• Riss : auto-caricature de l’artiste en technocrate
    https://www.piecesetmaindoeuvre.com/spip.php?article1527

    Il y a des semaines où Charlie Hebdo nous coûte bien plus que 3 € ; quand Riss par exemple, le directeur de la rédaction, nous insulte dans son édito, nous les opposants à la technocrature et au passe sanitaire (1), en termes massifs et contondants, comme dans le numéro de cette semaine :

    « … la raison impose de ne pas sombrer dans une pensée systématique qui analyse tout de la même façon, de manière quasi pavlovienne : Etat = autorité = abus de pouvoir = répression = fascisme. Les amalgames et les raccourcis sont si séduisants à faire qu’ils en deviennent grisants, et celui qui les adopte se sent pousser les ailes d’un glorieux défenseur de la liberté contre les forces colossales et, à ses yeux, quasi occultes. Car dans cette crise le mot "liberté" est mis à toutes les sauces, un mot pris en otage par (...)

    #Faits_divers
    https://www.piecesetmaindoeuvre.com/IMG/pdf/riss_autocaricature.pdf

  • Senza stringhe

    La libertà di movimento è riconosciuta dalla nostra Costituzione; se questa sia un diritto naturale oppure no, bisogna allora riflettere su cosa effettivamente sia un diritto naturale. Tuttavia, essa è una parte imprescindibile della vita umana e coloro che migrano, ieri come oggi, hanno uno stimolo ben superiore all’appartenenza territoriale. Ogni giorno, ci sono due scenari paralleli e possibili che avvengono tra le montagne italo-francesi: coloro che raggiungono la meta e coloro che vengono respinti; il terzo scenario, fatale e tragico, è solamente intuibile.
    Eppure la frontiera è stata militarizzata ma qui continuano a passare: nonostante tutto, c’è porosità e c’è un passaggio. Prima che arrivasse il turismo privilegiato, l’alta valle compresa tra Bardonecchia, Oulx e Claviere ha da sempre vissuto la propria evoluzione dapprima con il Sentiero dei Mandarini e successivamente con la realizzazione della ferrovia cambiando la geografia del posto. Le frontiere diventano incomprensibili senza aver chiara l’origine dei vari cammini: la rotta balcanica, il Mar Mediterraneo centrale, i mercati del lavoro forzato e le richieste europee. Le frontiere si modellano, si ripetono e si diversificano ma presentano tutte una caratteristica isomorfa: la politica del consenso interno oltre che strutturale. In una valle come questa, caratterizzata dagli inverni rigidi e nevosi, dal 2015 non si arresta il tentativo di attraversare il confine tra i due stati sia per una necessità di viaggio, di orizzonte retorico, di ricongiungimento familiare ma soprattutto, dopo aver attraversando territori difficili o mari impossibili, per mesi o anni, non è di certo la montagna a fermare la mobilità che non segue logiche di tipo locale. Le mete finali, a volte, non sono precise ma vengono costruite in itinere e secondo la propria possibilità economica; per viaggiare hanno speso capitali enormi con la consapevolezza della restituzione alle reti di parentato, di vicinato e tutte quelle possibili.
    La valle si presenta frammentata geograficamente e ciò aumenta le difficoltà per raccogliere dei dati precisi in quanto le modalità di respingimento sono molto eterogenee, ci sono diversi valichi di frontiera: ci sono respingimenti che avvengono al Frejus e ci sono respingimenti che avvengono a Montgenèvre. Di notte, le persone respinte vengono portate al Rifugio Solidale di Oulx, sia dalla Croce Rossa sia dalla Polizia di stato italiana. Durante il giorno, invece, la Polizia di stato italiana riporta le persone in Italia e le lascia tra le strade di Oulx o a Bardonecchia. Dall’altra parte, ad Ovest del Monginevro, a Briançon è presente il Refuge Solidarie: solo con la collaborazione tra le associazioni italo-francesi si può avere una stima di quante sono state le persone accolte e dunque quante persone hanno raggiunto la meta intermedia, la Francia. Avere dei dati più precisi potrebbe essere utile per stimolare un intervento più strutturato da parte delle istituzioni perché in questo momento sul territorio sono presenti soprattutto le associazioni e ONG o individui singoli che stanno gestendo questa situazione, che stanno cercando di tamponare questa emergenza che neanche dovrebbe avere questo titolo.

    Non sono migranti ma frontiere in cammino.

    https://www.leggiscomodo.org/senza-stringhe

    #migrations #frontières #Italie #montagne #Alpes #Hautes-Alpes #reportage #photo-reportage #photographie #Briançon #Oulx #liberté_de_mouvement #liberté_de_circulation #militarisation_des_frontières #porosité #passage #fermeture_des_frontières #Claviere #Bardonecchia #chemin_de_fer #Sentiero_dei_Mandarini #Frejus #refoulements #push-backs #jour #nuit #Refuge_solidaire #casa_cantonniera #froid #hiver #Busson #PAF #maraude #solidarité #maraudes #Médecins_du_monde #no-tav
    #ressources_pédagogiques

    ajouté à la métaliste sur le Briançonnais :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/733721#message886920

  • Hidden infrastructures of the European border regime : the #Poros detention facility in Evros, Greece

    This blog post and the research it draws on date before the onset of the current border spectacle in Evros of February/March 2020. Obviously, the situation in Evros region has changed dramatically. Our research however underlines that the Greek state has always resorted to extra-legal methods of border and migration control in the Evros region. Particularly the violent and illegal pushback practices which have persisted for decades in Evros region have now been elevated to official government policy.

    The region of Evros at the Greek-Turkish border was the scene of many changes in the European and Greek border regimes since 2010. The most well-known was the deployment of the Frontex RABIT force in October of that year; while it concluded in 2011, Frontex has had a permanent presence in Evros ever since. In 2011, the then government introduced the ‘Integrated Program for Border Management and Combating Illegal Immigration’ (European Migration Network, 2012), which reflected EU and domestic processes of the Europeanisation of border controls (European Migration Network, 2012; Ilias et al., 2019). The program stipulated a number of measures which impacted the border regime in Evros: the construction of a 12.5km fence along the section of the Greek Turkish border which did not coincide with the Evros river (after which the region takes its name); the expansion of border surveillance technologies and capacities in the area; and the establishment of reception centres where screening procedures would be undertaken (European Migration Network, 2012; Ilias et al., 2019). In this context, one of the measures taken was the establishment of a screening centre in South Evros, near the village of Poros, 46km away from the city of Alexandroupoli – the main urban centre in the area.

    The operation of the Centre for the First Management of Illegal Immigration is documented in Greek (Ministry for Public Order and Citizen Protection, 2013a) and EU official documents (European Parliament, 2012; European Migration Network, 2013), reports by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (2011), NGOs (Pro Asyl, 2012) and activists (CloseTheCamps, 2012), media articles (To Vima, 2012) and research (Düvell, 2012; Schaub, 2013) between 2011 and 2015.

