on the outcome, the applicant stated:

      “I know and believe that the judgement will help those that come after me. It may not have a direct solution for me, but I know that we are creating awareness and you give more trust to the law of the country.” — J. D., Bosnia, 17th July 2020

      While the Ministry of Internal Affairs have stated they will appeal the judgement, the lawyer representing J.D. stated the case is a landmark because it not only proves the human rights violations suffered by the applicant, but establishes that chain pushbacks to Bosnia-Herzegovina are “systematic and routine”.

      https://www.borderviolence.eu/press-release-court-find-slovenian-state-guilty-of-chain-pushback-to-

      #Slovénie #Bosnie

    • Court confirms systematic human rights violations by Austrian police

      Regional Administrative Court of Styria confirmed the practice of chain puchbacks and found the Austrian police guilty of violating the right to human dignity and the right of documentation

      On 28th of September 2020 eight people were pushed back after being chased and humiliated by Austrian police. Their repeated verbal demand for asylum had been ignored, and no interpreter was involved, as our friends from the initiative „Push Back Alarm Austria“ documented, as we reported earlier on, and later pressed charges in the one case of Ayoub N.

      Now, the court confirmed the methodical practice of chain pushbacks and for the first time the existence of a chain pushback route from Austria or Italy crossing Slovenia and Croatia to Bosnia, including the collaboration of the police in different countries.

      The actions of the police officers who intervened were purposefully aimed at the rejection of the complainant and there is no room for any other interpretation

      In synopsis of the entire official act, the court concludes that there was an obvious bias of the officers against the complainant, since the physical search was disproportionate, no food was provided, and the involvement of an interpreter was omitted despite obvious language difficulties and the use of the word “asylum”, the verdict states (asyl.at/de/info/presseaussendungen/push-back-routevonoesterreichbisbosnien/?s=pushbacks).

      The joint press release of Push-Alarm Austria & Asylkoordination notes that, despite a court finding that his rights were disregarded, due to a legal loophole, the complainant Ayoub N. will not be allowed to enter the country. “I was confident that we would win the case. After returning to Bosnia, I felt like shattered glass. At the moment, I am trying to sort out my life and move forward,” he said.

      “We are talking about systematic human rights violations, inhumane treatment and ignoring the principles of the rule of law by police in Austria. It is completely unimaginable that this is happening without the knowledge and against the expressed will of the Minister of the Interior and his officials. If someone questions the Geneva Refugee Convention, one of the greatest lessons of the Shoah, and at the same time does not take consistent action against systematic human rights violations by the police, the only thing left to do is to resign!”

      Lawyer Clemens Lahner sees the finding as a clear warning to the Ministry of the Interior to put an end to the systematic disregard for the rule of law as soon as possible: “Not everyone who applies for asylum in Austria automatically will receive a substantive asylum procedure or be granted protection. But these questions are to be examined and decided by the competent authorities or courts,” the lawyer clarifies. “If the police presume to decide who will get an asylum procedure at all, this is clearly illegal. The Ministry of the Interior has now been put on written notice, in the name of the Republic.”

      Klaudia Wieser of Push-Back Alarm Austria said. “This case shows the necessity of our initiative to prevent systematic breaches of the law at Austrian borders. Austrian push-backs frequently constitute the first step of chain push-backs beyond the EU’s external borders. Sebastian Kurz is the spiritus rector of systematic human rights violations along the push-back route to Bosnia.”

      The finding from Graz also puts the Slovenian government which has just taken over the EU Presidency under considerable pressure. For the first time, it is possible to prove in a court case what human rights organisations such as ours and particularly everyone within the Border Violence Monitoring Network have been documenting since 2016: a continuous pushback route via Austria or Italy via Slovenia and Croatia to Bosnia.

      “If someone questions the Geneva Refugee Convention, one of the greatest lessons of the Shoah, and at the same time does not take consistent action against systematic human rights violations by the police, the only thing left to do is to resign!” — University Professor Dr. Benedek of the Institute of International Law and International Relations from the University of Graz said.

      However, as in other such cases in countries along the so called Balkan Route, no higher responsibility has so far been established by a court or other instance deemed valid by the states, so we expect to see more tacit acceptance of the anti-people and anti-human rights commands by those on the top.

      https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-5-7-21-court-confirmed-the-systemic-chain-pushbacks-b8e0749

      #Autriche

  • #métaliste autour de la situation des exilés dans les Hautes-Alpes

    Le fil de discussion initié en avril 2018 (mais avec des liens plus anciens car il s’agit déjà d’une recomposition de liens) est en train de devenir beaucoup trop long, comme @_kg_ l’a bien mentionné dans un récent message (https://seenthis.net/messages/733643).

    –-------

    Les différents fils de discussion, en ordre chronologique :

    1. La première compilation (composée de plus de 300 messages) :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/688734

    2. Et la suite de la liste —> je vous invite à compléter celle-ci désormais :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/733720

    3. Suite de la suite ici , à partir du moment dans lequel des membres de #génération_identitaire ont été mis en garde à vue :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/756096

    –---

    Le reste de la chronologie ci-dessous, dans ce fil de discussion, par périodes.

    –----

    Ci-dessous aussi, d’autres fils de discussions qui ont été commencés par moi ou par d’autres sur la région, sans alimentation du fil « chronologique »...
    Le procès des 7 de Briançon par exemple (https://seenthis.net/messages/734863) ou les morts aux frontières alpines, avec aussi les morts dans les Hautes-Alpes (https://seenthis.net/messages/758646)...

    #migrations #asile #réfugiés #Alpes #frontière_sud-alpine #Briançon #Montgenèvre #Hautes_Alpes #Briançonnais #Claviere #Clavière #Italie #France #frontières

    ping @_kg_ @sinehebdo @isskein

  • Un « risque d’#accaparement des terres agricoles » en France
    https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2018/05/31/un-risque-d-accaparement-des-terres-agricoles-en-france_5307597_3234.html

    Le dernier bilan des marchés #fonciers ruraux de la #FNSafer dénonce une « tendance à l’agglomération de grandes surfaces au sein d’un nombre limité d’exploitations ».

    #terres #agriculture

  • La science à portée de tous !

    #Jean-Claude_Marcourt poursuit la mise en place du #décret « Open Access » en Fédération #Wallonie-Bruxelles.

    Sur proposition de Jean-Claude MARCOURT, Vice-Président du Gouvernement et Ministre de l’enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche, le Gouvernement de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles adopte, en dernière lecture, le projet de décret « Open Access », un texte fondateur visant l’établissement d’une politique de libre accès aux #publications_scientifiques.

    Le projet de décret vise clairement à intégrer les institutions de recherche et d’enseignement supérieur de la Fédération dans le mouvement de la « #science_ouverte » , c’est-à-dire un ensemble de pratiques de la recherche scientifique basées sur l’utilisation des outils de l’Internet ; archivage numérique, copie déverouillée sur le web, etc. Le décret « Open Access » et, in fine, l’#accès_libre aux résultats de la recherche ayant bénéficié d’un #financement_public, en est le premier pilier.

