• Un #voyage à #Vélo jusqu’au pays où le soleil ne se couche jamais
    http://carfree.fr/index.php/2020/10/05/un-voyage-a-velo-jusquau-pays-ou-le-soleil-ne-se-couche-jamais

    Marre de cette société grise et étriquée ! Mon rêve est esquissé. C’est décidé : loin de l’air pollué des cités bétonnées, je partirai. Sur mon vieux vélo, avec ma Lire la suite...

    #Alternatives_à_la_voiture #Livres #Vie_sans_voiture #danemark #norvège

  • Construire une fusée pour bombarder les villes de graines de mauvaises herbes
    http://carfree.fr/index.php/2020/09/25/construire-une-fusee-pour-bombarder-les-villes-de-graines-de-mauvaises-herbe

    Le collectif artistique danois N55 a développé il y a quelques années le système de fusée N55 PROTEST qui permet aux gens de communiquer leur protestation de manière concrète. Il Lire la suite...

    #Alternatives_à_la_voiture #Vélo #actions #art #copenhague #danemark #humour #inventions #nature #permaculture #ville

  • Le choc et la panique à la rescousse des traités pour fragiliser l’Etat
    https://www.investigaction.net/fr/le-choc-et-la-panique-a-la-rescousse-des-traites-pour-fragiliser-let

    Nos gouvernements vont-ils profiter du contexte de la crise pour passer des réformes impopulaires selon la stratégie du choc dévoilée par Naomi Klein ? C’est ce que redoute Carlos Perez. Auteur de L’Enfance sous pression et d’Au-delà du geste technique, il dénonce les atteintes à la démocratie qui pourraient ouvrir la voie à de nouvelles percées du néolibéralisme. (IGA)

     

    Comme le souligne Naomi Klein dans son essai « Stratégie du Choc : La montée d’un capitalisme du désastre », les États profitent et se servent de la crise et de la panique pour s’accorder des pouvoirs spéciaux et mettre en place des réglementations liberticides et par la même occasion affaiblir les services sociaux.

    La stratégie consiste à profiter du choc et de la désorientation pour faire passer des politiques impopulaires. En voici quelques exemples récents en pleine période de pandémie :

    1° En Belgique, le ministre-président flamand, Jan Jambon (N-VA), veut voir davantage de gens au travail, entre autres dans les secteurs de la construction et des titres-services où le mécanisme du chômage temporaire est, à ses yeux, parfois trop rapidement demandé, a-t-il indiqué mercredi 25 mars au parlement flamand1.
    On voit bien là un confinement de classes sociales à deux vitesses : déjà qu’ils n’ont pratiquement pas de matériel de protection pour sauver leur propre vie, les ouvriers n’ont pas les mêmes droits face à la pandémie.

    2° En France, le Sénat a voté, dans la nuit de jeudi à vendredi (19-20 mars), la loi dite d’adaptation au coronavirus (la loi « urgence coronavirus ») à 252 voix pour, 2 contre, et 90 abstentions. « Ce texte, qui acte le report des élections municipales « au plus tard en juin », constitue une attaque importante contre les droits des travailleurs, tant sur le plan social que démocratique. (…)Macron et son gouvernement instrumentalisent ainsi la crise sanitaire, pour faire les cadeaux dont ils rêvaient au patronat ».2 Entré en vigueur en mars, l’état d’urgence était fixé pour une période de deux mois. Il a ensuite été prolongé jusqu’au 10 juillet.

    3° Les États-Unis, qui n’en sont plus à une folie près, envisagent « pourquoi pas » (puisque ce pays n’a pas forcément de sécurité sociale) ni plus ni moins que de laisser mourir les anciens dans cette période de Coronavirus qui va effectivement toucher un maximum de personnes âgées. « Sacrifier les personnes âgées pour sauver l’économie » ce sont les propos chocs du vice-gouverneur Républicain du Texas, Dan Patrick.
    De plus, ce même pays va utiliser la pandémie pour réduire les libertés individuelles et serrer la vis un cran de plus en annonçant que les personnes qui propagent le virus intentionnellement pourraient entrer dans le champ d’application des lois antiterroristes et être poursuivies au pénal, autant dire presque tout le monde se promenant dans la rue3.

    4° Pour couronner le tout, au Royaume-Uni, l’ancien Premier ministre britannique, Gordon Brown, appelle à la création d’un « gouvernement mondial » pour lutter contre la menace actuelle. Un groupe de travail international « veillerait à ce que les efforts des banques centrales soient coordonnés », selon M. Brown, qui souhaite que la Banque mondiale et le Fonds monétaire international reçoivent plus d’argent et de pouvoir.

    Sans une minute à perdre les banques sont d’ores et déjà à la manœuvre pour régler les problèmes, quelle ironie !4
Comme on le constate les idées et les projets pour détruire nos droits et nos services sociaux ne manquent pas, même en pleine période de chaos pas un moment de répit chez nos réformateurs libéraux pour placer leurs projets politiques.

    Les traités sont en place depuis pas mal de temps, il faut juste la bonne excuse pour les sortir du placard. Le but inavoué reste inchangé : passer toutes les lois liberticides et proposer des traités toxiques qui doivent déréguler l’État.

    Si nos gouvernements promettent de renforcer les soins de santé, ils assurent aussi qu’il faudra retrouver l’équilibre budgétaire après s’être massivement endetté, en bonne partie pour « rassurer les marchés ». Des milliards d’euros ont ainsi été déversés pour sauver une finance déjà en crise bien avant la pandémie. Le danger, bien réel, est de voir passer de nouvelles réformes et accords qui, une fois de plus, fragiliseront les plus faibles pour tenter de sauver un système qui profite aux plus riches. Nos gouvernements pourraient profiter de la crise pour passer en force des accords impopulaires, parfois négociés en catimini.

    On se souvient comment WikiLeaks avait débusqué l’Accord sur le Commerce des Services (ACS), connu sous son acronyme anglais TiSA (pour Trade in Services Agreement), concocté en douce en 2013 à l’initiative des États-Unis et de L’Australie.

    « TISA quatre lettres qui vont changer le monde ou qui font peur ? TISA serait l’accord fondateur du commerce mondial libéré des grandes contraintes des États d’une cinquantaine de pays, dont les États-Unis et l’Union européenne ».

    « C’est en 2013 que les négociations TISA ont vraiment commencé. Les négociateurs sont représentatifs de 70% du commerce mondial. Et le traité porte sur le lissage des règles communes, ouvrant ainsi les portes à un desserrement des liens qui entravent les entreprises en activités dans le secteur des services »5.

    C’est un marché mondial de 44.000 milliards de dollars, selon le département du Commerce américain. Les services représentent plus des trois quarts du produit intérieur brut (PIB) des pays développés (75% aux États-Unis et 78% dans l’Union européenne).

    Mais au plan du commerce international les exportations de services sont bien moins élevées que celles des marchandises et c’est peut-être là que le bât blesse. Il faut libéraliser cette caverne d’Ali Baba seul. Les services de l’État du ressort exclusif du régalien sont exclus de la négociation.

    Sinon tout est sur la table : services financiers, commerces de détail, transports maritimes et routiers, conseils, approvisionnements en énergie, santé, éducation, gestion de l’eau, etc. bref tous nos services sociaux sont susceptibles d’être privatisés et libéralisés. Voilà l’imposture qui peut nous tomber sur la tête si nous ne prenons pas le dessus très rapidement sur la peur du moment et repartons sur nos propres revendications chacun dans son secteur. Une doctrine de choc qui spécule sur les catastrophes et qui va encore approfondir les inégalités pourrait nous être imposée.

    Dans mon secteur d’activité, le sport, parent pauvre des services sociaux, cette stratégie de dérégulation est depuis bien longtemps en action par le truchement du partenariat public-privé (« PPP ») dans l’investissement de mégaprojets d’infrastructures. Une façon sournoise de socialiser les pertes tout en privatisant les bénéfices, ce sont des millions d’argent public qui sont détournés. 

    Si on veut penser à l’après-crise, chacun doit le faire dès maintenant dans chaque secteur et se poser les bonnes questions. Dans le domaine du sport, prendre réellement soin de la population est une urgence que tout le monde a bien comprise. À travers cette crise, qu’est-ce que cela signifie ? C’est à ce stade qu’intervient ma modeste contribution.

    Les solutions sont à portée de main et ne vont pas forcément dans le sens des grandes rencontres sportives de prestige qui devraient démarrer très vite et redonner des jeux et du pain à la plèbe pour masquer la tragédie et l’irresponsabilité de nos représentants politiques. 
Ce confinement nous a bien démontré à quel point le sport-compétition est futile et inutile et que l’éducation motrice sanitaire, la culture physique était le meilleur outil à notre disposition pour favoriser et surmonter les altérations physiques et psychologiques dues au confinement, en plus de permettre une meilleure adaptation et résilience individuelle et collective et donc un véritable outil de santé publique.

    Si on parle du sport comme outil de santé publique, il faut au contraire et inéluctablement dans ce secteur clé de la prévention s’orienter vers des revendications claires. Le sport n’est pas une marchandise, mais un droit, le droit au bien-être, aux soins et à la santé pour tous et accessible à tous : 

    1° Cela commence par une planification intégrée : mettre au service de la population et prioritairement de nos anciens et de nos jeunes une vraie prévention sanitaire. Cela semble véritablement nécessaire comme on l’a constaté dans cette dure épreuve de pandémie où le taux de morbidité critique a été une cause de l’inflation de personnes en danger de mort.

    Avec l’aide de tous les professionnels de la prévention, de l’hygiène et de la santé, médecins nutritionnistes spécialistes de la motricité, tous doivent collaborer c’est-à-dire dans les petits clubs et dans les petites structures qui s’occupent de plus de 90% des affiliés dans le sport et pas au service des clubs de première division qui ont des budgets cotés en bourse et qui représentent une infime minorité de personnes. La santé de tous doit passer avant l’argent de quelques-uns. 

    2° Il faudrait mutualiser toutes les ASBL qui représentent plus de 90% des affiliés et les organiser en coopératives en y développant pourquoi pas une véritable politique de masse salariale au lieu de la comprimer , ASBL qui bien souvent pour fonctionner ont du personnel bénévole précarisé et instable et où les gens doivent faire don de leur argent et de leur travail. Ce sont des milliers d’heures non rétribuées, en gros ce sont des sous-traitants de l’État paupérisés et marginalisés.

     
3° Même si la mesure peut paraître radicale sur la forme, sur le fond elle est essentielle et empreinte de justice sociale, les multinationales ne peuvent pas avoir la clé de notre santé : réquisitionner toutes les structures de grandes marques « Low Cost » disséminées à travers le pays et les mettre à la disposition du citoyen comme service public pour soutenir les populations dans les quartiers en y incorporant une véritable masse salariale c’est-à-dire des salariés compétents et au service de tous. 

    Généraliser la question d’utilité publique au sport qui est un outil d’émancipation, d’hygiène et de progrès social, est la seule démarche logique saine et indispensable, le constat est très clair et largement partagé. Ce secteur, en dehors de la compétition, du tri, de la sélection et de la relégation, est un outil essentiel pour renforcer la colonne vertébrale sanitaire, pour sortir de périodes difficiles voir d’émulation générale. Si l’utopie est le début de la transformation, alors soyons utopiques et préparons notre avenir, l’intelligence collective viendra toujours d’en bas !

    Fils d’immigrés espagnols ayant fui le franquisme pour travailler dans les mines de Belgique, Carlos Perez est préparateur physique. Il a notamment animé un centre sportif dans un quartier populaire de Molenbeek. Il y a été confronté à des problèmes récurrents qui l’ont amené à questionner l’impact de notre modèle économique et de notre système scolaire sur la santé des jeunes et des travailleurs. Dans son dernier ouvrage qui vient de paraître chez Aden http://www.aden.be/index.php , Carlos Perez lance les bases d’une nouvelle pratique, l’écomotricité, pour un développement durable de l’être humain.

    #néolibéralisme #capitalisme #capitalisme_du_désastre #Stratégie_du_Choc #Angleterre #Belgique #France #USA #ACS #TISA #PPP #Sport #pandémie #covid-19 #coronavirus #santé_publique #low_cost

    • Près de 2 députés européens sur 3 ne déclarent pas de rencontres avec des lobbyistes
      https://www.rtbf.be/info/monde/detail_rencontres-lobbyistes-et-deputes-europeens-le-lent-chemin-vers-la-transp

      Plus de 35.000 lobbyistes gravitent autour des institutions européennes, à Bruxelles : du représentant de Google à celui des producteurs de patates, des activistes pour les droits humains à l’industrie navale, de Greenpeace à Total, ils tentent de peser sur les décisions politiques de l’Union.

      Un travail discret mais intensif : à Bruxelles, les lobbys ont un budget cumulé de 1,5 milliard d’euros par an.

      Restent-ils dans les clous, pour influencer la fabrication des lois ?

      Un code de conduite encadre les contacts de ces lobbys avec les politiques et les fonctionnaires européens. Des règles qui ont été renforcées l’an dernier dans les institutions européennes, à la Commission et au Parlement. Les institutions sont-elles pour autant devenues transparentes ?

      Un rapport de l’ONG « Transparency International » (un lobby… sur le travail de lobbying) au sujet du Parlement européen montre qu’il reste du chemin à faire.

      63% des députés européens ne déclarent pas leurs rencontres
      Depuis un an, les députés européens sont invités à inscrire dans un registre informatique les réunions qu’ils tiennent avec des lobbyistes.

      C’est obligatoire pour les parlementaires qui sont en première ligne sur un dossier : ceux qui sont Président ou Rapporteur d’une Commission parlementaire (des rôles clefs dans la fabrication d’une loi européenne), ou ceux qui mènent le travail législatif sur un dossier pour un groupe politique.

      Les autres eurodéputés ne sont pas obligés de publier leurs réunions avec les lobbys, mais ils sont invités à le faire.

      Selon le comptage de « Transparency International », en un an, 259 députés européens ont fait le pas, sur les 704 : c’est 37% de l’hémicycle.

      63% des députés européens n’ont donc publié aucune de leurs rencontres.

      De grands écarts entre Etats…
      « Transparency International » constate de grands écarts selon les Etats de ces députés européens.

      Aux extrêmes, 90% des députés de Suède ont pris le pli de communiquer leurs contacts avec des groupes d’intérêts. Tandis qu’aucun député croate ou chypriote n’a déclaré de rencontre, en un an.

