#pays-bas

Europe spends billions stopping migration. Good luck figuring out where the money actually goes

How much money exactly does Europe spend trying to curb migration from Nigeria? And what’s it used for? We tried to find out, but Europe certainly doesn’t make it easy. These flashy graphics show you just how complicated the funding is.
In a shiny new factory in the Benin forest, a woman named Blessing slices pineapples into rings. Hundreds of miles away, at a remote border post in the Sahara, Abubakar scans travellers’ fingerprints. And in village squares across Nigeria, Usman performs his theatre show about the dangers of travelling to Europe.

What do all these people have in common?

All their lives are touched by the billions of euros European governments spend in an effort to curb migration from Africa.

Since the summer of 2015,
Read more about the influx of refugees to Europe in 2015 on the UNHCR website.
when countless boats full of migrants began arriving on the shores of Greece and Italy, Europe has increased migration spending by billions.
Read my guide to EU migration policy here.
And much of this money is being spent in Africa.

Within Europe, the political left and right have very different ways of framing the potential benefits of that funding. Those on the left say migration spending not only provides Africans with better opportunities in their home countries but also reduces migrant deaths in the Mediterranean. Those on the right say migration spending discourages Africans from making the perilous journey to Europe.

However they spin it, the end result is the same: both left and right have embraced funding designed to reduce migration from Africa. In fact, the European Union (EU) plans to double migration spending under the new 2021-2027 budget, while quadrupling spending on border control.

https://i.imgur.com/ZAXFmxr.png https://i.imgur.com/Cz2dO81.png

The three of us – journalists from Nigeria, Italy and the Netherlands – began asking ourselves: just how much money are we talking here?

At first glance, it seems like a perfectly straightforward question. Just add up the migration budgets of the EU and the individual member states and you’ve got your answer, right? But after months of research, it turns out that things are nowhere near that simple.

In fact, we discovered that European migration spending resembles nothing so much as a gigantic plate of spaghetti.

If you try to tease out a single strand, at least three more will cling to it. Try to find where one strand begins, and you’ll find yourself tangled up in dozens of others.

This is deeply concerning. Though Europe maintains a pretence of transparency, in practice it’s virtually impossible to hold the EU and its member states accountable for their migration expenditures, let alone assess how effective they are. If a team of journalists who have devoted months to the issue can’t manage it, then how could EU parliament members juggling multiple portfolios ever hope to?

This lack of oversight is particularly problematic in the case of migration, an issue that ranks high on European political agendas. The subject of migration fuels a great deal of political grandstanding, populist opportunism, and social unrest. And the debate surrounding the issue is rife with misinformation.

For an issue of this magnitude, it’s crucial to have a clear view of existing policies and to examine whether these policies make sense. But to be able to do that, we need to understand the funding streams: how much money is being spent and what is it being spent on?

While working on this article, we spoke to researchers and officials who characterised EU migration spending as “opaque”, “unclear” and “chaotic”. We combed through countless websites, official documents, annual reports and budgets, and we submitted freedom of information requests
in a number of European countries, in Nigeria, and to the European commission. And we discovered that the subject of migration, while not exactly cloak-and-dagger stuff, is apparently sensitive enough that most people preferred to speak off the record.

Above all, we were troubled by the fact that no one seems to have a clear overview of European migration budgets – and by how painfully characteristic this is of European migration policy as a whole.
Nigeria – ‘a tough cookie’

It wasn’t long before we realised that mapping out all European cash flows to all African countries would take us years. Instead, we decided to focus on Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s strongest economy, as well as the country of origin of the largest group of African asylum seekers in the EU. “A tough cookie” in the words of one senior EU official, but also “our most important migration partner in the coming years”.

But Nigeria wasn’t exactly eager to embrace the role of “most important migration partner”. After all, migration has been a lifeline for Nigeria’s economy: last year, Nigerian migrants living abroad sent home $25bn – roughly 6% of the country’s GNP.

It took a major European charm offensive to get Nigeria on board – a “long saga” with “more than one tense meeting”, according to a high-ranking EU diplomat we spoke to.

The European parliament invited Muhammadu Buhari, the Nigerian president, to Strasbourg in 2016. Over the next several years, one European dignitary after another visited Nigeria: from Angela Merkel,
the German chancellor, to Matteo Renzi,
the Italian prime minister, to Emmanuel Macron,
the French president, to Mark Rutte,

the Dutch prime minister.

Three guesses as to what they all wanted to talk about.
‘No data available’

But let’s get back to those funding streams.

The EU would have you believe that everything fits neatly into a flowchart. When asked to respond to this article, the European commission told us: “We take transparency very seriously.” One spokesperson after another, all from various EU agencies, informed us that the information was “freely available online”.

But as Wilma Haan, director of the Open State Foundation, notes: “Just throwing a bunch of stuff online doesn’t make you transparent. People have to be able to find the information and verify it.”

Yet that’s exactly what the EU did. The EU foundations and agencies we contacted referred us to dozens of different websites. In some cases, the information was relatively easy to find,
but in others the data was fragmented or missing entirely. All too often, our searches turned up results such as “data soon available”
or “no data available”.

The website of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) – worth around €3.1bn – is typical of the problems we faced. While we were able to find a list of projects funded by AMIF online,

the list only contains the names of the projects – not the countries in which they’re carried out. As a result, there’s only one way to find out what’s going on where: by Googling each of the project names individually.

This lack of a clear overview has major consequences for the democratic process, says Tineke Strik, member of the European parliament (Green party). Under the guise of “flexibility”, the European parliament has “no oversight over the funds whatsoever”. Strik says: “In the best-case scenario, we’ll discover them listed on the European commission’s website.”

At the EU’s Nigerian headquarters, one official explained that she does try to keep track of European countries’ migration-related projects to identify “gaps and overlaps”. When asked why this information wasn’t published online, she responded: “It’s something I do alongside my daily work.”
Getting a feel for Europe’s migration spaghetti

“There’s no way you’re going to get anywhere with this.”

This was the response from a Correspondent member who researches government funding when we announced this project several months ago. Not exactly the most encouraging words to start our journey. Still, over the past few months, we’ve done our best to make as much progress as we could.

Let’s start in the Netherlands, Maite’s home country. When we tried to find out how much Dutch tax money is spent in Nigeria on migration-related issues, we soon found ourselves down yet another rabbit hole.

The Dutch ministry of foreign affairs, which controls all funding for Dutch foreign policy, seemed like a good starting point. The ministry divides its budget into centralised and decentralised funds. The centralised funds are managed in the Netherlands administrative capital, The Hague, while the decentralised funds are distributed by Dutch embassies abroad.

Exactly how much money goes to the Dutch embassy in the Nigerian capital Abuja is unclear – no information is available online. When we contacted the embassy, they weren’t able to provide us with any figures, either. According to their press officer, these budgets are “fragmented”, and the total can only be determined at the end of the year.

The ministry of foreign affairs distributes centralised funds through its departments. But migration is a topic that spans a number of different departments: the department for stabilisation and humanitarian aid (DSH), the security policy department (DVB), the sub-Saharan Africa department (DAF), and the migration policy bureau (BMB), to name just a few. There’s no way of knowing whether each department spends money on migration, let alone how much of it goes to Nigeria.

Not to mention the fact that other ministries, such as the ministry of economic affairs and the ministry of justice and security, also deal with migration-related issues.

Next, we decided to check out the Dutch development aid budget
in the hope it would clear things up a bit. Unfortunately, the budget isn’t organised by country, but by theme. And since migration isn’t one of the main themes, it’s scattered over several different sections. Luckily, the document does contain an annex (▻https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/begrotingen/2019/09/17/hgis---nota-homogene-groep-internationale-samenwerking-rijksbegroting-) that goes into more detail about migration.

In this annex, we found that the Netherlands spends a substantial chunk of money on “migration cooperation”, “reception in the region” and humanitarian aid for refugees.

And then there’s the ministry of foreign affairs’ Stability Fund,
the ministry of justice and security’s budget for the processing and repatriation of asylum seekers, and the ministry of education, culture and science’s budget for providing asylum seekers with an education.

But again, it’s impossible to determine just how much of this funding finds its way to Nigeria. This is partly due to the fact that many migration projects operate in multiple countries simultaneously (in Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon, for example). Regional projects such as this generally don’t share details of how funding is divided up among the participating countries.

Using data from the Dutch embassy and an NGO that monitors Dutch projects in Nigeria, we found that €6m in aid goes specifically to Nigeria, with another €19m for the region as a whole. Dutch law enforcement also provides in-kind support to help strengthen Nigeria’s border control.