    Le texte voté par le gouvernement de ce mercredi 28 février 2018 est le fruit d’un dialogue constructif instauré avec l’ensemble des acteurs, que ce soit le milieu scientifique et académique ou encore les éditeurs belges. Des balises ont été adoptées afin de répondre aux préoccupations principales exprimées par ces derniers comme, par exemple, la limitation du champ d’application du décret aux articles scientifiques paraissant dans les périodiques et non aux ouvrages édités.

    Le Ministre MARCOURT tient à préciser : « La Fédération adopte un texte fondateur qui place les institutions de recherche et d’enseignement supérieur dans le peloton de tête des institutions mondiales actives dans la « science ouverte ». Et d’ajouter : « La Wallonie et Bruxelles s’engagent ainsi aux côtés d’acteurs de renommée mondiale tels que l’Université d’Harvard ou encore les universités Suisse telles que Zurich, Lausanne ou encore Genève . En favorisant le partage des résultats de la recherche ayant fait l’objet d’un financement public, le décret « Open Access » permet la libre circulation du savoir, la promotion de la science et de l’innovation ».

    Concrètement, le décret prévoit que les chercheurs déposent dans une archive numérique institutionnelle leurs publications scientifiques issues de leurs recherches réalisées sur fonds publics et recommande que lors de l’évaluation des publications, de prendre exclusivement en considération, les listes générées à partir de ces archives numériques institutionnelles.

    Pour conclure, le Ministre tient à rappeler que le décret Open Access renforce la visibilité des chercheurs, de leurs travaux et des institutions d’enseignement supérieur. « Le fruit de la recherche émanant de la Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles devient accessible partout dans le monde et, plus spécifiquement, auprès des chercheurs dont les institutions ne pouvaient jusqu’ici se permettre d’acheter ces publications scientifiques. » se réjouit le Ministre. « C’est une avancée sociétale fondamentale ».

    https://marcourt.cfwb.be/la-science-a-portee-de-tous
    #open_access #savoir #université #recherche #Belgique #édition_scientifique #résistance

    –-

    ajouté à la métaliste sur l’éditions scientifique :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/1036396

    • L’Open Access adopté par le Gouvernement de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles

      Ce mercredi 28 février, le Gouvernement de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles a adopté en dernière lecture le projet de décret "Open Access" porté par le Ministre de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche, Jean-Claude Marcourt.

      Le texte du décret stipule que tous les articles scientifiques subventionnés par des fonds publics devront être déposés dans un répertoire institutionnel (aussi appelé « archive ouverte »). Les insitutions devront également utiliser exclusivement les listes de publications provenant de ces répertoires pour l’évaluation des chercheurs.

      À l’Université de Liège, cette politique existe déjà depuis presque 10 ans et est mise en place via le répertoire ORBi.

      https://lib.uliege.be/en/news/l-open-access-adopte-par-le-gouvernement-de-la-federation-wallonie-bruxel

    • Attention :

      « La Wallonie et Bruxelles s’engagent ainsi aux côtés d’acteurs de renommée mondiale tels que l’Université d’Harvard ou encore les universités Suisse telles que Zurich, Lausanne ou encore Genève .

      En #Suisse, c’est le #golden_open_access qui est visé... ce qui n’est pas exactement dans la logique d’un accès gratuit aux résultats de recherche... mais c’est une manière de plus d’enrichir les éditeurs scientifiques prédateurs :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/651822
      #FNS

    • La #voie_verte

      La voie verte ou green open access est la voie de l’auto-archivage ou dépôt par l’auteur dans une #archive_ouverte.

      Une archive ouverte est un réservoir où sont déposées des publications issues de la recherche scientifique et de l’enseignement dont l’accès est libre et gratuit. Elle peut être institutionnelle (ex. OATAO de l’ Université de Toulouse), régionale (ex. OpenAIRE pour l’Europe), nationale (HAL pour la France) ou disciplinaire (ex. arXiv en Physique, RePEC en Economie).


      http://openaccess.couperin.org/la-voie-verte-2
      #green_open_access #archives_ouvertes #post-print #pre-print

    • ‘Big Deal’ Cancellations Gain Momentum

      An increasing number of universities are ending, or threatening to end, bundled journal subscriptions with major publishers.

      Florida State University recently announced plans to cancel its “big deal” with Elsevier, but it is far from the first university to do so.

      In recent years, there has been an uptick in the number of reports of libraries dropping their bundled journal deals with big publishers, which can cost upward of $1 million annually.

      Rather than subscribing to a large volume of journals in a publisher’s collection, often at a substantial discount off the individual list price, some institutions are choosing to pay only for the journals they determine they need the most.

      Rick Anderson, associate dean for collections and scholarly communications at the Marriott Library at the University of Utah, said that more cancellations are likely, but “how big the snowball is going to get” is an unanswered question.

      “Will big-deal cancellations continue to bubble along at a slow but steady pace? Will they peter out altogether as libraries and publishers work out new terms that allow the libraries to renew? Will more and more libraries cancel their big deals until publishers finally abandon them?” asked Anderson. “It’s impossible to say at this point; I think all three of those scenarios are possible, though I think the first two are more likely than the third.”

      Last year, Anderson published an article at The Scholarly Kitchen looking at big-deal cancellations by North American libraries. He identified 24 libraries that had canceled big deals, another four libraries that canceled but later resubscribed, and three libraries that announced cancellations but didn’t follow through.

      Also last year, #SPARC, an advocacy group for open access and open education, launched a resource tracking big-deal cancellations worldwide. Greg Tananbaum, a senior consultant at SPARC, said that there is a “growing momentum” toward cancellations.

      According to data from SPARC (which may not be comprehensive, said Tananbaum), in 2016 five U.S. and Canadian institutions announced cancellations with big publishers such as Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis and Elsevier. In 2017, seven more North American institutions said they planned to cancel their big deals, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Kansas State University, among others.

      Motivation for Cancellation

      Both Tananbaum and Anderson agree that one factor driving cancellations of big deals is that library budgets are not growing at the same rate as the cost of subscriptions. Given budget restrictions, “there’s just a reality that tough choices have to be made,” said Tananbaum. He added that in each of the cases documented in the SPARC tracking resource, the institutions ran “meticulous assessments” to determine the value of their current arrangements, and found that “the value was not positive.” Typically a bundled deal would allow an institution to subscribe to a couple of thousand titles for the same list price as a few hundred individual subscriptions.

      “What makes the big deal unsustainable isn’t the structure of the model, but the fact that it absorbs so much of a library’s materials budget, and the price rises steadily from year to year,” said Anderson. “That dynamic leads to an inevitable breaking point, at which the library can no longer afford to pay for it — or is forced to cancel other, equally desirable (or more desirable) subscriptions in order to keep paying for it.”

