#danemark

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.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/05/05/science/05VIRUS-CHILDREN1/05VIRUS-CHILDREN1-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp#.jpg

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

L’#Autriche et le #Danemark présentent leur projet de #centre_de_déportation pour demandeurs d’asile #déboutés

Quant à Mme Støjberg, l’année dernière, elle envisageait d’adopter un projet de l’extrême-droite danoise consistant à exiler les demandeurs d’asile déboutés par son pays sur une ou plusieurs des 300 îles inhabitées au large de la côte danoise.

►https://seenthis.net/messages/728056

#Bangladesh

UN envoy fears ’new crisis’ for #Rohingya Muslims if moved to remote Bangladesh island
►https://seenthis.net/messages/766517

#Grèce : projet de centres de détention sur îles désertes ; refoulements en Mer Egée
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/831803

Et il y a évidemment aussi la fameuse #Pacific_solution de l’Australie —> c’est #Nauru et #Manus_island leurs îles choisies :
▻https://seenthis.net/tag/manus_island
▻https://seenthis.net/tag/nauru

Cet exemple grec n’est pas sans rappeler celui du #Bangladesh :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/766517

Et du #Danemark et #Autriche :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/728056

–-> Je vais faire une petite métaliste...

Ajouté par Vicky Skoumbi (reçu par mail, le 07.03.2020 :

Le projet de centres de détention sur ïles désertes fait d’autant plus froid dans le dos que cela renvoie directement aux pages les plus noires de l’histoire récente de la Grèce et notamment aux camps de concentration et de ’rééducation’ pour résistants, opposants au régime, et militants de gauche, qui ont fonctionné pendant et après la guerre civile après la Libération, mais aussi pendant la dictature de colonels. Peut-être que les noms de sinistre mémoire de #Makronissos et #Yaros vous disent quelque chose....

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

En 2016...
La #Suède ferme le #pont de l’#Öresund aux migrants
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/445650

Crimes of compassion: US follows Europe’s lead in prosecuting those who help migrants

Sometimes the defendant is a Spanish firefighter who saved migrants from drowning at sea. Other times it is elderly couples in Denmark, France and Greece who gave people a lift in their cars.

▻https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-06-06/crimes-compassion-us-follows-europes-lead-prosecuting-those-who-help-migrants
#USA #Etats-Unis

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

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

Asylum Criminalisation in Europe and Its Humanitarian Implications

https://i.imgur.com/MTcfd7l.png

Human rightsand international solidarity. Report of the Independent Expert on human rights and international solidarity
▻https://undocs.org/pdf?symbol=en/A/HRC/41/44

#droits_humains #human_rights_council

When witnesses won’t be silenced: citizens’ solidarity and criminalisation

https://i.imgur.com/8NJ7MQj.png

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

https://www.educaoaxaca.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/defensores-25sept2019-283x400.png

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

DEFENSORES SIN MUROS : PERSONAS DEFENSORAS DE DERECHOS HUMANOS CRIMINALIZADAS EN CENTROAMÉRICA, MÉXICO Y ESTADOS UNIDOS

https://i.imgur.com/O1laZuB.png

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

The criminalisation of solidarity in Europe

https://i.imgur.com/tBmKa3m.png

A mettre en lien avec le plan du #Danemark de mettre des réfugiés sur une petite île dans la mer du Nord :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/728056

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.

https://prdcdns3.newsbook.com.mt/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Camp-7-e1557166918911.jpg

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.

https://prdcdns3.newsbook.com.mt/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bhasan-char-e1557167656825.jpg

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).

https://prdcdns3.newsbook.com.mt/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/bhasan-char1-e1557167737513.jpg

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

https://media.voltron.voanews.com/Drupal/01live-166/styles/817x459/s3/reuters-pictures/2019/10/RTS2NRZN.jpg

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

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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

Le #Bangladesh veut-il noyer ses #réfugiés_rohingyas ?
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/811032

Petit appel à la communauté #seenthis (peut-être que @simplicissimus et @sinehebdo peuvent aider ?)...

Il y a des clips et vidéo que je ne trouve pas ou plus sur Internet, mais qui sait, il y a peut-être des personnes qui sont plus outillées que moi pour me donner un coup de main sur ce point.

En effet, j’essaie de sauvegarder ces campagnes vidéos sur un disque dur pour ne pas les perdre (si quelqu’un en a besoin, vous pouvez toujours me demander).

Je cherche notamment :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/385940#message396738

Mais aussi ces spots mentionnés dans cet article en note de bas de page : ►https://journals.openedition.org/decadrages/329

«Ce spot peut être visionné sur www.iom.int/senegal/camerounvideo.html»
"Il peut être visionné sur www.afrik.com/-article12517.html"

–-> les liens ne marchent plus

Et cette campagne :
►https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/danemark-une-campagne-de-publicite-pour-dissuader-les-migrant

Probablement d’autres que je n’ai pas recensés, je suis donc preneuse...