    Yet, during our fieldwork in the area in 2018, none of our respondents mentioned it. Nor could we find any recent research, reports or official documents after 2015 referring to it. It was only a tip from someone we collaborate with that reminded us of the existence of the Poros facility. We found its ‘disappearance’ from public view intriguing. Through fieldwork, document analysis and queries to the Greek authorities, we constructed a genealogy of the Poros centre, from its inception in 2011 to its ambivalent present. Our findings not only highlight the shifting nature of local assemblages of the European border regime, but also raise questions on such ‘hidden’ infrastructures, and the implications of their use for the rights of the people who cross the border.

    A genealogy of Poros

    The Poros centre was originally a military facility, used for border surveillance. In 2012, it was transferred to the Hellenic Police, the civilian authority responsible for migration control and border management, and was formally designated a Centre for the First Management of Illegal Immigration, similar to the more well-known First Reception Centre in Fylakio, in North Evros. The refurbishment and expansion of the old facilities and purchase of necessary equipment were financed through the External borders fund of the European Union (Alexandroupoli Police Directorate, 2011). Visits by the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström (To Vima, 2012), the then executive director of Frontex, Ilkka Laitinen (Ministry for Public Order and Citizen Protection, 2013b), and a delegation of the LIBE committee of the European Parliament (2012) illustrated the embeddedness of the centre in the European border regime. The Commission’s report on the implementation of the Greek National Action Plan on Migration Management and Asylum Reform specifically refers the Poros centre as a facility that could be used for screening procedures and vulnerability assessments (European Commission, 2012).

    The Poros facility was indeed used as a screening and identification centre, activities that fell under both border management and the Greek framework for reception procedures introduced in 2011. While official documents of the Greek Government suggest that the centre started operating in 2012 (Council of Europe, 2012), a media article (Alexandroupoli Online, 2011) and a report by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (2011) provide evidence that it was already operational the year before, as an informal reception centre. When the centre became the main screening facility for South Evros in 2012 (European Parliament, 2012), screening, identification and debriefing procedures at the time were carried out both by Hellenic Police personnel and Frontex officers deployed in the area (Council of Europe, 2012).

    One of the very few research sources referring to Poros, a PhD thesis by Laurence Pillant (2017) provides a detailed description of the space and the activities carried out in the old wooden building and the white containers (image 3), visible in the stills from the video we took in December 2020 (image 4). A mission of Medecins sans frontiers, indicated in Pillant’s diagram, provided health screening in 2012 (European Migration Network, 2013).

    The organisation and function of the centre at the time is also documented in a number of mundane administrative acts which we located through diavgeia.gov.gr, a website storing Greek public administration decisions. Containers were bought to create space for the screening and identification procedures (Regional Police Directorate of Macedonia and Thrace, 2012). A local company was awarded contracts for the cleaning of the facilities (Regional Police Directorate of Macedonia and Thrace, 2013). The last administrative documents we were able to locate concerned the establishment of a committee of local police officers to procure services for emptying the cesspit of the centre (Regional Police Directorate of Macedonia and Thrace, 2015) – not all buildings in the area are linked to the local sewage system. This is the point when the administrative trail for Poros goes cold. No documents were found in diavgeia.gov.gr after January 2015.

    So what happened to the Poros Centre?

    After 2015, we found a mere five online references to the centre, despite extensive searches of sources such as official documents, research or reports by human rights bodies and NGOs. A 2016 newspaper article mentioned that arrested migrants were led there for screening (Ta Nea, 2016). A 2018 article in a local online news outlet mentioned a case of malaria in the village of Poros (Evros News, 2018a), while in another article (Evros News, 2018b), the president of the village council blamed a case of malaria in the village on the lack of health screening in the centre. An account of activities of the municipal council of Alexandroupoli referred to fixing an electrical fault in the centre in May 2019 (Municipality of Alexandroupoli, 2019). Τhe Global Detention Project (2019) also refers to Poros as a likely detention place.

    These sources suggested that the centre might be operational in some capacity, yet they raised more questions than they answered. If the centre has been in operation since 2015, why is there such an absence of official sources referring to it? Equally surprising was the absence of administrative acts related to the Poros centre in diavgeia.gov.gr, in contrast to all other facilities in the area where migrants are detained, such as the Fylakio Reception and Identification Centre and the pre-removal centres and police stations. It was conceivable, of course, that the centre fell into disuse. Since the deployment of Frontex and the border control measures taken under the Integrated Plan, entries through the Greek-Turkish land border decreased significantly – from 54,974 in 2011 to 3,784 in 2016 (Hellenic Police, 2020), and screening procedures were transferred to Fylakio, fully operational since 2013 (Reception and Identification Service, 2020).

    Trying to find answers to our questions, we contacted the Hellenic Police. An email we sent in January 2020 was never answered. In early February, following a series of phone calls, we obtained some answers to our questions. The police officer who answered the phone call did not seem to have heard of the centre and wanted to ask other departments for more information, as well as the First Reception and Identification Service, now responsible for screening procedures. The next day, he said it is occasionally used as a detention facility, when there is a high number of apprehended people that cannot be detained in police cells. According to the police officer, they are detained there for one or two days, until they can be transferred to the Reception and Identification Centre of Fylakio for reception procedures, or detention in the pre-removal detention centre adjacent to it. At the same time, he stated that he was told that Poros has been closed for a long time.

    This contradictory information could be down to the distance between the central police directorate in Athens and the area of Evros – it is not unlikely that local arrangements are not known in the central offices. Yet, it was also at odds both with the description of the use of the centre that our informant himself gave us – using the present tense in Greek –, with what the local media articles suggest, and with what we saw on site. Stills from the video taken during fieldwork in December 2020 suggest that the Poros centre is not disused, although no activity could be observed on the day. The cars and vans parked outside did not seem abandoned or rusting. The main building and the containers appeared to be in a good condition. A bright red cloth, maybe a canvas bag, was hanging outside one of them. The rubbish bins were full, but the black bags and other objects in them did not seem as they have been left in the open for a long time (image 4).

    The police officer also asked, however, how we had heard of Poros – a question that alerted us to both the obscure nature of the facility and the sensitivity of our query.
    A hidden infrastructure of pushbacks?

    The Poros centre, at one level, illustrates how the function of such border facilities can change over time, as the local border regime adapts and responds to migratory movements. Fylakio has become the main reception and detention centre in Evros, and between 2015 and 2017, the Aegean islands became the main point of entry into Greece and the European Union. Yet, our findings raised a lot of significant questions regarding the new function of Poros, given the increase in migratory movements in the area since 2018.