      Another factor driving cancellations is a desire among some librarians to “stick it to the publishers,” said Anderson. “There is a truly remarkable level of anger that many librarians feel towards the publishers who sell subscriptions under the big-deal model,” he said. “This makes the prospect of canceling a big deal very attractive at a political level.”

      Librarians are able to consider canceling big deals because it doesn’t mean going “cold turkey” anymore, said Tananbaum. Interlibrary loan systems can return a journal article in less than 24 hours at relatively low cost to the library, and many articles are available in open-access format for free, with tools like Unpaywall making them easy to find. If a researcher needs a paywalled paper instantly, they can still access that content, without a subscription, for around $30.

      Though it is talked about less, the ease of accessing copyrighted papers though sites such as Sci-Hub and ResearchGate have also emboldened librarians, said Joseph Esposito, senior partner at publishing consultancy Clarke & Esposito.

      Hard-Core Negotiating

      In 2015, the Université de Montréal combined usage and citations data with the results of an extensive survey of faculty and students to determine that 5,893 titles were essential to research needs at the university — accounting for 12 percent of the institution’s total subscriptions, and around a third of all titles included in big deals.

      A similar analysis has since been performed by 28 university libraries in Canada, with some “truly considering unbundling or exiting consortium negotiations to get better deals,” said Stéphanie Gagnon, director of collections at Université de Montréal.

      Gagnon and her colleague Richard Dumont, university librarian at Montréal, said that unbundling big deals was a “last resort” strategy for the institution. The institution will first offer what it considers to be a “fair price” based on the needs of the community and the publishers’ pricing, said Dumont.

      This approach “seems reasonable,” said Dumont, since four major publishers have accepted the institution’s offers — Wiley, SAGE, Elsevier and Cambridge University Press. Currently, the institution has two big deals unbundled: Springer Nature (2,116 titles canceled) and Taylor & Francis (2,231 titles canceled).

      The Taylor & Francis big deal cost Montréal around half a million U.S. dollars per year for over 2,400 titles. Per title, the average cost was around $200. But Montréal calculated that only 253 titles were being used regularly, meaning the “real” cost was closer to $2,000 per title, said Gagnon. By unbundling this deal and the Springer Nature deal, and by renegotiating all big-deal subscriptions, the institution saves over $770,000 annually, said Gagnon.

      Gagnon said she did not think teaching or research has been hindered by the cancellations, since the big deals that were unbundled did not contribute greatly to the needs of the community. Researchers can still access paywalled content they don’t have immediate access to through the interlibrary loan system. “Content is still available, with some hours’ delay,” said Gagnon.

      Value for Money

      Unlike Montréal, some institutions that have canceled big deals have not ended up saving much money, or negotiating a better deal. Brock University in Ontario, for example, canceled its big deal with Wiley in 2015, only to return a year later for the same price.

      Ian Gibson, acting head of collections services at Brock, said the Wiley cancellation was prompted by a “perfect storm” of a weak Canadian dollar and a library budget that was not increasing in line with subscription costs. “The institution had no extra funds to buffer the FX crisis, and the hole in our budget was so big that only canceling Wiley or Elsevier would fill it,” said Gibson.

      The institution looked into purchasing back just the most essential titles from Wiley, and found “there was no way to do it for less than we were paying for the big deal.” Gibson said that the university upped the library budget soon after, “and we jumped back into the Wiley deal through our consortium, and the pricing was as if we had never left.”

      “Although the overall dollar cost for a big deal is typically enormous, the package usually includes so much content that the per-journal cost is quite low and would be dramatically higher on a per-journal basis if the titles were acquired as individual subscriptions,” said Anderson. Limiting titles, of course, also means that not everyone will get immediate access to the content they want. “This is probably the primary reason so many libraries (mine included) have held on to their big deals as long as they have.”

      Getting Faculty on Board

      At Montréal, the library worked hard to get faculty and student support before making any cancellations, said Gagnon. “We put in a lot of energy to explain, convince, answer and demonstrate to our staff and to the community what we were doing,” said Gagnon. The library built a website, published press releases and organized meetings. “It was a really global community project,” she said.

      Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of Florida State University’s pending cancellation of its big deal with Elsevier is that the Faculty Senate approved it, despite concerns that they would not be able to access journals as freely as they do now.

      “The one question I keep getting asked is, ‘How did you get your faculty to agree to it?’” said Roy Ziegler, associate dean for collections and access at Florida State University. It hasn’t been an easy process, but outreach efforts have helped faculty to understand why this route is necessary. “Our faculty are willing to roll with it for now,” he said. “We don’t think our new model will do harm, but it will force faculty to change their behavior slightly — there’s a re-education piece.”

      FSU will offer unmediated, instant access to content that is not subscribed to for faculty and graduate students at a cost of around $30 to the library, but will encourage them to access materials through the slower interlibrary loan system as much as possible. Undergraduate students will only have the option to go the slower (cheaper) route. Avoiding duplicated instant-access purchases will be a key factor in keeping costs down, said Ziegler.

      By pulling out of its statewide agreement with Elsevier, FSU will lose access to Elsevier’s Freedom Collection — a system by which institutions have access to all nonsubscribed journal content at a significantly reduced rate. Ziegler said that FSU does “have an offer on the table right now” from Elsevier, but it’s not what they wanted. “If that offer gets better, we could stay in,” he said. FSU’s current deal with Elsevier costs around $1.8 million annually — 22 percent of the library’s total materials budget.

      In an emailed statement, Elsevier said that the Freedom Collection is “still preferred by the vast majority of our customers who want the best value we can provide, but some customers want more purchasing options, and for them we’re happy to provide such flexibility.” The statement continued, “We generally see more new Freedom Collection customers than those who move to title by title, but there’s no particular trend over time.”

      Taylor & Francis, Wiley, SAGE and Springer Nature declined to comment for this article.

      A Shortsighted Decision?

      Kent Anderson, CEO of publishing data analytics company RedLink, and former president of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, said that institutions that cancel big deals are making a “selfish” and shortsighted decision, an issue he also wrote about in a recent article for The Scholarly Kitchen. He compared canceling a big deal to canceling a newspaper subscription; journalists lose their jobs, local media collapses and soon no one knows what’s happening inside government.

      Canceling big deals means that down the road, publishers won’t be able to keep up with the volume of research that is being produced, he said. He warned that if libraries and publishers continued to be “at loggerheads against each other,” they would ultimately alienate the researchers they are both trying to serve.

      A loss of diversity in the publishing ecosystem concerns Kent Anderson. The survival of journals from smaller scholarly societies depends on their inclusion in big deals, he said. As the choice of publications to publish in gets “fewer and worse,” time to publication will get longer.

