#ca

#Golden_Delicious. Cronache dalle piantagioni saluzzesi

La seconda parte di queste cronache del bracciantato saluzzese è riferita alla raccolta delle mele che è in pieno svolgimento.

Quando, a Saluzzo e dintorni, si parla di lavoro migrante in agricoltura, in particolare di bracciantato africano, generalmente si finisce per parlare di accoglienza.

Se, da un lato, viene millantata la bontà del ‘modello Saluzzo’ e delle cosiddette accoglienze diffuse e in azienda, dall’altra parte viene giustamente fatta notare la contraddizione degli insediamenti informali, simboleggiata dalla situazione al Parco Gullino 1. L’impressione, tuttavia, è che la condizione di chi dorme o ha dormito al parco venga generalizzata in modo problematico, prendendo uno specifico spaccato di realtà per il tutto. Senza voler minimizzare l’importanza della questione abitativa, che peraltro è molto più di ampia portata e andrebbe esaminata oltre la dialettica tra insediamenti informali e accoglienze, crediamo sia doveroso parlare anche e soprattutto di lavoro. Perché in fondo le persone a Saluzzo – tutte, dalla prima all’ultima – vengono per lavorare.

«Quest’anno le mele cuneesi, pur a fronte di un lieve calo produttivo dovuto all’andamento climatico, sono contraddistinte da una qualità estetica e organolettica ovunque buona. E’ quanto evidenzia Coldiretti Cuneo in occasione dell’avvio della campagna di raccolta che si apre con buone prospettive commerciali…

Le operazioni di raccolta sono iniziate per le mele estive mentre tra fine mese e inizio settembre si passerà alle varietà del gruppo Renetta, dopodiché sarà la volta delle mele a maturazione intermedia dei gruppi varietali Golden Delicious e Red delicious; la campagna di raccolta continuerà fino a dicembre con i gruppi varietali a maturazione tardiva.

… La Granda, che vanta una produzione di eccellenza a marchio IGP, la Mela Rossa Cuneo, ha conosciuto negli ultimi anni una progressiva espansione degli impianti di melo, con oltre 2000 aziende frutticole coinvolte e una superficie dedicata di quasi 6000 ettari (+ 21% negli ultimi 5 anni), pari all’85% della superficie piemontese coltivata a melo». (Comunicato Stampa Coldiretti, 25 agosto 2023)

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Il problema principale è che la manodopera scarseggia.

«In provincia di Cuneo, nel 2022, sono state 3232 le aziende assuntrici di manodopera agricola e 13200 i dipendenti in agricoltura , a fronte di 24844 pratiche di assunzione, perché ci sono dei lavoratori che, per via della stagionalità delle operazioni nel settore, hanno lavorato in più aziende…

L’agricoltura garantisce sempre più occupazione per l’intero anno o una larga parte di questo ma la carenza di manodopera base e specialistica ormai è una realtà; le cause sono diverse ma occorre lavorare per fare diventare più attrattivo il lavoro in agricoltura, specie nei confronti dei giovani. Oggi la manodopera extracomunitaria è sempre più indispensabile ma bisogna semplificare gli iter di rilascio dei permessi di soggiorno per lavoro subordinato, che a volte sono un ostacolo nel fidelizzare i lavoratori stranieri rispetto ad altri paesi europei. In ultimo il costo del lavoro, che incide in maniera eccessiva sulle aziende agricole…Servono urgentemente interventi decontributivi. – lancia l’allarme Confagricoltura Cuneo – Oggi la difficoltà maggiore per le aziende è reperire manodopera ma i tempi di lavorazione in agricoltura non sono decisi dagli imprenditori bensì dalla natura. Lavoratori italiani non se ne trovano più ma calano anche i lavoratori neocomunitari e per gli extra UE permangono molte incertezze legate al decreto Flussi e ai tempi di rilascio dei visti di ingresso… Per le aziende agricole assumere manodopera sta diventando sempre più una corsa ad ostacoli con più regole, contributi e sanzioni». (Comunicato Confagricoltura Cuneo, luglio 2023)

Ovviamente nessuno parla delle condizioni di lavoro e di salario. Altro che rendere appetibile il lavoro in agricoltura!

Qual è dunque la cifra costitutiva del lavoro salariato in agricoltura (e forse non solo in agricoltura) nel Saluzzese (e forse non solo nel Saluzzese)?

Crediamo di poter rispondere, senza timore di smentita, il surplus extra-legale di sfruttamento della forza-lavoro, ovvero la mancata corresponsione di una significativa porzione di salario. Inutile e controproducente utilizzare mezzi termini: si tratta di un vero e proprio furto, perpetrato con la massima naturalezza e serenità dagli imprenditori agricoli in un clima di generale impunità e accondiscendenza. Tanto più quando il lavoratore è straniero ed è strutturalmente più vulnerabile a causa del ricatto del permesso di soggiorno, tanto più quando non conosce abbastanza la lingua italiana ed è inconsapevole dei suoi diritti, tanto più quando ha a disposizione poche opportunità di impiego alternative.

Non serve essere dei marxisti ortodossi per condividere che la ricchezza è prodotta dal lavoro degli operai ma appropriata dai possessori dei mezzi di produzione. Oggi, in un’epoca dominata dall’egemonia del pensiero capitalistico, questo pilastro non è forse più così in in evidenza, eppure il meccanismo è sempre quello. A partire dal caso del distretto della frutta del Saluzzese, vogliamo sottolineare come i padroni di oggi, oltre al plusvalore frutto dello sfruttamento legalizzato, si avvalgano di tutta una serie di tecniche extra-legali per garantirsi l’accaparramento di un’eccedenza di ricchezza.

È sconcertante constatare come agli operai africani impiegati nel distretto della frutta non sia praticamente mai corrisposta la retribuzione che spetterebbe loro da contratto, che è comunque vergognosamente bassa rispetto alle condizioni generali di un lavoro del genere, duro e precario per definizione.

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La stragrande maggioranza dei braccianti dichiara infatti di lavorare circa dieci ore al giorno, durante le fasi intense di raccolta anche la domenica. Secondo il Contratto Collettivo Nazionale degli Operai Agricoli e Florovivaisti, dopo le 6.30 ore di lavoro giornaliere (39 ore settimanali su 5 giorni) le ore svolte sono da considerarsi straordinari, e la maggiorazione per ogni ora di straordinario è pari al 30% e per i festivi pari al 60%. I sindacati coi quali abbiamo interloquito ci hanno detto di non avere quasi mai visto una busta paga contenente degli straordinari, mentre i lavoratori di non avere mai ricevuto ‘fuori busta’ paghe orarie superiori alla retribuzione oraria pattuita. Insomma, sebbene lavorare nei campi roventi d’estate e gelidi d’inverno sia già di per sé un lavoro duro e logorante, semplicemente il lavoro straordinario (che è la norma) non è riconosciuto, come se non esistesse tout court. 50/60 euro a giornata devono bastare.

Un altro aspetto del furto di salario consiste nell’approvvigionamento del materiale di lavoro. Per legge, grazie ai risultati delle lotte del passato che l’hanno imposto anche sul piano legale, il datore di lavoro è tenuto a fornire al dipendente tutti i dispositivi di sicurezza di cui necessita per svolgere le mansioni richieste da contratto. Bene, è sufficiente farsi un giro alla Caritas, oppure al parco Gulino la domenica, per rendersi immediatamente conto di come ciò non avvenga e i lavoratori debbano procurarsi autonomamente i dispositivi di protezione (scarpe anti-infortunistica, guanti, etc.), altrimenti non vengono assunti.

Se poi guardiamo oltre i picchi della raccolta stagionale e ci concentriamo sui non pochi operai agricoli africani che riescono ad ottenere contratti più lunghi, che magari si estendono sino a dicembre, anche qui si vedrà come raramente il lavoro è pagato il giusto prezzo. Pur svolgendo mansioni qualificate come ad esempio il diradamento o la potatura, spesso l’inquadramento salariale è quello del raccoglitore, a cui corrisponde ça va sans dire un salario inferiore.

E si potrebbe andare avanti, e più avanti si va più si possono notare comunanze tra la condizione dei braccianti africani e quella di tanti lavoratori, in altri settori, stranieri ma anche italiani.

I lavoratori africani nel Saluzzese accettano tutto ciò passivamente?

No, specialmente oggi che il problema del contesto italiano (almeno nel nord del paese) sembra essere meno l’assenza di impiego e più il lavoro povero. La principale manifestazione di contropotere operaio è infatti l’atteggiamento iper-utilitaristico con cui si affrontano i padroni: “non mi paghi in modo soddisfacente, prendo e me ne vado. Immediatamente. Tanto riesco a trovare altro“. Non è sempre stato così, non è detto che sarà sempre così: in alcuni momenti l’offerta di lavoro era così ridotta che un lavoro, per quanto sfruttato e indegno, bisognava tenerselo stretto, perché serviva per mangiare, perché serviva per i documenti.

Esistono poi molteplici linee di resistenza spontanea che agiscono sotterraneamente, di cui si viene a conoscenza solo creando un rapporto di fiducia e di ascolto reale con i lavoratori.

Per esempio, la contrattazione informale sulle giornate di lavoro da segnare effettivamente in busta paga, almeno quel tot per raggiungere la soglia necessaria alla disoccupazione agricola, strumento peculiare per garantire continuità reddittuale nei mesi di inattività forzata. Il lavoro grigio, infatti, molto più che la qualità della frutta prodotta nelle piantagioni, è il vero marchio di fabbrica del distretto della frutta del Saluzzese.

In zona è perfettamente noto a tutti, organi di controllo compresi, che le giornate di lavoro segnate ai braccianti non coincidono con quelle effettivamente svolte. Sebbene le situazioni varino di azienda in azienda, ipotizziamo che le giornate segnate siano meno della metà di quelle svolte. Un grande, enorme risparmio per le tasche degli imprenditori. Per rendersi conto dell’enorme volume di attività lavorativa non contabilizzato – quindi dei soldi risparmiati – sarebbe sufficiente disporre dei dati relativi alle giornate di lavoro necessarie in rapporto alla superficie di terreno coltivato e incrociarlo con le giornate documentate, ma guarda a caso questi dati non sono disponibili e custoditi gelosamente dagli organi di controllo e di rappresentanza delle aziende. (Dati che peraltro sarebbero estremamente utili anche per la programmazione della gestione abitativa della forza-lavoro stagionale, anziché agitare il solito spettro degli insediamenti informali)

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Sorvoliamo sui contributi non versati e sul conseguente mancato introito nelle casse dello Stato, perché il discorso sulla tassazione è lungo e complesso,ma guardiamo le cose dal punto di vista, anche egoistico se vogliamo, ma maledettamente materiale, del lavoratore che si spacca la schiena in campagna. Perché se il padrone risparmia, risparmia solo lui e l’operaio non ne trae alcun beneficio?

Purtroppo però le linee di resistenza spontanea individuale faticano a comporsi in una forza collettiva organizzata. L’azione sindacale ha fatto pochi passi in avanti e resta schiacciata sull’azione legale piuttosto che sulla pratica di lotta diretta, con il risultato di non fare mai esperienza di un fronte comune ma di vincere o perdere in solitudine.

Occorrerebbe infine guardare l’evidente diminuzione degli arrivi di braccianti in cerca di occupazione da un punto di vista diverso, diminuzione che si sovrappone e si sostituisce al ricambio pressoché totale di persone che arrivano a Saluzzo stagionalmente già registrato negli anni passati. Anche questo fenomeno andrebbe considerato infatti come una forma di “resistenza”, confermato dai continui appelli per mancanza di manodopera lanciati dalle organizzazioni datoriali e dal veloce passaggio ad altri settori produttivi di molti lavoratori africani che si sono stabiliti nel saluzzese.

Sarebbe interessante approfondire che cosa intendono i padroni quando parlano di “fidelizzazione” dei propri dipendenti…

Siamo perfettamente consapevoli che nella congiuntura attuale molti piccoli imprenditori agricoli stiano faticando, schiacciati dalla concorrenza del mercato internazionale, dal potere della grande distribuzione, dall’interdipendenza della distribuzione logistica.

Alcune aziende sono a rischio fallimento, altre vengono assorbite dai pesci più grandi… ma è l’agriculutral squeeze, baby! Che altrove ha già comportato un cambio di scala nella dimensione aziendale. D’altro canto, è inaccettabile che l’insostenibilità della produzione agricola contemporanea per il piccolo imprenditore sia scaricata sui lavoratori salariati, non a caso persone razzializzate, che l’auto-sfruttamento dei datori di lavoro sia proiettato sui dipendenti. Già, perché a quanto pare il grado di sfruttamento nelle piccole aziende è ancora maggiore che nelle grandi. Ma se, anziché allearsi con le forze vive del lavoro per cambiare le regole del gioco, i contadini compartecipano al sistema di sfruttamento generalizzato, potendo sopravvivere solo grazie allo sfruttamento dell’ultimo anello della catena, allora la scelta di campo è stata fatta.

▻https://www.meltingpot.org/2023/09/golden-delicious-cronache-dalle-piantagioni-saluzzesi
#pommes

L’ultimo kiwi. Cronache dalle piantagioni saluzzesi

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Il lavoro stagionale nel distretto frutticolo di Saluzzo, tradizionalmente, si chiude con la raccolta dei kiwi nella seconda metà di novembre. Sei mesi sono trascorsi da quando i mirtilli, colorandosi di blu, avevano dato avvio alla stagione 2023.

In realtà la produzione locale è notevolmente diminuita negli ultimi anni a causa della batteriosi e della cosiddetta “morìa” che hanno falcidiato ettari di frutteti, poi sostituiti da mirtilli e mele invernali ma anche in relazione a scelte imprenditoriali che hanno portato alla delocalizzazione delle piantagioni, verso il distretto di Latina in particolare. La raccolta, quindi, si concentra in poche giornate dai ritmi di lavoro massacranti, una corsa contro il tempo per sfruttare le ore di luce giornaliera che vanno diminuendo e anticipare le gelate precoci nella pianura ai piedi del Monviso.

“L’Italia, con 320 mila tonnellate esportate nel 2021 in cinquanta paesi, per un fatturato di oltre 400 milioni di euro, è il principale produttore europeo di kiwi e il terzo nel mondo dopo Cina e Nuova Zelanda. – informa una accurata inchiesta condotta da IRPI Media pubblicata a marzo di quest’anno – La prima regione del nostro paese dove si coltiva la “bacca verde” è il Lazio. Globalmente, un terzo di tutti i kiwi commerciati nella grande distribuzione viene dalla multinazionale Zespri. Nata in Nuova Zelanda, oggi è leader nel settore e presente in sei paesi. Dalla provincia di Latina, arriva una buona parte della frutta venduta con il marchio Zespri (il 10,5%). Un mercato gigantesco, che solo in Italia conta quasi tremila ettari di campi, centinaia di produttori e migliaia di braccianti.” 4

Anche sugli scaffali dei supermercati saluzzesi le varietà di kiwi sono vendute quasi tutte con il marchio Zespri: Green Premium, origine Italia confezionato in Lombardia, Sun Gold origine Nuova Zelanda e Hayward origine Grecia confezionati chissà dove.

Alcune aziende locali producono in provincia di Latina i loro kiwi a polpa gialla (i Sun Gold) di cui Zespri detiene il brevetto e l’esclusiva della commercializzazione.

Un colosso a livello internazionale è il Gruppo Rivoira che controlla Kiwi Uno S.p.A. con sede a Verzuolo, pochi chilometri da Saluzzo: “Da sempre in stretta relazione con il Cile, oggi grazie all’integrazione tra produzione italiana e cilena, abbiamo modo di essere sui mercati europei e d’oltre mare per dodici mesi all’anno” si legge sul sito dell’azienda. Rivoira controlla, tra le altre, anche un’azienda con sede a Cisterna di Latina, la capitale del kiwi italico, che vanta 110 ettari coltivati a kiwi, varietà hi-tech che hanno conquistato una loro nicchia di mercato.

Ma restiamo a Saluzzo… Nell’annata in cui i lavoratori delle campagne non hanno più fatto notizia, scomparsi dalle cronache locali e nazionali, non più oggetto di studi eruditi in relazione a presunte emergenze ma sempre ben presenti in carne, ossa e muscoli tra i filari a reggere l’economia di questo angolo benestante di nord-ovest, la stagione del lavoro bracciantile si è chiusa mestamente nell’aula di un tribunale. A Cuneo il 23 novembre scorso, infatti, si è svolta l’udienza preliminare del processo a carico del datore di lavoro di Moussa Dembele, maliano, deceduto a Revello il 10 luglio 2022.

Moussa lavorava in nero (“senza regolare contratto” secondo la fredda dicitura burocratica) presso un’azienda agricola dedita all’allevamento dei bovini.

L’allevamento di bovini e suini è l’altro grande business della provincia di Cuneo da cui deriva la coltivazione intensiva del mais che, insieme a frutteti e capannoni di cemento, domina il paesaggio della pianura saluzzese.

Nel settore zootecnico le condizioni di lavoro riescono ad essere forse persino peggiori che in agricoltura. Così almeno sostengono alcuni ex-lavoratori, i quali, stando a quanto ci dicono, ricordano il mestiere con un certo orrore. «Se lo fai troppo a lungo», ci racconta Ousmane, «diventi un vitello anche tu! È massacrante, fisicamente ma soprattutto mentalmente: lavori tutti i giorni, a orario spezzato, da solo, nell’aria pesante che puzza di animale e di merda. Per una paga nemmeno buona devi completamente rinunciare a farti una tua vita personale, eppure il padrone non è mai, mai contento…» Nell’invisibilità garantita dalle stalle diffuse nel profondo della campagna industrializzata il rapporto di forza tra l’azienda e il dipendente, che spesso lavora individualmente, è tutto a favore della prima.

