Climate Action Must Now Focus on the Global Rich and Their Corporations
▻https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/climate-action-must-now-focus-on-the-global-rich-and-their-corporati
The latest UN climate talks, known as COP24, have just concluded. The supposed story this time was one of a grinding victory by the EU and developing nations over recalcitrant petro-states –...
China says pace of Xinjiang ’education’ will slow, but defends camps
China will not back down on what it sees as a highly successful de-radicalisation program in Xinjiang that has attracted global concern, but fewer people will be sent through, officials said last week in allowing rare media access there.
Beijing has faced an outcry from activists, scholars, foreign governments and U.N. rights experts over what they call mass detentions and strict surveillance of the mostly Muslim Uighur minority and other Muslim groups who call Xinjiang home.
In August, a U.N. human rights panel said it had received credible reports that a million or more Uighurs and other minorities in the far western region are being held in what resembles a “massive internment camp.”
Last week, the government organized a visit to three such facilities, which it calls vocational education training centers, for a small group of foreign reporters, including Reuters.
In recent days, a similar visit was arranged for diplomats from 12 non-Western countries, including Russia, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Kazakhstan, according to Xinjiang officials and foreign diplomats.
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-xinjiang-insight/china-says-pace-of-xinjiang-education-will-slow-but-defends-camps-idUSKCN1P
#Chine #Ouïghour #rééducation #camps #camps_d'internement
Commentaire de Kenneth Roth sur twitter:
The million Uighur Muslims whom China is detaining until they renounce Islam and their ethnicity, they must be happy, right? During a staged visit, they were forced to sing, in English, “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands.” End of story.
ping @reka
La puissance insoupçonnée des travailleuses, par Pierre Rimbert (Le Monde diplomatique, janvier 2019)
▻https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2019/01/RIMBERT/59406
La présence sur les ronds-points d’une forte proportion de femmes des classes populaires a frappé les observateurs. Ces travailleuses font tourner les rouages des services essentiels : santé, éducation. Au-delà du soulèvement de cet automne, elles représentent le pouvoir ignoré du mouvement social.
par Pierre Rimbert
Elles portent un gilet jaune, filtrent la circulation sur les ronds-points, parlent de leur #vie_quotidienne, se battent. Infirmières, auxiliaires de vie sociale, assistantes maternelles ont elles aussi endossé la parure fluorescente pour déchirer le voile qui d’ordinaire dérobe au regard extérieur les travailleuses des coulisses. Femmes et salariées, double journée de labeur et revenu modique, elles tiennent à bout de bras la charpente vermoulue de l’État social.
Et pour cause : les secteurs majoritairement féminins de l’éducation, des soins, du travail social ou du nettoyage forment la clé de voûte invisible des sociétés libérales en même temps que leur voiture-balai. L’arrêt de ces services fondamentaux paralyserait un pays. Qui, alors, s’occuperait des personnes dépendantes, des nourrissons, du nettoyage, des enfants ? Cadres briseurs de grève et forces de l’ordre lancées à l’assaut des barrages cette fois n’y pourraient rien : à l’école de gendarmerie, on n’apprend pas à laver les vieillards. Transférées au siècle dernier de l’univers familial, religieux ou charitable à celui du #travail salarié, ces tâches ne sautent aux yeux que lorsqu’elles ne sont plus prises en charge. À force d’infliger à ces travailleuses réputées endurantes des réductions de moyens alors que la demande croît, ça craque. #Femmes de ménage dans les hôtels et dans les gares, employées des établissements d’hébergement pour personnes âgées dépendantes (Ehpad), personnel hospitalier ont tour à tour mené depuis la fin de l’année 2017 des batailles âpres et souvent victorieuses.
La figure du mineur ou du travailleur à la chaîne, père d’une famille dont il assurait le revenu unique, a si puissamment symbolisé la classe ouvrière au cours du xxe siècle qu’on associe encore les classes populaires aux hommes. Qui pense spontanément aux travailleuses quand on lui parle de prolétariat ? Certes, les ouvriers, depuis longtemps remisés par les médias dans la galerie des espèces sociales disparues, représentent encore à eux seuls plus d’un actif sur cinq. Mais la féminisation du monde du travail compte au nombre des bouleversements les plus radicaux du dernier demi-siècle, en particulier à la base de la pyramide sociale. En France, les travailleuses représentent 51 % du salariat populaire formé par les ouvriers et employés ; en 1968, la proportion était de 35 % (1). Depuis un demi-siècle, le nombre d’emplois masculins n’a guère varié : 13,3 millions en 1968, contre 13,7 millions en 2017 ; dans le même temps, les emplois occupés par des femmes passaient de 7,1 millions à 12,9 millions. En d’autres termes, la quasi-totalité de la force de travail enrôlée depuis cinquante ans est féminine — dans des conditions plus précaires et pour un salaire inférieur d’un quart. À elles seules, les salariées des activités médico-sociales et éducatives ont quadruplé leur effectif : de 500 000 à 2 millions entre 1968 et 2017 — sans compter les enseignantes du secondaire et du supérieur.
Alors qu’au XIXe siècle la montée en puissance du prolétariat industriel avait déterminé la stratégie du mouvement ouvrier, le développement prodigieux des services vitaux à dominante féminine, leur pouvoir potentiel de blocage et l’apparition de conflits sociaux victorieux n’ont pas jusqu’ici connu de traduction politique ou syndicale. Mais, sous une telle poussée, la croûte se craquelle et deux questions s’imposent : à quelles conditions ces secteurs pourraient-ils déployer leur puissance insoupçonnée ? Peuvent-ils s’organiser en un groupe dont la force rejoigne le nombre, forger une alliance sociale capable de lancer des initiatives, d’imposer son rapport de forces et de mobiliser autour d’elle d’autres secteurs ? À première vue, l’hypothèse paraît extravagante. Les travailleuses des services vitaux forment une nébuleuse de statuts éparpillés, de conditions d’exercice et d’existence hétéroclites, de lieux de travail éloignés. Mais, de même que l’absence d’unité interne n’a pas empêché le mouvement des « #gilets_jaunes » de faire corps, ce qui divise le prolétariat féminin des services paraît à l’examen moins déterminant que les facteurs d’agrégation. À commencer par la force du nombre et par un adversaire commun.
Des classes populaires aux classes moyennes, ces salariées chargées de l’entretien et de la #reproduction_de_la_force_de_travail (2) se distinguent par leurs effectifs massifs (voir l’infographie ci-dessous). On y trouve les #ouvrières des services aux entreprises (elles sont 182 000 à nettoyer les locaux), mais surtout le prolétariat des services directs aux particuliers. Cinq cent mille aides ménagères, 400 000 assistantes maternelles et plus de 115 000 domestiques interviennent le plus souvent à domicile. Un plus grand nombre encore exercent dans des institutions publiques : 400 000 aides-soignantes, 140 000 auxiliaires de puériculture et aides médico-psychologiques et plus d’un demi-million d’agents de service — sans compter le personnel administratif. À ces effectifs féminins s’ajoutent ceux des hommes, très minoritaires. Ce salariat populaire mal payé, aux horaires décalés, qui effectue dans des conditions difficiles des tâches peu valorisées, côtoie dans la production des services vitaux les professions dites « intermédiaires » de la santé, du social et de l’éducation. Mieux rémunérées, plus qualifiées, plus visibles, les 2 millions de travailleuses de ce groupe en croissance continue exercent comme infirmières (400 000), enseignantes en primaire (340 000), puéricultrices, animatrices socioculturelles, auxiliaires de vie scolaire, éducatrices spécialisées, techniciennes médicales, etc.
Population active par catégories socioprofessionnelles, Cécile Marin
Bien sûr, un fossé sépare l’infirmière d’un hôpital public et la nounou sans papiers employée chez un particulier. Mais cet ensemble disparate, qui, avec les hommes, regroupe plus du quart des actifs, concourt à la production d’une même ressource collective et présente plusieurs points communs. En premier lieu, la nature même des services à la personne, des soins, du travail social et de l’éducation rend ces emplois non seulement indispensables, mais aussi non délocalisables et peu automatisables, car ils exigent un contact humain prolongé ou une attention particulière portée à chaque cas. Ensuite, tous ces secteurs subissent les politiques d’#austérité ; de l’école à l’Ehpad, leurs conditions d’exercice se dégradent et les conflits couvent. Enfin, ils jouissent d’une bonne réputation auprès d’une population qui peut s’imaginer vivre sans hauts-fourneaux, mais pas sans écoles, hôpitaux, crèches ou maisons de retraite.Cette configuration unique dessine les contours d’une coalition sociale potentielle qui rassemblerait le prolétariat des services vitaux, les professions intermédiaires des secteurs médico-social et éducatif, ainsi qu’une petite fraction des professions intellectuelles, comme les enseignants du secondaire.
Au cœur du conflit entre les besoins collectifs et l’exigence de profit
Si la formation effective d’un tel bloc se heurte à quantité d’obstacles, c’est peut-être qu’on a rarement tenté de les surmonter. Malgré la crue entêtante des statistiques, aucun parti, syndicat ou organisation n’a jusqu’ici fait le choix de placer ce socle à dominante féminine et populaire au cœur de sa stratégie, de faire part systématiquement de ses préoccupations, de défendre prioritairement ses intérêts. Et pourtant, les acteurs les plus conscients et les mieux organisés du mouvement ouvrier regroupés autour du rail, des ports et des docks, de l’électricité et de la chimie savent que les luttes sociales décisives ne pourront éternellement reposer sur eux, comme l’a montré en 2018 le conflit sur la réforme des chemins de fer. Ils ont vu depuis quatre décennies le pouvoir politique détruire leurs bastions, briser les statuts, privatiser leurs entreprises, réduire leurs effectifs, tandis que les médias associaient leur univers à un passé dépassé. À l’opposé, les secteurs féminins des services à la personne et des services publics pâtissent d’une organisation souvent faible et de traditions de lutte encore récentes ; mais ils croissent et occupent dans l’imaginaire un espace dont les classes populaires ont été depuis longtemps chassées : l’avenir. Pendant que les réflexions sur les transformations contemporaines exaltent ou maudissent les multinationales de la Silicon Valley et les plates-formes numériques, la féminisation du salariat impose une modernité sans doute aussi « disruptive » que la faculté de tweeter des photographies de chatons.
D’autant qu’elle pourrait encore s’amplifier. Aux États-Unis, la liste des métiers à forte perspective de croissance publiée par le service statistique du département du travail prédit, d’un côté, la création d’emplois typiquement masculins, tels qu’installateur de panneaux photovoltaïques ou d’éoliennes, technicien de plate-forme pétrolière, mathématicien, statisticien, programmateur ; de l’autre, une myriade de postes traditionnellement occupés par des femmes, tels qu’aide de soins à domicile, aide-soignante, assistante médicale, infirmière, physiothérapeute, ergothérapeute, massothérapeute. Pour un million d’emplois de développeur informatique prévus d’ici à 2026, on compte quatre millions d’aides à domicile et d’aides-soignantes — payées quatre fois moins (3).
Deux raisons fondamentales empêchent l’ancien sidérurgiste de Pittsburgh dont l’activité a été délocalisée en Chine de se reconvertir en auxiliaire de puériculture. La frontière symbolique des préjugés, d’abord, si profondément inscrite dans les têtes, les corps et les institutions qu’elle dresse encore un mur entre la culture ouvrière virile et les rôles sociaux assignés par les clichés patriarcaux au genre féminin. Mais aussi le décrochage scolaire masculin, qui freine sensiblement les possibilités de reconversion professionnelle. « Les adolescents des pays riches courent une fois et demie plus de risques que les filles d’échouer dans les trois disciplines fondamentales : les mathématiques, la lecture et les sciences », notait l’hebdomadaire The Economist dans un dossier spécial consacré aux hommes et intitulé « Le sexe faible » (30 mai 2015). À cette déconfiture correspond une hausse spectaculaire du niveau d’instruction féminin qui, a contrario, facilite la mobilité professionnelle. Cette grande transformation passée inaperçue installe un peu plus les travailleuses au cœur du salariat. Depuis la fin du siècle dernier, la part des femmes parmi les diplômés du supérieur dépasse celle des hommes : 56 % en France, 58 % aux États-Unis, 66 % en Pologne, selon l’Agence des Nations unies pour l’éducation, les sciences et la culture (Unesco)... En 2016, 49 % des Françaises de 25 à 34 ans détenaient un diplôme des cycles courts — brevet de technicien supérieur (BTS), diplôme universitaire de technologie (DUT) — ou longs — licence, master, doctorat —, contre 38 % des hommes (4). Ces derniers dominent toujours la recherche, les filières de prestige, les postes de pouvoir et l’échelle des salaires. Mais l’université forme désormais une majorité de diplômées susceptibles d’occuper les emplois qualifiés mais peu prestigieux de l’économie dite des services.
En effet, ce basculement ne remet pas en cause la prépondérance masculine dans les formations liées aux mathématiques, à l’ingénierie informatique et aux sciences fondamentales. Résultat : une opposition de genre et de classe s’accentue entre deux pôles du monde économique. D’un côté, l’univers féminin, de plus en plus qualifié mais précarisé, dont les services médico-socio-éducatifs constituent le centre de gravité. De l’autre, la bulle bourgeoise de la finance spéculative et des nouvelles technologies, qui domine l’économie mondiale et où le taux de testostérone bat des records : les jeunes entreprises de la Silicon Valley emploient comme ingénieurs informatiques 88 % d’hommes, et les salles de marché 82 % d’analystes masculins (5). De ces deux cosmos que tout oppose, l’un domine l’autre, l’écrase et le dépouille. Le chantage à l’austérité des « marchés » (6) et la prédation qu’exercent les géants du numérique sur les finances publiques à travers l’évasion fiscale se traduisent par des réductions d’effectifs ou de moyens dans les Ehpad, les crèches, les services sociaux. Avec des conséquences inégalement réparties : en même temps que leur activité affaiblit les services publics, banquiers, décideurs et développeurs emploient quantité d’aides à domicile, d’auxiliaires de vie, de professeurs particuliers.
Plus généralement, les ménages de cadres, professions intellectuelles supérieures et dirigeants d’entreprise recourent massivement aux services domestiques à la personne (7). Ils seraient les premiers touchés si les femmes souvent issues des classes populaires et, dans les métropoles, de l’immigration venaient à cesser le travail. Verrait-on alors professeurs d’université, notaires, médecins et sociologues féministes expliquer à leurs femmes de ménage qu’il faut continuer le travail au nom de l’obligation morale d’attention et de bienveillance, vertus que la domination masculine a érigées au cours des siècles en qualités spécifiquement féminines ? C’est pourquoi la coalition des services vitaux qui rassemblerait employées et ouvrières, professions intermédiaires et personnel de l’enseignement primaire et secondaire ne pourrait se constituer que par opposition aux classes supérieures qui les emploient.
D’abord, le pourrait-elle, et à quelles conditions ? Isolées, parcellisées, peu organisées, plus souvent issues de l’immigration que la moyenne, les travailleuses des services à la personne ou du nettoyage cumulent les formes de domination. Mais surtout, leur addition ne forme pas un groupe. Transformer la coalition objective qui se lit dans les tableaux statistiques en un bloc mobilisé requerrait une conscience collective et un projet politique. Il incombe traditionnellement aux syndicats, partis, organisations et mouvements sociaux de formuler les intérêts communs qui, au-delà des différences de statut et de qualification, relient l’infirmière et la femme de ménage. De chanter aussi la geste d’un agent historique qui naît, sa mission, ses batailles, afin de ne laisser ni à BFM TV ni aux experts le monopole du récit. Deux thèmes pourraient y contribuer.
Le premier est la centralité sociale et économique de ce groupe. De la statistique nationale aux médias, tout concourt à ce que le salariat féminin des services vitaux demeure invisible dans l’ordre de la production. Le discours politique renvoie les soins, la santé et l’éducation à la notion de dépense, tandis qu’on associe généralement ces métiers « relationnels » aux qualités supposément féminines de prévenance, de sollicitude et d’empathie. Que la soignante ou l’enseignante les engage nécessairement dans son travail n’implique pas qu’il faille l’y réduire. Assimiler les services vitaux à des coûts, évoquer ces bienfaits dispensés par des femmes dévouées plutôt que les richesses créées par des travailleuses permet d’éluder l’identité fondamentale des aides-soignantes, auxiliaires de vie ou institutrices : celle de productrices (8). Produire une richesse émancipatrice qui pave les fondements de la vie collective, voilà un germe autour duquel pourrait cristalliser une conscience sociale.
Le second thème est celui d’une revendication commune à l’ensemble du salariat, mais qui s’exprime avec une intensité particulière aux urgences hospitalières, dans les Ehpad ou les écoles : obtenir les moyens de bien faire son travail. L’attention parfois distraite du grand public aux conditions de labeur des cheminots et des manutentionnaires se change en préoccupation, voire en révolte, lorsqu’il s’agit de réduire le temps de toilette d’un parent dépendant, de fermer une maternité en zone rurale ou de laisser des équipes sous-dimensionnées s’occuper de malades mentaux. Chacun le sait d’expérience : la qualité des soins croît en proportion de la quantité de travail investie dans leur production. D’apparence bonhomme, la revendication des moyens d’accomplir sa tâche dans de bonnes conditions se révèle très offensive. La satisfaire, c’est remettre en cause l’austérité, l’idée qu’on peut faire toujours plus avec toujours moins, les gains de productivité arrachés au prix de la santé des salariés. Et aussi les boniments culpabilisateurs qui reportent sur les agents la responsabilité de « prendre sur eux » pour atténuer les effets des restrictions budgétaires. Nombre d’Ehpad dispensent par exemple des formations « humanitude » — des techniques de « bientraitance » mobilisant le regard, la parole, le toucher, transformées en label dont se prévalent les établissements — à des employées qu’on prive simultanément des moyens de traiter les anciens avec l’humanité requise. Comme si la maltraitance dérivait non pas principalement d’une contrainte économique extérieure, mais d’une qualité individuelle qui manquerait au personnel...
Que l’exigence de ressources allouées aux besoins collectifs contredise l’exigence de profit et d’austérité place les services vitaux et leurs agents au cœur d’un conflit irréductible. Depuis le tournant libéral des années 1980, et plus encore depuis la crise financière de 2008, dirigeants politiques, banquiers centraux, Commission européenne, patrons ingénieurs des nouvelles technologies, hauts fonctionnaires du Trésor, éditorialistes et économistes orthodoxes exigent la réduction du « coût » de ces activités. Et provoquent ce faisant leur dégradation intentionnelle au nom d’un bon sens des beaux quartiers : le bien-être général se mesure à la prospérité des premiers de cordée. Ce bloc conscient de ses intérêts a trouvé en M. Emmanuel Macron son chargé d’affaires.