      While many libraries say they are forced to cancel big deals because of budget constraints, Kent Anderson points out that library budgets are often just a tiny fraction of an institution’s total budget, suggesting that the money could be better allocated to prioritize these resources.

      But Rick Anderson, of the University of Utah, said that suggesting the root of the issue is a funding problem, rather than a pricing problem, “feels a little bit like the bully on the playground taking our lunch money and then saying, ‘Hey, I’m not the problem, your mom needs to give you more lunch money.’”

      https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/05/08/more-institutions-consider-ending-their-big-deals-publishers

    • Le #business des publications scientifiques
      VRS n° 412 - Printemps 2018

      « Un pays qui exporte sa matière première à bas prix, et réimporte le produit fini au prix le plus fort, est dans une logique de sous-développement. C’est cette logique qui prévaut dans l’édition scientifique internationale. (…) Jusqu’à maintenant, l’édition scientifique électronique reproduit en grande partie les schémas archaïques de production, parce qu’elle émane des éditeurs scientifiques commerciaux… », écrivait Anne Dujol en 1996. « Il y a fort à parier que, dans un très proche avenir, de nombreux auteurs s’affranchiront des contraintes actuelles de la publication d’articles scientifiques et ‘publieront’ électroniquement les résultats de leurs travaux, » poursuivait-elle.

      Hélas, elle sous-estimait la puissance et l’« agilité » des éditeurs mondialisés qui tiennent ce qui est devenu un des business les plus lucratifs au monde. Et elle surestimait la compréhension des enjeux de la part des scientifiques et de leur bureaucratie, dans un monde où, comme à la chasse, la publication est devenue une performance où le/la scientifique exhibe ses trophées.

      L’inflation des publications est telle que les bibliographies, bien souvent stéréotypées, résultent davantage de la collecte de résumés que de discussions scientifiques. On écrit mais on ne lit pas ; et la critique des résultats, les vérifications, le dialogue s’en ressentent.

      Peut-être plus grave encore, les scientifiques leur ayant délégué l’évaluation de leurs travaux en leur décernant le label « d’excellence » (« où publies-tu » plutôt que « que publies-tu »), les revues – et donc les éditeurs qui les possèdent – ont acquis un pouvoir exorbitant sur la politique scientifique des institutions, voire des Etats.

      Mais le vent tourne. Les institutions de recherche et d’enseignement supérieur et leurs bibliothèques croisent le fer avec les éditeurs commerciaux. Et les chercheur·e·s commencent à reprendre en main l’édition de leur travail.


      http://www.snesup.fr/article/le-business-des-publications-scientifiques-vrs-ndeg-412-printemps-2018

    • Offensive contre les géants de l’édition scientifique en Europe

      Les conseils de recherche de onze pays européens, dont la France et le Royaume-Uni, prennent les grands moyens pour endiguer la soif de profits des géants de l’édition scientifique, qui siphonnent les budgets des bibliothèques universitaires.

      Ces onze États viennent de dévoiler un plan qui obligera d’ici deux ans leurs chercheurs subventionnés à publier le fruit de leurs travaux sur des plateformes en libre accès. Le but : mettre fin à la domination commerciale des cinq plus grands éditeurs scientifiques, qui font des profits considérables en publiant des articles fournis par les universitaires.

      « Il ne faut pas enfermer la science derrière des murs payants », indique le manifeste du nom de « Plan S » dévoilé la semaine dernière par Science Europe, un regroupement d’organisations européennes vouées à la promotion et au financement de la recherche.

      « Aucune raison ne justifie un modèle d’affaires établi sur des abonnements à des publications scientifiques. À l’ère numérique, le libre accès augmente la portée et la visibilité de la recherche universitaire », précise le document signé par Marc Schiltz, président de Science Europe.

      Outre Paris et Londres, cette offensive est appuyée par les organismes subventionnaires des pays suivants : Suède, Norvège, Pays-Bas, Autriche, Irlande, Luxembourg, Italie, Pologne et Slovénie. Ces États, comme bien d’autres (dont le Québec et le Canada), en ont assez des coûts astronomiques des abonnements aux publications scientifiques comme Nature ou Science.

      Comme Le Devoir l’a rapporté au cours de l’été, les frais d’abonnement aux magazines scientifiques accaparent désormais 73 % des budgets d’acquisition des bibliothèques universitaires. Les cinq grands éditeurs publient à eux seuls plus de la moitié des articles savants dans le monde. Les abonnements à ces magazines coûtent tellement cher que certaines bibliothèques n’ont plus les moyens d’acheter des livres.

      L’offensive des pays européens contre ces tarifs jugés déraisonnables risque de faire mal aux géants de l’édition — notamment les groupes Elsevier, Springer Nature, John Wiley Sons, Taylor Francis et SAGE Publications — qui dominent le marché mondial.

      « Ce ne sera pas la mort demain de ces grands ensembles-là, mais cette campagne s’ajoute aux désabonnements [aux périodiques scientifiques] de beaucoup d’universités en réaction à la hausse des coûts d’abonnement », dit Vincent Larivière, professeur à l’École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information de l’Université de Montréal (UdeM). Il dirige la Chaire de recherche du Canada sur les transformations de la communication savante.

      Crise mondiale

      Les grandes revues comme Nature sont attrayantes pour les chercheurs. Ces magazines sont prestigieux. Ils sont lus, donc beaucoup cités. Et pour réussir en tant que professeur — être embauché, obtenir une promotion —, il faut être cité par ses pairs. C’est pour ça que les magazines scientifiques peuvent se permettre de facturer une fortune en abonnements aux bibliothèques universitaires.

      Les éditeurs scientifiques obtiennent pourtant leurs articles tout à fait gratuitement : les chercheurs ne sont pas payés par les magazines pour publier leurs travaux. Ça fait partie de leur tâche de professeur. Et les articles sont révisés bénévolement par des pairs. Plus troublant encore, un nombre croissant de revues scientifiques imposent des frais de 3000 $ ou 5000 $, par exemple, aux professeurs qui veulent que leurs articles soient en libre accès.

      Ce modèle d’affaires des revues savantes soulève un tollé partout dans le monde, rappelle Vincent Larivière. Le biologiste Randy Schekman, de l’Université de Californie, a même appelé au boycottage des magazines ayant publié ses travaux qui lui ont valu le prix Nobel. Il a fondé en 2012 son propre journal, eLife, qui publie ses articles en libre accès.

      Aux États-Unis, de puissants organismes comme la Fondation Bill Melinda Gates et les Instituts nationaux de santé (National Institutes of Health) exigent aussi que les recherches scientifiques qu’ils financent soient publiées en libre accès.

      https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/education/536595/offensive-europeenne-contre-les-geants-de-l-edition-scientifique

    • Négociations #SPRINGER : Arrêt de notre abonnement

      La bibliothèque vous avait informé au mois d’avril des négociations difficiles du #consortium_Couperin avec l’éditeur #SpringerNature au sujet des revues #Springer.