But hold on, there’s more. We need to factor in the money that the Netherlands spends on migration through its contributions to the EU.

The Netherlands pays hundreds of millions into the European Development Fund (EDF), which is partly used to finance migration projects. Part of that money also gets transferred to another EU migration fund: the EUTF for Africa.
The Netherlands also contributes directly to this fund.

But that’s not all. The Netherlands also gives (either directly or through the EU) to a variety of other EU funds and agencies that finance migration projects in Nigeria. And just as in the Netherlands, these EU funds and agencies are scattered over many different offices. There’s no single “EU ministry of migration”.

To give you a taste of just how convoluted things can get: the AMIF falls under the EU’s home affairs “ministry”

(DG HOME), the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) falls under the “ministry” for international cooperation and development (DG DEVCO), and the Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP) falls under the European External Action Service (EEAS). The EU border agency, Frontex, is its own separate entity, and there’s also a “ministry” for humanitarian aid (DG ECHO).

Still with me?

Because this was just the Netherlands.

Now let’s take a look at Giacomo’s country of origin, Italy, which is also home to one of Europe’s largest Nigerian communities (surpassed only by the UK).

Italy’s ministry of foreign affairs funds the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), which provides humanitarian aid in north-eastern Nigeria, where tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency. AICS also finances a wide range of projects aimed at raising awareness of the risks of illegal migration. It’s impossible to say how much of this money ends up in Nigeria, though, since the awareness campaigns target multiple countries at once.

This data is all available online – though you’ll have to do some digging to find it. But when it comes to the funds managed by Italy’s ministry of the interior, things start to get a bit murkier. Despite the ministry having signed numerous agreements on migration with African countries in recent years, there’s little trace of the money online. Reference to a €92,000 donation for new computers for Nigeria’s law enforcement and immigration services was all we could find.

Things get even more complicated when we look at Italy’s “Africa Fund”, which was launched in 2017 to foster cooperation with “priority countries along major migration routes”. The fund is jointly managed by the ministry of foreign affairs and the ministry of the interior.

Part of the money goes to the EUTF for Africa, but the fund also contributes to United Nations (UN) organisations, such as the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), as well as to the Italian ministry of defence and the ministry of economy and finance.

Like most European governments, Italy also contributes to EU funds and agencies concerned with migration, such as Frontex, Europol, and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO).

And then there are the contributions to UN agencies that deal with migration: UNHCR, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), IOM, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), to name just a few.

Now multiply all of this by the number of European countries currently active in Nigeria. Oh, and let’s not forget the World Bank,

which has only recently waded into the waters of the migration industry.

And then there are the European development banks. And the EU’s External Investment Plan, which was launched in 2016 with the ambitious goal of generating €44bn in private investments in developing countries, with a particular focus on migrants’ countries of origin. Not to mention the regional “migration dialogues”
organised in west Africa under the Rabat Process and the Cotonou Agreement.

https://i.imgur.com/uu99r6b.png

This is the European migration spaghetti.
How we managed to compile a list nonetheless

By now, one thing should be clear: there are a staggering number of ministries, funds and departments involved in European migration spending. It’s no wonder that no one in Europe seems to have a clear overview of the situation. But we thought that maybe, just maybe, there was one party that might have the overview we seek: Nigeria. After all, the Nigerian government has to be involved in all the projects that take place there, right?

We decided to ask around in Nigeria’s corridors of power. Was anyone keeping track of European migration funding? The Ministry of Finance? Or maybe the Ministry of the Interior, or the Ministry of Labour and Employment?

Nope.

We then tried asking Nigeria’s anti-trafficking agency (NAPTIP), the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, and the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI).

No luck there, either. When it comes to migration, things are just as fragmented under the Nigerian government as they are in Europe.

In the meantime, we contacted each of the European embassies in Nigeria.
This proved to be the most fruitful approach and yielded the most complete lists of projects. The database of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)
was particularly useful in fleshing out our overview.

So does that mean our list is now complete? Probably not.

More to the point: the whole undertaking is highly subjective, since there’s no official definition of what qualifies as a migration project and what doesn’t.

For example, consider initiatives to create jobs for young people in Nigeria. Would those be development projects or trade projects? Or are they actually migration projects (the idea being that young people wouldn’t migrate if they could find work)?

What about efforts to improve border control in northern Nigeria? Would they fall under counterterrorism? Security? Institutional development? Or is this actually a migration-related issue?

Each country has its own way of categorising projects.

There’s no single, unified standard within the EU.

When choosing what to include in our own overview, we limited ourselves to projects that European countries themselves designated as being migration related.

While it’s certainly not perfect, this overview allows us to draw at least some meaningful conclusions about three key issues: where the money is going, where it isn’t going, and what this means for Nigeria.
1) Where is the money going?

In Nigeria, we found

If you’d like to work with the data yourself, feel free to download the full overview here.
50 migration projects being funded by 11 different European countries, as well as 32 migration projects that rely on EU funding. Together, they amount to more than €770m in funding.

Most of the money from Brussels is spent on improving Nigerian border control:
more than €378m. For example, the European Investment Bank has launched a €250m initiative

to provide all Nigerians with biometric identity cards.

The funding provided by individual countries largely goes to projects aimed at creating employment opportunities

in Nigeria: at least €92m.

Significantly, only €300,000 is spent on creating more legal opportunities to migrate – less than 0.09% of all funding.

https://i.imgur.com/F7ng9WA.png

We also found 47 “regional” projects that are not limited to Nigeria, but also include other countries.
Together, they amount to more than €775m in funding.
Regional migration spending is mainly focused on migrants who have become stranded in transit and is used to return them home and help them to reintegrate when they get there. Campaigns designed to raise awareness of the dangers of travelling to Europe also receive a relatively large proportion of funding in the region.

https://i.imgur.com/kM4CltW.png

2) Where isn’t the money going?

When we look at the list of institutions – or “implementing agencies”, as they’re known in policy speak – that receive money from Europe, one thing immediately stands out: virtually none of them are Nigerian organisations.

“The EU funds projects in Nigeria, but that money doesn’t go directly to Nigerian organisations,” says Charles Nwanelo, head of migration at the NCFRMI.

See their website here.
“Instead, it goes to international organisations, such as the IOM, which use the money to carry out projects here. This means we actually have no idea how much money the EU is spending in Nigeria.”

We hear the same story again and again from Nigerian government officials: they never see a cent of European funding, as it’s controlled by EU and UN organisations. This is partially a response to corruption within Nigerian institutions – Europe feels it can keep closer tabs on its money by channelling it through international organisations. As a result, these organisations are growing rapidly in Nigeria. To get an idea of just how rapidly: the number of people working for the IOM in Nigeria has more than quadrupled over the past two years.

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

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Nigerian organisations are going unfunded. Implementing agencies are free to pass funding along to Nigerian groups. For example, the IOM hires Nigerian NGOs to provide training for returning migrants and sponsors a project that provides training and new software to the Nigerian immigration service.

Nevertheless, the system has inevitably led to the emergence of a parallel aid universe in which the Nigerian government plays only a supporting role. “The Nigerian parliament should demand to see an overview of all current and upcoming projects being carried out in their country every three months,” says Bob van Dillen, migration expert at development organisation Cordaid.

But that would be “difficult”, according to one German official we spoke to, because “this isn’t a priority for the Nigerian government. This is at the top of Europe’s agenda, not Nigeria’s.”

Most Nigerian migrants to Europe come from Edo state, where the governor has been doing his absolute best to compile an overview of all migration projects. He set up a task force that aims to coordinate migration activities in his state. The task force has been largely unsuccessful because the EU doesn’t provide it with any direct funding and doesn’t require member states to cooperate with it.

3) What are the real-world consequences for Nigeria?

We’ve established that the Nigerian government isn’t involved in allocating migration spending and that local officials are struggling to keep tabs on things. So who is coordinating all those billions in funding?

Each month, the European donors and implementing agencies mentioned above meet at the EU delegation to discuss their migration projects. However, diplomats from multiple European countries have told us that no real coordination takes place at these meetings. No one checks to see whether projects conflict or overlap. Instead, the meetings are “more on the basis of letting each other know”, as one diplomat put it.

One German official noted: “What we should do is look together at what works, what doesn’t, and which lessons we can learn from each other. Not to mention how to prevent people from shopping around from project to project.”

Other diplomats consider this too utopian and feel that there are far too many players to make that level of coordination feasible. In practice, then, it seems that chaotic funding streams inevitably lead to one thing: more chaos.
And we’ve only looked at one country ...