Un socialisme des services à dominante féminine contrôlé par les travailleurs eux-mêmes
En face, la coalition potentielle dont les productrices de services vitaux forment le moyeu ne peut naître à sa propre conscience qu’en formulant explicitement la philosophie et le projet qu’elle porte en actes au quotidien sous les préaux, dans les chambres et les salles de soins. C’est l’idée qu’un financement collectif des besoins de santé, d’éducation, de propreté et, plus largement, de transports, de logement, de culture, d’énergie, de communication ne constitue pas un obstacle à la liberté, mais au contraire sa condition de possibilité. Le vieux paradoxe qui subordonne l’épanouissement individuel à la prise en charge commune des premières nécessités dessine une perspective politique de long terme susceptible de rassembler le salariat féminin et de le constituer en agent de l’intérêt général : un socialisme des services à la couverture étendue qui lui donnerait les moyens d’accomplir sa mission dans les meilleures conditions, prioritairement déployé auprès des classes populaires vivant dans les zones périurbaines frappées par le retrait de l’État social et contrôlé par les travailleurs eux-mêmes (9).
Car, en plus d’accomplir le prodige de s’organiser, la coalition des services à dominante féminine aurait pour tâche historique, épaulée par le mouvement syndical, de rallier à elle l’ensemble des classes populaires, et notamment sa composante masculine décimée par la mondialisation et parfois tentée par le conservatisme. Ce dernier trait n’a rien d’une fatalité.
On jugera volontiers irréaliste d’assigner à ces travailleuses qui cumulent toutes les dominations un rôle d’agent historique et une tâche universelle. Mais l’époque ne sourit décidément pas aux réalistes qui jugeaient en 2016 impossible l’élection de M. Donald Trump sur une stratégie symétriquement inverse : coaliser une fraction masculine des classes populaires frappées par la désindustrialisation avec la bourgeoisie conservatrice et les couches moyennes non diplômées. Ravis de cette capture, médias et politiques aimeraient réduire la vie des sociétés occidentales à l’antagonisme qui opposerait désormais les classes populaires conservatrices, masculines, dépassées, incultes et racistes qui votent en faveur de M. Trump, de M. Benyamin Netanyahou ou de M. Viktor Orbán à la bourgeoisie libérale cultivée, ouverte, distinguée, progressiste qui accorde ses suffrages aux formations centristes et centrales qu’incarne M. Macron. Contre cette opposition commode, qui occulte la passion commune aux dirigeants de ces deux pôles pour le capitalisme de marché (10), le salariat féminin des services vitaux met en avant un autre antagonisme. Celui-ci place d’un côté de la barrière sociale les patrons-informaticiens de la Silicon Valley et les cadres supérieurs de la finance, masculins, diplômés, libéraux. Pilleurs de ressources publiques et squatteurs de paradis fiscaux, ils créent et vendent des services qui, selon l’ancien vice-président chargé de la croissance de l’audience de Facebook, M. Chamath Palihapitiya, « déchirent le tissu social » et « détruisent le fonctionnement de la société » (11). De l’autre côté se regroupent les classes populaires à base féminine, fer de lance du salariat, productrices de services qui tissent la vie collective et appellent une socialisation croissante de la richesse.
L’histoire de leur bataille commencerait ainsi :
« Nous exigeons les moyens de bien faire notre travail ! » Depuis des semaines, les auxiliaires de vie, puéricultrices, aides-soignantes, infirmières, enseignantes, nettoyeuses, agentes administratives avaient prévenu : faute de voir leur revendication satisfaite, elles se mettraient en grève. Et ce fut comme si la face cachée du travail paraissait à la lumière. Les cadres et professions intellectuelles, les femmes d’abord puis les hommes, à contrecœur, durent à leur tour quitter leur poste pour s’occuper de leurs parents dépendants, de leurs nourrissons, de leurs enfants. Le chantage affectif échoua. Parlement, bureaux, rédactions se clairsemaient. En visite dans une maison de retraite, le premier ministre expliqua sentencieusement à une gréviste qu’une minute suffit bien à changer une couche ; des études d’ailleurs le démontraient. Au regard qu’elle lui lança, chacun comprit que deux mondes s’affrontaient. Après cinq jours de chaos, le gouvernement capitula. Les négociations sur la création du Service public universel s’engageaient avec un rapport de forces si puissant que le mouvement gagna le nom de « second front populaire » : celui de l’ère des services.
Pierre Rimbert
(1) Sources : « Enquête emploi 2017 », Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (Insee) ; Données sociales 1974, Paris (recodées conformément à la classification actuelle).
(2) Cf. Siggie Vertommen, « Reproduction sociale et le féminisme des 99 %. Interview de Tithi Bhattacharya », Lava, no 5, Bruxelles, juillet 2018.
(3) « Fastest growing occupations », Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, DC.
(4) « Vers l’égalité femmes-hommes ? Chiffres-clés » (PDF), ministère de l’enseignement supérieur, de la recherche et de l’innovation, Paris, 2018.
(5) Kasee Bailey, « The state of women in tech 2018 », DreamHost, 26 juillet 2018. ; Renee Adams, Brad Barber et Terrance Odean, « Family, values, and women in finance » (PDF), SSRN, 1er septembre 2016.
(6) Lire Renaud Lambert et Sylvain Leder, « L’investisseur ne vote pas », Le Monde diplomatique, juillet 2018.
(7) François-Xavier Devetter, Florence Jany-Catrice et Thierry Ribault, Les Services à la personne, La Découverte, coll. « Repères », Paris, 2015.
(8) Lire Bernard Friot, « En finir avec les luttes défensives », Le Monde diplomatique, novembre 2017.
(9) Lire « Refonder plutôt que réformer », Le Monde diplomatique, avril 2018.
(10) Lire Serge Halimi et Pierre Rimbert, « Libéraux contre populistes, un clivage trompeur », Le Monde diplomatique, septembre 2018.
(11) James Vincent, « Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society », The Verge, 11 décembre 2017.
Quand parlera-t-on de Sonia, employée de maison pour 600 euros brut par mois ? Alizée Delpierre
▻http://www.slate.fr/story/171990/employees-maison-domestique-precarite-conditions-de-travail
Beaucoup de #travailleuses_domestiques partagent les constats et revendications des « gilets jaunes », mais leurs histoires sont encore trop souvent invisibilisées. [...]
L’intensité des journées de travail interpelle. Sonia travaille quotidiennement en Île-de-France de 6h à 19h pour faire des ménages chez des particuliers. Elle est employée directement par quatre familles et travaille pour chacune d’elles entre deux et trois heures par semaine.
Elle fait donc au maximum douze heures de ménage par semaine, mais ses journées s’étendent bien au-delà, car ses employeurs vivent loin les uns des autres (il faut compter entre 45 minutes et 1h30 de trajet entre leurs maisons), et à plus d’1h15 de chez elle.
Sonia, qui n’utilise pas sa voiture car cela lui coûte trop cher, prend les transports en commun plusieurs heures par jour. Elle doit à la fois planifier son temps de transport entre chaque maison, et prévoir les retards fréquents des trains qu’elle prend : « Je pars à 4h50 de chez moi, le temps de marcher trente minutes jusqu’à la gare, et je prends le premier train même si je commence un peu plus tard, car on ne sait jamais. »
De nombreuses études statistiques produites sur le secteur des services à la personne dressent un portrait-type de l’#emploi_domestique en France, relativement stable depuis le début des années 2000 : un emploi majoritairement à temps partiel, faiblement rémunéré, qui pousse les employées de maison à multiplier les employeurs pour travailler plus d’heures.
D’après les dernières données produites par la Dares, les employées embauchées directement par les particuliers-employeurs –soit 65% d’entre elles– ont en moyenne près de trois employeurs, et ce nombre passe à 4,5 lorsqu’elles travaillent à la fois directement pour un employeur et via un organisme.
Judge Richard Goldstone suffered for turning his back on Gaza – but not as much as the Palestinians he betrayed | The Independent
by Robert Fisk
▻https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/israel-gaza-war-judge-richard-goldstone-palestinian-conflict-a8709211
▻https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2010/02/02/00/310761.bin
When a hero lets you down, the betrayal lasts forever. I’m not alone, I know, when I say that Richard Goldstone was a hero of mine – a most formidable, brilliant and brave judge who finally spoke truth to power in the Middle East. And then recanted like a frightened political prisoner, with protestations of love for the nation whose war crimes he so courageously exposed.
Now, after years of virtual silence, the man who confronted Israel and Hamas with their unforgivable violence after the 2008-09 Gaza war has found a defender in a little known but eloquent academic. Judge Goldstone, a Jewish South African, was denounced by Israelis and their supporters as “evil” and a “quisling” after he listed the evidence of Israel’s brutality against the Palestinians of Gaza (around 1,300 dead, most of them civilians), and of Hamas’ numerically fewer crimes (13 Israeli dead, three of them civilians, plus a number of Palestinian “informer” executions).
Professor Daniel Terris, a Brandeis University scholar admired for his work on law and ethics, calls his new book The Trials of Richard Goldstone. Good title, but no cigar.
Terris is eminently fair. Perhaps he is too fair. He treats far too gently the column that Goldstone wrote for the Washington Post, in which the judge effectively undermined the research and conclusions of his own report that he and three others wrote about the Gaza war. The book recalls how Richard Falk, a Princeton law professor and former UN rapporteur on human rights in Gaza and the West Bank, described Goldstone’s retraction as “a personal tragedy for such a distinguished international civil servant”. I think Falk was right.
René Guénon sur notre société festive
▻http://www.dedefensa.org/article/rene-guenon-sur-notre-societe-festive
René Guénon sur notre société festive
Comme prévu la société festive est de plus en plus sinistre, et comme prévu elle est de plus en plus autoritaire et orwellienne, avec un arrière-fond imbibé de satanisme. Voyez Vigilantcitizen.com qui recense le bal illuminé de l’UNICEF. Ici, on passe de la fête de la musique à l’arrestation de Drouet et à l’épuration du web parce qu’on est cool, ludique État-de-droit dans ses bottes....
Philippe Muray a brillamment « tonné contre » la société festive. On l’a rappelé ici-même. Mais on va remonter plus haut et examiner le corps du délit avec notre René Guénon. Qu’était une fête dans le monde traditionnel ? Une subversion momentanée de l’ordre. Guénon, dans ses admirables Symboles de la science sacrée :
« Il n’est pas inutile de citer ici quelques exemples précis, et nous (...)
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bonnal_(%C3%A9crivain)
Je me demande quand même pourquoi on a un flux permanent ici essentiellement composé de commentaires plus ou moins inspirés, souvent de thèmes liés à la réacosphère.
Le site dde ne propose pas de flux par auteur... on prend tout ou rien... et les textes de phG restent intéressants pour ce qui concerne ce qu’il se passe aux US.
Mais je suis d’accord. Bonnal et Gébelin affaiblissent le flux.
Assad will remain in power ’for a while’, says Jeremy Hunt | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/03/syria-president-assad-will-remain-in-power-for-a-while-says-jeremy-hunt
The British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has admitted for the first time that Russian support for the Syrian regime means Bashar al-Assad will remain in power for some time.
The UK has been at the forefront of calls for the Syrian president to leave office as part of a transition to a new government, but over the past year British diplomats have acknowledged that Assad would have to be allowed to stand in any UN-supervised democratic elections in Syria.
Messieurs les Anglais, tirez les premiers ! aurait dit le ministère des Affaires étrangères français !...
Patrimoines endommagés des régions du nord du Mali – CRAterre
▻https://craterre.hypotheses.org/1435
Le patrimoine culturel malien a connu des dommages sans précédent durant la crise de 2012. Pour l’UNESCO , le Gouvernement du mali et leurs partenaires, il est indispensable de prendre conscience du rôle primordial que joue le patrimoine culturel comme facteur de paix et de cohésion sociale. L’action de réhabilitation du patrimoine culturel du nord du pays ne s’est donc pas limitée à la reconstruction matérielle, mais a aussi traité les questions d’identité, de dignité et d’édification d’une paix durable au Mali. Cette brochure fait état de l’avancement de toutes les composantes du projet intitulé « Patrimoines endommagés des régions du nord du Mali : Sauvegarde, Reconstruction, Réhabilitation, Restauration, Revitalisation ».
#afrique #mali #patrimoine #djoliba
Inti Illimani - El pueblo unido jamás será vencido - Encuentro en el Estudio - Temporada 7
►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8UGs0rdhq8
Une belle interprétation d’Inti Illimani, aussi un groupe qui a enchanté et illuminé mon adolescence.
Inti Illimani - El pueblo unido jamás será vencido - Encuentro en el Estudio - Temporada 7
La conciencia de clase es nuestra fuerza
Ella ha cambiado las tareas del martillo
Con ella la usinas engendran otros frutos
Con ella los motores nos abren nuevos rumbos
Con ella se ha ido forjando en muchos años
la unidad del pueblo
Sergio Ortega
Por siempre, Sergio Ortega
(vidéo postée le jour de son décès, 15/09/2003)
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-9GoLO2mmQ
Yacob and Amo: Africa’s precursors to Locke, Hume and Kant | Aeon Essays
►https://aeon.co/essays/yacob-and-amo-africas-precursors-to-locke-hume-and-kant
he ideals of the Enlightenment are the basis of our democracies and universities in the 21st century: belief in reason, science, skepticism, secularism, and equality. In fact, no other era compares with the Age of Enlightenment. Classical Antiquity is inspiring, but a world away from our modern societies. The Middle Ages was more reasonable than its reputation, but still medieval. The Renaissance was glorious, but largely because of its result: the Enlightenment. The Romantic era was a reaction to the Age of Reason – but the ideals of today’s modern states are seldom expressed in terms of romanticism and emotion. Immanuel Kant’s argument in the essay ‘Perpetual Peace’ (1795) that ‘the human race’ should work for ‘a cosmopolitan constitution’ can be seen as a precursor for the United Nations.
#afrique #lumières #idées #émancipation #indépendance #liberté
UK sending Syrians back to countries where they were beaten and abused
Refugees tell of being held in cages and even tortured in European countries including Hungary and Romania
Britain is using EU rules to send asylum seekers from Syria and other countries back to eastern European states where they were beaten, incarcerated and abused, the Guardian has learned.
Migrant rights groups and lawyers say the Home Office is using the rules to send people back to “police brutality, detention and beatings” in several European countries.
The Guardian has spoken to refugees who were subjected to assaults as they travelled through Europe. The men tell of being held in “cages” in Hungary, waterboarded and handcuffed to beds by detention centre guards in Romania and beaten in Bulgaria.
Britain is one of worst places in western Europe for asylum seekers
Read more
They now face being returned to those countries as, under the so-called Dublin law, asylum seekers are supposed to apply in their first EU country of entry.
In 2015 more than 80,000 requests were made by EU countries for another government to take back an asylum seeker. The UK made 3,500 of these requests to countries around Europe, including Bulgaria, Romania, Italy and Hungary.
The Home Office claims it should be entitled to assume that any EU country will treat asylum seekers properly.
The charity Migrant Voice has collected testimony from several refugees who are fighting removal from the UK to other European countries. Nazek Ramadan, the director of the charity, said the men had been left traumatised by their journey and their subsequent treatment in the UK.
“We know there are hundreds of Syrians in the UK who have fingerprints in other European countries,” said Ramadan. “Many no longer report to the Home Office because they are afraid of being detained and deported away from their family in the UK. Those who have been forcibly removed often end up destitute.
“These are people who were abused in their home country, sometimes jailed by the regime there. Then they were imprisoned again in Europe. They feel that they are still living in a war zone, moving from one arrest and detention to another.”
The law firm Duncan Lewis recently won a key case preventing forced removals back to Hungary because of the risk that people might be forced from there back to their country of origin.
The firm is also challenging removals to Bulgaria because of what the UN refugee agency has described as “substandard” conditions there. A test case on whether Bulgaria is a safe country to send people back to is due to be heard by the court of appeal in November.
The situation could get even more complex as an EU ban on sending asylum seekers back to Greece is due to be lifted on Wednesday after a six-year moratorium.
Krisha Prathepan, of Duncan Lewis, said: “We intend to challenge any resumption of returns to Greece, as that country’s asylum system remains dysfunctional and the risk of refugees being returned from Greece to the very countries in which they faced persecution remains as high as ever.”
The Home Office says it has no immediate plans to send refugees back to Greece, but is following European guidelines.
“We have no current plans to resume Dublin returns to Greece,” a spokesperson said, citing among other reasons “the reception conditions in the country”.
She added: “In April 2016, the high court ruled that transfer to Bulgaria under the Dublin regulation would not breach the European Convention on Human Rights. If there is evidence that Bulgaria is responsible for an asylum application, we will seek to transfer the application.”
Mohammad Nadi Ismail, 32, Syrian
Mohammad Nadi Ismail, a former Syrian navy captain, entered Europe via Bulgaria and Hungary, hoping to join his uncle and brother in Britain.
In Bulgaria he was detained, beaten and humiliated. “They stripped us and made us stand in a row all naked. We had to bend over in a long line. Then they hit us on our private parts with truncheons.
“They would wake us at night after they had been playing cards and drinking. Then they would come and hit us or kick us with their boots or truncheons.”
One day he was released and took his chance to leave, walking for days to reach Hungary.
But in Hungary he was locked up again. “They took us to a courtyard of a big building where there were five or six cages, about 8ft [2.4 metres] square. Most of the people were African. Some of them had been in there for four or five days. Luckily we Syrians were allowed out after one night and I headed for the UK.”
In the UK Ismail met up with the family he hadn’t seen for three years and applied for asylum immediately.
Then a letter came, saying his fingerprints had been found in Bulgaria and he would be returned. After a month in detention he now reports every two weeks, waiting and hoping that the UK will let him stay.
“I will not go back to Bulgaria. I still have hope that I can stay here legally and rebuild my life with my family who have always supported me,” he said.
‘Dawoud’, 34, Iranian
Dawoud (not his real name) was 28 when he fled Iran after his political activities had made him an enemy of the government. His brother and parents made it to the UK and were given refugee status.
When he was told by border guards that he was in Romania he had no idea what that meant. “I had never even heard of this country,” he said. He was put in a camp where “water dripped through the electrics – we were electrocuted often. Children and families screamed. We lived in fear of the wild dogs who circled the camp, attacking and biting us. We were given no food; we had to go through bins in the town nearby for scraps.”
He escaped once, to the Netherlands, but was sent back.
“I experienced several beatings, on all parts of the body. There were people covered in blood and they were refused medical help. They even waterboarded me. I thought I would die.”
Finally he managed to reach his mother, father and brother in the UK. For two years he has lived in hiding, too scared to apply for asylum for fear of being sent back to Romania. But a few months ago he finally reported to the Home Office. A letter informed him that a request had been made to Romania to take him back.
Dawoud shakes as he talks about his fear of removal, saying: “When I hear people speak Romanian in the street it brings back my trauma. I once fell to the ground shaking just hearing someone speak. I will kill myself rather than go back.”