      Les #négociations se sont achevées la semaine dernière, et l’ENS de Lyon n’est pas satisfaite des dernières conditions proposées par l’éditeur. La #bibliothèque_Diderot de #Lyon ne renouvèlera donc pas son #abonnement aux revues Springer pour 2018-2020.

      Nous sommes conscients de la difficulté qu’occasionnerait la perte des abonnements aux revues Springer pour 2018.

      Néanmoins, nous conservons sur la plateforme Springer :

      • L’accès jusqu’en 2017 inclus aux 39 titres de notre abonnement historique, selon les termes du contrat précédent, pendant au moins deux ans et sans frais supplémentaires.
      • L’accès aux ressources acquises de manière définitive en Licences Nationales dans le cadre du projet istex : origine à 2014 pour les revues Springer.


      http://www.bibliotheque-diderot.fr/negociations-springer-arret-de-notre-abonnement-365193.kjsp?RH=
      #France

    • Que faut-il faire pour que la science soit plus ouverte ?

      « La France s’engage pour que les résultats de la recherche scientifique soient ouverts à tous, chercheurs, entreprises et citoyens, sans entrave, sans délai, sans payement. »

      La science ouverte est la diffusion sans entrave des publications et des données de la recherche. Elle s’appuie sur l’opportunité que représente la mutation numérique pour développer l’accès ouvert aux publications et -autant que possible- aux données de la recherche.

      https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr

    • #Plan_national_pour_la_science_ouverte : #discours de #Frédérique_Vidal

      Frédérique Vidal est intervenue sur la politique nationale de science ouverte au congrès annuel de la LIgue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche (LIBER), mercredi 4 juillet au LILLIAD Learning center Innovation - Université de Lille à Villeneuve d’Ascq.

      http://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/cid132531/plan-national-pour-la-science-ouverte-discours-de-fre

    • Des #identifiants_ouverts pour la science ouverte

      La quasi-totalité de la production scientifique mondiale est désormais signalée, ou même mieux, rendue disponible sur le web. Des millions d’artefacts (publications, jeux de données, etc.) produits par autant d’auteurs ou de contributeurs affiliés à des centaines de milliers d’organisations sont désormais disponibles en ligne. L’exploitation de cette masse de données nécessite de pouvoir identifier chaque entité, de manière univoque et pérenne, grâce à des systèmes d’identifiants adaptés. De tels systèmes ont été développés au cours des années récentes, mais une partie d’entre eux sont encore en phase de consolidation ou même de développement. De plus, pour répondre aux objectifs de la science ouverte, il est nécessaire de s’assurer que ces #identifiants s’appuient sur une architecture ouverte, documentée, libre et qu’ils sont portés par et pour les communautés scientifiques.
      La présente note d’orientation a pour but de proposer une #action concertée à l’échelon national destinée à améliorer la structuration des identifiants les plus utiles, à accélérer leur adoption par les communautés, et à les rendre plus libres et pérennes afin de rendre l’accès à l’information scientifique plus aisé pour tous les chercheurs et les citoyens.


      https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2019.06.07-Note-orientation-Identifiants_pour_la_science_ouverte.pdf

      –-------

      Quatre actions distinctes ont été définies et sont menées en parallèle :

      1. « Identifiants de structures et d’organisations »

      2. « Identifiants de personnes »

      3. « Identifiants de publications »

      4. « Identifiants de données et d’objets numériques »

    • L’ANR finance le réseau #CO-OPERAS_IN dans le cadre de son appel à projet Science Ouverte sur les données de la recherche

      Le réseau de collaboration CO-OPERAS IN (#Implementation_Network), coordonné conjointement par la TGIR Huma-Num et l’université de Turin, a déposé une proposition de projet dans le cadre de l’appel à projets ANR science ouverte sur les pratiques de recherche et les données ouvertes. Cette proposition a été retenue et sera pilotée par #OpenEdition, illustrant ainsi la collaboration entre les deux infrastructures françaises.

      CO-OPERAS IN a pour objectif d’organiser et de superviser l’implémentation des données de la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales selon les principes de l’initiative #GO_FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) dans le cadre du développement de l’infrastructure européenne #OPERAS (Open access in the European research area through scholarly communication). Le projet est financé à hauteur de 100 000 € pour deux ans.

      Des données faciles à trouver, accessibles, interopérables et réutilisables pour la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales (SHS) : c’est l’enjeu de CO-OPERAS IN, qui vise à fédérer les services et les plateformes de communication savante existants et, plus largement, à impliquer la communauté SHS au niveau international.

      Regroupant 45 membres issus de 27 institutions et organismes de recherche européens et internationaux, ce réseau travaillera en étroite collaboration avec les autres réseaux internationaux de GO FAIR impliqués dans la construction du European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Différents groupes de travail au sein de CO-OPERAS IN ont été définis dans le cadre de la feuille de route du réseau validée par GO FAIR.

      La réunion de lancement de CO-OPERAS IN le 1er juillet dernier a permis de structurer les activités et de débuter la réflexion sur la définition des données selon les disciplines SHS.

      Prochaine étape : le workshop “Defining FAIR in the SSH : issues, cultures and practical implementations” lors de l’Open Science Fair en septembre à Porto, qui permettra aux communautés SHS de définir leur propre feuille de route pour la « FAIRification » de leurs données.

      6 groupes de travail se structurent pour débuter leurs activités :

      - Stratégie
      - Définition des données FAIR en SHS
      - Enquêtes et cartographie
      - Cadre d’application
      - Perspectives de l’écosystème FAIR
      - Communication et formation.

      https://humanum.hypotheses.org/5461

    • Baromètre de la science ouverte : 41 % des publications scientifiques françaises sont en accès ouvert (Plan national pour la science ouverte)

      Le baromètre de la science ouverte est construit à partir de données ouvertes issues d’Unpaywall, base mondiale de métadonnées sur les publications scientifiques qui renseigne sur le statut d’ouverture des publications sur la base d’une méthodologie ouverte.

      Développé dans un premier temps uniquement sur les publications scientifiques, le baromètre propose d’analyser dans le temps, selon les disciplines et les éditeurs, parmi les publications dont au moins un auteur relève d’une affiliation française, la part des publications en accès ouvert, c’est-à-dire mises à disposition librement sur internet. La méthode, le code et les données sont également publiques.

      Dans sa première édition, le BSO montre que 41 % des 133 000 publications scientifiques françaises publiées en 2017 sont en accès ouvert, avec de fortes variations selon les disciplines. Ainsi, en mathématiques, le taux d’accès ouvert atteint 61 % alors qu’il n’est que de 43% en informatique ou encore de 31% en recherche médicale. Une note flash publiée par le ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’innovation (MESRI) reprend en détail ces indicateurs ainsi que la méthodologie utilisée.

      https://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/cid146157/barometre-de-la-science-ouverte-41-des-publications-s
      #baromètre

    • Notes du Comité

      La mise en œuvre de la science ouverte nécessite la prise en compte de l’ensemble des processus et activités de recherche dans l’évaluation. Dans ce but, le document liste les types de documents et productions élaborés pendant le cycle de la recherche et leurs modes de diffusion ouverte ainsi que les types d’activités éligibles à une évaluation.