That giant plate of spaghetti we just sifted through only represents a single serving – other countries have their own versions of Nigeria’s migration spaghetti. Alongside Nigeria, the EU has also designated Mali, Senegal, Ethiopia and Niger as “priority countries”. The EU’s largest migration fund, the EUTF, finances projects in 26 different African countries. And the sums of money involved are only going to increase.

When we first started this project, our aim was to chart a path through the new European zeal for funding. We wanted to track the flow of migration money to find answers to some crucial questions: will this funding help Nigerians make better lives for themselves in their own country? Will it help reduce the trafficking of women? Will it provide more safe, legal ways for Nigerians to travel to Europe?

Or will it primarily go towards maintaining the international aid industry? Does it encourage corruption? Does it make migrants even more vulnerable to exploitation along the way?

But we’re still far from answering these questions. Recently, a new study by the UNDP

called into question “the notion that migration can be prevented or significantly reduced through programmatic and policy responses”.

Nevertheless, European programming and policy responses will only increase in scope in the coming years.

But the more Europe spends on migration, the more tangled the spaghetti becomes and the harder it gets to check whether funds are being spent wisely. With the erosion of transparency comes the erosion of democratic oversight.

So to anyone who can figure out how to untangle the spaghetti, we say: be our guest.

▻https://thecorrespondent.com/154/europe-spends-billions-stopping-migration-good-luck-figuring-out-where-the-money-actually-goes/171168048128-fac42704
#externalisation #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Nigeria #EU #EU #Union_européenne #externalisation #frontières #contrôles_frontaliers #Frontex #Trust_fund #Pays-Bas #argent #transparence (manque de - ) #budget #remittances #AMIF #développement #aide_au_développement #European_Development_Fund (#EDF) #EUTF_for_Africa #European_Neighbourhood_Instrument (#ENI) #Development_Cooperation_Instrument (#DCI) #Italie #Banque_mondiale #External_Investment_Plan #processus_de_rabat #accords_de_Cotonou #biométrie #carte_d'identité_biométrique #travail #développement #aide_au_développement #coopération_au_développement #emploi #réintégration #campagnes #IOM #OIM

Ajouté à la métaliste sur l’externalisation des frontières :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/731749
Et ajouté à la métaliste développement/migrations :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/733358

ping @isskein @isskein @pascaline @_kg_

The Gambia v #Myanmar at the International Court of Justice: Points of Interest in the Application

On 11 November 2019, The Gambia filed an application at the International Court of Justice against Myanmar, alleging violation of obligations under the Genocide Convention.

This legal step has been in the works for some time now, with the announcement by the Gambian Minister of Justice that instructions had been given to counsel in October to file the application. As a result, the application has been much anticipated. I will briefly go over some legally significant aspects of the application.

On methodology, the application relies heavily on the 2018 and 2019 reports of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (FFM) for much of the factual basis of the assertions – placing emphasis on the conclusions of the FFM in regard to the question of genocide. What struck me particularly is the timeline of events as the underlying factual basis of the application, commencing with the ‘clearance operations’ in October 2016 and continuing to date. This is the same timeframe under scrutiny at the International Criminal Court, but different from the FFM (which has now completed its mandate), and the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM). The IIMM was explicitly mandated to inquire into events from 2011 onwards, while the FFM interpreted its mandate to commence from 2011. While these are clearly distinct institutions with vastly different mandates, there may well be points of overlap and a reliance on some of the institutions in the course of the ICJ case. (See my previous Opinio Juris post on potential interlinkages).

For the legal basis of the application, The Gambia asserts that both states are parties to the Genocide Convention, neither have reservations to Article IX, and that there exists a dispute between it and Myanmar – listing a number of instances in which The Gambia has issued statements about and to Myanmar regarding the treatment of the Rohingya, including a note verbal in October 2019. (paras. 20 – 23) The Gambia asserts that the prohibition of genocide is a jus cogens norm, and results in obligations erga omnes and erga omnes partes, leading to the filing of the application. (para. 15) This is significant as it seeks to cover both bases – that the obligations arise towards the international community as a whole, as well as to parties to the convention.

On the substance of the allegations of genocide, the application lays the groundwork – the persecution of the Rohingya, including denial of rights, as well as hate propaganda, and then goes on to address the commission of genocidal acts. The application emphasizes the mass scale destruction of villages, the targeting of children, the widespread use of rape and sexual assault, situated in the context of the clearance operations of October 2016, and then from August 2017 onwards. It also details the denial of food and a policy of forced starvation, through displacement, confiscation of crops, as well as inability to access humanitarian aid.

Violations of the following provisions of the Genocide Convention are alleged: Articles I, III, IV, V and VI. To paraphrase, these include committing genocide, conspiracy to commit, direct and public incitement, attempt to commit, complicity, failing to prevent, failure to punish, and failure to enact legislation). (para. 111)

As part of the relief asked for, The Gambia has asked that the continuing breach of the Genocide Convention obligations are remedied, that wrongful acts are ceased and that perpetrators are punished by a competent tribunal, which could include an international penal tribunal – clearly leaving the door open to the ICC or an ad hoc tribunal. In addition, as part of the obligation of reparation, The Gambia asks for safe and dignified return of the Rohingya with full citizenship rights, and a guarantee of non-repetition. (para. 112) This is significant in linking this to a form of reparations, and reflects the demands of many survivors.

The Gambia makes detailed submissions in its request for provisional measures, in keeping with the evolving jurisprudence of the court. It addresses the compelling circumstances that necessitate provisional measures and cites the 2019 FFM report in assessing a grave and ongoing risk to the approximately 600,000 Rohingya that are in Myanmar. Importantly, it also cites the destruction of evidence as part of the argument (para. 118), indicating the necessity of the work of the IIMM in this regard.

In addressing ‘plausible rights’ for the purpose of provisional measures, the application draws upon the case ofBelgium v Senegal, applying mutatis mutandis the comparison to the Convention against Torture. In that case, the court held that obligations in relation to the convention for the prohibition of torture would apply erga omnes partes – thereby leading to the necessary argument that in fact the rights of The Gambia also need to be protected by the provisional measures order. (para. 127) (For more on this distinction between erga omnesand erga omnes partes, see this post) The Gambia requests the courts protection in light of the urgency of the matter.

As a last point, The Gambia has appointed Navanethem Pillay as an ad hoc judge. (para. 135) With her formidable prior experience as President of the ICTR, a judge at the ICC, and head of the OHCHR, this experience will be a welcome addition to the bench. (And no, as I’ve been asked many times, unfortunately we are not related!)

The filing of the application by The Gambia is a significant step in the quest for accountability – this is the route of state accountability, while for individual responsibility, proceedings continue at the ICC, as well as with emerging universal jurisdiction cases. Success at the ICJ is far from guaranteed, but this is an important first step in the process.

▻http://opiniojuris.org/2019/11/13/the-gambia-v-myanmar-at-the-international-court-of-justice-points-of-in
#Birmanie #justice #Rohingya #Gambie #Cour_internationale_de_justice

Lutte pour le #climat : bientôt 100 km/h au maximum sur les #autoroutes françaises ?
▻http://carfree.fr/index.php/2019/11/14/lutte-pour-le-climat-bientot-100-km-h-au-maximum-sur-les-autoroutes-francais

Au lieu de faire de la parlote sur le climat comme la France de Macron, certains pays agissent. Ainsi, les #Pays-Bas viennent de fixer à 100 km/h au maximum la Lire la suite...