      « Les pays du nord, la Suède, le Danemark, la Finlande sont assez transparents » commente Raphaël Kergueno, pour Transparency International, « mais d’un autre côté, il y a des pays à la traîne ». Et il épingle l’Italie, l’Etat qui envoie le plus d’Eurodéputés au Parlement européen après l’Allemagne et la France : 76 élus. « En Italie, moins de 7% des députés européens publient des rencontres avec des lobbyistes. »

      La Belgique, pour sa part, affiche un bilan mitigé. Ni cancre, ni exemplaire.

      52% des eurodéputés belges publient leurs rencontres : Pascal Arimont (Christlich Soziale Partei), Marc Botenga (PTB), Geert Bourgeois (N-VA), Saskia Bricmont (Ecolo), Petra de Sutter (Groen), Cindy Franssen (CD&V), Philippe Lamberts (Ecolo), Kris Peeters (CD&V), Frédérique Ries (MR), Johan Van Overtveldt (N-VA) et Marc Tarabella (PS).

      Et les autres ? Ceux que nous avons pu joindre se disent tous « favorables » à l’exercice, tout en n’ayant pas encore publié de réunion. Certains rappellent, au détour de justifications souvent administratives, que ce n’est pas obligatoire.

      Marie Arena (PS) a rejoint le mouvement dans la foulée de ce rapport. Elle évoque « un enregistrement en interne mais pas sur le site du Parlement, à cause de contraintes logistiques. Un souci à présent corrigé ».

      Olivier Chastel (MR) explique qu’il a fait le choix de ne pas recevoir de représentants des lobbys : « Etant actif dans les commissions budget et de contrôle budgétaire, mes rencontres se font principalement avec les différentes instances de l’Union comme la Commission européenne ou la Cour des comptes, et ces rencontres ne doivent pas être indiquées », explique-t-il.

      Benoît Lutgen (cdH) dit compter aujourd’hui très peu de réunions « avec des lobbys en tant que tels », rien qui ne justifierait d’être publiés. Il assure qu’il en fera état lorsque ce sera le cas.

      Son de cloche semblable chez Assita Kanko (N-VA). Elle invoque le lent démarrage de la législature et le confinement, des débuts de mandat qui ne l’ont pas exposée aux rencontres avec des lobbyistes. Mais si de telles rencontres se présentaient à présent, « je déclarerai bien entendu tout entretien comme prévu » assure-t-elle.

      La Belgique, bientôt plus exemplaire que la Suède ?

      … et entre groupes politiques
      Des différences importantes sont perceptibles aussi entre groupes politiques du Parlement européen.

      Deux familles politiques comptent une majorité de députés actifs sur le registre de transparence, le groupe des verts (Green-EFA avec 91% des députés qui ont publié au moins une réunion) et le groupe des libéraux-centristes Renew Europe (57%).

      Dans tous les autres groupes, une minorité d’élus ont fait la démarche.

      Pourquoi ces réticences ?
      Elles peuvent être liées à plusieurs facteurs : une hésitation à investir du temps dans une démarche administrative qui n’est, la plupart du temps, pas légalement obligatoire. Une culture de la transparence encore faible dans certains Etats.

      Des eurodéputés estiment que c’est une atteinte à leur liberté d’élu, à leur droit de consulter qui ils veulent sans devoir en faire état. Ils peuvent également trouver difficile d’assumer publiquement certaines rencontres avec certains lobbys.

      Mettre cartes sur table
      Daniel Freund est un ancien de transparency International, à présent passé de l’autre côté : il est devenu parlementaire européen. Son cheval de bataille reste la transparence du travail politique européen. Il plaide pour une publication la plus large possible des rencontres avec les lobbys.

      Des rencontres qui, souligne-t-il, sont nécessaires pour un élu.

      « Rencontrer des lobbys, ça fait naturellement partie de la démocratie. Quand je prends une décision sur une certaine loi, comme député européen, il faut que j’aie parlé aux personnes concernées. Aux citoyens, aux entreprises concernées, aux organismes de protections des consommateurs, etc. Et si je fais bien mon travail, j’entends tous les arguments et puis je prends une décision en étant bien informé. »

      Mais ce processus doit être transparent, insiste-t-il, pour percevoir qui pèse sur les décisions de qui. « Je trouve qu’en dehors des périodes électorales, les citoyens ont le droit de savoir comment je vote et avec qui je parle. Et cela m’aide aussi à travailler » dit Daniel Freund. Parce que lister ses entrevues permet d’avoir à l’esprit qui on voit et qui on a tendance à ne pas écouter.

      Un chantier entamé, pas terminé
      Ceux qui regardent le verre à moitié plein souligneront que 37% des eurodéputés, c’est un bon début, d’autant que l’on partait de rien et que cette publication des contacts avec les lobbys n’est pas obligatoire pour la plupart des députés européens.

      Ceux qui regardent le verre à moitié vide relèveront que 63% des eurodéputés ne se livrent pas à un exercice pourtant peu contraignant puisqu’il ne s’agit que de mentionner le lobby, le sujet de discussion et le moment.

      Et ils épingleront d’autres améliorations à apporter.

      Au Parlement européen, « Transparency International » déplore un manque de contrôle des déclarations de députés qui sont contraints à l’exercice. Et une légèreté des sanctions pour ceux – lobbys ou élus — qui franchiraient la ligne rouge : acceptation de cadeaux, rencontres non-déclarées alors qu’elles auraient dû l’être, lobby qui aborderait des élus sans clarté sur son identité, etc. Aujourd’hui un lobby au comportement douteux risque, dans les faits, un retrait temporaire de son badge d’accès aux institutions, rien de plus.

      L’ONG demande que progresse le projet d’une autorité indépendante pour faire respecter les règles sur les rapports lobbys/UE. Une autorité dont l’action serait étendue aux trois institutions : le Parlement mais aussi la Commission européenne et le Conseil.

      #ue #union_européenne #Bruxelles #Députés #Députés_européens #Transparency_International #eurodéputés #Suéde #Croatie #Chypre #Suède, #Danemark, #Finlande #Italie #Allemagne #commission_européenne #conseil_européen #transparence #lobbying #lobby #influence #lobbies #corruption #politique #multinationales

    • L’#Allemagne rétropédale sur la #réouverture des écoles

      L’Allemagne a décidé de reporter sa décision sur la réouverture des écoles, le #Danemark ayant constaté une recrudescence des infections deux semaines après avoir fait revenir les enfants.

      S’exprimant après une réunion avec les chefs des 16 régions allemandes jeudi, Mme Merkel a déclaré que le gouvernement avait besoin de plus de temps pour déterminer les effets du relâchement des mesures les plus restrictives sur la progression de la pandémie avant de s’engager dans un nouvel assouplissement de la fermeture. C’est pourquoi il a été décidé de reporter au 6 mai la décision sur la date de redémarrage complet des écoles, des garderies et des clubs sportifs, a-t-elle déclaré.

      « Chaque assouplissement des restrictions entraîne une augmentation du nombre de personnes se déplaçant en public, se rencontrant, et un remplissage des centres-villes et des transports publics », a déclaré Mme Merkel aux journalistes. « C’est pourquoi nous devons constamment surveiller la façon dont cela affecte les éventuelles nouvelles infections ».

      Dans le même temps une étude allemande a alimenté la confusion sur le rôle des enfants dans la pandémie, en tentant de démontrer que les enfants atteints du Covid 19 pourraient être aussi infectieux que les adultes. Les niveaux de virus dans les voies respiratoires - la principale voie de transmission de l’agent pathogène - ne semblent pas différer de manière significative selon les groupes d’âge, ont constaté Christian Drosten, directeur de l’Institut de virologie de l’hôpital Charite de Berlin, et ses collègues. Ils ont conseillé la prudence dans la réouverture des écoles et des jardins d’enfants.

      L’approche prudente sur la réouverture des écoles intervient alors que les pays européens débattent des risques d’un assouplissement des restrictions pour relancer leur économie après des semaines d’immobilisation destinées à réduire la propagation de Covid 19.

      Alors que la France prévoit de rouvrir les crèches et les écoles primaires lorsque le pays commencera à assouplir ses restrictions le 11 mai, l’Italie ne les rouvrira pas avant septembre car les scientifiques ne s’accordent pas sur le rôle des enfants dans la transmission de la maladie dans la communauté.

      https://www.atlantico.fr/pepite/3589263/l-allemagne-retropedale-sur-la-reouverture-des-ecoles

    • New Studies Add to Evidence that Children May Transmit the Coronavirus

      Experts said the new data suggest that cases could soar in many U.S. communities if schools reopen soon.

      Among the most important unanswered questions about Covid-19 is this: What role do children play in keeping the pandemic going?

      Fewer children seem to get infected by the coronavirus than adults, and most of those who do have mild symptoms, if any. But do they pass the virus on to adults and continue the chain of transmission?

      The answer is key to deciding whether and when to reopen schools, a step that President Trump urged states to consider before the summer.

      Two new studies offer compelling evidence that children can transmit the virus. Neither proved it, but the evidence was strong enough to suggest that schools should be kept closed for now, many epidemiologists who were not involved in the research said.

      Many other countries, including Israel, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have all either reopened schools or are considering doing so in the next few weeks.

      In some of those countries, the rate of community transmission is low enough to take the risk. But in others, including the United States, reopening schools may nudge the epidemic’s reproduction number — the number of new infections estimated to stem from a single case, commonly referred to as R0 — to dangerous levels, epidemiologists warned after reviewing the results from the new studies.

      In one study, published last week in the journal Science, a team analyzed data from two cities in China — Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, and Shanghai — and found that children were about a third as susceptible to coronavirus infection as adults were. But when schools were open, they found, children had about three times as many contacts as adults, and three times as many opportunities to become infected, essentially evening out their risk.

      Based on their data, the researchers estimated that closing schools is not enough on its own to stop an outbreak, but it can reduce the surge by about 40 to 60 percent and slow the epidemic’s course.

      “My simulation shows that yes, if you reopen the schools, you’ll see a big increase in the reproduction number, which is exactly what you don’t want,” said Marco Ajelli, a mathematical epidemiologist who did the work while at the Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento, Italy.

      The second study, by a group of German researchers, was more straightforward. The team tested children and adults and found that children who test positive harbor just as much virus as adults do — sometimes more — and so, presumably, are just as infectious.

      “Are any of these studies definitive? The answer is ‘No, of course not,’” said Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who was not involved in either study. But, he said, “to open schools because of some uninvestigated notion that children aren’t really involved in this, that would be a very foolish thing.”

      The German study was led by Christian Drosten, a virologist who has ascended to something like celebrity status in recent months for his candid and clear commentary on the pandemic. Dr. Drosten leads a large virology lab in Berlin that has tested about 60,000 people for the coronavirus. Consistent with other studies, he and his colleagues found many more infected adults than children.

      The team also analyzed a group of 47 infected children between ages 1 and 11. Fifteen of them had an underlying condition or were hospitalized, but the remaining were mostly free of symptoms. The children who were asymptomatic had viral loads that were just as high or higher than the symptomatic children or adults.

      “In this cloud of children, there are these few children that have a virus concentration that is sky-high,” Dr. Drosten said.

      He noted that there is a significant body of work suggesting that a person’s viral load tracks closely with their infectiousness. “So I’m a bit reluctant to happily recommend to politicians that we can now reopen day cares and schools.”

      Dr. Drosten said he posted his study on his lab’s website ahead of its peer review because of the ongoing discussion about schools in Germany.

      Many statisticians contacted him via Twitter suggesting one or another more sophisticated analysis. His team applied the suggestions, Dr. Drosten said, and even invited one of the statisticians to collaborate.

      “But the message of the paper is really unchanged by any type of more sophisticated statistical analysis,” he said. For the United States to even consider reopening schools, he said, “I think it’s way too early.”

      In the China study, the researchers created a contact matrix of 636 people in Wuhan and 557 people in Shanghai. They called each of these people and asked them to recall everyone they’d had contact with the day before the call.

      They defined a contact as either an in-person conversation involving three or more words or physical touch such as a handshake, and asked for the age of each contact as well as the relationship to the survey participant.

      Comparing the lockdown with a baseline survey from Shanghai in 2018, they found that the number of contacts during the lockdown decreased by about a factor of seven in Wuhan and eight in Shanghai.

      “There was a huge decrease in the number of contacts,” Dr. Ajelli said. “In both of those places, that explains why the epidemic came under control.”

      The researchers also had access to a rich data set from Hunan province’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials in the province traced 7,000 contacts of 137 confirmed cases, observed them over 14 days and tested them for coronavirus infection. They had information not just for people who became ill, but for those who became infected and remained asymptomatic, and for anyone who remained virus-free.

      Data from hospitals or from households tend to focus only on people who are symptomatic or severely ill, Dr. Ajelli noted. “This kind of data is better.”

      The researchers stratified the data from these contacts by age and found that children between the ages of 0 and 14 years are about a third less susceptible to coronavirus infection than those ages 15 to 64, and adults 65 or older are more susceptible by about 50 percent.

      They also estimated that closing schools can lower the reproduction number — again, the estimate of the number of infections tied to a single case — by about 0.3; an epidemic starts to grow exponentially once this metric tops 1.

      In many parts of the United States, the number is already hovering around 0.8, Dr. Ajelli said. “If you’re so close to the threshold, an addition of 0.3 can be devastating.”

      However, some other experts noted that keeping schools closed indefinitely is not just impractical, but may do lasting harm to children.

      Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the decision to reopen schools cannot be made based solely on trying to prevent transmission.

      “I think we have to take a holistic view of the impact of school closures on kids and our families,” Dr. Nuzzo said. “I do worry at some point, the accumulated harms from the measures may exceed the harm to the kids from the virus.”

      E-learning approaches may temporarily provide children with a routine, “but any parent will tell you it’s not really learning,” she said. Children are known to backslide during the summer months, and adding several more months to that might permanently hurt them, and particularly those who are already struggling.

      Children also need the social aspects of school, and for some children, home may not even be a safe place, she said.

      “I’m not saying we need to absolutely rip off the Band-aid and reopen schools tomorrow,” she said, “but we have to consider these other endpoints.”

      Dr. Nuzzo also pointed to a study in the Netherlands, conducted by the Dutch government, which concluded that “patients under 20 years play a much smaller role in the spread than adults and the elderly.”