      Types de documents, productions et activités valorisées par la science ouverte et éligibles à une évaluation
      Comité pour la science ouverte, version 1, novembre 2019

      De nombreux acteurs s’accordent à dire que la mise en œuvre de la science ouverte nécessite la prise en compte de l’ensemble des processus et activités de recherche dans l’évaluation. Celle-ci concerne tout autant les publications que les projets de recherche, les personnes, les collectifs ou les institutions, et leurs interactions avec la société. Le Plan national pour la science ouverte souligne en particulier l’importance de prendre en compte une approche qualitative plutôt que quantitative et cite le manifeste de Leiden (Hicks & al., 2015) et la déclaration de San Francisco sur l’évaluation de la recherche (DORA, 2012). Même si des démarches similaires préexistaient au mouvement pour la science ouverte, ce dernier vise à les rendre visible, à les légitimer et à les pérenniser.

      Ces recommandations du Comité pour la science ouverte s’appuient sur celles de l’Open Science Platform Policy (OSPP) qui fédère les efforts et les stratégies de l’Union Européenne autour de 8 piliers prioritaires dont deux propres aux questions d’évaluation : l’incitation aux pratiques d’ouverture et à leur reconnaissance ; le déploiement d’une nouvelle génération d’indicateurs de la recherche. Dans ces recommandations, destinées à l’ensemble des institutions pilotant des systèmes d’évaluation, nous avons retenu deux dimensions essentielles qui sont au cœur de la science ouverte.

      1/ Le Comité pour la science ouverte encourage la valorisation des bonnes pratiques de science ouverte, en particulier celles qui incitent à la mise à disposition de l’ensemble des types de documents et plus largement de produits de la recherche, incluant mais ne se limitant pas aux données et aux publications. En effet, cette mise à disposition facilitera d’une part la pleine prise en compte de la diversité des contributions individuelles et collectives à la recherche, d’autre part incitera à la prise de connaissance du contenu de ces productions et à leur évaluation qualitative.

      2/ Le Comité pour la science ouverte soutient la reconnaissance de la gamme complète des activités de recherche, dans la pluralité des champs disciplinaires, par opposition à des dispositifs qui seraient uniquement centrés sur les publications scientifiques, voire sur une partie limitée d’entre elles ou sur des indicateurs qui en résultent (McKiernan & al., 2019). De même, il s’agit de renforcer la reconnaissance des nouvelles configurations des formes de savoirs, pluridisciplinaires, et notamment de science citoyenne.

      Pour ce faire, sont distinguées dans ce qui suit :

      17 types de produits et documents ; tableau 1 : « Types de documents et productions élaborés au sein de l’ensemble du cycle de la recherche et leurs modes de diffusion ouverte »,
      12 types d’activités ; tableau 2 : « Types d’activités valorisées par la science ouverte et éligibles à une évaluation ». Les activités du tableau 2 peuvent donner lieu à de la production documentaire, et dans ce cas, elle relève des recommandations du tableau 1.

      Dans le respect des principes légaux et réglementaires encadrant l’ouverture et la diffusion des résultats et données de recherche, nous recommandons de suivre le principe « aussi ouvert que possible, aussi fermé que nécessaire ».

      Les documents et productions visés au tableau 1 ne peuvent être considérés comme pleinement ouverts que s’ils sont rendus publics sous les conditions d’une licence dite libre ou ouverte. En effet, un objet diffusé sans licence est certes consultable par les tiers, ce qui constitue une forme minimale d’ouverture, mais ses modalités de réutilisation ne sont pas connues. Le choix final de la licence appartient à ceux qui rendent publics leur production, dans le respect du décret n° 2017-638 (Premier Ministre, 2017) [1].)).

      Au-delà d’une licence, les dispositifs de publication, d’hébergement et d’archivage des documents et productions ont vocation à se conformer aux critères d’exemplarité, définis par le Comité pour la Science ouverte (2019).

      Le Comité pour la science ouverte recommande à toutes les instances et institutions ayant des activités d’évaluation de discuter, diffuser et d’adapter ces bonnes pratiques à leur contexte. Cela inclut notamment les organismes de financement de la recherche, les instances de publication et d’évaluation. Les communautés et institutions demeurent souveraines dans leurs adaptations de ces recommandations, notamment dans l’agrégation, la qualification et la hiérarchisation des types de productions et documents. Le Comité pour la science ouverte attend une transparence de ces opérations, et notamment la justification des raisons pour lesquelles certaines productions ou activités ne seraient pas pris en compte dans leurs évaluations.
      Contact

      Ce document a vocation à être enrichi et mis à jour. Pour le commenter, écrivez à coso@recherche.gouv.fr
      Bibliographie citée et documents utilisés

      Comité pour la Science ouverte (2019). Critères d’exemplarité en vue de financements par le Fonds national pour la science ouverte via les plateformes, infrastructures et contenus éditoriaux. Disponible sur : https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/criteres-dexemplarite-financements-fonds-national-science-ouverte

      Commission européenne (2017). Evaluation of Research Careers fully acknowledging Open Science Practices Rewards, incentives and/or recognition for researchers practicing Open Science, 2017. Disponible sur : https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/ospp_rewards_wg03112017.pdf

      DORA (2012). San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. Disponible sur : https://sfdora.org/read

      HCERES, Guides des produits de la recherche, 2019. Disponible sur : https://www.hceres.fr/fr/guides-des-produits-de-la-recherche-et-activites-de-recherche-0

      Hicks, D., Wouters, P., Waltman, L., de Rijcke, S., & Rafols, I. (2015). The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics. Nature, 520, pp. 429-431. Disponible sur : http://www.leidenmanifesto.org

      McKiernan EC, Schimanski LA, Muñoz Nieves C, Matthias L, Niles MT, Alperin JP. (2019). Use of the Journal Impact Factor in academic review, promotion, and tenure evaluations. PeerJ Preprints DOI : 10.7287/peerj.preprints.27638v2

      Premier Ministre (2017). Décret n° 2017-638 du 27 avril 2017 relatif aux licences de réutilisation à titre gratuit des informations publiques et aux modalités de leur homologation, JORF n°0100 du 28 avril 2017. Disponible sur : https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000034502557&categorieLien=id

      Bibliographie indicative pour aller plus loin

      European Commission. (2016). Evaluation of Research Careers fully acknowledging Open Science practices. Disponible sur : https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/os_rewards_wgreport_final.pdf