    While we obtained official confirmation that the Poros centre is now used for temporary detention and not screening, it remains the case that there are no official documents – including any administrative acts on diavgeia.gov.gr – that confirm its use as a temporary closed detention centre. Equally, we did not manage to obtain any information about how the facility is funded from the Hellenic Police. Our respondent did not know, and another departments we called did not want to share any information about the centre. It also became evident in the course of our research that most of our contacts in Greece – NGOS and journalists – had never heard of the facility or had no recent information about it. We found no evidence to suggest that Greek and European human rights bodies or NGOs which monitor detention facilities have visited the Poros centre after 2015. A mission of the Council of Europe (2019), for example, visited several detention facilities in Evros in April 2018 but the Poros centre was not listed among them. Similarly, the Fundamental Rights Officer of Frontex, in a partly joined mission with the Fundamental Rights Agency, visited detention facilities in South Evros in 2019, the operational area where the Poros centre is located. However, the centre is not mentioned in the report on that visit (Frontex, 2019).

    The dearth of information and absence of monitoring of the facility means that it is unclear whether the facility provides adequate conditions for detention. While our Hellenic police informant stated that detention there lasts for one or two days, there is no outside gate at the Poros centre, just a rather flimsy looking wire fence. Does this mean that detainees are kept inside the main building or containers the whole time they are detained there? We also do not know if detainees have access to phones, legal assistance or healthcare, which the articles in the local press suggest that is absent from the Poros centre. Equally, in the absence of inspections by human rights bodies, we are unaware of the standards of hygiene inside the facilities, or if there is sufficient food available. Administrative acts archived in diavgeia.gov.gr normally offer some answers to such questions but, as we mentioned above, we could find none. In short, it appears that Poros is used as an informal detention centre, hidden from public view.

    The obscurity surrounding the facility, in the context of the local border regime, is extremely worrying. Many NGOs and journalists have documented widespread pushback practices (Arsis et al., 2018; Greek Council for Refugees, 2018; Koçulu, 2019), evidenced through migrant testimonies (Mobile Info Team 2019) and, more recently, videos (Forensic Architecture, 2019a; 2019b). Despite denials by the Hellenic Police and the Greek government, European and international international human rights bodies (Council of Europe, 2019; Committee Against torture 2019) have accepted these testimonies as credible. We have no firm evidence that the Poros facility may be one of the many ‘informal’ detention places migrant testimonies implicated in pushbacks. Yet, the centre is located no further than two kilometres from the Greek-Turkish border, and the layout of the area is similar to the location of a pushback captured on camera and analysed by Forensic Architecture (2019a): near a dirt road with direct access to the Evros River. Black cars and white vans (images 5 and 6), without police insignia and some without number plates, such as those in the Poros centre, have been mentioned in testimonies of pushbacks (Arsis et al., 2018). Objects looking like inflatable boats are visible in our video stills. While there might be other explanations for their presence (used for patrolling the river or confiscated from migrants crossing the river) they are also used during pushbacks operations, and their presence in a detention centre seems odd.

    These uncertainties, and the tendency of security bodies to avoid revealing information on spaces of detention, are not unusual. However, the obscurity surrounding the Poros centre, located in an area of the European border where detention have long attracted criticism and there is considerable evidence of illegal and violent border control practices, should be a concern for all.

    https://www.respondmigration.com/blog-1/border-regime-poros-detention-facility-evros-greece
    #Evros #détention #rétention #détention_administrative #Grèce #refoulement #push-back #push-backs #invisibilité #invisibilisation #Centre_for_the_First_Management_of_Illegal_Immigration #Fylakio #Frontex

    Ce centre, selon ce que le chercheur·es écrivent, est ouvert depuis 2012... or... pas entendu parler de lui avec @albertocampiphoto quand on a été sur place... alors qu’on a vraiment sillonnée la (relativement petite) région pendant 1 mois !

    Donc pas mention de ce centre dans la #carte qu’on a publiée notamment sur @visionscarto :


    https://visionscarto.net/evros-mur-inutile

    ping @reka @karine4

    • En fait, en regardant mieux « notre » carte je me rends compte que peut-être le centre que nous avons identifié comme « #Feres » est en réalité le centre que les auteur·es appellent Poros... les deux localités sont à moins de 5 km l’une de l’autre.
      J’ai écrit aux auteur·es...

      Réponse de Bernd Kasparek, 12.03.2020 :

      Since we have been in front of Poros detention centre, we are certain that it is a distinct entity from the Feres police station, which, as you rightly observe, is also often implicated in reports about push-backs.

      Réponse de Lena Karamanidou le 13.03.2020 :

      Feres is located here: https://goo.gl/maps/gQn15Hdfwo4f3cno6​ , and it’s a much more modern facility (see photo, complete with ubiquitous military van!). However, ​I’m not entirely certain when the new Feres station was built - I think there was an older police station, but then both police and border guard functions were transfered to the new building. Something for me to check in obscure news items and databases!

    • ‘We Are Like Animals’ : Inside Greece’s Secret Site for Migrants

      The extrajudicial center is one of several tactics Greece is using to prevent a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis.


      The Greek government is detaining migrants incommunicado at a secret extrajudicial location before expelling them to Turkey without due process, one of several hard-line measures taken to seal the borders to Europe that experts say violate international law.

      Several migrants said in interviews that they had been captured, stripped of their belongings, beaten and expelled from Greece without being given a chance to claim asylum or speak to a lawyer, in an illegal process known as refoulement. Meanwhile, Turkish officials said that at least three migrants had been shot and killed while trying to enter Greece in the past two weeks.

      The Greek approach is the starkest example of European efforts to prevent a reprise of the 2015 migration crisis in which more than 850,000 undocumented people passed relatively easily through Greece to other parts of Europe, roiling the Continent’s politics and fueling the rise of the far right.

      If thousands more refugees reach Greece, Greek officials fear being left to care for them for years, with little support from other members in the European Union, exacerbating social tensions and further fraying a strained economy. Tens of thousands of migrants already live in squalor on several Greek islands, and many Greeks feel they have been left to shoulder a burden created by wider European indifference.

      The Greek government has defended its actions as a legitimate response to recent provocations by the Turkish authorities, who have transported thousands of migrants to the Greek-Turkish border since late February and have encouraged some to charge and dismantle a border fence.

      The Greek authorities have denied reports of deaths along the border. A spokesman for the Greek government, Stelios Petsas, did not comment on the existence of the site, but said that Greece detained and expelled migrants in accordance with local law. An act passed March 3, by presidential decree, suspended asylum applications for a month and allowed immediate deportations.

      But through a combination of on-the-ground reporting and forensic analysis of satellite imagery, The Times has confirmed the existence of the secret center in northeastern Greece.

      Presented with diagrams of the site and a description of its operations, François Crépeau, a former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, said it was the equivalent of a domestic “black site,” since detainees are kept in secret and without access to legal recourse.

      Using footage supplied to several media outlets, The Times has also established that the Greek Coast Guard, nominally a lifesaving institution, fired shots in the direction of migrants onboard a dinghy that was trying to reach Greek shores early this month, beat them with sticks and sought to repel them by driving past them at high speed, risking tipping them into water.