Wael al-Awadi, 36, Syrian
Wael travelled by sea to Italy and was detained on arrival in Sicily. “They hit us with their fists and sticks in order to make us give our fingerprints. Then they let us go. They gave us nothing, no accommodation, just told us: ‘Go where you like.’ So many Syrians were sleeping in the streets.”
When he reached the UK he was detained for two months before friends helped him get bail. A year and a half later, when reporting at the Home Office, he was detained again and booked on to a plane to Italy.
He refused to go and a solicitor got him out on bail. His appeal is due to be heard later this year. “I left Syria to avoid jail and detention and here I have been locked up twice,” he said. “I can’t understand it. Why can’t they look at me with some humanity? I am mentally so tired. My children call me from Syria but I can’t speak to them any more. It is too painful.”
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/12/the-refugees-uk-wants-to-send-back-to-countries-where-they-were-abused?
#réfugiés_syriens #UK #Angleterre #Dublin #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Bulgarie #Roumanie #Hongrie #Italie #renvois #expulsions #renvois_Dublin
Les États-Unis et Israël quittent l’Unesco ce lundi soir
Gwendal Lavina, Le Figaro, le 31 décembre 2018
▻http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2018/12/31/01003-20181231ARTFIG00116-les-etats-unis-et-israel-quittent-l-unesco-ce-lun
Les deux pays exécutent une décision annoncée en octobre 2017 en réponse à plusieurs résolutions de l’organisation qu’ils jugent « anti-israéliennes ». L’Unesco regrette ces deux retraits mais minimise leurs impacts.
Certains observateurs craignent qu’au-delà d’affaiblir politiquement l’Unesco, ces deux retraits entament sérieusement le budget de l’organisation. Un diplomate bien informé balaye cet argument de la main et rappelle que les États-Unis et Israël ne payent plus leur cotisation obligatoire depuis 2011. Leur dette auprès de l’organisation s’élève ainsi à 620 millions de dollars pour les États-Unis et 10 millions de dollars pour Israël.
Feuilleton à plusieurs épisodes :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/636965
#UNESCO #USA #israel #Palestine #ONU #dette #escrocs #voleurs
Blanquer à « L’OLJ » : Il faut éviter que le Liban perde son plurilinguisme, qui repose essentiellement sur le français - Propos recueillis par Maya KHADRA - L’Orient-Le Jour
▻https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1150523/blanquer-a-lolj-il-faut-eviter-que-le-liban-perde-son-plurilinguisme-
L’OLJ ne pose pas la question de la hausse des frais d’inscription universitaire qui limitera la venue d’étudiants libanais. Et si c’était la France qui savonnait la planche du français, plutôt que d’incriminer l’horrible progression de l’anglophonie ?
#brosse_à_reluire
Le président Macron a le souci de renforcer la francophonie, et son budget a été considérablement augmenté. Mais les Libanais se sentent abandonnés par la France. L’anglais grignote petit à petit le territoire de la francophonie. Comment la France pourrait-elle sauver la situation, par le biais d’une éducation décloisonnée qui privilégierait la culture extra-muros ?
Vous avez raison de le souligner : le français n’est pas une langue étrangère comme les autres au Liban ; c’est une langue libanaise, qui s’est diffusée grâce aux missions chrétiennes au Liban, même si elle n’est plus depuis longtemps l’apanage d’une seule communauté. Ainsi, plus de 50 % des élèves libanais de toutes confessions suivent un cursus bilingue arabe-français, et 100 % d’entre eux apprennent le français, au moins comme troisième langue. De même, la France reste, de loin, la première destination pour les étudiants libanais qui décident de s’expatrier.
Certes, l’anglais a beaucoup progressé ces dernières années, notamment dans la vie quotidienne des Libanais, qui ont besoin de maîtriser cette langue pour travailler avec et dans des pays anglophones. Ce qu’il faut éviter, c’est que le Liban perde son plurilinguisme, qui fait partie de son identité plurielle et qui contribue fortement à l’attractivité des étudiants libanais pour les employeurs. Ce plurilinguisme, il repose essentiellement sur le français : tout le monde sait bien que lorsqu’on apprend le français, on apprend facilement l’anglais, alors que l’inverse est moins vrai. D’ailleurs, les meilleurs étudiants des universités anglophones du Liban viennent fréquemment des écoles à programme français. Pour beaucoup de familles libanaises, l’enseignement français est considéré comme un enseignement d’excellence et perçu comme un ascenseur social.
Notre objectif est donc de conforter le français à l’école. L’avenir de la francophonie au Liban repose avant tout sur une forte francophonie scolaire. Dans ce domaine, la France est très présente. Nous avons 43 écoles à programme français et plus de 60 écoles labellisées comme francophones (14 écoles LabelFrancEducation, ce qui place le Liban au troisième rang mondial après les États-Unis et l’Espagne, et 63 écoles disposant du label CELF créé par ce poste et certifiant le niveau de maîtrise de la langue française du corps professoral), que nous soutenons, notamment en termes de formation. Au total, nous accompagnons ainsi directement plus de 100 000 élèves libanais, soit 10 % d’entre eux.
Par ailleurs, nous soutenons les facultés de pédagogie francophones ainsi que le ministère libanais de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement supérieur, à titre bilatéral et à travers les agences des Nations unies. En particulier, nous travaillons, dans la perspective de la prochaine visite du président de la République, à un important programme de soutien de l’Agence française de développement dans le domaine de l’éducation, au profit du secteur public. De plus, je tiens à saluer le fait que le projet Education cannot wait (ECW), piloté par l’Unesco et qui comprend une contribution financière française de 2 millions d’euros, a été volontairement orienté par le ministère libanais de l’Éducation vers le soutien à la langue française dans le système éducatif libanais.
Enfin, la France fait beaucoup dans ce que vous appelez la culture extra-muros. J’en cite quelques exemples : nous finançons un programme de soutien aux médias francophones, dont L’Orient-le-Jour est l’un des principaux bénéficiaires ;
nous accompagnons les distributeurs de chaînes de télévision et de films français afin de permettre une meilleure diffusion auprès du public libanais ; nous organisons chaque année le Salon du livre francophone de Beyrouth, troisième Salon du livre francophone au monde, et nous proposons des spectacles francophones pour la jeunesse sur l’ensemble du territoire libanais.
’We are transforming our university into a place where talent once again feels valued and nurtured’
Our university should once again belong to the academics, rather than the bureaucracy, writes the rector of #Ghent_University, Rik Van de Walle.
Ghent University is deliberately choosing to step out of the rat race between individuals, departments and universities. We no longer wish to participate in the #ranking of people.
It is a common complaint among academic staff that the mountain of paperwork, the cumbersome procedures and the administrative burden have grown to proportions that are barely controllable. Furthermore, the academic staff is increasingly put under pressure to count publications, citations and doctorates, on the basis of which funds are being allocated. The intense competition for funding often prevails over any possible collaboration across the boundaries of research groups, faculties and - why not - universities. With a new evaluation policy, Ghent University wants to address these concerns and at the same time breathe new life into its career guidance policy. Thus, the university can again become a place where talent feels valued and nurtured.
We are transforming our university into a place where talent once again feels valued and nurtured.
With the new career and evaluation model for professorial staff, Ghent University is opening new horizons for Flanders. The main idea is that the academy will once again belong to the academics rather than the bureaucracy. No more procedures and processes with always the same templates, metrics and criteria which lump everyone together.
We opt for a radically new model: those who perform well will be promoted, with a minimum of accountability and administrative effort and a maximum of freedom and responsibility. The quality of the individual human capital is given priority: talent must be nurtured and feel valued.
This marks the end of the personalized objectives, the annual job descriptions and the high number of evaluation documents and activity reports. Instead, the new approach is based on collaboration, collegiality and teamwork. All staff members will make commitments about how they can contribute to the objectives of the department, the education programmes, the faculty and the university.
The evaluations will be greatly simplified and from now on only take place every five years instead of every two or four years. This should create an ’evaluation break’.
We opt for a radically new model: those who perform well will be promoted, with a minimum of accountability and administrative effort and a maximum of freedom and responsibility. At the same time, we want to pay more attention to well-being at work: the evaluations of the supervisors will explicitly take into account the way in which they manage and coach their staff. The model must provide a response to the complaint of many young professors that quantitative parameters are predominant in the evaluation process. The well-known and overwhelming ’publication pressure’ is the most prominent exponent of this. Ghent University is deliberately choosing to step out of the rat race between individuals, departments and universities. We no longer wish to participate in the ranking of people.
Through this model, we are expressly taking up our responsibility. In the political debate on the funding of universities and research applications, a constant argument is that we want to move away from purely competitive thinking that leaves too little room for disruptive ideas. The reply of the policy makers is of course that we must first do this within the university itself. This is a clear step in that direction, and it also shows our efforts to put our own house in order.
With this cultural shift, Ghent University is taking the lead in Flanders, and we are proud of it. It is an initiative that is clearly in accordance with our motto: ’#Dare_to_Think'. Even more so, we dare to do it as well.
A university is above all a place where everything can be questioned. Where opinions, procedures and habits are challenged. Where there is no place for rigidity.
I am absolutely convinced that in a few years’ time we will see that this new approach has benefited the overall quality of our university and its people.
Je rêve que mon université fasse aussi un grand pas en cette direction, mais je crains que ça restera un rêve...
Netherlands plans overhaul of academic careers in move away from metrics
Country will also consider creating teaching-focused professorships to stop academics being overloaded by responsibilities
▻https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/netherlands-plans-overhaul-academic-careers-move-away-metrics
#Pays-Bas #enseignement
THE developing ranking based on #Sustainable_Development_Goals
New league table will be first to measure global universities’ success in delivering on UN targets
Times Higher Education is developing a new global university ranking that aims to measure institutions’ success in delivering the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
The 17 goals – which include providing inclusive and equitable quality education, achieving gender equality and fostering innovation – were adopted by the UN in 2016 and provide a framework for developing the world in a sustainable way.
The first edition of the ranking will include metrics based on 11 SDGs, but the long-term goal is to measure performance against all 17 goals.
Data will be collected from universities and Elsevier to produce an overall ranking of universities based on the best four or five SDGs per university. Individual rankings of the universities that are best achieving the 11 SDGs will also be published.
The ranking will be open to all accredited universities that teach undergraduates, and the first edition will be launched at THE’s Innovation and Impact Summit in South Korea in April 2019. Data collection will begin this autumn.
Metrics currently being explored include the number of graduates in health professions, the proportion of women in senior academic positions, and policies and practices regarding employment security.
An initial draft of the metrics will be developed in partnership with Vertigo Ventures, an organisation that works with leading research institutions globally to help them identify, capture and report the impact of their work, and there will be a workshop on the first iteration of the methodology at THE’s World Academic Summit in Singapore later this month.
Phil Baty, THE’s editorial director of global rankings, said that THE originally planned to launch an impact ranking based primarily on universities’ economic impact – examining their interactions with business and their development of commercially exploitable ideas – but has decided to expand its approach to cover a much wider definition of impact, based on feedback from the sector.
While some national systems were trying to gather evidence on universities’ role in achieving the SDGs, the new ranking will be the first global attempt at measuring this activity and “moves well beyond established ranking parameters of research and reputation”, he added.
Mr Baty said that the new table will also provide an opportunity for institutions that do not usually appear in the THE World University Rankings to feature.
“We are working to develop metrics that enable universities across the world to evidence their impact – not just those that are located in more developed nations,” he said.
▻https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/developing-ranking-based-sustainable-development-goals
#SDGs
The English Trojan horse destroying Dutch universities
In December, the Dutch Inspectorate of Education published the results of an investigation which suggest that in May last year the association ‘Beter Onderwijs Nederland’ (BON or Better Education Netherlands) had perfectly good reasons for filing a lawsuit against two Dutch universities and the inspectorate of education itself in an attempt to stop the unbridled anglicisation of higher education in the Netherlands.
Had the results of the inspectorate’s investigation been available at that point, BON might perhaps have won the case by framing the arguments in their legal brief somewhat differently.
Beyond any doubt, the investigation shows that many institutions of higher education in the Netherlands violate the Dutch Higher Education Law. In addition, it suggests that the inspectorate has failed in its task of monitoring whether these institutions comply with the relevant articles in the law (WHW 1.3 and 7.2).
If it had indeed followed developments regarding internationalisation, as it says in the very first sentence of the investigation report’s summary, shouldn’t it – or the minister responsible – have acted accordingly years ago when all the official figures about degree programmes taught entirely in English indicated that the law was being massively ignored?
So what does the law, issued in 1992, state with respect to the language of instruction in Dutch higher education and how does the incidence of English-only degree programmes fare against this legislation?
Article 1.3 of the WHW dictates that institutions of higher education should advance the Dutch language proficiency of all Dutch students. The related article 7.2 states that instruction and examinations should be in Dutch, except if (a) the degree programme in question specifically aims to help them acquire another language; (b) a lecture is given by a visiting lecturer who doesn’t speak Dutch, or (c) the specific nature, organisation or quality of teaching or the origin of the students necessitates the use of a language other than Dutch.
If 7.2c applies, the necessity of using another language should be explained in a code of conduct that is adopted by the institution’s executive board. Beyond all doubt, the law supports the idea that the default language in Dutch higher education is Dutch.
Reaching a tipping point
In view of the unmistakable intent of the WHW to safeguard the position of Dutch, the figures concerning the number of degree programmes completely taught in English in Dutch universities are downright stunning, and higher than anywhere else in Europe.
In the academic year 2017-18, 23% of all bachelor degree programmes and 74% of all masters degree programmes offered by Dutch universities were entirely in English.
Nevertheless, the anglicisation process continues. The latest numbers, issued in December 2018, show that this academic year there has been an increase of 5% for bachelor degree programmes and 2% for the masters programmes that are conducted entirely in English.
Tipping point reached
With these new figures, the tipping point has been reached of more programmes being taught in English than in Dutch. At the University of Twente and Maastricht University, the two universities that BON summoned to court in 2018, English saturation is nearly complete, including in bachelor degree programmes.
The percentages of all-English programmes show that universities clearly do not act in the spirit of WHW articles 1.3 and 7.2. But do they actually violate the law?
The inspectorate’s investigation points out that many Dutch institutions of higher education, including a couple of universities, are indeed breaking the law.
The inquiry focused on the code of conduct mentioned in article 7.2c, such a code being obligatory in all cases where English (or any other language) instead of Dutch is used as the language of instruction. It is even required if English is the language of instruction in only part of a programme and it should always explain the need to use a language other than Dutch.
Two of the main questions addressed in the investigation therefore were whether institutions of higher education that offer at least one programme entirely or largely in English actually have a code of conduct and, if so, whether its content complies with legal requirements.
Seventy-seven of the 125 Dutch higher education institutions fulfilled the criteria for inclusion in the investigation, among them publicly funded research universities, universities of applied science (‘hogescholen’) and non-publicly funded institutions. Remarkably, only 43 of these 77 actually had a code of conduct so the other 34 thus clearly violated the law.
Equally noteworthy is the fact that the need for instruction in English was not substantiated by weighty arguments in any of the 43 codes of conduct as article 7.2c requires.
It is extremely puzzling that in about one-third of the codes of conduct a different principle than the clear ‘Dutch unless’ standard is adopted, including its opposite, the ‘English unless’ principle – and the reasons for deviating from Dutch as the default language are often not explained.
In view of the fact that the law was issued in 1992, a final noteworthy outcome of the inspectorate’s inquiry is that half of the codes of conduct date from 2017 and 2018. One cannot help suspecting that the institutions in question may have drawn them up to retroactively legitimise their language policy, possibly responding to growing public concern about English rapidly replacing Dutch in Dutch higher education.
Impact on internationalisation
The main motive for providing all-English programmes is that these are strong magnets for foreign students, who, in an increasing number of programmes, outnumber their Dutch peers.
For example, the percentage of international students among first-year psychology students at the University of Twente, Maastricht University and the University of Amsterdam rose, respectively, from 50% to 80%, from 52% to 86% and from 3% to 57% the year entire programmes were first offered in English.
Dutch (research) universities have seen their student numbers expand substantially over the last couple of years, mainly due to the increasing influx of international students. Just this academic year the student population increased by 5%. Since 2000 universities have seen their student population grow by 68% without any proportional rise in funding.
They have now reached a point at which they can no longer cope with the influx – there are more than 1,000 first-year students bursting out of the lecture halls in some fields of study.
Ironically, in an attempt to gain control over the inflow of international students, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) is trying to get the minister’s approval for a cap on enrolment on all-English programmes in order to secure the educational quality that is jeopardised by universities’ uncontrollable growth.
Fluency risk
Another reason why educational quality is at risk on all-English programmes is that proficiency in a second language is generally lower than in a native language. This also applies to the Dutch, who tend to greatly overestimate their fluency in English. This lower proficiency in English impedes students’ knowledge acquisition and academic development and hampers the transfer of knowledge and skills by lecturers.
In view of the fact that WHW article 1.3 clearly aims to foster students’ Dutch language proficiency and protect the position of Dutch in general, all-English instruction also adversely affects educational quality because it results in the opposite: a declining Dutch language proficiency in students enrolled on such programmes and the gradual disappearance of Dutch as a scientific and cultural language.
Let there be no mistake. The opponents of anglicisation of higher education in the Netherlands do not object to the prominent presence of English in education next to Dutch. Many would even welcome the balanced presence of Dutch and English on truly bilingual programmes.
What they instead oppose is the complete replacement of Dutch by English, as happens on all-English programmes. It is by offering these programmes on such a large scale that Dutch universities have built a Trojan horse that is now defeating them within their own walls.
▻https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20190121062548730
#anglicisation #anglais #langue #cheval_de_Troie
‘It’s an Act of Murder’: How Europe Outsources Suffering as Migrants Drown
This short film, produced by The Times’s Opinion Video team and the research groups #Forensic_Architecture and #Forensic_Oceanography, reconstructs a tragedy at sea that left at least 20 migrants dead. Combining footage from more than 10 cameras, 3-D modeling and interviews with rescuers and survivors, the documentary shows Europe’s role in the migrant crisis at sea.
On Nov. 6, 2017, at least 20 people trying to reach Europe from Libya drowned in the Mediterranean, foundering next to a sinking raft.
Not far from the raft was a ship belonging to Sea-Watch, a German humanitarian organization. That ship had enough space on it for everyone who had been aboard the raft. It could have brought them all to the safety of Europe, where they might have had a chance at being granted asylum.
Instead, 20 people drowned and 47 more were captured by the Libyan Coast Guard, which brought the migrants back to Libya, where they suffered abuse — including rape and torture.
This confrontation at sea was not a simplistic case of Europe versus Africa, with human rights and rescue on one side and chaos and danger on the other. Rather it’s a case of Europe versus Europe: of volunteers struggling to save lives being undercut by European Union policies that outsource border control responsibilities to the Libyan Coast Guard — with the aim of stemming arrivals on European shores.
While funding, equipping and directing the Libyan Coast Guard, European governments have stymied the activities of nongovernmental organizations like Sea-Watch, criminalizing them or impounding their ships, or turning away from ports ships carrying survivors.