      Krzton, A. (2019). Support Scholars Who Share : Combating the Mismatch between Openness Policies and Professional Rewards. In ACRL 2019 (pp. 578–586). ACRL. Disponible sur : http://aurora.auburn.edu/handle/11200/49374

      Nichols, D. M., Twidale, M. B., (2017). Metrics for Openness. JASIST 68 (4), 1048–1060.
      Disponible sur : https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/10842/nichols-metrics-openness-jasist.pdf

      Turckheim, E. de, Legouy, É. L., & Leclerc, L.-A. (2016). EREFIN Groupe de travail inter-établissements sur l’évaluation de la recherche finalisée. Rapport. Disponible sur : https://prodinra.inra.fr/?locale=fr#!ConsultNotice:352302

      Wynne, R. (2019). Using ORCID to Re-imagine Research Attribution. Disponible sur : https://orcid.org/blog/2019/07/25/using-orcid-re-imagine-research-attribution

      https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/types-de-documents-productions-et-activites-valorisees-par-la-scienc

    • swissuniversities et Elsevier concluent un accord pilote #Read&Publish

      swissuniversities a conclu un nouvel accord pilote de transformation avec Elsevier pour l’accès à la recherche et la publication en Open Acess en Suisse.

      L’#accord est le résultat de négociations organisées par le #Consortium_des_bibliothèques_universitaires_suisses (#CSAL) et Elsevier, une entreprise d’analyse d’informations spécialisée dans les domaines de la science et de la santé. Yves Flückiger, Président de swissuniversities et chef de l’équipe de négociation, a déclaré : « Nous nous sommes engagés à réaliser l’Open Access complet au plus tard en 2024, et cet accord est une étape importante en vue d’atteindre cet objectif. »

      Par conséquent, toutes les institutions membres de swissuniversities et les autres institutions membres du Consortium CSAL, de même que leurs chercheurs affiliés en Suisse auront un accès continu à Freedom Collection et ScienceDirect, la plate-forme leader d’Elsevier consacrée à la littérature scientifique revue par les pairs. Par le biais de ScienceDirect, les chercheurs affiliés aux institutions membres du Consortium CSAL peuvent accéder à 16 millions de publications provenant de plus de 2500 revues publiées par Elsevier et ses sociétés partenaires. Par ailleurs, ils seront en mesure de publier en Open Access de la majorité des revues gold et hybrid pour atteindre 100% en 2023.

      Il s’agit là d’une étape décisive dans la stratégie Open Access de swissuniversities, qui a pour objectif d’atteindre 100% d’Open Access au plus tard en 2024. Cet accord sur quatre ans conclu par le CSAL est le premier signé avec un éditeur majeur sur le plan national et il va soutenir toutes les institutions académiques et de recherche en Suisse dans leur transition vers l’Open Access.

      Cet accord a été publié et est disponible sur la page d’accueil du Consortium des bibliothèques universitaires suisses : https://consortium.ch/wp_live/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Elsevier_agreement_2020-2023.pdf

      Vous trouverez plus d’informations au sujet de la portée de l’accord pilote sur www.elsevier.com.

      https://www.swissuniversities.ch/fr/actualite/communiques-de-presse/swissuniversities-et-elsevier-concluent-un-accord-pilote-readpubli

    • « L’argent public doit aller à la recherche, pas aux éditeurs »

      La signature fin mai d’un accord pilote entre swissuniversities et l’éditeur Elsevier marque une nouvelle étape dans la stratégie nationale suisse sur l’open access. Son objectif : que la totalité des publications scientifiques financées par des fonds publics soient en accès libre en 2024

      Le 26 mai, swissuniversities annonçait la signature d’un accord Read & Publish avec l’éditeur Elsevier, valable dès janvier et pour une durée de quatre ans (2020-2023). L’accès aux publications scientifiques est ainsi garanti et les chercheurs et chercheuses de la communauté académique suisse ne paieront plus de frais de publication chez cet éditeur (à l’exception de certains titres). Cet accord est le premier résultat de longues négociations initiées en 2018 avec les principaux éditeurs scientifiques – Elsevier, Springer Nature et Wiley –, dans le cadre de la stratégie nationale suisse sur l’open access.

      Président de swissuniversities, le recteur de l’UNIGE, Yves Flückiger, a mené ces discussions pour la Suisse. Il explique : « Chaque année, les dépenses annuelles pour les abonnements aux revues scientifiques augmentaient de 3% à 5%, sans véritable hausse des prestations. Ce coût n’était plus supportable pour les universités, en Suisse comme ailleurs. Pour mettre fin à cette croissance et pour développer la publication en open access, l’Allemagne s’est très rapidement profilée sur le chemin des négociations, suivie par les pays du nord de l’Europe, puis par la Suisse. »

      Une position dominante à combattre

      La signature de cet accord, longuement négocié avec Elsevier, réjouit le président de swissuniversities : « L’argent public devient rare et il doit être utilisé le plus efficacement possible, pour favoriser la recherche et non pas pour soutenir les éditeurs. Maintenant qu’une impulsion a été donnée avec un premier grand éditeur, les autres vont suivre, ce qui devrait nous mener vers l’open access intégral en 2024. » Un accord avec Springer Nature est d’ailleurs à bout touchant – des points de détail restent encore à régler – et celui avec Wiley devrait être signé cette année encore, promet le négociateur. « Dans ce bras de fer avec les éditeurs, nous étions prêts à ce que les chercheurs et chercheuses suisses soient coupées de l’accès à ces revues pourtant essentielles. C’était un pari risqué, mais il n’y a pas eu de levée de boucliers de la communauté académique. Ma plus grande crainte était qu’une institution décide de négocier individuellement pour garantir ce service à ses membres, mais personne n’a fait cavalier seul. Notre position unanime et soudée a été décisive. L’accord, d’un montant global de 13,8 millions d’euros, couvre la publication, en 2020, de 2850 articles en open access, un nombre qui ne cessera de croître par la suite pour atteindre 100% en 2024 pour toute la communauté académique suisse. Il s’agit maintenant d’encourager les chercheurs et chercheuses qui publient chez Elsevier à le faire en Open Access. »

      Si de nombreux observateurs ont longtemps déploré la position de force détenue par certains grands éditeurs grâce à quelques revues clés dans lesquelles tout le monde souhaite être publié, Yves Flückiger souligne également la responsabilité des universités dans la constitution de ce quasi-monopole. « La manière d’évaluer les dossiers des jeunes chercheurs et chercheuses doit aujourd’hui être revue, explique le recteur. Il faut sortir du côté métrique des facteurs d’impact des revues, en utilisant d’autres dimensions pour évaluer la qualité de la recherche. »