Commentaire de @nepthys :

Pour la propagande de rétention des migrantes, je me souviens qu’en Algérie (mon père vivait là-bas), il y avait eu une campagne d’information (sous Boumédienne, années 70), je ne sais pas d’où elle émanait, montrant des personnes se déplaçant dans Marseille avec des ânes. Il y a peut-être une tradition de ce genre de pratiques.

–-> est-ce que quelqu’un aurait par hasard vu ces vidéos ?

Diffusé en France :
Le problème des immigrés à Marseille
▻https://fresques.ina.fr/reperes-mediterraneens/fiche-media/Repmed00428/le-probleme-des-immigres-a-marseille.html
–-> probablement il y a eu des « vidéos miroir » diffusées de l’autre côté de la Méditerranée, comme le suggère @nepthys

• pour la campagne de 2006-07 (!) sur le Cameroun, la vidéo a sans doute été effacée ; on en trouve trace (même adresse de la vidéo disparue) dans cet article du Tages Anzeiger sur la campagne de Simonetta Sommaruga du SEM en 2015

So will die Schweiz Flüchtlinge abschrecken
▻https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz/standard/So-will-die-Schweiz-Fluechtlinge-abschrecken/story/10764014

• pour l’une des deux vidéos mentionnées en note, la deuxième adresse n’a jamais fonctionné : il faut en effet retirer le trait d’union ajouté par la mise en page,… le lien qui fonctionne et la vidéo s’y trouve toujours

L’Espagne lance un clip pour décourager les clandestins sénégalais
www.afrik.com/article12517.html

Enfin, pour Courrier International, il me semble qu’il s’agit de publicité dans la presse papier, je n’y vois pas mention de vidéos.

Merci @simplicissimus ! Je sauvegarde donc la vidéo financée par l’Espagne.
Et la signale dans la métaliste

Juste pour regrouper l’implication de #musiciens :

Sénégal, avec Youssou N’Dour (2007)
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZBgBeBMTos

Cameroun, avec Général Valsero (2018)
►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiA1hwR1MVI

Guinée, avec Degg J Force 3 (2018)
►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vebkDz7-Tg

#Musique #Musique_et_politique

Corpus d’images/campagnes reçues de Antoine Pecoud, par email :

https://i.imgur.com/XigCLjd.jpg https://i.imgur.com/b5Wr3RQ.jpg https://i.imgur.com/xoPzcsR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/aNXtK3T.jpg https://i.imgur.com/zLdOPP0.png https://i.imgur.com/uW73n5N.png https://i.imgur.com/fTLFp3g.png https://i.imgur.com/CTI1gtd.png https://i.imgur.com/fNqbawS.jpg https://i.imgur.com/D44Wn0R.jpg https://i.imgur.com/mmPklaM.jpg https://i.imgur.com/rlwyL4J.jpg https://i.imgur.com/RChoUgf.jpg https://i.imgur.com/266wXBf.jpg https://i.imgur.com/89BoshO.jpg https://i.imgur.com/mirdXSQ.jpg https://i.imgur.com/WcJSUiZ.jpg

#trafic_d'êtres_humains #Zimbabwe

L’article en français n’est pas lisible si on a Adblock. Tant pis, je le lirai en anglais...

#effondrement #collapsologie #catastrophe #fin_du_monde #it_has_begun #Anthropocène #capitalocène

On l’ajoute à la troisième compilation :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/680147

Le réchauffement climatique pourrait avoir au moins un impact positif pour les habitants du Groenland. La fonte des glaciers est en effet à l’origine de l’apparition d’importants dépôts de sable.

Le Groenland pourrait devenir un nouvel exportateur de sable suite à un résultat inattendu du réchauffement climatique. À mesure que ses glaces fondent, elles emportent avec elles d’importantes quantités de sédiments dans la mer, alimentant les dépôts de sable de la côte. Cette découverte inattendue amènent avec elle des questions importantes.

Une opportunité pour le Groenland

Alors que la pénurie de sable se dessine au niveau mondial, la possibilité d’exporter ce minerai pourrait être une excellente nouvelle pour les 56.000 habitants du Groenland, qui dépend largement des subventions du Danemark. « Normalement, les populations de l’Arctique sont celles qui souffrent vraiment du changement climatique, de l’érosion des côtes, de la disparition du pergélisol », explique la chercheuse Mette Bendixen. « Il s’agit d’une situation unique. »

Le réchauffement climatique cause la fonte de la calotte glaciaire groenlandaise, qui renferme suffisamment d’eau pour causer une hausse du niveau de la mer de près de 7 mètres. Lorsque cette glace fond, elle transporte avec elle des sédiments jusque dans les eaux qui bordent la côte, alimentant les dépôts de sable.

Puis les deux derniers paragraphes au-dessus.

@sinehebdo