      But other experts said that study was not well designed because it looked at household transmission. Unless the scientists deliberately tested everyone, they would have noticed and tested only more severe infections — which tend to be among adults, said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

      “Assumptions that children are not involved in the epidemiology, because they do not have severe illness, are exactly the kind of assumption that you really, really need to question in the face of a pandemic,” Dr. Hanage said. “Because if it’s wrong, it has really pretty disastrous consequences.”

      A new study by the National Institutes of Health may help provide more information to guide decisions in the United States. The project, called Heros, will follow 6,000 people from 2,000 families and collect information on which children get infected with the virus and whether they pass it on to other family members.

      The experts all agreed on one thing: that governments should hold active discussions on what reopening schools looks like. Students could be scheduled to come to school on different days to reduce the number of people in the building at one time, for example; desks could be placed six feet apart; and schools could avoid having students gather in large groups.

      Teachers with underlying health conditions or of advanced age should be allowed to opt out and given alternative jobs outside the classroom, if possible, Dr. Nuzzo said, and children with underlying conditions should continue to learn from home.

      The leaders of the two new studies, Dr. Drosten and Dr. Ajelli, were both more circumspect, saying their role is merely to provide the data that governments can use to make policies.

      “I’m somehow the bringer of the bad news but I can’t change the news,” Dr. Drosten said. “It’s in the data.”

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/health/coronavirus-children-transmission-school.html

      #USA #Etats-Unis

  • Schools reopening and coronavirus : Insights from a Danish primary school | Tes
    https://www.tes.com/news/what-it-denmarks-reopened-schools

    Denmark is not opening the schools just to continue educating the pupils, but also to give parents more space to work and contribute to society.

    Some parents were unhappy with this approach: they felt that the children were being used as “frontline guinea pigs” and were very concerned about having to send them into school.

    [...]Parents are not allowed in school, so can only email teachers with any questions they may have.

    Certains des changements intéressants :

    Each class is divided into two classrooms, and some are even using outside areas.

    Support and subject teachers are helping class teachers to cover the two rooms, and most of our part-time staff are now working full-time.

    All children need to be self-sufficient for the whole day bringing their packed lunch, drink and pencil case as they can’t borrow anything from anyone else.

    #continuitepedagogique #danemark #coronavirus
    => choqe qui parait impensable dans d’autres pays

  • Les Cafés Géo » Le Groenland dans la politique #arctique du Danemark
    http://cafe-geo.net/le-groenland-dans-la-politique-arctique-du-danemark

    Un "café géographique" particulièrement intéressant sur le Groenland.

    En août 2019, une nouvelle a fait la une des médias à l’échelle internationale : par un tweet, le président des Etats-Unis, Donald Trump, souhaitait négocier l’achat du Groenland au Danemark. Cette demande incongrue a donné lieu à un florilège de caricatures.

    Mette Frederiksen, Première Ministre du #Danemark a répondu vivement au Président des #Etats-Unis « Le Groenland n’appartient pas au Danemark. Le Groenland appartient aux Groenlandais ».

    L’intérêt du président des Etats-Unis pour un territoire arctique, le #Groenland, a mis en évidence l’importance géopolitique de l’Arctique à l’échelle mondiale. La réponse de Mette Frederiksen est révélatrice des relations entre le Danemark et le Groenland en rappelant la situation particulière du Groenland : si le Groenland dépend de la Couronne du Danemark, il jouit d’une autonomie renforcée.

    Benoît Raoulx se propose d’organiser son propos en trois parties : dans un premier temps, souligner les nouveaux enjeux de l’Arctique à l’échelle mondiale ; dans un deuxième temps, rappeler les relations dans le temps long entre le Groenland et le Danemark pour comprendre la place du Danemark en Arctique et dans un troisième temps, rendre compte des évolutions en particulier de la société groenlandaise par une étude à l’échelle locale de la région de Thulé.

  • Kurdish-Danish doctor works tirelessly to fight the coronavirus - Kurdistan 24
    Naila Bozo, a 28-year-old medical doctor working on the frontlines of Denmark’s coronavirus health crisis says that fear of contracting the highly-contagious disease does not affect her determination to continue her work, despite a higher proportion of women working in the health sector falling ill than their male counterparts.

    #Covid19#Danemark#Diaspora#Kurdes#migration#soignant#santé#migrant

    https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/d184d9a6-05df-4396-b43e-0a8654a989e0

  • Denmark Extends Business Aid to Increase Spending By $15 Billion
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-18/denmark-extends-business-aid-to-increase-spending-by-15-billion

    The government also said that companies which pay out dividends, buy back own shares or are registered in tax havens won’t be eligible for any of the aid programs, which now amount to a total of 400 billion kroner, when including loans and guarantees.

    #Danemark #parasites

  • Grèce : projet de centres de détention sur îles désertes ; refoulements en Mer Egée

    D’après plusieurs publications, dont l’Une du quotidien grec pro-gouvernemental ‘Dimokratia’ (https://www.dimokratianews.gr/content/104037/tesseris-nisides-sto-trapezi-gia-ti-filoxenia-metanaston), le gouvernement Mitsotakis examine toutes les possibilités pour la création de centres fermés de détention pour migrants sur des îles désertes ou très peu habitées. Le projet qui remonte à 2019, se fonde sur une étude des terrains commandée par le gouvernement qui visait à identifier les îlots qui pourraient servir de site possible pour de tels centres Les quatre petites îles susceptibles de les accueillir figurent sur la photo ci-dessous :

    Il s’agit de

    L’île #Lévitha entre Amorgos et Kinaros

    L’île #Barbalias qui fait partie d’un groupe de petites îles Aspronissia, dites Tokmakia, 5 miles nautiques au nord de Lesbos. Pour cette ‘solution,’ plaiderait le fait que sur cette île, il y a deux puits d’eau potable.

    L’île #Saria à la partie nord de laquelle se trouve une commune de 45 habitants. Cette petite île est située au nord de Karpathos.

    L’île #Kinaros, petite île du Dodécanèse, à l’ouest de Kalymnos et à l’est d’Amorgos.

    D’après le média local de Lesbos sto nissi (https://www.stonisi.gr/post/7462/epistrefei-ek-neoy-to-senario-domhs-sta-tokmakia), l’entreprise qui a été appelée par le gouvernement de déposer une offre pour un camp sur l’île Barbalias, près de Lesbos, s’est activée sur le terrain.
    Mais la condition que pose le gouvernement pour qu’un tel projet avance, est que la proposition vienne des autorités locales. Pour l’instant les autorités régionales et le président de la région de l’Egée Nord s’y opposent, mais que se passerait-t-il si ils sont appelés à choisir entre cette ‘solution’ et la création de centres fermés sur leurs îles ?

    Reçu par email de Vicky Skoumbi, le 09.03.2020.

    • Donc l’intolérance au lactose n’est pas seulement une mode destinée à montrer sa singularité ?

      Intéressant... Je n’avais aucune idée que ça pourrait varier si vite.

      "This combination of physical traits has been previously noted in other European hunter-gatherers, suggesting that this phenotype was widespread in Mesolithic Europe and that the adaptive spread of light skin pigmentation in European populations only occurred later in prehistory,” wrote Schroeder and his colleagues.

    • This single discarded piece of ancient chewing gum tells us that the ancient woman, who Schroeder and his colleagues have nicknamed Lola, was probably lactose intolerant, ate duck and hazelnuts, and may recently have had pneumonia. She also had blue eyes, dark brown hair, and dark skin

      #chewing_gum

      Article original :

      A 5700 year-old human genome and oral microbiome from chewed birch pitch
      Theis Z. T. Jensen, Jonas Niemann, Katrine Højholt Iversen, Anna K. Fotakis, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Åshild J. Vågene, Mikkel Winther Pedersen, Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, Martin R. Ellegaard, Morten E. Allentoft, Liam T. Lanigan, Alberto J. Taurozzi, Sofie Holtsmark Nielsen, Michael W. Dee, Martin N. Mortensen, Mads C. Christensen, Søren A. Sørensen, Matthew J. Collins, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Martin Sikora, Simon Rasmussen & Hannes Schroeder
      Nature Communications 10:5520 (2019)
      https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13549-9

      A rajouter à la compilation #archéologie :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/633249

      #histoire #préhistoire #anthropologie #civilisation #évolution #nourriture #genome #microbiome

  • Denmark: Council of Europe Shocked over Conditions in Danish Detention Centres and Threatens Legal Action

    A report from Council of Europe’s Anti-Torture Committee (CPT) raises severe critique of conditions in the Danish detention centres for asylum seekers in #Ellebæk and #Nykøbing_Falster (https://rm.coe.int/1680996859). Denmark has three months to comply with CPT recommendations or will face possible legal actions through the European Court of Human Rights.

    Hans Wolff, who led the CPT delegation to Denmark in April expresses shock over detention conditions in the country that are among the worst in Europe. Wolff stated that: “Either Denmark must make some very fast and serious changes on all the areas we have mentioned in the report. Or they must close down Ellebæk and move the detainees to a place with better facilities”.

    The main points of critique from CPT includes “unacceptable” prison like regimes of rules, a “carceral and oppressive” material environment and “clearly inappropriate” material conditions with rooms and sanitary facilities in a “deplorable state of repair”. Further, lack of staff, inadequate legal advice and translation, overcrowding, limited health services and lack of comprehensive medical screenings including of mental or physical diseases was criticised by CPT. Also, the CPT raised critique of the use of disciplinary solitary confinement for extended periods of time and remarked alleged verbal abuse by centre personal and the risk of suicides due to the lack of suicide-proof clothing with detainees “sometimes placed entirely naked in an observation room”, a practice that according to CPT “could be considered to amount to degrading treatment”.

    The centre-left parties of the Danish Parliament, the Liberals (Radikale Venstre), the Red-Green coalition (Enhedslisten), and the Socialist People’s Party (SF) urges the Social Democratic government to follow up (https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-daily-digest-07-01-2019-council-of-europe-says-danish-ellebaek-unsuitabl) on the critique from CPT. Kristian Hegaard representing the Liberal Party underlines (https://nyheder.tv2.dk/politik/2020-01-07-nick-haekkerup-afviser-kritik-ellebaek-skal-ikke-vaere-et-rar that these people have not committed any crimes and should not be treated as monsters.

    According to the CPT the centres in Ellebæk and Nykøbing Falster holds mainly rejected asylum seekers awaiting deportation and were “at the time of the visit, as the only administrative migration detention centres in Denmark the only administrative migration detention centres in Denmark”. Administrative detention can last up to 18 months under special circumstances.

    https://mailchi.mp/ecre/ecre-weekly-bulletin-16012020?e=989a4aebdd#Denmark:%20Council%20of%20Europe%
    #Danemark #asile #migrations #réfugiés #détention #régime_carcéral #traitements_dégradants #déboutés #rétention #détention_administrative

  • Denmark starts border checks at crossings to Sweden

    Danish police on Tuesday began performing border checks at the country’s crossings with Sweden, moves that followed a series of shootings and explosions around Copenhagen that Danish authorities say were carried out by people crossing the waterway between the Scandinavian neighbors.

    The checks were conducted on trains and vehicles crossing the Oresund Bridge over the narrow waterway that separates Copenhagen, Denmark’s largest city, and Malmo, Sweden’s third-largest city. Checks were also carried out at ferry ports.

    Police spokesman Jens Jespersen told The Associated Press that officers at the Oresund Bridge vehicle checkpoint had “a particular focus on cross-border crime involving explosives, weapons and drugs.” He also said authorities were stopping cars to have “a peak at who is inside.”

    “It gives us a pretty good picture of who is coming over,” he said.

    For years, Danes and Swedes have been able to cross without needing a passport. Now a passport is needed for Swedes entering Denmark — at least for the next six months.

    That requirement and the checkpoints come after violence that includes 13 explosions in Copenhagen since February, as well as a shooting in June that killed two Swedish citizens.

    The spiraling violence is believed to be gang related, stemming from disputes over drugs, money, protection and retaliation. An estimated 200 people in Malmo belong to about a dozen gangs.

    On Saturday, a shooting in Malmo killed a 15-year-old boy and critically wounded another. Police said the teenagers who were shot were well-known to authorities in Malmo and officials vowed to crack down even further on organized crime. No one has been arrested.

    Lilian Gustavsson, a 67-year-old Swedish woman who was about to embark on the train to Malmo from Copenhagen’s international airport, said she understood why the Danes were carrying out the checks.

    “I believe this will mean a little travel delay for everyone,” she said. “I fear we might get stuck, but better that than having criminals crossing.”

    As part of Monday’s checks, all vehicles coming from Sweden on the Orseund Bridge were led to a rest area on the Danish side. They then went through a large white tent where officers checked the driver, passengers and the car. Police scanned vehicle license plates, Jespersen said, “so if a (vehicle) is known in the system, we can pull it aside.”

    During the roughly four-hour check Monday, no one was pulled aside, he said. He declined to give details as to when police would carry out further checks but said “a good guess would be two or three times a week.”

    https://apnews.com/45659f17ec2e44eb8160ec4efeb10c21
    #fermeture_des_frontières #contrôles_frontaliers #Schengen (fin de -) #frontières #Danemark #Suède #migrations #asile #réfugiés

    ping @reka

  • The massive Danish discrimination

    Most Danes do not realize how extensive the negative discrimination of foreigners in Denmark has become. Here is a short overview.

    Denmark has just become a member of UN Council of Human Rights. As a Dane, I should be proud of this, and it could be a nice opportunity to be a good example for other countries. Our society is known as a place where equality and respect for individual freedom is highly acknowledged, and where a stable democracy and a trusted legal system does not accept unfair treatment and discrimination.

    This is unfortunately not the reality. An increasing amount of complaints against Denmark is taken to the UN Human Rights Committees, and many end up voting against the Danish state. Also, the European Court on Human Rights in Strasbourg has several times found Danish laws to be in breach of the articles, lately the special 26-year rule in family reunification cases. The reaction form the Danish government and the Social Democrats is: then we must re-write the conventions or diminish the power of the court. In the preparation files for some of the new laws it has been directly mentioned that we are aware of a certain risk of violating human rights. We insist on the right to discriminate – especially against foreigners living in Denmark.

    The World Declaration on Human Rights has its 70 years anniversary this year, and the first two articles go like this – you judge, if they are out of tune with our time and should be revised:

    Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

    Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

    The UN Convention on Refugees says that refugees should have same rights and same opportunities as the country’s own citizens.

