position:premier

La Croatie criminalise la solidarité

6 novembre — 14h15 : Le 23 octobre, la plate-forme 112, qui réunit de nombreuses associations d’aide aux réfugiés, a appelé le Premier ministre Andrej Plenković et le ministre de l’Intérieur Davor Božinović à suspendre les attaques judiciaires en cours contre les associations de solidarité, qui se sont multipliées ces derniers mois. Dans le même temps, la majorité des médias croates, notamment le quotidien Večernji List multiplient les articles et les éditoriaux très hostiles aux réfugiés, réclamant parfois la création d’un mur sur la frontière avec la Bosnie-Herzégovine.

via Courrier des Balkans : ►https://www.courrierdesbalkans.fr/Bosnie-police-renforts-frontieres

Croatie : sale temps pour les ONG d’aide aux réfugiés

Les bénévoles et employés d’ONG d’aide aux réfugiés en Croatie sont confrontés quasiment tous les jours à des intimidations, dénonce le réseau de médias européens Euractiv. Des menaces anonymes et actes de vandalisme qui font suite aux tentatives du ministère de l’Intérieur de criminaliser les activités de ces organisations humanitaires.

Le ministère de l’Intérieur a récemment refusé de prolonger son accord de coopération avec le Centre pour les études de la paix (CMS), une organisation qui s’occupe des réfugiés et demandeurs d’asile depuis quinze ans. Suite à cette décision, le CMS est désormais interdit de se rendre dans les centres d’accueil, tandis que ses bénévoles ne peuvent plus enseigner le croate ni fournir une aide juridique aux réfugiés qui suivent un parcours d’intégration.

L’ONG Are You Syrious (AYS), qui travaille avec les réfugiés depuis 2015, a quant à elle vu ses bureaux vandalisés à plusieurs reprises au cours des dernières semaines. Les murs et un véhicule de l’organisation ont été tagués. Lors d’attaques précédentes, des briques avaient été jetés sur les fenêtres et les véhicules de l’organisation.

Des attaques qui se produisent alors que les discours de haine à l’encontre des réfugiés se généralisent en Croatie et dans le reste de l’Europe. Pour Sara Kekuš (CMS), citée par Euractiv, c’est résultat de « la politique européenne actuelle envers les réfugiés [...] que la droite extrême qualifie fréquemment de migrants illégaux et présente comme une menace pour toute l’Europe », déclare-t-elle.

AYS est également l’objet d’intimidations sur les réseaux sociaux avec des messages les accusant d’être « à la solde de Soros pour islamiser l’Europe », d’aider « les terroristes et les violeurs », et les menaçant de « punitions conséquentes ». Mi-novembre, le Centre pour l’intégration, qui dépend d’AYS, et son entrepôt à Novi Zagreb ont été vandalisés avec un graffiti « Les immigrants ne sont pas les bienvenus » inscrit sur un mur et « Fuck Isis » tagué sur leur véhicule. « Tout cela a lieu, alors que le ministre de l’Intérieur Davor Božinović a déclaré au Parlement que notre organisation était impliquée dans d’obscures activités de trafic », rappelle Asja Korbar d’AYS.

Le ministère de l’Intérieur a exercé des pressions sur le CMS et AYS après que ces deux ONG ont publié des témoignages de récurrentes violences policières à l’encontre des réfugiés. La situation s’est détériorée après la mort de Madini Husini, une fillette qui a perdu la vie le 21 novembre 2017 le long de la voie ferrée Tovarnik-Šid, près de la frontière serbe. « Quand on s’est saisi de l’affaire, le ministère de l’Intérieur a commencé à nous criminaliser », explique Sara Kekuš. « Il s’est mis à associer notre organisation à des trafiquants et à criminaliser notre travail plutôt que d’enquêter sur cette mort et de résoudre l’affaire. »

Les déclarations du ministère de l’Intérieur ont été fermement condamnées par la médiatrice de la Réublique, Lora Vidović. « Les trafiquants sont les ennemis des droits humains et constituent une menace pour les migrants, ils ne doivent donc pas être associés aux ONG qui agissent conformément aux lois croates », a-t-elle affirmé, avant de conclure : « Je suis sûre qu’il ne s’agit que d’une poignée d’individus et que la majorité des citoyens condamne ces violences, mais il est très important que les institutions fassent passer le même message et poursuivent les responsables ».

▻https://www.courrierdesbalkans.fr/Croatie-ONG-refugies

MUP Hrvatske odbio produžiti saradnju sa volonterima

Hrvatsko Ministarstvo unutrašnjih poslova odbilo je da produži ugovor o saradnji udruženju “Are You Syrious” koje je u prihvatilištu za tražioce međunarodne pomoći pomagalo djeci migranata i izbjeglica u učenju jezika, kulture...

Isto se desilo krajem prošle godine Centru za mirovne studije.

Zajedničko za ova dva udruženja je što su oštro kritizirala MUP zbog odnosa prema migrantima na granici.

Iz MUP-a poručuju - nisu to jedina udruženja, ima i drugih koja se bave istim poslom.

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdrNiIPeY1w

▻http://balkans.aljazeera.net/video/mup-hrvatske-odbio-produziti-saradnju-sa-volonterima

Le gars du monde aurait tout de même pu se documenter un peu mieux : le premier disque des Residents n’est pas « Meet the Residents » mais « Santa Dog ». Le gars de libé s’est un peu mieux tuyauté :
▻https://next.liberation.fr/musique/2018/11/02/the-residents-hardy-fox-l-ombre-emportee_1689558

Mais c’est la nécro du site des Residents qui reste la plus désopilante : ▻https://www.residents.com/news/index.php?article=20181030-0621

Merci @ericw
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6UoYi1EADs

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/f1c61460db9991784e73f48bf55ae237.jpg

It is with great sorrow and regret that The Cryptic Corporation announces the passing of longtime associate, Hardy Fox.

As president of the corporation from 1982-2016, the company benefited from Hardy’s instinct for leadership and direction, but his true value came from his longtime association with The Residents.

As the group’s producer, engineer, as well as collaborator on much of their material, Fox’s influence on The Residents was indelible; despite any formal training, his musicality was nevertheless unique, highly refined and prolific.

Blessed with a vital sense of aesthetics, a keen ear, and an exquisite love of the absurd, Hardy’s smiling face was a constant source of joy to those around him. He will be missed.

After a series of recent health problems, Hardy succumbed to a brief illness. He is survived by his husband, Steven Kloman.

Cherry Red MD Adam Velasco said: “We’ve been fortunate to work with Hardy in the later years of his life as a Resident. He was unique; a talented character with a deep affection for the music he created for many years as part of his inimitable group. His legacy will continue forever.”

▻https://www.cherryred.co.uk/hardy-fox-1945-2018
▻https://www.psychofonrecords.com/artists/the-residents
►https://seenthis.net/messages/733257

https://www.residents.com/fans/rushmore.png

Brésil : à peine élu, Jair Bolsonaro commence la chasse aux opposants de gauche

Les universités dans le viseur

Enfin, toujours pour lutter contre l’opposition à gauche, Jair Bolsonaro entend faire pression sur les professeurs d’université qui parleraient de politique pendant leurs cours.

Le président élu a récemment scandalisé une partie du monde éducatif en accusant des professeurs, cités avec leurs noms et prénoms, de défendre les régimes de Cuba et de Corée du Nord devant leurs élèves, dans une vidéo diffusée sur Internet.

Et pour y remédier, il compte installer des pancartes devant les salles de cours pour appeler les étudiants à dénoncer leurs professeurs par le biais d’une « hotline » téléphonique dédiée à la question.

▻https://www.bfmtv.com/international/bresil-a-peine-elu-jair-bolsonaro-commence-la-chasse-aux-opposants-de-gauche-

Au Brésil, vague de répression dans les universités à la veille du second tour

Quelques jours avant le second tour de l’élection présidentielle brésilienne, qui voit s’affronter le candidat d’extrême droite Jair Bolsonaro et le candidat du Parti des travailleurs (PT) Fernando Haddad, les campus universitaires du pays ont fait face à une vague inédite de répression de la liberté d’expression. Jeudi 25 octobre, la police a investi 27 universités, à la demande des tribunaux électoraux, dont les juges sont chargés de faire respecter les règles de communication et de propagande électorales des partis en lice. Les forces de police étaient à la recherche de supposé matériel de propagande électorale illégale. En fait, ces opérations ont visé des banderoles antifascistes, de soutien à la démocratie, un manifeste en soutien à l’université publique, des débats et des cours sur la dictature, la démocratie et les « fakes news » – ces mensonges ayant été largement diffusés pendant la campagne, en particulier par l’extrême-droite… [1]

À Rio, une juge a ainsi fait enlever une banderole du fronton du bâtiment de la faculté de droit de l’université fédérale Fluminense (UFF), sur laquelle était inscrit, autour du symbole antifasciste du double drapeau rouge et noir, « Droit UFF antifasciste ». À l’université de l’État de Rio, les agents électoraux ont retiré une banderole en hommage à Marielle Franco, l’élue municipale du parti de gauche PSOL assassinée en pleine rue en mars dernier.

220 000 messages de haine en quatre jours contre une journaliste

Dans une université du Pará, quatre policiers militaires sont entrés sur le campus pour interroger un professeur sur « son idéologie ». L’enseignant avait abordé la question des fake news dans un cours sur les médias numériques. Une étudiante s’en est sentie offensée, alléguant une « doctrine marxiste », et l’a dit à son père, policier militaire. Une enquête du journal la Folha de São Paulo a pourtant révélé mi-octobre que des entreprises qui soutiennent le candidat d’extrême droite avaient acheté les services d’entreprises de communication pour faire envoyer en masse des fausses nouvelles anti-Parti des travailleurs directement sur les numéros whatsapp – une plateforme de messagerie en ligne – des Brésiliens. L’auteure de l’enquête, la journaliste Patricia Campos Melo, et le quotidien de São Paulo, ont ensuite reçu 220 000 messages de haine en quatre jours ! [2] Le journal a demandé à la police fédérale de lancer une enquête.