Quella domenica Moussa trasportava pesanti vasche di plastica colme di mangime insilato per l’alimentazione delle mucche, riempite di volta in volta al cassone di un inquietante macchinario denominato “desilatore portato”, attrezzatura agricola attaccata alla forza motrice di un trattore. Nella richiesta di rinvio a giudizio della Procura di Cuneo, tale attrezzatura viene definita “non idonea ai fini della sicurezza”, priva cioè delle necessarie protezioni, modificata per facilitare le operazioni.

Giunto ormai al termine del lavoro affidatogli, il manovale si è sporto oltre la sponda del cassone per spingere con una scopa i resti dell’insilato verso la coclea, rimanendo incastrato e schiacciato da un componente del macchinario in funzione. Questa la ricostruzione ufficiale. Moussa è deceduto per “arresto cardiorespiratorio a causa di shock midollare e ipovolemico”, in pratica è morto sul colpo con l’osso del collo fracassato nell’impatto.

La storia di Moussa è simile a quella di tanti lavoratori e lavoratrici delle campagne, che accettano di lavorare in nero perché non sono in regola con il permesso di soggiorno e non hanno alternative oppure per integrare i contratti a chiamata che non garantiscono un salario sufficiente per sé e per poter aiutare le proprie famiglie nei paesi d’origine.

«Si trovava in Italia dal 2013 e pare che lavorasse nell’azienda da circa sei mesi. Da più di un anno stava aspettando il rinnovo del permesso di soggiorno… Oltre alla moglie e alle due figlie, Moussa ha lasciato il fratello Makan, di due anni più giovane, che vive a Gambasca e lavora per un’azienda agricola del paese. I due erano arrivati in Italia in momenti diversi. E’ stato lui ad accompagnare la salma in Mali». (L’eco del Chisone, agosto 2023)

Alla notizia della morte di Moussa un pugno di braccianti aveva manifestato spontaneamente dolore e rabbia per le strade di Saluzzo.

In generale si dice che a Saluzzo, “a differenza del Sud” – il Sud preso come termine di paragone sempre negativo, il Sud diverso e lontano, il Sud selvaggio e criminale, il Sud che nel Piemonte profondo non ha mai smesso di venire razzializzato – il lavoro nero in agricoltura sia tutto sommato poco diffuso, un’eccezione e non la regola. Come abbiamo scritto qui, la cifra costitutiva degli attuali rapporti lavorativi locali è in effetti il lavoro ‘grigio’, cioè lavoro ‘nero a metà’ per dirla con un grande cantore del Meridione quale Pino Daniele. Tuttavia, a ben vedere, specialmente durante i picchi della raccolta, non sono affatto pochi i raccoglitori non contrattualizzati impiegati anche nel saluzzese.

Abbiamo persino sentito dire che ci sono datori di lavoro che in quei momenti quando ci si gioca il raccolto di un anno intero, incuranti di un pericolo evidentemente non così temibile, cercano lavoratori disponibili a lavorare in nero, “perché per così pochi giorni, ma che senso ha fare un contratto?” Mera noia burocratica o cosciente risparmio sul costo del lavoro? Chissà, intanto il bracciante ha qualche giorno in meno per il calcolo della disoccupazione agricola e zero tutele dei propri diritti… Agli unici lavoratori che in un certo senso conviene, per il paradossale effetto della violenza strutturale sancita dalla legge Bossi-Fini, sono le persone, come Moussa, sprovviste di regolare permesso di soggiorno a causa delle estenuanti lungaggini burocratiche.

Per una drammatica coincidenza, ma per chi conosce bene le condizioni di vita dei braccianti non è affatto una sorpresa, poco distante dal luogo del decesso di Moussa, nelle campagne di Revello, grosso comune agricolo dove lavorano centinaia di stagionali e di cui si parla spesso in quanto l’unico del distretto della frutta a non aver aderito al protocollo di accoglienza della Prefettura, nella primavera di quest’anno è morto Dahaba, 40 anni, anche lui maliano. Ma la notizia è passata praticamente sotto silenzio.

L’uomo ha perso la vita la notte di Pasqua a causa delle esalazioni del monossido di carbonio: per riscaldarsi aveva acceso, nella sua stanza, un braciere ricavato da un secchio di metallo. Ad aprile fa ancora freddo da queste parti, i camini delle cascine fumano e le gelate notturne rischiano di compromettere i raccolti, è questa la preoccupazione maggiore.

Dahaba era arrivato da Rosarno dove aveva raccolto le arance e si era appena recato in Questura a ritirare il suo permesso di soggiorno per “attesa occupazione”, il documento che viene rilasciato quando il titolare di un permesso per lavoro subordinato ne richiede il rinnovo ma non ha, al momento, un contratto e delle buste paga da esibire. A Revello abitava in un alloggio messo a disposizione dal suo datore di lavoro, a quanto pare non riscaldato adeguatamente. Il martedì seguente il giorno di pasquetta, lo stesso datore di lavoro, non vedendolo arrivare, è andato a cercarlo e ha trovato il cadavere.

L’uomo era poco conosciuto nella numerosa comunità maliana che vive nel saluzzese.

L’episodio dovrebbe suscitare una riflessione seria sulle condizioni di vita dei braccianti africani, sul pendolarismo forzato nelle campagne d’Italia alla ricerca di un lavoro, sulla precarietà esistenziale estrema, sulla solitudine di un corpo senza vita rinvenuto solo perché non si è presentato sul posto di lavoro.

Per non parlare del problema della casa o della tanto invocata accoglienza in azienda, in questi anni considerata la panacea di tutti i mali ma niente affatto sinonimo di dignitosa qualità di vita. L’accoglienza in cascina, anche quando fatta nel migliore dei modi – e non è certo sempre il caso – è infatti problematica sotto molteplici punti di vista: rappresenta un ulteriore ricatto per il lavoratore, il cui datore di lavoro e il padrone di casa sono la stessa persona; è un fattore di isolamento spaziale che ha forti ripercussioni sulla socialità; impedisce una chiara separazione tra tempo di vita e tempo di lavoro; e molto altro. Nel peggiore dei casi, si può dire che rievochi l’organizzazione sociale totale della piantagione coloniale…

Moussa e Dakar chiedono di non essere dimenticati, di non essere considerati soltanto le note stonate di una narrazione dei fatti appiattita sul paternalismo padronale, ossessionata dal decoro urbano e dalla qualità delle eccellenze del territorio agricolo circostante. La morte che spesso attende in agguato chi lavora, in campagna e altrove, non è una tragica fatalità ma l’espressione più estrema di una condizione di ‘normale’ sfruttamento, che sistematicamente, a gradi variabili, produce sofferenza e afflizioni, fisiche e mentali.

▻https://www.meltingpot.org/2023/12/lultimo-kiwi-cronache-dalle-piantagioni-saluzzesi

#kiwi #kiwis

Paderborn : le panneau polémique volé dans la cathédrale

Le panneau dénonçant la mauvaise conduite des anciens archevêques enterrés dans la crypte de la cathédrale de Paderborn, en Allemagne, a été dérobé le 23 juillet 2023. En outre, une croix gammée défigurait la cathédrale.

Source : ▻https://www.cath.ch/newsf/paderborn-le-panneau-polemique-vole-dans-la-cathedrale

44 millions d’euros de bénéfice pour le diocèse allemand de Paderborn

L’archidiocèse allemand de Paderborn a clôturé ses comptes 2015 avec un bénéfice de 44,2 millions d’euros. Ce montant représente une augmentation d’environ 3 millions d’euros (9%) par rapport à l’année précédente, a indiqué le diocèse le 25 octobre 2016.

Les rentrées de l’impôt ecclésiastique se sont montées à 396 millions d’euros en augmentation de 20 millions d’euros. Les revenus totaux de l’archidiocèse ont atteint 514 millions d’euros. Quant à la fortune, elle se monte à 4,16 milliards d’euros . L’archidiocèse de Paderborn est ainsi le deuxième plus riche d’Allemagne après Munich (6,26 milliards) et devant Cologne (3,52 milliards).
. . . . .
L’archidiocèse de Paderborn en Rhénanie du Nord-Westphalie compte 1,55 million de catholiques sur une population globale de 4,8 mios d’habitants pour un territoire de 14’745 km2. Il regroupe 703 paroisses dans lesquelles sont actifs 1’711 agents pastoraux dont 683 prêtres. Il compte 19 écoles et 498 jardins d’enfants. (cath.ch-apic/kna/mp)

#richesse #argent #fric #impôt_ecclésiastique #argent

Source : ▻https://www.cath.ch/newsf/44-millions-deuros-de-benefice-diocese-allemand-de-paderborn

Et on est en train d’emmerder tout le monde à passer à la voiture électrique (si possible de leur plein gré).
On aime bien déporter le problème plutôt que de le résoudre, et parler de solution quand même.
Consommez moins, y’a que ca qui marche. Décroissez !

#cartographie #visualisation

La « décroissance », on y arrive à grands pas. Dans certaines officines médiatico-économiques, ils appellent ça « récession » ...

“L’atlas des migrations”, notre nouveau hors-série

Climat, conflit, travail, études... Toute la planète migre. Vers quelles destinations ? Par quels moyens ? Les réponses en cartes, en infographies, et à travers les reportages de la presse étrangère dans notre atlas, en vente actuellement chez votre marchand de journaux.

https://focus.courrierinternational.com/2023/07/17/0/0/2094/1392/640/0/60/0/3f9f216_1689589303828-unnamed.jpeg

#atlas #courrier_international

Cartographie. Les migrants africains vont d’abord en Afrique

Contrairement aux idées reçues, 80 % des migrants africains se rendent dans d’autres pays du continent, et non Europe. Une carte à retrouver dans notre “atlas des migrations”, en vente actuellement chez votre marchand de journaux.

https://pixelfed.zoo-logique.org/storage/m/_v2/578583396227231930/c51ea9690-856390/dZ3lF5JNXMdB/uCH2XV1T6MO402rV9cLApQXwMgTCE0bpYOhH51lM.png

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ajouté à la métaliste de documents (surtout cartes et visualisations) qui traitent des #migrations_intra-africaines et qui peuvent servir à combattre les #préjugés de la #ruée vers l’Europe de migrants d’#Afrique subsaharienne :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/817279

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg

@seenthis fichier .svg mal supporté ?

Merci de signaler cette carte, presque parfait du point de vue de la terminologie en légende. Ça n’a plus de sens aujourd’hui de mentionner les « séparatistes », ils sont totalement intégrés dans les troupes russes et il y a en plus d’autres unités (Wagner, l’es bataillons tic toc tchétchènes, etc... le mot « Russes » ou « Troupes russes » suffirait amplement. « Villes contestées » n’est pas très approprié non plus, d’une part parce que les fronts urbains évoluent plus ou moins vite et les villes et villages passent d’un camp à l’autre et ne sont plus « contestés », et par ailleurs parce que le mot « contesté » induit que les deux parties en conflit sont aussi légitime l’une que l’autre, ce qui n’est bien sur pas le cas. Il vaudrait mieux mettre dans ce cas « âpres combats » ou quelque chose de ce genre. Dans son bouquin limite scandaleux, (Russie un vertige de puissance), Radvanyi n’a pas jugé utile (alors que j’en avais fait la demande) de changer la terminologie des cartes où les territoires envahit et occupés avec la brutalité et la cruauté que l’on sait sont mentionnés systématiquement comme « territoires contestés », et ce choix est loin d’être neutre (comme celui de représenter la Crimée d’une couleur différente de l’Ukraine, ou d’oublier de mentionner que les territoires envahit et occupés par les Russes sont selon le droit international des territoires ukrainiens, et pire sans doute bien que pas très cartographique, citer les propagandistes criminels du Kremlin genre Soloviov ou Simonian comme si c’était des points de vue pertinents et présentables). Sinon pour le reste de la carte, je me réjouis qu’une terminologie appropriée ait été adoptée (en particulier ne ne pas voir guerre"russo-ukrainienne" mais plutôt « invasion russe »)

Par contre rien à dire de l’OTAN, des occidentaux qui sont en guerre officielle contre la Russie ??? Ces gauchistes, antifas et autres qui ont soutenu les bombardements en Ukraine, contre la population de l’Est dite séparatiste, des milliers de morts et destructions en ne parlant pas UNE SEULE fois des ingérences graves de l’Occident, l’ OTAN ...L’hypocrisie de votre texte me donne la nausée ! Même jusqu’a mentir sur la nature fasciste, nazie du régime de l’actuelle Ukraine et ce depuis 2014 ; TORCH-LIT MARCH IN KIEV BY UKRAINE’S RIGHT-WING SVOBODA PARTY - BBC NEWS
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHhGEiwCHZE

.►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY

►https://blog.monolecte.fr/2005/01/07/la-valeur-de-la-vie-humaine

Comme toujours, mieux vaut être jeune riche et en bonne santé que vieux, pauvre et malade. Mieux vaut aussi vivre dans un pays qui a une politique de santé publique.

L’obsession des députés LR pour l’obligation de travail faite aux bénéficiaires du RSA se confirme
▻https://blogs.alternatives-economiques.fr/abherve/2023/08/01/l-obsession-des-deputes-lr-pour-l-obligation-de-trava

La députée [de l’Aube, Valérie Bazin-Malgras] interroge M. le ministre du travail, du plein emploi et de l’insertion sur la possibilité de rendre obligatoire l’activité de #saisonnier durant les travaux exceptionnels de la viticulture aux bénéficiaires de minima sociaux en capacité. Si le Département de l’Aube, ainsi que plusieurs autres départements, autorisent les bénéficiaires du revenu de solidarité active à cumuler ce dernier avec les revenus d’activité saisonnière des vendanges, de nombreux départements continuent de subir une pénurie de main-d’œuvre agricole. Pour certains territoires viticoles, il y a un vrai risque de ne pas trouver les #travailleurs_saisonniers pour permettre une récolte normale des vignes, alors qu’au même moment, des bénéficiaires du RSA en capacité de travailler sont en attente d’offres d’emplois par les services compétents de retour à l’emploi ou en inactivité totale. Il convient pourtant de rappeler que le revenu de solidarité active est dans sa philosophie un revenu transitoire et non un revenu permanent encourageant l’inactivité. En préparation de la mise en place de France Travail, elle souhaite connaître les intentions du Gouvernement quant à cette obligation qui permettrait de maintenir la compétitivité de la filière viti-vinicole en France."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F23U-e-WUAAkyu-?format=jpg&name=medium#.jpeg

Hold up sur l’assurance chômage : le gouvernement publie la lettre de cadrage
▻https://www.cgt.fr/comm-de-presse/hold-sur-lassurance-chomage-le-gouvernement-publie-la-lettre-de-cadrage

cela doit financer le futur France Travail, dont le financement sera assuré de façon croissante par l’#assurance_chômage en parallèle à un désengagement de l’Etat. En clair, le gouvernement nous demande de continuer à saccager les droits de la portion de plus en plus réduite d’allocataires indemnisé.es pour mieux fliquer les allocataires du RSA.

#Unedic

Le Sucre est un film français réalisé par Jacques Rouffio, sorti en 1978, adaptation du livre homonyme de Georges Conchon. aussi

En effet, un bon film dans mes souvenirs, et même si le sujet est un peu différent, on retrouve dans les deux une approche de avidité et du désir lié au sucre, dans le film plutôt autour de la spéculation boursière et l’ultra-libéralisme.

Huge barge set to house 500 asylum seekers arrives in the UK

The #Bibby_Stockholm is being refitted in #Falmouth to increase its capacity from 222 to 506 people.

A barge set to house 500 asylum seekers has arrived in the UK as the government struggles with efforts to move migrants out of hotels.

The Independent understands that people will not be transferred onto the Bibby Stockholm until July, following refurbishment to increase its capacity and safety checks.

The barge has been towed from its former berth in Italy to the port of Falmouth, in Cornwall.

It will remain there while works are carried out, before being moved onto its final destination in #Portland, Dorset.

The private operators of the port struck an agreement to host the barge with the Home Office without formal public consultation, angering the local council and residents.

Conservative MP Richard Drax previously told The Independent legal action was still being considered to stop the government’s plans for what he labelled a “quasi-prison”.

He accused ministers and Home Office officials of being “unable to answer” practical questions on how the barge will operate, such as how asylum seekers will be able to come and go safely through the port, what activities they will be provided with and how sufficient healthcare will be ensured.

“The question is how do we cope?” Mr Drax said. “Every organisation has its own raft of questions: ‘Where’s the money coming from? Who’s going to do what if this all happens?’ There are not sufficient answers, which is very worrying.”

The Independent previously revealed that asylum seekers will have less living space than an average parking bay on the Bibby Stockholm, which saw at least one person die and reports of rape and abuse on board when it was used by the Dutch government to detain migrants in the 2000s.

An official brochure released by owner Bibby Marine shows there are only 222 “single en-suite bedrooms” on board, meaning that at least two people must be crammed into every cabin for the government to achieve its aim of holding 500 people.

Dorset Council has said it still had “serious reservations about the appropriateness of Portland Port in this scenario and remains opposed to the proposals”.

The Conservative police and crime commissioner for Dorset is demanding extra government funding for the local force to “meet the extra policing needs that this project will entail”.

A multi-agency forum including representatives from national, regional and local public sector agencies has been looking at plans for the provision of health services, the safety and security of both asylum seekers and local residents and charity involvement.

Portland Port said it had been working with the Home Office and local agencies to ensure the safe arrival and operation of the Bibby Stockholm, and to minimise its impact locally.

The barge is part of a wider government push to move migrants out of hotels, which are currently housing more than 47,000 asylum seekers at a cost of £6m a day.