    The European Convention on Human Rights says that it’s illegal to discriminate because of gender, ethnicity, religion, age etc.

    The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says that children must be protected against discrimination.

    The UN Convention on Women’s Rights says that women must not be discriminated.
    Discriminating legislation against refugees/immigrants

    Changes and tightenings of the Danish Alien Act have been done since 2001, with small and large steps. Some have been discussed vigorously, others have passed unnoticed. The result is a patchwork of rules which when interacting with each other make everyday life basically different for Aisha than for Anja.

    In my everyday work as a legal counsellor for refugees, I am often contacted by Danes who are not aware of how these tight rules work in practice – and they usually get quite shocked when they stumble upon them. Based on this, I question whether there really is a broad, public support to the present policy on foreigners? Yes, there is a broad support to demands on learning Danish language and becoming self-supporting – also from refugees and immigrants themselves. But not everyone is able to do that, no matter how hard they try. And I don’t believe that the majority supports direct discrimination and unfair treatment.

    The list below is not a picture of a ‘fair but tight policy’, it is a division of people into ‘them and us’, where we are met by a different set of rules and opportunities depending on whether we are natives or not. A few rules will also affect a small number of ‘us’, but that’s clearly unwanted collateral damage. There are Danes receiving the low integration benefits, yes – but they only make up 2%.

    Family reunification: Two Danes can marry and move together as they like – and their children can of course stay with them. But this is not the situation for all the people who happen to have foreign background or fall in love with one who has – in that case, a long line of requirements must be met, concerning economy (bank guarantee of 100,000 DKR), education and language skills at a certain level for both, own place of residence above a certain size, permanent job, and you must undertake the economic support of your foreign spouse. For some refugees, there is even a 3 years quarantine period before you can apply to be reunited with your spouse and children. Many children are rejected on questionable arguments of being ‘not possible to integrate’, or on the grounds that the child can stay with a grandparent, aunt or others. As family reunified you are totally dependent on your partner – you can’t move or get a divorce without the consequence of leaving the country.

    Education: Refugees and family reunified normally have the right to free education and government study grant (SU). But one third of the refugees who have been granted asylum in Denmark after 2015 (around 4,000) must pay for their education. They have the special article 7(3) status which is used mainly for women – and in this way presents a double discrimination in practice.

    Unemployment insurance: A new law has just been passed. It holds a new demand for 7 years stay in Denmark to be eligible for unemployment insurance benefit, including new graduates – even if you fulfil the criteria and paid to the insurance for years. And the alternative to this is not ‘kontanthjælp’, the normal social benefit, but the much lower integration benefit.

    Integration benefit: An unemployed person who has not been living in Denmark for 9 out of the last 10 years will only receive half of the normal social benefit. The law even has certain exceptions for Danes who have been living abroad. New tightenings are cutting down the amount for parents after 3 years. The Danish Institute of Human Rights has recently published a report, documenting that a large part of the families living on this benefit lacks money for food, medicine and other basic needs. This is in contradiction to the Danish Constitution as well as illegal discrimination.

    Children’s benefit: Newly arrived refugees and immigrants do not have the right to full children’s benefit but will earn the right gradually over 6 years – though their children cost exactly the same as Danish children. Combined with the integration benefit, this leads to many more foreign children than Danish children grow up in severe poverty, percentage wise. At the same time, there are only two rates: provider or non-provider, so families with many children have much less per child.

    Old-age pension: The right to old-age pension from the state is only acquired after 40 years stay in Denmark – which refugees and immigrants can’t live up to if they arrive as adults. As a consequence, they are facing a retirement in poverty, though they might have worked many years and paid their taxes in Denmark. Refugees used to be exempt from this demand, but this has been changed some years ago.

    Self-payment for translation in the health sector: After 3 years in the country, foreigners must pay for a translator, if their Danish is not sufficiently good – which only few are after this period. Many elderly refugees/immigrants will never be good enough to have an advanced dialogue with a doctor. In relation to an operation, the expense for translation is typically around 1,400 DKR. According to the Danish Medical Association this poses a risk for wrong treatment of everybody who are not fluent in Danish and do not have the money to pay for translation. The law is new but has already led to several cancelled operations. Ethnic minorities do not have equal access to health as a result of this law.

    Women exposed to violence: Foreign women who are beaten up by their husbands, risk losing their residence permit if they get divorced or move out, and ethnic minorities are even overrepresented at crisis centres. So here we see a double discrimination, ethnic and gender-wise.

    Permanent residence and citizenship: As a native Dane you never have to worry about being thrown out of your own country, and it’s easy to get a passport so you can go on vacation or school trips. But a large number of children and young ones who have grown up in Denmark (maybe even born here) only have temporary permits to stay and foreigner’s passport. This means that they often have trouble travelling abroad, and they may lose their residence permit one day. Adults without Danish citizenship risk expulsion even for minor offences, and a refugee status can be revoked even after many years.

    Democracy: Without Danish citizenship (one of the hardest to get in the world) you can’t vote at national elections and you can’t hold a job as e.g. police officer or civil servant. The requirements to get permanent residence and citizenship are very difficult to meet, and a rising part of the population therefore has no security and no democratic influence, though they have lived here a large part of their lives. Today only one out of four immigrants/refugees have Danish citizenship, and on average it has taken 16 years to achieve it.

    Crime: Even minor offences as speeding tickets, possession of marihuana or shop lifting leads to many years of quarantine from permanent residence and citizenship, on top of the actual sentence. The new, double sentence system for appointed ‘ghetto areas’ mainly affect ethnic minorities, as one of the criteria to get on that list is a large percentage of ethnic minorities. More serious offences lead to eternal exclusion from permanent residence permit or citizenship, and even a sentence for being part of a bar fight can lead to expulsion from the country or many years in a deportation camp. For a Dane, it has no consequences apart from the actual sentence to commit a crime – except for the fact that it might be hard to find a job afterwards, which also is true for a foreigner. A Danish member of an MC gang comes out of prison one day, but a member of an ethnic street gang is thrown out of Denmark, even if he was born here. A man who was a gang member in his young days and now works in a social project, trying to get others out of it, is excluded from Danish citizenship.

    The ‘ghetto deal’: One of the criteria for a residential area to get on the so-called ghetto list is the number of persons from non-western countries. The new deal gives double sentence for crimes committed in the area, residents are excluded from family reunification, and the bi-lingual children lose their children’s benefit if they are not enrolled in nursery from the age of 1 year. These rules are especially targeting ethnic minorities.

    Religion: Christianity (protestant) is state religion in Denmark. Church tax is charged from the state, all new-born children had to be registered in the local church office until 2010, public schools teach Christianity instead of religion, the parliament has its own church where all members attend service when it opens once a year, only Christian holidays are official days off work/school, there is only a state approved education for Christian priests, the ministry dealing with this is called Church Ministry. In the new media agreement for Danish state radio and television, the word ‘integration’ has been replaced with ‘Christianity’. All these things give an advantage to Christian protestants, and a more difficult situation for other religions. Sweden is for instance a secular country, where the church is not favoured.
    Social discrimination

    All the areas that I have mentioned are directly managed by the law makers and the administration. In this way, it is a formal and more or less deliberate kind of discrimination. It limits access to family life, health, education, income, democratic influence, and it means tougher consequences of crimes and less freedom.

    But on top of this almost all refugees and immigrants are also met by the discrimination which all of us expose others to in our daily life. Many research results have shown that you will be last in line for both jobs, apprenticeship, apartment and discos if your name does not sound native Danish or you don’t look like your ancestors were Vikings.

    A few examples: My friend Isam from Sudan was together with one other dark-skinned class mate the only two who were not able to find apprenticeship during their vocational training education. My friend John from Uganda has been called a monkey by a colleague in a large metal workshop during an argument on where the crane should go. I have personally been rejected in the door to a Copenhagen night club in the company of 5 Eritrean friends. Telemarketing companies advise their salesmen with ethnic minority background to use a Danish sounding name instead of their own when calling customers. Most refugees and immigrants hold jobs far below their level of education, because they have trouble finding jobs within their field.

    As a refugee/migrant you are constantly met by negative references in the media and prejudiced attitudes from many Danes, not least politicians. Parts of it is not meant to be harmful, but the experience as a total becomes very tough. Several of my refugee friends have stopped watching the news because they can’t stand the negative image of themselves.

    Everybody now agrees that ‘integration has failed’. The proof to support this idea is the fact that our new citizens are less educated, less employed, have lower living standard, lower income, poorer health, the young men are more criminal. Roughly speaking and on a short sight this is correct. But the only solution politicians can come up with is “demanding things” from refugees and migrants. Somebody forgot that integration goes both ways.

    The combination of structural and social discrimination is an important part of the explanation for why so many of our new citizens are still in many ways on the lowest shelve in society. When looking at all the areas where foreigners have poorer opportunities than Danes, it should not come as a surprise that they perform a little bit lower in general? We should also add to the picture that many refugees carry traumatic experiences and a deep sorrow with them, and they were forced to leave their home country – something a Dane can’t possibly imagine. And as a newcomer, logically you are disadvantaged when it comes to language, culture, network etc. On that background it is quite impressive that young women from ethnic minorities have surpassed Danish women when it comes to education, and that more than half of new refugees are fulltime employed after 3 years. But the government does no longer wish to integrate refugees, now it’s all about sending them back “home” as soon as possible.

    Many of the refugees I know, say to me: ‘We are grateful to be here, and we want to work hard, but we feel like we never get a fair chance. No matter what we do, it’s never good enough – and we will always be treated worse than Danes.’

    Are they right?

    http://refugees.dk/en/focus/2019/february/the-massive-danish-discrimination
    #discriminations #Danemark #asile #migrations #réfugiés #regroupement_familial #éducation #chômage #assurance_chômage #retraite #ghetto_deal #religion #étrangers

  • A massive money-laundering scandal stains the image of Nordic banks - Northern blights
    https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/10/17/a-massive-money-laundering-scandal-stains-the-image-of-nordic-banks

    The money-laundering crisis is the most damaging yet for Danske, and for other Nordic banks allegedly involved. Last year the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a group of investigative journalists, gave Danske its “Corrupt Actor of the Year” award.

    #blanchiment #banques #Danemark #pays_nordiques #air_du_temps

  • Denmark Boosts Defense Ties With Greenland Amid Trump Row

    Denmark and Greenland have agreed to strengthen their cooperation on security and defense, with officials citing the growing strategic role of the Arctic region as thawing ice opens up new trade routes and improves access to the island’s natural resources.

    “The presence of #Defense_Command_Denmark in the Arctic and north Atlantic will be even more important in the years to come as the geopolitical importance of the Arctic increases,” the Danish Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

    The statement follows a visit to Greenland by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and comes in the wake of a diplomatic tussle between the U.S. and Denmark over President Donald Trump’s failed bid to buy the world’s largest island.

    The agreement announced on Friday in Copenhagen envisages plans for joint military exercises and training sessions for the emergency services. Denmark sent 38 firefighters to Greenland last week to help put out a fire near Sisimiut, in the western part of the island, that started in early July.

    Denmark’s defense minister, Trine Bramsen, said the Social Democrat-led government was also considering sending more warships.

    “The threats and developments resulting from climate change requires our presence,” Bramsen was quoted as saying by Danish broadcaster DR.

    Greenland is rich in oil and rare Earth minerals and is home to a U.S. military base. Russia and China are also seeking a larger presence in the Arctic region.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-23/denmark-boosts-defense-ties-with-greenland-amid-trump-row
    #arctique #Groenland #Danemark #coopération #extractivisme #pétrole
    ping @reka @simplicissimus

  • Increasing child poverty in the Danish welfare state

    Denmark is internationally known for its highly developed welfare state and for having low levels of inequality and poverty. However, since the millennium, both inequality and poverty have increased, and within the last couple of years, child poverty has increased dramatically – from 42,500 poor children in 2016 to 64,500 in 2017. This has created a growing divide between the vast majority of the Danish population and those on the margins, mainly lone mothers, and refugee and immigrant families.

    One of the main reasons for this is that during the last two decades, social assistance benefits have been reduced for certain groups. These changes have specifically affected (and were intended to affect) newly arrived refugees and immigrants, as well as other vulnerable groups, such as minority ethnic Danes. Justifying these cutbacks, the Liberal-Conservative government, elected in 2001, argued that this would increase their incentive to find work. The explicit intention of the new policy was therefore to send a signal to refugees and immigrants that they could not expect to be treated equally by the Danish welfare system before they had earned this right by working in the mainstream labour market.

    Employment or poverty?
    An important question in evaluating the effects of the reduced social assistance benefits for immigrants and refugees – known as Start Aid – is what the intention behind this change of policy was and if it did indeed ‘motivate’ recipients to seek out and take up employment. If rates of unemployment did not get reduced, then, alongside a reduction in the monetary value of the benefits – rates of poverty would necessarily increase. In the short-term, a few years after the policy change (which began in 2002), there appeared to be a small increase in employment rates among these groups. However, employment rates have been monitored for a longer time period now and the results suggest that employment outcomes after 9-10 years of the policy change are very close to zero (Andersen et al., 2019). Another study has shown that there are several explanations for the lack of long-term employment effects – for example a low level of education and poor mastery of the Danish language makes sustaining employment more difficult too. However, the single most important factor has been found to be claimants’ poor health (Müller et al., 2015).

    Child poverty
    As employment has not risen among recipients of the reduced social assistance benefits such as Start Aid, but the monetary value of the benefit has remained low – poverty among arguably the most vulnerable members of Danish society has risen. In Denmark, a commonly used poverty line defines poverty as those living on an income below 50% of the median income (the middle of the income distribution). In measuring whether someone lives in poverty – adjustments are made to this poverty line for those living in households with two or more persons, including children.

    In 2002, about 27, 000 children (aged less than 18 years) were living in poverty. In 2011, the figure increased to more than 40,000. In the period from 2012 to 2015 where the lower levels of benefits were temporally abolished by a new government, the figure decreased slightly to about 35,000. Since the reintroduction of the lower levels of benefits in 2015, the figure has increased to 64,500 in 2017. This figure represents 5.5 % of all children in Denmark. Comparative figures from Eurostat for the proportion of children living in poverty in the United Kingdom and Denmark are 11.1 % and 5.4 % in 2017 respectively. This figure is an indictment for Denmark, giving its commitment to, and reputation for a strong, inclusive welfare state model, which is justified through its relatively high taxation rate.