Mais ce sont des conférences et des débats sur la dictature militaire et le fascisme qui ont pour l’instant été interdits. C’est le cas d’un débat public intitulé « Contre la fascisme, pour la démocratie », qui devait avoir lieu à l’université fédérale de Rio Grande do Sul (la région de Porto Alegre). Devaient y participer l’ex-candidat du parti de gauche PSOL au premier tour de la présidentielle, Guilherme Boulos, un ancien ministre issu du Parti des travailleurs, des députés fédéraux du PT et du PSOL. « J’ai donné des cours et des conférences dans des universités en France, en Angleterre, au Portugal, en Espagne, en Allemagne, en Argentine, et ici, même pendant la dictature. Aujourd’hui, je suis censuré dans l’État, le Rio Grande do Sul, que j’ai moi-même gouverné. Le fascisme grandit », a réagi l’un des députés, Tarso Genro, sur twitter.

Une banderole « moins d’armes, plus de livres » jugée illégale

Dans le Paraíba, les agents du tribunal électoral se sont introduits dans l’université pour retirer une banderole où était simplement inscrit « moins d’armes, plus de livres ». « Cette opération de la justice électorale dans les universités du pays pour saisir du matériel en défense de la démocratie et contre le fascisme est absurde. Cela rappelle les temps sombres de la censure et de l’invasion des facultés », a écrit Guilherme Boulos, le leader du PSOL, sur twitter, ajoutant : « Le parti de la justice a formé une coalition avec le PSL », le parti de Bolsonaro. « De telles interventions à l’intérieur de campus au cours d’une campagne électorale sont inédites. Une partie de l’appareil d’État se prépare au changement de régime », a aussi alerté l’historienne française, spécialiste du Brésil, Maud Chirio, sur sa page Facebook.

Dimanche dernier, dans une allocution filmée diffusée pour ses supporters rassemblés à São Paulo, Jair Bolsonaro a proféré des menaces claires à l’égard de ses opposants. « Ou vous partez en exil ou vous partez en prison », a-il dit, ajoutant « nous allons balayer ces bandits rouges du Brésil », et annonçant un « nettoyage jamais vu dans l’histoire de ce pays ». Il a précisé qu’il allait classer le Mouvements des paysans sans Terre (MST) et le Mouvement des travailleurs sans toit (MTST) comme des organisations terroristes, et menacé Fernando Haddad de l’envoyer « pourrir en prison aux côtés de Lula ».

https://www.bastamag.net/IMG/arton6990.jpg?1540572903#.jpg

We deplore this attack on freedom of expression in Brazil’s universities

107 international academics react to social media reports that more than 20 universities in Brazil have been invaded by military police in recent days, with teaching materials confiscated on ideological grounds

Reports have emerged on social media that more than 20 universities in Brazil have been subjected in recent days to: invasions by military police; the confiscation of teaching materials on ideological grounds; and the suppression of freedom of speech and expression, especially in relation to anti-fascist history and activism.

As academics, researchers, graduates, students and workers at universities in the UK, Europe and further afield, we deplore this attack on freedom of expression in Brazil’s universities, which comes as a direct result of the campaign and election of far-right President Bolsonaro.

Academic autonomy is a linchpin not only of independent and objective research, but of a functioning democracy, which should be subject to scrutiny and informed, evidence-based investigation and critique.

We call on co-workers, colleagues and students to decry this attack on Brazil’s universities in the name of Bolsonaro’s wider militaristic, anti-progressive agenda. We will not stand by as this reactionary populist attacks the pillars of Brazil’s democracy and education system. We will campaign vigorously in whatever capacity we can with activists, educators and lawmakers in Brazil to ensure that its institutions can operate without the interference of this new – and hopefully short-lived – government.
Dr William McEvoy, University of Sussex, UK (correspondent)
Dr Will Abberley, University of Sussex
Nannette Aldred, University of Sussex
Patricia Alessandrini, Stanford University, USA
Dr Michael Alexander, University of Glasgow
Steven Allen, Birkbeck, University of London
Dr Katherine Angel, Birkbeck, University of London
Pedro Argenti, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Nick Awde, International Editor, The Stage newspaper, London
Professor Ian Balfour, York University, Toronto, Canada
Lennart Balkenhol, University of Melbourne, Australia
Nehaal Bajwa, University of Sussex
Dr Louis Bayman, University of Southampton
Mark Bergfeld, former NUS NEC (2010-2012)
Professor Tim Bergfelder, University of Southampton
Dr Patricia Pires Boulhosa, University of Cambridge
Dr Maud Bracke, University of Glasgow
Max Brookman-Byrne, University of Lincoln
Dr Conrad Brunström, Maynooth University, Ireland
Dr Christopher Burlinson, Jesus College, Cambridge
Professor Martin Butler, University of Sussex
Professor Gavin Butt, University of Sussex
Cüneyt Çakirlar, Nottingham Trent University
Guilherme Carréra, University of Westminster
Geoffrey Chew, Royal Holloway, University of London
Dr Maite Conde, University of Cambridge
Dr Luke Cooper, Anglia Ruskin University, UK, and Institute of Human Sciences, Vienna, Austria
Dr Sue Currell, University of Sussex
Professor Dimitris Dalakoglou, Vrije University, Amsterdam, Netherlands
William Dalziel, University of Sussex
Dr April de Angelis, Royal Holloway, University of London
Dr Olga Demetriou, Durham University
Dr Stephanie Dennison, University of Leeds
Dr Steffi Doebler, University of Liverpool
Dr Sai Englert, SOAS University of London
James Erskine, University of Sussex and Birkbeck, University of London
Professor Martin Paul Eve, Birkbeck, University of London
John Fallas, University of Leeds
Dr Lynne Fanthome, Staffordshire University
Dr Hannah Field, University of Sussex
Dr Adrian Garvey, Birkbeck, University of London
Dr Laura Gill, University of Sussex
Dr Priyamvada Gopal, University of Cambridge
Bhavini Goyate, University of Sussex
Dr Craig Haslop, University of Liverpool
Professor Björn Heile, University of Glasgow
Dr Phil Hutchinson, Manchester Metropolitan University
Professor Martin Iddon, University of Leeds
Dr Eleftheria Ioannidou, University of Groningen, Netherlands
Dr Chris Kempshall, University of Sussex
Andrew Key, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Professor Laleh Khalili, SOAS University of London
Dr Theodore Koulouris, University of Brighton
Professor Maria Lauret, University of Sussex
Professor Vicky Lebeau, University of Sussex
Professor James Livesey, University of Dundee, Scotland
Professor Luke Martell, University of Sussex
Dr N Gabriel Martin, Lebanese American University, Lebanon
Wolfgang Marx, University College, Dublin, Ireland
Andy Medhurst, University of Sussex
Professor Philippe Meers, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Dr Shamira A Meghani, University of Cambridge
Niccolo Milanese, CESPRA EHESS, Paris, France and PUC Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Dr Ian Moody, CESEM – Universidade Nova, Lisbon
Professor Lucia Naqib, University of Reading
Dr Catherine Packham, University of Sussex
Professor Dimitris Papanikolaou, University of Oxford
Mary Parnwell, University of Sussex
Professor Deborah Philips, University of Brighton
Dr Chloe Porter, University of Sussex
Dr Jason Price, University of Sussex
Dr Duška Radosavljević, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London
Francesca Reader, University of Sussex and University of Brighton
Naida Redgrave, University of East London
Professor Nicholas Ridout, Queen Mary, University of London
Professor Lucy Robinson, University of Sussex
Dr Kirsty Rolfe, University of Sussex
Dr Joseph Ronan, University of Brighton
Dr Michael Rowland, University of Sussex
Dr Zachary Rowlinson, University of Sussex
Professor Nicholas Royle, University of Sussex
Dr Eleanor Rycroft, University of Bristol
Dr Jason Scott-Warren, University of Cambridge
Dr Deborah Shaw, University of Portsmouth
Dr Lisa Shaw, University of Liverpool
Kat Sinclair, University of Sussex
Sandrine Singleton-Perrin, University of Essex
Despina Sinou, University of Paris 13 – Sorbonne Paris Cité, France
Dave Smith, University of Hertfordshire
John Snijders, Durham University
Dr Samuel Solomon, University of Sussex
Dr Arabella Stanger, University of Sussex
Professor Rob Stone, University of Birmingham
Bernard Sufrin, Emeritus Fellow, Dept of Computer Science, University of Oxford
Dr Natasha Tanna, University of Cambridge
Professor Lyn Thomas, University of Sussex
Simon Thorpe, University of Warwick
Dr Gavan Titley, Maynooth University, Ireland
Dr Pamela Thurschwell, University of Sussex
Dr Dominic Walker, University of Sussex
Dr Ed Waller, University of Surrey and University of Portsmouth
Dr Kiron Ward, University of Sussex
Helen Wheatley, University of Warwick
Ian Willcock, University of Herfordshire
Professor Gregory Woods, Nottingham Trent University
Dr Tom F Wright, University of Sussex
Dr Heba Youssef, University of Brighton

▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/01/we-deplore-this-attack-on-freedom-of-expression-in-brazils-universities
#liberté_d'expression

Brazil Court Strikes Down Restrictions on University Speech

Brazil´s Supreme Court issued an important decision striking down restrictions on political speech on university campuses in a unanimous ruling yesterday. Meanwhile, president-elect Jair Bolsonaro´s allies in Congress are pressing ahead with efforts to restrict what students and educators can discuss in the classroom.

The court ruling overturned decisions by electoral court judges who recently ordered universities across the country to clamp down on what they considered illegal political campaigning. The orders were spurred by complaints from anonymous callers and, in a few cases, by members of conservative groups.

For example, at Grande Dourados Federal University, court officials suspended a public event against fascism, according to the student group that organized it. At Campina Grande Federal University, police allegedly seized copies of a pamphlet titled “Manifesto in defense of democracy and public universities” and hard drives, said a professors´ association.

At Rio de Janeiro State University, police ordered the removal of a banner honoring Marielle Franco, a black lesbian human rights defender and councilwoman murdered in March, despite not having a judicial order.

The attorney general, Raquel Dodge, asked the Supreme Court to rule the electoral court judges´ decisions unconstitutional, and Supreme Court justice Cármen Lúcia Rocha issued an injunction stopping them. The full court upheld that decision on October 31.

“The only force that must enter universities is the force of ideas,” said Rocha.

“The excessive and illegitimate use of force by state agents … echoes somber days in Brazilian history,” said Justice Rosa Weber, referring to Brazil´s 1964 – 1985 military dictatorship.