More than 14,000 people have died or gone missing while trying to cross the central Mediterranean since 2014. But unlike most of those deaths and drownings, the incident on Nov. 6, 2017, was extensively documented.
Sea-Watch’s ship and rescue rafts were outfitted with nine cameras, documenting the entire scene in video and audio. The Libyans, too, filmed parts of the incident on their mobile phones.
The research groups Forensic Architecture and Forensic Oceanography of Goldsmiths, University of London, of which three of us — Mr. Heller, Mr. Pezzani and Mr. Weizman — are a part, combined these video sources with radio recordings, vessel tracking data, witness testimonies and newly obtained official sources to produce a minute-by-minute reconstruction of the facts. Opinion Video at The New York Times built on this work to create the above short documentary, gathering further testimonials by some of the survivors and rescuers who were there.
This investigation makes a few things clear: European governments are avoiding their legal and moral responsibilities to protect the human rights of people fleeing violence and economic desperation. More worrying, the Libyan Coast Guard partners that Europe is collaborating with are ready to blatantly violate those rights if it allows them to prevent migrants from crossing the sea.
Stopping Migrants, Whatever the Cost
To understand the cynicism of Europe’s policies in the Mediterranean, one must understand the legal context. According to a 2012 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, migrants rescued by European civilian or military vessels must be taken to a safe port. Because of the chaotic political situation in Libya and well-documented human rights abuses in detention camps there, that means a European port, often in Italy or Malta.
But when the Libyan Coast Guard intercepts migrants, even outside Libyan territorial waters, as it did on Nov. 6, the Libyans take them back to detention camps in Libya, which is not subject to European Court of Human Rights jurisdiction.
For Italy — and Europe — this is an ideal situation. Europe is able to stop people from reaching its shores while washing its hands of any responsibility for their safety.
This policy can be traced back to February 2017, when Italy and the United Nations-supported Libyan Government of National Accord signed a “memorandum of understanding” that provided a framework for collaboration on development, to fight against “illegal immigration,” human trafficking and the smuggling of contraband. This agreement defines clearly the aim, “to stem the illegal migrants’ flows,” and committed Italy to provide “technical and technological support to the Libyan institutions in charge of the fight against illegal immigration.”
Libyan Coast Guard members have been trained by the European Union, and the Italian government donated or repaired several patrol boats and supported the establishment of a Libyan search-and-rescue zone. Libyan authorities have since attempted — in defiance of maritime law — to make that zone off-limits to nongovernmental organizations’ rescue vessels. Italian Navy ships, based in Tripoli, have coordinated Libyan Coast Guard efforts.
Before these arrangements, Libyan actors were able to intercept and return very few migrants leaving from Libyan shores. Now the Libyan Coast Guard is an efficient partner, having intercepted some 20,000 people in 2017 alone.
The Libyan Coast Guard is efficient when it comes to stopping migrants from reaching Europe. It’s not as good, however, at saving their lives, as the events of Nov. 6 show.
A Deadly Policy in Action
That morning the migrant raft had encountered worsening conditions after leaving Tripoli, Libya, over night. Someone onboard used a satellite phone to call the Italian Coast Guard for help.
Because the Italians were required by law to alert nearby vessels of the sinking raft, they alerted Sea-Watch to its approximate location. But they also requested the intervention of their Libyan counterparts.
The Libyan Coast Guard vessel that was sent to intervene on that morning, the Ras Jadir, was one of several that had been repaired by Italy and handed back to the Libyans in May of 2017. Eight of the 13 crew members onboard had received training from the European Union anti-smuggling naval program known as Operation Sophia.
Even so, the Libyans brought the Ras Jadir next to the migrants’ raft, rather than deploying a smaller rescue vessel, as professional rescuers do. This offered no hope of rescuing those who had already fallen overboard and only caused more chaos, during which at least five people died.
These deaths were not merely a result of a lack of professionalism. Some of the migrants who had been brought aboard the Ras Jadir were so afraid of their fate at the hands of the Libyans that they jumped back into the water to try to reach the European rescuers. As can be seen in the footage, members of the Libyan Coast Guard beat the remaining migrants.
Sea-Watch’s crew was also attacked by the Libyan Coast Guard, who threatened them and threw hard objects at them to keep them away. This eruption of violence was the result of a clash between the goals of rescue and interception, with the migrants caught in the middle desperately struggling for their lives.
Apart from those who died during this chaos, more than 15 people had already drowned in the time spent waiting for any rescue vessel to appear.
There was, however, no shortage of potential rescuers in the area: A Portuguese surveillance plane had located the migrants’ raft after its distress call. An Italian Navy helicopter and a French frigate were nearby and eventually offered some support during the rescue.
It’s possible that this French ship, deployed as part of Operation Sophia, could have reached the sinking vessel earlier, in time to save more lives — despite our requests, this information has not been disclosed to us. But it remained at a distance throughout the incident and while offering some support, notably refrained from taking migrants onboard who would then have had to have been disembarked on European soil. It’s an example of a hands-off approach that seeks to make Libyan intervention not only possible but also inevitable.
A Legal Challenge
On the basis of the forensic reconstruction, the Global Legal Action Network and the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration, with the support of Yale Law School students, have filed a case against Italy at the European Court of Human Rights representing 17 survivors of this incident.
Those working on the suit, who include two of us — Mr. Mann and Ms. Moreno-Lax — argue that even though Italian or European personnel did not physically intercept the migrants and bring them back to Libya, Italy exercised effective control over the Libyan Coast Guard through mutual agreements, support and on-the-ground coordination. Italy has entrusted the Libyans with a task that Rome knows full well would be illegal if undertaken directly: preventing migrants from seeking protection in Europe by impeding their flight and sending them back to a country where extreme violence and exploitation await.
We hope this legal complaint will lead the European court to rule that countries cannot subcontract their legal and humanitarian obligations to dubious partners, and that if they do, they retain responsibility for the resulting violations. Such a precedent would force the entire European Union to make sure its cooperation with partners like Libya does not end up denying refugees the right to seek asylum.
This case is especially important right now. In Italy’s elections in March, the far-right Lega party, which campaigned on radical anti-immigrant rhetoric, took nearly 20 percent of the vote. The party is now part of the governing coalition, of which its leader, Matteo Salvini, is the interior minister.
His government has doubled down on animosity toward migrants. In June, Italy took the drastic step of turning away a humanitarian vessel from the country’s ports and has been systematically blocking rescued migrants from being disembarked since then, even when they had been assisted by the Italian Coast Guard.
The Italian crackdown helps explain why seafarers off the Libyan coast have refrained from assisting migrants in distress, leaving them to drift for days. Under the new Italian government, a new batch of patrol boats has been handed over to the Libyan Coast Guard, and the rate of migrants being intercepted and brought back to Libya has increased. All this has made the crossing even more dangerous than before.
Italy has been seeking to enact a practice that blatantly violates the spirit of the Geneva Convention on refugees, which enshrines the right to seek asylum and prohibits sending people back to countries in which their lives are at risk. A judgment by the European Court sanctioning Italy for this practice would help prevent the outsourcing of border control and human rights violations that may prevent the world’s most disempowered populations from seeking protection and dignity.
The European Court of Human Rights cannot stand alone as a guardian of fundamental rights. Yet an insistence on its part to uphold the law would both reflect and bolster the movements seeking solidarity with migrants across Europe.
▻https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/26/opinion/europe-migrant-crisis-mediterranean-libya.html
#reconstruction #naufrage #Méditerranée #Charles_Heller #Lorenzo_Pezzani #asile #migrations #réfugiés #mourir_en_mer #ONG #sauvetage #Sea-Watch #gardes-côtes_libyens #Libye #pull-back #refoulement #externalisation #vidéo #responsabilité #Ras_Jadir #Operation_Sophia #CEDH #cour_européenne_des_droits_de_l'homme #justice #droits_humains #droit_à_la_vie
ping @reka
A mettre en lien, notamment, avec le travail de Charles et Lorenzo sur le désormais célèbre « Left to die boat » :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/333036
#left_to_die_boat
È un omicidio con navi italiane” L’accusa del Nyt
Video-denuncia contro Roma e l’Ue per un naufragio di un anno fa: botte dei libici ai migranti, 50 morti.
Patate scagliate addosso ai soccorritori della Sea Watch invece di lanciare giubbotti e salvagente ai naufraghi che stavano annegando. E poi botte ai migranti riusciti a salire sulle motovedette per salvarsi la vita. Ecco i risultati dell’addestramento che l’Italia ha impartito ai libici per far fuori i migranti nel Mediterraneo. È un video pubblicato dal New York Times che parte da una delle più gravi tra le ultime stragi avvenute del Canale di Sicilia, con un commento intitolato: “‘È un omicidio’: come l’Europa esternalizza sofferenza mentre i migranti annegano”.
Era il 6 novembre 2017 e le operazioni in mare erano gestite dalla guardia costiera libica, in accordo con l’allora ministro dell’Interno, Marco Minniti. Il dettaglio non è secondario, lo stesso video mostra la cerimonia di consegna delle motovedette made in Italy ai partner nordafricani. Una delle imbarcazioni, la 648, la ritroviamo proprio al centro dell’azione dove, quel giorno, cinquanta africani vennero inghiottiti dal mare. Al tempo era consentito alle imbarcazioni di soccorso pattugliare lo specchio di mare a cavallo tra le zone Sar (Search and rescue, ricerca e soccorso) di competenza. Al tempo i porti italiani erano aperti, ma il comportamento dei militari libici già al limite della crudeltà. Il video e le foto scattate dal personale della Sea Watch mostrano scene durissime. Un migrante lasciato annegare senza alcun tentativo da parte dei libici di salvarlo: il corpo disperato annaspa per poi sparire sott’acqua, quando il salvagente viene lanciato è tardi. Botte, calci e pugni a uomini appena saliti a bordo delle motovedette, di una violenza ingiustificabile. Il New York Times va giù duro e nel commento, oltre a stigmatizzare attacca i governi italiani. Dalla prova delle motovedette vendute per far fare ad altri il lavoro sporco, al nuovo governo definito “di ultradestra” che “ha completato la strategia”. Matteo Salvini però non viene nominato. L’Italia, sottolinea il Nyt, ha delegato alle autorità della Tripolitania il pattugliamento delle coste e il recupero di qualsiasi imbarcazione diretta a nord. Nulla di nuovo, visto che la Spagna, guidata dal socialista Sanchez e impegnata sul fronte occidentale con un’ondata migratoria senza precedenti, usa il Marocco per “bonificare” il tratto di mare vicino allo stretto di Gibilterra da gommoni e carrette. Gli organismi europei da una parte stimolano il blocco delle migrazioni verso il continente, eppure dall’altra lo condannano. Per l’episodio del 6 novembre 2017, infatti, la Corte europea dei diritti umani sta trattando il ricorso presentato dall’Asgi (Associazione studi giuridici sull’immigrazione) contro il respingimento collettivo. Sempre l’Asgi ha presentato due ricorsi analoghi per fatti del dicembre 2018 e gennaio 2018; infine altri due, uno sulla cessione delle motovedette e l’altro sull’implementazione dell’accordo Italia-Libia firmato da Minniti.
▻https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/premium/articoli/e-un-omicidio-con-navi-italiane-laccusa-del-nyt
Comment l’Europe et la Libye laissent mourir les migrants en mer
Il y a un peu plus d’un an, le 6 novembre 2017, une fragile embarcation sombre en mer avec à son bord 150 migrants partis de Tripoli pour tenter de rejoindre l’Europe. La plupart d’entre eux sont morts. Avec l’aide de Forensic Oceanography – une organisation créée en 2011 pour tenir le compte des morts de migrants en Méditerranée – et de Forensic Architecture – groupe de recherche enquêtant sur les violations des droits de l’homme –, le New York Times a retracé le déroulement de ce drame, dans une enquête vidéo extrêmement documentée.
Depuis l’accord passé en février 2017 entre la Libye et l’Italie, confiant aux autorités libyennes le soin d’intercepter les migrants dans ses eaux territoriales, le travail des ONG intervenant en mer Méditerranée avec leurs bateaux de sauvetage est devenu extrêmement difficile. Ces dernières subissent les menaces constantes des gardes-côtes libyens, qui, malgré les subventions européennes et les formations qu’ils reçoivent, n’ont pas vraiment pour but de sauver les migrants de la noyade. Ainsi, en fermant les yeux sur les pratiques libyennes régulièrement dénoncées par les ONG, l’Europe contribue à aggraver la situation et précipite les migrants vers la noyade, s’attache à démontrer cette enquête vidéo publiée dans la section Opinions du New York Times. Un document traduit et sous-titré par Courrier international.
►https://www.courrierinternational.com/video/enquete-comment-leurope-et-la-libye-laissent-mourir-les-migra
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=dcbh8yJclGI
How We Made an Invisible Crisis at Sea Visible
An ambitious Opinion Video project produced across three continents — in collaboration with a pioneering forensic research group — shines a spotlight on the more than 16,000 migrants who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean since 2014.
Forensic Oceanography had created a report and a minute-by-minute reconstruction of the episode (▻http://www.forensic-architecture.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2018-05-07-FO-Mare-Clausum-full-EN.pdf) intended partly to support a case that was about to be filed on behalf of survivors at the European Court of Human Rights.
Their reporting was deep, but it was very technical. We wanted to build on the original research to create a short film that would sharpen the story while still embracing complexity.
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/reader-center/migrants-mediterranean-sea.html
#visibilité #invisibilité #in/visiblité #Mare_clausum
Sic Semper Tyrannis : Two new US bases in western Iraq.
▻https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/12/httpswwwalmasdarnewscomarticleus-builds-two-military-bases-alon
The generals’ club is probably at work in this, seeking to limit the effect of Trump’s order for US forces to withdraw from Syria.
The one in roumana sub-district is the location from which US Army 155mm artillery is firing in support of continuing SDF attacks against the hajin pocket in the SE corner of Syria. There will be US Army GBs with the SDF adjusting these fires. IMO those GBs will be left in Syria to do what only they do best, keep the locals in the fight. This base will be useful as a forward staging point for any raids that SOF forces might want to make into Syria (kill Baghdadi, etc.)
The other base is at rutbah and is positioned astride the highway from al-tanf in Syria. In this position it will continue to obstruct the Damascus-Baghdad-Iran main ground route.
These two facilities will surely be supported and supplied from the al-asad air bast which Trump visited. pl
#Syrie #Etats-Unis #Irak
Les Etats-Unis établissent deux nouvelles bases militaires en Irak, près de la Syrie | TRT Français
▻http://www.trt.net.tr/francais/moyen-orient/2018/12/26/les-etats-unis-etablissent-deux-nouvelles-bases-militaires-en-irak-pres-de-l
And Yet We Move - 2018, a Contested Year
Alarm Phone 6 Week Report, 12 November - 23 December 2018
311 people escaping from Libya rescued through a chain of solidarity +++ About 113,000 sea arrivals and over 2,240 counted fatalities in the Mediterranean this year +++ 666 Alarm Phone distress cases in 2018 +++ Developments in all three Mediterranean regions +++ Summaries of 38 Alarm Phone distress cases
Introduction
“There are no words big enough to describe the value of the work you are doing. It is a deeply human act and it will never be forgotten. The whole of your team should know that we wish all of you health and a long life and the best wishes in all the colours of the world.” These are the words that the Alarm Phone received a few days ago from a man who had been on a boat in the Western Mediterranean Sea and with whom our shift teams had stayed in touch throughout the night until they were finally rescued to Spain. He was able to support the other travellers by continuously and calmly reassuring them, and thereby averted panic on the boat. His message motivates us to continue also in 2019 to do everything we can to assist people who have taken to the sea because Europe’s border regime has closed safe and legal routes, leaving only the most dangerous paths slightly open. On these paths, over 2,240 people have lost their lives this year.
While we write this report, 311 people are heading toward Spain on the rescue boat of the NGO Proactiva Open Arms. The travellers called the Alarm Phone when they were on a boat-convoy that had left from Libya. Based on the indications of their location, Al-Khums, the civil reconnaissance aircraft Colibri launched a search operation in the morning of the 21st of December and was able to spot the convoy of three boats which were then rescued by Proactiva. Italy and Malta closed their harbours to them, prolonging their suffering. Over the Christmas days they headed toward their final destination in Spain. The successful rescue operation of the 313 people (one mother and her infant child were flown out by a helicopter after rescue) highlights the chain of solidarity that activists and NGOs have created in the Central Mediterranean Sea. It is a fragile chain that the EU and its member states seek to criminalise and tear apart wherever they can.
Throughout the year of 2018, we have witnessed and assisted contested movements across the Mediterranean Sea. Despite violent deterrence policies and practices, about 113,000 people succeeded in subverting maritime borders and have arrived in Europe by boat. We were alerted to 666 distress situations at sea (until December 23rd), and our shift teams have done their best to assist the many thousands of people who saw no other option to realise their hope for a better future than by risking their lives at sea. Many of them lost their lives in the moment of enacting their freedom of movement. Over 2,240 women, men, and children from the Global South – and probably many more who were never counted – are not with us anymore because of the violence inscribed in the Global North’s hegemonic and brutal borders. They were not able to get a visa. They could not board a much cheaper plane, bus, or ferry to reach a place of safety and freedom. Many travelled for months, even years, to get anywhere near the Mediterranean border – and on their journeys they have lived through hardships unimaginable for most of us. But they struggled on and reached the coasts of Northern Africa and Turkey, where they got onto overcrowded boats. That they are no longer with us is a consequence of Europe’s racist system of segregation that illegalises and criminalises migration, a system that also seeks to illegalise and criminalise solidarity. Many of these 2,240 people would be alive if the civil rescuers were not prevented from doing their work. All of them would be alive, if they could travel and cross borders freely.
In the different regions of the Mediterranean Sea, the situation has further evolved over the course of 2018, and the Alarm Phone witnessed the changing patterns of boat migration first hand. Most of the boats we assisted were somewhere between Morocco and Spain (480), a considerable number between Turkey and Greece (159), but comparatively few between Libya and Italy (27). This, of course, speaks to the changing dynamics of migratory escape and its control in the different regions:
Morocco-Spain: Thousands of boats made it across the Strait of Gibraltar, the Alboran Sea, or the Atlantic and have turned Spain into the ‘front-runner’ this year with about 56,000 arrivals by sea. In 2017, 22,103 people had landed in Spain, 8,162 in 2016. In the Western Mediterranean, crossings are organised in a rather self-organised way and the number of arrivals speaks to a migratory dynamism not experienced for over a decade in this region. Solidarity structures have multiplied both in Morocco and Spain and they will not be eradicated despite the wave of repression that has followed the peak in crossings over the summer. Several Alarm Phone members experienced the consequences of EU pressure on the Moroccan authorities to repress cross-border movements first hand when they were violently deported to the south of Morocco, as were several thousand others.