      Forensic analysis of videos provided by witnesses also confirmed the death of at least one person — a Syrian factory worker — after he was shot on the Greek-Turkish border.
      A Secret Site

      When Turkish officials began to bus migrants to the Greek border on Feb. 28, a Syrian Kurd named Somar al-Hussein had a seat on one of the first coaches.

      Turkey already hosts more refugees than any other country — over four million, mostly Syrians — and fears that it may be forced to admit another million because of a recent surge in fighting in northern Syria. To alleviate this pressure, and to force Europe to do more to help, it has weaponized refugees like Mr. al-Hussein by shunting them toward the Continent.

      Mr. al-Hussein, a trainee software engineer, spent that night in the rain on the bank of the Evros River, which divides western Turkey from eastern Greece. Early the next morning, he reached the Greek side in a rubber dinghy packed with other migrants.

      But his journey ended an hour later, he said in a recent interview. Captured by Greek border guards, he said, he and his group were taken to a detention site. Following the group’s journey on his mobile phone, he determined that the site was a few hundred yards east of the border village of Poros.

      The site consisted principally of three red-roofed warehouses set back from a farm road and arranged in a U-shape. Hundreds of other captured migrants waited outside. Mr. al-Hussein was taken indoors and crammed into a room with dozens of others.

      His phone was confiscated to prevent him from making calls, he said, and his requests to claim asylum and contact United Nations officials were ignored.

      “To them, we are like animals,” Mr. al-Hussein said of the Greek guards.

      After a night without food or drink, on March 1 Mr. al-Hussein and dozens of others were driven back to the Evros River, where Greek police officers ferried them back to the Turkish side in a small speedboat.

      Mr. al-Hussein was one of several migrants to provide similar accounts of extrajudicial detentions and expulsions, but his testimony was the most detailed.

      By cross-referencing drawings, descriptions and satellite coordinates that he provided, The Times was able to locate the detention center — in farmland between Poros and the river.

      A former Greek official familiar with police operations confirmed the existence of the site, which is not classified as a detention facility but is used informally during times of high migration flows.

      On Friday, three Times journalists were stopped at a roadblock near the site by uniformed police officers and masked special forces officers.

      The site’s existence was also later confirmed by Respond, a Sweden-based research group.

      Mr. Crépeau, now a professor of international law at McGill University, said the center represented a violation of the right to seek asylum and “the prohibition of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and of European Union law.”
      Violence at Sea

      Hundreds of miles to the south, in the straits of the Aegean Sea between the Turkish mainland and an archipelago of Greek islands, the Greek Coast Guard is also using force.

      On March 2, a Coast Guard ship violently repelled an inflatable dinghy packed with migrants, in an incident that Turkish officials captured on video, which they then distributed to the press.

      The footage shows the Coast Guard vessel and an unmarked speedboat circling the dinghy. A gunman on one boat shot at least twice into waters by the dinghy, with what appeared to be a rifle, before men from both vessels shoved and struck the dinghy with long black batons.

      It is not clear from the footage whether the man was firing live or non-lethal rounds.

      Mr. Petsas, the government spokesman, did not deny the incident, but said the Coast Guard did not fire live rounds.

      The larger Greek boat also sought to tip the migrants into the water by driving past them at high speed.
      Forensic analysis by The Times shows that the incident took place near the island of Kos after the migrants had clearly entered Greek waters.

      “The action of Greek Coast Guard ships trying to destabilize the refugees’ fragile dinghies, thus putting at risk the life and security of their passengers, is also a violation,” said Mr. Crépeau, the former United Nations official.
      A Killing on Land

      The most contested incident concerns the lethal shooting of Mohammed Yaarub, a 22-year-old Syrian from Aleppo who tried to cross Greece’s northern land border with Turkey last week.

      The Greek government has dismissed his death as “fake news” and denied that anyone has died at the border during the past week.

      An analysis of videos, coupled with interviews with witnesses, confirmed that Mr. Yaarub was killed on the morning of March 2 on the western bank of the Evros River.

      Mr. Yaarub had lived in Turkey for five years, working at a shoe factory, according to Ali Kamal, a friend who was traveling with him. The two friends crossed the Evros on the night of March 1 and camped with a large group of migrants on the western bank of the river.

      By a cartographical quirk, they were still in Turkey: Although the river mostly serves as the border between the two countries, this small patch of land is one of the few parts of the western bank that belongs to Turkey rather than Greece.

      Mr. Kamal last saw his friend alive around 7:30 a.m. the next morning, when the group began walking to the border. The two men were separated, and soon Greek security forces blocked them, according to another Syrian man who filmed the aftermath of the incident and was later interviewed by The Times. He asked to remain anonymous because he feared retribution.

      During the confrontation, Mr. Yaarub began speaking to the men who were blocking their path and held up a white shirt, saying that he came in peace, the Syrian man said.

      Shortly afterward, Mr. Yaarub was shot.

      There is no known video of the moment of impact, but several videos captured his motionless body being carried away from the Greek border and toward the river.

      Several migrants who were with Mr. Yaarub at the time of his death said a Greek security officer had shot him.

      Using video metadata and analyzing the position of the sun, The Times confirmed that he was shot around 8:30 a.m., matching a conclusion reached by Forensic Architecture, an investigative research group.

      Video shows that it took other migrants about five minutes to ferry Mr. Yaarub’s body back across the river and to a car. He was then taken to an ambulance and later a Turkish hospital.

      An analysis of other footage shot elsewhere on the border showed that Greek security forces used lethal and non-lethal ammunition in other incidents that day, likely fired from a mix of semiautomatic and assault rifles.
      E.U. Support for Greece

      Mr. Petsas, the government spokesman, defended Greece’s tough actions as a reasonable response to “an asymmetrical and hybrid attack coming from a foreign country.”

      Besides ferrying migrants to the border, the Turkish police also fired tear-gas canisters in the direction of Greek security forces and stood by as migrants dismantled part of a border fence, footage filmed by a Times journalist showed.

      Before this evidence of violence and secrecy had surfaced, Greece won praise from leaders of the European Union, who visited the border on March 3.

      “We want to express our support for all you did with your security services for the last days,” said Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, the bloc’s top decision-making body.

      The European Commission, the bloc’s administrative branch, said that it was “not in a position to confirm or deny” The Times’s findings, and called on the Greek justice system to investigate.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/world/europe/greece-migrants-secret-site.html

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/world/europe/greece-migrants-secret-site.html

      #Mohammed_Yaarub #décès #mourir_aux_frontières

    • Grécia nega existência de centro de detenção “secreto” onde os migrantes são tratados “como animais”

      New York Times citou vários migrantes que dizem ter sido roubados e agredidos pelos guardas fronteiriços, antes de deportados para a Turquia. Erdogan compara gregos aos nazis.