But the use of ships as accommodation was previously ruled out on cost grounds by the Treasury, when Rishi Sunak was chancellor, and the government has not confirmed how much it will be spending on the scheme.

https://i.imgur.com/iZ2llGx.png

Ministers have also identified several former military and government sites, including two defunct airbases and an empty prison, that they want to transform into asylum accommodation.

But a court battle with Braintree District Council over former RAF Wethersfield is ongoing, and legal action has also been threatened over similar plans for RAF Scampton in Lancashire.

Last month, a barrister representing home secretary Suella Braverman told the High Court that 56,000 people were expected to arrive on small boats in 2023 and that some could be made homeless if hotel places are not found.

A record backlog of asylum applications, driven by the increase in Channel crossings and a collapse in Home Office decision-making, mean the government is having to provide accommodation for longer while claims are considered.

▻https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/barge-falmouth-cornwall-migrants-bibby-b2333313.html
#barge #bateau

‘Performative cruelty’ : the hostile architecture of the UK government’s migrant barge

https://pixelfed.zoo-logique.org/storage/m/_v2/578583396227231930/c51ea9690-856390/O3svwnZiAyTQ/Q60HYouNPxgQwJejO4z6GXGM8DaTejBjJC1q8NXT.png

The arrival of the Bibby Stockholm barge at Portland Port, in Dorset, on July 18 2023, marks a new low in the UK government’s hostile immigration environment. The vessel is set to accommodate over 500 asylum seekers. This, the Home Office argues, will benefit British taxpayers and local residents.

The barge, however, was immediately rejected by the local population and Dorset council. Several British charities and church groups have condemned the barge, and the illegal migration bill it accompanies, as “an affront to human dignity”.

Anti-immigration groups have also protested against the barge, with some adopting offensive language, referring to the asylum seekers who will be hosted there as “bargies”. Conservative MP for South Dorset Richard Drax has claimed that hosting migrants at sea would exacerbate tenfold the issues that have arisen in hotels to date, namely sexual assaults, children disappearing and local residents protesting.

https://images.theconversation.com/files/539330/original/file-20230725-21-gqv26r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1#.jpg

My research shows that facilities built to house irregular migrants in Europe and beyond create a temporary infrastructure designed to be hostile. Governments thereby effectively make asylum seekers more displaceable while ignoring their everyday spatial and social needs.
Precarious space

The official brochure plans for the Bibby Stockholm show 222 single bedrooms over three stories, built around two small internal courtyards. It has now been retrofitted with bunk beds to host more than 500 single men – more than double the number it was designed to host.

Journalists Lizzie Dearden and Martha McHardy have shown this means the asylum seekers housed there – for up to nine months – will have “less living space than an average parking bay”. This stands in contravention of international standards of a minimum 4.5m² of covered living space per person in cold climates, where more time is spent indoors.

https://images.theconversation.com/files/539304/original/file-20230725-22-emh9ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1#.jpg

In an open letter, dated June 15 2023 and addressed to home secretary Suella Braverman, over 700 people and nearly 100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) voiced concerns that this will only add to the trauma migrants have already experienced:

Housing people on a sea barge – which we argue is equal to a floating prison – is morally indefensible, and threatens to retraumatise a group of already vulnerable people.

Locals are concerned already overstretched services in Portland, including GP practices, will not be able to cope with further pressure. West Dorset MP Chris Lode has questioned whether the barge itself is safe “to cope with double the weight that it was designed to bear”. A caller to the LBC radio station, meanwhile, has voiced concerns over the vessel’s very narrow and low fire escape routes, saying: “What they [the government] are effectively doing here is creating a potential Grenfell on water, a floating coffin.”

Such fears are not unfounded. There have been several cases of fires destroying migrant camps in Europe, from the Grand-Synthe camp near Dunkirk in France, in 2017, to the 2020 fire at the Moria camp in Greece. The difficulty of escaping a vessel at sea could turn it into a death trap.

Performative hostility

Research on migrant accommodation shows that being able to inhabit a place – even temporarily – and develop feelings of attachment and belonging, is crucial to a person’s wellbeing. Even amid ever tighter border controls, migrants in Europe, who can be described as “stuck on the move”, nonetheless still attempt to inhabit their temporary spaces and form such connections.

However, designs can hamper such efforts when they concentrate asylum seekers in inhospitable, cut-off spaces. In 2015, Berlin officials began temporarily housing refugees in the former Tempelhof airport, a noisy, alienating industrial space, lacking in privacy and disconnected from the city. Many people ended up staying there for the better part of a year.

French authorities, meanwhile, opened the Centre Humanitaire Paris-Nord in Paris in 2016, temporary migrant housing in a disused train depot. Nicknamed la Bulle (the bubble) for its bulbous inflatable covering, this facility was noisy and claustrophobic, lacking in basic comforts.

Like the barge in Portland Port, these facilities, placed in industrial sites, sit uncomfortably between hospitality and hostility. The barge will be fenced off, since the port is a secured zone, and access will be heavily restricted and controlled. The Home Office insists that the barge is not a floating prison, yet it is an unmistakably hostile space.

https://images.theconversation.com/files/539308/original/file-20230725-28-sv0e7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1#.jpg

Infrastructure for water and electricity will physically link the barge to shore. However, Dorset council has no jurisdiction at sea.

The commercial agreement on the barge was signed between the Home Office and Portland Port, not the council. Since the vessel is positioned below the mean low water mark, it did not require planning permission.

This makes the barge an island of sorts, where other rules apply, much like those islands in the Aegean sea and in the Pacific, on which Greece and Australia have respectively housed migrants.

I have shown how facilities are often designed in this way not to give displaced people any agency, but, on the contrary, to objectify them. They heighten the instability migrants face, keeping them detached from local communities and constantly on the move.

The government has presented the barge as a cheaper solution than the £6.8 million it is currently spending, daily, on housing asylum seekers in hotels. A recent report by two NGOs, Reclaim the Seas and One Life to Live, concludes, however, that it will save less than £10 a person a day. It could even prove more expensive than the hotel model.

Sarah Teather, director of the Jesuit Refugee Service UK charity, has described the illegal migration bill as “performative cruelty”. Images of the barge which have flooded the news certainly meet that description too.

However threatening these images might be, though, they will not stop desperate people from attempting to come to the UK to seek safety. Rather than deterring asylum seekers, the Bibby Stockholm is potentially creating another hazard to them and to their hosting communities.

▻https://theconversation.com/performative-cruelty-the-hostile-architecture-of-the-uk-governments

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Point intéressant, lié à l’aménagement du territoire :

“Since the vessel is positioned below the mean low water mark, it did not require planning permission”

C’est un peu comme les #zones_frontalières qui ont été créées un peu partout en Europe (et pas que) pour que les Etats se débarassent des règles en vigueur (notamment le principe du non-refoulement). Voir cette métaliste, à laquelle j’ajoute aussi cet exemple :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/795053

voir aussi :

The circumstances at Portland Port are very different because where the barge is to be positioned is below the mean low water mark. This means that the barge is outside of our planning control and there is no requirement for planning permission from the council.

►https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2023/07/18/leaders-comments-on-the-home-office-barge

#hostile_architecture #architecture_hostile #dignité #espace #Portland #hostilité #hostilité_performative #île #infrastructure #extraterritorialité #extra-territorialité #prix #coût

Sur l’#histoire (notamment liées au commerce d’ #esclaves) de la Bibby Stockholm :

Bibby Line, shipowners

Information
From Guide to the Records of Merseyside Maritime Museum, volume 1: Bibby Line. In 1807 John Bibby and John Highfield, Liverpool shipbrokers, began taking shares in ships, mainly Parkgate Dublin packets. By 1821 (the end of the partnership) they had vessels sailing to the Mediterranean and South America. In 1850 they expanded their Mediterranean and Black Sea interests by buying two steamers and by 1865 their fleet had increased to twenty three. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 severely affected their business and Frederick Leyland, their general manager, failed to persuade the family partners to diversify onto the Atlantic. Eventually, he bought them out in 1873. In 1889 the Bibby family revived its shipowning interests with a successful passenger cargo service to Burma. From 1893 it also began to carry British troops to overseas postings which remained a Bibby staple until 1962. The Burma service ended in 1971 and the company moved to new areas of shipowning including bulkers, gas tankers and accommodation barges. It still has its head office in Liverpool where most management records are held. The museum holds models of the Staffordshire (1929) and Oxfordshire (1955). For further details see the attached catalogue or contact The Archives Centre for a copy of the catalogue.

The earliest records within the collection, the ships’ logs at B/BIBBY/1/1/1 - 1/1/3 show company vessels travelling between Europe and South America carrying cargoes that would have been produced on plantations using the labour of enslaved peoples or used within plantation and slave based economies. For example the vessel Thomas (B/BIBBY/1/1/1) carries a cargo of iron hoops for barrels to Brazil in 1812. The Mary Bibby on a voyage in 1825-1826 loads a cargo of sugar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to carry to Rotterdam. The log (B/BIBBY/1/1/3) records the use of ’negroes’ to work with the ship’s carpenter while the vessel is in port.

In September 1980 the latest Bibby vessel to hold the name Derbyshire was lost with all hands in the South China Sea. This collection does not include records relating to that vessel or its sinking, apart from a copy ’Motor vessel ’Derbyshire’, 1976-80: in memoriam’ at reference B/BIBBY/3/2/1 (a copy is also available in The Archives Centre library collection at 340.DER). Information about the sinking and subsequent campaigning by the victims’ family can be found on the NML website and in the Life On Board gallery. The Archives Centre holds papers of Captain David Ramwell who assisted the Derbyshire Family Association at D/RAM and other smaller collections of related documents within the DX collection.

▻https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/bibby-line-shipowners

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An Open Letter to #Bibby_Marine

Links between your parent company #Bibby_Line_Group (#BLG) and the slave trade have repeatedly been made. If true, we appeal to you to consider what actions you might take in recompense.

Bibby Marine’s modern slavery statement says that one of the company’s values is to “do the right thing”, and that you “strongly support the eradication of slavery, as well as the eradication of servitude, forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking”. These are admirable words.

Meanwhile, your parent company’s website says that it is “family owned with a rich history”. Please will you clarify whether this rich history includes slaving voyages where ships were owned, and cargoes transported, by BLG’s founder John Bibby, six generations ago. The BLG website says that in 1807 (which is when slavery was abolished in Britain), “John Bibby began trading as a shipowner in Liverpool with his partner John Highfield”. John Bibby is listed as co-owner of three slaving ships, of which John Highfield co-owned two:

In 1805, the Harmonie (co-owned by #John_Bibby and three others, including John Highfield) left Liverpool for a voyage which carried 250 captives purchased in West Central Africa and St Helena, delivering them to Cumingsberg in 1806 (see the SlaveVoyages database using Voyage ID 81732).
In 1806, the Sally (co-owned by John Bibby and two others) left Liverpool for a voyage which transported 250 captives purchased in Bassa and delivered them to Barbados (see the SlaveVoyages database using Voyage ID 83481).
In 1806, the Eagle (co-owned by John Bibby and four others, including John Highfield) left Liverpool for a voyage which transported 237 captives purchased in Cameroon and delivered them to Kingston in 1807 (see the SlaveVoyages database using Voyage ID 81106).

The same and related claims were recently mentioned by Private Eye. They also appear in the story of Liverpool’s Calderstones Park [PDF] and on the website of National Museums Liverpool and in this blog post “Shenanigans in Shipping” (a detailed history of the BLG). They are also mentioned by Laurence Westgaph, a TV presenter specialising in Black British history and slavery and the author of Read The Signs: Street Names with a Connection to the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Abolition in Liverpool [PDF], published with the support of English Heritage, The City of Liverpool, Northwest Regional Development Agency, National Museums Liverpool and Liverpool Vision.

While of course your public pledges on slavery underline that there is no possibility of there being any link between the activities of John Bibby and John Highfield in the early 1800s and your activities in 2023, we do believe that it is in the public interest to raise this connection, and to ask for a public expression of your categorical renunciation of the reported slave trade activities of Mr Bibby and Mr Highfield.

▻https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/an-open-letter-to-bibby-marine

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Très peu d’info sur John Bibby sur wikipedia :

John Bibby (19 February 1775 – 17 July 1840) was the founder of the British Bibby Line shipping company. He was born in Eccleston, near Ormskirk, Lancashire. He was murdered on 17 July 1840 on his way home from dinner at a friend’s house in Kirkdale.[1]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Bibby_memorial%2C_All_Hallows%2C_Allerton.jpg/800px-Bibby_memorial%2C_All_Hallows%2C_Allerton.jpg

‘Floating Prisons’: The 200-year-old family #business behind the Bibby Stockholm

https://corporatewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Bibbyheader-730x350.jpg

#Bibby_Line_Group_Limited is a UK company offering financial, marine and construction services to clients in at least 16 countries around the world. It recently made headlines after the government announced one of the firm’s vessels, Bibby Stockholm, would be used to accommodate asylum seekers on the Dorset coast.

In tandem with plans to house migrants at surplus military sites, the move was heralded by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman as a way of mitigating the £6m-a-day cost of hotel accommodation amid the massive ongoing backlog of asylum claims, as well as deterring refugees from making the dangerous channel crossing to the UK. Several protests have been organised against the project already, while over ninety migrants’ rights groups and hundreds of individual campaigners have signed an open letter to the Home Secretary calling for the plans to be scrapped, describing the barge as a “floating prison.”

Corporate Watch has researched into the Bibby Line Group’s operations and financial interests. We found that:

- The Bibby Stockholm vessel was previously used as a floating detention centre in the Netherlands, where undercover reporting revealed violence, sexual exploitation and poor sanitation.

– Bibby Line Group is more than 90% owned by members of the Bibby family, primarily through trusts. Its pre-tax profits for 2021 stood at almost £31m, which they upped to £35.5m by claiming generous tax credits and deferring a fair amount to the following year.

- Management aboard the vessel will be overseen by an Australian business travel services company, Corporate Travel Management, who have previously had aspersions cast over the financial health of their operations and the integrity of their business practices.

- Another beneficiary of the initiative is Langham Industries, a maritime and engineering company whose owners, the Langham family, have longstanding ties to right wing parties.

Key Issues

According to the Home Office, the Bibby Stockholm barge will be operational for at least 18 months, housing approximately 500 single adult men while their claims are processed, with “24/7 security in place on board, to minimise the disruption to local communities.” These measures appear to have been to dissuade opposition from the local Conservative council, who pushed for background checks on detainees and were reportedly even weighing legal action out of concern for a perceived threat of physical attacks from those housed onboard, as well as potential attacks from the far right against migrants held there.

Local campaigners have taken aim at the initiative, noting in the open letter:

“For many people seeking asylum arriving in the UK, the sea represents a site of significant trauma as they have been forced to cross it on one or more occasions. Housing people on a sea barge – which we argue is equal to a floating prison – is morally indefensible, and threatens to re-traumatise a group of already vulnerable people.”

Technically, migrants on the barge will be able to leave the site. However, in reality they will be under significant levels of surveillance and cordoned off behind fences in the high security port area.

If they leave, there is an expectation they will return by 11pm, and departure will be controlled by the authorities. According to the Home Office:

“In order to ensure that migrants come and go in an orderly manner with as little impact as possible, buses will be provided to take those accommodated on the vessel from the port to local drop off points”.

These drop off points are to be determined by the government, while being sited off the coast of Dorset means they will be isolated from centres of support and solidarity.

Meanwhile, the government’s new Illegal Migration Bill is designed to provide a legal justification for the automatic detention of refugees crossing the Channel. If it passes, there’s a chance this might set the stage for a change in regime on the Bibby Stockholm – from that of an “accommodation centre” to a full-blown migrant prison.

An initial release from the Home Office suggested the local voluntary sector would be engaged “to organise activities that keep occupied those being accommodated, potentially involved in local volunteering activity,” though they seemed to have changed the wording after critics said this would mean detainees could be effectively exploited for unpaid labour. It’s also been reported the vessel required modifications in order to increase capacity to the needed level, raising further concerns over cramped living conditions and a lack of privacy.

Bibby Line Group has prior form in border profiteering. From 1994 to 1998, the Bibby Stockholm was used to house the homeless, some of whom were asylum seekers, in Hamburg, Germany. In 2005, it was used to detain asylum seekers in the Netherlands, which proved a cause of controversy at the time. Undercover reporting revealed a number of cases abuse on board, such as beatings and sexual exploitation, as well suicide attempts, routine strip searches, scabies and the death of an Algerian man who failed to receive timely medical care for a deteriorating heart condition. As the undercover security guard wrote:

“The longer I work on the Bibby Stockholm, the more I worry about safety on the boat. Between exclusion and containment I encounter so many defects and feel so much tension among the prisoners that it no longer seems to be a question of whether things will get completely out of hand here, but when.”

He went on:

“I couldn’t stand the way prisoners were treated […] The staff become like that, because the whole culture there is like that. Inhuman. They do not see the residents as people with a history, but as numbers.”

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Discussions were also held in August 2017 over the possibility of using the vessel as accommodation for some 400 students in Galway, Ireland, amid the country’s housing crisis. Though the idea was eventually dropped for lack of mooring space and planning permission requirements, local students had voiced safety concerns over the “bizarre” and “unconventional” solution to a lack of rental opportunities.
Corporate Travel Management & Langham Industries

Although leased from Bibby Line Group, management aboard the Bibby Stockholm itself will be handled by #Corporate_Travel_Management (#CTM), a global travel company specialising in business travel services. The Australian-headquartered company also recently received a £100m contract for the provision of accommodation, travel, venue and ancillary booking services for the housing of Ukrainian refugees at local hotels and aboard cruise ships M/S Victoria and M/S Ambition. The British Red Cross warned earlier in May against continuing to house refugees on ships with “isolated” and “windowless” cabins, and said the scheme had left many “living in limbo.”