    Short and long-term consequences of child poverty
    In the short term, the reduced social assistance benefits lead to different types of deprivations. Children, whose parents receive reduced social assistance benefits, were, for example, about 20-30 times less likely than children of employed parents to get new clothes and shoes, and be able to participate in leisure time activities, school trips, or enjoy celebrations of their birthday.

    Research has examined how children living in poverty cope with this. Often they have to work hard to hit the fact. Take Alexander as an example. When his classmates sometimes buy pizza for lunch, he most often tells them that his is not hungry or does not fancy pizza right now. Instead, he often chooses not to have lunch or he goes home to make a sandwich. He thinks it is embarrassing to talk with his friends about not having enough money to do the same things as they do. He says:

    “I don´t think it is cool to talk about. When other people can see that you are poor, then they can tease you about it. But I actually think I am good at hiding it” (quoted in Larsen & Müller, 2015).

    Start Aid (re-named the Integration benefit) was so low that some families lived in absolute poverty – that is, below the subsistence level. Families and single mothers, on benefits, with two or more children are those most likely to have a disposable income below the calculated budgetary minimum poverty line. One of the unintended effects of the Start Aid has been a sharp rise in crime especially among women who were found shoplifting in supermarkets (Andersen et al., 2019).

    Long-term experiences of poverty in childhood affects children’s health and behavior both in the short and long run. Furthermore, studies confirm that growing up in poverty in Denmark leads to lower educational level, a weaker attachment to the labour market, a lower wage, and at the age of 30, one is less likely to have a partner and children (Lesner, 2017).

    Conclusion
    While compared to many other countries, Denmark has relatively low levels of inequality and poverty, this has been changing over the last twenty years. In particular, the recent and dramatic growth in child poverty is likely to have grave consequences longer term – impacting possibilities for social mobility and the promotion of well-being. Given that politicians from all parties continue to, at least in public, support the Danish welfare model – reduced social assistance benefits must be understood as being driven by immigration policy rather than social and labour market policies. Here – a ‘hard line’ on immigration actually has a longer history of broad public support, where the aim is to encourage or even force refugees and asylum seekers to return to their country of origin as quickly as possible.

    In fact, in 2018, the social assistance benefit for refugees and immigrants was actually renamed the Self-Sufficiency and Repatriation benefit, and the monetary value of this allocation reduced even further. Such a split between social welfare policy and immigration policy all point to a country that is keen to ensure Danish national citizens (the majority of whom are ethnically white and of Nordic origin) are able to grow up in a fairly equal society, while simultaneously limiting the opportunity for Denmark to becoming more multi-cultural and -ethnic, where all members of society are adequately protected by a welfare state.

    References
    Andersen, L.H., Dustmann, C., and Landersø, R. (2019): Lowering welfare benefits: Intended and unintended consequences for migrants and their families. Copenhagen: The Rockwool Foundation Research Unit.
    Larsen, J.E. and Müller, M. (2015): Børnefattigdom (Child Poverty). In Erlandsen, T. m.fl.: Udsatte børn og unge. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag.
    Lesner, R.V. (2017): The long-term effect of childhood poverty. Journal of Population Economics.
    Müller, M., Hussain, M.A., Larsen, J.E., Hansen, H., Hansen, F.K, and Ejrnæs, M. (2015): Fattigdom, afsavn og coping (Poverty, deprivation and coping). København: Hans Reitzels Forlag.


    https://discoversociety.org/2019/06/05/increasing-child-poverty-in-the-danish-welfare-state

    #pauvreté #enfants #enfance #enfants_pauvres #statistiques #chiffres #Danemark

  • Hundreds of Europeans ‘criminalised’ for helping migrants – as far right aims to win big in European elections

    Elderly women, priests and firefighters among those arrested, charged or ‘harassed’ by police for supporting migrants, with numbers soaring in the past 18 months.

    These cases – compiled from news reports and other records from researchers, NGOs and activist groups, as well as new interviews across Europe – suggest a sharp increase in the number of people targeted since the start of 2018. At least 100 people were arrested, charged or investigated last year (a doubling of that figure for the preceding year).


    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/hundreds-of-europeans-criminalised-for-helping-migrants-new-data-show
    #délit_de_solidarité #solidarité #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Europe
    #Allemagne #criminalisation #statistiques #chiffres #Suisse #Danemark #Espagne #France #journalisme #journalistes #presse #Grèce #Calais

    #Norbert_Valley #Christian_Hartung #Miguel_Roldan #Lise_Ramslog #Claire_Marsol #Anouk_Van_Gestel #Lisbeth_Zornig_Andersen #Daphne_Vloumidi #Mikael_Lindholm #Fernand_Bosson #Benoit_Duclois #Mussie_Zerai #Manuel_Blanco #Tom_Ciotkowski #Rob_Lawrie

    ping @isskein @karine4

    • The creeping criminalisation of humanitarian aid

      At the heart of the trial of a volunteer with American migrant aid group No More Deaths that began in Arizona last week lies the question of when humanitarian aid crosses the line and becomes a criminal offence.

      Scott Warren, 37, faces three felony charges after he helped two undocumented migrants by providing them food, shelter, and transportation over three days in January 2018 – his crime, prosecutors say, wasn’t helping people but hiding them from law enforcement officers.

      Whichever way the case goes, humanitarian work appears to be under growing threat of criminalisation by certain governments.

      Aid organisations have long faced suspensions in difficult operating environments due to geopolitical or domestic political concerns – from Pakistan to Sudan to Burundi – but they now face a new criminalisation challenge from Western governments, whether it’s rescue missions in the Mediterranean or toeing the US counter-terror line in the Middle East.

      As aid workers increasingly find themselves in the legal crosshairs, here’s a collection of our reporting to draw attention to this emerging trend.

      http://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2019/06/07/creeping-criminalisation-humanitarian-aid

      Dans l’article une liste d’articles poubliés dans The New Humanitarian sur le délit de solidarité un peu partout dans le #monde...

    • European activists fight back against ‘criminalisation’ of aid for migrants and refugees

      More and more people are being arrested across Europe for helping migrants and refugees. Now, civil society groups are fighting back against the 17-year-old EU policy they say lies at the root of what activists and NGOs have dubbed the “criminalisation of solidarity”.

      http://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2019/06/20/european-activists-fight-criminalisation-aid-migrants-refugees

      Et le #rapport:
      Crackdown on NGOs and volunteers helping refugees and other migrants


      http://www.resoma.eu/sites/resoma/resoma/files/policy_brief/pdf/Final%20Synthetic%20Report%20-%20Crackdown%20on%20NGOs%20and%20volunteers%20h

    • Documentan incremento de amenazas contra defensores de migrantes tras acuerdo con EU

      Tras el acuerdo migratorio que México y los Estados Unidos firmaron el pasado junio, se han incrementado los riesgos y amenazas que sufren las y los activistas que defienden a migrantes en Centroamérica, México y Estados Unidos. Esa es la conclusión del informe “Defensores sin muros: personas defensoras de Derechos Humanos criminalizadas en Centroamérica, México y Estados Unidos”, elaborado por la ONG Frontline Defenders, el Programa de Asuntos Migratorios de la Universidad Iberoamericana y la Red Nacional de Organismos Civiles Todos los Derechos para Todas y Todos. El documento identifica 69 eventos de detención, amenazas, acoso, difamación, agresión, deportación, vigilancia o negación de entrada a un país. La mayoría de ellos, 41, tuvieron lugar durante 2019, según un listado que acompaña al informe. Uno de los grandes hallazgos: la existencia de colaboración entre México y Estados Unidos para cerrar el paso a los migrantes y perseguir a los activistas. “Los gobiernos tienen relaciones tensas, difíciles, complicadas. México y Estados Unidos están pasando por uno de sus peores momentos en bilaterales, pero cuando se trata de cooperar para restringir Derechos Humanos hay colaboración absoluta”, dijo Carolina Jiménez, de Amnistía Internacional. Entre estas colaboraciones destaca un trabajo conjunto de ambos países para identificar a activistas y periodistas que quedaron fichados en un registro secreto. El informe se presentó ayer en la Ciudad de México, al mismo tiempo en el que el presidente estadounidense, Donald Trump, habló ante la asamblea general de las Naciones Unidas, agradeciendo al presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador “por la gran cooperación que estamos recibiendo y por poner a 27 mil soldados en nuestra frontera sur”.

      https://www.educaoaxaca.org/documentan-incremento-de-amenazas-contra-defensores-de-migrantes-tras-a
      #Amérique_centrale #Mexique

    • Migration and the Shrinking Humanitarian Space in Europe

      As of October 10th, 1071 deaths of migrants were recorded in the Mediterranean in 2019.[1] In their attempt to save lives, civilian maritime search and rescue organisations like Sea Watch or Proactive Open Arms have gained high levels of media attention over the last years. Cases such as the arrest of the captain of the Sea Watch 3, Carola Rackete, in June 2019 or the three weeks odyssey of Open Arms in August 2019 dominate the media and public discourse in Europe. The closing of ports in Italy, Spain and Malta, the confiscation of vessels, legal proceedings against crew members alongside tight migration policies and anti-trafficking laws have led to a shrinking space for principled humanitarian action in Europe. While maritime search and rescue (SAR) activities receive most of the attention, focusing solely on them prevents one from seeing the bigger picture: a general shrinking of humanitarian space in Europe. In the following, the analysis will shed some light on patterns in which the space for assisting and protecting people on the move is shrinking both on land and at sea.
      Migration and Humanitarian Action

      Migration is not a new phenomenon. Throughout history people have left their homes to seek safety and pursue a better life. Yet, due to increasing human mobility and mounting crisis migration the number of people on the move is consistently rising (Martin, Weerasinghe, and Taylor 2014). In 2019, The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) documents more than 258 million international migrants worldwide, compared to 214 million in 2009.[2]

      This number is composed of a variety of different migrant groups, such as students, international labour migrants or registered refugees. Based on a distinction between voluntary and involuntary migration, not all these groups are considered people in need of international protection and humanitarian assistance (Léon 2018). Accordingly, unlike refugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs) migrants generally fall out of the humanitarian architecture.[3] Yet, notwithstanding the reasons for migrating, people on the move can become vulnerable to human trafficking, sexual exploitation and other forms of abuse during their journey. They strand at borders and live in deplorable conditions (Léon 2018).

      The UN Secretary General’s Agenda for Humanity therefore stresses the importance of addressing the vulnerabilities of migrants. This entails providing more regular and legal pathways for migration but also requires “a collective and comprehensive response to displacement, migration and mobility”, including the provision of humanitarian visas and protection for people on the move who do not fall under the narrow confines of the 1951 Refugee Convention.[4] The view that specific vulnerabilities of migrants are to be integrated into humanitarian response plans is reflected in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement’s approach to migration, which is strictly humanitarian and focuses on the needs and vulnerabilities of migrants irrespective of their legal status, type, or category (Linde 2009).

      Thereby, the term ‘migrant’ is deliberately kept broad to include the needs of labour migrants, vulnerabilities due to statelessness or being considered irregular by public authorities (ibid.). Despite this clear commitment to the protection of people on the move, migrants remain a vulnerable group with a high number losing their lives on migratory routes or going missing. Home to three main migratory routes, the Mediterranean is considered one of the world’s deadliest migration routes.[5]

      When in 2015 an unprecedented number of people made their way into Europe this exposed the unpreparedness of the EU and its member states in reacting quickly and effectively to the needs of people on the move. A report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) on refugees and vulnerable migrants in Europe concludes that “Europe’s actual humanitarian response must be judged a failure in many respects; basic needs have not been met and vulnerable people have not been protected” (De Largy 2016).

      For humanitarian organisations with experience in setting up and managing camps in countries of the Global South, managing the humanitarian response in their own backyard seems to have posed significant challenges. When more than one million people arrived in 2015, most international humanitarian organisations had no operational agreement with European states, no presences in affected areas, no funding lines for European activities and no established channels to mobilise resources (ibid.). This has led to protection gaps in the humanitarian response, which, in many cases, have been filled by activists, volunteers and civil society actors. Despite a number of factors, including the EU-Turkey deal, arrangements with Libya and toughening border controls, have since lead to a decline in the number of people arriving in Europe, sustained humanitarian action is needed and these actors continue to provide essential services to refugees and vulnerable migrants. However, with hostile attitudes towards migrants on the rise, and the marked effects of several successful smear campaigns, a number of organisations and civil society actors have taken it upon themselves to bring much needed attention to the shrinking space for civil society.
      Shrinking Humanitarian Space in Europe

      The shrinking space for civil society action is also impacting on the space for principled humanitarian action in Europe. While no agreed upon definition of humanitarian space[6] exists, the concept is used in reference to the physical access that humanitarian organisations have to the affected population, the nature of the operating environment for the humanitarian response including security conditions, and the ability of humanitarian actors to adhere to the core principles of humanitarian action (Collinson and Elhawary 2012: 2). Moreover, the concept includes the ability of affected people to reach lifesaving assistance and protection. The independence of humanitarian action from politics is central to this definition of humanitarian space, emphasising the need to adhere to the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence as well as to maintain a clear distinction between the roles and functions of humanitarian in contrast to those of military and political actors (OCHA, 2003). Humanitarian actors within this space strive to achieve their mission of saving lives and alleviating suffering by seeking ongoing access to the affected population.

      Though the many organisations, volunteers and individuals that work on migration issues in Europe would not all self-identify or be considered purely humanitarian organisations, many of them provide life-saving services to people on the move. Thus, the humanitarian space is occupied by a diversity of actors, including human rights organisations, solidarity networks, and concerned individuals alongside more traditional humanitarian actors (Léon 2018).