Turkey-Greece: With about 32,000 people reaching the Greek islands by boat, more people have arrived in Greece than in 2017, when 29,718 people did so. After arrival via the sea, many are confined in inhumane conditions on the islands and the EU hotspots have turned into rather permanent prisons. This desperate situation has prompted renewed movements across the Turkish-Greek land border in the north. Overall, the number of illegalised crossings into Greece has risen due to more than 20,000 people crossing the land border. Several cases of people experiencing illegal push-back operations there reached the Alarm Phone over the year.
Libya-Italy/Malta: Merely about 23,000[1] people have succeeded in fleeing Libya via the sea in 2018. The decrease is dramatic, from 119,369 in 2017, and even 181,436 in 2016. This decrease gives testament to the ruthlessness of EU deterrence policies that have produced the highest death rate in the Central Mediterranean and unspeakable suffering among migrant communities in Libya. Libyan militias are funded, trained, and legitimated by their EU allies to imprison thousands of people in camps and to abduct those who made it onto boats back into these conditions. Due to the criminalisation of civil rescuers, a lethal rescue gap was produced, with no NGO able to carry out their work for many months of the year. Fortunately, three of them have now been able to return to the deadliest area of the Mediterranean.
These snapshots of the developments in the three Mediterranean regions, elaborated on in greater detail below, give an idea of the struggles ahead of us. They show how the EU and its member states not only created dangerous maritime paths in the first place but then reinforced its migrant deterrence regime at any cost. They show, however, also how thousands could not be deterred from enacting their freedom of movement and how solidarity structures have evolved to assist their precarious movements. We go into 2019 with the promise and call that the United4Med alliance of sea rescuers has outlined: “We will prove how civil society in action is not only willing but also able to bring about a new Europe; saving lives at sea and creating a just reception system on land. Ours is a call to action to European cities, mayors, citizens, societies, movements, organisations and whoever believes in our mission, to join us. Join our civil alliance and let us stand up together, boldly claiming a future of respect and equality. We will stand united for the right to stay and for the right to go.”[2] Also in the new year, the Alarm Phone will directly engage in this struggle and we call on others to join. It can only be a collective fight, as the odds are stacked against us.
Developments in the Central Mediterranean
In December 2018, merely a few hundred people were able to escape Libya by boat. It cannot be stressed enough how dramatic the decrease in crossings along this route is – a year before, 2,327 people escaped in December, in 2016 even 8,428. 2018 is the year when Europe’s border regime ‘succeeded’ in largely shutting down the Central Mediterranean route. It required a combination of efforts – the criminalisation of civil search and rescue organisations, the selective presence of EU military assets that were frequently nowhere to be found when boats were in distress, the closure of Italian harbours and the unwillingness of other EU member states to welcome the rescued, and, most importantly, the EU’s sustained support for the so-called Libyan coastguards and other Libyan security forces. Europe has not only paid but also trained, funded and politically legitimised Libyan militias whose only job is to contain outward migratory movements, which means capturing and abducting people seeking to flee to Europe both at sea and on land. Without these brutal allies, it would not have been possible to reduce the numbers of crossings that dramatically.
The ‘Nivin case’ of November 7th exemplifies this European-Libyan alliance. On that day, a group of 95 travellers reached out to the Alarm Phone from a boat in distress off the coast of Libya. Among them were people from Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Eritrea. Italy refused to conduct a rescue operation and eventually they were rescued by the cargo vessel Nivin. Despite telling the rescued that they would be brought to a European harbour, the crew of the Nivin returned them to Libya on November 10th. At the harbour of Misrata, most of the rescued refused to disembark, stating that they would not want to be returned into conditions of confinement and torture. The people, accused by some to be ‘pirates’, fought bravely against forced disembarkation for ten days but on the 20th of November they could resist no longer when Libyan security forces stormed the boat and violently removed them, using tear gas and rubber bullets in the process. Several of the protestors were injured and needed treatment in hospital while others were returned into inhumane detention camps.[3]
Also over the past 6 weeks, the period covered in this report, the criminalisation of civil rescue organisations continued. The day that the protestors on the Nivin were violently removed, Italy ordered the seizure of the Aquarius, the large rescue asset operated by SOS Méditerranée and Médecins Sans Frontières that had already been at the docs in France for some time, uncertain about its future mission. According to the Italian authorities, the crew had falsely labelled the clothes rescued migrants had left on the Aquarius as ‘special’ rather than ‘toxic’ waste.[4] The absurdity of the accusation highlights the fact that Italy’s authorities seek out any means to prevent rescues from taking place, a “disproportionate and unfounded measure, purely aimed at further criminalising lifesaving medical-humanitarian action at sea”, as MSF noted.[5] Unfortunately, these sustained attacks showed effect. On the 6th of December, SOS Med and MSF announced the termination of its mission: “European policies and obstruction tactics have forced [us] to terminate the lifesaving operations carried out by the search and rescue vessel Aquarius.” As the MSF general director said: “This is a dark day. Not only has Europe failed to provide search and rescue capacity, it has also actively sabotaged others’ attempts to save lives. The end of Aquarius means more deaths at sea, and more needless deaths that will go unwitnessed.”[6]
And yet, despite this ongoing sabotage of civil rescue from the EU and its member states, three vessels of the Spanish, German, and Italian organisations Open Arms, Sea-Watch and Mediterranea returned to the deadliest area of the Mediterranean in late November.[7] This return is also significance for Alarm Phone work in the Central Mediterranean: once again we have non-governmental allies at sea who will not only document what is going on along the deadliest border of the world but actively intervene to counter Europe’s border ‘protection’ measures. Shortly after returning, one of the NGOs was called to assist. Fishermen had rescued a group of travellers off the coast of Libya onto their fishing vessel, after they had been abandoned in the water by a Libyan patrol boat, as the fishermen claimed. Rather than ordering their rapid transfer to a European harbour, Italy, Malta and Spain sought out ways to return the 12 people to Libya. The fishing boat, the Nuestra Madre de Loreto, was ill-equipped to care for the people who were weak and needed medical attention. However, they were assisted only by Proactiva Open Arms, and for over a week, the people had to stay on the fishing boat. One of them developed a medical emergency and was eventually brought away in a helicopter. Finally, in early December, they were brought to Malta.[8]
Around the same time, something rare and remarkable happened. A boat with over 200 people on board reached the Italian harbour of Pozzallo independently, on the 24th of November. Even when they were at the harbour, the authorities refused to allow them to quickly disembark – a irresponsible decision given that the boat was at risk of capsizing. After several hours, all of the people were finally allowed to get off the boat. Italy’s minister of the interior Salvini accused the Maltese authorities of allowing migrant boats to move toward Italian territory.[9] Despite their hardship, the people on the Nuestra Madre de Loreto and the 200 people from this boat, survived. Also the 33 people rescued by the NGO Sea-Watch on the 22nd of December survived. Others, however, did not. In mid-November, a boat left from Algeria with 13 young people on board, intending to reach Sardinia. On the 16th of November, the first body was found, the second a day later. Three survived and stated later that the 10 others had tried to swim to what they believed to be the shore when they saw a light in the distance.[10] In early December, a boat with 25 people on board left from Sabratha/Libya, and 15 of them did not survive. As a survivor reported, they had been at sea for 12 days without food and water.[11]
Despite the overall decrease in crossings, what has been remarkable in this region is that the people escaping have more frequently informed the Alarm Phone directly than before. The case mentioned earlier, from the 20th of December, when people from a convoy of 3 boats carrying 313 people in total reached out to us, exemplifies this. Detected by the Colibri reconnaissance aircraft and rescued by Proactiva, this case demonstrates powerfully what international solidarity can achieve, despite all attempts by EU member states and institutions to create a zone of death in the Central Mediterranean Sea.
Developments in the Western Mediterranean Sea
Over the past six weeks covered by this report, the Alarm Phone witnessed several times what happens when Spanish and Moroccan authorities shift responsibilities and fail to respond quickly to boats in distress situations. Repeatedly we had to pressurise the Spanish authorities publicly before they launched a Search and Rescue (SAR) operation. And still, many lives were lost at sea. On Moroccan land, the repression campaign against Sub-Saharan travellers and residents continues. On the 30th of November, an Alarm Phone member was, yet again, arrested and deported towards the South of Morocco, to Tiznit, along with many other people. (h ▻https://alarmphone.org/en/2018/12/04/alarm-phone-member-arrested-and-deported-in-morocco/?post_type_release_type=post). Other friends in Morocco have informed us about the deportation of large groups from Nador to Tiznit. Around the 16th of December, 400 people were forcibly removed, and on the 17th of December, another 300 people were deported to Morocco’s south. This repression against black residents and travellers in Morocco is one of the reasons for many to decide to leave via the sea. This has meant that also during the winter, cross-Mediterranean movements remain high. On just one weekend, the 8th-9th of December, 535 people reached Andalusia/Spain.[12]
Whilst people are constantly resisting the border regime by acts of disobedience when they cross the borders clandestinely, acts of resistance take place also on the ground in Morocco, where associations and individuals are continuously struggling for the freedom of movement for all. In early December, an Alarm Phone delegation participated at an international conference in Rabat/Morocco, in order to discuss with members of other associations and collectives from Africa and Europe about the effects of the outsourcing and militarisation of European borders in the desire to further criminalise and prevent migration movements. We were among 400 people and were impressed by the many contributions from people who live and struggle in very precarious situations, by the uplifting atmosphere, and by the many accounts and expressions of solidarity. Days later, during the international meeting in Marrakesh on the ‘Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration’, the Alarm Phone was part of a counter-summit, protesting the international pact on migration which is not meant to reduce borders between states, but to curtail the freedom of movement of the many in the name of ‘legal’ and ‘regulated’ migration. The Alarm Phone delegation was composed of 20 activists from the cities of Tangier, Oujda, Berkane, Nador and Fes. One of our colleagues sums up the event: “We have expressed our ideas and commitments as Alarm Phone, solemnly and strongly in front of the other organisations represented. We have espoused the vision of freedom of movement, a vision without precedent. A vision which claims symbolically all human rights and which has the power to help migrants on all continents to feel protected.” In light of the Marrakesh pact, several African organisations joined together and published a statement rejecting “…the wish to confine Africans within their countries by strengthening border controls, in the deserts, at sea and in airports.”[13]
Shortly after the international meeting in Marrakesh, the EU pledged €148 million to support Morocco’s policy of migrant containment, thus taking steps towards making it even more difficult, and therefore more dangerous for many people on the African continent to exercise their right to move freely, under the pretext of “combating smuggling”. Making the journeys across the Mediterranean more difficult does not have the desired effect of ending illegalised migration. As the routes to Spain from the north of Morocco have become more militarised following a summer of many successful crossings, more southern routes have come into use again. These routes, leading to the Spanish Canary Islands, force travellers to overcome much longer distances in the Atlantic Ocean, a space without phone coverage and with a heightened risk to lose one’s orientation. On the 18th of November, 22 people lost their lives at sea, on their way from Tiznit to the Canary Islands.[14] Following a Spanish-Frontex collaboration launched in 2006, this route to the Canary Islands has not been used very frequently, but numbers have increased this year, with Moroccan nationals being the largest group of arrivals.[15]
Developments in the Aegean Sea
Over the final weeks of 2018, between the 12th of November and the 23rd of December, 78 boats arrived on the Greek islands while 116 boats were stopped by the Turkish coastguards and returned to Turkey. This means that there were nearly 200 attempts to cross into Europe by boat over five weeks, and about 40 percent of them were successful.[16] Over the past six weeks, the Alarm Phone was involved in a total of 19 cases in this region. 6 of the boats arrived in Samos, 3 of them in Chios, and one each on Lesvos, Agathonisi, Farmkonisi, and Symi. 4 boats were returned to Turkey (3 of them rescued, 1 intercepted by the Turkish coastguards). In one distress situation, a man lost his life and another man had to be brought to the hospital due to hypothermia. Moreover, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 2 cases along the Turkish-Greek land border. While in one case their fate remains uncertain, the other group of people were forcibly pushed-back to Turkey.
Thousands of people still suffering in inhuman conditions in hotspots: When we assist boats crossing the Aegean Sea, the people are usually relieved and happy when arriving on the islands, at least they have survived. However, this moment of happiness often turns into a state of shock when they enter the so-called ‘hotspots’. Over 12,500 people remain incarcerated there, often living in tents and containers unsuitable for winter in the five EU-sponsored camps on Lesvos, Samos, Chios, Kos, and Leros. In addition to serious overcrowding, asylum seekers continue to face unsanitary and unhygienic conditions and physical violence, including gender-based violence. Doctors without Borders has reported on a measles outbreak in Greek camps and conducted a vaccination campaign.[17] Amnesty International and 20 other organizations have published a collective call: “As winter approaches all asylum seekers on the Aegean islands must be transferred to suitable accommodation on the mainland or relocated to other EU countries. […] The EU-Turkey deal containment policy imposes unjustified and unnecessary suffering on asylum seekers, while unduly limiting their rights.”
The ‘humanitarian’ crisis in the hotspots is the result of Greece’s EU-backed policy of containing asylum seekers on the Aegean islands until their asylum claims are adjudicated or until it is determined that they fall into one of the ‘vulnerable’ categories listed under Greek law. But as of late November, an estimated 2,200 people identified as eligible for transfer are still waiting as accommodation facilities on the mainland are also severely overcrowded. Those who are actually transferred from the hotspot on Lesvos to the Greek mainland are brought to far away camps or empty holiday resorts without infrastructure and without a sufficient number of aid workers.
Criminalisation along Europe’s Eastern Sea Border: A lot has been written about the many attempts to criminalise NGOs and activists carrying out Search and Rescue operations in the Mediterranean. Much less publicly acknowledged are the many cases in which migrant travellers themselves become criminalised for their activist involvement, often for protesting against the inhuman living conditions and the long waiting times for the asylum-interviews. The case of the ‘Moria 35’ on Lesvos was a case in point, highlighting how a few individual protesters were randomly selected by authorities to scare others into silence and obedience. The Legal Centre Lesvos followed this case closely until the last person of the 35 was released and they shared their enquiries with “a 15-month timeline of injustice and impunity” on their website: “On Thursday 18th October, the last of the Moria 35 were released from detention. Their release comes one year and three months – to the day – after the 35 men were arbitrarily arrested and subject to brutal police violence in a raid of Moria camp following peaceful protests, on July 18th 2017.” While the Legal Centre Lesbos welcomes the fact that all 35 men were finally released, they should never have been imprisoned in the first place. They will not get back the 10 to 15 months they spent in prison. Moreover, even after release, most of the 35 men remain in a legally precarious situation. While 6 were granted asylum in Greece, the majority struggles against rejected asylum claims. Three were already deported. One individual was illegally deported without having exhausted his legal remedies in Greece while another individual, having spent 9 months in pre-trial detention, signed up for so-called ‘voluntary’ deportation.[18] In the meantime, others remain in prison to await their trials that will take place with hardly any attention of the media.
Humanitarian activists involved in spotting and rescue released after 3 months: The four activists, Sarah Mardini, Nassos Karakitsos, Panos Moraitis and Sean Binder, were released on the 6th of December 2018 after having been imprisoned for three months. They had been held in prolonged pre-trial detention for their work with the non-profit organization Emergency Response Center International (ERCI), founded by Moraitis. The charges misrepresented the group as a smuggling crime ring, and its legitimate fundraising activities as money laundering. The arrests forced the group to cease its operations, including maritime search and rescue, the provision of medical care, and non-formal education to asylum seekers. They are free without geographical restrictions but the case is not yet over. Mardini and Binder still face criminal charges possibly leading to decades in prison.[19] Until 15 February the group ‘Solidarity now!’ is collecting as many signatures as possible to ensure that the Greek authorities drop the case.[20]
Violent Pushbacks at the Land Border: During the last six weeks, the Alarm Phone was alerted to two groups at the land border separating Turkey and Greece. In both situations, the travellers had already reached Greek soil, but ended up on Turkish territory. Human Right Watch (HRW) published another report on the 18th of December about violent push-backs in the Evros region: “Greek law enforcement officers at the land border with Turkey in the northeastern Evros region routinely summarily return asylum seekers and migrants […]. The officers in some cases use violence and often confiscate and destroy the migrants’ belongings.”[21] Regularly, migrants were stripped off their phones, money and clothes. According to HRW, most of these incidents happened between April and November 2018.[22] The UNHCR and the Council of Europe’s Committee for Prevention of Torture have published similar reports about violent push backs along the Evros borders.[23]
CASE REPORTS
Over the past 6 weeks, the WatchTheMed Alarm Phone was engaged in 38 distress cases, of which 15 took place in the Western Mediterranean, 19 in the Aegean Sea, and 4 in the Central Mediterranean. You can find short summaries and links to the individual reports below.
Western Mediterranean
On Tuesday the 13th of November at 6.17pm, the Alarm Phone was alerted by a relative to a group of travellers who had left two days earlier from around Orán heading towards Murcia. They were around nine people, including women and children, and the relative had lost contact to the boat. We were also never able to reach the travellers. At 6.46pm we alerted the Spanish search and rescue organization Salvamento Maritimo (SM) to the distress of the travellers. For several days we tried to reach the travellers and were in contact with SM about the ongoing rescue operation. We were never able to reach the travellers or get any news from the relative. Thus, we are still unsure if the group managed to reach land somewhere on their own, or if they will add to the devastating number of people having lost their lives at sea (see: ▻http://www.watchthemed.net/reports/view/1085).
On Thursday the 22nd of November, at 5.58pm CET, the Alarm Phone received news about a boat of 11 people that had left Nador 8 hours prior. The shift team was unable to immediately enter into contact with the boat, but called Salvamento Maritimo to convey all available information. At 11.48am the following day, the shift team received word from a traveler on the boat that they were safe (see: ▻http://www.watchthemed.net/reports/view/1088).
At 7.25am CET on November 24, 2018, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to a boat of 70 people (including 8 women and 1 child) that had departed from Nador 3 days prior. The shift team was able to reach the boat at 7.50am and learned that their motor had stopped working. The shift team called Salvamento Maritimo, who had handed the case over to the Moroccan authorities. The shift team contacted the MRCC, who said they knew about the boat but could not find them, so the shift team mobilized their contacts to find the latest position and sent it to the coast guard at 8.55am. Rescue operations stalled for several hours. At around 2pm, the shift team received news that rescue operations were underway by the Marine Royale. The shift team remained in contact with several people and coast guards until the next day, when it was confirmed that the boat had finally been rescued and that there were at least 15 fatalities (see: ▻http://www.watchthemed.net/reports/view/1087).
On Friday the 7th of December 2018, we were alerted to two boats in distress in the Western Mediterranean Sea. One boat was brought to Algeria, the second boat rescued by Moroccan fishermen and returned to Morocco (see for full report: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1098).