#Fin_des_autoroutes #Insécurité_routière #Réchauffement_climatique #vitesse

Indonesia re-exporting illegal waste to other countries, report finds
▻https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/indonesia-waste-plastic-export-import-illegal

https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/11/07053502/Petugas-Bea-Cukai-Tanjung-Perak-Surabaya-memeriksan-2-dari-8-kontainer-sampah-kertas-asal-Australia-yang-siap-direekspor-foto-Petrus-Riski-768x512.jpg

A report by environmental groups says the Indonesian government is shipping containers of imported plastic waste from the U.S. to other countries instead of sending them back to the source as it claimed it would.
The report said 38 containers ended up arriving in India, while the others were sent to countries including Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Canada.
The Indonesian government has rebuffed the allegation, saying the re-export documents list the U.S. and Germany as the final destinations.
The groups behind the report have called on Indonesia to work together with the source countries and to prosecute those involved in the trafficking of waste.

https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/11/07051032/EIsVneyUcAA1fwr.jpeg https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/11/07051042/EIsVne1U8AAh0V-.jpeg

#plastique #déchets #trafic

Message d’absence reçu d’une amie/collègue au Pays-Bas :

Dear reader. Thank you for your message. The Dutch Higher Education sector is campaigning against budget cuts. We do not work longer than our contracted hours. This will result in a delay in receiving a reply. The lack of proper funding of higher education and science has led to structural overtime and this has negative consequences for the quality of higher education and science overall, as well is for the well-being of my colleagues, myself and our students. Apologies for any inadvertent inconvenience caused, we hope to count on your understand. For more information: ►https://woinactie.blogspot.com/p/the-demands.html Kind regards, XX

–---------

Geachte lezer, Dank voor uw bericht. Het Hoger Onderwijs voert actie voor het terugdraaien van bezuinigingen. Wij beperken ons momenteel onze werkuren tot onze aanstellingsomvang. Hierdoor zal het langer duren voordat u een antwoord op uw email ontvangt. De onderfinanciering van het Hoger Onderwijs en de wetenschap, leidt tot structureel overwerk en dit heeft negatieve effecten voor het hoger onderwijs en wetenschappelijk onderzoek, en het welzijn van mijn collega’s, mijzelf en onze studenten. Mijn excuses voor het eventuele ongemak dat door deze actie wordt veroorzaakt, wij hopen op uw begrip te kunnen rekenen. Meer informatie: ▻https://woinactie.blogspot.com/p/nieuws.html . met vriendelijke groet, XX

#Pays-Bas #résistance #budget #coupures_budgétaires #université #heures_supplémentaires #éducation #coupure_budgétaire

Et du coup, si on ouvre le site internet qu’elle mentionne :

https://i.imgur.com/Wv7yjlo.jpg

Explanation
Demand: abolishing the efficiency cuts
As if all of this would not be serious enough, an additional cut is planned from the Cabinet in the form of a so-called “efficiency cut” of structural 183 million euros. This threatens to be pushed through despite a negative motion from the Senate. Abolishing the efficiency discount would mean that the government grant will not go further in the coming years, as illustrated in the graph below (blue line):

https://i.imgur.com/wTRx61C.png

Demand: restoration of the government funding to the level of 2000.
The above is certainly not enough to return to a workable situation at the university. WOinActie therefore requires an extra investment of 1.15 billion per year that is needed to turn the tide in academic education. With this much-needed investment, the government grant per student will return to the situation in 2000 as can be seen in the graph below (blue line):

https://i.imgur.com/84FyR3S.jpg

►https://woinactie.blogspot.com/p/the-demands.html

#grève #white_strike #WOinActie
▻https://twitter.com/hashtag/WOinActie?src=hashtag_click

ping @reka

« Les Pays-Bas bâtissent un Etat de surveillance pour les pauvres » - Le Temps
►https://www.letemps.ch/monde/paysbas-batissent-un-surveillance-pauvres

https://assets.letemps.ch/sites/default/files/styles/share/public/media/2019/11/05/file77uete76n44sog8mmn7.jpg.jpeg?itok=bfOIvoce

La démonstration semble anodine. Mais elle fait sursauter Tijmen Wisman dans son bureau de l’Université libre d’Amsterdam. « A eux seuls, les compteurs intelligents, d’eau ou d’électricité, prennent une mesure tous les quarts d’heure. Cela fait 96 par jour, et cela suffit à vous offrir une vue très détaillée de la vie d’une personne. » Or, le système ne s’arrête pas là. « SyRI peut puiser dans une gamme incroyablement étendue de données. Nous sommes très loin de la simple recherche d’« anomalies ». Ce système ouvre la porte à un Etat de surveillance généralisée. »

Tijmen Wisman sait de quoi il parle. Il a consacré son doctorat au droit européen en matière d’objets connectés. Il est l’un des derniers habitants d’Amsterdam à ne pas posséder de smartphone, et peste à chaque fois qu’il doit introduire sa carte d’abonnement numérisée pour entrer dans le métro qui l’amène à l’université. Il est conscient de chaque trace numérique qu’il laisse, et c’est à ce titre qu’il est devenu l’une des principales chevilles ouvrières de l’opposition qui s’est développée face à SyRI.

Human Rights and the Welfare State: An Exploratory History of Social Rights in the Postwar Netherlands

http://zapruderworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/hdr-img-3.jpg

Introduction

During the Second World War the concepts of welfare state and human rights were both developed to a significant extent – as part of a future ordering of the world. Although contested, the concept of the welfare state continues to be a predominant approach to ordering society in Western Europe.1 The concept of human rights also received new attention during the war. After 1948, when the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in particular during the 1970s, it became increasingly common to refer to this framework.

Although there appear to be interesting entanglements in the history of these concepts the relationship between the two has hardly been investigated. To mention just two entanglements: a) both the welfare state and human rights seem to be part of a humanitarian narrative in which human dignity and equality play a leading role and (b) whereas the concept of the welfare state was generally quite popular until the 1970s and unpopular after this decade, for the concept of human rights it was the other way around.

In this paper I will first investigate such entanglements by combining elements of the historiographies of human rights and of the welfare state. After describing some main features from these historiographies I will focus in particular on the historiography of the social rights of migrants in the Netherlands.2 In the second place I will investigate the use of the social rights concept in Dutch political debates after the Second World War, because this concept has been used in the contexts of both human rights and the welfare state.3 Such analysis involves a historicization of the concept of social rights: instead of following the definitions of social rights in the literature, as I do in the case of the social rights of migrants, my investigation focuses on how historical actors have used social rights.

For the Dutch case, I will argue that human rights and welfare provisions have been put into separate compartments. This separation can be explained through analyzing how the relation between individual and community was framed since the Second World War. In the first decades after the war the so-called ideology of personalism, in which the individual was seen as embedded in society, was important for both the concept of human rights and the concept of the welfare state. Because of this common ground there was no need to base the welfare state on human rights or vice versa. Since the 1970s human rights and the welfare state were no longer part of the same ideology, but they had both to do with a renewed belief in the autonomous individual. This belief enabled the human rights movement in fighting violations of individual freedoms worldwide and inspired neoliberalism to fight the welfare state. By investigating the Dutch case, this paper will deepen our understanding of how relations between the state, individuals and humanity were framed in postwar Europe and how this framing has since affected the in- and exclusion of people in the welfare state.

▻http://zapruderworld.org/journal/archive/volume-3/human-rights-and-the-welfare-state-an-exploratory-history-of-social-r
#welfare_state #état_providence #Pays-Bas #histoire #droits_humains

The European benchmark for refugee integration: A comparative analysis of the National Integration Evaluation Mechanism in 14 EU countries

The report presents a comparative, indicator-based assessment of the refugee integration frameworks in place in 14 countries: Czechia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Conclusions cover the full range of integration dimensions, such as housing, employment, education and aspects of legal integration, and refer to recognized refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection.

Legal and policy indicators are the focus of analysis, as well as indicators on mainstreaming, coordination and efforts to involve refugees and locals.

Results are presented in terms of concrete steps that policymakers need to take in order to establish a refugee integration framework in line with the standards required by international and EU law.

http://www.ismu.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Copertina_1.png

#rapport #intégration #France #Grèce #République_Tchèque #Hongrie #Italie #Lettonie #Lituanie #Pays-Bas #Pologne #Portugal #Roumanie #Slovénie #Espagne #Suède #réfugiés #migrations #asile #regroupement_familial #citoyenneté #logement #hébergement #emploi #travail #intégration_professionnelle #éducation #santé #sécurité_sociale
ping @karine4

Crash du MH-17 : trois Russes et un Ukrainien sont poursuivis pour meurtre par le parquet néerlandais
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/06/19/vol-mh17-les-pays-bas-vont-juger-trois-russes-et-un-ukrainien-pour-meurtre_5

https://img.lemde.fr/2019/06/14/372/0/3500/1750/1440/720/60/0/fc671a6_FW1_UKRAINECRISIS-MH17-_0614_1A.JPG

Les suspects russes, liés aux services secrets, risquent de ne pas être extradés pour le procès prévu en mars 2020.

Ils seraient attendus le 9 mars 2020, à 10 heures précises, devant le tribunal hautement sécurisé de Schiphol : trois Russes et un Ukranien sont, selon l’équipe d’enquête internationale (JIT) conduite par les Pays-Bas, les responsables du tir de missile qui, le 17 juillet 2014, a entraîné le crash du vol MH-17 et causé la mort des 298 passagers et membres d’équipage. Le Boeing de la Malaysia Airlines devait relier Amsterdam à Kuala Lumpur.