Founded by CEO #Jamie_Pherous, CTM was targeted in 2018 by #VGI_Partners, a group of short-sellers, who identified more than 20 red flags concerning the company’s business interests. Most strikingly, the short-sellers said they’d attended CTM’s offices in Glasgow, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Switzerland. Finding no signs of business activity there, they said it was possible the firm had significantly overstated the scale of its operations. VGI Partners also claimed CTM’s cash flows didn’t seem to add up when set against the company’s reported growth, and that CTM hadn’t fully disclosed revisions they’d made to their annual revenue figures.

Two years later, the short-sellers released a follow-up report, questioning how CTM had managed to report a drop in rewards granted for high sales numbers to travel agencies, when in fact their transaction turnover had grown during the same period. They also accused CTM of dressing up their debt balance to make their accounts look healthier.

CTM denied VGI Partners’ allegations. In their response, they paraphrased a report by auditors EY, supposedly confirming there were no question marks over their business practices, though the report itself was never actually made public. They further claim VGI Partners, as short-sellers, had only released the reports in the hope of benefitting from uncertainty over CTM’s operations.

Despite these troubles, CTM’s market standing improved drastically earlier this year, when it was announced the firm had secured contracts for the provision of travel services to the UK Home Office worth in excess of $3bn AUD (£1.6bn). These have been accompanied by further tenders with, among others, the National Audit Office, HS2, Cafcass, Serious Fraud Office, Office of National Statistics, HM Revenue & Customs, National Health Service, Ministry of Justice, Department of Education, Foreign Office, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The Home Office has not released any figures on the cost of either leasing or management services aboard Bibby Stockholm, though press reports have put the estimated price tag at more than £20,000 a day for charter and berthing alone. If accurate, this would put the overall expenditure for the 18-month period in which the vessel will operate as a detention centre at almost £11m, exclusive of actual detention centre management costs such as security, food and healthcare.

Another beneficiary of the project are Portland Port’s owners, #Langham_Industries, a maritime and engineering company owned by the #Langham family. The family has long-running ties to right-wing parties. Langham Industries donated over £70,000 to the UK Independence Party from 2003 up until the 2016 Brexit referendum. In 2014, Langham Industries donated money to support the re-election campaign of former Clacton MP for UKIP Douglas Carswell, shortly after his defection from the Conservatives. #Catherine_Langham, a Tory parish councillor for Hilton in Dorset, has described herself as a Langham Industries director (although she is not listed on Companies House). In 2016 she was actively involved in local efforts to support the campaign to leave the European Union. The family holds a large estate in Dorset which it uses for its other line of business, winemaking.

At present, there is no publicly available information on who will be providing security services aboard the Bibby Stockholm.

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Business Basics

Bibby Line Group describes itself as “one of the UK’s oldest family owned businesses,” operating in “multiple countries, employing around 1,300 colleagues, and managing over £1 billion of funds.” Its head office is registered in Liverpool, with other headquarters in Scotland, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Malaysia, France, Slovakia, Czechia, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Nigeria (see the appendix for more). The company’s primary sectors correspond to its three main UK subsidiaries:

– #Bibby_Financial_Services. A global provider of financial services. The firm provides loans to small- and medium-sized businesses engaged in business services, construction, manufacturing, transportation, export, recruitment and wholesale markets. This includes invoice financing, export and trade finance, and foreign exchanges. Overall, the subsidiary manages more than £6bn each year on behalf of some 9,000 clients across 300 different industry sectors, and in 2021 it brought in more than 50% of the group’s annual turnover.

- #Bibby_Marine_Limited. Owner and operator of the Bibby WaveMaster fleet, a group of vessels specialising in the transport and accommodation of workers employed at remote locations, such as offshore oil and gas sites in the North Sea. Sometimes, as in the case of Chevron’s Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) project in Nigeria, the vessels are used as an alternative to hotels owing to a “a volatile project environment.” The fleet consists of 40 accommodation vessels similar in size to the Bibby Stockholm and a smaller number of service vessels, though the share of annual turnover pales compared to the group’s financial services operations, standing at just under 10% for 2021.

- #Garic Ltd. Confined to construction, quarrying, airport, agriculture and transport sectors in the UK, the firm designs, manufactures and purchases plant equipment and machinery for sale or hire. Garic brought in around 14% of Bibby Line Group’s turnover in 2021.

Prior to February 2021, Bibby Line Group also owned #Costcutter_Supermarkets_Group, before it was sold to #Bestway_Wholesale to maintain liquidity amid the Covid-19 pandemic. In their report for that year, the company’s directors also suggested grant funding from #MarRI-UK, an organisation facilitating innovation in maritime technologies and systems, had been important in preserving the firm’s position during the crisis.
History

The Bibby Line Group’s story begins in 1807, when Lancashire-born shipowner John Bibby began trading out of Liverpool with partner John Highfield. By the time of his death in 1840, murdered while returning home from dinner with a friend in Kirkdale, Bibby had struck out on his own and come to manage a fleet of more than 18 ships. The mysterious case of his death has never been solved, and the business was left to his sons John and James.

Between 1891 and 1989, the company operated under the name #Bibby_Line_Limited. Its ships served as hospital and transport vessels during the First World War, as well as merchant cruisers, and the company’s entire fleet of 11 ships was requisitioned by the state in 1939.

By 1970, the company had tripled its overseas earnings, branching into ‘factoring’, or invoice financing (converting unpaid invoices into cash for immediate use via short-term loans) in the early 1980s, before this aspect of the business was eventually spun off into Bibby Financial Services. The group acquired Garic Ltd in 2008, which currently operates four sites across the UK.

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People

#Jonathan_Lewis has served as Bibby Line Group’s Managing and Executive Director since January 2021, prior to which he acted as the company’s Chief Financial and Strategy Officer since joining in 2019. Previously, Lewis worked as CFO for Imagination Technologies, a tech company specialising in semiconductors, and as head of supermarket Tesco’s mergers and acquisitions team. He was also a member of McKinsey’s European corporate finance practice, as well as an investment banker at Lazard. During his first year at the helm of Bibby’s operations, he was paid £748,000. Assuming his role at the head of the group’s operations, he replaced Paul Drescher, CBE, then a board member of the UK International Chamber of Commerce and a former president of the Confederation of British Industry.

Bibby Line Group’s board also includes two immediate members of the Bibby family, Sir #Michael_James_Bibby, 3rd Bt. and his younger brother #Geoffrey_Bibby. Michael has acted as company chairman since 2020, before which he had occupied senior management roles in the company for 20 years. He also has external experience, including time at Unilever’s acquisitions, disposals and joint venture divisions, and now acts as president of the UK Chamber of Shipping, chairman of the Charities Trust, and chairman of the Institute of Family Business Research Foundation.

https://corporatewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/geoffrey_bibby-278x300.jpg https://corporatewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Michael-278x300.jpg

Geoffrey has served as a non-executive director of the company since 2015, having previously worked as a managing director of Vast Visibility Ltd, a digital marketing and technology company. In 2021, the Bibby brothers received salaries of £125,000 and £56,000 respectively.

The final member of the firm’s board is #David_Anderson, who has acted as non-executive director since 2012. A financier with 35 years experience in investment banking, he’s founder and CEO of EPL Advisory – which advises company boards on requirements and disclosure obligations of public markets – and chair of Creative Education Trust, a multi-academy trust comprising 17 schools. Anderson is also chairman at multinational ship broker Howe Robinson Partners, which recently auctioned off a superyacht seized from Dmitry Pumpyansky, after the sanctioned Russian businessman reneged on a €20.5m loan from JP Morgan. In 2021, Anderson’s salary stood at £55,000.

https://corporatewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/bibby-4-1024x396.jpg

Ownership

Bibby Line Group’s annual report and accounts for 2021 state that more than 90% of the company is owned by members of the Bibby family, primarily through family trusts. These ownership structures, effectively entities allowing people to benefit from assets without being their registered legal owners, have long attracted staunch criticism from transparency advocates given the obscurity they afford means they often feature extensively in corruption, money laundering and tax abuse schemes.

According to Companies House, the UK corporate registry, between 50% and 75% of Bibby Line Group’s shares and voting rights are owned by #Bibby_Family_Company_Limited, which also retains the right to appoint and remove members of the board. Directors of Bibby Family Company Limited include both the Bibby brothers, as well as a third sibling, #Peter_John_Bibby, who’s formally listed as the firm’s ‘ultimate beneficial owner’ (i.e. the person who ultimately profits from the company’s assets).

Other people with comparable shares in Bibby Family Company Limited are #Mark_Rupert_Feeny, #Philip_Charles_Okell, and Lady #Christine_Maud_Bibby. Feeny’s occupation is listed as solicitor, with other interests in real estate management and a position on the board of the University of Liverpool Pension Fund Trustees Limited. Okell meanwhile appears as director of Okell Money Management Limited, a wealth management firm, while Lady Bibby, Michael and Geoffrey’s mother, appears as “retired playground supervisor.”

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Key Relationships

Bibby Line Group runs an internal ‘Donate a Day’ volunteer program, enabling employees to take paid leave in order to “help causes they care about.” Specific charities colleagues have volunteered with, listed in the company’s Annual Review for 2021 to 2022, include:

- The Hive Youth Zone. An award-winning charity for young people with disabilities, based in the Wirral.

– The Whitechapel Centre. A leading homeless and housing charity in the Liverpool region, working with people sleeping rough, living in hostels, or struggling with their accommodation.

- Let’s Play Project. Another charity specialising in after-school and holiday activities for young people with additional needs in the Banbury area.

- Whitdale House. A care home for the elderly, based in Whitburn, West Lothian and run by the local council.

– DEBRA. An Irish charity set up in 1988 for individuals living with a rare, painful skin condition called epidermolysis bullosa, as well as their families.

– Reaching Out Homeless Outreach. A non-profit providing resources and support to the homeless in Ireland.

Various senior executives and associated actors at Bibby Line Group and its subsidiaries also have current and former ties to the following organisations:

- UK Chamber of Shipping

- Charities Trust

- Institute of Family Business Research Foundation

- Indefatigable Old Boys Association

- Howe Robinson Partners

- hibu Ltd

- EPL Advisory

- Creative Education Trust

- Capita Health and Wellbeing Limited

- The Ambassador Theatre Group Limited

– Pilkington Plc

– UK International Chamber of Commerce

– Confederation of British Industry

– Arkley Finance Limited (Weatherby’s Banking Group)

– FastMarkets Ltd, Multiple Sclerosis Society

– Early Music as Education

– Liverpool Pension Fund Trustees Limited

– Okell Money Management Limited

Finances

For the period ending 2021, Bibby Line Group’s total turnover stood at just under £260m, with a pre-tax profit of almost £31m – fairly healthy for a company providing maritime services during a global pandemic. Their post-tax profits in fact stood at £35.5m, an increase they would appear to have secured by claiming generous tax credits (£4.6m) and deferring a fair amount (£8.4m) to the following year.

Judging by their last available statement on the firm’s profitability, Bibby’s directors seem fairly confident the company has adequate financing and resources to continue operations for the foreseeable future. They stress their February 2021 sale of Costcutter was an important step in securing this, given it provided additional liquidity during the pandemic, as well as the funding secured for R&D on fuel consumption by Bibby Marine’s fleet.
Scandal Sheet

Bibby Line Group and its subsidiaries have featured in a number of UK legal proceedings over the years, sometimes as defendants. One notable case is Godfrey v Bibby Line, a lawsuit brought against the company in 2019 after one of their former employees died as the result of an asbestos-related disease.

In their claim, the executors of Alan Peter Godfrey’s estate maintained that between 1965 and 1972, he was repeatedly exposed to large amounts of asbestos while working on board various Bibby vessels. Although the link between the material and fatal lung conditions was established as early as 1930, they claimed that Bibby Line, among other things:

“Failed to warn the deceased of the risk of contracting asbestos related disease or of the precautions to be taken in relation thereto;

“Failed to heed or act upon the expert evidence available to them as to the best means of protecting their workers from danger from asbestos dust; [and]

“Failed to take all reasonably practicable measures, either by securing adequate ventilation or by the provision and use of suitable respirators or otherwise, to prevent inhalation of dust.”

The lawsuit, which claimed “unlimited damage”’ against the group, also stated that Mr Godfrey’s “condition deteriorated rapidly with worsening pain and debility,” and that he was “completely dependent upon others for his needs by the last weeks of his life.” There is no publicly available information on how the matter was concluded.

In 2017, Bibby Line Limited also featured in a leak of more than 13.4 million financial records known as the Paradise Papers, specifically as a client of Appleby, which provided “offshore corporate services” such as legal and accountancy work. According to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a global network of investigative media outlets, leaked Appleby documents revealed, among other things, “the ties between Russia and [Trump’s] billionaire commerce secretary, the secret dealings of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief fundraiser and the offshore interests of the Queen of England and more than 120 politicians around the world.”

This would not appear to be the Bibby group’s only link to the shady world of offshore finance. Michael Bibby pops up as a treasurer for two shell companies registered in Panama, Minimar Transport S.A. and Vista Equities Inc.
Looking Forward

Much about the Bibby Stockholm saga remains to be seen. The exact cost of the initiative and who will be providing security services on board, are open questions. What’s clear however is that activists will continue to oppose the plans, with efforts to prevent the vessel sailing from Falmouth to its final docking in Portland scheduled to take place on 30th June.

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Appendix: Company Addresses

HQ and general inquiries: 3rd Floor Walker House, Exchange Flags, Liverpool, United Kingdom, L2 3YL

Tel: +44 (0) 151 708 8000

Other offices, as of 2021:

6, Shenton Way, #18-08A Oue Downtown 068809, Singapore

1/1, The Exchange Building, 142 St. Vincent Street, Glasgow, G2 5LA, United Kingdom

4th Floor Heather House, Heather Road, Sandyford, Dublin 18, Ireland

Unit 2302, 23/F Jubilee Centre, 18 Fenwick Street, Wanchai, Hong Kong

Unit 508, Fifth Floor, Metropolis Mall, MG Road, Gurugram, Haryana, 122002 India

Suite 7E, Level 7, Menara Ansar, 65 Jalan Trus, 8000 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia

160 Avenue Jean Jaures, CS 90404, 69364 Lyon Cedex, France

Prievozská 4D, Block E, 13th Floor, Bratislava 821 09, Slovak Republic

Hlinky 118, Brno, 603 00, Czech Republic

Laan Van Diepenvoorde 5, 5582 LA, Waalre, Netherlands

Hansaallee 249, 40549 Düsseldorf, Germany

Poland Eurocentrum, Al. Jerozolimskie 134, 02-305 Warsaw, Poland

1/2 Atarbekova str, 350062, Krasnodar, Krasnodar

1 St Peter’s Square, Manchester, M2 3AE, United Kingdom

25 Adeyemo Alakija Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria

10 Anson Road, #09-17 International Plaza, 079903 Singapore

►https://corporatewatch.org/floating-prisons-the-200-year-old-family-business-behind-the-bibby-s

signalé ici aussi par @rezo:
►https://seenthis.net/messages/1010504

The Langham family seem quite happy to support right-wing political parties that are against immigration, while at the same time profiting handsomely from the misery of refugees who are forced to claim sanctuary here.

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–---

Family firm ’profiteering from misery’ by providing migrant barges donated £70k to #UKIP

The Langham family, owners of Langham Industries, is now set to profit from an 18-month contract with the Home Office to let the Bibby Stockholm berth at Portland, Dorset

A family firm that donated more than £70,000 to UKIP is “profiteering from misery” by hosting the Government’s controversial migrant barge. Langham Industries owns Portland Port, where the Bibby Stockholm is docked in a deal reported to be worth some £2.5million.

The Langham family owns luxurious properties and has links to high-profile politicians, including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden. And we can reveal that their business made 19 donations to pro-Brexit party UKIP between 2003 and 2016.

Late founder John Langham was described as an “avid supporter” of UKIP in an obituary in 2017. Now his children, John, Jill and Justin – all directors of the family firm – are set to profit from an 18-month contract with the Home Office to let the Bibby Stockholm berth at Portland, Dorset.

While Portland Port refuses to reveal how much the Home Office is paying, its website cites berthing fees for a ship the size of the Bibby Stockholm at more than £4,000 a day. In 2011, Portland Port chairman John, 71, invested £3.7million in Grade II* listed country pile Steeple Manor at Wareham, Dorset. Dating to around 1600, it has a pond, tennis court and extensive gardens designed by the landscape architect Brenda Colvin.

The arrangement to host the “prison-like” barge for housing migrants has led some locals to blast the Langhams, who have owned the port since 1997. Portland mayor Carralyn Parkes, 61, said: “I don’t know how John Langham will sleep at night in his luxurious home, with his tennis court and his fluffy bed, when asylum seekers are sleeping in tiny beds on the barge.

“I went on the boat and measured the rooms with a tape measure. On average they are about 10ft by 12ft. The bunk bed mattresses are about 6ft long. If you’re taller than 6ft you’re stuffed. The Langham family need to have more humanity. They are only interested in making money. It’s shocking.”

(#paywall)
▻https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/family-firm-profiteering-misery-providing-30584405.amp

#UK_Independence_Party

‘This is a prison’: men tell of distressing conditions on Bibby Stockholm

Asylum seekers share fears about Dorset barge becoming even more crowded, saying they already ‘despair and wish for death’

Asylum seekers brought back to the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, have said they are being treated in such a way that “we despair and wish for death”.

The Guardian spoke to two men in their first interview since their return to the barge on 19 October after the vessel lay empty for more than two months. The presence of deadly legionella bacteria was confirmed on board on 7 August, the same day the first group of asylum seekers arrived. The barge was evacuated four days later.

The new warning comes after it emerged that one asylum seeker attempted to kill himself and is in hospital after finding out he is due to be taken to the barge on Tuesday.