On Saturday, the 8th of December 2018, we were informed by a contact person at 3.25pm CET to a boat in distress that had left from Nador/Morocco during the night, at about 1am. There were 57 people on the boat, including 8 women and a child. We tried to establish contact to the boat but were unable to reach them. At 4.50pm, the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo (SM) informed us that they were already searching for this boat. At 8.34pm, SM stated that this boat had been rescued. Some time later, also our contact person confirmed that the boat had been found and rescued to Spain (see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1099).
On Monday the 10th of December, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to three boats in the Western Med. Two had left from around Nador, and one from Algeria. One boat was rescued by the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo, one group of travellers returned back to Nador on their own, and the boat from Algeria returned to Algeria (see: ▻http://www.watchthemed.net/reports/view/1101).
On Wednesday the 12th of December the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted two boats in the Western Med, one carrying seven people, the other carrying 12 people. The first boat was rescued by the Spanish search and rescue organization Salvamento Maritimo (SM), whilst the second boat was intercepted by the Moroccan Navy and brought back to Morocco, where we were informed that the travellers were held imprisoned (see: ▻http://www.watchthemed.net/reports/view/1102).
On December 21st, 2018, we were informed of two boats in distress in the Western Mediterranean Sea. The first had left from Algeria and was probably rescued to Spain. The other one had departed from Tangier and was rescued by the Marine Royale and brought back to Morocco (for full report, see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/index.php/reports/view/1110).
On the 22nd of December, at 5.58pm CET, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to a boat of 81 people (including 7 women) that had left the previous day from Nador. The motor was not working properly. They informed that they were in touch with Salvamiento Maritimo but as they were still in Moroccan waters, Salvamiento Maritimo said they were unable to perform rescue operations. The shift team had difficulty maintaining contact with the boat over the course of the next few hours. The shift team also contacted Salvamiento Maritimo who confirmed that they knew about the case. At 7.50pm, Salvamiento Maritimo informed the shift team that they would perform the rescue operations and confirmed the operation at 8.15pm. We later got the confirmation by a contact person that the people were rescued to Spain (see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/index.php/reports/view/1111).
On the 23rd of December 2018, at 1.14am CET, the Alarm Phone received an alert of a boat with 11 men and 1 woman who left from Cap Spartel at Saturday the 22nd of December. The Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to this rubber boat in the early hours of Sunday the 23rd of December. The shift team informed the Spanish Search and Rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo (SM) at 4:50am CET about the situation and provided them with GPS coordinates of the boat. SM, however, rejected responsibility and shifted it to the Moroccan authorities but also the Moroccan Navy did not rescue the people. Several days later, the boat remains missing (see for full report: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1112).
Aegean Sea
On Saturday the 17th of November the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to two boats in the Aegean Sea. The first boat returned back to Turkey, whilst the second boat reached Samos on their own (see: ▻http://www.watchthemed.net/reports/view/1086).
On the 19th of November at 8.40pm CET the shift team was alerted to a boat of 11 travelers in distress near the Turkish coast on its way to Kos. The shift team called the Turkish Coastguard to inform them of the situation. At 9.00pm, the Coastguard called back to confirm they found the boat and would rescue the people. The shift team lost contact with the travelers. At 9.35pm, the Turkish coast guard informed the shift team that the boat was sunk, one man died and one person had hypothermia and would be brought to the hospital. The other 9 people were safe and brought back to Turkey (see: ▻http://www.watchthemed.net/index.php/reports/view/1090).
On the 20th of November at 4.07am CET, the shift team was alerted to a boat with about 50 travelers heading to Samos. The shift team contacted the travelers but the contact was broken for both language and technological reasons. The Alarm Phone contacted the Greek Coastguard about rescue operations. At 7.02am, the shift team was told that a boat of 50 people had been rescued, and the news was confirmed later on, although the shift team could not obtain direct confirmation from the travelers themselves (see:▻http://www.watchthemed.net/reports/view/1089).
On the 23rd of November at 7.45pm CET, the Alarm Phone was contacted regarding a group of 19 people, (including 2 women, 1 of whom was pregnant, and a child) who had crossed the river Evros/ Meric and the Turkish-Greek landborder 3 days prior. The shift team first contacted numerous rescue and protection agencies, including UNHCR and the Greek Police, noting that the people were already in Greece and wished to apply for asylum. Until today we remained unable to find out what happened to the people (see: ▻http://www.watchthemed.net/reports/view/1091).
On the 26th of November at 6:54am CET the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to a group of 30 people (among them 7 children and a pregnant woman) who were stranded on the shore in southern Turkey, close to Kas. They wanted us to call the Turkish coastguard so at 7:35am we provided the coastguard with the information we had. At 8:41am we received a photograph from our contact person showing rescue by the Turkish coastguard (see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/index.php/reports/view/1092).
On the 29th of November at 4am CET the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to a boat carrying 44 people (among them 19 children and some pregnant women) heading towards the Greek island of Samos. Shortly afterwards the travellers landed on Samos and because of their difficulties orienting themselves we alerted the local authorities. At 9:53am the port police told us that they had rescued 44 people. They were taken to the refugee camp (see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/index.php/reports/view/1093).
On Monday, the 3rd of December 2018, the Alarm Phone was alerted at 5.30am CET to a boat in distress south of Chios, with 43 people on board, among them 14 children. We were able to reach the boat at 5.35am. When we received their position, we informed the Greek coastguards at 7.30am and forwarded an updated GPS position to them ten minutes later. At 8.52am, the coastguards confirmed the rescue of the boat. The people were brought to Chios Island. On the next day, the people themselves confirmed that they had all safely reached Greece (see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1095).
On Tuesday the 4th of December 2018, at 6.20am CET, the Alarm Phone was alerted to a boat in distress near Agathonisi Island. There were about 40 people on board. We established contact to the boat at 6.38am. At 6.45am, we alerted the Greek coastguards. The situation was dangerous as the people on board reported of high waves. At 9.02am, the Greek coastguards confirmed that they had just rescued the boat. The people were brought to Agathonisi (see for full report: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1096).
On Wednesday the 5th of December 2018, at 00:08am CET, the Alarm Phone was alerted by a contact person to a boat in distress near Chios Island, carrying about 50 people. We received their GPS position at 00.17am and informed the Greek coastguards to the case at 00.30am. At 00.46am, we learned from the contact person that a boat had just been rescued. The Greek authorities confirmed this when we called them at 00.49am. At around 1pm, the people from the boat confirmed that they had been rescued (see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1097).
On Friday the 7th of December 2018, the Alarm Phone was contacted at 5.53am CET by a contact person and informed about a group of 19 people who had crossed the Evros river to Greece and needed assistance. We assisted them for days, but at some point contact was lost. We know that they were returned to Turkey and thus suspect an illegal push-back operation (see for full report: ▻http://watchthemed.net/index.php/reports/view/1109).
On Thursday the 13th of December the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to two boats in the Aegean sea. In both cases we were not able to reach the travellers, but we were in contact with both the Turkish and Greek coast guard and were in the end able to confirm that one boat had arrived to Lesvos on their own, whilst the others had been rescued by Turkish fishermen (see: ▻http://www.watchthemed.net/reports/view/1100).
On the 17th of December, 2018, at 6.39am, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to a boat of 60 travellers. Water was entering the boat, and so the travelers were in distress. Though the shift team had a difficult time remaining in contact with the boat, they contacted the Greek Coastguard to inform them of the situation and the position of the boat. Although the team was not able to remain in contact with the travelers, they received confirmation at 8.18am that the boat had been brought to Greece (see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1103).
On the 18th of December at 2.11am CET, the Alarm Phone was alerted to two boats. The first, of 29 travellers, had landed on the island of Symi and needed help to exit the place of landing. The second was a boat of 54 travellers (including 16 children, and 15 women) that was rescued by the Greek Coastguard later (see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1104).
On the 21st of December, our shift teams were alerted to 2 boats on the Aegean. The first boat was directed to Chios Island and was likely rescued by the Greek Coastguard. The second boat was in immediate distress and after the shift team contacted the Greek Coastguard they rescued the boat (see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1105).
On the 23rd of December 2018 at 6am CET, the Alarm Phone received information about a boat in distress heading to Samos with around 60 travellers (including 30 children and 8 women, 4 pregnant). The shift team made contact with the boat and was informed that one of the women was close to giving birth and so the situation was very urgent. The shift team then called the Greek Coast Guard. At 8.07am, the shift team received confirmation that the boat had been rescued (see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1106).
Central Mediterranean
On Monday the 12th of November at 6.57pm, the Alarm Phone was called by a relative, asking for help to find out what had happened to his son, who had been on a boat from Algeria towards Sardinia, with around 11 travellers on the 8t of November. Following this, the Alarm Phone was contacted by several relatives informing us about missing people from this boat. Our shift teams tried to gain an understanding of the situation, and for days we stayed in contact with the relatives and tried to support them, but it was not possible to obtain information about what had happened to the travellers (see: ▻http://www.watchthemed.net/index.php/reports/view/1094).
On November 23rd at 1.24pm CET, the Alarm Phone shift team was called by a boat of 120 travelers that was in distress and had left the Libyan coast the night before. The shift team remained in touch with the boat for several hours, and helped recharge their phone credit when it expired. As the boat was in distress, and there were no available NGO operations near the boat, the shift team had no choice but to contact the Italian Coast Guard, but they refused to engage in Search and Rescue (SAR) activities, and instead told the Libyan Coastguard. The boat was intercepted and returned to Libya (see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1107).
On December 20th, 2018, the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to two cases in the Central Mediterranean Sea. The first was a boat of 20 people that was intercepted and brought back to Libya. The second concerned 3 boats with 300 people in total, that were rescued by Open Arms and brought to Spain (for full report see: ▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/1108).
▻https://alarmphone.org/en/2018/12/27/and-yet-we-move-2018-a-contested-year/?post_type_release_type=post
Chronique du cinéma palestinien : la renaissance d’un cinéma sans État
Lou Mamalet, Middle East Eye, le 3 novembre 2018
▻https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/reportages/chronique-du-cin-ma-palestinien-la-renaissance-d-un-cin-ma-sans-tat-5
Quand il s’agit de définir les contours du cinéma palestinien, la réponse n’est jamais évidente. Il est en effet complexe de délimiter les frontières d’un art sans État. Le cinéma palestinien est un territoire fragmenté qui s’ancre dans différents espaces temporels et géographiques, conséquence d’un passé intrinsèquement lié à l’exil et à la dispersion.
Malgré les difficultés économiques de cette industrie en quête permanente de financement, elle continue de porter à l’écran ceux que l’on a essayé de rendre invisibles, notamment à travers une nouvelle vague de jeunes réalisateurs, tels Rakan Mayasi ou Muayad Alayan , qui se sont fait remarquer lors de festivals de films internationaux.
Début du XIX e siècle : premiers pas du cinéma palestinien
Les prémices du cinéma palestinien remontent au début du XX e siècle, à l’occasion d’une visite du roi d’Arabie saoudite Ibn Saoud en Palestine en 1935. Accompagné par le mufti de Jérusalem Amin al-Husseini, son périple est immortalisé par Ibrahim Hassan Sirhan, réalisateur palestinien autodidacte, qui filme l’événement avec un appareil de fortune acheté à Tel Aviv.
Sirhan s’associe plus tard à Jamal al-Asphar, un autre réalisateur palestinien, avec qui il filme The Realized Dreams (« les rêves réalisés »), un documentaire de 45 minutes sur les orphelins palestiniens.
Considérés comme les pères fondateurs du cinéma palestinien, Sirhan et Asphar sont les premiers autochtones à faire des films en Palestine ; les premières images du pays avaient jusqu’alors été tournées par les frères Lumières ou d’autres sociétés européennes empreintes d’une forte dimension orientaliste, se contentant de dépeindre des sujets folkloriques et traditionnels.
Dix ans plus tard, Ibrahim Hassan Sirhan ouvre le premier studio de production cinématographique en Palestine avec Ahmad al-Kalini, un compatriote ayant étudié le cinéma au Caire. Le duo produira plusieurs longs métrages, dont aucune trace ne demeure de nos jours, comme la majeure partie des réalisations de cette époque.
La déclaration Balfour en 1917 et la création de l’État d’Israël trente ans plus tard dessinent cependant un autre destin pour le cinéma palestinien. En 1948, plus de 700 000 Palestiniens sont forcés à l’exil lors de la Nakba (« catastrophe »), assénant un coup dur à la production cinématographique palestinienne. Le peuple est traumatisé et doit faire face à une nouvelle situation, ne laissant derrière lui presqu’aucun document. C’est le commencement d’une longue période de silence cinématographique de plus de deux décennies.
Fin des années 1960, début des années 1970 : le cinéma de la révolution
Ce mutisme prend fin en 1968, après la défaite arabe de la guerre des Six Jours (la Naksa) et ses conséquences politiques : l’occupation israélienne de la Cisjordanie, de Jérusalem-Est et de Gaza.
Cette tragédie renforce le statut de l’Organisation de libération de la Palestine (OLP) et d’autres institutions palestiniennes, qui sont alors perçues comme les derniers symboles d’espoir et de résistance arabe. Sous leurs auspices, un nouveau cinéma militant apparaît afin de documenter la lutte palestinienne et la vie des réfugiés dans les camps.
Certains réalisateurs palestiniens ayant étudié à l’étranger rejoignent ainsi les rangs de l’OLP à Amman, puis à Beyrouth. Parmi eux, Sulafa Jadallah Mirsal, une jeune photographe palestinienne qui a étudié au Caire. Dans sa cuisine, elle monte une unité photographique avec des équipements basiques et se focalise sur les photographies des martyrs de guerre.
En 1968, son travail est transféré à Amman où se situe le siège du Fatah, principal parti de l’OLP dirigé par Yasser Arafat, et pour la première fois, un département de photographie est créé.
Elle est très rapidement rejointe par deux réalisateurs palestiniens : Mustafa Abu Ali , qui a par ailleurs travaillé avec Jean-Luc Godard sur son film Ici et ailleurs (1974), et Hani Jawharieh, avec qui elle mettra en place la première Unité du film palestinien (PFU).
Ils sortent en 1969 No to a Peace Solution (« Non à une solution de paix »), un film de vingt minutes qui documente les manifestations de civils contre la solution de paix proposée par le secrétaire d’État américain de l’époque William Rogers.
Suite au conflit entre l’OLP et le roi Hussein de Jordanie qui débouche, en 1970, sur les événements de Septembre noir , l’organisation de Yasser Arafat doit quitter la Jordanie et se relocalise au Liban. Durant cette période, plus de 60 documentaires sont tournés malgré les difficultés économiques et le début de la guerre civile libanaise, comme With our Souls and our Blood (« avec nos âmes et notre sang »), qui narre les massacres de septembre 1970.
On assiste alors à l’accélération d’une prise de conscience de l’importance du cinéma et des images comme outil politique dans la promotion des idéaux révolutionnaires de la cause palestinienne.
En 1974, est ainsi produit par Mustafa Abu Ali They Do Not Exist (« ils n’existent pas »), un documentaire dépeignant la vie des Palestiniens dans un camp de réfugiés du Sud-Liban et dont le titre est inspiré des déclarations négationnistes de Golda Meir (Première ministre israélienne de l’époque) au sujet des Palestiniens.
Comme l’explique à Middle East Eye Hanna Atallah, réalisateur palestinien et directeur de FilmLab Palestine , une association qui supporte l’industrie cinématographique palestinienne, « Il s’agissait de construire un récit-réponse à celui des Israéliens, de trouver une alternative au discours selon lequel la Palestine était une terre sans habitants uniquement peuplée de bédouins. Les Israéliens ont vite compris qu’écrire l’histoire était un instrument politique, chose que les Palestiniens n’avaient pas réalisée jusqu’alors ».
Un outil politique qui nécessite de centraliser les œuvres réalisées, ce à quoi s’attèle Mustafa Abu Ali en créant l’Archive du film palestinien en vue de réunir les efforts des réalisateurs palestiniens du monde entier et de préserver l’identité palestinienne en donnant une certaine reconnaissance à son cinéma.
Cette archive contient une vaste quantité de documents sur le siège de Beyrouth, les batailles des fédayins, mais aussi des interviews de politiciens et d’intellectuels. Malheureusement, elle disparaîtra lors de l’invasion du Liban par Israël en 1982.
Des efforts seront toutefois déployés par plusieurs réalisateurs – comme Monica Maurer, cinéaste allemande ayant autrefois opéré au sein de l’Unité du film palestinien de l’OLP, et l’artiste palestinienne Emily Jacir – afin de restaurer et digitaliser les rushes de cette période, à l’instar de ceux de Tel al-Zaatar , un film sur le siège du camp de réfugiés palestiniens du même nom à Beyrouth par les milices chrétiennes, initialement filmé par le cinéaste libanais Jean Khalil Chamoun et le Palestinien Mustafa Abu Ali.
Une période également documentée dans Off Frame a.k.a. Revolution Until Victory (2016) de Mohanad Yaqubi, cinéaste palestinien et fondateur de Idiom , une société de production basée à Ramallah. Après un long travail de recherche dans le monde entier, Yaqubi est parvenu à exhumer des images d’archives inédites montrant le travail de cinéastes militants durant les années 60-70, un résultat qui réfléchit aussi sur la lutte palestinienne dans sa représentation d’elle-même et la réappropriation de son récit à travers l’établissement de l’Unité du film palestinien.
1980-1990 : cinéma indépendant et réalisme social
Les années 1980-1990 sont particulièrement difficiles pour les Palestiniens. Face à la persistance de l’occupation israélienne et à l’échec des tentatives de paix, les nouvelles générations commencent à perdre espoir en l’avenir. La crise économique, le chômage et l’augmentation des colonies dans les territoires occupés sont autant de facteurs qui précipitent l’éclatement de la première Intifada , le 9 décembre 1987.
Un tournant politique qui marque aussi l’avènement d’une nouvelle génération de réalisateurs palestiniens ayant étudié à l’étranger. D’un cinéma de la révolution, principalement militant et documentaire, on passe alors au récit de la vie sous occupation et de la résistance.
Parmi eux, Michel Khleifi , qui revient dans sa ville natale de Nazareth, en Galilée, après avoir passé dix ans en Belgique. Il produit son premier long métrage, Fertile Memory (mémoire fertile), en 1980, une fiction empruntant au documentaire qui raconte l’histoire de deux femmes palestiniennes dont l’une est forcée de travailler dans une entreprise de textile israélienne après avoir vu sa terre expropriée par Israël.
Cette nouvelle vague est également représentée par les œuvres de Mai Masri , une réalisatrice palestinienne qui a grandi à Beyrouth et étudié à San Francisco. Dans Wild Flowers : Women of South Lebanon (1987), réalisé avec Jean Khalil Chamoun, elle filme la vie de femmes libanaises résistant durant l’occupation militaire israélienne du Sud Liban.
Après les accords d’Oslo en 1993, on assiste à une certaine désillusion de la société palestinienne, qui se ressent à l’écran. Le cinéma s’éloigne de l’esprit révolutionnaire des années 1970 et de la nostalgie des années 1980 pour migrer vers un réalisme social traitant des problèmes que rencontrent les Palestiniens dans leur vie quotidienne.