The ruling comes as Bolsonaro, who remains in Congress until he assumes the presidency on January 1, and his allies push a bill that would prohibit teachers from promoting their own opinions in the classroom or using the terms “gender” or “sexual orientation,” and would order that sex and religious education be framed around “family values.”

A state representative-elect from Bolsonaro´s party has even called on students to film and report teachers who make “political-partisan or ideological statements.” Bolsonaro made a similar call in 2016. State prosecutors have filed a civil action against the representative-elect, alleging she instituted “an illegal service for the political and ideological control of teaching activities.”

In his long career in Congress, Bolsonaro has endorsed abusive practices that undermine the rule of law, defended the dictatorship, and has been a vocal proponent of bigotry.

More than ever, Brazil needs its judiciary to defend human rights within and outside the classroom.

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Présidentielle au Brésil : relents de dictature militaire

Présidentielle au Brésil : Bolsonaro et le « risque d’un retour à l’ordre autoritaire en Amérique latine »

Porté par plus de deux cents universitaires, responsables politiques et citoyens d’Europe et du Canada, ce manifeste s’inscrit dans un mouvement mondial de soutien à la démocratie face à la violence déchaînée par la candidature de Jair Bolsonaro au Brésil. Il est ouvert aux démocrates de toutes les sensibilités politiques. Face au risque imminent d’un retour à l’ordre autoritaire en Amérique latine, la solidarité internationale est impérative.

Nous, citoyens, intellectuels, militants, personnalités politiques vivant, travaillant et étudiant en Europe et au Canada, exprimons notre vive inquiétude face à la menace imminente de l’élection de Jair Bolsonaro à la présidence du Brésil le 28 octobre 2018.

Le souvenir de la dictature militaire

La victoire de l’extrême droite radicale au Brésil risque de renforcer le mouvement international qui a porté au pouvoir des politiciens réactionnaires et antidémocratiques dans de nombreux pays ces dernières années.

Bolsonaro défend ouvertement le souvenir de la dictature militaire qui a imposé sa loi au Brésil entre 1964 et 1985, ses pratiques de torture et ses tortionnaires. Il méprise le combat pour les droits humains. Il exprime une hostilité agressive envers les femmes, les Afro-descendants, les membres de la communauté LGBT +, les peuples autochtones et les pauvres. Son programme vise à détruire les avancées politiques, économiques, sociales, environnementales et culturelles des quatre dernières décennies, ainsi que l’action menée par les mouvements sociaux et le camp progressiste pour consolider et étendre la démocratie au Brésil.

L’élection de Bolsonaro menace les fragiles institutions démocratiques pour la construction desquelles les Brésilien·ne·s ont pris tant de risques. Son arrivée au pouvoir serait aussi un frein majeur à toute politique internationale ambitieuse en matière de défense de l’environnement et de préservation de la paix.

Premiers signataires : Martine Aubry , maire de Lille, ancienne ministre (PS) ; Luc Boltanski , sociologue, directeur d’études, EHESS ; Peter Burke , historien, professeur émérite à l’université de Cambridge ; Roger Chartier , historien, directeur d’études EHESS/Collège de France ; Mireille Clapot , députée de la Drôme, vice-présidente de la commission des affaires étrangères (LRM) ; Laurence Cohen , sénatrice du Val-de-Marne (PCF) ; Didier Fassin , professeur de sciences sociales, Institute for advanced study, Princeton ; Carlo Ginzburg , professeur émérite à UCLA et à l’Ecole normale supérieure de Pise ; Eva Joly , députée européenne (groupe Verts-ALE) ; Pierre Louault , sénateur d’Indre-et-Loire (UDI) ; Paul Magnette, bourgmestre de Charleroi, ex-ministre président de la Wallonie, ex-président du Parti socialiste belge ; Thomas Piketty , directeur d’études à l’EHESS.

▻http://jennifer-detemmerman.fr/index.php/2018/10/23/presidentielle-au-bresil-relents-de-dictature-militaire

Une pétition qui a été lancé avant l’élection...
Defend Democracy in Brazil. Say No to Jair Bolsonaro

Defend Democracy in Brazil,

Say No to Jair Bolsonaro

We, citizens, intellectuals, activists, politicians, people living, working, and studying in Europe and Canada, wish to express our growing alarm at the imminent threat of Jair Bolsonaro’s election to the presidency on October 28, 2018. The potential victory of a far-right radical in Brazil would reinforce a dangerous international trend of extremely reactionary and anti-democratic politicians gaining state power in recent years.

Bolsonaro explicitly defends the Brazilian military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964-85 and praises torture and torturers. He condemns human rights efforts. He has expressed aggressive and vile hostility toward women, people of African descent, the LGBT+ community, indigenous people, and the poor. His proposed policies would effectively undo all of the political, social, economic, labor, environmental, and cultural gains of the last four decades, efforts by social movements and progressive politicians to consolidate and expand democracy in Brazil. A Bolsonaro presidency also threatens to undermine the still fragile democratic politics that people throughout Brazil have risked so much to build.

His election would seriously hamper any ambitious international effort for environmental protection, against climate change and for the preservation of peace.

Adapted version of the text « Defend Democracy in Brazil, Say No to Jair Bolsonaro! »

▻https://www.change.org/p/association-pour-la-recherche-sur-le-br%C3%A9sil-en-europe-pour-la-d%C3%A9fe

v. aussi : ►https://seenthis.net/messages/735560

Venezuela. L’Amérique latine cherche une solution à sa plus grande #crise_migratoire

Les réunions de crise sur l’immigration ne sont pas l’apanage de l’Europe : treize pays latino-américains sont réunis depuis lundi à Quito pour tenter de trouver des solutions communes au casse-tête migratoire provoqué par l’#exode_massif des Vénézuéliens.

https://www.courrierinternational.com/sites/ci_master/files/styles/image_original_765/public/assets/images/venezuela_2.png?itok=BH3X41ls#.jpg

Bataille de #chiffres et guerre d’images autour de la « #crise migratoire » vénézuélienne

L’émigration massive qui touche actuellement le Venezuela est une réalité. Mais il ne faut pas confondre cette réalité et les défis humanitaires qu’elle pose avec son instrumentalisation, tant par le pouvoir vénézuélien pour se faire passer pour la victime d’un machination que par ses « ennemis » qui entendent se débarrasser d’un gouvernement qu’ils considèrent comme autoritaire et source d’instabilité dans la région. Etat des lieux d’une crise très polarisée.

C’est un véritable scoop que nous a offert le président vénézuélien le 3 septembre dernier. Alors que son gouvernement est avare en données sur les sujets sensibles, Nicolas Maduro a chiffré pour la première fois le nombre de Vénézuéliens ayant émigré depuis deux ans à 600 000. Un chiffre vérifiable, a-t-il assuré, sans toutefois donner plus de détails.

Ce chiffre, le premier plus ou moins officiel dans un pays où il n’y a plus de statistiques migratoires, contraste avec celui délivré par l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM) et le Haut-Commissariat aux Réfugiés (HCR). Selon ces deux organisations, 2,3 millions de Vénézuéliens vivraient à l’étranger, soit 7,2% des habitants sur un total de 31,8 millions. Pas de quoi tomber de sa chaise ! D’autres diasporas sont relativement bien plus nombreuses. Ce qui impressionne, c’est la croissance exponentielle de cette émigration sur un très court laps de temps : 1,6 million auraient quitté le pays depuis 2015 seulement. Une vague de départs qui s’est accélérée ces derniers mois et affectent inégalement de nombreux pays de la région.
Le pouvoir vénézuélien, par la voix de sa vice-présidente, a accusé des fonctionnaires de l’ONU de gonfler les chiffres d’un « flux migratoire normal » (sic) pour justifier une « intervention humanitaire », synonyme de déstabilisation. D’autres sources estiment quant à elles qu’ils pourraient être près de quatre millions à avoir fui le pays.

▻https://www.cncd.be/Bataille-de-chiffres-et-guerre-d
#statistiques #guerre_des_chiffres

La formulation est tout de même étrange pour une ONG… : pas de quoi tomber de sa chaise, de même l’utilisation du mot ennemis avec guillemets. Au passage, le même pourcentage – pas si énorme …– appliqué à la population française donnerait 4,5 millions de personnes quittant la France, dont les deux tiers, soit 3 millions de personnes, au cours des deux dernières années.

Ceci dit, pour ne pas qu’ils tombent… d’inanition, le Programme alimentaire mondial (agence de l’ONU) a besoin de sous pour nourrir les vénézuéliens qui entrent en Colombie.

ONU necesita fondos para seguir atendiendo a emigrantes venezolanos
▻http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/mundo/onu-necesita-fondos-para-seguir-atendiendo-emigrantes-venezolanos_25311

El Programa Mundial de Alimentos (PMA), el principal brazo humanitario de Naciones Unidas, informó que necesita 22 millones de dólares suplementarios para atender a los venezolanos que entran a Colombia.

«Cuando las familias inmigrantes llegan a los centros de recepción reciben alimentos calientes y pueden quedarse de tres a cinco días, pero luego tienen que irse para que otros recién llegados puedan ser atendidos», dijo el portavoz del PMA, Herve Verhoosel.
[…]
La falta de alimentos se convierte en el principal problema para quienes atraviesan a diario la frontera entre Venezuela y Colombia, que cuenta con siete puntos de pasaje oficiales y más de un centenar informales, con más de 50% de inmigrantes que entran a Colombia por estos últimos.

El PMA ha proporcionado ayuda alimentaria de emergencia a más de 60.000 venezolanos en los departamentos fronterizos de Arauca, La Guajira y el Norte de Santander, en Colombia, y más recientemente ha empezado también a operar en el departamento de Nariño, que tiene frontera con Ecuador.
[…]
De acuerdo con evaluaciones recientes efectuadas por el PMA entre inmigrantes en Colombia, 80% de ellos sufren de inseguridad alimentaria.

Le grand #exode

Plus d’un million et demi de Vénézuéliens ont fui leur pays depuis trois ans. Un mouvement migratoire au moins aussi intense que celui qu’a connu l’Europe en 2015. Et qui provoque, lui aussi, des turbulences sur son passage. Coup d’œil sur la plus grande #vague de migration humaine que l’Amérique latine ait jamais connue.