      Négocier à l’échelle européenne

      Par ailleurs, les universités ont beaucoup insisté pour rendre ces accords transparents, un élément qui reste toutefois délicat pour des éditeurs habitués à imposer une clause de confidentialité. Mais le recteur observe de plus en plus d’échanges d’informations entre les consortiums de négociation en Europe. « Si l’on pouvait négocier à l’échelle européenne, la Suisse serait probablement l’un des grands gagnants de l’opération, car les coûts de publication (Article Processing Charges (APC)) ne sont actuellement pas identiques pour chaque pays », précise Yves Flückiger.

      https://www.unige.ch/lejournal/ejournal/ejournal-08/negociations-editeurs

  • La holding luxembourgeoise Socfin perd son procès contre trois médias et deux ONG
    http://www.lequotidien.lu/international/la-holding-luxembourgeoise-socfin-perd-son-proces-contre-trois-medias-et

    Les ONG #ReAct et #Sherpa ainsi que Le Point, Mediapart et L’Obs avaient fait état en avril 2015 d’ »accaparements » de terres appartenant aux riverains des plantations de palmiers à huile et d’hévéas appartenant à Socfin. Des paysans africains et asiatiques réunis en « Alliance internationale des riverains des plantations Socfin #Bolloré » avaient à l’époque lancé des actions de protestation contre ce qu’ils appelaient l’ »#accaparement » de leurs #terres par la Socfin, décrivant une expansion « continue » de ces plantations depuis 2008, dont les médias et ONG s’étaient fait l’écho.

    La #Socfin, holding luxembourgeoise dont le groupe Bolloré est actionnaire à hauteur de 39%, les avait tous attaqués en diffamation tandis que sa filiale Socapalm, qui opère au #Cameroun, avait poursuivi les deux #ONG. Les magistrats de la 17e chambre correctionnelle ont suivi les réquisitions du parquet. Ils ont estimé que même si les propos litigieux étaient diffamatoires, les prévenus pouvaient être relaxés au titre de la bonne foi, compte tenu notamment « de l’existence démontrée de revendications portées par certains riverains des #plantations » de la Socfin et de la #Socapalm.

  • Accaparement des terres en Afrique - RFI
    http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20121021-1-accaparement-terres

    Des espaces octroyés, loués ou vendus à des multinationales pour de l’agribusiness. Des paysans expropriés. Il est difficile de quantifier ce phénomène mondial, même si l’on parle désormais de plus de 50 millions d’hectares de #terres accaparées rien que sur le continent africain. En cause ? Une flambée du prix des produits alimentaires et une demande croissante en #agrocarburants.

    Le Débat Africain se penche cette semaine sur le fléau de l’#accaparement des terres en #Afrique.

  • #Ghana : l’Ong Caritas sensibilise sur l’accaparement des terres - Agence Ecofin
    https://www.agenceecofin.com/droits-humains/2712-53168-ghana-l-ong-caritas-sensibilise-sur-l-accaparement-des-terr

    La confédération internationale d’organisations catholiques à but caritatif Caritas International a organisé les 19 et 20 décembre à Accra, la capitale ghanéenne, une rencontre pour sensibiliser sur le phénomène de l’#accaparement des terres. C’est ce que rapporte Vatican News qui précise que l’objectif était d’ « attirer l’attention du monde politique sur la question de l’accaparement des terrains qui représente une menace pour la subsistance des populations rurales les plus pauvres ».

    Placés sous le thème « Protéger les terres agricoles des incessants assauts des investisseurs étrangers », les échanges ont réuni entre autres des chefs traditionnels, des autorités politico-administratives, des membres du clergé et des représentants de la société civile.

    Et si c’est les nationaux qui concentrent des #terres pour des productions destinées à l’export, c’est pas un problème ?

  • L’agriculture industrielle et l’accaparement des terres en Afrique - RFI
    http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20170715-agriculture-industrielle-accaparement-terres-afrique

    L’#accaparement des #terres par l’agriculture industrielle au détriment de l’agriculture familiale est un phénomène qui prend de plus en plus d’ampleur, avec des conséquences sociales et économiques de plus en plus marquées. Quelques chiffres : en Zambie 194 513 ha, au Burkina Faso 1 527 000 ha et une superficie additionnelle de 750 000 ha, au Congo 660 000 ha, au Mali 819 567 ha, en Côte-d’Ivoire 730 400 ha, au Liberia 1 737 000 ha (67 % des terres agricoles) sont entre les mains de compagnies internationales d’agriculture industrielle. Encore qu’il n’y a aucune certitude sur les chiffres, parce que ça relève presque du secret d’État.

  • Comment définissons-nous l’accaparement des terres ?
    https://viacampesina.org/fr/index.php/les-grands-ths-mainmenu-27/rrme-agraire-mainmenu-36/1439-comment-definissons-nous-l-accaparement-des-terres

    Vers une compréhension et une définition commune de l’accaparement des terres dans le monde entier.

    Aucune #définition complète de l’#accaparement des #terres réunissant toutes les indicateurs nécessaires n’existe. Nous avons donc besoin d’en développer une et de l’accepter afin qu’elle puisse être utilisée pour toute zone géographique. Plusieurs indicateurs doivent être pris en considération : la taille, les gens, le contrôle, la légalité et l’utilisation. Il y a deux idées importantes à retenir lors de la définition, la lecture ou l’usage de cette définition. Tout d’abord, un cadre pouvant être utilisé dans n’importe quel pays ou région doit être défini pour l’accaparement des terres. Deuxièmement, aucun des cinq facteurs ne peut être utilisé individuellement pour définir l’accaparement des terres : un accaparement des terres ne repose pas seulement sur la taille ou l’utilisation, il s’agit d’une combinaison de plusieurs de ces éléments.

  • Stop Land Grabbing! Big Businesses Gain As Natives Lose Out – Conference | Borneo Today
    http://www.borneotoday.net/stop-land-grabbing-big-businesses-gain-as-natives-lose-out

    There is a failure in protecting native customary rights in the region, said Marcus Colchester, Senior Policy Advisor of Forest Peoples Programme.

    “Land grabbing continues and native people are losing their land and rights. This needs to change. There’s a need for political reforms to close the gaps,” he said in a statement after the 6th Regional Conference on Human Rights and Agribusiness in South East Asia over the weekend.

    The meeting noted how land conflicts as a result of agribusiness expansion are proliferating throughout the region and urged a pause in the hand out of licenses while community and indigenous peoples’ land rights are secured.

    After a week of field investigations and discussions, the group issued a resolution calling for moratoriums to halt the further hand out of concessions throughout the region.

    #terres #accaparement #peuples_autochtones

  • Terres à vendre - RFI
    http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20161025-terres-vendre

    Terres à vendre est un voyage documentaire qui passe par le Brésil, Dubaï, l’Éthiopie, Madagascar, l’Indonésie, les Philippines et l’Ukraine, pour documenter un phénomène crucial : l’#accaparement des #terres agricoles. Néocolonialisme ou chance pour le développement ? Sept spécialistes mondialement reconnus nous donnent une vue d’ensemble de la question.