      Referring to the limited room for agency and restricted access to the affected population, the shrinking humanitarian space in Europe has been linked to the spreading of populism, restrictive migration policies, the securitisation of migration and the criminalisation of humanitarian action (Hammerl 2019). These developments are by no means limited to Europe. Other regions of the world witness a similar shrinking of the humanitarian space for assisting people on the move. In Europe and elsewhere migration and asylum policies have to a great extent determined the humanitarian space. Indeed, EU migration policies have negatively affected the ways in which humanitarian actors are able to carry out their work along the migration routes, limiting the space for principled humanitarian action (Atger 2019). These policies are primarily directed at combatting human trafficking and smuggling, protecting European borders and national security interests. Through prioritising security over humanitarian action, they have contributed to the criminalisation of individuals and organisations that work with people on the move (ibid.). As has been particularly visible in the context of civilian maritime SAR activities, the criminalisation of humanitarian action, bureaucratic hurdles, and attacks on and harassment of aid workers and volunteers have limited the access to the affected population in Europe.
      Criminalisation

      The criminalisation of migration that has limited the space for principled humanitarian action is a process that occurs along three interrelated lines: first, the discursive criminalisation of migration; second, the interweaving of criminal law and policing for migration management purposes; and finally, the use of detention as a way of controlling people on the move (Hammerl 2019, citing Parkin). With media and public discourse asserting that migrants are ‘illegal’, people assisting them have been prosecuted on the grounds of facilitating illegal entry, human trafficking and smuggling.

      Already back in 2002, the Cypriot NGO Action for Equality, Support and Anti-Racism (KISA) was prosecuted under criminal law after it had launched a financial appeal to cover healthcare costs for a migrant worker (Fekete 2009). This is just been one of six cases in which the Director of an organisation has been arrested for his work with migrants.[7] While KISA takes a clear human rights stance, these trends are also observable for humanitarian activities such as providing food or shelter. Individuals and organisations providing assistance and transportation to migrants have faced legal prosecution in France and Belgium for human smuggling in 2018. Offering shelter to migrants in transit has led to arrests of individuals accused of human trafficking (Atger 2019).[8] The criminalisation of civilian maritime SAR activities has led to the arrest and prosecution of crew members and the seizing of rescue vessels.

      The tension between anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking laws and humanitarian action is a result of the European ‘Facilitators’ Package’ from 2002 that defines the facilitation of unauthorised entry, transit and residence.[9] Though the Directive and its implementation in national legislatures foresees humanitarian exemptions[10], the impact of these laws and regulations on the humanitarian space has been critical. Lacking clarity, these laws have been implemented differently by EU member states and created a sense of uncertainty for individuals and organisations assisting migrants, who now risk criminal prosecution (Carrera et al. 2018). In several EU member states with humanitarian exemptions, humanitarian actors were reportedly prosecuted (ibid.). A case in point is Greece, which has a specific humanitarian exemption applying to maritime SAR activities and the facilitation of entry for asylum seekers rescued at sea. Despite sounding promising at first, this has not prevented the prosecution of volunteer crew members of the Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI) due to the existence of two legal loopholes. The first of these works on the basis that rescuers are not able to identify who is in need of international protection, and second, the legal framework contains an exemption from punishment, but not prosecution.[11]
      Bureaucratic Hurdles

      Besides the criminalisation of humanitarian activities, across Europe – predominantly at borders – administrative decisions and rules have narrowed the space for humanitarian action (Atger 2019). In countries such as France, Germany, Hungary, Spain and Italy, laws and regulations prevent organisations from accessing reception centres or transit zones between borders (Hammerl 2019, Amnesty 2019). A reduction of financial support and tighter legal requirements for operation further hinder organisations to assist people on the move (Atger 2019). In the case of maritime SAR operations, NGOs had to stop their operations due to de-flagging of rescue ships as ordered by EU member state authorities.[12]

      Access to people on the move is obstructed in manifold ways and organisations face a mix of intimidations strategies and bureaucratic obstacles in their mission to deliver aid (Léon 2018). In Germany, new asylum policies in 2015 changed the provision of the previous cash-based assistance to in-kind aid.[13] This is inconsistent with German humanitarian policy in other migrant and refugee hosting countries, where the German Foreign Ministry promotes cash-based programming as an efficient, effective and dignified way of assisting people in need.

      Apart from instructions and orders by public authorities and law enforcement entities, other tactics range from frequent ID checks, parking fines to threats of arrest (Amnesty 2019). In Calais, humanitarian action was obstructed when the municipality of Calais prohibited the distribution of food as well as the delivery of temporary showers to the site by a local charity with two municipal orders in March 2017 (Amnesty 2019). In 2017, the Hungarian Parliament passed the so-called LEX NGO. Like the foreign agent law in Russia, it includes provisions for NGOs that receive more than EUR 23 000 per year from abroad (including EU member states) to register as “organisations receiving foreign funding”. Coupled with a draft bill of a new Tax Law that establishes a 25% punitive tax to be paid for “propaganda activities that indicate positive aspects of migration”, these attempts to curtail work with migrants has a chilling effect both on NGOs and donors. As the punitive tax is to be paid by the donor organisation, or by the NGO itself in case the donor fails to do so, organisations risk bankruptcy.[14]
      Policing Humanitarianism[15]

      An increasingly hostile environment towards migration, fuelled by anti-immigrant sentiments and public discourse, has led to suspicion, intimidation and harassment of individuals and organisations working to assist and protect them. The securitisation of migration (Lazaridis and Wadia 2015), in which migrants are constructed as a potential security threat and a general atmosphere of fear is created, has given impetus to a general policing of humanitarian action. Even when not criminalised, humanitarian actors have been hindered in their work by a whole range of dissuasion and intimidation strategies. Civilian maritime SAR organisations in particular have been targets of defamation and anti-immigration rhetoric. Though analyses of migratory trends have proved that a correlation between SAR operations and an increase of migrant crossings was indeed erroneous (Cusumano and Pattison, Crawley et al. 2016, Cummings et al. 2015), organisations are still being accused of both constituting a pull-factor for migration (Fekete 2018) and of working together with human traffickers. In some instances, this has led to them being labelled as taxis for ‘illegal’ migrants (Hammerl 2019). In Greece, and elsewhere, volunteers assisting migrants have been subject to police harassment. Smear campaigns, especially in the context of SAR operations in the Mediterranean, have affected the humanitarian sector as a whole “by creating suspicion towards the work of humanitarians” (Atger 2019). Consequently, organisations have encountered difficulties in recruiting volunteers and seen a decline in donations. This prevented some organisations from publicly announcing their participation in maritime SAR or their work with migrants.[16] In severe cases, humanitarian actors suffered physical threats by security personnel or “self-proclaimed vigilante groups” (Hammerl 2019).

      Moreover, having to work alongside security forces and within a policy framework that primarily aims at border policing and migration deterrence (justified on humanitarian grounds), humanitarian actors risk being associated with migration control techniques in the management of ‘humanitarian borders’ (Moreno-Lax 2018, Pallister-Wilkins 2018). When Italy in 2017 urged search and rescue organisations to sign a controversial Code of Conduct in order to continue disembarkation at Italian ports, some organisations refused to do so. The Code of Conduct endangered humanitarian principles by making life-saving activities conditional on collaborating in the fight against smugglers and the presence of law enforcement personnel on board (Cusumano 2019).

      Beyond the maritime space, the politicisation of EU aid jeopardises the neutrality of humanitarian actors, forcing them to either disengage or be associated with a political agenda of migration deterrence. Humanitarian organisations are increasingly requested to grant immigration authorities access to their premises, services and data (Atger 2019). In Greece, a legislation was introduced in 2016 which entailed the close monitoring of, and restrictive access for, volunteers and NGOs assisting asylum seekers, thereby placing humanitarian action under the supervision of security forces (Hammerl 2019). As a consequence of the EU-Turkey Deal in 2016, MSF announced[17] that it would no longer accept funding by EU states and institutions “only to treat the victims of their policies” (Atger 2019).
      The Way Ahead

      The shrinking space poses a fundamental challenge for principled humanitarian action in Europe. The shrinking humanitarian space can only be understood against the backdrop of a general shrinking civil space in Europe (Strachwitz 2019, Wachsmann and Bouchet 2019). However, the ways in which the shrinking space affects humanitarian action in Europe has so far received little attention in the humanitarian sector. The problem goes well beyond the widely discussed obstacles to civilian maritime SAR operations.

      Humanitarian organisations across Europe assist people arriving at ports, staying in official or unofficial camps or being in transit. An increasingly hostile environment that is fuelled by populist and securitisation discourses limits access to, and protection of, people on the move both on land and at sea. The criminalisation of aid, bureaucratic hurdles and harassment of individuals and organisations assisting migrants are just some of the ways in which humanitarian access is obstructed in Europe.

      A defining feature of humanitarian action in Europe has been the important and essential role of volunteers, civil society organisations and solidarity networks both at the grassroots’ level and across national borders. Large humanitarian actors, on the other hand, took time to position themselves (Léon 2018) or have shied away from a situation that is unfamiliar and could also jeopardize the financial support of their main donors – EU member states.

      Since then, the humanitarian space has been encroached upon in many ways and it has become increasingly difficult for volunteers or (small) humanitarian organisations to assist and protect people on the move. The criminalisation of humanitarian action is particularly visible in the context of civilian maritime SAR activities in the Mediterranean, but also bureaucratic hurdles and the co-optation of the humanitarian response into other political objectives have limited the space for principled humanitarian action. In order to protect people on the move, national, regional and international responses are needed to offer protection and assistance to migrants in countries of origin, transit and destination. Thereby, the humanitarian response needs to be in line with the principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independence to ensure access to the affected population. While the interests of states to counter organised crime, including human trafficking, is legitimate, this should not restrict humanitarian access to vulnerable migrants and refugees.

      In Europe, the biggest obstacle for effective humanitarian action is a lacking political will and the inability of the EU to achieve consensus on migration policies (DeLargy 2016). The Malta Agreement, a result of the latest EU Summit of Home Affairs Ministers in September 2019 and subsequent negotiations in Luxembourg in October of the same year, has failed to address the shortcomings of current migration policies and to remove the obstacles standing in the way of principled humanitarian action in the Mediterranean. For this, new alliances are warranted between humanitarian, human rights and migration focussed organizations to defend the humanitarian space for principled action to provide crucial support to people on the move both on land and at sea.

      http://chaberlin.org/en/publications/migration-and-the-shrinking-humanitarian-space-in-europe-2

      Pour télécharger le rapport:
      http://chaberlin.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-10-debattenbeitrag-migration-shrinking-humanitarian-space-roepstorff
      #CHA #Centre_for_humanitarian_action

  • Des nouvelles des néonazis d’Europe du Nord

    Au Danemark, Rasmus Paludan du parti « stram kurs » (Ligne dure) brûle un Coran enrobé dans du Bacon pendant que la foule entamait des chants racists et xénophobes ("Ils ne doivent pas être intégrés, ils doivent rentrer chez eux, etc."). Depuis, le Danemark débat et se demande si interdire ce genre de manifestation est une atteinte à la liberté d’expression.

    Frykter ny Mohammed-krise – NRK Urix – Utenriksnyheter og -dokumentarer

    https://www.nrk.no/urix/frykter-ny-mohammed-krise-1.14532999

    I Danmark har diskusjonen om vern av ytringsfrihet igjen blusset opp, etter at 23 personer ble pågrepet under uroligheter på Nørrebro i København 14. april.

    Bråket på palmesøndag brøt ut da den kontroversielle islamkritikeren og høyrenasjonalisten Rasmus Paludan stilte seg opp på Blågårds Plass for å holde en protest i bydelen.

    En même temps, en Suède, près de Göteborg, le groupe néonazi « Nordiska motståndsrörelsen » (Mouvement de résistance nordique) défile dans la rue comme si de rien était sous l’œil bienveillant de la police.

    Il y avait heureusement des contre-manifestants pour balancer sur les néonazis toutes sortes de projectiles

    Minst 25 arresterte under nazidemonstrasjon – NRK Urix – Utenriksnyheter og -dokumentarer

    https://www.nrk.no/urix/minst-25-arresterte-under-nazidemonstrasjon-1.14534617

    ttps ://gfx.nrk.no/PkwucqOwMa0QFAZps7JTgQVntk4Hgdq4C9qEG7WNqxJQ.jpg

    Den nazistiske organisasjonen Nordiska motståndsrörelsen (NM) demonstrerte i den svenske byen Kungälv i dag. Statsminister Stefan Löfven kallar nynazistane for avskum.

    #europe_du_nod #norvège #danemark #néonazis #extrême_droite

  • Pays nordiques. Des #victimes de #viol s’unissent pour mettre fin à l’#impunité pour les auteurs de viol et faire tomber les obstacles à la #justice | Amnesty International
    https://www.amnesty.org/fr/latest/news/2019/04/rape-and-sexual-violence-in-nordic-countries-consent-laws
    https://www.amnesty.org:443/remote.axd/aineupstrmediaprd.blob.core.windows.net/media/20325/denmarkcover.jpg?preset=fixed_1200_630

    Le rapport Time for change : Justice for rape survivors in the Nordic countries révèle que des législations déficientes et des mythes et #stéréotypes néfastes liés au genre ont entraîné une impunité généralisée pour les auteurs de viol dans la région.

    Bien que figurant parmi les pays les mieux classés au monde en ce qui concerne l’#égalité des #genres, quatre pays nordiques (le #Danemark, la #Finlande, la #Norvège et la #Suède) affichent des taux de viol élevés, et leur système judiciaire porte préjudice aux victimes de violences sexuelles, a déclaré Amnesty International le 3 avril 2019.

  • UN envoy fears ’new crisis’ for Rohingya Muslims if moved to remote Bangladesh island

    A United Nations human rights investigator on #Myanmar has voiced deep concern at Bangladesh’s plan to relocate 23,000 Rohingya refugees to a remote island, saying it may not be habitable and could create a “new crisis”.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-12/un-envoy-fears-new-crisis-for-rohingya-muslims/10890932
    #réfugiés #îles #île #Bangladesh #rohingya #réfugiés_rohingya #asile #migrations #Birmanie

    • Polly Pallister-Wilkins signale sur twitter (https://twitter.com/PollyWilkins/status/1105366496291753984) le lien à faire avec le concept de #penal_humanitarianism (#humanitarisme_pénal)

      Introducing the New Themed Series on Penal Humanitarianism

      Humanitarianism is many things to many people. It is an ethos, an array of sentiments and moral principles, an imperative to intervene, and a way of ‘doing good’ by bettering the human condition through targeting suffering. It is also a form of governance. In Border Criminologies’ new themed series, we look closer at the intersections of humanitarian reason with penal governance, and particularly the transfer of penal power beyond the nation state.