Lors d’une conférence de presse à Nieuwegein, les enquêteurs néerlandais, australien, malaisien, belge et ukrainien qui continueront à mener de longues et complexes investigations ont livré, mercredi 19 juin, les noms des Russes Igor Guirkine, Sergueï Doubinski et Oleg Poulatov, ainsi que de l’Ukrainien Leonid Karchenko. Tous les quatre sont poursuivis pour meurtre par le parquet néerlandais, qui ne se fait toutefois guère d’illusion : ces quatre suspects ne seront très probablement pas présents l’an prochain.

D’autant moins que la Russie n’extrade pas ses citoyens et que les autorités ukrainiennes ignorent où séjourne leur ressortissant. Un traité prévoyant que le procès des responsables présumés se tiendrait aux Pays-Bas a été signé l’an dernier par La Haye et Kiev – qui n’extrade pas non plus, en principe.

MH17: Nach der Kritik von Malaysias Regierungschef am JIT (https://...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/9198658

MH17: Nach der Kritik von Malaysias Regierungschef am JIT

2017 : 140,4 tonnes de cocaïne saisie dans l’union européenne Eric Steffens, Belga, 6 Mai 2019
▻https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/fr/2019/06/06/le-port-d_anvers-une-des-principales-portes-dentee-de-la-cocain

Plus de 104.000 saisies de cocaïne ont été signalées dans l’UE en 2017 (contre 98.000 en 2016), pour un total de 140,4 tonnes, soit environ le double de la quantité saisie en 2016 (70,9 tonnes).

https://images.vrt.be/width1280/2018/06/28/d3c2ceb3-7a72-11e8-abcc-02b7b76bf47f.jpg

La Belgique, avec 45 tonnes saisies en 2017, arrive en tête des pays d’Europe, devant l’Espagne (41 tonnes), la France (17,5 tonnes) et les Pays-Bas (14,6 tonnes).
"La cocaïne entre en Europe par de nombreux itinéraires et des moyens variés, mais la croissance du trafic de gros volumes dans des conteneurs de transport maritime constitue un défi majeur", expose l’agence européenne sur les drogues.
"Les niveaux estimés de pureté de la cocaïne vendue au détail sont les plus élevés qui aient été observés au cours de la décennie, ce qui tend également à indiquer une disponibilité accrue de cette drogue", ajoute l’agence.
Anvers et Amsterdam, mais aussi Bristol ou Barcelone, figurent parmi les villes d’Europe où sont décelées les plus grandes quantités de résidus de cocaïne dans leurs eaux usées.

Le trafic de cocaïne apparait en outre de plus en plus concurrentiel, avec des groupes de petite taille et des individus qui se servent de plus en plus des médias sociaux, des marchés du « darknet » et des techniques de chiffrement.

« Sur le marché de la cocaïne, l’esprit d’entreprise se manifeste au travers de méthodes de distribution innovantes : des ’centres d’appel’ emploient des coursiers qui assurent une livraison rapide et flexible. Ces méthodes, reflets d’une possible ’ubérisation’ du commerce de la cocaïne, illustrent le caractère compétitif du marché, au sein duquel les revendeurs rivalisent en proposant des services allant au-delà du produit proprement dit », analyse l’Observatoire.

Quant à l’héroïne, la quantité saisie dans l’UE a augmenté de plus d’une tonne en 2017 pour atteindre 5,4 tonnes. Une préoccupation croissante concerne les opioïdes de synthèse, dont onze nouveaux types ont été détectés en Europe en 2018.

Le cannabis, lui, est désormais la substance que les nouveaux patients admis dans les services spécialisés de traitement pour usage de drogues citent le plus souvent comme raison principale de leur prise de contact.
Concernant les drogues de synthèse, 21 laboratoires de MDMA - le principe actif de l’ecstasy - ont été démantelés dans l’UE, contre 11 en 2016, tous aux Pays-Bas. Un déversement de produits chimiques suggérant la production de MDMA a été signalé en Belgique.

Les dernières données montrent que la teneur en MDMA des comprimés d’ecstasy a atteint un pic décennal en 2017, avec une estimation de 6,6 millions de comprimés de MDMA saisis dans l’UE, soit le chiffre le plus élevé depuis 2007.

Les données disponibles indiquent également que la production d’amphétamine se concentre principalement en #Belgique, aux #Pays-Bas et en #Pologne ainsi que, dans une moindre mesure, dans les #États_baltes et en #Allemagne.

#concurrence #innovation #distribution #ubérisation #service #compétitivité #centre_d_appels #médias_sociaux #commerce #drogue #cocaïne #drogues #santé #addiction #société

Attention, erreur : 1600 et non 16’000 (v. plus bas !)

16,000 children missing from Dutch asylum shelters : report

Over 16 thousand children disappeared from asylum centers in the Netherlands over the past 4.5 years, NRC reports based on figures from the central agency for the reception of asylum seekers #COA and #Nidos, the organization that has custody of all unaccompanied foreign minors in the Netherlands. These kids left the asylum centers and their current whereabouts are unknown, the newspaper writes.

According to the two organizations, some of the missing children left to join family or friends in Germany, Belgium or France. But there are also signals that missing child asylum seekers end up in situations where they are exploited. Nidos and the COA told NRC that it is “always worrying” when a child disappears from a shelter. “Every child is one too many”, Nidos director Tim Verstegen said to the newspaper.

The largest group of missing child asylum seekers come from Morocco, 325, followed by 190 children from Algeria, 167 from Afghanistan, and 114 each from Syria and Eritrea. The first three countries are considered “safe”, which means that asylum seekers from there stand little chance of getting refugee status in the Netherlands. But asylum seekers from Syria and Eritrea are almost always given a residency permit.

The group of children who disappear from the asylum process is likely even larger, according to NRC. The foreigners police in Rotterdam regularly find foreign minors, who are put on a taxi and sent to the reception center in Ter Apel to start their asylum procedure. But not all children actually report to the reception center, a police officer said to the newspaper. They are dropped off at the center’s door, but don’t go inside or leave again a few hours later, before being assigned a guardian.

Earlier this year the National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking Herman Bolhaar called on the government to do more to find and protect children who disappear from asylum centers: ▻https://nltimes.nl/2019/04/01/dutch-govt-must-protect-disappearing-child-asylum-seekers-national-rapporteu.

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Nach Malaysia, Teil des JIT, sind die MH17-Ermittlungen politisiert...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/9137738

Nach Malaysia, Teil des JIT, sind die MH17-Ermittlungen politisiert

UvA, schilder deze theekrans snel over, want dit doek doet geen recht aan de waarde die deze vrouwen hebben voor de universiteit

De wijze waarop vijf vrouwelijke UvA-hoogleraren zijn geportretteerd, doet geen recht aan hun status.

https://images1.persgroep.net/rcs/M95CoiLv6w-ufxCBn2D9k0UkR40/diocontent/149584290/_fitwidth/763?appId=93a17a8fd81db0de025c8abd1cca1279&quality=0.8#.jpg

‘Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen onthult schilderij van vijf vrouwelijke hoogleraren.’ Doorgaans stemt zo’n titel mij vrolijk. Ik, vrouw, voel mij daardoor sterk en hoopvol over de toekomst, en trots op mijn universiteit. Met toch sluimerende achterdocht klik ik verder om het artikel te lezen. Ik val van mijn stoel. Even hoop ik dat de titel ongelukkig geformuleerd is. ‘Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen onthult vijf schilderijen van vrouwelijke hoogleraren’, zou op zijn plaats zijn.

Helaas blijkt ook het schilderij ­ongelukkig vormgegeven. Tot mijn stomme verbazing zie ik een kiekje van een high tea. Associaties als ‘gezellig’, ‘huisvrouwen’ en ‘knus’ zijn eerder gelegd dan ‘kennis’, ‘kunde’, of ‘wetenschap’. Erg jammer, want ik lees dat de UvA met dit werk (van Rogier Willems) ‘dat zij allang geen mannenbolwerk meer is, noch wil zijn’.

Op dit schilderij zie ik hoogopgeleide vrouwen met een voorbeeldfunctie als gezellige tantes afgeschilderd. Geen enkele persoonlijkheid is goed gevat, vertelt een UvA-hoogleraar wier wens anoniem te blijven ik respecteer.

Daarnaast zie ik twee van de vijf hoogleraren noodgedwongen staan, omdat er simpelweg geen plek voor ze is. Misschien toch niet zo slecht gevat. Op tafel ligt wat anoniem papierwerk. Waarom zie ik van geen van de hoogleraren een werk van haar hand, vereeuwigd op dit doek? Geen spoor van activiteit waaruit blijkt dat er hard gewerkt is aan het intellectueel erfgoed van de UvA, van onze generatie.