▻http://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/61c2076f-32d8-40c9-ad8d-e6e186b8bfae__7C___0.html

Migrants du Venezuela vers la Colombie : « ni xénophobie, ni fermeture des frontières », assure le nouveau président colombien

Le nouveau président colombien, entré en fonction depuis hier (lundi 8 octobre 2018), ne veut pas céder à la tentation d’une fermeture de la frontière avec le Venezuela.

https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/sites/regions_outremer/files/styles/top_big/public/assets/images/2018/10/09/exode-886124.jpeg?itok=kWAxwO2D#.jpg

Fleeing hardship at home, Venezuelan migrants struggle abroad, too

Every few minutes, the reeds along the #Tachira_River rustle.

Smugglers, in ever growing numbers, emerge with a ragtag group of Venezuelan migrants – men struggling under tattered suitcases, women hugging bundles in blankets and schoolchildren carrying backpacks. They step across rocks, wade into the muddy stream and cross illegally into Colombia.

This is the new migration from Venezuela.

For years, as conditions worsened in the Andean nation’s ongoing economic meltdown, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans – those who could afford to – fled by airplane and bus to other countries far and near, remaking their lives as legal immigrants.

Now, hyperinflation, daily power cuts and worsening food shortages are prompting those with far fewer resources to flee, braving harsh geography, criminal handlers and increasingly restrictive immigration laws to try their luck just about anywhere.

In recent weeks, Reuters spoke with dozens of Venezuelan migrants traversing their country’s Western border to seek a better life in Colombia and beyond. Few had more than the equivalent of a handful of dollars with them.

“It was terrible, but I needed to cross,” said Dario Leal, 30, recounting his journey from the coastal state of Sucre, where he worked in a bakery that paid about $2 per month.

At the border, he paid smugglers nearly three times that to get across and then prepared, with about $3 left, to walk the 500 km (311 miles) to Bogota, Colombia’s capital. The smugglers, in turn, paid a fee to Colombian crime gangs who allow them to operate, according to police, locals and smugglers themselves.

As many as 1.9 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015, according to the United Nations. Combined with those who preceded them, a total of 2.6 million are believed to have left the oil-rich country. Ninety percent of recent departures, the U.N. says, remain in South America.

The exodus, one of the biggest mass migrations ever on the continent, is weighing on neighbors. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, which once welcomed Venezuelan migrants, recently tightened entry requirements. Police now conduct raids to detain the undocumented.

In early October, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Colombia’s foreign minister, said as many as four million Venezuelans could be in the country by 2021, costing national coffers as much as $9 billion. “The magnitude of this challenge,” he said, “our country has never seen.”

In Brazil, which also borders Venezuela, the government deployed troops and financing to manage the crush and treat sick, hungry and pregnant migrants. In Ecuador and Peru, workers say that Venezuelan labor lowers wages and that criminals are hiding among honest migrants.

“There are too many of them,” said Antonio Mamani, a clothing vendor in Peru, who recently watched police fill a bus with undocumented Venezuelans near Lima.
“WE NEED TO GO”

By migrating illegally, migrants expose themselves to criminal networks who control prostitution, drug trafficking and other rackets. In August, Colombian investigators discovered 23 undocumented Venezuelans forced into prostitution and living in basements in the colonial city of Cartagena.

While most migrants are avoiding such straits, no shortage of other hardship awaits – from homelessness, to unemployment, to the cold reception many get as they sleep in public squares, peddle sweets and throng already overburdened hospitals.

Still, most press on, many on foot.

Some join compatriots in Brazil and Colombia. Others, having spent what money they had, are walking vast regions, like Colombia’s cold Andean passes and sweltering tropical lowlands, in treks toward distant capitals, like Quito or Lima.

Johana Narvaez, a 36-year-old mother of four, told Reuters her family left after business stalled at their small car repair shop in the rural state of Trujillo. Extra income she made selling food on the street withered because cash is scarce in a country where annual inflation, according to the opposition-led Congress, recently reached nearly 500,000 percent.

“We can’t stay here,” she told her husband, Jairo Sulbaran, in August, after they ran out of food and survived on corn patties provided by friends. “Even on foot, we must go.” Sulbaran begged and sold old tires until they could afford bus tickets to the border.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has chided migrants, warning of the hazards of migration and that emigres will end up “cleaning toilets.” He has even offered free flights back to some in a program called “Return to the Homeland,” which state television covers daily.

Most migration, however, remains in the other direction.

Until recently, Venezuelans could enter many South American countries with just their national identity cards. But some are toughening rules, requiring a passport or additional documentation.

Even a passport is elusive in Venezuela.

Paper shortages and a dysfunctional bureaucracy make the document nearly impossible to obtain, many migrants argue. Several told Reuters they waited two years in vain after applying, while a half-dozen others said they were asked for as much as $2000 in bribes by corrupt clerks to secure one.

Maduro’s government in July said it would restructure Venezuela’s passport agency to root out “bureaucracy and corruption.” The Information Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“VENEZUELA WILL END UP EMPTY”

Many of those crossing into Colombia pay “arrastradores,” or “draggers,” to smuggle them along hundreds of trails. Five of the smugglers, all young men, told Reuters business is booming.

“Venezuela will end up empty,” said Maikel, a 17-year-old Venezuelan smuggler, scratches across his face from traversing the bushy trails. Maikel, who declined to give his surname, said he lost count of how many migrants he has helped cross.

Colombia, too, struggles to count illegal entries. Before the government tightened restrictions earlier this year, Colombia issued “border cards” that let holders crisscross at will. Now, Colombia says it detects about 3,000 false border cards at entry points daily.

Despite tougher patrols along the porous, 2,200-km border, officials say it is impossible to secure outright. “It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket,” said Mauricio Franco, a municipal official in charge of security in Cucuta, a nearby city.

And it’s not just a matter of rounding up undocumented travelers.

Powerful criminal groups, long in control of contraband commerce across the border, are now getting their cut of human traffic. Javier Barrera, a colonel in charge of police in Cucuta, said the Gulf Clan and Los Rastrojos, notorious syndicates that operate nationwide, are both involved.

During a recent Reuters visit to several illegal crossings, Venezuelans carried cardboard, limes and car batteries as barter instead of using the bolivar, their near-worthless currency.

Migrants pay as much as about $16 for the passage. Maikel, the arrastrador, said smugglers then pay gang operatives about $3 per migrant.

For his crossing, Leal, the baker, carried a torn backpack and small duffel bag. His 2015 Venezuelan ID shows a healthier and happier man – before Leal began skimping on breakfast and dinner because he couldn’t afford them.

He rested under a tree, but fretted about Colombian police. “I’m scared because the “migra” comes around,” he said, using the same term Mexican and Central American migrants use for border police in the United States.

It doesn’t get easier as migrants move on.

Even if relatives wired money, transfer agencies require a legally stamped passport to collect it. Bus companies are rejecting undocumented passengers to avoid fines for carrying them. A few companies risk it, but charge a premium of as much as 20 percent, according to several bus clerks near the border.

The Sulbaran family walked and hitched some 1200 km to the Andean town of Santiago, where they have relatives. The father toured garages, but found no work.

“People said no, others were scared,” said Narvaez, the mother. “Some Venezuelans come to Colombia to do bad things. They think we’re all like that.”

▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-migration-insight/fleeing-hardship-at-home-venezuelan-migrants-struggle-abroad-too-idUSKCN1MP

Avec ce commentaire de #Reece_Jones:

People continue to flee Venezuela, now often resorting to #smugglers as immigration restrictions have increased

#passeurs #fermeture_des_frontières

’No more camps,’ Colombia tells Venezuelans not to settle in tent city

Francis Montano sits on a cold pavement with her three children, all their worldly possessions stuffed into plastic bags, as she pleads to be let into a new camp for Venezuelan migrants in the Colombian capital, Bogota.

Behind Montano, smoke snakes from woodfires set amid the bright yellow tents which are now home to hundreds of Venezuelans, erected on a former soccer pitch in a middle-class residential area in the west of the city.

The penniless migrants, some of the millions who have fled Venezuela’s economic and social crisis, have been here more than a week, forced by city authorities to vacate a makeshift slum of plastic tarps a few miles away.

The tent city is the first of its kind in Bogota. While authorities have established camps at the Venezuelan border, they have resisted doing so in Colombia’s interior, wary of encouraging migrants to settle instead of moving to neighboring countries or returning home.

Its gates are guarded by police and officials from the mayor’s office and only those registered from the old slum are allowed access.

“We’ll have to sleep on the street again, under a bridge,” said Montano, 22, whose children are all under seven years old. “I just want a roof for my kids at night.”

According to the United Nations, an estimated 3 million Venezuelans have fled as their oil-rich country has sunk into crisis under President Nicolas Maduro. Critics accuse the Socialist leader of ravaging the economy through state interventions while clamping down on political opponents.

The exodus - driven by violence, hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicines - amounts to one in 12 of the population, placing strain on neighboring countries, already struggling with poverty.

Colombia, which has borne the brunt of the migration crisis, estimates it is sheltering 1 million Venezuelans, with some 3,000 arriving daily. The government says their total numbers could swell to 4 million by 2021, costing it nearly $9 billion a year.

Municipal authorities in Bogota say the camp will provide shelter for 422 migrants through Christmas. Then in mid January, it will be dismantled in the hope jobs and new lodgings have been found.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DstiowtXcAQXQ8S.jpg

#camps #camps_de_réfugiés #tentes #Bogotá #Bogotà

Creativity amid Crisis: Legal Pathways for Venezuelan Migrants in Latin America

As more than 3 million Venezuelans have fled a rapidly collapsing economy, severe food and medical shortages, and political strife, neighboring countries—the primary recipients of these migrants—have responded with creativity and pragmatism. This policy brief explores how governments in South America, Central America, and Mexico have navigated decisions about whether and how to facilitate their entry and residence. It also examines challenges on the horizon as few Venezuelans will be able to return home any time soon.

Across Latin America, national legal frameworks are generally open to migration, but few immigration systems have been built to manage movement on this scale and at this pace. For example, while many countries in the region have a broad definition of who is a refugee—criteria many Venezuelans fit—only Mexico has applied it in considering Venezuelans’ asylum cases. Most other Latin American countries have instead opted to use existing visa categories or migration agreements to ensure that many Venezuelans are able to enter legally, and some have run temporary programs to regularize the status of those already in the country.