A man currently on the barge told the Guardian: “Government decisions are turning healthy and normal refugees into mental patients whom they then hand over to society. Here, many people were healthy and coping with OK spirits, but as a result of the dysfunctional strategies of the government, they have suffered – and continue to suffer – from various forms of serious mental distress. We are treated in such a way that we despair and wish for death.”

He said that although the asylum seekers were not detained on the barge and could leave to visit the nearby town, in practice, doing so was not easy.

He added: “In the barge, we have exactly the feeling of being in prison. It is true that they say that this is not a prison and you can go outside at any time, but you can only go to specific stops at certain times by bus, and this does not give me a good feeling.

“Even to use the fresh air, you have to go through the inspection every time and go to the small yard with high fences and go through the X-ray machine again. And this is not good for our health.

“In short, this is a prison whose prisoners are not criminals, they are people who have fled their country just to save their lives and have taken shelter here to live.”

The asylum seekers raised concerns about what conditions on the barge would be like if the Home Office did fill it with about 500 asylum seekers, as officials say is the plan. Those on board said it already felt quite full with about 70 people living there.

The second asylum seeker said: “The space inside the barge is very small. It feels crowded in the dining hall and the small entertainment room. It is absolutely clear to me that there will be chaos here soon.

“According to my estimate, as I look at the spaces around us, the capacity of this barge is maximum 120 people, including personnel and crew. The strategy of ​​transferring refugees from hotels to barges or ships or military installations is bound to fail.

“The situation here on the barge is getting worse. Does the government have a plan for shipwrecked residents? Everyone here is going mad with anxiety. It is not just the barge that floats on the water, but the plans of the government that are radically adrift.”

Maddie Harris of the NGO Humans For Rights Network, which supports asylum seekers in hotels, said: “Home Office policies directly contribute to the significant deterioration of the wellbeing and mental health of so many asylum seekers in their ‘care’, with a dehumanising environment, violent anti-migrant rhetoric and isolated accommodations away from community and lacking in support.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Bibby Stockholm is part of the government’s pledge to reduce the use of expensive hotels and bring forward alternative accommodation options which provide a more cost-effective, sustainable and manageable system for the UK taxpayer and local communities.

“The health and welfare of asylum seekers remains the utmost priority. We work continually to ensure the needs and vulnerabilities of those residing in asylum accommodation are identified and considered, including those related to mental health and trauma.”

Nadia Whittome and Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the Labour MPs for Nottingham East and Brighton Kemptown respectively, will travel to Portland on Monday to meet asylum seekers accommodated on the Bibby Stockholm barge and local community members.

The visit follows the home secretary, Suella Braverman, not approving a visit from the MPs to assess living conditions as they requested through parliamentary channels.

▻https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/29/this-is-a-prison-men-tell-of-distressing-conditions-on-bibby-stockholm
#prison #conditions_de_vie

Six ans en Macronie : 18 condamnations, 8 mises en examen et 13 enquêtes en cours (outre l’actualisation, l’url cité supra ne marche plus)
▻https://regards.fr/six-ans-en-macronie

#casseroles #laRem #Renaissance #gouvernement #poursuites

#ia #intelligence_artificielle

#it_has_begun :-)

#care

Karta smrti na granici

https://pixelfed.zoo-logique.org/storage/m/_v2/578583396227231930/ea59ea880-d2aad0/dJzj4MmoxDcS/Of0yTfKcZGRBeJZtIPMYr8rshR5qcJ9NXEqn8yXi.png

#cartographie #visualisation #carte

« Il y a un geste humanitaire évident parce que la nature des réfugiés n’est pas contestable, on voit bien ce qu’ils fuient.
Ensuite parce que ce sont des européens de culture.
Et puis nous ne sommes pas face à des migrants qui vont passer dans une logique d’immigration »

https://i.imgur.com/okqEqRI.png

Commentaire de Louis Witter sur twitter :

Ce genre de waf waf de la casse automobile remonteront au créneau quand on verra ces mêmes exilés à Calais.

▻https://twitter.com/LouisWitter/status/1497685913429815299

#réfugiés_européens #européens_de_culture #culture #vrais_réfugiés

For Ukraine’s Refugees, Europe Opens Doors That Were Shut to Others

Thousands of Ukrainians will end up in countries led by nationalist governments that have been reluctant to welcome refugees in the past.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed tens of thousands of people out of their homes and fleeing across borders to escape violence. But unlike the refugees who have flooded Europe in crises over the past decade, they are being welcomed.

Countries that have for years resisted taking in refugees from wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are now opening their doors to Ukrainians as Russian forces carry out a nationwide military assault. Perhaps 100,000 Ukrainians already have left their homes, according to United Nations estimates, and at least half of them have crowded onto trains, jammed highways or walked to get across their country’s borders in what officials warn could become the world’s next refugee crisis.

U.N. and American officials described their concerted diplomatic push for Ukraine’s neighbors and other European nations to respond to the outpouring of need. President Biden “is certainly prepared” to accept refugees from Ukraine, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday, but she noted that the majority of them would probably choose to remain in Europe so they could more easily return home once the fighting ended.

“Heartfelt thanks to the governments and people of countries keeping their borders open and welcoming refugees,” said Filippo Grandi, the head of the U.N. refugee agency. He warned that “many more” Ukrainians were moving toward the borders.

That means thousands will end up in countries led by nationalist governments that in past crises have been reluctant to welcome refugees or even blocked them.

In Poland, government officials assisted by American soldiers and diplomats have set up processing centers for Ukrainians. “Anyone fleeing from bombs, from Russian rifles, can count on the support of the Polish state,” the Polish interior minister, Mariusz Kaminski, told reporters on Thursday. His government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a border wall, a project it began after refugees and migrants from the Middle East tried to reach the country last year but ended up marooned in neighboring Belarus.

The military in Hungary is allowing in Ukrainians through sections of the border that had been closed. Hungary’s hard-line prime minister, Viktor Orban, has previously called refugees a threat to his country, and his government has been accused of caging and starving them.

Farther West, Chancellor Karl Nehammer of Austria said that “of course we will take in refugees if necessary” in light of the crisis in Ukraine. As recently as last fall, when he was serving as interior minister, Mr. Nehammer sought to block some Afghans seeking refuge after the Taliban overthrew the government in Kabul.
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“It’s different in Ukraine than in countries like Afghanistan,” he was quoted as saying during an interview on a national TV program. “We’re talking about neighborhood help.”

Mr. Nehammer also said the number of Ukrainians seeking help was expected to be relatively small. At least 1.3 million people — mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — applied for asylum in Europe in 2015 during what was widely regarded as the worst refugee crisis since World War II, stretching national budgets and creating a backlash of political nativism in countries across the continent.

Some estimates project that at least one million refugees will flee Ukraine because of the Russian invasion. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said this past week that the fighting could uproot as many as five million people, “putting pressure on Ukraine’s neighbors.”

Diplomats and experts said European states that are willing to take in Ukrainians might be trying, in part, to highlight Russian aggressions against civilians by offering a humanitarian response. “If you think of causing the refugee crisis as one of Putin’s tools to destabilize the West, then a calm, efficient, orderly response is a really good rebuke to that,” said Serena Parekh, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston and the director of its politics, philosophy and economics program.

“On the other hand,” said Ms. Parekh, who has written extensively about refugees, “it’s hard not to see that Ukrainians are white, mostly Christian and Europeans. And so in a sense, the xenophobia that’s really arisen in the last 10 years, particularly after 2015, is not at play in this crisis in the way that it has been for refugees coming from the Middle East and from Africa.”

The Biden administration is also facing calls to take in Ukrainian refugees, much in the way it gave residency or humanitarian parole to more than 75,000 Afghans when the Taliban seized power in August.

It is unlikely, at the moment at least, that the United States would offer a humanitarian parole program for Ukrainians that goes above what is currently allowed for the total number of refugee admissions for the current fiscal year. That number is capped at 125,000 this year — including 10,000 refugees from Europe and Central Asia. The guidelines set aside another 10,000 slots for refugees from any part of the world, as regional emergencies warrant.

Ms. Psaki did not comment when asked by a reporter whether the administration would offer temporary residency protections, a program known as T.P.S., to Ukrainian students, workers and others who are in the United States to ensure they are not deported when their legal visas expire.

“The war in Ukraine is exactly the type of crisis T.P.S. was created for — to allow people to live and work in the United States when they are unable to return home safely,” Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on Thursday night.

Ms. Psaki said the United States had sent an estimated $52 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine over the last year to help people, mostly in the eastern Donbas region, where the current war began as a slow-burn conflict between Ukraine’s military and Russian-backed separatists in 2014. Nearly 1.5 million people had been forced from their homes by the fighting even before the invasion this past week.

Additionally, the U.S. Agency for International Development sent a team of disaster experts to Poland in the past week to assess demand for aid to the region — including water, food, shelter, medicine and other supplies — and to coordinate its delivery. Hours after the invasion began, the United Nations announced it would divert $20 million in emergency funds for humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians, mostly to the Donbas region.

A European diplomat who is closely watching the refugee flow from Ukraine said neighboring nations might also feel the pull of history in welcoming people in danger as a direct result of Russia’s aggressions. A Soviet crackdown on a Hungarian uprising in 1956, for example, resulted in 200,000 refugees, most of whom fled to Austria before they were settled in dozens of countries across Europe. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people — and perhaps even more than that — left what was then Czechoslovakia to escape a Soviet invasion in 1968 that was launched to silence pro-democracy Prague Spring protests.

In both cases, the United States sent aid to help European countries settle refugees and, in the Hungarian crisis, “in a matter of months, there were no more refugees — they had been found a permanent home,” Ms. Parekh said.

That was largely the result of the United States working with European states to resettle the Hungarians, she said, calling the effort “an exception, historically.”

“It was a similar thing — people fleeing our Russian enemy — that motivated us,” she said.

▻https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/us/politics/ukraine-europe-refugees.html?smid=tw-share

#fermeture_des_frontières #ouverture_des_frontières #frontières

Deserving and undeserving refugees ...

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Appearing on television from an undisclosed location, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, warned the world that Vladimir Putin was attacking not only his country, but waging “a war against Europe.”

Following the all-out invasion of Ukraine by land, air and sea, Ukrainians began fleeing their homes in the eastern part of the country. Most were headed to other parts of Ukraine, while others began to trickle across international borders into Poland and other Central European countries. It is hard to predict how many of the 44 million Ukrainians will seek refugee outside the borders of their country.

When refugees flee, we watch who offers safe haven and assistance.

Hours after the Russian attack on Ukraine, the Bureau for Foreigners’ Affairs in the Polish Ministry of Interior set up a website, in Polish and in Ukrainian, offering information on available assistance to Ukrainian refugees. The website provides legal information on how to launch an asylum claim and regularize one’s stay in Poland. It also provides scannable QR codes for eight reception centers near crossing points on the 500-kilometer Polish-Ukrainian border. Adam Niedzielski, the Polish Health Minister, said Poland will set up a special medical train to ferry injured people to 120 Polish hospitals. “We think that at this moment it would be possible to accept several thousand patients — wounded in military actions,” he told Politico.

Poland has even made an exception for Ukrainians evacuating with their pets. The Chief Veterinarian of Poland has eased restrictions on dogs and cats crossing the Polish border.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Ukrainians (and their pets) should receive as much assistance as they need, but the irony of this immediate offer to help, extended by the Polish government and the rest of the Visegrád 4, is not lost on me.

The Ukrainian refugees are white, European, and Christian. They are the “deserving refugees.”

Slovakia’s Prime Minister explicitly stated that everyone fleeing the war deserves help according to international law. The Visegrád group’s position was quite different following the “refugee crisis” of 2015.

The Polish government led by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party refused to take part in the EU efforts to relocate and resettle asylum seekers arriving in other member countries. Hungary recruited border hunters and erected barbed wire fence along its border with Serbia. On September 16, 2016, the V4 issued a joint statement expressing concern about the decreasing sense of security resulting from the arrival of Muslim refugees from war-torn Syria; vowing to cooperate with third countries to protect borders, and calling for “flexible solidarity.”

I am glad that Poland, my country of birth, wants to extend a helping hand to Ukrainians fleeing war and accept as many as one million refugees if necessary.

At the same time, I cannot forget the Afghans and Syrians at the Polish-Belarusian border, dying in the cold winter forest in an attempt to cross into Poland to launch an asylum claim. They are kept at arm’s length. Because they are Muslim, the Polish government sees them as a security threat. Citing danger to Polish citizens living in the borderlands, on September 2, 2021, the President of Poland declared a state of emergency in 15 localities in the Podlasie Province and 68 localities in the Lublin Province.

These brown and non-Christian asylum seekers are apparently not the deserving ones.

▻https://www.elzbietagozdziak.com/post/deserving-and-undeserving-refugees

morceaux choisis, là ►https://seenthis.net/messages/950940

#vomi

"They seem like us"

https://i.imgur.com/nCKEC6a.png

Le Medef vous parle !
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/950729

Propositions d’accorder une #protection_temporaire aux réfugiés urkainiens de la part des pays de l’UE :

While a proposal to activate the 2001 #Temporary_Protection_Directive for Ukrainians fleeing the country was “broadly welcomed” by the ministers during their extraordinary meeting on Sunday (27 February), a formal decision will only be made on Thursday, EU Home Affairs and Migration Commissioner Ylva Johansson said after the talks.
The exceptional measure, which has never been activated before, is meant to deal with situations where the standard asylum system risks being overburdened due to a mass influx of refugees.

▻https://seenthis.net/messages/951046

https://i.imgur.com/0eJWAsG.png

[Thread] Here is a collection of most racist coverage of #Russia's attack on #Ukraine. We are being told who deserves war, missiles, & who looks like a good refugee.
This only serves to mislead viewers & decontextualise conflicts. Hypocrisy & its randomness..

https://i.imgur.com/8BQ2Z1G.png https://i.imgur.com/9P3XX6g.png https://i.imgur.com/bK6a89s.png https://i.imgur.com/v1kjZNr.png https://i.imgur.com/OpQNrl2.png https://i.imgur.com/1yuvGJT.png

▻https://twitter.com/saracreta/status/1498072483819307011

▻https://seenthis.net/messages/950940#message951148

Réfugiés ukrainiens : l’indignité derrière la solidarité

Pour justifier leur soudain élan d’humanité, certains éditorialistes et responsables politiques n’ont rien trouvé de mieux que de distinguer les bons et les mauvais réfugiés. Ils convoquent leur « ressemblance » avec les Ukrainiens, mais n’expriment rien d’autre que leur racisme.

Pour justifier leur soudain élan d’humanité, certains éditorialistes et responsables politiques n’ont rien trouvé de mieux que de distinguer les bons et les mauvais réfugiés. Ils convoquent leur « ressemblance » avec les Ukrainiens, mais n’expriment rien d’autre que leur racisme.

« L’hypocrisie, toujours la même. » Cédric Herrou n’a pas caché son écœurement en découvrant le message posté, samedi dernier, par le maire de Breil-sur-Roya (Alpes-Maritimes) en solidarité avec la population ukrainienne. « Le même maire qui a fait sa campagne électorale contre l’accueil que nous avions fait pour d’autres populations victimes de guerres. Seule différence, ces populations étaient noires », a réagi l’agriculteur, l’un des symboles de l’aide aux migrants, grâce auquel la valeur constitutionnelle du principe de fraternité a été consacrée en 2018.

Un principe qui se rappelle depuis quelques jours au souvenir de nombreuses personnes qui semblaient l’avoir oublié, trop occupées qu’elles étaient à se faire une place dans un débat public gangréné par le racisme et la xénophobie. Il y a deux semaines, lorsque la guerre russe était un spectre lointain et que la campagne présidentielle s’accrochait aux seules antiennes d’extrême droite, rares étaient celles à souligner que la solidarité n’est pas une insulte et qu’elle ne constitue aucun danger.

Les mêmes qui jonglaient avec les fantasmes du « grand remplacement » et agitaient les questions migratoires au rythme des peurs françaises expliquent aujourd’hui que l’accueil des réfugiés ukrainiens en France est un principe qui ne se discute pas. À l’exception d’Éric Zemmour, dont la nature profonde – au sens caverneux du terme – ne fait plus aucun mystère, la plupart des candidat·es à la présidentielle se sont prononcé·es en faveur de cet accueil, à quelques nuances près sur ses conditions.

Mais parce que le climat politique ne serait pas le même sans ce petit relent nauséabond qui empoisonne toute discussion, des responsables politiques et des éditorialistes se sont fourvoyés dans des explications consternantes, distinguant les réfugiés de l’Est de ceux qui viennent du Sud et du Moyen-Orient. Ceux auxquels ils arrivent à s’identifier et les autres. Ceux qui méritent d’être aidés et les autres. Les bons et les mauvais réfugiés, en somme.

Ainsi a-t-on entendu un éditorialiste de BFMTV expliquer que cette fois-ci, « il y a un geste humanitaire immédiat, évident [...] parce que ce sont des Européens de culture » et qu’« on est avec une population qui est très proche, très voisine », quand un autre soulignait qu’« on ne parle pas là de Syriens qui fuient les bombardements du régime syrien [mais] d’Européens qui partent dans leurs voitures qui ressemblent à nos voitures, qui prennent la route et qui essaient de sauver leur vie, quoi ! »

Dès le 25 février, sur Europe 1, le député MoDem Jean-Louis Bourlanges, qui n’occupe rien de moins que la présidence de la commission des affaires étrangères de l’Assemblée nationale, avait quant à lui indiqué qu’il fallait « prévoir un flux migratoire ». Mais attention : « ce sera sans doute une immigration de grande qualité », avait-il pris soin de préciser, évoquant « des intellectuels, et pas seulement ». Bref, « une immigration de grande qualité dont on pourra tirer profit ».