De onthulling verraadt intellectuele luiheid. Duidelijk zichtbaar is dat de UvA geen idee heeft wat er speelt in het debat over vrouwen, feminisme, gelijkheid. De universiteit is zich niet bewust geweest van mogelijke beeld-implicaties. Wellicht zijn de intenties goed, goed nagedacht is er niet.

UvA, als je daadwerkelijk van mening bent dat deze vrouwen, in een tijd dat dat nog altijd niet vanzelfsprekend is, veel hebben betekend voor de universiteit, draag dat dan uit. Vijf portretten graag, en met allure. Ik wil dat trots, eerbied en intellect te ruiken is in de hal van het Bushuis. Liefst door nog natte verf, van echte purperslakken. Nu zie ik alleen een bevestiging van een bestuur dat onder groepsdruk wat meer vrouwen aan de muur hangt.

In de verslaglegging van de onthulling op de website van de UvA zien de hoogleraren in kwestie slechts een bulletpoint voor hun naam, in plaats van een titel. Ik geloof dat er had moeten staan: prof. dr. M.G. (Maria) Bal, hoogleraar Theoretische literatuurwetenschap; prof. A.G.A. (Anne) van Grevenstein- Kruse, hoogleraar Praktijk van conservering en restauratie; prof. dr. A.C.J. (Aafke) Hulk, hoogleraar Franse taalkunde en decaan van de Faculteit Geesteswetenschappen tussen 2003 en 2008; Prof. dr. J.F.T.M. (José) van Dijck, hoogleraar Vergelijkende mediawetenschappen (tot 2016) en decaan van de Faculteit Geesteswetenschappen tussen 2008 en 2011; prof. dr. M.T.C. (Marita) Mathijsen-Verkooijen, hoogleraar Moderne Nederlandse letterkunde.

Niet onbelangrijk is dat al deze hoogleraren vrouwen zijn. Dat wordt dus: mw. prof. dr. M.G. (Maria) Bal, hoogleraar Theoretische literatuurwetenschap; mw. prof. A.G.A. (Anne) van Grevenstein-Kruse, hoogleraar Praktijk van conservering en restauratie; mw. prof. dr. A.C.J. (Aafke) Hulk, hoogleraar Franse taalkunde en decaan van de Faculteit Geesteswetenschappen tussen 2003 en 2008; mw. prof. dr. J.F.T.M. (José) van Dijck, hoogleraar Vergelijkende mediawetenschappen (tot 2016) en decaan van de Faculteit Geesteswetenschappen tussen 2008 en 2011; mw. prof. dr. M.T.C. (Marita) Mathijsen-Verkooijen, hoogleraar Moderne Nederlandse letterkunde. Zo, met de kracht van de herhaling.

Helaas werd bij iedere verslaglegging van de onthulling vooral herhaald hoe gróót het schilderij wel niet is. Dat zal wel een mannending zijn. Mijn boodschap moge duidelijk zijn. Wellicht bedoelde de UvA het goed met de vereeuwiging van deze vrouwen, de gezellige groeps­medaille in olie op linnen doet geen recht aan de waarde die deze vrouwen hebben voor de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Ere wie ere toekomt.

Vijf portretten dus.

▻https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/uva-schilder-deze-theekrans-snel-over-want-dit-doek-doet-geen-recht-aan-d

#femmes #invisibilisation #université #Pays-Bas #UvA #université_d'Amsterdam #in/visibilité #portraits #hommage #science #académie #genre

Commentaire d’une amie:

UvA a fait faire un tableau de 5 dames profs pour compenser la galerie de vieux messieurs qu’on voit dans certains bâtiments.

Mise en place avec pompe a Fac de lettres.

Le résultat est déprimant -
(on ne les reconnait qu’avec peine).

Dans la lettre ouverte dans De Volkskrant), une étudiante demande cinq portraits individuels et à la hauteur de la formalité des responsabilités de leurs chaires (l’une a été présidente de l’ Académie royale néerlandaise des sciences).

Bij hoogleraar B. moesten de vrouwen hakken dragen

Onderzoek machtsmisbruik en wangedrag Een hoogleraar werd een half jaar geleden gedwongen te vertrekken bij de UvA. Wat speelde er de afgelopen jaren bij de sectie arbeidsrecht? Zijn bijnaam was ‘Een acht voor een nacht’.

►https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/05/14/bij-hoogleraar-b-moesten-de-vrouwen-hakken-dragen-a3960238

#harcèlement_sexuel #violences_sexuelles #université #Pays-Bas #Amsterdam #Université_d'Amsterdam #UvA #impunité #sexisme #Prof_B

Avec ce commentaire reçu par email :

NRC est le quotidien du soir (plutôt de droite) qui a fait une enquête. Le type a dû démissionner mais pas de procédure formelle.
Il a fait un procès pour que le journal ne publie pas son nom et le juge lui a donné raison (la presse ici ne publie que les initiales dans les affaires juridiques). Ils ont mis le titre d’un de ses articles donc l’est facile à retrouver.

Et aussi reçu par email :

Everybody, and I mean absolutely everbody, must read it!!!!

I knew that much was wrong at the UvA, but this goes beyond what even I could imagine. If you read this story, you can label as pure cynicism everything the CvB has said in recent years about the importance of diversity, and taking discrimination and abuse of power seriously. With this article, the hypocrisy of the whole system blows up in our face, including how the top-down hierarchy feeds abuse of power and contributes to a culture in which the powerful are always protected, regardless of their behavior.

It is UvA’s Weinstein case, and we should all treat it as such.

Our current CvB has done NOTHING in reaction to this case. They did not properly inform the academic community. WE STILL DON’T KNOW HOW MANY WOMEN WERE HARMED AND EXACTLY IN WHAT WAY! WE STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPEND TO THESE WOMEN AFTERWARDS. They did not demand further investigation into how it was possible that such things could happen for more than 15 years (see last quote).

They reacted to the recent reports about abuse of power at Dutch universties by simply pointing to our “Vertrouwenspersonen”.

They did not include anything about complaint procedures in the latest policy papers on diversity.

The conclusion of this piece about the UvA can only be: Nobody who is abused, humiliated, discriminated against or sexually or otherwise harassed can count on the University of Amsterdam for any kind of protection.

It is all so utterly ridiculous and depressing.

Edgar du Perron, who was our hope in 2015, who had the trust of the whole academic community, also contributed to keeping these things under the carpet. Edgar du Perron. If he is part of a system of abuse, we need much more then committees and demonstrations to end it.

What do people of colour have to endure, if this is normalized behavior towards white women?

Here are some quotes from the piece that I have translated into English. Enjoy!

"Women must wear high heels, have long and painted fingernails, B. thinks. To colleagues without make-up he says: “Are you sick?” or “Don’t be so boring. Or are you pregnant?”

To female colleagues he has said:

“You should do position 69 some time” (Dutch: “Je zou het eens op z’n Frans doen.”

“I jerked off above you.”

“Among students B. had the nickname ’An eight for a night’”

“A number of colleagues receive porn images and films from him. It leads to unease and tense relationships with some female colleagues who don’t know what to do any more. A complaint about indesirable behaviour toward a male superior leads nowhere.”

"A female colleague who reports that B. had groped beneath her clothes in her pubic area is not taken seriously by the executives among whom Verhulp. The university physician (bedrijfsarts) and the UvA head of HR are not impressed, either. “It’s your word against his”, they tell her."

"There is a low willingness to file a complaint among other female colleagues. The fear of B. is simply too big. “I rather quit myself than file a complaint against him”, one of them says."

“Even the knowledge that B. sends porn pictures to men and women does not incite the superiors who do know about it to take action. This is why they don’t discover that he also spreads audiovisual material of him in an aroused state. The individuals receiving the material sometimes suspect that they are not the only ones, but don’t talk about it. Fear and shame prevail, sometimes because they have fallen for his advances (in the past).”

“His behavior at the UvA but also at conferences inside and outside the Netherlands leads to a continuous stream of rumors, reaching also the receptions (borrels) of the board of directors of the UvA. But only extremely rarely does anybody call B. to order, not even if somebody has complained. Regardless if the dean or the head of department is called Paul van der Heijden, Jit Peters or Edgar du Perron; no executive calls B. into his office to talk to him about his behavior. Let alone start an investigation.”