Looking to the long term, there is a need to decide what will happen when temporary statuses begin to expire. And with the crisis in Venezuela and the emigration it has spurred ongoing, there are projections that as many as 5.4 million Venezuelans may be abroad by the end of 2019. Some governments have taken steps to limit future Venezuelan arrivals, and some receiving communities have expressed frustration at the strain put on local service providers and resources. To avoid widespread backlash and to facilitate the smooth integration of Venezuelans into local communities, policymakers must tackle questions ranging from the provision of permanent status to access to public services and labor markets. Done well, this could be an opportunity to update government processes and strengthen public services in ways that benefit both newcomers and long-term residents.

▻https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/legal-pathways-venezuelan-migrants-latin-america

Venezuela: Millions at risk, at home and abroad

Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world and is not engulfed in war. Yet its people have been fleeing on a scale and at a rate comparable in recent memory only to Syrians at the height of the civil war and the Rohingya from Myanmar.

As chronicled by much of our reporting collected below, some three to four million people have escaped the economic meltdown since 2015 and tried to start afresh in countries like Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. This exodus has placed enormous pressure on the region; several governments have started making it tougher for migrants to enter and find jobs.

The many millions more who have stayed in Venezuela face an acute humanitarian crisis denied by their own government: pervasive hunger, the resurgence of disease, an absence of basic medicines, and renewed political uncertainty.

President Nicolás Maduro has cast aside outside offers of aid, framing them as preludes to a foreign invasion and presenting accusations that the United States is once again interfering in Latin America.

Meanwhile, the opposition, led by Juan Guaidó, the president of the National Assembly, has invited in assistance from the US and elsewhere.

As aid becomes increasingly politicised, some international aid agencies have chosen to sit on the sidelines rather than risk their neutrality. Others run secretive and limited operations inside Venezuela that fly under the media radar.

Local aid agencies, and others, have had to learn to adapt fast and fill the gaps as the Venezuelan people grow hungrier and sicker.

https://assets.irinnews.org/s3fs-public/styles/responsive_large/public/venezuela_feb2019_1352.jpg?PoYmMQplrq8BMWzMVybDXJ4tG8uiNPkO&itok=WHDWj980#.jpg

▻https://www.irinnews.org/special-report/2019/02/21/venezuela-millions-risk-home-and-abroad
#cartographie #visualisation

Leaving Home Through a Darkened Border

I’m sitting on the edge of a boat on the shore of the Grita river, a few kilometers from the Unión bridge. The border between San Antonio del Tachira (Venezuela) and Cucuta (Colombia), one of the most active in Latin America, is tense, dark and uneasy. I got there on a bus from Merida, at around 4:00 a.m., and people were commenting, between WhatsApp messages and audios, that Maduro had opened the border, closed precisely the last time I went through in a violent haze.

Minutes after I got off the bus, I could see hundreds standing in an impossible queue for the Venezuelan immigration office, at Boca de Grita. Coyotes waited on motorbikes, telling people how much cheaper and faster it’d be if they paid to cross through the side trail. I approached the first motorbike I saw, paid 7,000 Colombian pesos (a little over $2) and sleepily made my way through the wet, muddy paths down to the river.
Challenge 1: From Merida to the border

Fuel shortages multiplied the bus fares to the border in less than a month; the few buses that can still make the trip are already malfunctioning. The lonely, dark roads are hunting grounds for pirates, who throw rocks at car windows or set up spikes on the pavement to blow tires. Kidnapping or robberies follow.

The bus I was in stopped several times when the driver saw a particularly dark path ahead. He waited for the remaining drivers traveling that night to join him and create a small fleet, more difficult to attack. The criminals are after what travelers carry: U.S. dollars, Colombian pesos, Peruvian soles, gold, jewelry (which Venezuelans trade at the border for food or medicine, or a ride to Peru or Chile). “It’s a bad sign to find a checkpoint without soldiers,” the co-driver said, as he got off to stretch his legs. “We’ll stop here because it’s safe; we’ll get robbed up ahead.” Beyond the headlights, the road was lost in dusk. This trip usually takes five hours, but this time it took seven, with all the stops and checkpoints along the way.
Challenge 2: Across the river from Venezuela to Colombia

Reaching the river, I noticed how things had changed since the last time I visited. There was no trace of the bottles with smuggled fuel, barrels, guards or even containers over the boats. In fact, there weren’t even that many boats, just the one, small and light, pushed by a man with a wooden stick through muddy waters. I was the only passenger.

The paracos (Colombian paramilitaries) were in a good mood. Their logic is simple: if Maduro opened the border, lots of people would try to cross, but since many couldn’t go through the bridge due to the expensive bribes demanded by the Venezuelan National Guard and immigration agents, this would be a good day for trafficking.

The shortage of fuel in states like Tachira, Merida and Zulia destroyed their smuggling of incredibly cheap Venezuelan fuel to Colombia, and controlling the irregular crossings is now the most lucrative business. Guerrillas and paracos have been at it for a while, but now Venezuelan pro-Maduro colectivos, deployed in Tachira in February to repress protests, took over the human trafficking with gunfire, imposing a new criminal dynamic where, unlike Colombian paramilitaries, they assault and rob Venezuelan migrants.

A woman arrives on a motorbike almost half an hour after me, and comes aboard. “Up there, they’re charging people with large suitcases between 15,000 and 20,000 pesos. It’s going to be really hard to cross today. People will grow tired, and eventually they’ll come here. They’re scared because they’ve heard stories, but everything’s faster here.”

Her reasoning is that of someone who has grown accustomed to human trafficking, who uses these crossings every day. Perhaps she’s missing the fact that, in such a critical situation as Venezuela’s in 2019, most people can no longer pay to cross illegally and, if they have some money, they’d rather use it to bribe their way through the bridge. The binational Unión bridge, 60 km from Cucuta, isn’t that violent, making it the preferred road for families, pregnant women and the elderly.

Coyotes get three more people on the boat, the boatman sails into the river, turns on the rudimentary diesel engine and, in a few minutes, we’re on the other side. It’s not dawn yet and I’m certain this is going to be a very long day.

“I hope they remove those containers from the border,” an old man coming from Trujillo with a prescription for insulin tells me. “I’m sure they’ve started already.” After the failed attempt to deliver humanitarian aid in February, the crossing through the bridges was restricted to all pedestrians and only in a few exceptions a medical patient could be let through (after paying the bribe). The rest still languishes on the Colombian side.
Challenge 3: Joining the Cucuta crowd

I finally reach Cucuta and six hours later, mid-afternoon, I meet with American journalist Joshua Collins at the Simón Bolívar bridge. According to local news, about 70,000 people are crossing it this Saturday alone.

The difference with what I saw last time, reporting the Venezuela Live Aid concert, is astounding: the mass of Venezuelans lifts a cloud that covers everything with a yellowish, dirty and pale nimbus. The scorching desert sunlight makes everyone bow their heads while they push each other, crossing from one side to the other. There’s a stagnant, bitter smell in the air, a kind of musk made of filth, moisture and sweat.

Joshua points to 20 children running barefoot and shirtless after cabs and vehicles. “Those kids wait here every day for people who want to cross in or out with packs of food and merchandise. They load it all on their shoulders with straps on around their heads.” These children, who should be in school or playing with their friends, are the most active carriers nowadays, working for paramilitaries and colectivos.

The market (where you can buy and sell whatever you can think of) seems relegated to the background: what most people want right now is to cross, buy food and return before nightfall. The crowd writhes and merges. People shout and fight, frustrated, angry and ashamed. The Colombian police tries to help, but people move how they can, where they can. It’s unstoppable.

The deepening of the complex humanitarian crisis in the west, plus the permanent shortage of gasoline, have impoverished migrants to a dangerous degree of vulnerability. Those who simply want to reach the border face obstacles like the absence of safe transportation and well-defined enemies, such as the human trafficking networks or the pro-Maduro criminal gangs controlling the roads now. The fear of armed violence in irregular crossings and the oppressive tendencies of the people controlling them, as well as the growing xenophobia of neighboring countries towards refugees, should be making many migrants wonder whether traveling on foot is a good idea at all.

Although the border’s now open, the regime’s walls grow thicker for the poor. This might translate into new internal migrations within Venezuela toward areas less affected by the collapse of services, such as Caracas or the eastern part of the country, and perhaps the emergence of poor and illegal settlements in those forgotten lands where neither Maduro’s regime, nor Iván Duque’s government hold any jurisdiction.

For now, who knows what’s going to happen? The sun sets over the border and a dense cloud of dust covers all of us.

▻https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/06/11/leaving-home-through-a-darkened-border

Israël : l’interrogatoire d’un journaliste américain était une « erreur » selon Netanyahu
AFP Publié le lundi 13 août 2018 à 20h58
▻http://www.lalibre.be/actu/international/israel-l-interrogatoire-d-un-journaliste-americain-etait-une-erreur-selon-ne
Le Premier ministre israélien Benjamin Netanyahu a affirmé lundi que l’interrogatoire auquel a été soumis un journaliste américain à son arrivée en Israël était dû à une « erreur administrative », a indiqué son bureau dans un communiqué.

Peter Beinart, un journaliste de The Forward, a décrit dans un article de ce journal juif américain publié à New York comment il a été interrogé sur ses opinions politiques dimanche pendant une heure par un agent du Shin Beth, le service de sécurité intérieure, à son arrivée à l’aéroport Ben Gourion.

Partisan du boycott des produits en provenance des colonies israéliennes implantées en Cisjordanie, un territoire palestinien occupé par Israël, il a raconté avoir été interrogé « encore et encore sur les noms des organisations +répréhensibles+ » avec lesquelles il était associé.

Le journaliste, qui a affirmé être venu en Israël pour des raisons familiales, a qualifié la conversation de « déprimante, mais pas effrayante ».

« Le Premier ministre a appris que M. Beinart a été questionné à l’aéroport Ben Gourion. Il a immédiatement parlé avec les responsables des forces de sécurité israéliennes pour savoir comment une telle chose avait pu se produire. Il lui a été répondu qu’il s’agissait d’une erreur administrative », indiquent ses services dans leur communiqué.

« Israël est une société ouverte qui accueille aussi bien ceux qui le critiquent que ceux qui le soutiennent », a assuré le Premier ministre.