      The study of humanitarian sentiments in criminology has mainly focused on how these sensibilities have ‘humanized’ or ‘civilized’ punishment. As such, the notion of humanism in the study of crime, punishment, and justice is associated with human rights implementation in penal practices and with normative bulwark against penal populism; indeed, with a ‘softening’ of penal power.

      This themed series takes a slightly different approach. While non-punitive forces have a major place in the humanitarian sensibility, we explore how humanitarianism is put to work on and for penal power. In doing so, we look at how muscular forms of power – expulsion, punishment, war – are justified and extended through the invocation of humanitarian reason.

      In the following post, Mary Bosworth revisits themes from her 2017 article and addresses current developments on UK programmes delivered overseas to ‘manage migration’. She shows that through an expansion of these programmes, migration management and crime governance has not only elided, but ‘criminal justice investment appears to have become a humanitarian goal in its own right’. Similarly concerned with what happens at the border, Katja Franko and Helene O.I. Gundhus observed the paradox and contradictions between humanitarian ideals in the performative work of governmental discourses, and the lack of concern for migrants’ vulnerability in their article on Frontex operations.

      However, in their blog post they caution against a one-dimensional understanding of humanitarianism as legitimizing policy and the status quo. It may cloud from view agency and resistance in practice, and, they argue, ‘the dialectics of change arising from the moral discomfort of doing border work’. The critical, difficult question lurking beneath their post asks what language is left if not that of the sanctity of the human, and of humanity.

      Moving outside the European territorial border, Eva Magdalena Stambøl however corroborates the observation that penal power takes on a humanitarian rationale when it travels. Sharing with us some fascinating findings from her current PhD work on EU’s crime control in West Africa, and, more specifically, observations from her fieldwork in Niger, she addresses how the rationale behind the EU’s fight against ‘migrant smugglers’ in Niger is framed as a humanitarian obligation. In the process, however, the EU projects penal power beyond Europe and consolidates power in the ‘host’ state, in this case, Niger.

      Moving beyond nation-state borders and into the ‘international’, ‘global’, and ‘cosmopolitan’, my own research demonstrates how the power to punish is particularly driven by humanitarian reason when punishment is delinked from its association with the national altogether. I delve into the field of international criminal justice and show how it is animated by a humanitarian impetus to ‘do something’ about the suffering of distant others, and how, in particular, the human rights movement have been central to the fight against impunity for international crimes. Through the articulation of moral outrage, humanitarian sensibilities have found their expression in a call for criminal punishment to end impunity for violence against distant others. However, building on an ethnographic study of international criminal justice, which is forthcoming in the Clarendon Studies in Criminology published by Oxford University Press, I demonstrate how penal power remains deeply embedded in structural relations of (global) power, and that it functions to expand and consolidate these global inequalities further. Removed from the checks and balances of democratic institutions, I suggest that penal policies may be more reliant on categorical representations of good and evil, civilization and barbarity, humanity and inhumanity, as such representational dichotomies seem particularly apt to delineate the boundaries of cosmopolitan society.

      In the next post I co-wrote with Anette Bringedal Houge, we address the fight against sexual violence in conflict as penal humanitarianism par excellence, building on our study published in Law & Society Review. While attention towards conflict-related sexual violence is critically important, we take issue with the overwhelming dominance of criminal law solutions on academic, policy, and activist agendas, as the fight against conflict-related sexual violence has become the fight against impunity. We observe that the combination of a victim-oriented justification for international justice and graphic reproductions of the violence victims suffer, are central in the advocacy and policy fields responding to this particular type of violence. Indeed, we hold that it epitomizes how humanitarianism facilitates the expansion of penal power but take issue with what it means for how we address this type of violence.

      In the final post of this series, Teresa Degenhardt offers a discomforting view on the dark side of virtue as she reflects on how penal power is reassembled outside the state and within the international, under the aegis of human rights, humanitarianism, and the Responsibility to Protect-doctrine. Through the case of Libya, she claims that the global north, through various international interventions, ‘established its jurisdiction over local events’. Through what she calls a ‘pedagogy of liberal institutions’, Degenhardt argues that ‘the global north shaped governance through sovereign structures at the local level while re-articulating sovereign power at the global level’, in an argument that, albeit on a different scale, parallels that of Stambøl.

      The posts in this themed series raise difficult questions about the nature of penal power, humanitarianism, and the state. Through these diverse examples, each post demonstrates that while the nation state continues to operate as an essential territorial site of punishment, the power to punish has become increasingly complex. This challenges the epistemological privilege of the nation state framework in the study of punishment.

      However, while this thematic series focuses on how penal power travels through humanitarianism, we should, as Franko and Gundhus indicate, be careful of dismissing humanitarian sensibilities and logics as fraudulent rhetoric for a will to power. Indeed, we might – or perhaps should – proceed differently, given that in these times of pushback against international liberalism and human rights, and resurgent religion and nationalism, humanitarian reason is losing traction. Following an unmasking of humanitarianism as a logic of governance by both critical (leftist) scholars and rightwing populism alike, perhaps there is a need to revisit the potency of humanitarianism as normative bulwark against muscular power, and to carve out the boundaries of a humanitarian space of resistance, solidarity and dignity within a criminology of humanitarianism. Such a task can only be done through empirical and meticulous analysis of the uses and abuses of humanitarianism as an ethics of care.

      https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2019/03/introducing-new

    • Most Rohingya refugees refuse to go to #Bhasan_Char island – Xchange survey

      Nearly all Rohingya refugees asked about relocating to a silt island in the Bay of Bengal refused to go, a new survey reveals.

      According to a new report published by the migration research and data analysis outfit Xchange Foundation, the vast majority of their respondents (98.4%) ‘categorically refused’ to go to Bhasan Char, while 98.7% of respondents were aware of the plan.

      From the over 1,000 respondents who expressed their opinion, concerns were raised about their safety, security and placement in a location further from Myanmar.

      Decades long limbo

      The findings obtained by the recent Xchange Foundation Report entitled ‘WE DO NOT BELIEVE MYANMAR!,’ chart the protracted living conditions and uncertain future of almost three quarters of a million recent Rohingya refugees living in Cox’s Bazar region of Bangladesh. Accumulated together with previous generations of Rohingya, there are approximately 1.2m living across over a dozen camps in the region.

      This is the sixth survey carried out by the Xchange Foundation on the experiences and conditions facing Rohingya refugees.

      The region has been host to Rohingya refugees for just over the last three decades with the recent crackdown and massacre by the Myanmar military in August 2017 forcing whole families and communities to flee westward to Bangladesh.

      While discussions between the Bangladeshi and Myanmar government over the repatriation of recent Rohingya refugees have been plagued by inertia and lukewarm commitment, the Bangladeshi government has been planning on relocating over 100,000 Rohingya refugees to the silt island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal. This process was expected to take place in the middle of April, according to a Bangladeshi government minister.

      State Minister for Disaster and Relief Management Md Enamur Rahman, told the Dhaka Tribune ‘Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has instructed last week to complete the relocation 23,000 Rohingya families to Bhashan Char by Apr 15.’

      Is it safe?

      Numerous humanitarian organisations including Human Rights Watch, have expressed their concerns over the government’s proposals, saying there are few assurances that Rohingya refugees will be safe or their access to free movement, health, education and employment will be secured.

      HRW reported in March that the Bangladeshi authorities had issued assurances that there wouldn’t be forcible relocation but that the move was designed to relieve pressure on the refugee camps and settlements across Cox’s Bazar.

      The move would see the relocation of 23,000 Rohingya families to a specially constructed complex of 1,440 housing blocks, equipped with flood and cyclone shelter and flood walls. The project is estimated to have cost the Bangladeshi government over €250 million.

      To prepare the island, joint efforts of British engineering and environmental hydraulics company HR Wallingford and the Chinese construction company Sinohydro, have been responsible for the construction of a 13km flood embankment which encircles the island.

      When asked by the Xchange survey team one Male Rohingya of 28 years old said, ‘We saw videos of Bhasan Char; it’s not a safe place and also during the raining season it floods.’ An older female of 42 said, ‘I’m afraid to go to Bhasan Char, because I think there is a risk to my life and my children.’

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM8wlvLddnw

      Threat of flooding

      Bhasan Char or ‘Thengar Char,’ didn’t exist 20 years ago.

      The island is understood to have formed through gradual silt deposits forming a island around 30km from the Bangladeshi mainland. Until now, human activity on the island has been very minimal with it being largely used for cattle and only reachable by a 3.5 hour boat trip.

      But, the island is subject to the tides. It is reported that the island loses around 5,000 square acres of its territory from low to high tide (15,000 – 10,000 acres (54 square kilometres) respectively).

      This is worsened by the threat of the monsoon and cyclone season which according to HRW’s testimony can result in parts of the island eroding. This is recorded as being around one kilometre a year, ABC News reports.

      Golam Mahabub Sarwar of the Bangladeshi Ministry of Land, says that a high tide during a strong cyclone could completely flood the island. This is exemplifed by the 6 metre tidal range which is seen on fellow islands.

      New crisis

      The UN Envoy Yanghee Lee has warned that the Bangladesh government goes through with the relocation, it could risk creating a ‘new crisis’.

      Lee warned that she was uncertain of the island was ‘truly habitable’ for the over 23,000 families expected to live there.

      The Special Rapporteur to Myanmar made the comments to the Human Rights Council in March, saying that if the relocations were made without consent from the people it would affect, it had, ‘potential to create a new crisis.’

      She stressed that before refugees are relocated, the United Nations, ‘must be allowed to conduct a full technical and humanitarian assessment’ as well as allowing the beneficiary communities to visit and decide if it is right for them.

      https://www.newsbook.com.mt/artikli/2019/05/07/most-rohingya-refugees-refuse-to-go-to-bhasan-char-island-xchange-survey/?lang=en

    • Rohingya Refugees to Move to Flood-Prone Bangladesh Island

      Thousands of Rohingya living in Bangladesh refugee camps have agreed to move to an island in the #Bay_of_Bengal, officials said Sunday, despite fears the site is prone to flooding.

      Dhaka has long wanted to move 100,000 refugees to the muddy silt islet, saying it would take pressure off the overcrowded border camps where almost a million Rohingya live.

      Some 740,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar in August 2017 in the face of a military crackdown, joining 200,000 refugees already in makeshift tent settlements at Cox’s Bazar.

      Relocations begin soon

      Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner, Mahbub Alam, said officials overseeing the relocation would be posted to #Bhashan_Char_island in the next few days.

      Approximately 6,000-7,000 refugees have expressed their willingness to be relocated to Bhashan Char, Alam told AFP from Cox’s Bazar, adding that “the number is rising.”

      He did not say when the refugees would be moved, but a senior Navy officer involved in building facilities on the island said it could start by December, with some 500 refugees sent daily.

      Bangladesh had been planning since last year to relocate Rohingya to the desolate flood-prone site, which is an hour by boat from the mainland.

      Rights groups have warned the island, which emerged from the sea only about two decades ago, might not be able to withstand violent storms during the annual monsoon season.

      In the past half-century, powerful cyclones have killed hundreds of thousands of people in the Meghna river estuary where the island is located.

      Rohingya leaders would be taken to Bhashan Char to view the facilities and living conditions, Alam said.

      Safety facilities built on the island include a 9-feet (3 meter) high embankment along its perimeter to keep out tidal surges during cyclones, and a warehouse to store months’ worth of rations, he added.

      Overcrowding in camp

      Rohingya father-of-four Nur Hossain, 50, said he and his family agreed to relocate to #Bhashan_Char after they were shown video footage of the shelters.

      “I have agreed to go. The camp here (at Leda) is very overcrowded. There are food and housing problems,” the 50-year-old told AFP.

      There was no immediate comment from the U.N., although Bangladeshi officials said they expect a delegation would visit the island in the next few weeks.

      https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/rohingya-refugees-move-flood-prone-bangladesh-island

    • Bangladesh : des réfugiés rohingyas acceptent de partir sur une île

      Des milliers de Rohingyas vivant dans des camps de réfugiés au Bangladesh ont accepté de partir pour une île isolée du golfe du Bengale, ont annoncé dimanche les autorités, en dépit des risques d’inondations.

      Dacca a depuis longtemps fait part de son intention de transférer 100.000 réfugiés musulmans rohingyas des camps de réfugiés surpeuplés, près de la frontière birmane, vers un îlot de vase boueux et isolé du golfe du Bengale.

      Le gouvernement du Bangladesh y voit une solution pour résoudre le problème des camps de réfugiés surpeuplés où vivent près d’un million de Rohingyas.

      Environ 740.000 Rohingyas ont fui la Birmanie pour le Bangladesh en 2017 pour échapper à une répression militaire massive. Ils ont rejoint les quelque 200.000 réfugiés vivant déjà dans le district bangladais frontalier de Cox’s Bazar (sud-est).

      Le commissaire bangladais aux réfugiés, Mahbub Alam, a indiqué que des fonctionnaires seront détachés, dans les prochains jours, afin de superviser cette installation.

      « Environ 6.000 à 7.000 réfugiés ont déjà exprimé leur volonté d’être réinstallés à Bhashan Char », a déclaré Alam à l’AFP depuis Cox’s Bazar, affirmant que « leur nombre est en augmentation ».

      Il n’a cependant pas donné de chiffres sur le nombre de réfugiés qui seront ainsi déplacés.

      Selon un officier supérieur de la marine qui participe à la construction d’installations sur l’île, cette opération pourrait débuter en décembre et environ 500 réfugiés seraient envoyés quotidiennement sur cette île située à une heure de bateau de la terre ferme la plus proche.

      Des groupes de défense des droits affirment que Bhashan Char est susceptible d’être submergée lors des moussons.

      Au cours des cinquante dernières années, de puissants cyclones ont fait des centaines de milliers de morts dans l’estuaire de la rivière Meghna, où l’île se situe.

      Des responsables rohingyas seront conduits à Bhashan Char afin d’y découvrir les installations et leurs conditions de vie, a affirmé M. Alam.

      Des responsables locaux ont assuré qu’une digue de trois mètres a été construite autour de l’île pour la protéger de la montée des eaux en cas de cyclone.

      Nur Hossain, un réfugié rohingya, père de quatre enfants, a déclaré que sa famille et lui ont accepté de partir pour Bhashan Char après avoir vu des images vidéo des abris.

      « Le camp ici (à Leda) est très surpeuplé. Il y a des problèmes de nourriture et de logement », a déclaré à l’AFP cet homme de 50 ans.