“On wednesday, October 31, the UvA receives the final report. The conclusion: B. is guilty of transgressive behavior en because of him there was a unsafe working climate for a long time. But an army of lawyers of the UvA and of the external partners Boontje Advocaten don’t see the ultimate proof to fire B. immediately.”

“The university and B. quickly agree that the name of the professor will not appear in the communication of the UvA about his departure. This causes a lot of irritation among many concerned persons. This irritation increases in the following months when it becomes clear that the university does not try to get in touch with former executives or other persons involved in order to learn from the past.”

La battaglia legale per il super grano #Teff, simbolo dell’Etiopia e ideale nelle diete

Apprezzato per l’alto contenuto di ferro, magnesio e calcio è indicato nelle diete prive di glutine, come quelle rivolte ai celiaci. Come è finita la contesa sui diritti di sfruttamento.

Un supergrano così ricercato da voler essere brevettato. Ci aveva pensato un imprenditore olandese ma nei mesi scorsi la corte dell’Aia ha sancito la nullità delle autorizzazioni ottenute fino ad allora nei Paesi Bassi. Si tratta del Teff, un cereale privo di glutine simbolo dell’Etiopia, con dimensioni molto ridotte ma notevoli qualità. Per questo tale Jans Roosjen, un agronomo che collaborava con l’Istituto etiope di conservazione della biodiversità per la ricerca e lo sviluppo, ha tentato di brevettare le sementi del Teff. E in realtà c’e anche riuscito.

La vicenda riguarda l’antica questione dei diritti di proprietà intellettuale sulle sementi. In Etiopia c’era già stato un caso simile e aveva riguardato la catena di Starbucks e tre varietà di caffè, tra le più pregiate. Alla fine, anche dopo una campagna di denunce di Oxfam, l’azienda si impegnò ad aiutare il paese «a commercializzare e promuovere la distribuzione delle tre pregiate varietà di chicchi».

Il Teff è un cereale versatile, apprezzato per l’alto contenuto di ferro, magnesio, rame e calcio. Dalla lavorazione si ottiene l’injera che è il piatto tipico dell’Etiopia, una sorta di pancake fermentato che si usa come base per ogni pietanza. Nel corno d’Africa si coltiva da almeno duemila anni. È ad elevato contenuto di fibre e basso indice glicemico, per questo consigliato a bimbi, anziani e molto ricercato dagli sportivi. Ma soprattutto perché indicato nelle diete prive di glutine, come quelle rivolte ai celiaci.

Per questo l’agronomo olandese Jans Roosjen da anni tenta di accaparrarsene il brevetto, per sdoganarlo e inserirlo tra gli ingredienti del mercato internazionale di alimenti privi di glutine. Dopo i primi avvicinamenti negli anni duemila e alcune parziali concessioni a un’azienda poi fallita, nel 2007 ottenne un brevetto con la società «Ancientgrain» ().

L’accordo stipulato con l’European Patent Office prevedeva lo stoccaggio e la lavorazione della farina di teff e dei suoi derivati in vari paesi, tra cui l’Italia. L’episodio scatenò parecchia indignazione in Etiopia che rimase esclusa dall’export del teff, non solo a causa della sua instabilità economica.

Poi nel 2014 emerse un conflitto giudiziario. Un’altra azienda olandese, la Bakels Senior, aveva iniziato a vendere dei prodotti ottenuti dalla lavorazione del teff. Così la “Ancientgrain” denuncio la concorrente segnalando una presunta infrazione per «violazione di brevetto». La causa è stata molto controversa ma a novembre 2018 la Corte ha emesso la sentenza, pubblicata pochi mesi fa. Secondo la distrettuale dell’Aia «non vi era alcuna violazione di brevetti» e nel provvedimento ha precisato che i brevetti depositati dalla «Ancientgrain» "mancavano di inventiva" e quindi non è possibile applicarlo nei Paesi Bassi.

Il provvedimento ha riconosciuto il ruolo degli agricoltori etiopi come “custodi della biodiversità sviluppata in Etiopia” e la notizia nel Corno d’Africa è stata accolta con entusiasmo. Anche perchè la Bakels Senior ha fatto sapere che «presenterà ricorso anche negli altri paesi in cui si detengono dei brevetti sulla farina di teff», compreso in Italia (oltre a Regno Unito, Germania, Belgio e Austria).

In Etiopia negli ultimi anni è cresciuto il prezzo dell’injera e a fronte di una notevole domanda, la produzione è rimasta stabile. “La ’coltura’ del teff ha dei limiti biologici e agronomici e per questo non se ne riesce a produrre di più. Inoltre non vi sono ulteriori grandi superfici da seminare a teff", dice Tiberio Chiari responsabile ad Addis Abeba dell’Aics (Agenzia per la cooperazione e lo sviluppo) ed esperto agronomo. Anche per questo – con degli accordi sostenibili - il supergrano potrebbe finire nella grande distribuzione e nel supermarket vicino casa, sugli scaffali, tra crackers e confezioni di pasta tradizionali

▻https://www.agi.it/cronaca/teff_super_grano_diete_glutine-5545679/news/2019-05-26
#gluten #alimentation #Corne_d'Afrique #brevet #industrie_agro-alimentaire #Jans_Roosjen #brevet #propriété_intellectuelle #Ethiopie #Bakels_Senior #privatisation #Pays-Bas #Ancientgrain #semences #injera #prix

La plate-forme pour vélos
▻http://carfree.fr/index.php/2019/05/21/la-plate-forme-pour-velos

Inventé à #Rotterdam aux #Pays-Bas, le « fietsvlonder » est une plate-forme qui remplace temporairement une voiture par un parking à vélos. Son installation dure trois à six mois et en cas Lire la suite...

#Alternatives_à_la_voiture #Fin_de_l'automobile #Vélo #amsterdam #innovations #stationnement

#Pays-Bas : #Jakra, l’année 2018 pour les squats dans un livre
▻https://fr.squat.net/2019/05/20/pays-bas-jakra-lannee-2018-pour-les-squats-dans-un-livre

JaKra ! est une initiative du #KSU_Den_Haag (le service autogéré d’assistance au squat de #La_Haye). Dans ce projet de livre, nous aimerions revenir sur un certain nombre de développements et d’événements de l’année écoulée, avec des squatteur-euse-s et des activistes du logement dans différents endroits. Il s’avère que squatter est toujours nécessaire et […]

Development and migration : POLICIES AND OUTCOMES IN THE NETHERLANDS

https://i.imgur.com/5mJZ5HC.png

#Pays-Bas #développement #migrations #réfugiés #asile #aide_au_développement #rapport #migrations #économie #travail #welfare #remittances #discriminations #welfare_state #marginalisation #réfugiés #asile #brain-drain #fuite_de_cerveaux #armes #commerce_d'armes #SDG #SDGs

Particularité de ce rapport : il regarde la contribution des migrations à la fois au développement des pays d’origine des migrants résidents aux Pays-Bas et au développement des Pays-Bas par la présence de migrants...

–—

ajouté à la métaliste sur le lien entre #économie (et surtout l’#Etat_providence) et la #migration... des arguments pour détruire l’#idée_reçue : « Les migrants profitent (voire : viennent POUR profiter) du système social des pays européens »... :

►https://seenthis.net/messages/971875

ping @_kg_ @karine4

Vous n’êtes pas fait de sucre, vous ne fondez pas sous la pluie !
▻http://carfree.fr/index.php/2019/05/07/vous-netes-pas-fait-de-sucre-vous-ne-fondez-pas-sous-la-pluie

Les Néerlandais ont un dicton : « vous n’êtes pas fait de sucre, vous ne fondez pas sous la pluie ! » Ainsi, les conditions météorologiques n’affectent pas vraiment le nombre de #cyclistes aux Lire la suite...

#Alternatives_à_la_voiture #Vélo #Belgique #france #Pays-Bas #Suisse

CASE LAW ON RETURN OF ASYLUM SEEKERS TO AFGHANISTAN, 2017-2018

This document compiles information from selected European countries, specifically, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. It covers cases from 2017 and 2018 that relate to the return of Afghan nationals, assessed in light of their personal circumstances and the security situation in the country. Whilst every effort has been put into finding relevant case law, the cases cited are, by no means, exhaustive. Where court decisions were not available in English ECRE has supplied a translation.