Ces propos ont suscité de vives réactions que l’éditorialiste de BFMTV et l’élu centriste ont balayées avec la mauvaise foi des faux crédules mais vrais politiciens, le premier les renvoyant à « la gauche “wokiste” » – un désormais classique du genre –, le deuxième à « l’extrême gauche » – plus classique encore, éculé même. « Il faut avoir un esprit particulièrement tordu pour y voir une offense à l’égard de quiconque », a ajouté Jean-Louis Bourlanges, aux confins du « on ne peut plus rien dire ».

C’est vrai enfin, s’indignerait-on aux « Grandes Gueules », « c’est pas du racisme, c’est la loi de la proximité ». D’ailleurs, le même type de commentaire a fleuri dans des médias étrangers, tels CBS News, Al Jazzeera, la BBC ou The Telegraph, comme autant de « sous-entendus orientalistes et racistes » condamnés par l’Association des journalistes arabes et du Moyen-Orient (Ameja). Preuve, s’il en fallait, que le racisme – pardon, « la loi de proximité » – n’est pas une exception française.

Suivant la directive d’Emmanuel Macron qui a confirmé que « la France prendra sa part » dans l’accueil des réfugiés ukrainiens, le gouvernement multiplie lui aussi les communications depuis quelques jours, le plus souvent par la voix du ministre de l’intérieur. Ces réfugiés « sont les bienvenus en France » a ainsi déclaré Gérald Darmanin lundi, avant d’appeler « tous les élus […] à mettre en place un dispositif d’accueil » et à « remonter, les associations, les lieux d’hébergement au préfet ».

Dans le même élan de solidarité, la SNCF a annoncé que les réfugiés ukrainiens pourraient désormais « circuler gratuitement en France à bord des TGV et Intercités ». « Belle initiative de la SNCF mais je rêve d’une solidarité internationale étendue à TOUS les réfugiés, qu’ils fuient la guerre en Ukraine ou des conflits armés en Afrique ou encore au Moyen-Orient. Les réfugiés ont été et sont encore trop souvent refoulés et maltraités », a réagi la présidente d’Amnesty International France, Cécile Coudriou.

Car au risque de sombrer dans le « wokisme » – ça ne veut rien dire, mais c’est le propre des appellations fourre-tout –, on ne peut s’empêcher de noter que ces initiatives, plus que nécessaires, tranchent singulièrement avec les politiques à l’œuvre depuis des années au détriment des exilé·es : l’absence de dispositif d’accueil digne de ce nom ; le harcèlement quasi quotidien de la part des forces de l’ordre, qui lacèrent des tentes, s’emparent des quelques biens, empêchent les distributions de nourriture ; le renforcement permanent des mesures répressives…

Or comme l’écrivait récemment la sociologue et écrivaine Kaoutar Harchi, « un accueil digne, une aide sans condition, un accès immédiat à des repas, à des soins, à des logements, un soutien psychologique, devraient être accordés à toute personne qui est en France et qui souffre. Mais c’est sans compter le racisme qui distribue l’humanité et l’inhumanité ». C’est bien lui qui se profile aujourd’hui derrière la solidarité retrouvée de certain·es.

Le 16 août 2021, alors que les images d’Afghans s’accrochant au fuselage d’avions pour fuir l’avancée des talibans faisaient le tour du monde, Emmanuel Macron déclarait : « L’Afghanistan aura aussi besoin dans les temps qui viennent de ses forces vives et l’Europe ne peut pas à elle seule assumer les conséquences de la situation actuelle. Nous devons anticiper et nous protéger contre les flux migratoires irréguliers importants. » Imagine-t-on cette phrase prononcée dans le contexte actuel ? La réponse est évidemment non. Et son corollaire fait honte.

▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/010322/refugies-ukrainiens-l-indignite-derriere-la-solidarite

They are ‘civilised’ and ‘look like us’: the racist coverage of Ukraine

Are Ukrainians more deserving of sympathy than Afghans and Iraqis? Many seem to think so

While on air, CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata stated last week that Ukraine “isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city, one where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen”.

If this is D’Agata choosing his words carefully, I shudder to think about his impromptu utterances. After all, by describing Ukraine as “civilized”, isn’t he really telling us that Ukrainians, unlike Afghans and Iraqis, are more deserving of our sympathy than Iraqis or Afghans?

Righteous outrage immediately mounted online, as it should have in this case, and the veteran correspondent quickly apologized, but since Russia began its large-scale invasion on 24 February, D’Agata has hardly been the only journalist to see the plight of Ukrainians in decidedly chauvinistic terms.

The BBC interviewed a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, who told the network: “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair … being killed every day.” Rather than question or challenge the comment, the BBC host flatly replied, “I understand and respect the emotion.” On France’s BFM TV, journalist Phillipe Corbé stated this about Ukraine: “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin. We’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.”

In other words, not only do Ukrainians look like “us”; even their cars look like “our” cars. And that trite observation is seriously being trotted out as a reason for why we should care about Ukrainians.

There’s more, unfortunately. An ITV journalist reporting from Poland said: “Now the unthinkable has happened to them. And this is not a developing, third world nation. This is Europe!” As if war is always and forever an ordinary routine limited to developing, third world nations. (By the way, there’s also been a hot war in Ukraine since 2014. Also, the first world war and second world war.) Referring to refugee seekers, an Al Jazeera anchor chimed in with this: “Looking at them, the way they are dressed, these are prosperous … I’m loath to use the expression … middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees looking to get away from areas in the Middle East that are still in a big state of war. These are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa. They look like any.” Apparently looking “middle class” equals “the European family living next door”.

And writing in the Telegraph, Daniel Hannan explained: “They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations.”

What all these petty, superficial differences – from owning cars and clothes to having Netflix and Instagram accounts – add up to is not real human solidarity for an oppressed people. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s tribalism. These comments point to a pernicious racism that permeates today’s war coverage and seeps into its fabric like a stain that won’t go away. The implication is clear: war is a natural state for people of color, while white people naturally gravitate toward peace.

It’s not just me who found these clips disturbing. The US-based Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association was also deeply troubled by the coverage, recently issuing a statement on the matter: “Ameja condemns and categorically rejects orientalist and racist implications that any population or country is ‘uncivilized’ or bears economic factors that make it worthy of conflict,” reads the statement. “This type of commentary reflects the pervasive mentality in western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, south Asia, and Latin America.” Such coverage, the report correctly noted, “dehumanizes and renders their experience with war as somehow normal and expected”.

More troubling still is that this kind of slanted and racist media coverage extends beyond our screens and newspapers and easily bleeds and blends into our politics. Consider how Ukraine’s neighbors are now opening their doors to refugee flows, after demonizing and abusing refugees, especially Muslim and African refugees, for years. “Anyone fleeing from bombs, from Russian rifles, can count on the support of the Polish state,” the Polish interior minister, Mariusz Kaminski, recently stated. Meanwhile, however, Nigeria has complained that African students are being obstructed within Ukraine from reaching Polish border crossings; some have also encountered problems on the Polish side of the frontier.

In Austria, Chancellor Karl Nehammer stated that “of course we will take in refugees, if necessary”. Meanwhile, just last fall and in his then-role as interior minister, Nehammer was known as a hardliner against resettling Afghan refugees in Austria and as a politician who insisted on Austria’s right to forcibly deport rejected Afghan asylum seekers, even if that meant returning them to the Taliban. “It’s different in Ukraine than in countries like Afghanistan,” he told Austrian TV. “We’re talking about neighborhood help.”

Yes, that makes sense, you might say. Neighbor helping neighbor. But what these journalists and politicians all seem to want to miss is that the very concept of providing refuge is not and should not be based on factors such as physical proximity or skin color, and for a very good reason. If our sympathy is activated only for welcoming people who look like us or pray like us, then we are doomed to replicate the very sort of narrow, ignorant nationalism that war promotes in the first place.

The idea of granting asylum, of providing someone with a life free from political persecution, must never be founded on anything but helping innocent people who need protection. That’s where the core principle of asylum is located. Today, Ukrainians are living under a credible threat of violence and death coming directly from Russia’s criminal invasion, and we absolutely should be providing Ukrainians with life-saving security wherever and whenever we can. (Though let’s also recognize that it’s always easier to provide asylum to people who are victims of another’s aggression rather than of our own policies.)

But if we decide to help Ukrainians in their desperate time of need because they happen to look like “us” or dress like “us” or pray like “us,” or if we reserve our help exclusively for them while denying the same help to others, then we have not only chosen the wrong reasons to support another human being. We have also, and I’m choosing these words carefully, shown ourselves as giving up on civilization and opting for barbarism instead.

▻https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civilised-european-look-like-us-racist-coverage-ukraine?CMP=Share_iOSAp

Racist in media coverage of the #Ukraine invasion - 🇬🇷government MP:

“we’re not talking about a massacre somewhere in the depths of Africa with people of other religions [...] but unfortunately that counts too - Christians, whites, Europeans, who are from us, come from us.”

https://i.imgur.com/J2Qq0AK.png

▻https://twitter.com/lk2015r/status/1500560670433107980

Guerre en Ukraine : « Nos » réfugiés d’abord ?

Il est humainement inacceptable que l’Europe et la Belgique fassent une distinction entre des réfugiés qui fuient la guerre depuis un pays du continent européen et les autres.

Bonne nouvelle : le secrétaire d’Etat à l’Asile et à la Migration Sammy Mahdi met tout en œuvre pour accueillir dans notre pays le plus grand nombre possible de personnes fuyant l’Ukraine. Elles peuvent compter sur une protection automatique d’un an, extensible à trois ans si nécessaire. Cet accord (européen) inconditionnel, sans procédure d’asile, est unique et sans précédent. Mais sur quoi se base-t-il ?

« Nous avons le devoir moral d’aider et de faire preuve de solidarité », a déclaré le secrétaire d’État dans De Zevende Dag. « Nous ne devons pas tarder à mettre à disposition un refuge sûr. »

Un demi-million d’Ukrainiens ont déjà fui le pays vers l’Europe, et six à sept millions d’autres pourraient suivre. Une telle réponse humaine et directe aux personnes qui fuient la guerre doit être saluée. Les personnes dont la vie est menacée par la guerre méritent un refuge sûr ailleurs, un statut légal et une aide de base pour survivre. En cela, l’hospitalité de Mahdi suit l’esprit de la Convention des Nations unies sur les réfugiés de 1951 et du Protocole de New York de 1967. C’est un geste logique et humain.
Frontières sacrées

Toutefois, le contraste est troublant avec la réaction européenne envers tant d’autres personnes démunies qui ont dû quitter des zones de conflit turbulentes et qui sont « accueillies » à nos frontières extérieures par de hauts murs, des barbelés et une surveillance numérique dans laquelle l’UE investit des milliards. Les mêmes ministres européens de la Migration qui accueillent aujourd’hui les Ukrainiens/nes à bras ouverts se tenaient à la frontière entre la Lituanie et la Biélorussie en janvier dernier, en contemplant le nouveau parapet de la forteresse Europe.

Un mur similaire est actuellement en cours de construction entre la Pologne et la Biélorussie, pour un coût de 350 millions d’euros : 5,5 m de haut, 186 km de long. Sur Facebook, le Premier ministre polonais a posté : « La frontière polonaise n’est pas seulement une ligne sur une carte. La frontière est sainte – le sang polonais a été versé pour elle ! »

C’est précisément sur cette frontière sacrée qu’au moins 19 personnes ont été retrouvées mortes (gelées) depuis le début des travaux : des personnes originaires du Yémen, d’Irak et du Nigeria.

Apparemment, la souffrance est mesurable sur une échelle. Apparemment, comme l’écrit la philosophe Judith Butler, certaines vies méritent d’être pleurées tandis que d’autres peuvent être traquées, illégalisées, exploitées sur le marché du travail et laissées à la merci de la politique belge d’asile et de migration. Comme si un habitant de Kaboul avait moins de raisons humaines de fuir qu’un habitant de Kiev ? Comme si notre « devoir moral d’aider » était aussi un interrupteur que l’on peut allumer et éteindre à volonté ? Alors que sous l’ancien secrétaire d’État Theo Francken, un projet de loi autorisait la police à faire une simple descente chez tous ceux qui accueillent des personnes déplacées, le hashtag #PlekVrij (#EspaceLibre) appelle désormais les citoyens/nes à libérer des chambres pour les familles ukrainiennes. Il n’y a pas plus schizophrène que cela dans l’État belge.

Trouvez les dix différences

Une mère réfugiée avec son enfant et une mère réfugiée avec son enfant : cherchez les dix différences. La principale différence est claire : si la mère porte un foulard ou si l’enfant est moins blanc, on aurait moins envie de les laisser entrer. Plusieurs Ukrainiens/n.s et résidents/es en Ukraine noirs témoignent aujourd’hui sur les médias sociaux de la façon dont ils ont été arrêtés/es à la frontière polonaise, volés/es et abandonnés/es à leur sort. La conclusion évidente va à l’encontre de toute convention internationale : notre politique d’asile européenne et belge est discriminatoire sur la base de la couleur et de la religion. Nos réfugiés à nous passent avant tout le monde.

La décision véhémente de Mahdi rappelle presque l’« opération de sauvetage » controversée et très sélective de 1.500 chrétiens syriens menée par Francken en 2015. En même temps, les Afghans/nes n’ont pas pu compter sur la solidarité de Mahdi sur Twitter lors de la prise du pouvoir par les talibans l’année dernière. À l’époque, il avait écrit, avec cinq collègues de l’UE, une autre lettre à la Commission européenne pour demander que les rapatriements forcés vers l’Afghanistan ne cessent pas : « L’arrêt des retours forcés envoie un mauvais signal et incite probablement encore plus de citoyens/nes afghans/nes à quitter leur foyer. »

Ceux qui insinuent que fuir la guerre en Ukraine est en effet « quelque chose de différent » que de fuir un conflit armé en Afghanistan, doivent enfin invoquer le type de solidarité populaire historique que beaucoup méprisent aujourd’hui chez Poutine. Il s’agit d’une distinction peu différente de l’aryanisme latent dont un procureur ukrainien s’est fait l’écho sur la BBC : « Cette guerre est très émotionnelle pour moi parce que je vois maintenant des Européens aux yeux bleus et aux cheveux blonds se faire tuer. » (1) Dans l’Europe de 2022, même dans la mort, tout le monde n’est pas égal.

Pensez aux 23.000 personnes qui sont mortes en Méditerranée depuis 2014 à cause du régime frontalier européen. Le nationalisme de la Russie et le continentisme de l’UE ont peut-être des visages différents, mais des conséquences mortelles similaires.
#InMyName

Par conséquent, la préoccupation actuelle pour l’Ukraine ne devrait pas être une exception, mais devrait devenir la norme pour tous ceux qui sont contraints de quitter leur patrie. Tant que cette égalité n’est pas atteinte, le régime d’accueil spécial de l’Europe n’indique pas l’hospitalité, mais la suprématie blanche. Une fois de plus, ce statut spécial pour les Ukrainiens/nes confirme ce que 160 avocats/es belges spécialisés/es dans le droit de l’immigration ont dénoncé dans une lettre ouverte parue dans La Libre en décembre : notre politique de régularisation n’est que du vent.

Devrons-nous donc espérer qu’à chaque crise, le secrétaire d’État se comporte en héros : « tel ou tel groupe a désormais droit à notre accueil temporaire et exceptionnel » ?

Non, nous avons besoin de cadres juridiques équitables pour le long terme. Ce que l’État belge offre aujourd’hui, à juste titre, aux citoyens/nes ukrainiens/nes devrait s’appliquer à tout le monde : attention, confiance fondamentale, action rapide, absence d’ambiguïté. Si nous pouvons prendre en charge des millions de victimes de Poutine, nous devrions également être en mesure de garantir un avenir à quelques dizaines de milliers de concitoyens/nes sans papiers en Belgique. On dirait qu’il y a un #EspaceLibre.

▻https://www.lesoir.be/427956/article/2022-03-04/guerre-en-ukraine-nos-refugies-dabord
#Belgique

Le vrai ou faux : les réfugiés ukrainiens sont-ils mieux accueillis que d’autres ?

En plus d’une exemption de procédure, les réfugiés venant d’Ukraine bénéficient d’un effort d’accueil en décalage par rapport aux standards européens.
Depuis des semaines, la Belgique laisse chaque jour une partie des demandeurs d’asile sur le carreau, sans prise en charge, renvoyant les déçus vers les réseaux d’accueil de sans-abrisme, voire les squats et la rue. L’Etat est en faute, il a été condamné pour cela. Mais le secrétaire d’Etat et son administration n’ont cessé d’assurer faire leur possible pour aménager de nouvelles places, ne pouvant cependant couvrir les besoins. Avec le déclenchement de la guerre en Ukraine et le mouvement de solidarité face aux déjà deux millions de réfugiés boutés hors du pays, 24.000 places d’accueil ont été mises à disposition en quelques jours par les communes et les particuliers pour accueillir les réfugiés en Belgique. Le système est encore boiteux, mais la mobilisation est là. Les élus tonnent au Parlement et sur les réseaux sociaux : il n’est pas question de laisser un Ukrainien sans toit. Et Theo Francken (N-VA) de surenchérir : un toit ne suffit pas, il faut penser à l’accompagnement psychologique des personnes traumatisées par la guerre. Voilà des années pourtant que les associations alertent sur l’indigence de la prise en charge psychologique des réfugiés, sans trouver d’écho.

L’Union européenne est-elle en train de formaliser un double standard pour les réfugiés, avec des Ukrainiens bénéficiant d’un statut automatique et des Erythréens, Syriens, Afghans soumis à une procédure d’asile longue et souvent douloureuse ? Oui. Y a-t-il lieu de s’en offusquer ? Tout dépend de ce dont on parle.