      Primeiro recusou comentar, mas pouco mais de 24 horas depois o Governo da Grécia refutou totalmente a notícia do New York Times. Foi esta a sequência espaçada da reacção de Atenas ao artigo do jornal norte-americano, publicado na terça-feira, que deu conta da existência de um centro de detenção “secreto”, perto da localidade fronteiriça de Poros, onde muitos dos milhares de migrantes que vieram da Turquia, nos últimos dias, dizem ter sido roubados, despidos e agredidos, impedidos de requerer asilo ou de contactar um advogado, e deportados, logo de seguida, pelos guardas fronteiriços gregos.
      Mais populares

      Coronavírus: Meninos, isto não são umas férias – Opinião de Bárbara Wong
      Coronavírus
      Coronavírus: o que comprar sem levar o supermercado para casa
      i-album
      Festival
      Cores e mais cores: o Holi e “o triunfo do bem sobre o mal” na Índia

      “Para eles somos como animais”, acusou Somar al-Hussein, sírio, um dos migrantes entrevistados pelo diário nova-iorquino, que entrou na Grécia através do rio Evros e que diz ter sido alvo de tratamento abusivo no centro de detenção “secreto”.

      “Não há nenhum centro de detenção secreto na Grécia”, garantiu, no entanto, esta quarta-feira, Stelios Petsas, porta-voz do executivo grego. “Todas as questões relacionadas com a protecção e a segurança das fronteiras são transparentes. A Constituição está a ser aplicada e não há nada de secreto”, insistiu.

      Com jornalistas no terreno, impedidos de entrar no local por soldados gregos, o New York Times entrevistou diversos migrantes que dizem ter sido ali alvo de tratamento desumano, analisou imagens de satélite, informou-se junto de um centro de estudos sueco sobre migrações que opera na zona e falou com um antigo funcionário grego familiarizado com as operações policiais fronteiriças. Informação que diz ter-lhe permitido confirmar a existência do centro.

      https://www.publico.pt/2020/03/11/mundo/noticia/grecia-nega-existencia-centro-detencao-secreto-onde-migrantes-sao-tratados-a

      #paywall

    • Greece : Rights watchdogs report spike in violent push-backs on border with Turkey

      A Balkans-based network of human rights organizations says that the number of migrants pushed back from Greece into Turkey has spiked in recent weeks. The migrants allegedly reported beatings and violent collective expulsions from inland detention spaces to Turkey on boats across the Evros River.

      Greek officers “forcefully pushed [people] in the van while the policemen were kicking them with their legs and shouting at them.” Then, the migrants were detained, forced to sign untranslated documents and pushed back across the Evros River at night. Over the next few days, Turkish authorities returned them to Greece, but then they were pushed back again.

      This account from 50 Afghans, Pakistanis, Syrians and Algerians aged between 15 and 35 years near the town of Edirne at the Greek-Turkish border was one of at least seven accounts a network of Balkans-based human rights watchdogs says it received from refugees over the course of six weeks, between March and late April.

      The collection of reports (https://www.borderviolence.eu/press-release-documented-pushbacks-from-centres-on-the-greek-mainland), published last week by the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN), with help from its members Mobile Info Team (MIT) and Wave Thessaloniki, consists of “first-hand testimonies and photographic evidence” which the network says shows “violent collective expulsions” of migrants and refugees. According to the network, the number of individuals who were pushed back in groups amount to 194 people.
      https://twitter.com/mobileinfoteam/status/1257632384348020737?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E12

      Without exception, according to the report, all accounts come from people staying in the refugee camp in Diavata and the Drama Paranesti pre-removal detention center. They included Afghans, Pakistanis, Algerians and Moroccans, as well as Bangladeshi, Tunisian and Syrian nationals.

      In the case of Diavata, according to the report, migrants said police took them away, telling them they would receive a document known as “Khartia” to regularize their stay temporarily. The Diavata camp is located near the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki.

      Instead, the migrants were “beaten, robbed and detained before being driven to the border area where military personnel used boats to return them to Turkey across the Evros River,” they said. Another large group reported that they were taken from detention in Drama Paranesti, also located in northern Greece, some 80 kilometers from the border with Turkey, and expelled in the same way.

      While such push-backs from Greece into Turkey are not new, the network of NGOs says the latest incidents are somewhat different: “Rarely have groups been removed from inner-city camps halfway across the territory or at such a scale from inland detention spaces,” Simon Campbell of the Border Violence Monitoring Network told InfoMigrants.

      “Within the existing closure of the Greek asylum office and restriction measures due to COVID-19, the repression of asylum seekers and wider transit community looks to have reached a zenith in these cases,” Campbell said.

      Although Greece last month lifted a controversial temporary ban on asylum applications imposed in response to an influx of refugees from Turkey, all administrative services to the public by the Greek Asylum Service were suspended on March 13.

      The suspension, which the Asylum Service said serves to “control the spread of COVID-19” pandemic, will continue at least through May 15.

      https://twitter.com/GreekAsylum/status/1248651007489433600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E12

      Reports of violence and torture

      The accounts in the report by the network of NGOs describe a range of violent actions toward migrants, from electricity tasers and water immersion to beatings with batons.

      According to one account, some 50 people were taken from Diavata camp to a nearby police station, where they were ordered to lie on the ground and told to “sleep here, don’t move.” Then they were beaten with batons, while others were attacked with tasers.

      They were held overnight in a detention space near the border, and beaten further by Greek military officers. The next day, they were boated across the river to Turkey by authorities with ’military uniform, masks, guns, electric [taser].’"

      Another group reported that they were “unloaded in the dark” next to the Evros River and “ordered to strip to their underwear.” Greek authorities allegedly used batons and their fists to hit some members of the group.

      Alexandra Bogos, advocacy officer with the Mobile Info Team, told InfoMigrants they were concerned about the “leeway afforded for these push-backs from the inner mainland to take place.”

      Bogos said they reached out to police departments after they learned about the arrests, but police felt “unencumbered” and continued transporting the people to the Greek-Turkish border. “On one occasion, we reached out and asked specifically for information about one individual. The answer was: ’He does not appear in our system’,” Bogos said.

      https://twitter.com/juliahahntv/status/1246165904406261773?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E12

      An Amnesty report (https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur01/2077/2020/en) from April about unlawful push-backs, beatings and arbitrary detention echoes the accusations in the report by the network of NGOs.

      History of forcible rejections

      Over the past three years, violent push-backs have been documented in several reports. Last November, German news magazine Spiegel reported that between 2017 and 2018 Greece illegally deported 60,000 migrants to Turkey. The process involved returning asylum seekers without assessing their status. Greece dismissed the accusations.

      In 2018, the Greek Refugee Council and other NGOs published a report containing testimonies from people who said they had been beaten, sometimes by masked men, and sent back to Turkey (https://www.gcr.gr/en/news/press-releases-announcements/item/1028-the-new-normality-continuous-push-backs-of-third-country-nationals-on-the-e).