M. Beinart a réagi sur son compte Twitter en estimant que Benjamin Netanyahu « s’est excusé à moitié (..) ».

« J’accepterai ses excuses lorsqu’il s’excusera auprès de tous les Palestiniens et des Palestino-Américains qui endurent chaque jour des choses bien pire ».

En mars 2017, le Parlement israélien a voté une loi interdisant l’entrée en Israël des partisans du mouvement « BDS » (Boycott, Dé-investissement et Sanctions contre Israël) qui lutte contre l’occupation des territoires palestiniens.

BDS s’inspire de la lutte menée contre le régime de l’apartheid en Afrique du sud.

Une liste d’expulsions aux frontières israéliennes ici :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/364741

#Palestine #Expulsion #Aéroport #Racisme #Douane #Frontière #expulsions_frontières (d’israel) #Peter_Beinart

#BDS !!!

Anti-immigration mood drives fear of racist profiling on EU borders

Europe’s passport-free area under pressure as calls grow for tougher migrant controls.

Police spot checks have become a part of Fahad’s annual summer holiday when driving through the snow-topped mountains of southern Bavaria.

“This usually happens,” said the Kuwaiti father of three, when his silver people-carrier with his wife and children was stopped by German border officers in the idyllic Alpine town of #Kiefersfelden.

Fahad and his family had to wait for more than half an hour at the border post, until they were given a pass to drive from Austria into Germany. During the FT’s three-hour stay at the checkpoint, non-white drivers made up about 70 per cent of cars selected for further checks. Fahad was one of a few drivers with beards, while others included women wearing headscarves and motorists who at first sight did not look like white Europeans. All were waved through once their IDs were checked, vehicle boots searched and luggage examined.

Racial profiling at Europe’s internal borders is forbidden under EU law. But with a fresh wave of anti-immigrant governments calling for tougher controls on migrant movements, there are concerns that non-white people will come under increasing suspicion when travelling in the continent.

Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone — an area made up of 26 European states that abolished passport control at their mutual borders — has buckled under twin pressures: Europe’s biggest influx of refugees since the second world war, and a growing number of anti-immigrant governments pushing to crack down on irregular migration flows. “There is such a fear that Schengen won’t survive that countries are being given the discretion to do whatever they can to keep it alive,” said Elizabeth Collett, director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe think-tank.

Although the number of migrants entering the EU has dropped dramatically since the height of the migration crisis in 2015, emergency powers still allow border controls across 20,000km inside the Schengen zone. Kiefersfelden, a popular skiing destination, has become one of Schengen’s pinch points: it is home to one of three emergency police controls along Germany’s 820km border with Austria.

Every car travelling on the A12 autobahn through Kiefersfelden must pass a police border stop where officers select vehicles for extra spot checks. The cars that are picked are sent to a tented zone, where drivers and passengers must show valid ID documents.

Border police said they are told to look for signs of undocumented migrants and people smugglers crossing into Germany from Austria. So far this year, an average of 900 illegal migrants per month have been detained on the Austro-German border, down from 1,120 per month in 2017.

As racial profiling is outlawed, it is the responsibility of European governments to ensure their police forces carry out checks at random. Rainer Schafer, spokesman for the federal police overseeing the Kiefersfelden controls, said race and ethnicity “can be among the indicators” officers look for when deciding to pull over a vehicle for extra checks.

“But there are no rules that we just pick out the people who look like they are coming from Africa,” he said. Other factors include registration plates (Italian or eastern European plates draw officers’ attention), blacked-out windows, and the number of passengers, he said.

Police checks in Bavaria are expected to intensify after the region’s conservative local government last month requested tougher migration controls.

Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister, has also called on the government to break two decades of EU-wide co-operation on migration and unilaterally send people away at Germany’s internal borders. Observers fear that other Schengen countries, like Austria, could in turn erect their own emergency border controls — and that the EU’s principle of free movement of people is at risk of becoming a privilege enjoyed only by white Europeans.

A report from La Cimade, a French non-governmental organisation, found French border police “systematically check the identity documents of people who do not have the right skin colour” on inbound trains from Italy.

Inga Schwarz, a researcher at the University of Freiburg, said Europe’s internal border crossings are becoming “increasingly racialised spaces, constructed not only by border guards profiling according to race, but also by European citizens who witness these racialised control practices”.

In Kiefersfelden, the majority of the non-white drivers selected for checks were tourists in people-carriers and expensive cars — mostly from the Gulf — and were waved through in less than 15 minutes. Uruj, a 27-year-old teacher from Kuwait, her husband and young daughter waited for nearly an hour in their white Mercedes.

Although they had valid visa documents, police took away their passports and only permitted the family to continue to their holiday destination in Austria once they had obtained a car seat for their three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Wafah. Uruj, who was wearing a pink headscarf, said, “I don’t think they liked the look of us.”

https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-eu.s3.amazonaws.com%2F72c4a5c4-9b01-11e8-9702-5946bae86e6d?source=next&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&width=700#.jpg

Réfugiés : la #Slovénie veut toujours plus de #barbelés sur sa frontière avec la #Croatie

Les autorités slovènes se veulent rassurantes : la sécurité des frontières est assurée et personne n’a d’information sur l’éventuelle réouverture massive de la « #route_des_Balkans ». Pourtant le nouveau gouvernement ne semble pas avoir l’intention d’infléchir la politique migratoire de son prédécesseur et songerait même à étendre les barbelés qui coupent la Slovénie de son voisin croate.

Par Charles Nonne

La question des réfugiés semble ces dernières semaines avoir déserté le débat public en Slovénie. Le contrat de coalition signé le 28 août 2018, lapidaire, dédramatise : « Nous élaborerons une stratégie migratoire exhaustive, basée sur la coopération intergouvernementale. Nous protègerons les frontières de l’espace Schengen avec davantage d’efficacité et nous démonterons les obstacles techniques [barrières et panneaux] dès que les circonstances le permettront. »

Pourtant, les passages de la frontière se poursuivent, notamment dans la région de la Bela Krajina, au sud-est du pays, où la rivière Kolpa sépare Slovénie et Croatie. Selon la police de Novo Mesto, entre le 1er janvier et le 31 septembre 2018, plus de 2400 ressortissants étrangers auraient illégalement franchi la Kolpa, soit douze fois plus qu’en 2017.

Fin septembre, en marge d’un déplacement dans le centre régional de Črnomelj, le nouveau ministre de l’Intérieur, Boris Poklukar, avait affirmé vouloir maintenir les barrières en l’état, tout en garantissant que la police était préparée à une augmentation des passages frontaliers. Pour la maire de Črnomelj, Mojca Čemas Stjepanovič, « pour le moment, la sécurité est garantie et nous n’avons aucune raison de nous inquiéter. » Dans les communes les plus exposées, le gouvernement a promis l’érection de nouveaux « obstacles techniques » : sur les 670 kilomètres de frontière slovéno-croate, plus de 160 sont parcourus par des barbelés et 56 par de véritables barrières.

En Slovénie, c’est notamment les tensions à la frontière entre la Bosnie-Herzégovine et la Croatie qui préoccupent. Si le gouvernement se prépare à plusieurs scénarios, il affirme n’avoir « aucune information laissant penser à une augmentation prochaine des flux », indique le ministre Boris Poklukar. Au nord, l’Autriche a d’ores et déjà annoncé qu’elle ne diminuerait pas la surveillance de sa frontière lors des six prochains mois.

Au-delà du strict contrôle frontalier, d’autres questions divisent : des inquiétudes pèsent notamment sur la possible installation de centres d’accueil, comme à Debeli Rtič, sur la côte slovène, et à Brežice, à 40 kilomètres de Zagreb. La directrice du bureau gouvernemental pour la prise en charge de l’intégration des migrants, Mojca Špec Potočar, a tenu à indiquer qu’« il n’y [aurait] aucune installation permanente de réfugiés. »

La question secoue également les rangs de la coalition : l’ancienne ministre de l’Intérieur, Vesna Györkös Žnidar, « faucon » régulièrement critiqué par les défenseurs des droits de l’homme, vient de claquer la porte de son parti, le Parti du centre moderne (SMC) de l’ancien Premier ministre Miro Cerar, en raison de désaccords profonds sur les questions migratoires.

▻https://www.courrierdesbalkans.fr/Slovenie-le-gouvernement-poursuit-lentement-le-renforcement-de-sa
#fermeture_des_frontières #murs #barrières_frontalières

Kuwait May Suspend Oil Exports Through Bab el Mandeb Strait | OilPrice.com
▻https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Kuwait-May-Suspend-Oil-Exports-Through-Bab-el-Mandeb-Strait.html

https://d32r1sh890xpii.cloudfront.net/news/718x300/e4d5349b9b84c37d29ff66e06927202f.jpg

Kuwait is mulling over whether to suspend oil shipments via the Bab el Mandeb strait in the Red Sea, a Kuwaiti oil official told Reuters on Thursday, after Saudi Arabia said it was suspending oil exports via the crucial chokepoint in the Middle East following an attack on two of its tankers by the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels.

“All options are possible but there is nothing confirmed so far,” Badr al-Khashti, chairman of Kuwait Oil Tanker Company (KOTC), told Reuters today. Kuwait, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, has not made any decision yet on whether to halt oil exports via Bab el Mandeb, the official added.

Tout ce que vous avez toujours voulu savoir sur Bab el-Mandeb…
Bab el-Mandeb, an Emerging #Chokepoint for Middle East Oil Flows - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-26/bab-el-mandeb-an-emerging-chokepoint-for-middle-east-oil-flows

#choke_point
#goulot_d'étranglement ou (?)
#goulet_d'étranglement

Merci ça fait quelques semaines qu’on a le Koweit dans le viseur, les ventes d’armes françaises au Koweit sont passées de 100 millions à 1,1 milliard d’euros de 2016 à 2017. Se prépare-t-il là une intervention militaire intale qui vise à sortir Riyad et Abu Dhabi de l’enlisement au Yémen ?

#allié

#business_on_feminism

Peace Deal Alone Will Not Stem Flow of Eritrean Refugees

The detente with Ethiopia has seen Eritrea slash indefinite military conscription. Researcher Cristiano D’Orsi argues that without a breakthrough on human rights, Eritreans will still flee.

Ethiopia and Eritrea have signed a historic agreement to end the 20-year conflict between the two countries. The breakthrough has been widely welcomed given the devastating effects the conflict has had on both countries as well as the region.