L’activation de la protection temporaire qui octroie automatiquement une série de droits aux ressortissants ukrainiens ayant quitté le pays depuis le début du conflit a été unanimement saluée, tout comme l’élan de solidarité qui l’accompagne dans les pays européens. La question qui se pose depuis est plutôt de savoir pourquoi elle n’avait jamais été appliquée jusqu’à maintenant ? Qu’il s’agisse des déplacements de populations provoqués par les printemps arabes (en Tunisie, en Libye) ou la guerre en Syrie, les occasions n’ont pas manqué depuis sa création en 2001.

Meltem Ineli Ciger a passé près de sept ans de sa vie à étudier la question. Pour sa thèse, à l’université de Bristol, puis à l’occasion de diverses publications jusqu’en 2018. De quoi construire une solide analyse expliquant pourquoi la directive est de facto inapplicable : maladresse dans la définition des termes et conditions, mécanisme d’activation trop complexe, défaut de solidarité structurel… Il n’aura fallu que quelques jours pour envoyer son travail à la poubelle (ou pas loin). « Comme j’ai pu avoir tort », relève non sans humour et amertume la juriste turque dans une note de blog du réseau Odysseus, spécialisé dans le droit européen de la migration. « Les événements de ces deux dernières semaines montrent une chose : les raisons que j’avais identifiées au fil des ans se réduisent à une réflexion : la directive protection temporaire n’a pas été implémentée avant 2022 parce que la Commission et le Conseil n’avaient simplement pas la volonté politique de le faire. »

Un flux massif et inédit

La chercheuse, aujourd’hui professeur assistante à l’université Suleyman Demirel, en Turquie, a donc revu sa copie, dressant des constats que rejoignent les différents experts contactés.

D’abord, le caractère massif et inédit des flux de réfugiés ukrainiens. Même si les grands mouvements d’asile de 2015-2016 ont amené plus de 2 millions de personnes dans l’Union européenne, les flux se sont répartis sur deux ans. Et les Syriens, qui auraient pu prétendre à une protection automatique, ne représentaient qu’un gros quart des demandeurs. Une pression jugée absorbable par le système classique d’asile. Ici, deux millions de personnes ont traversé les frontières en 12 jours. Impossible de mener des évaluations individuelles détaillées sans provoquer des engorgements dramatiques, que ce soit à la frontière ou dans les pays d’arrivée où le système d’asile est parfois déjà en état de saturation (comme en Belgique). Surtout qu’il n’y a pas de débat quant à savoir les personnes déplacées ont besoin de protection.

L’autre facteur, c’est la crainte de l’appel d’air, qui a jusque-là systématiquement retenu les Etats membres. « L’enjeu, c’est l’hinterland », souligne Jean-Louis De Brouwer (Institut Egmont), qui a participé à la création de la directive. « Quand il y a la crise en Syrie ou en Afghanistan, les réfugiés vont traverser de vastes territoires qui peuvent être des pays de premier accueil. La réaction systématique et immédiate de l’Union européenne, c’est de dire : on va aider les pays limitrophes. La crainte étant qu’en activant un statut perçu comme potentiellement trop généreux tout le monde veuille venir en Europe. » Une forme de solidarité a minima qui s’accompagne d’un travail de sécurisation de la frontière via des accords avec des pays tiers d’accueil ou de transit (comme la Turquie, le Niger ou la Libye), des entraves (barbelés, murs), voire des opérations de refoulement illégales. « Ici, il n’est pas question d’appel d’air : quand les réfugiés franchissent la frontière, ils sont sur le territoire européen. »
Une empathie sélective

Enfin, les Ukrainiens sont européens (eux). Les médias n’ont pas tardé à rapporter les dérapages d’hommes politiques ou journalistes qualifiant cette population réfugiée d’inhabituelle car « éduquée » et issue de régions « civilisées », signes d’une empathie sélective reposant parfois sur des biais douteux. Sans parler des discriminations des étudiants étrangers, notamment nigérians, bloqués à la frontière polonaise.

Une des rares modifications apportée par les Etats membres à la proposition de la Commission pour activer la directive a été d’exclure du mécanisme les ressortissants de pays tiers sans résidence permanente (les étudiants et les demandeurs d’asile par exemple). Et parce que les Ukrainiens sont européens, les Etats membres ont totalement renversé les paradigmes cadrant normalement les questions d’asile : les réfugiés sont ici invités à s’installer dans le pays de leur choix. La solidarité européenne se construira à partir de cette répartition spontanée et non en vertu de règles définissant des pays (frontaliers) responsables. Si cette approche résulte d’un certain pragmatisme (les Ukrainiens n’ont pas d’obligation de visa et peuvent se déplacer librement pendant 90 jours), elle est encouragée et présentée très positivement par la Commission. A 180 degrés des discours portés ces dernières années concernant les demandeurs d’asile, bloqués par le carcan d’une procédure Dublin (*) que tout le monde reconnaît pourtant comme inefficace et coûteuse.

A vrai dire, l’enjeu du double standard devrait peser surtout dans les mois qui viennent, à supposer que le conflit en Ukraine se poursuive. La protection temporaire et le statut de réfugié ouvrent des droits assez similaires (séjour, accès au marché du travail, aux droits sociaux…). Il s’agira donc de voir si les dispositifs déployer pour aider et accueillir les Ukrainiens – pour l’accès au logement, au travail, à l’apprentissage de la langue – sans laisser sur la touche les autres réfugiés, voire les populations européennes précarisées

▻https://www.lesoir.be/428815/article/2022-03-08/le-vrai-ou-faux-les-refugies-ukrainiens-sont-ils-mieux-accueillis-que-dautres

#double_standard #empathie_sélective

Fil de discussion sur la #Suisse :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/956788

#Grèce : Πραγματική προσφυγική πολιτική μόνο για Ουκρανούς
–->

Une véritable politique des réfugiés uniquement pour les Ukrainiens

Πολλοί από τους χιλιάδες Ουκρανούς πρόσφυγες που έφτασαν στην Ελλάδα δεν έχουν χαρτιά, αλλά κανείς δεν διανοήθηκε να τους πει « παράνομους » ή « λαθραίους », να τους χαρακτηρίσει « υγειονομική απειλή » λόγω της πανδημίας, να μιλήσει για απειλή στην εδαφική ακεραιότητα, να υπαινιχθεί αλλοίωση του εθνικού μας πολιτισμού, να επισημάνει ανυπέρβλητες γλωσσικές και πολιτισμικές διαφορές που εμποδίζουν την ένταξή τους στην ελληνική κοινωνία, να εκφράσει φόβο για αύξηση της εγκληματικότητας ή να υπαινιχθεί ότι θα μας πάρουν τις δουλειές.

Μέσα σε μια νύχτα τα κλειστά σύνορα άνοιξαν και δημιουργήθηκε ασφαλής και νόμιμη διαδρομή μέσω του Προμαχώνα, όπου οι πρόσφυγες υποβάλλουν αίτημα για ταξιδιωτικά έγγραφα. Το υπουργείο Μετανάστευσης και Ασύλου διαθέτει άμεσα χώρο στέγασης και σίτιση και ο κ. Μηταράκης, που μέχρι πρόσφατα ανακοίνωνε κλείσιμο δομών και εξώσεις, τώρα επιθεωρεί δομές της βόρειας Ελλάδας που ξαναγεμίζουν. Η υπηρεσία Ασύλου, κλειστή από τον Νοέμβριο για χιλιάδες νεοεισερχόμενους πρόσφυγες της ενδοχώρας που δεν μπορούν να ζητήσουν άσυλο, ανοίγει ξαφνικά για να δεχτεί τα αιτήματα των Ουκρανών για προσωρινή προστασία.

Οι αρχές προαναγγέλλουν άμεση έκδοση ΑΜΚΑ και ΑΦΜ και γρήγορη πρόσβαση στην αγορά εργασίας, ενώ το υπουργείο Παιδείας απλοποιεί την εγγραφή των Ουκρανών προσφυγόπουλων στα σχολεία, που έχει ήδη αρχίσει. Μέσα σε λίγες μέρες το κράτος μοιάζει ξαφνικά με καλολαδωμένη μηχανή που λύνει προβλήματα αντί να βάζει εμπόδια. Η νέα κανονικότητα που δημιουργεί στο προσφυγικό η ρωσική εισβολή στην Ουκρανία είναι επιθυμητή και καλοδεχούμενη. Αναδεικνύει όμως τη βαθιά υποκρισία της ευρωπαϊκής και ελληνικής αντιπροσφυγικής πολιτικής των τελευταίων χρόνων, που εξακολουθεί να θεωρείται κανονικότητα για τους πρόσφυγες της Μέσης Ανατολής, της Ασίας και της Αφρικής, είναι όμως πια απογυμνωμένη από προφάσεις, ψέματα και φαιδρά επιχειρήματα και φαίνεται καθαρά το αποκρουστικό πρόσωπο του ρατσισμού.

▻https://www.efsyn.gr/stiles/ano-kato/335992_pragmatiki-prosfygiki-politiki-mono-gia-oykranoys

commentaire de Vicky Skoumbi via la mailing-list de Migreurop :

Miracle : L’accueil digne des réfugiés devient possible, même en Grèce, dans un laps de temps record ! Pourvu que ceux-ci sont blonds aux yeux bleus et qu’ils ne menacent pas le « mode de vie européen »...Quant aux autres, qu’ils crèvent frigorifiés sur un îlot d’Evros ou sous les flots

🎶TOUS EN CHŒUR🎶 Bon Réfugiés 🙍🏼‍♂️Mauvais Réfugiés🙍🏿‍♂️c’est beau l’humanité

https://i.imgur.com/w8RSlMP.png

#chanson
by #Stan_Believe

#Emmanuel_Macron :

« Quand on a peur des phénomènes migratoires, je pense qu’il faut là aussi défendre notre ADN, c’est-à-dire notre devoir d’accueillir celles et ceux qui fuient un pays en guerre comme les Ukrainiennes et les Ukrainiens aujourd’hui, mais en même temps de savoir lutter contre l’immigration clandestine [ie non européenne - NdR]. C’est par cette clarté et cette exigence que, je pense, on peut répondre aux peurs et en même temps tenir une réponse républicaine »

▻https://seenthis.net/messages/955991

#défendre_notre_ADN

Tarif spécial pour les réfugiés ukrainiens annoncé sur booking.com :

https://i.imgur.com/evuFhJU.png

Gli studenti ucraini arrivati in Italia dopo l’invasione potranno essere ammessi alle classi successive anche in mancanza dei requisiti necessari ed essere esonerati dagli esami di Stato

Il ministro dell’Istruzione, Patrizio Bianchi, ha firmato un’ordinanza che prevede che gli studenti ucraini arrivati in Italia a seguito dell’invasione dell’Ucraina potranno essere ammessi alle classi successive anche in mancanza dei requisiti necessari e, se necessario, esonerati dagli esami di Stato. L’ordinanza riguarda i soli studenti ucraini iscritti alle scuole elementari, medie e superiori italiane a partire dallo scorso 24 febbraio, data d’inizio dell’invasione ucraina.

Per gli studenti iscritti alle scuole superiori l’ordinanza prevede che, in mancanza dei requisiti necessari, si potrà essere ammessi all’anno successivo ma dovrà essere redatto un piano didattico individuale per raggiungere i livelli di apprendimento richiesti. Il piano dovrà essere predisposto tenendo conto dell’impatto psicologico della guerra e delle difficoltà che comporta l’apprendimento in un paese straniero.

Per quanto riguarda gli esami di Stato, invece, l’ordinanza prevede la possibilità di esonero per gli studenti che si trovino nelle classi «terminali» (cioè terza media e quinta superiore) e non abbiano raggiunto i livelli linguistici e le competenze disciplinari necessarie a sostenerli: in questo caso, il consiglio di classe rilascerà un attestato di credito formativo, che nel caso degli studenti di terza media sarà sufficiente per iscriversi alle superiori, e nel caso degli studenti di quinta superiore per frequentare nuovamente la quinta.

▻https://www.ilpost.it/2022/06/07/studenti-ucraini-ordinanza-ministero-istruzione

#étudiants #étudiants_ukrainiens #Italie

#Judith_Waintraub (02.01.2023) :

« Les Ukrainiens ne posent pas les problèmes d’#assimilation, de #différences_culturelles, que peuvent poser certains Africains »

▻https://twitter.com/CNEWS/status/1609939704320856069

https://pixelfed.zoo-logique.org/storage/m/_v2/578583396227231930/bf4779419-8cf74f/MWOx4UcHCxDk/S5mFT4U3k18zinZjIPnqiZZ7OZ0VdkzbcVAbu3xt.png

#dessin_de_presse #caricature

Ben, je croyais que le dernier duel judiciaire en France était celui opposant M. de Jarnac à Lachâtaigneraye, le 10 juillet 1547.

D’ailleurs, WP dit bien,…

Duel judiciaire — Wikipédia
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel_judiciaire

En France, l’un des tout derniers duels judiciaires autorisés a lieu fin décembre 1386, à Paris, ordonné par la chambre des seigneurs du parlement de Paris et approuvé par Charles VI.
[…]
Le dernier duel à être autorisé publiquement a lieu le 10 juillet 1547 au château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye : il oppose Guy Chabot de Jarnac à François de Vivonne, à la suite d’une demande de Jarnac au roi Henri II de pouvoir venger son honneur.

Pas étonnant que l’histoire de France et wikipédia l’ai oublié vu que ca concerne une femme.
du coup j’ajoute #invisibilisation et wikipédia dit "un des derniers" du coup c’est pas le dernier, c’est seulement le dernier qui compte car il n’implique aucune femme.

Ah mais c’est pire que ca ! J’avais pas fini de lire "Des siècles plus tard, l’histoire des « innocents » Le Gris faussement accusés et forcés de se défendre dans un procès barbare et injuste au combat a été davantage popularisée par les penseurs des Lumières. L’Encyclopédie de Diderot et l’Histoire du Parlement de Paris de Voltaire se sont servis de l’affaire de 1386 pour dénoncer l’ignorance et la cruauté supposées du Moyen Âge." - (je vais chercher ca )

Mais si le mari et le champion de Marguerite perdaient, prouvant ainsi que son accusation était fausse, elle aussi serait mise à mort. Et pas n’importe quelle mort. Conformément à la tradition ancienne, elle serait brûlée vive en tant que fausse accusatrice.

@simplicissimus pendant que tu passe par ici. Je cherche depuis un moment une histoire que j’avais entendu dans une conf écouté sur la chaine youtube de la cour de cassassions qui mentionnant un certain Othon (1er ? )qui rendait la justice dans une histoire impliquant le viol de l’épouse du plaignant et s’étant tromper il avait fait punir sa propre épouse en réparation. Est-ce que ca te dit quelquechose ? Dans mes recherches pour étayé cette histoire j’ai fait choux blancs.

Au-delà des apparences : Jean Froissart et l’affaire de la dame de Carrouges
▻https://journals.openedition.org/crm/13079
Il y a quand même une fiche wiki sur ce duel
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel_Carrouges-Legris
Et comme d’hab « Une autre école émet l’hypothèse que Jacques Legris était innocent. Les éléments de preuve apportés par le comte d’Alençon semblent crédibles[interprétation personnelle]. » Cette affirmation non sourcée n’est pas supprimé car on y valide la culture du viol.

–—
Louis de Carbonnières. La procédure devant la chambre criminelle du parlement de Paris au XIVe siècle [compte-rendu]

▻https://www.persee.fr/doc/bec_0373-6237_2007_num_165_1_463497_t10_0221_0000_3

Mais si l’histoire de Marguerite est vraie et que Le Gris a été reconnu coupable, pourquoi l’écuyer a-t-il accru son risque d’être découvert en faisant appel à un complice ?

Celle ci est bien typique du point de vue masculin de l’historien ! La réponse est d’une simplicité déconcertante et il le dit lui même au début. En 1380 comme en 2020 tu peu violer peindard même en bande tu risque pas grand chose.
« Comme aujourd’hui, les agressions sexuelles et les viols sont souvent restés impunis et même non signalés au Moyen Âge. »
et « L’histoire de Marguerite a dû sembler au moins plausible aux magistrats qui ont ordonné le duel, ce que le Parlement n’avait pas fait depuis plus de trente ans dans une affaire de viol. » et « Mais si le mari et le champion de Marguerite perdaient, prouvant ainsi que son accusation était fausse, elle aussi serait mise à mort. Et pas n’importe quelle mort. Conformément à la tradition ancienne, elle serait brûlée vive en tant que fausse accusatrice. » ce qui est tout de même bien pire que de mourrir dans un duel ! Mais l’historien se demande comment le violeur à pris le risque de violer avec son pote et trouve que c’est en faveur du violeur ...

#male_gaze

Pour l’église Saint Marguerite de Carrouges c’est pas que cette femme violée ai été cannonisé (les curés font parti de ceux qui l’accusent de mentir) mais le village de Sainte Marguerite avait pour seigneur un Carrouges (probablement de la même famille que cette femme).

Centuries later the story of the “innocent” Le Gris falsely accused and forced to defend himself in a barbaric and unjust trial by combat was further popularized by Enlightenment thinkers. Diderot’s Encyclopédie and Voltaire’s Histoire du Parlement de Paris used the 1386 affair to denounce the supposed ignorance and cruelty of the Middle Ages.

« Le duel entre Carrouges et Legris est très documenté, il est notamment mentionné par Brantôme, Diderot et d’autres. Ce duel est souvent cité en exemple comme l’illustration d’une injustice profonde : Voltaire s’en sert ainsi pour faire du jugement de Dieu une injustice. »
▻http://cornucopia16.com/blog/2014/01/20/compte-rendu-de-la-septieme-seance-de-chorea

#déni

Cinq siècles durant, les descendants de Le Gris dénoncèrent ce jugement de Dieu comme une erreur judiciaire.