      UN refugee agency UNHCR and the European Human Rights Commissioner called on Greece to investigate the claims. In late 2018, another report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), also based on testimonies of migrants, said that violent push-backs were continuing (https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/12/18/greece-violent-pushbacks-turkey-border).

      It is often unclear who is carrying out the push-backs because they often wear masks and cannot be easily identified. In the HRW report, they are described as paramilitaries. Eyewitnesses interviewed by HRW said the perpetrators “looked like police officers or soldiers, as well as some unidentified masked men.”

      Simon Campbell of the Border Violence Monitoring Network said the reports he receives also regularly describe “military uniforms,” which “suggests it is the Greek army carrying out the push-backs,” he told InfoMigrants.

      Last week, the Spiegel published an investigation into the killing of Pakistani Muhammad Gulzar (https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-turkish-border-the-killing-of-muhammad-gulzar-a-7652ff68-8959-4e0d-910), who was shot at the Greek-Turkish border on March 4. “Evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the bullet came from a Greek firearm,” the authors wrote.

      Violations of EU and international law

      Push-backs are prohibited by Greek and EU law as well as international treaties and agreements. They also violate the principle of non-refoulement, which means the forcible return of a person to a country where they are likely to be subject to persecution.

      In March, Jürgen Bast, professor for European law at the University of Gießen in Germany, called the action of Greek security forces an “open breach of the law” on German TV magazine Monitor.

      Greece is not the only country accused of violating EU laws at the bloc’s external border: On top of the 100 additional border guards the European border and coast guard agency Frontex deployed to the Greek border with Turkey in March, Germany sent 77 police officers to help with border security.
      Professor Bast called Berlin’s involvement a “complete political joint responsibility” of the German government. “All member states of the European Union...including the Commission...have decided to ignore the validity of European law,” he told Monitor.

      In response to a request for comment from InfoMigrants, a spokesperson for EU border and coast guard agency Frontex would confirm neither the reports by the three NGOs nor the existence of systematic push-backs from Greece to Turkey.

      “Frontex has not received any reports of such violations from the officers involved in its activities in Greece,” the spokesperson said, adding that its officers’ job is to “support member states and to ensure the rule of law.”

      Coronavirus used as a pretext?

      On the afternoon of May 5, as the network of NGOs published their report on push-backs, police reportedly rounded up 26-year-old Pakistani national Sheraz Khan outside the Diavata refugee camp. After sending the Mobile Info Team (MIT) a message telling them “Police caught us,” he tried calling the NGO twice, but the connection failed both times.

      MIT’s Alexandra Bogos told InfoMigrants that Khan has not been heard of since and he has not returned to the camp. “We have strong reasons to believe that he may have been pushed back to Turkey,” Bogos said.

      A day later, the police arrived in the morning and “started removing tents and structures set up in an overflow area” outside the Diavata camp.

      Simon Campbell of the Border Violence Monitoring Network said the restrictive measures taken as a response to the coronavirus pandemic have been used to remove those who have crossed the border.

      “COVID-19 has been giving the Greek authorities a blank cheque to act with more impunity,” Campbell told InfoMigrants. “When Covid-19 restrictions lift, will we have already seen this more expansive push-back practice entrenched, and will it persist beyond the lockdown?”

      https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/24620/greece-rights-watchdogs-report-spike-in-violent-push-backs-on-border-w

    • Spaces of Detention at the Greek-Turkish Land Border

      Guest post by Lena Karamanidou, Bernd Kasparek and Simon Campbell. Lena Karamanidou is a researcher at the Department of Economics and Law, Glasgow Caledonian University. Her recent work has focused on the EU border agency Frontex, pushbacks and border violence at the Greek-Turkish land border. Simon Campbell is a field coordinator with the Border Violence Monitoring Network, a collective of organisations and initiatives based in South Eastern Europe documenting pushbacks and violence within state borders. Bernd Kasparek is an undisciplined cultural anthropologist, with a focus on migration and border studies, europeanisation, racism and (digital) infrastructures. His book “Europa als Grenze” (Europe as Border), an ethnography of the European border agency Frontex is forthcoming in Summer 2021.

      The local coach from Alexandroupoli to Orestiada, the two largest towns in Evros, the region of the Greek-Turkish border, passes outside two border guard stations: Tychero and Neo Cheimonio [images 1 & 2]. Their function as detention spaces is barely discernible from the road; without the Hellenic police signs and vehicles outside, the Tychero border guard station could be mistaken for the wheat warehouse it once was. The train between the two cities, though, passes behind the Tychero facility; from there you can see a gated structure at the back of the station, resembling prison railings, which may have been used as a kind of ‘outside space’ for detainees. Reports by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the Greek Council for Refugees criticised the absence of outside space and conditions of detention (described sarcastically as ‘best of the best’ by a police officer interviewed by one of the authors in 2011).

      Although the Greek government announced the closure of the Tychero station in 2013, after several critical reports on conditions of detention there, it continued to be used as a detention space. While detention facilities may be perceived as stable, permanent or at least long-term structures at the core of European border regimes, their histories in Evros suggest temporal, spatial and functional disruptions. The creation of detention facilities since the 1990s appeared to be ad hoc, reflecting the increasing significance of the area as a key entry point to the European Union and the Europeanisation of border management both nationally and locally.

      Spaces for detention were created out of existing facilities such as cells in local police stations and in border guard stations. The latter were established in 1999 - some of which are housed together with police stations, like in the towns of Feres [image 3] and Soufli, and others in separate facilities as in the villages of Tychero, Isaakio and Neo Cheimonio. While it is difficult to find specific information on their history, some detention facilities emerged early in the 2000s, for example in the village of Venna in the Rhodopi prefecture near the boundary with Evros. The Fylakio facility [image 4] was established as a detention centre in 2007 before being renamed a pre-removal centre following legal reforms in 2012. Yet, detention capacity in the area never quite met the needs imposed by the extensive use of detention as an instrument of control. Until the early 2010s, ad hoc, makeshift structures and centres were used at different times in Feres and at the villages of Dikaia, Vrissika [image 5], Elafochori [image 6] and Peplos – all now closed, as well as the one in Venna. The #Venna, #Peplos, #Vrissika, #Elafochori and #Tychero facilities, as well as the temporary Feres structure referred to in the 1999 CPT report, were all repurposed wheat warehouses, formerly property of a state agricultural agency closed down in the early 1990s.