Comme le souligne Hanna Atallah, « Il n’est plus question de la vision romanesque et fantasmée de la Palestine perdue, avec ses champs d’orangers et d’oliviers. On parle du quotidien, des check-points et du mur ».
Une situation tragique souvent tournée au ridicule par les réalisateurs, à l’instar d’Elia Suleiman, qui se met toujours en scène dans ses films comme observateur passif du délitement de l’identité palestinienne.
Avec Chronique d’une disparition (1996), il dresse un portrait caustique de la réalité palestinienne sous occupation, entre anecdotes personnelles et discours politique sur Israël. Dans Intervention divine (2002), il raconte les déboires d’un couple de Palestiniens qui, pour se voir, l’un vivant à Jérusalem-Est et l’autre à Ramallah, doit se donner rendez-vous dans un terrain vague proche du check-point.
Des difficultés de l’occupation aussi décrites par Rashid Masharawi. Qu’il s’agisse de Couvre-feu , description de celui imposé à son village de la bande de Gaza pendant 40 jours en 1993 (film qui lui fait gagner le prix UNESCO au festival de Cannes 1993), de L’Attente , qui suit Ahmad, un réalisateur faisant passer des auditions dans différents camps de réfugiés du Proche-Orient afin de constituer la troupe du futur théâtre palestinien (2006), ou de L’Anniversaire de Leïla (2008), qui raconte les obstacles d’un juge forcé de devenir chauffeur de taxi, le réalisateur évoque la douleur d’un peuple qui doit subir un état d’apartheid.
Des années 2000 à nos jours : nouvelle vague et changement de récit
Depuis les années 2000, si la politique reste en toile de fond des films palestiniens, elle n’est plus nécessairement au cœur du sujet, faisant place à des fictions au ton décalé et aux intrigues inattendues.
De nouveaux thèmes sont abordés par de jeunes réalisateurs qui explorent la complexité de la réalité palestinienne, tels les écarts de perception entre les Palestiniens restés sur place et ceux revenus après avoir commencé une nouvelle vie à l’étranger ou encore les différences intergénérationnelles.
C’est le cas de Wajib – L’invitation au mariage d’Annemarie Jacir (2017) , un long métrage qui illustre avec humour et tendresse la situation palestinienne à travers le regard de deux générations. Alors que le fils reproche au père d’inviter un ami juif, qu’il suspecte de travailler pour les services de renseignement israéliens, au mariage de sa sœur, le père en veut à son fils d’être en couple avec la fille d’un membre de l’OLP à qui il reproche de ne pas se soucier du sort des Palestiniens.
Autre exemple, Love, Theft and Other Entanglements (« Amours, larcins et autres complications », 2015) des frères Muayad et Rami Musa Alayan, une fable absurde aux allures de western qui met en scène les aventures au milieu des milices palestiniennes et des services d’intelligence israéliens d’un petit magouilleur palestinien qui espère pouvoir se payer un visa de sortie du pays en volant une voiture appartenant à un Israélien et qui se retrouve enfermé dans le coffre de la voiture volée avec le soldat israélien qu’il a kidnappé.
Des œuvres qui n’hésitent donc pas à utiliser l’humour et le symbolisme pour dénoncer le quotidien tragique des Palestiniens sous occupation, à l’instar de The Wanted 18 (« les dix-huit fugitives »), film d’animation intégrant des images d’archives qui raconte l’histoire vraie de Palestiniens du village de Beit Sahour, en Cisjordanie, tentant de maintenir clandestinement une industrie de vaches laitières pendant la première Intifada. Réalisé par Amer Shomali et Paul Cowan, le film a reçu le prix du meilleur documentaire au Festival du film d’Abou Dabi.
Les courts-métrages ne font pas exception à la règle. En témoigne Farawaleh (« fraises »), la dernière création de la jeune réalisatrice palestinienne Aida Kaadan, lauréate du festival Palest’In & Out 2018, qui décrit l’épopée de Samir, responsable d’un magasin de chaussures à Ramallah qui n’a jamais vu la mer et qui décide, pour accomplir son rêve, de traverser la frontière israélienne parmi des ouvriers du bâtiment palestiniens.
Un autre court-métrage, réalisé par le cinéaste Rakan Mayasi, raconte pour sa part l’histoire d’un couple palestinien qui, pour faire un enfant, décide de sortir clandestinement du sperme de la prison israélienne où l’époux purge sa peine. Bonboné (« bonbon ») a cumulé les prix de festivals (notamment meilleur scénario au Festival du court-métrage méditerranéen de Tanger , meilleur film au Twin Cities Arab Film Festival ).
Bien que jamais très loin, la politique est devenue le personnage secondaire de ces nouvelles fictions qui font la part belle aux Palestiniens et à leur histoire, laquelle n’est plus cantonnée à une simple quête identitaire. The Reports on Sarah and Saleem , de Muayad Alayan, présenté au Festival des cinémas arabes de l’Institut du monde arabe en juillet dernier, retrace ainsi une histoire d’adultère banale entre une juive israélienne et un livreur palestinien, qui se transforme en affaire politique.
Un changement de paradigme dans les intrigues regretté par certains, qui y voient une perte des valeurs propres à la cause palestinienne, comme l’explique à MEE Mohanad Yaqubi.
« Le cinéma palestinien doit rester militant et engagé dans son essence. Avant, les réalisateurs parlaient un langage commun : celui du droit au retour. Aujourd’hui, l’identité palestinienne est dissoute et perd en force, alors que faire partie du peuple palestinien, c’est appartenir à une lutte pour l’auto-indépendance, que le cinéma doit soutenir », estime-t-il.
Une mission pour l’avenir de cette industrie qui a su se renouveler sur la forme et sur le fond, malgré une situation politique stagnante....
The fragility of Syrian refugee women in Turkey
#Violence, #exploitation, #marginalisation: these are the challenges of a difficult everyday life for many Syrian refugee women in Turkey.
Rima, whose name has been changed for security reasons, is a young Syrian woman. Until five years ago, she was living in Syria with her family. One day, a bomb dropped on their house, killing her husband and three brothers. After this unexpected tragedy, Rima, mother of three, left her hometown for Turkey. In November 2013, she started a new life with her kids in a refugee camp in the Turkish border town of Sanliurfa, one of the oldest Syrian refugee camps in Turkey.
This was the beginning of new traumas. She accompanied her brother’s pregnant wife to the state hospital in Viransehir, a district of Urfa. There she was raped by a security guard and an interpreter. The attackers blackmailed her with videos and photographs. Rima was terrified, so she kept silent. In the following days the rape went on, and the number of attackers raised to seven. As a result of gang-rape, Rima was hospitalised for losing significant amounts of blood and taken to the intensive care unit. Luckily, she recovered. Now there is an ongoing investigation by Viransehir’s Public Prosecutor’s Office. Rima was brave enough to go to the Turkish police later. But not every Syrian refugee woman is.
Endemic violence
The June 2018 report “Needs Assessment of Syrian Women and Girls Under Temporary Protection Status in Turkey” by United Nations (UN) Women Turkey emphasises that Syrian refugee women are poorly informed about their rights to protection and the legal support services available to them. The same report shows that 73% of Syrian women are unaware of where to seek assistance related to violence or harassment.
According to official statistics, by December 2018 more than 3,6 million registered Syrian refugees are living in Turkey. 45,7% of them are female and half of this female population is under the age of 18. Refugee girls and women, who are more vulnerable to exploitation, are subjected to all forms of violence in their daily lives. On the other hand, services for Syrian refugees in Turkey are largely gender-blind, leaving many problems unsolved.
“I can’t recall a single Syrian refugee woman I have met who didn’t report violence. Marital rape is also very common, but many Syrian women don’t even define these experiences as abuse. They don’t even know that marital rape is a crime that will be punished”, says lawyer Gokce Yazar, a member of the Sanliurfa Bar Association Refugee Rights Commission.
Polygamous marriages
Volunteers in Turkey observe that child marriages and polygamous marriages are two major problems for Syrian refugee girls and women. Gokce Yazar, as one of the lawyers training Syrian women about divorce, continues: “How can women initiate divorce in a polygamous marriage? They can’t”.
Polygamous marriages, outlawed in Turkey – unlike Syria, are not only present among the Syrian community in Turkey. It is not a secret that Turkish men, mostly in rural areas, are also illegally “marrying” Syrian women as their second or third wives.
There are even websites promoting Syrian women for Turkish men. One of these websites, called “Syrian Women”, features several sexist stereotypes such as “What Syrian women want”. One of the sections on this so-called “marriage website” reads as follows:
“There are many Syrian refugees in Turkey. In every city you can bump into a Syrian. Syrian women are fragile just like our women. Since Syrian women do not set a condition for legal marriage, you can live with them without marrying them".
Forced into prostitution
In addition to marriage cases, forced prostitution is another fundamental problem. Some Syrian women often become sex workers after escaping domestic violence. Some of them are forced into sex work by their partners. Others are exploited by gangs of human traffickers on the way.
“In Viransehir, Syrian women are forced into prostitution just to get some milk or diaper for their babies”, says lawyer Yazar, adding that the Sanliurfa Bar Association is still receiving such complaints.
Wasted Waste (2018)
▻https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/wasted-waste-documentary-2018
3,6 million kg of food is wasted everyday. 870 million of people could be fed only with the World’s wasted food (FAO). 800 million of people are starving around the world. 1/3 of the food ends up...
3,6 million kg of food is wasted everyday. 870 million of people could be fed only with the World’s wasted food (FAO). 800 million of people are starving around the world. 1/3 of the food ends up in the trash while 198 000 hectares are used to produce food that is never consumed.
This documentary is about individual lifestyles with conscious repercussions in the collective. Because from the Nature’s point of view there is no such thing as waste. It’s the symbiotic aspect of life. The whole Nature is a unified system of interdependent variables. Each one with a cause and reaction.
#Freeganism is an alternative lifestyle based on the boycott to capitalism, aiming to reduce the impact in our ecosystem, rejecting any form of human or animal exploitation. This is achieved through the limited and resource-conscious consumption, as well as the rescue of waste, in a society that produces above its needs.
#gaspillage_alimentaire #alimentation #film #documentaire #alternatives #capitalisme #boycott #consommation #consumérisme #RAP2018-2019
#Freeganisme ou #gratuivorisme
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganisme
U.N. tells UK - Allow #Assange to leave Ecuador embassy freely | Reuters
▻https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-assange-un-idUKKCN1OK1U1
Les experts de l’#ONU exhortent le #Royaume-Uni à honorer ses obligations en matière de droits et à laisser M. Julian Assange quitter librement l’ambassade d’Équateur à Londres
▻https://www.legrandsoir.info/les-experts-de-l-onu-exhortent-le-royaume-uni-a-honorer-ses-obligation
GENÈVE (21 décembre 2018) - Les experts des #droits de l’homme de l’ONU ont réitéré aujourd’hui leur demande que le Royaume-Uni respecte ses obligations internationales et permette immédiatement au fondateur de #Wikileaks, Julian Assange, de quitter l’ambassade d’#Equateur à Londres où il est depuis plus de 6 ans, craignant une arrestation par les autorités britanniques et une #extradition aux #Etats-Unis.
« Les États qui sont fondés sur la primauté du droit et qui en font la promotion n’aiment pas être confrontés à leurs propres #violations du droit, ce qui est compréhensible. Mais lorsqu’ils admettent honnêtement ces violations, ils honorent l’esprit même de la primauté du droit, gagnent un plus grand respect à cet égard et donnent des exemples louables dans le monde entier », a déclaré le Groupe de travail sur la détention #arbitraire (GTDA) des Nations Unies.
C’est fantastique, je n’ai trouvé aucune source MSM française ou même francophone.
Pour Julian Assange
par Serge Halimi - décembre 2018
►https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2018/12/HALIMI/59366
L’acharnement des autorités américaines contre M. Assange est encouragé par la lâcheté des journalistes qui l’abandonnent à son sort, voire se délectent de son infortune. Ainsi, sur la chaîne MSNBC, l’animateur-vedette Christopher Matthews, ancien cacique du Parti démocrate, n’a pas hésité à suggérer que les services secrets américains devraient « agir à l’israélienne et enlever Assange »…
Analyse : Les États-Unis ramèneront Assange chez eux, enchaîné, par Ann Garrison
Source : Ann Garrison, Consortium News, 14-11-2018
►https://www.les-crises.fr/analyse-les-etats-unis-rameneront-assange-chez-eux-enchaine-par-ann-garri
Il est de plus en plus probable que Julian Assange, le fondateur et éditeur de Wikileaks, finisse entre les griffes du gouvernement américain.
C’est à peine surprenant, vu qu’en l’espace de dix ans, Wikileaks a publié plus d’informations classées que tous les autres médias réunis. L’organisation a dévoilé des abus relatifs aux droits de l’homme, des cas d’espionnage, de torture et des crimes de guerre à une échelle sans précédent.
Wikileaks a lancé un avertissement au gouvernement, aux grandes entreprises et même au Pentagone, au FBI, à la CIA et autres services de renseignement, en leur faisant comprendre qu’ils ne pourraient plus compter sur le secret de leurs opérations.
L’organisation a créé un trésor d’informations provenant de sources primaires, que les journalistes sérieux et les chercheurs pourront exploiter pendant des années. Ses publications sont accessibles aux lecteurs qui préfèrent ce type de sources aux informations transmises par des intermédiaires.
Wikileaks a tellement mis en rage les institutions américaines criminelles et corrompues les plus violentes, que Hillary Clinton a suggéré, en plaisantant à moitié, d’aller bombarder Assange à l’aide un drone. D’autres politiciens américains ont réclamé son exécution par d’autres moyens. (...)
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/745280
Migrants: Tunisia rejects practice of forced repatriations
Tunisia ’’categorically refuses forced expulsions of its irregular migrants from their respective hosting countries’’, Tunisian Social Affairs Minister Mohamed Trabelsi said, opening a seminar in Tunis on migration in relation to objectives of sustainable development.
The minister added that the Tunisian government supports the right to access basic services and integration projects in hosting countries and does not accept for its migrants to return unless they are willing to do so.
In his address, Trabelsi denounced the use of unilateral measures by some hosting countries, stressing that irregular migration can only be tackled with the help of conventions and international agreements.
Trabelsi said an estimated 200,000 Tunisians are residing abroad without regular documents.
He announced the presentation of a national strategy on migration to Parliament in 2019 with the objective of institutionalizing the system of migration, asylum and residence in Tunisia.
Trabelsi continued by recalling that the majority of illegal migrants are fleeing war, human rights abuses and difficult economic conditions, insisting that the migration dossier should be handled with more responsibility and equality between northern and southern Mediterranean countries. He said the world economic system should be fairer. Lorena Lando, head of the mission of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), spoke about the relation between migration and sustainable development targets in the UN’s 2030 agenda, noting that a national strategy could be one of the possible solutions for Tunisia to tackle the migration dossier.
According to IOM, there are an estimated 60,000 undocumented migrants in Tunisia, while Tunisian migrants living abroad without regular documents are about 1.3 million.
▻http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/politics/2018/12/19/migrants-tunisia-rejects-practice-of-forced-repatriations_e3320c3f-a2fc-45
#résistance #migrants_tunisiens #réfugiés_tunisiens #Tunisie #expulsions #renvois #renvois_forcés
ping @_kg_
U.S. alone in its opposition to parts of a U.N. draft resolution addressing violence against girls - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/12/18/latest-un-draft-resolution-america-has-problem-with-one-condemning-v
In the U.N. General Assembly on Monday, the United States found itself once again isolated on the world stage on two matters that are essential to women’s rights. It was the only country that opposed nonbinding language in a draft resolution designed to tackle violence against girls and women, as well as sexual harassment. It was also almost alone in its opposition to language used in another draft resolution against early and forced marriage — only the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru felt comfortable with being on Washington’s side this time. (Nauru is most commonly associated with an Australian offshore migrant camp, where children and other refugees are being held under inhumane conditions, according to rights groups.)
In both cases, the United States’ opposition on Monday was triggered by references to “sexual and reproductive health,” which the U.S. delegation implied could “suggest the promotion of abortion or a right to abortion that are unacceptable to our administration,” according to Reuters. U.S. statements also indicated that there were concerns about the resolution conflating “physical violence against women with sexual harassment.”
▻http://papersmart.unmeetings.org/media2/20306224/item-70-a-a-73-585-draft-resolution-i-pp23-op14-op17-and-op18
▻http://papersmart.unmeetings.org/media2/20306221/item-29-a-73-582-draft-resolution-iii-op8-d-and-op11.pdf
Les Etats-Unis s’opposent à des mentions d’une résolution de l’ONU contre le harcèlement sexuel - International - LeVif
▻https://www.levif.be/actualite/international/l-onu-s-engage-dans-la-lutte-contre-le-harcelement-sexuel/article-normal-1068681.html
L’administration de Donald Trump n’est pas parvenue à faire retirer des mentions de cette résolution non contraignante, portant sur l’accès à des services de santé reproductive, l’avortement sécurisé et le droit des femmes à décider librement des questions concernant leur sexualité.
Lors d’un vote réclamé par Washington, 130 pays ont voté en faveur du maintien de ces mentions dans le texte, 31 se sont abstenus et un seul a voté contre : les Etats-Unis. La résolution dans sa globalité a ensuite été approuvée par consensus et sans vote par l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies.
430,000 flee Cameroon’s restive Anglophone areas, says group
An international refugee agency says that more than 430,000 people have fled violence in Cameroon’s restive English-speaking regions and are hiding in rural areas with few resources.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, one of several humanitarian organizations offering support, said Wednesday it is assisting the displaced by providing shelter and supplies to needy families. David Manan, the Norwegian group’s country director for Cameroon, called for more international aid.
He said there are too few agencies on the ground to provide the amount of aid needed. He said many people are hiding in the bush.
Cameroon’s English-speaking separatists have been protesting since 2016 against what they claim is discrimination by the French-speaking majority. Their protests were initially peaceful, but in response to a government crackdown some separatists are waging a violent campaign.
▻https://www.thestate.com/news/nation-world/world/article223306000.html
#Cameroun #Cameroun_anglophone #asile #migrations #réfugiés #COI #IDPs #déplacés_internes
Conflict in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions forces 430,000 people to flee
The number of people displaced as a result of the crisis in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions has spiked to more than 430,000 during the last months. Many people are hiding in the bush with no support, warns the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“We are deeply worried by the ongoing conflict and the increasing displacement figures. Parties to the conflict must ensure that civilians in the area are protected and are able to safely access life-saving assistance,” said David Manan, Country Director for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Cameroon.
The number of people displaced from their homes in Cameroon’s Anglophone Southwest and Northwest regions and in neighbouring Littoral and West regions has reached 437.000, according to the latest UN estimates.
NRC is assisting people displaced by this crisis. However, many people are left without any support, as insecurity is hindering organisations from accessing many areas. People are without proper shelter and sanitation facilities, clean water, food and access to medical care.