Ce jugement de Dieu fut le dernier autorisé en France. Il y eu bien des demandes de procès par combat soumises au Parlement de Paris mais aucune ne put déboucher sur un duel de Jugement de Dieu et plus aucun duel n’opposa des nobles en mettant en jeu le salut de leur âme immortelle.

Comment fabrique t-on une légende ? :

Jean Froissard, le chroniqueur qui écrivit vers 1390 affirme que le roi et la foule se réjouirent de l’issue du duel mais l’avocat de Le Gris affirme que les avis étaient très partagés.
La chronique de Saint Denis, compilation en latin datant de 10 à 15 ans après le duel, affirme que Marguerite avait eu tort mais avait été de bonne foi et qu’un criminel avait avoué le crime par la suite.
Autour de 1430, Jean Juvenal des Ursins répéta ce récit dans sa chronique française en mettant en scène, à la place du criminel, un mourant sur son lit.

La légende de l’accusation fausse, du châtiment injuste et de la révélation tardive eut la vie dure.

Marguerite avait juré avoir vu Le Gris et Adam Louvel en pleine lumière, parlé un certain temps avec eux avant d’être attaquée. Mais surtout Marguerite avait mis en cause deux hommes ce qui rend invraisemblable la confession tardive d’un seul coupable. De plus, l’hypothèse du mensonge de Marguerite, avec ou sans la contrainte de Carrouges, se heurte à l’inclusion d’Adam Louvel dans l’accusation. C’était ajouter un risque supplémentaire, une histoire plus compliquée.

Cette idée que Marguerite aurait accusé de bonne foi un innocent pour s’apercevoir ensuite de son erreur est un mythe construit par une société chevaleresque troublée par les doutes jamais ôtés sur la culpabilité ou l’innocence des trois acteurs.

Et cette légende qui innocente tout le monde survécut :
Elle est mentionnée dans l’Encyclopédie de Diderot et D’Alembert (1767) où il est dit que Le Gris fut condamné à tort et un criminel découvert ensuite.
De la même façon, elle est citée par Voltaire. Embarassed
Louis Du Bois, en 1824, dans son récit de l’histoire normande, répète la légende en précisant que Marguerite avait confondu un homme très ressemblant avec Le Gris et qu’elle se fit ensuite religieuse par désespoir.
En 1848, Auguste Le Prevost publie une histoire de Saint Martin du Tilleul ayant appartenu au père de Marguerite. Lui, affirme que Marguerite disait juste, que Le Gris était coupable et il constate que depuis le Moyen-Age, sa culpabilité a été souvent remise en cause car la cour du roi Charles VI était favorable à Le Gris, hostile à Marguerite et il déplore que les historiens contemporains suivent cette pente en rappelant que l’indignation d’une femme avait peu de poids dans cette cour du Moyen-Age et qu’avait été rappelée par Le Gris la traîtrise du père de Marguerite, Robert de Thibouville. Le Prevost rappelle alors les notes de Jean le Coq : « après avoir exposé avec une grande loyauté les arguments dans les 2 sens, c’est contre son client qu’il fait pencher la balance ».

A l’inverse,vers 1890, F. Le Grix White, qui se disait descendant de Le Gris, conteste certains détails de la chronique de Froissart mais croit dans les aveux d’un autre homme.

Malgré l’insistance d’Auguste Le Prevost qui incite à relire les sources premières, la 11ème édition de l’Encyclopedia Britannica (1910) transforme le récit comme un duel ayant fait perdre toute foi dans le Jugement de Dieu : un certain Legris accusé par la femme de Carrouges de s’être introduit chez elle, en se faisant passer pour son mari dont elle attendait le retour des croisades, la viola. Le Parlement de Paris ordonna un duel où Le Gris vaincu fut pendu puis, peu après, un criminel accusé pour un autre crime, avoua être l’auteur du viol et la décision fut annulée par le Parlement. (!!!)

Dans les années 1970, la même Encyclopedia Britannica relate le même récit mais en précisant que Marguerite fut « séduite ».
Finalement, ce récit disparaît de la 15ème édition de l’Encyclopedia Britannica mais sans aucun rectificatif.

▻http://lebaldeversailles.forum-actif.eu/t2388-le-dernier-jugement-de-dieu

« Et cette légende qui innocente tout le monde survécut »
Non la légende n’innocente pas tout le monde, elle innocente tout le monde avec un pénis. Et elle fait de Marguerite de Carrouges une menteuse adultère puisque du viol il y eu un enfant...

ouh là, ça ne me dit rien du tout…
désolé !

Je t’ai pas fournis beaucoup d’éléments faut dire. Otton 1er c’est probablement pas la période la mieux documenté
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otton_Ier_(empereur_du_Saint-Empire)
Il a eu deux femmes Otton (mais c’etait peut etre des hommes car wikipédia les indique comme conjoint au masculin)
Édith d’Angleterre (1) - on sais juste qu’elle est morte brutalement et qu’il en était peiné
Adélaïde de Bourgogne (2) - morte après son époux en 999

ca va pas etre facile de trouvé cette histoire car wikipédia dit :
« La justice reste une prérogative royale mais Otton n’a pas de cour suprême pour l’aider dans cette tâche. Elle est rendue par oral. »

trouvé au passage = les femmes de l’an mille
▻https://books.google.fr/books?id=c8dXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT267&lpg=PT267&dq=edith+d%27angleterre+mort+o

Ah j’ai trouvé c’etait Othon III pas Othon Ier !

Le théologien augustinien Jan van Haeght, chargé de trouver un thème adéquat, choisit la légende de la justice de l’empereur Otton III. Suivant cette légende, Otton III fit décapiter un comte, faussement accusé de tentative de séduction par l’impératrice, après qu’elle eut elle-même tenté en vain de conquérir celui-ci. Avant l’exécution, la comtesse promit à son époux de prouver son innocence en subissant l’épreuve du feu. C’est ainsi qu’après la décollation, elle démontra que l’accusation était fausse en tenant en main, sans se brûler, une barre de fer incandescente. Convaincu par ce jugement de Dieu, Otton III condamna sa propre épouse au bûcher. En allant jusqu’à la sacrifier, il se comporta en juge intègre.

▻https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/justice-of-emperor-otto-iii-beheading-of-the-innocent-count-and-ordeal-by-fire-dirk-bouts/5AGtQbEd3j5HnA?hl=fr
▻https://lh3.ggpht.com/Ght-fZiu57y-n5cQ8Qmlki5r6zXj82BgngQQZur8xKCUJqS2Brbjd0tXaMMV=s1200

http://kerdonis.fr/ZBOUTS01/wpimages/wpa699c4ba_05_06.jpg http://kerdonis.fr/ZBOUTS01/wpimages/wpf9b8ca84_05_06.jpg

pour l’icono de Bouts voire ici
▻http://kerdonis.fr/ZBOUTS01
et sur cette page il y a le supplice de Saint Érasme aussi c’est mon martyre préféré !

http://kerdonis.fr/ZBOUTS01/wpimages/wp86359212_05_06.jpg

Mon souvenir avait déformé l’histoire, ici il est aussi question de viol, ou tentative de viol (qu’on appel séduction chez les historiens) et donc on retrouve cette fois la condamnation à laquelle Marguerite de Carrouges à échappé... parce que l’épouse du violeur à résisté à la torture...

Ah je suis fière d’avoir trouvé ! du coup je m’autocongratule ^^
Bravo ma pomme !

oui, #brava @mad_meg !
la recherche, c’est comme le vélo, ça s’apprend en allant ; plus on en fait, plus on trouve ;-)

sinon, les tentatives de séduction faussement dénoncées par de viles manipulatrices, ça ne nous rajeunit pas ! Au moins Joseph et la femme de Putiphar dans la Genèse, mais ça ne m’étonnerait pas qu’il y en ait des versions encore antérieures.

▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_et_la_femme_de_Putiphar

Il me résistais depuis longtemps ce teuton d’Othon !
Pour la femme sans nom de Putiphar, ca doit être aussi vieux que la culture du viol. Les femmes mentent toujours et le viol ca n’existe pas. Même au XXIeme on donne aux violeurs des Césars et des prix Renaudot pour les félicité.

et pour l’antériorité du viol de Mme Putiphare il y a le conte des deux frères
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conte_des_deux_fr%C3%A8res

Le soir venu Bata mène le bétail à l’étable et Anubis rentre chez lui auprès de sa femme. Mais la maison est plongée dans le noir. La lumière est éteinte et le repas du soir n’est pas préparé. Dans la crainte d’une dénonciation, l’épouse qui a été prise de désir, dans sa panique, s’est enduite de graisse et de suif pour faire croire qu’elle a été battue. La femme dit à Anubis que Bata a voulu la séduire mais que devant son refus, il l’a battue. Elle ajoute que si Anubis permet à Bata de continuer à vivre, elle se tuera avant que ce dernier ne s’en prenne à elle.

–-

Le Conte des deux frères est une histoire égyptienne qui date du règne de Séthi II, qui régna au XIIe siècle avant notre ère à la XIXe dynastie (Nouvel Empire). L’histoire est consignée dans le papyrus d’Orbiney, actuellement conservé au British Museum qui l’a acquis en 1857.

Plus vieux il y aura peut etre des tablettes akkadiennes mais pour aller plus loin dans le temps ca va etre difficile sans la machine de H.G.Wells

Et du coup je me demande si il y a des histoires dans lesquelles la femme n’a pas menti sur le viol !

J’y ai repensé et il y a peut etre la chaste Suzanne mais elle à pas subit de viol, plutot une agression sexuelle car pour le viol en fait si la femme survie c’est qu’elle est coupable de mentir.
Et les peintres s’en sont donné à cœur joie niveau culture du viol aussi sur ce motif
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_et_les_Vieillards

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Gerrit_van_Honthorst_cat01.jpg/800px-Gerrit_van_Honthorst_cat01.jpg

cc @antoine1 et @touti peut être que tout ceci vous intéressera.

Un film a été réalisé d’après cette histoire

Le Dernier Duel s’appuie sur une structure redoutablement efficace. Co-écrit par Ben Affleck, Matt Damon et Nicole Holofcener, le film est divisé en trois chapitres, racontant trois versions de la même affaire. Chaque partie a sa spécificité, mais les faits de base sont les mêmes : Marguerite raconte à son mari avoir été violée par Legris. Outré, Carrouges demande à affronter Legris en duel. Si l’accusé ressort vainqueur, il sera innocenté et Marguerite sera brûlée vive pour faux témoignage. Pour laver son propre honneur, le mari risque donc… la vie de sa femme.

▻https://seenthis.net/messages/936295#message936325

Sur le conte des 2 frères -
apparence du dieu Bata - ▻http://www.enim-egyptologie.fr/revue/2013/7/Rouviere_ENIM6_p139-158.swf.pdf
Analyse du conte - ▻http://www.enim-egyptologie.fr/revue/2011/1/Servajean_ENIM4_p1-37.pdf

#bromance #fraternité #menstruation #castration

Je ne connaissais pas ce passage de la bible
Livre des juges chapitre 19

▻https://www.aelf.org/bible/Jg/19

15 Ils firent un détour pour passer la nuit à Guibéa. Le lévite entra, s’assit sur la place, mais personne ne lui offrit l’hospitalité pour la nuit.

16 Voici qu’un vieillard, le soir venu, rentrait de son travail des champs. Il était originaire de la montagne d’Éphraïm, mais il résidait à Guibéa, dont les habitants étaient Benjaminites.

17 Levant les yeux, il remarqua le voyageur sur la place de la ville. Il lui demanda : « Où vas-tu, et d’où viens-tu ? »

18 L’homme lui répondit : « Partis de Bethléem de Juda, nous faisons route vers l’arrière-pays de la montagne d’Éphraïm. C’est de là que je suis originaire. Je me suis rendu à Bethléem de Juda et je retourne dans ma maison. Personne ne m’a offert l’hospitalité.

19 Pourtant, nous avons de la paille et du fourrage pour nos ânes ; j’ai aussi du pain et du vin pour moi, pour ta servante et pour le jeune homme qui accompagne tes serviteurs. Nous ne manquons de rien ! »

20 Le vieillard dit alors : « Sois en paix ; laisse-moi pourvoir à tous tes besoins, mais ne passe pas la nuit sur la place. »

21 Il le fit entrer dans sa maison et donna du fourrage aux ânes. Les voyageurs se lavèrent les pieds, ils mangèrent et ils burent.

22 Pendant qu’ils se restauraient, des hommes de la ville, de vrais vauriens, cernèrent la maison. Ils frappèrent à coups redoublés contre la porte et dirent au vieillard, propriétaire de la maison : « Fais sortir l’homme qui est entré chez toi pour que nous le connaissions ! »

23 Le propriétaire de la maison alla au-devant d’eux et leur dit : « Non, mes frères, non, ne faites pas le mal ! Après que cet homme a été reçu dans ma maison, ne commettez pas cette infamie !

24 Voici ma fille, qui est vierge ; je vais la faire sortir. Abusez d’elle ! Faites avec elle ce qui vous semblera bon, mais ne commettez pas contre cet homme un acte infâme. »

25 Les hommes de la ville ne voulurent pas l’écouter. Alors, le lévite saisit sa concubine et la leur amena dehors. Ils s’unirent à elle et s’en amusèrent toute la nuit, jusqu’au matin. Quand vint l’aurore, ils la relâchèrent.

26 Comme le matin approchait, la femme s’en vint tomber à l’entrée de la maison de l’homme chez qui était son mari, et elle resta là jusqu’à ce qu’il fît jour.

27 Au petit matin, son mari se leva, ouvrit la porte de la maison, sortit pour reprendre sa route. Voici que sa concubine gisait à l’entrée de la maison, les mains sur le seuil !

28 « Lève-toi, lui dit-il, et partons ! » Il n’obtint pas de réponse. Il la mit sur son âne, partit et rentra chez lui.

29 Une fois arrivé dans sa maison, il prit un couteau, saisit sa concubine, la dépeça, membre après membre, en douze morceaux, qu’il envoya dans tout le territoire d’Israël.

30 Quiconque voyait cela disait : « Jamais ne s’est fait, jamais ne s’est vu un crime aussi affreux, depuis le jour où les fils d’Israël sont montés du pays d’Égypte jusqu’à ce jour ! » Le lévite avait donné cet ordre à ses messagers : « Vous parlerez ainsi à tous les hommes d’Israël : “Un crime aussi affreux a-t-il jamais été commis depuis le jour où les fils d’Israël sont montés du pays d’Égypte jusqu’à ce jour ? Réfléchissez, tenez conseil, prononcez-vous !” »

On a vraiment l’impression qu’on parle du bétail ici. C’est bon pour dieu de faire violer sa femme à sa place, tant qu’elle est bien crevé après.

@reka
Stephen Smith, je suis pas sûre que ça soit un problème de vieillesse.

▻https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n06/stephen-w.-smith/rwanda-in-six-scenes
▻https://survie.org/publications/livres/article/negrophobie-reponse-aux
▻https://www.arenes.fr/livre/negrophobie

puis
►https://blogs.mediapart.fr/les-invites-de-mediapart/blog/021018/stephen-smith-ravive-le-mythe-des-invasions-barbares-macron-et-l-aca
▻https://www.liberation.fr/debats/2018/10/09/la-ruee-d-africains-vers-l-europe-une-these-sans-valeur-scientifique_1684
▻https://journals.openedition.org/belgeo/29709

Places of residence of Sahelian emigrants, 2015

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L600xH563/sXsrbrQjpg-cc7f8-7c787.jpg

Les migrations africaines

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L600xH426/1547570006-a7fac-f2523.png

Les migrations au service de la transformation structurelle

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L551xH700/zJpHY8spng-aabc0-c76bd.png

Sylvie Bredeloup : « Les routes de la migration africaine mènent rarement à l’Europe »

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L600xH365/AC3Iufipng-bb80a-1ddf7.png

Cartographie. Les migrants africains vont d’abord en Afrique

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L600xH611/uCH2XV1T6MO4979f-f11da.png

I dati reali. Dove migrano gli africani? Solo il 2% di chi si muove va verso l’Europa
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/1022377

Migration between poor countries rising faster than to rich ones – study

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L600xH228/JSLKcQGpng-66cfe-3c62a.png

–—

voir aussi (même lien: ►https://seenthis.net/messages/482464):

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L586xH334/S1rLHrxpng-bb1a5-fbd8f.png https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L600xH685/kpxoWcXpng-11dd4-76fd7.png https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L600xH275/wftynnNMpng-ce3c-aa276.png

"Les routes de la migration africaine mènent rarement à l’Europe"

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L280xH420/280x0_D5398_b969-dd409.jpg

Voici la visualisation qui cassera vos idées reçues sur l’immigration

►http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/2014/04/08/voici-visualisation-cassera-idees-recues-limmigration-251335

L’article dont parle le Nouvelobs :
Quantifying Global International Migration Flows
►http://science.sciencemag.org/content/343/6178/1520
Et la #visualisation :

http://i.imgur.com/2BqldvR.png

–-

Et ça :

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L600xH564/BjxHItaIIAAg8f14-6aa30.jpg

Global migration

https://i.imgur.com/amWlulz.png

Les Africains qui migrent viennent de moins en moins en #France
►https://seenthis.net/messages/786643

https://visionscarto.net/local/cache-vignettes/L1024xH416/42719640970_8405-33f3e-a5264.jpg?1690217235#.jpg https://visionscarto.net/local/cache-vignettes/L1024xH234/esclavage-an387a-d8efd-d8df7.jpg?1694527343#.jpg https://visionscarto.net/local/cache-vignettes/L887xH589/esclavage-mob8e5-dd3e2-63886.png?1694527576#.jpg https://visionscarto.net/local/cache-vignettes/L500xH325/42276390831_2031-6435b-3db21.jpg?1690217235#.jpg

#cartographie #esclavage_moderne #traite_négrière #musée #Norvège #histoire #commerce_triangulaire