      The facilities mentioned above are official ones. Their function can be traced in official documents – Greek, European and international - as well as in reports by NGOs and human rights organisations and research. However, they are not the only spaces where people may be detained in the area. One example of a ‘quasi-official’ place is the detention facility in Poros [image 7]. Originally a military structure that was converted into a ‘reception’ facility where screening, identification and debriefing procedures took place in 2012, by the late 2010s the centre had fallen into obscurity. From 2015 until 2020, there was little evidence of its use other than a few administrative documents and media reports, and it is unclear when its function switched from a reception to a detention facility. It was only in 2020, through research, investigations and journalism that the Poros facility became ‘known’ again, coinciding with the border spectacle in Evros that year. The government denied that the facility was ‘secret’ – ‘if the New York Times know about it, then I don’t see how such a detention centre can be a secret’, stated the government spokesman. Yet, the CPT described the facility as ‘semi-official’ and supported claims that it was used as a holding facility prior to pushbacks, given ‘the complete absence of any registration of detention’.

      To date, Poros is probably the only facility whose use as a ‘hidden’ detention centre was revealed . Testimonial evidence collected by NGOs and research organisations (for example here, here and here) suggests that detention in informal facilities prior to pushbacks may be a common practice in the area. These sites are used to hold groups captured within the footfall area of the border, but also to receive detainees transferred from across the Greek interior, from urban areas, police stations, and pre-removal detention facilities. Their aggregate role in pooling people-on-the-move prior to pushbacks to Turkey is also intimated by their bare functional layout [image 8]. Several testimonies of people who have been pushed back from Evros to Turkey refer to detention in buildings that did not appear to be police or border guard stations, and were not properly equipped with toilets, running water or beds. The holding cells recounted in these testimonies were composed of fenced yards, portacabins, warehouses, garages, and even animal pens:

      “the room did not look like a normal prison or police station but more like a stable”

      “They drove us to an old room close to the river. It was a stable. It didn’t have a proper floor, but dirt”.

      This unofficial repurposing of agrarian or semi-industrial outbuildings for detention in some senses mirrors the improvised architecture Greek authorities used to expand its official sites in Evros from the 90s onwards. Yet without the formal authorisation, nor the visual signifiers demarcating these sites, the web of new – and possibly old - unofficial detention centres are extremely difficult to locate. People detained there often do not know the exact location because of the way they are transported. Speaking to people who had likely been detained in Tychero, testimonies published by the Border Violence Monitoring Network described how “since the vehicle had no windows, the respondent could not see the building from the outside.” For researchers and investigators, geolocating these sites has become a near impossible task, not only because of the secrecy that characterises the practices of pushbacks and the risks of in situ research, but also because of multiple potential locations and a large number of buildings that could serve as informal detention facilities.

      Detention in Greece has been a core technique for governing migration, reflecting policies of illegalisation and criminalising unauthorised entry, even if deportations, which provided one of the key reasons for detention, were not feasible. However, the linkages between detention and pushbacks at the Greek – Turkish border illustrate how the governance of borders relies on assemblages of both formal and informal practices and infrastructures. The proliferation of these structures, often concealed by their benign outward appearance as farm buildings, fits in with the dispersed geography of pushbacks - and the way detention is increasingly serving as a temporal stage within the execution of violent removals.

      https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2021/05/spaces-detention

  • Schooled in Scandal : What Makes #Ukraine a Hotbed of Intrigue
    By ANDREW HIGGINS and ANDREW E. KRAMEROCT. 7, 2017
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/world/europe/ukraine-russia-manafort-corruption.html

    Les services de renseignement ukrainiens sont sous les ordres de la #CIA et au service des #oligarques au pouvoir, l’allié des #Etats-Unis #Poroshenko est, comme son prédécesseur pro-russe, un #mafieux, mais tout, ou presque, est de la faute à la #Russie,

    “The thread that ties strange things together in Ukraine is nearly always #corruption,” said Serhiy A. Leshchenko, an opposition member of the Ukrainian Parliament and vociferous critic of President Petro O. Poroshenko.

    [...]

    “[Ukraine’s] attempts to stay democratic while building a nation are often messy, its oligarchs all powerful and, given the virtual absence of state control over media and oligarchic competition, post-Soviet corruption is out in the open,” Mr. Plokhii said.

    Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service, or S.B.U., its powers of #surveillance greatly enhanced by monitoring equipment provided by the United States after Mr. Yanukovych decamped to Russia, has added its own highly selective and distorted form of transparency by leaking information about alleged wrongdoing, often for political or financial gain.

    Controlled by Mr. Poroshenko , the S.B.U. has become a tool in domestic political and business battles, with anti-corruption activists accusing it of working to undermine, not help, their cause.

    [...]

    The Central Intelligence Agency tore out a Russian-provided cellphone surveillance system, and put in American-supplied computers, said Viktoria Gorbuz, a former head of a liaison office at the S.B.U. that worked with foreign governments.

    Ms. Gorbuz’s department translated telephone intercepts from the new system and forwarded them to the Americans. “This team would translate and immediately, 24 hours a day, be in full cooperation with our American colleagues,” she said.

    [..,]

    Ukrainian officials invariably cite Russian meddling to explain why anti-#corruption and other steps demanded by the West have often faltered. While Russia is a convenient excuse, it is also a very real menace.

    [...]

  • De la #presse à la #politique : le grand détournement des journalistes lyonnais

    C’est un mélange des genres qui se banalise. De nombreux journalistes sont embauchés dans des cabinets d’élus ou des collectivités locales. À #Lyon, Mediacités les a recensés : au moins trente journalistes sont passés de l’autre côté du miroir, la majorité depuis les années 2000. Une #porosité qui pose question. Voire problème.


    https://www.mediacites.fr/lyon/enquete-lyon/2017/06/20/de-la-presse-a-la-politique-le-grand-detournement-des-journalistes-lyonna
    #presse #journalisme

    Une enquête de @marty
    #paywall

    • @cdb_77 Bonjour, il me semble que le concept de « forteresse-europe », largement utilisé par ses partisans comme par ceux qui s’y opposent ne tient pas... la route. La militarisation, les murs, les grilles, l’arsenal pénal et punitif ne peuvent empêcher une #porosité constitutive, l’existence de flux divers, qu’ils soient organisés par les états ("immigration choisie") pour canaliser/trier/exploiter le besoin et le désir de circuler, de s’installer (sans accepter de renoncer à une mobilité), ou qu’il s’agisse d’un processus immanent. Avec ce terme on loupe l’hétérogénéité réelle du processus. Et on renforce une sensation de toute puissance des institutions alors que la #gestion_des_populations (migrations compris) est un enjeu de contrôle, disputé en tant que tel par d’innombrables pratiques, contradictoires. Comment croire que l’économie française n’a pas besoin des sans papiers ? de produire des #illégallismes non seulement rentables économiquement mais utiles dans la gestion politique de l’ensemble des administrés (supposés « citoyens ») ? Comment croire que l’Allemagne n’aurait pas besoin de renouveler sa population ?
      Il y a quelque chose qui cloche là dedans.
      Je suis pas fondé à en dire quelque chose d’étayé (faute de travail sur la question, a part quelques expériences politiques au coté de sans papiers, d’"enfants" de l’immigration, d’immigrés en lutte) mais l’exemple du chômage et de la précarité (de l’emploi, en particulier) montrent que le contrôle de la #mobilité et de la #disponibilité au travail est (là aussi) un enjeu central, et disputé.