      L’ONU n’a jusqu’à présent pas fait de déclaration à ce sujet. Des responsables bangladais ont cependant déclaré qu’une délégation des Nations unies se rendra sur l’île au cours des prochaines semaines.

      https://www.courrierinternational.com/depeche/bangladesh-des-refugies-rohingyas-acceptent-de-partir-sur-une

    • Rohingya: il Bangladesh vuole trasferirli su un’isola sperduta e pericolosa

      Le violenze dell’esercito del Myanmar avevano costretto centinaia di migliaia di Rohingya a rifugiarsi in Bangladesh nel 2017. E quando ancora un rientro nelle loro terre d’origine sembra lontano, Dacca cerca di mandarne 100 mila su un’isola remota e pericolosa nel Golfo del Bengala

      Non sono bastate le violenze dell’esercito del Myanmar e degli estremisti buddisti, che nell’agosto 2017 hanno costretto centinaia di migliaia di Rohingya a rifugiarsi in Bangladesh. E non bastano neanche le condizioni precarie in cui vivono nei fatiscenti campi profughi gestiti da Dacca. Il dramma di questa popolazione, che secondo le Nazioni Unite è una delle minoranze più perseguitate al mondo, non sembra avere fine.

      La scorsa settimana il governo del Bangladesh ha annunciato che alla fine di novembre inizierà il trasferimento di 100 mila rifugiati Rohingya a Bhasan Char, una remota isola nel Golfo del Bengala. Per le autorità questa mossa sarebbe necessaria a causa del «disperato sovraffollamento» nei campi di Cox’s Bazar, una città al confine con la ex-Birmania, che ora ospita oltre 700 mila sfollati. Ma la scelta della nuova collocazione ha sollevato una serie di preoccupazioni per la salute e la sicurezza dei Rohingya che verranno trasferiti.

      Rohinghya in Bangladesh: l’isola in mezzo al nulla

      Yanghee Lee, relatore speciale delle Nazioni Unite sulla situazione dei diritti umani in Myanmar, che ha visitato l’isola nel gennaio 2019, ha espresso seri dubbi e preoccupazioni sul fatto che «l’isola sia davvero abitabile». Bhasan Char, infatti, è soggetta frequentemente ad inondazioni e cicloni. Lee ha anche avvertito che «un trasferimento mal pianificato e senza il consenso degli stessi rifugiati, creerebbe una nuova crisi per i Rohingya».

      Il governo di Dacca ha spiegato che tutte le ricollocazioni a Bhasan Char saranno rigorosamente volontarie e che oltre 7 mila rifugiati hanno già accettato di trasferirsi. Non sappiamo, però, se questi Rohingya siano effettivamente consapevoli dell’isolamento e della pericolosità del contesto in cui andranno a vivere. L’isola, infatti, è a ore di navigazione dalla terraferma e le condizioni del mare non sono delle migliori. Durante il periodo dei monsoni i pochi residenti sono bloccati in mezzo alle acque per lunghi periodi.

      Rohingya a rischio sussistenza

      Sebbene le autorità abbiano migliorato le infrastrutture a Bhasan Char, per cercare di contrastare i rischi di inondazioni e costruito più di 1.400 edifici per ospitare gli sfollati, l’isola non ha un adeguato sistema di agricoltura e le attività commerciali sono quasi inesistenti. Inoltre vanno aggiunte le difficoltà per quanto riguarda l’istruzione e la sanità. Problematiche già presenti nei campi di Cox’s Bazar, che nei mesi scorsi avevano anche lanciato l’allarme del radicalismo islamico.

      Nell’ultimo periodo, infatti, nelle strutture dove hanno trovato rifugio i Rohingya scappati dal Myanmar sono proliferate centinaia di scuole coraniche gestite da Hefazat-e-Islam, un gruppo estremista locale fondato nel 2010, che in passato ha organizzato numerose proteste di piazza. Questa organizzazione, finanziata da alcuni Paesi del Golfo, ha di fatto riempito il vuoto educativo imposto da Dacca, che ha vietato alla minoranza musulmana di frequentare gli istituti locali.

      Chi sono i Rohingya e perché sono perseguitati

      I Rohingya sono un popolo invisibile. Di fede musulmana, dall’ottavo secolo vivono nel Nord-Ovest del Myanmar, ma non vengono considerati ufficialmente un’etnia dal governo. Proprio per questo non hanno alcun diritto e la maggior parte di loro non ha cittadinanza nel paese guidato dal premio Nobel per la pace Aung San Suu Kyi. Senza il diritto di avere cure mediche e istruzione, non possono possedere nulla e non possono avere più di due figli.

      Si è tornato a parlare della loro drammatica situazione nell’agosto di due anni fa, a causa delle persecuzioni dei militari birmani, che li hanno costretti ad un esodo nel vicino Bangladesh. Le poche testimonianze di prima mano arrivate in quei giorni del 2017 parlavano di brutalità inaudite e quotidiane: centinaia di morti, stupri, mine, sparizioni, villaggi dati alle fiamme e torture.

      Rohingya: il difficile ritorno in Myanmar

      Negli ultimi due anni, il governo del Myanmar ha negato la sua colpevolezza per le atrocità commesse e ha vietato alle organizzazioni e agli osservatori internazionali, incluso il relatore speciale delle Nazioni Unite Lee, di accedere nello stato Rakhine, dove la maggior parte dei Rohingya viveva prima dello spargimento di sangue del 2017.

      Proprio per queste ragioni, un ritorno in sicurezza in patria per la popolazione musulmana sembra, per ora, molto difficile. Lo stesso Lee, a settembre, ha dichiarato che il Paese della Suu Kyi «non ha fatto nulla per smantellare il sistema di violenza e persecuzione contro i Rohingya».

      https://www.osservatoriodiritti.it/2019/10/31/rohingya-myanmar-bangladesh-perseguitati

    • Rohingya relocation to #Bhashan_Char to begin next week

      The first batch of Rohingyas would be shifted to Bhashan Char next week from overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar as part of the Bangladesh government’s plan to relocate 100,000 Rohingyas temporarily to the island until permanent repatriation to their homeland in Myanmar.

      “The exact date for shifting the first batch of Rohingyas to Bhashan Char has not been fixed yet but preparations have been taken to send the first group next week. First, a small group of Rohingyas will be relocated to the island and the process will continue,” said #Commissioner_of_Rohingya_Refugee_Repatriation_Commission (#RRRC) and Additional Secretary Shah Rezwan Hayat.

      These displaced Rohingya people are believed to have become a security threat to regional peace and the host communities as many of them have got involved in criminal activities, and drug and arms trading, reports UNB.

      Seeking support from big countries to find a durable solution to the Rohingya crisis, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on October 7 last said, “We’ve long been saying that uncertainty might be created in the region if the Rohingya crisis is not resolved."

      The government has information that trafficking of girls and children was taking place and traffickers share images of girls and children through smartphones using high-speed internet as part of trafficking, he said.

      Nur Mohammad Shikdar, general secretary of Ukhiya Rohingya Repatriation Movement Committee, said: “The relocation process could have been started long ago had a vested quarter of them not gone against the move at the provocation of some international organisations.”

      He stressed the need for implementation of the government plan to relocate 100,000 Rohingyas to Bhashan Char.

      Visiting the camps and talking to some Rohingyas, the UNB correspondent found a greater number of Rohingya people willing to be shifted to Bhashan Char due to uncertainty over their repatriation to their homeland.

      A resident and also leader of a shade in Kutupalong Rohingya Camp said, wishing anonymity, “They’re going through unimaginable suffering as some Rohingya criminals torture them. They want to return to their own country and are also ready to be shifted to Bhashan Char and stay there until the repatriation begins.”

      As part of the government move to relocate Rohingyas to Bhashan Char, a delegation of Rohingya leaders along with the representatives of 22 local and international NGOs have visited Bhashan Char recently.

      Saiful Islam Kalim, executive director of local a NGO, said, “The propaganda against Bhashan Char is totally false and fabricated. I myself visited Bhashan Char. Had I not visited the island I might have been confused with the propaganda. The government has created a wonderful environment there for Rohingyas where many NGOs have expressed their keenness to work with Rohingyas.”

      There is a lack of a conducive environment in Myanmar and two repatriation attempts have failed as Rohingyas are not feeling comfortable with the environment in Rakhine.

      Bangladesh urged the global community to convince Myanmar to bring changes in Rakhine and implement the repatriation arrangements.

      Bangladesh is now hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas and most of them have entered the country since August 25, 2017.

      Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a repatriation deal on November 23, 2017.

      On January 16, 2018, Bangladesh and Myanmar inked a document on “Physical Arrangement”, which was supposed to facilitate the return of Rohingyas to their homeland. But no Rohingya has been repatriated so far.

      https://www.thefinancialexpress.com.bd/national/rohingya-relocation-to-bhashan-char-to-begin-next-week-16067

    • Rohingya relocation to #Bhashan_Char to begin next week

      The first batch of Rohingyas would be shifted to Bhashan Char next week from overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar as part of the Bangladesh government’s plan to relocate 100,000 Rohingyas temporarily to the island until permanent repatriation to their homeland in Myanmar.

      “The exact date for shifting the first batch of Rohingyas to Bhashan Char has not been fixed yet but preparations have been taken to send the first group next week. First, a small group of Rohingyas will be relocated to the island and the process will continue,” said #Commissioner_of_Rohingya_Refugee_Repatriation_Commission (#RRRC) and Additional Secretary Shah Rezwan Hayat.

      These displaced Rohingya people are believed to have become a security threat to regional peace and the host communities as many of them have got involved in criminal activities, and drug and arms trading, reports UNB.

      Seeking support from big countries to find a durable solution to the Rohingya crisis, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on October 7 last said, “We’ve long been saying that uncertainty might be created in the region if the Rohingya crisis is not resolved."

      The government has information that trafficking of girls and children was taking place and traffickers share images of girls and children through smartphones using high-speed internet as part of trafficking, he said.

      Nur Mohammad Shikdar, general secretary of Ukhiya Rohingya Repatriation Movement Committee, said: “The relocation process could have been started long ago had a vested quarter of them not gone against the move at the provocation of some international organisations.”

      He stressed the need for implementation of the government plan to relocate 100,000 Rohingyas to Bhashan Char.

      Visiting the camps and talking to some Rohingyas, the UNB correspondent found a greater number of Rohingya people willing to be shifted to Bhashan Char due to uncertainty over their repatriation to their homeland.

      A resident and also leader of a shade in Kutupalong Rohingya Camp said, wishing anonymity, “They’re going through unimaginable suffering as some Rohingya criminals torture them. They want to return to their own country and are also ready to be shifted to Bhashan Char and stay there until the repatriation begins.”

      As part of the government move to relocate Rohingyas to Bhashan Char, a delegation of Rohingya leaders along with the representatives of 22 local and international NGOs have visited Bhashan Char recently.

      Saiful Islam Kalim, executive director of local a NGO, said, “The propaganda against Bhashan Char is totally false and fabricated. I myself visited Bhashan Char. Had I not visited the island I might have been confused with the propaganda. The government has created a wonderful environment there for Rohingyas where many NGOs have expressed their keenness to work with Rohingyas.”

      There is a lack of a conducive environment in Myanmar and two repatriation attempts have failed as Rohingyas are not feeling comfortable with the environment in Rakhine.

      Bangladesh urged the global community to convince Myanmar to bring changes in Rakhine and implement the repatriation arrangements.

      Bangladesh is now hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas and most of them have entered the country since August 25, 2017.

      Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a repatriation deal on November 23, 2017.

      On January 16, 2018, Bangladesh and Myanmar inked a document on “Physical Arrangement”, which was supposed to facilitate the return of Rohingyas to their homeland. But no Rohingya has been repatriated so far.

      https://www.thefinancialexpress.com.bd/national/rohingya-relocation-to-bhashan-char-to-begin-next-week-16067

  • #métaliste de #campagnes de #dissuasion à l’#émigration

    Une analyse de ces campagnes par #Antoine_Pécoud
    https://seenthis.net/messages/763546

    "Campagnes de dissuasion massive", article de Antoine Pécoud et #Julia_Van_Dessel :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/912835

    Un entretien avec des représentants de l’ODM (Suisse, maintenant SEM) et de l’OIM sur le lien entre cinéma et campagnes de dissuasion à la migration :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/763642

    –---------------------

    Le gouvernement chante contre l’immigration illégale (#USA/#Etats-Unis —> #Amérique_centrale) : (2014)

    L’organisme de contrôle des frontières se sert des #radios centraméricaines pour diffuser anonymement des chansons censées dissuader la population d’immigrer vers les Etats-Unis.

    https://seenthis.net/messages/276610

    En #Guinée , l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations contrôle des frontières et les âmes :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/757474
    #OIM #IOM #organisation_internationale_contre_les_migrations

    Toujours l’OIM, mais en #Tunisie :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/732291

    Et au #Cameroun , OIM, as usual :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/763640

    Au #Sénégal, avec le soutien de l’ #Espagne (2007) :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/763670

    Campagne #aware_migrants, financée par l’ #Italie :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/520420

    Une campagne de l’ #Australie
    https://seenthis.net/messages/474986
    #Etats-Unis #film
    Il y a aussi la campagne #No_way :
    https://seenthis.net/tag/no_way

    Financée par l’#Allemagne, une campagne en #Afghanistan :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/464281#message588432
    https://seenthis.net/messages/464281#message592615
    https://seenthis.net/messages/432534

    Les campagnes de la #Suisse :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/385940
    notamment dans les #Balkans mais aussi en #Afrique_de_l'Ouest (#Cameroun, #Nigeria)

    Campagne des #Etats-Unis :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/269673#message274426
    https://seenthis.net/messages/269673#message274440
    #USA

    Une campagne du #Danemark :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/385940#message397757

    En #France :
    Traversées de la #Manche par des migrants : les associations “révoltées” par une publicité du gouvernement
    https://seenthis.net/messages/794698

    Les campagnes de dissuasion au #Nigeria , ça vaut 40 mio d’euro...


    https://seenthis.net/messages/815068

    Au #Mali :
    TAMADENW logbook of a theatre show in Mali
    https://seenthis.net/messages/857432
    #théâtre

    Cyprus to launch SMS campaign to stem migrant arrivals
    https://seenthis.net/messages/857683

    #campagne #migrations #vidéos

    ping @isskein @_kg_ @reka