#Afghanistan #retour_au_pays #expulsions #renvois #asile #migrations #réfugiés #réfugiés_afghans #Autriche #Belgique #Finlande #France #Allemagne #Pays-Bas #Norvège #Suède #Suisse #UK #Angleterre

ping @karine4

#métaliste sur les #villes-refuge

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

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

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

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

Cities of refuge research

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

▻https://citiesofrefuge.eu

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

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

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

Visualisation : Cities and civil society networks for a Welcoming Europe

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L600xH523/K0ZTozKpng-aa679-37bd7.png

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

https://i.imgur.com/ojO0e0N.png

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

ping @isskein

ANTINMIGRACIÓN. El auge de la xenofobia populista en Europa

https://i.imgur.com/UvvOZ9Y.pnghttps://porcausa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ANTINMIGRACI%C3%93N-El-auge-de-la-xenofobia-populista-en-Europa-Fundaci%C3%B3n-porCausa.pdf

Le #Vélo à #amsterdam
▻http://carfree.fr/index.php/2019/01/30/le-velo-a-amsterdam

« Deux, trois jours en ville » est une série de documentaires réalisés pour la chaîne Voyage. Chaque épisode d’environ 50 minutes permet de découvrir une grande ville d’Europe d’une manière privilégiée Lire la suite...

#Alternatives_à_la_voiture #Fin_de_l'automobile #cyclistes #documentaire #histoire #Pays-Bas #vidéo

Maintien de l’ordre et violences policières : ce que l’histoire nous apprend
▻http://theconversation.com/maintien-de-lordre-et-violences-policieres-ce-que-lhistoire-nous-ap

https://images.theconversation.com/files/250528/original/file-20181213-178573-1y0xkpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C409%2C3626%2C1813&q=45&auto=format&w=1356&h=668&fit=crop

Les manifestations des gilets jaunes de ces dernières semaines ont soulevé à nouveau la question des violences policières et d’un usage accru de la violence par les forces de l’ordre, une question déjà posée en 2016 à l’occasion du mouvement contre la « loi travail ». On voudrait apporter un éclairage historique sur ce phénomène supposé de « retour » de la violence. Il ne s’agit pas de relativiser les agissements policiers, mais d’inscrire les événements dans l’évolution du maintien de l’ordre en France.
Calmer le « citoyen momentanément en colère »

Le maintien de l’ordre repose en France depuis longtemps sur des unités spécialisées : les gendarmes mobiles, apparus en 1921, complétés par les CRS, à partir de 1944, avec le recours à certaines périodes à des unités non permanentes comme les compagnies d’intervention de la Préfecture de Police à Paris dans les années 1950-1960.

A l’origine de ces forces se trouve la préoccupation de ne plus recourir à l’armée, de ne plus traiter le manifestant comme un « ennemi » mais un « citoyen momentanément en colère ».

La montée de ces forces est aussi liée au développement de la manifestation canonique dans les formes légitimes d’expression politique depuis la fin du XIXème siècle. Les moyens mortels (armes à feu) sont évacués, remplacés après-guerre par des instruments en principe non létaux dont la matraque est l’emblème, puis les gaz à partir de 1947 et enfin les grenades assourdissantes.
Les grévistes forcent le barrage de police le 20 mars 1906. Wikimedia
Un matériel plus sophistiqué

Depuis Mai 68 (qui avait pris la police au dépourvu), la sophistication du matériel s’est accentuée avec le développement des protections individuelles et des véhicules, le perfectionnement de l’armement. Le maintien de l’ordre s’est aussi technicisé, puisqu’après de longues décennies d’apprentissage « sur le tas » au sein des unités, il fait l’objet d’un enseignement spécifique, comme au centre de Saint-Astier, créé par la gendarmerie au lendemain de Mai 68 puis devenu permanent, où les unités s’entraînent régulièrement dans le décor d’une ville fictive. Les agents s’aguerrissent aux manoeuvres et aussi à la maîtrise de soi nécessaire au métier. Un répertoire s’est alors fixé, fondé sur son caractère défensif, la planification, le contrôle à distance des manifestants, le retardement de l’usage de la force, et le dialogue, voire la cogestion avec les organisateurs des manifestations pour faciliter leur encadrement policier. Depuis quarante ans, les effectifs de ces forces sont restés stables, autour de 30 000 hommes (17 000 gendarmes mobiles, 13 000 CRS). Elles peuvent recevoir le renfort d’autres forces de police, dont le maintien de l’ordre n’est cependant pas le « métier ». Ces interventions ont été à l’origine de violences policières (comme la mort de Malik Oussekine à Paris le 6 décembre 1986).
CRS et manifestants pendant la lutte contre l’extension du camp militaire, Larzac, France, années 1970. Community of the Ark of Lanza del Vasto/Wikimedia, CC BY-ND
Quel critère pour définir la violence policière ?

La question du niveau de violence policière et de son évolution est éminemment complexe. Quel critère retenir en effet ?

Le seul nombre de morts, souvent retenu, montrerait cependant que le maintien de l’ordre devient plus meurtrier en France à partir de 1879, en particulier pendant la période de l’après-guerre, marquée par la guerre froide et la guerre d’Algérie.

En témoignent les épisodes sanglants du 17 octobre 1961 et du 8 février 1962, qui ont fait respectivement au moins cent morts et 8 morts à Paris.

Cette seule courbe contredit l’existence d’un processus séculaire graduel de « réduction de la violence » et de pacification du maintien de l’ordre. En dehors de rares grands événements très meurtriers, il est difficile pour certains spécialistes de juger du niveau de violence policière le critère du nombre de morts dissimule d’autres formes de violence (charges, interpellations et intensité de la répression) et le « niveau de violence » renverrait avant tout aux perceptions de la manifestation.

Si on s’en tient à ce seul critère mesurable, depuis un siècle, des phases d’apaisement relatif alternent avec des cycles de violence : celui qui oppose les organisations communistes à la police et culmine avec les manifestations contre le général Ridgway en mai 1952, puis la police aux Algériens en 1960-1962. Ces épisodes montrent que la violence policière fait toujours partie du répertoire d’action de l’État et a pu être un recours dans certaines circonstances.
Contact plus fréquent

La question du « retour » des violences policières doit être lue à la lumière des transformations du maintien de l’ordre depuis les années 2000. Celui-ci a été modifié par la lutte contre les « violences urbaines », autrement dit les émeutes des quartiers populaires (2005 et 2007). Les unités sont devenues plus mobiles et plus offensives, tant grâce à un armement plus agressif qu’en projetant des forces destinées à interpeller les émeutiers en vue d’une répression judiciaire.

Il s’ensuit une transformation notable des formes de maintien de l’ordre, où le contact est plus fréquent, avec toutes les occasions de violence que peuvent provoquer de telles situations. Aux dispositifs adoptés lors des manifestations parisiennes des gilets jaunes, on peut appliquer des constats dressés à l’occasion du mouvement contre la loi travail en 2016 .
Manif du 11 novembre 2018 contre l’invitation de Donald Trump pour les commémorations du 11 novembre 1918 par M. Macron. Jeanne Menjoulet/Flickr, CC BY-SA

On note ainsi une dimension offensive marquée, avec des tirs de lanceur de balle de défense (LBD) (communément appelé Flashball), le déploiement massif d’unités dédiées à l’interpellation de manifestants par un pouvoir politique désireux d’afficher le soir même « la restauration de l’ordre », en utilisant des agents venus des BAC et de la BRI, et non des professionnels du maintien de l’ordre.

Tout cela tend à brouiller les frontières entre encadrement des manifestations et police des « violences urbaines ». De telles interventions, perçues comme un usage indiscriminé de la force, ne manquent pas de générer des phénomènes de solidarisation des manifestants et de nouvelles violences.
Des pratiques françaises pointées du doigt

A cet égard, les spécialistes pointent des pratiques françaises à rebours des stratégies de « désescalade » menées dans d’autres pays européens, qui passent par le dialogue continu avec les organisateurs et les manifestants : depuis la présence d’officiers de liaison médiateurs, comme les Peace Units aux Pays-Bas, les « officiers de dialogue » en Suède, jusqu’à des panneaux lumineux donnant les instructions de la police à ceux qui défilent.
Intervention de ‘Peace Units’ néerlandais lors d’une manifestation sportive.

La sophistication de l’arsenal n’est pas non plus synonyme de pacification : le LBD et les grenades de désencerclement sont des armes susceptibles d’entraîner de graves blessures. Les forces de l’ordre conservent aussi des instruments archaïques, comme les grenades offensives (responsables de la mort de Rémi Fraisse à Sivens en 2014).

Si l’on peut évoquer un apaisement tendanciel ou relatif de la violence du maintien de l’ordre depuis 1968, la situation reste ouverte : l’usage de la violence dépend in fine du degré de légitimité des protestataires aux yeux de l’autorité politique et des forces de l’ordre.

#maintien_de_l'ordre