“The needs we are witnessing in the Southwest and Northwest regions are alarming and there are too few agencies on the ground to provide the necessary aid due to limited funding. We call for more donors to prioritise this crisis to allow more agencies to respond so that we can stem the rising tide of suffering and displacement,” said Manan.
“Displaced families who receive our assistance have told us that they share it or give it to their relatives who did not yet receive any assistance and desperately need help. Many people are hiding in the bush with no support, fearing for their lives,” added Manan.
“This is the first time I am being helped since I fled,” said Annoh, who received essential household items, including materials to build a shelter. “I will share what I have received with my husband who is hiding in the bush. He has nothing but the clothes he was wearing when he fled,” she added.
NRC is distributing household items, shelter and hygiene kits in Northwest and Southwest regions with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (NMFA) and European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO).
A generation of unschooled Cameroonians, another generation of conflict?
“As we trekked, they kept on telling us that they don’t want us to go to school again,” says 15-year-old Martha Lum, four weeks after being released by the armed gunmen who kidnapped her along with 78 other children and staff members in Cameroon.
Lum’s story is becoming common across the country’s Northwest and Southwest regions, where the conflict between anglophone separatists and francophone armed forces that’s claimed hundreds of lives has made schools a battlefield.
Since the anglophone conflict escalated in late 2017, more than 430,000 people have been forced to flee their homes. In May, the UN’s emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, said approximately 42,500 children were out of school. However, local rights groups estimate that number has now increased fourfold following frequent abductions.
Some 20,000 school-age children now live in the bush. With no learning materials or trained teachers, they have no access to a formal education. Parents and local officials worry that the children could be driven to take up arms, becoming a lost generation that perpetuates the conflict and the humanitarian crisis.
“Imagine that these children miss school for five or 10 years because of the fighting, hearing the sound of guns every day, and seeing people being killed; what will become of them?” says 45-year-old mother of four *Elizabeth Tamufor.
“We have been hiding in the bush for more than a year,” she tells IRIN. “I am sure the children have forgotten what they were taught in school. You think in five years they will still be hiding here? They will probably pick up guns and start fighting.”
The fear of schoolchildren and young students joining the armed separatists is already a reality for some. *Michael, 20, used to be a student before the conflict started. He joined the separatists when his friend was killed by government forces.
“I replaced books with the gun since then. But I will return to school immediately we achieve our independence,” he says.
Right from the start
The roots of Cameroon’s anglophone conflict can be traced back to education. The separatists fighting for independence from French-majority Cameroon say the current school system symbolises the marginalisation of the English language and culture.
After years of discontent, in November 2016, anglophone teachers began an indefinite strike to protest what they said amounted to systematic discrimination against English-speaking teachers and students. In response, government security forces clamped down on protests, arresting hundreds of demonstrators, including children, killing at least four people and wounding many more.
This caused widespread anger across the Southwest and Northwest regions, which a year later led to the rise of the armed separatist groups now fighting for independence and a new English-speaking nation called “#Ambazonia”.
Although the majority of teacher trade unions called off their strike in February 2017, separatists continue to impose curfews and abduct people as a means to push the local population to refrain from sending children back to school.
As a result, tens of thousands of children haven’t attended school since 2016. Local media is awash with stories of kidnappings of children and teachers who do not comply with the boycott, while rights groups say the disruption of education puts children at risk of exploitation, child labour, recruitment by armed groups, and early marriage.
“Schools have become targets,” a July 2018 Human Rights Watch report notes. “Either because of these threats, or as a show of solidarity by parents and teachers with the separatist cause, or both, school enrollment levels have dropped precipitously during the crisis.”
In June, Amnesty International said at least 42 schools had been attacked since February last year. While latest statistics are not available, it is believed that at least 100 separate incidents of school kidnapping have taken place since the separatist movement turned violent in 2017. More than 100 schools have also been torched and at least a dozen teachers killed or wounded, according to Issa Tchiroma, Cameroon’s minister of communication.
The separatist view
Speaking to IRIN last month in Bali, a town neighbouring Bamenda – the capital of Northwest region – armed separatist leader *Justin says his group is enforcing the school boycott started by the teacher trade unions.
“They (teachers) started a strike action to resist the ‘francophonisation’ of the anglophone system of education, and the evil francophone regime arrested and detained their colleagues, shot dead schoolchildren, and you expect us to sit down and watch them killing our people?”
“We don’t want the schoolchildren of Ambazonia to be part of the corrupt francophone system of education,” he said. “We have designed a new school programme for them which will start as soon as we achieve our independence.“
*Laba, who controls another group of armed separatists, is more categorical. “When we say no school, we mean no school,” he says emphatically. “We have never and will never kill a student or teacher. We just want them to stay home until we get our independence and begin implementing our own system of education.”
There are about 20 armed separatist groups across the two English-speaking regions. They operate independently, and separatists have publicly disagreed on the various methods of imposing the school boycott.
Both Justin and Laba accuse the government of staging “some” of the school abductions in order “to discredit the image of the separatists internationally”. But they also admit that some armed separatist groups are guilty of kidnapping and killing children and teachers.
“We don’t kidnap schoolchildren,” Justin says. “We just impose curfews to force them to stay home.”
But for many parents and schoolchildren, staying at home for this long is already having devastating consequences.
School children in uniforms walk on the street toward camera.
‘Everything is different’
Parents who can afford it have enrolled their children in schools in the French-speaking part of the country – mostly Douala and Yaoundé. But the influx has caused fees to rise in the francophone zones. Tuition fees that normally cost $150 annually have now more than doubled to $350.
Beyond the costs, parents also need to transport their children from the troubled regions, along a very insecure highway, to apply for enrollment.
When they get there, success is far from guaranteed. A lot of the francophone schools are now at full capacity and have stopped accepting students from anglophone regions, meaning many children will likely have to stay home for yet another year.
Those studying in a new environment can also take quite a while to adapt.
George Muluh, 16, had been at a school in the Southwest region before the conflict but is now attending Government Bilingual High School Deido in Douala.
“Everything is just different,” he says. “I don’t understand French. The classrooms are overcrowded. The teaching method is different. I am getting more and more confused every day. I just want the conflict to end so I can go back to the Southwest to continue my studies.”
It might be a long while before George has that opportunity. To the Cameroonian government, the teachers’ grievances have already been solved.
“The government has employed 1,000 bilingual teachers, allocated two billion CFA ($4 million) to support private education, transferred teachers who could not speak French and redeployed them to French zones. These were the demands of the teachers. What do they want again?” asks Tchiroma, the minister of communication.
But Sylvester Ngan, from the Teachers Association of Cameroon (TAC), which defends the rights of English-speaking teachers in the country, says most of these measures are cosmetic and don’t solve key issues related to French-only exams and francophone teachers in English schools.
Leave the children alone
While the government and teachers’ unions argue about who is right and what education system to implement, the war is ongoing, people are dying, and tens of thousands of children are not in school.
“No reason can be advanced to justify the unwarranted attacks on children in general and pupils who are seeking to acquire knowledge and skills,” says Jacques Boyer, UNICEF representative in Cameroon. “All children in the regions must be able to go to school in peace.”
President Paul Biya, 85, who just won another seven-year term after 36 years in power, has ignored calls for an inclusive dialogue to end the conflict. The first related measure he undertook after the October election was the creation of a commission to disarm and reintegrate former armed separatists.
Cameroonian political analyst Michael Mbah describes the move as “a joke”, saying that a ceasefire and dialogue must precede any serious attempt at disarmament and reintegration.
Meanwhile, the next year looks bleak for children like Lum whose futures are being decided by a war beyond their control. “I have always wanted to become a medical doctor,” Lum tells IRIN, but she now fears her dream will be shattered by the persistent conflict.
“Leave the children alone,” says *Raymond, a father of four whose offspring haven’t been able to study for close to two years now.
“We, parents, cannot afford to raise a generation of illiterates,” he says. “The future of the children is being sacrificed, just like that.”
*Names changed at the request of the interviewees for security reasons.
▻https://www.irinnews.org/news-feature/2018/12/19/cameroon-generation-unschooled-children-could-fuel-long-term-conflict
#éducation #droit_à_l'éducation #école #scolarisation #enfants #enfance #conflit
République d’#Ambazonie
« Le nom Ambazonia a été préféré à Southern British Cameroons afin de ne pas confondre cette zone avec la région territoriale du sud (Southern Cameroon). Les « autonomistes ambazoniens » avaient à cœur de trouver un nom local afin de bannir « Cameroun » qu’ils considéraient comme le symbole du lourd fardeau de l’héritage colonial. Pour cela, ils ont fouillé dans les livres d’histoire et inventé le nom Ambazonia. Celui-ci dérive d’Ambas, nom donné à la région de l’embouchure du fleuve Wouri. Ce site, en forme de baie, avait alors reçu le nom anglais Baie d’Ambas1. »
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9publique_d%27Ambazonie
Le Syndicat des avocats de France se mobilise et dit « non à la start-up nation judiciaire »
▻https://lemediapresse.fr/actualites/le-syndicat-des-avocats-de-france-se-mobilise-et-dit-non-a-la-start-up
« Depuis un an, les professions judiciaires affirment leur opposition au projet de loi de réforme de la justice », affirme le Syndicat des avocats de France (SAF) dans son communiqué. Il appelle à un rassemblement ce mercredi à 13 heures au Tribunal de Paris, situé à Porte de Clichy. « Avec l’adoption à marche forcée du projet […]
Les principales dispositions litigieuses du projet
►http://www.librairie-tropiques.fr/2018/12/justice.html
1/ L’expérimentation de la cour criminelle départementale : vers la suppression de la cour d’Assises
Les infractions punies de moins de 20 ans de réclusion criminelle ne seront plus jugées par les cours d’Assises. Dans ces affaires considérées comme des « sous-crimes », il n’y aura ni jurés citoyens, ni reprise de l’intégralité de l’instruction à l’audience. Il est pourtant primordial d’associer les citoyens à la justice rendue en leur nom.
2/ L’extension du juge unique
Désormais près de 170 nouveaux délits seront jugés par UN SEUL juge devant le tribunal correctionnel. Le principe du juge unique sera étendu aux procédures d’appel, faisant de la collégialité l’exception. Le président de la Chambre de l’instruction pourra statuer seul, au prétexte que la solution lui semble s’imposer.
3/ Une généralisation des mesures d’enquête attentatoires aux libertés
Multiplication des recours aux mesures coercitives, généralisation des écoutes téléphoniques, interceptions de correspondances et techniques de géolocalisation en enquête préliminaire, allongement des durées de sonorisation et d’IMSI catcher, extension des techniques spéciales d’enquête à l’ensemble des crimes.
4/ Suppression de la présentation au procureur pour la prolongation de la garde à vue
5/ Restriction du droit des parties civiles
Il faudra désormais attendre 6 mois - au lieu de 3 mois - après le dépôt de plainte pour se constituer partie civile, au risque de s’exposer à une prescription et déperdition des preuves.
6/ Possibilité d’imposer la visio-conférence pour la prolongation de la détention provisoire
Désormais, les prévenus n’auront même plus le droit d’être présents à leurs audiences pour la prolongation de leur détention. Les avocats devront choisir entre être aux côtés de leurs clients ou être présents physiquement au tribunal.
7/ Restriction des aménagements de peines
Alors que l’emprisonnement de courte durée augmente le risque de récidive, le gouvernement supprime les aménagements ab initio pour les peines d’emprisonnement entre 1 et 2 ans et réduit les aménagements ultérieurs.
8/ Embrouille de dernière minute sur la justice des mineurs
Le gouvernement a fait voter un amendement autorisant une réforme par ordonnance contournant ainsi un débat démocratique au sein des assemblées.
Les paramètres requis sont manquants ou erronés.
1/ Suppression des juridictions de proximité
Au programme : suppression des tribunaux d’instance (traitant des affaires de logement, des litiges de moins de 10 000 € notamment les prêts, les élections professionnelles, les tutelles, etc.), centralisation de certaines matières au sein des TGI et Cours d’appel pour vider et supprimer progressivement d’autres juridictions.
2/ Dématérialisation des procédures
Le recours à la conciliation et à la médiation sera rendu obligatoire à peine d’irrecevabilité pour les « petits litiges », avec une certification de plateformes en ligne. Ce sont autant de frais supplémentaires pour les justiciables.
Les « petits litiges » pourront également être dématérialisés imposant aux justiciables de renoncer à une audience, pour un délai de traitement prétendument plus rapide.
Tant pis si le dossier s’avère plus complexe ensuite.
Le contentieux des injonctions de payer sera dématérialisé, c’est-à-dire sans audience, et confié à une juridiction composée de 6 magistrats pour 500 000 injonctions de payer. Soit 6 minutes à consacrer par dossier pour vérifier l’absence de clause abusive, le respect des obligations d’information vis-à-vis des « petits » justiciables n’arrivant plus à payer. Un énorme cadeau aux organismes de crédit et sociétés de recouvrement.
3/ La Caisse des allocations familiales, juge et partie
Le projet supprime, à titre expérimental, l’intervention du juge pour la révision des pensions alimentaires, en confiant ce pouvoir à la CAF. Or, c’est précisément la CAF qui paie quand le débiteur refuse ou est dans l’impossibilité de le faire. De belles sources d’économies en perspective sur le dos des droits des justiciables.
4/ L’avocat obligatoire pour les élections professionnelles et en appel en matière de sécurité sociale
Sans moyens supplémentaires, ce sont autant de justiciables qui, pour des petits litiges seront privés de l’accès au juge.
L’appel des jugements de sécurité sociale suivra la procédure de droit commun (dite Magendie), avec des délais absurdes multipliant les caducités et irrecevabilités au détriment des justiciables qui vont devoir payer un timbre fiscal de 225€.
Avec la réforme, « les justiciables aisés auront une #Justice à leur service, les #Classes_populaires en seront exclues »
▻https://www.bastamag.net/Avec-la-reforme-les-justiciables-aises-auront-une-justice-a-leur-service-l
Des algorithmes remplaçant les juges pour trancher des litiges mineurs ; des procès à distance, et déshumanisés, via la visioconférence ; des garde-à-vues décidées par des policiers sans accord écrit d’un juge ; des plateformes numériques privées pour régler à l’amiable des litiges ; un accès à la justice trop onéreux pour les classes populaires… Science-fiction ? Aucunement : il s’agit de la réforme de la justice portée par la Garde des Sceaux Nicole Belloubet et discutée à l’Assemblée nationale. Sa « justice (...)
/ #Entretiens, Classes populaires, #Inégalités, Justice, A la une, #Services_publics
Les principales dispositions litigieuses du projet
►http://www.librairie-tropiques.fr/2018/12/justice.html
1/ L’expérimentation de la cour criminelle départementale : vers la suppression de la cour d’Assises
Les infractions punies de moins de 20 ans de réclusion criminelle ne seront plus jugées par les cours d’Assises. Dans ces affaires considérées comme des « sous-crimes », il n’y aura ni jurés citoyens, ni reprise de l’intégralité de l’instruction à l’audience. Il est pourtant primordial d’associer les citoyens à la justice rendue en leur nom.
2/ L’extension du juge unique
Désormais près de 170 nouveaux délits seront jugés par UN SEUL juge devant le tribunal correctionnel. Le principe du juge unique sera étendu aux procédures d’appel, faisant de la collégialité l’exception. Le président de la Chambre de l’instruction pourra statuer seul, au prétexte que la solution lui semble s’imposer.
3/ Une généralisation des mesures d’enquête attentatoires aux libertés
Multiplication des recours aux mesures coercitives, généralisation des écoutes téléphoniques, interceptions de correspondances et techniques de géolocalisation en enquête préliminaire, allongement des durées de sonorisation et d’IMSI catcher, extension des techniques spéciales d’enquête à l’ensemble des crimes.
4/ Suppression de la présentation au procureur pour la prolongation de la garde à vue
5/ Restriction du droit des parties civiles
Il faudra désormais attendre 6 mois - au lieu de 3 mois - après le dépôt de plainte pour se constituer partie civile, au risque de s’exposer à une prescription et déperdition des preuves.
6/ Possibilité d’imposer la visio-conférence pour la prolongation de la détention provisoire
Désormais, les prévenus n’auront même plus le droit d’être présents à leurs audiences pour la prolongation de leur détention. Les avocats devront choisir entre être aux côtés de leurs clients ou être présents physiquement au tribunal.
7/ Restriction des aménagements de peines
Alors que l’emprisonnement de courte durée augmente le risque de récidive, le gouvernement supprime les aménagements ab initio pour les peines d’emprisonnement entre 1 et 2 ans et réduit les aménagements ultérieurs.
8/ Embrouille de dernière minute sur la justice des mineurs
Le gouvernement a fait voter un amendement autorisant une réforme par ordonnance contournant ainsi un débat démocratique au sein des assemblées.
Les paramètres requis sont manquants ou erronés.
1/ Suppression des juridictions de proximité
Au programme : suppression des tribunaux d’instance (traitant des affaires de logement, des litiges de moins de 10 000 € notamment les prêts, les élections professionnelles, les tutelles, etc.), centralisation de certaines matières au sein des TGI et Cours d’appel pour vider et supprimer progressivement d’autres juridictions.
2/ Dématérialisation des procédures
Le recours à la conciliation et à la médiation sera rendu obligatoire à peine d’irrecevabilité pour les « petits litiges », avec une certification de plateformes en ligne. Ce sont autant de frais supplémentaires pour les justiciables.
Les « petits litiges » pourront également être dématérialisés imposant aux justiciables de renoncer à une audience, pour un délai de traitement prétendument plus rapide.
Tant pis si le dossier s’avère plus complexe ensuite.
Le contentieux des injonctions de payer sera dématérialisé, c’est-à-dire sans audience, et confié à une juridiction composée de 6 magistrats pour 500 000 injonctions de payer. Soit 6 minutes à consacrer par dossier pour vérifier l’absence de clause abusive, le respect des obligations d’information vis-à-vis des « petits » justiciables n’arrivant plus à payer. Un énorme cadeau aux organismes de crédit et sociétés de recouvrement.
3/ La Caisse des allocations familiales, juge et partie
Le projet supprime, à titre expérimental, l’intervention du juge pour la révision des pensions alimentaires, en confiant ce pouvoir à la CAF. Or, c’est précisément la CAF qui paie quand le débiteur refuse ou est dans l’impossibilité de le faire. De belles sources d’économies en perspective sur le dos des droits des justiciables.
4/ L’avocat obligatoire pour les élections professionnelles et en appel en matière de sécurité sociale
Sans moyens supplémentaires, ce sont autant de justiciables qui, pour des petits litiges seront privés de l’accès au juge.
L’appel des jugements de sécurité sociale suivra la procédure de droit commun (dite Magendie), avec des délais absurdes multipliant les caducités et irrecevabilités au détriment des justiciables qui vont devoir payer un timbre fiscal de 225€.