The tension between the two countries led to Eritrea taking steps that were to have a ripple effect across the region – and the world. One in particular, the conscription of young men, has had a particularly wide impact.

Two years before formal cross-border conflict broke out in 1998, the Eritrean government took steps to maintain a large standing army to push back against Ethiopia’s occupation of Eritrean territories. Initially, troops were supposed to assemble and train for a period of 18 months as part of their national service. But, with the breakout of war, the service, which included both military personnel and civilians, was extended. All Eritrean men between the ages of 18–50 have to serve in the army for more than 20 years.

This policy has been given as the reason for large numbers of Eritreans fleeing the country. The impact of the policy on individuals, and families, has been severe. For example, there have been cases of multiple family members being conscripted at the same time. This denied them the right to enjoy a stable family life. Children were the most heavily affected.

It’s virtually impossible for Eritreans to return once they have left as refugees because the Eritrean government doesn’t look kindly on repatriated returnees. Those who are forced to return to the country face persecution and human rights abuses.

In 2017, Eritreans represented the ninth-largest refugee population in the world with 486,200 people forcibly displaced. By May 2018, Eritreans represented 5 percent of the migrants who disembarked on the northern shores of the Mediterranean.

Things look set to change, however. The latest batch of national service recruits have been told their enlistment will last no longer than 18 months. The announcement came in the midst of the dramatic thawing of relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. It has raised hopes that the service could be terminated altogether.

With that said, it remains to be seen whether the end of hostilities between the two countries will ultimately stem the flow of Eritrean refugees.

It’s virtually impossible for Eritreans to return once they have left as refugees because the Eritrean government doesn’t look kindly on repatriated returnees. Those who are forced to return to the country face persecution and human rights abuses.

The Eritrean government’s hardline position has led to changes in refugee policies in countries like the UK. For example, in October 2016, a U.K. appellate tribunal held that Eritreans of draft age who left the country illegally would face the risk of persecution and abuse if they were involuntarily returned to Eritrea.

This, the tribunal said, was in direct violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. As a result, the U.K.’s Home Office amended its immigration policy to conform to the tribunal’s ruling.

Eritrean asylum seekers haven’t been welcome everywhere. For a long time they were persona non grata in Israel on the grounds that absconding national service duty was not justification for asylum. But in September 2016, an Israeli appeals court held that Eritreans must be given the chance to explain their reasons for fleeing at individual hearings, overruling an interior ministry policy that denied asylum to deserters.

The situation is particularly tense for Eritreans in Israel because they represent the majority of African asylum seekers in the country. In fact, in May 2018, Israel and the United Nations refugee agency began negotiating a deal to repatriate African asylum seekers in western countries, with Canada as a primary destination.

An earlier deal had fallen through after public pressure reportedly caused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to back out of it.

Eritreans living as refugees in Ethiopia have been welcomed in Australia where they are one among eight nationalities that have access to a resettlement scheme known as the community support program. This empowers Australian individuals, community organizations and businesses to offer Eritrean refugees jobs if they have the skills, allowing them to settle permanently in the country.

The government has always denied that conscription has anything to do with Eritreans fleeing the country. Two years ago it made it clear that it would not shorten the length of the mandatory national service.

At the time officials said Eritreans were leaving the country because they were being enticed by certain “pull factors.” They argued, for example, that the need for low cost manpower in the West could easily be met by giving asylum to Eritreans who needed just to complain about the National Service to obtain asylum.

But change is on the cards. After signing the peace deal with Ethiopia, Eritrea has promised to end the current conscription regime and announcing that national service duty will last no more than 18 months.

Even so, the national service is likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future to fulfil other parts of its mandate which are reconstructing the country, strengthening the economy, and developing a joint Eritrean identity across ethnic and religious lines.

Eritrea is still a country facing enormous human rights violations. According to the last Freedom House report, the Eritrean government has made no recent effort to address these. The report accuses the regime of continuing to perpetrate crimes against humanity.

If Eritrea pays more attention to upholding human rights, fewer nationals will feel the need to flee. And if change comes within Eritrean borders as fast as it did with Ethiopia, a radical shift in human rights policy could be in the works.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2018/08/09/peace-deal-alone-will-not-stem-flow-of-eritrean-refugees

#asile #réfugiés

Eritrea has slashed conscription. Will it stem the flow of refugees?

Ethiopia and Eritrea have signed an historic agreement to end the 20-year conflict between the two countries. The breakthrough has been widely welcomed given the devastating effects the conflict has had on both countries as well as the region.

The tension between the two countries led to Eritrea taking steps that were to have a ripple effect across the region – and the world. One in particular, the conscription of young men, has had a particularly wide impact.

Two years before formal cross border conflict broke out in 1998, the Eritrean government took steps to maintain a large standing army to push back against Ethiopia’s occupation of Eritrean territories. Initially, troops were supposed to assemble and train for a period of 18 months as part of their national service. But, with the breakout of war, the service, which included both military personnel and civilians, was extended. All Eritrean men between the ages of 18 – 50 have to serve in the army for more than 20 years.

This policy has been given as the reason for large numbers of Eritreans fleeing the country. The impact of the policy on individuals, and families, has been severe. For example, there have been cases of multiple family members being conscripted at the same time. This denied them the right to enjoy a stable family life. Children were the most heavily affected.

In 2017, Eritreans represented the ninth-largest refugee population in the world with 486,200 people forcibly displaced. By May 2018 Eritreans represented 5% of the migrants who disembarked on the northern shores of the Mediterranean.

Things look set to change, however. The latest batch of national service recruits have been told their enlistment will last no longer than 18 months. The announcement came in the midst of the dramatic thawing of relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. It has raised hopes that the service could be terminated altogether.

With that said, it remains to be seen whether the end of hostilities between the two countries will ultimately stem the flow of Eritrean refugees.
The plight of Eritrean refugees

It’s virtually impossible for Eritreans to return once they have left as refugees because the Eritrean government doesn’t look kindly on repatriated returnees. Those who are forced to return to the country face persecution and human rights abuses.

The Eritrean government’s hard line position has led to changes in refugee policies in countries like the UK. For example, in October 2016 a UK appellate tribunal held that Eritreans of draft age who left the country illegally would face the risk of persecution and abuse if they were involuntarily returned to Eritrea.

This, the tribunal said, was in direct violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. As a result, the UK’s Home Office amended its immigration policy to conform to the tribunal’s ruling.

Eritrean asylum seekers haven’t been welcome everywhere. For a long time they were persona non grata in Israel on the grounds that absconding national service duty was not justification for asylum. But in September 2016 an Israeli appeals court held that Eritreans must be given the chance to explain their reasons for fleeing at individual hearings, overruling an interior ministry policy that denied asylum to deserters.

The situation is particularly tense for Eritreans in Israel because they represent the majority of African asylum-seekers in the country. In fact, in May 2018, Israel and the United Nations refugee agency began negotiating a deal to repatriate African asylum-seekers in western countries, with Canada as a primary destination.

An earlier deal had fallen through after public pressure reportedly caused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to back out of it.

Eritreans living as refugees in Ethiopia have been welcomed in Australia where they are one among eight nationalities that have access to a resettlement scheme known as the community support programme. This empowers Australian individuals, community organisations and businesses to offer Eritrean refugees jobs if they have the skills, allowing them to settle permanently in the country.
The future

The government has always denied that conscription has anything to do with Eritreans fleeing the country. Two years ago it made it clear that it would not shorten the length of the mandatory national service.

At the time officials said Eritreans were leaving the country because they were being enticed by certain “pull factors”. They argued, for example, that the need for low cost manpower in the West could easily be met by giving asylum to Eritreans who needed just to complain about the National Service to obtain asylum.

But change is on the cards. After signing the peace deal with Ethiopia, Eritrea has promised to end the current conscription regime and announcing that national service duty will last no more than 18 months.

Even so, the national service is likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future to fulfil other parts of its mandate which are reconstructing the country, strengthening he economy, and developing a joint Eritrean identity across ethnic and religious lines.

Eritrea is still a country facing enormous human rights violations. According to the last Freedom House report, the Eritrean government has made no recent effort to address these. The report accuses the regime of continuing to perpetrate crimes against humanity.

If Eritrea pays more attention to upholding human rights, fewer nationals will feel the need to flee. And if change comes within Eritrean borders as fast as it did with Ethiopia, a radical shift in human rights policy could be in the works.

▻https://theconversation.com/eritrea-has-slashed-conscription-will-it-stem-the-flow-of-refugees-

#conscription #service_militaire #armée

Out of Eritrea: What happens after #Badme?

On 6 June 2018, the government of Ethiopia announced that it would abide by the Algiers Agreement and 2002 Eritrea-Ethiopian Boundary Commission decision that defined the disputed border and granted the border town of Badme to Eritrea. Over the last 20 years, Badme has been central to the dispute between the two countries, following Ethiopia’s rejection of the ruling and continued occupation of the area. Ethiopia’s recently appointed Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed acknowledged that the dispute over Badme had resulted in 20 years of tension between the two countries. To defend the border areas with Ethiopia, in 1994 the Eritrean government introduced mandatory military service for all adults over 18. Eritrean migrants and asylum seekers often give their reason for flight as the need to escape this mandatory national service.

Since 2015, Eritreans have been the third largest group of people entering Europe through the Mediterranean, and have the second highestnumber of arrivals through the Central Mediterranean route to Italy. According to UNHCR, by the end of 2016, 459,390 Eritreans were registered refugees in various countries worldwide. Various sources estimate Eritrea’s population at 5 million people, meaning that approximately 10% of Eritrea’s population has sought refuge abroad by 2016.
Mandatory military service – a driver of migration and displacement

As data collection from the Mixed Migration Centre’s Mixed Migration Monitoring Mechanism Initiative (4Mi) shows, 95% of Eritrean refugees and migrants surveyed gave fear of conscription into national service as their main reason for flight out of Eritrea. Men and women from 18 to 40 years old are required by law to undertake national service for 18 months — including six months of military training followed by 12 months’ deployment either in military service or in other government entities including farms, construction sites, mines and ministries.
In reality, national service for most conscripts extends beyond the 18 months and often indefinite. There are also reported cases of children under 18 years old being forcefully recruited. Even upon completion of national service, Eritreans under the age of 50 years may been enrolled in the Reserve Army with the duty to provide reserve military service and defend the country from external attacks or invasions.