    • Cher @colporteur, ça se discute, évidemment, et bien sûr la porosité est aussi une caractéristique de cette politique européenne de gestion de la migration.
      Ceci dit, j’utilise surtout le tag #Forteresse_Europe pour archiver les articles qui parlent de la fermeture de l’Europe et de ses conséquences. C’est donc une façon pratique de retrouver toutes ses thématique sous une seule appellation. L’appellation elle-même pouvant être déconstruite, même si je pense qu’elle n’est pas si dénouée de sens de sens que cela...

    • L’Union Européenne est la zone du Monde la plus riche. Elle reçoit peu de réfugiés qui, pour la plus grande part, sont et restent dans les pays pauvres.
      Votre terme de « porosité » n’est donc pas pertinent.
      L’Union Européenne se ferme avec des moyens sécuritaires et militaires, ce qui oblige tous ceux qui fuient en craignant pour leur vie (que ce soit du fait de la misère au moins en partie engendrée par l’exploitation par les multinationales occidentales, que ce soit du fait des guerres auxquelles les armes et les financements occidentaux participent) à prendre des risques considérables, et beaucoup en meurent.
      La « Forteresse Europe » exprime assez bien la violence criminelle de la politique européenne envers les migrants.

    • J’admet l’utilité du tag, et l’expressivité du terme. Mais celle-ci est pour partie piégeante. Plus que de déconstruire le concept, il paraîtrait souhaitable d’en forger/inventer d’autres. (Encore trop vite dit :) La #police de l’individu non-national (réfugié, avec ou sans titre, ou pas) ne porte pas l’uniforme.

    • Les migrants ne doivent pas être vus comme une population qui vient « prendre le travail des Français ». Les gens qui migrent sont dans l’écrasante majorité des cas jeunes (ages actifs) et bien portants (les vieux et les malades s’embarquent rarement dans ces périples très dangereux). On ne peut nier que ce soit un apport positif dans les pays développés dont les populations sont vieillissantes (baisse de la natalité, élevation de l’espérance de vie) et qui ont donc de moins en moins d’actifs pour financer les retraites des plus âges). Une partie de ces migrants sont d’ailleurs qualifiés.
      Les régulariser permettrait de contraindre leurs employeurs à verser des cotisations sociales bienvenues pour l’équilibre des comptes sociaux.

      Les pays occidentaux ont imposé partout la libre circulation des capitaux. Les riches des pays pauvres placent ainsi leur fortune dans les pays développés : le capital fuit les pays pauvres. Mais on prétend interdire aux êtres humains de le faire ...

      Le Droit d’aller vivre où l’on veut devrait être inscrit dans une Chartre Universelle des Droits de l’Homme : aux états, dès lors, de donner envie à leur jeunesse de rester.

  • #Saakashvili attempts a #Napoleon in #Odessa !!!!

    Petro #Poroshenko’s decision to appoint #Georgia’s disgraced former President as Governor of the Odessa region just might be his most bizarre move yet. Mikhail Saakashvili is a wanted criminal suspect in his homeland.

    When the pro-Euromaidan activist Maxim Eristavi tweeted on Friday that Mikhail Saakashvili was to become Odessa’s new Governor, the Twittersphere didn’t seem to know whether shock or amusement was the most appropriate reaction. However, on closer inspection, the move isn’t such a surprise after all. There are myriad reasons why Saakhasvili would find Odessa’s top job attractive and equally as many why Poroshenko is most likely delighted to send him there.

    http://rt.com/op-edge/263565-saakashvili-odessa-governor-napoleon

    Et pourquoi pas #Kadyrov ?

  • Fissures dans l’unité du G7 sur de nouvelles sanctions contre la Russie
    Par Bill Van Auken
    7 juin 2014
    http://www.wsws.org/fr/articles/2014/jui2014/fiss-j07.shtml

    Alors qu’Obama n’a pas cherché à rencontrer Vladimir Poutine, la plupart des autres membres du G7 ont organisé des discussions bilatérales avec le président russe qui avait été invité par Hollande à commémorer le 70e anniversaire du débarquement de Normandie durant le 2e Guerre mondiale.

    Hollande a défendu l’invitation disant que les Français savaient ce qu’ils devaient au peuple russe, le peuple soviétique de l’époque et que celui-ci fut héroïque dans sa défense face aux divisions nazies et face aux souffrances. Le président français organisa deux repas séparés jeudi soir : un dîner dans un restaurant parisien avec Obama et un souper avec Poutine à l’Elysée.

    La chancelière allemande Merkel, qui a dit lors d’une conférence de presse « il ne s’agit pas de menaces… nous voulons le dialogue » et le premier ministre britannique Cameron ont également organisé des rencontres séparées avec Poutine. Le premier ministre japonais Shizo Abe a dit lors d’une conférence de presse à Bruxelles « j’espère continuer le dialogue avec le président Poutine. » semblant regretter que Poutine n’était pas présent au sommet.

    Ben Rhodes, le vice conseiller à la Sécurité nationale de la Maison Blanche a exprimé l’hostilité de Washington à ces réunions bilatérales. « Nous avons toujours dit que nous ne voulions pas que divers pays aient des conversations par-dessus la tête du gouvernement de Kiev sur l’avenir de l’Ukraine. » a-t-il dit à des journalistes.

    Pour sa part, Poutine, qui représente les intérêts d’une couche dirigeante d’oligarques milliardaires ayant une richesse substantielle investie à l’Ouest, a signalé qu’il était prêt à un compromis sur l’Ukraine. Il a ordonné aux forces russes de se retirer des frontières de l’Ukraine et a reconnu les élections du 25 mai. On a annoncé le 5 juin que l’ambassadeur russe serait présent à l’investiture de Poroshenko samedi 7 juin.

    #G7 #Obama #Poutine #hollande #merkel #Poroshenko #Ukraine

  • Libye : la porosité des frontières
    #Libye : la #porosité des #frontières

    Plus de 4 000 km de #frontières_terrestres, impossibles à contrôler pour les nouvelles autorités libyennes. En décembre, Tripoli a déclaré le Sud zone militaire et a annoncé la #fermeture de ses frontières. Reportage aux confins du territoire libyen, près de la passe de Salvador où l’Algérie, le Niger et la Libye se touchent, avec la #brigade_Ténéré que RFI a suivie jusqu’au poste frontière d’Anay. Armes, #drogue, #immigration_illégale profitent du #vide_sécuritaire et de l’étendue des frontières pour traverser la Libye. Des experts en #sécurité et de la région redoutent qu’une partie des groupes terroristes présents au Mali avant l’#opération_Serval ne se soient déplacés dans le Sud libyen.

    http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20130731-libye-porosite-frontieres-sahel-trafic-passe-salvador-anay