According to Human Rights Watch, conscripts are subject to military discipline and are harshly treated and earn a salary that often ranges between USD 43 – 48 per month. The length of service is unpredictable, the type of abuse inflicted on conscripts is at the whim of military commanders and the UN Commission of inquiry on human rights in Eritrea reported on the frequent sexual abuse of female conscripts. Eritrea has no provision for conscientious objection to national service and draft evaders and deserters if arrested are subjected to heavy punishment according to Amnesty International, including lengthy periods of detention, torture and other forms of inhuman treatment including rape for women. For those who escape, relatives are forced to pay fines of 50,000 Nakfa (USD 3,350) for each family member. Failure to pay the fine may result in the arrest and detention of a family member until the money is paid which further fuels flight from Eritrea for families who are unable to pay the fine.

The government of Eritrea asserts that compulsory and indefinite national service is necessitated by continued occupation of its sovereign territories citing Ethiopia as the main threat. In its response to the UN Human Rights Council Report that criticised Eritrea for human rights violations including indefinite conscription, Eritrea stated that one of its main constraints to the fulfilment of its international and national obligations in promoting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms is the continued occupation of its territory by Ethiopia.

In 2016, Eritrea’s minister for Information confirmed that indefinite national service would remain without fundamental changes even in the wake of increased flight from the country by citizens unwilling to undertake the service. The Minister went on to state that Eritrea would contemplate demobilization upon the removal of the ‘main threat’, in this case Eritrea’s hostile relationship with Ethiopia. Eritrea and Ethiopia have both traded accusations of supporting opposition/militia groups to undermine each other both locally and abroad. If the relations between the countries turn peaceful, this could potentially have an impact on Eritrean migration, out of the country and out of the region.

In the absence of hostilities and perceived security threats from its neighbour, it is possible that Eritrea will amend – or at least be open to start a dialogue about amending – its national service (and military) policies from the current mandatory and indefinite status, which has been one of the major root causes of the movement of Eritreans out of their country and onwards towards Europe. Related questions are whether an improvement in the relations with Ethiopia could also bring an immediate or longer term improvement in the socio-economic problems that Eritrea faces, for example through expanded trade relations between the two countries? Will this change usher in an era of political stability and an easing of military burdens on the Eritrean population?
A possible game changer?

The border deal, if it materialises, could at some time also have serious implications for Eritrean asylum seekers in Europe. Eritreans applying for asylum have relatively high approval rates. The high recognition rate for Eritrean asylum seekers is based on the widely accepted presumptionthat Eritreans who evade or avoid national service are at risk of persecution. In 2016 for example, 93% of Eritreans who sought asylum in EU countries received a positive decision. This recognition rate was second to Syrians and ahead of Iraqis and Somalis; all countries that are in active conflict unlike Eritrea. If the government of Eritrea enacts positive policy changes regarding conscription, the likely effect could be a much lower recognition rate for Eritrean asylum seekers. It is unclear how this would affect those asylum seekers already in the system.

While Eritreans on the route to Europe and in particular those arriving in Italy, remain highly visible and receive most attention, many Eritreans who leave the country end up in refugee camps or Eritrean enclaves in neighbouring countries like Sudan and Ethiopia or further away in Egypt. After they flee, most Eritreans initially apply for refugee status in Ethiopia’s and Sudan’s refugee camps. As Human Rights Watch noted in 2016, the Eritrean camp population generally remains more or less stable. While many seek onward movements out of the camps, many refugees remain in the region. With these potentially new developments in Eritrea, will the Eritreans in Sudan, Ethiopia and other neighbouring countries feel encouraged or compelled to return at some, or will they perhaps be forced to return to Eritrea?
What’s next?

Conservative estimates in 2001 put the cost of the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia at USD 2.9 billion in just the first three years. This has had an adverse effect on the economies of the two countries as well as human rights conditions. In 2013, Eritrea expressed its willingness to engage in dialogue with Ethiopia should it withdraw its army from the disputed territory which it further noted is occupied by 300,000 soldiers from both countries. Ethiopia has previously stated its willingness to surrender Badme, without in the end acting upon this promise. Should this latest promise be implemented and ties between two countries normalized, this might herald positive developments for both the economy and the human rights situation in both countries, with a potential significant impact on one of the major drivers of movement out of Eritrea.

However, with the news that Ethiopia would move to define its borders in accordance with international arbitration, the possibilities for political stability and economic growth in Eritrea remain uncertain. On 21 June 2018, the President of Eritrea Isaias Aferwerki issued a statement saying that Eritrea would send a delegation to Addis Ababa to ‘gauge current developments… chart out a plan for continuous future action’. The possibility of resulting peace and economic partnership between the two countries could, although a long-term process, also result in economic growth on both sides of the border and increased livelihood opportunities for their citizens who routinely engage in unsafe and irregular migration for political, humanitarian and economic reasons.

▻http://www.mixedmigration.org/articles/out-of-eritrea

sur l’ouverture des frontières entre les deux pays, voir :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/721926

Despite the peace deal with Ethiopia, Eritrean refugees are still afraid to return home

When Samuel Berhe thinks of Eritrea, he sees the sand-colored buildings and turquoise water of Asmara’s shoreline. He sees his sister’s bar under the family home in the capital’s center that sells sweet toast and beer. He sees his father who, at 80 years old, is losing his eyesight but is still a force to be reckoned with. He thinks of his home, a place that he cannot reach.

Berhe, like many other Eritreans, fled the country some years ago to escape mandatory national service, which the government made indefinite following the 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia. The war cost the countries an estimated 100,000 lives, while conscription created a generation of Eritrean refugees. The UNHCR said that in 2016 there were 459,000 Eritrean exiles out of an estimated population of 5.3 million.

So, when the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a sudden peace deal in July 2018, citizens of the Horn of Africa nations rejoiced. Many took to the streets bearing the two flags. Others chose social media to express their happiness, and some even dialed up strangers, as phone lines between the nations were once again reinstated. It felt like a new era of harmony and prosperity had begun.

But for Berhe, the moment was bittersweet.

“I was happy because it is good for our people but I was also sad, because it doesn’t make any change for me,” he said from his home in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. “I will stay as a refugee.”

Like many other Eritrean emigrants, Berhe fled the country illegally to escape national service. He fears that if he returns, he will wind up in jail, or worse. He does not have a passport and has not left Ethiopia since he arrived on the back of a cargo truck 13 years ago. His two daughters, Sarah, 9, and Ella, 11, for whom he is an only parent, have never seen their grandparents or their father’s homeland.

Now that there is a direct flight, Berhe is planning on sending the girls to see their relatives. But before he considers returning, he will need some sort of guarantee from Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki, who leads the ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, that he will pardon those who left.

“The people that illegally escaped, the government thinks that we are traitors,” he said. “There are many, many like me, all over the world, too afraid to go back.”

Still, hundreds fought to board the first flights between the two capitals throughout July and August. Asmara’s and Addis Ababa’s airports became symbols of the reunification as hordes of people awaited their relatives with bouquets daily, some whom they hadn’t seen for more than two decades.

“When I see the people at the airport, smiling, laughing, reuniting with their family, I wish to be like them. To be free. They are lucky,” Berhe said.

Related: Chronic insomnia plagues young migrants long after they reach their destination

Zala Mekonnen, 38, an Eritrean Canadian, who was one of the many waiting at arrivals in Addis Ababa, said she had completely given up on the idea that the two nations — formerly one country — would ever rekindle relations.

Mekonnen, who is half Ethiopian, found the 20-year feud especially difficult as her family was separated in half. In July, her mother saw her uncle for the first time in 25 years.

“We’re happy but hopefully he’s [Afwerki] going to let those young kids free [from conscription],” she said. “I’m hoping God will hear, because so many of them died while trying to escape. One full generation lost.”

Related: A life of statelessness derailed this Eritrean runner’s hopes to compete in the Olympics

Mekonnen called the peace deal with Ethiopia a crucial step towards Eritrean democracy. But Afwerki, the 72-year-old ex-rebel leader, will also have to allow multiple political parties to exist, along with freedom of religion, freedom of speech and reopening Asmara’s public university while also giving young people opportunities outside of national service.

“The greeting that Afwerki received here in Ethiopia [following the agreement to restore relations], he didn’t deserve it,” said Mekonnen. “He should have been hung.”

Since the rapprochement, Ethiopia’s leader, Abiy Ahmed, has reached out to exiled opposition groups, including those in Eritrea, to open up a political dialogue. The Eritrean president has not made similar efforts. But in August, his office announced that he would visit Ethiopia for a second time to discuss the issue of rebels.

Laura Hammond, a professor of developmental studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said that it is likely Afwerki will push for Ethiopia to send Eritrean refugees seeking asylum back to Eritrea.

“The difficulty is that, while the two countries are normalizing relations, the political situation inside Eritrea is not changing as rapidly,” Hammond said. “There are significant fears about what will happen to those who have left the country illegally, including in some cases escaping from prison or from their national service bases. They will need to be offered amnesty if they are to feel confident about returning.”

To voice their frustrations, thousands of exiled Eritreans gathered in protest outside the UN headquarters in Geneva on Aug. 31. Amid chants of “enough is enough” and “down, down Isaias,” attendees held up placards calling for peace and democracy. The opposition website, Harnnet, wrote that while the rapprochement with Ethiopia was welcomed, regional and global politicians were showing “undeserved sympathy” to a power that continued to violate human rights.

Sitting in front of the TV, Berhe’s two daughters sip black tea and watch a religious parade broadcast on Eritrea’s national channel. Berhe, who has temporary refugee status in Ethiopia, admits that one thing that the peace deal has changed is that the state’s broadcaster no longer airs perpetual scenes of war. For now, he is safe in Addis Ababa with his daughters, but he is eager to obtain a sponsor in the US, Europe or Australia, so that he can resettle and provide them with a secure future. He is afraid that landlocked Ethiopia might cave to pressures from the Eritrean government to return its refugees in exchange for access to the Red Sea port.

“Meanwhile my girls say to me, ’Why don’t we go for summer holiday in Asmara?’” he laughs. “They don’t understand my problem.”

https://media.pri.org/s3fs-public/styles/story_main/public/images/2018/09/2_eritrea.jpg?itok=6guNX_RC#.jpg https://media.pri.org/s3fs-public/styles/original_image/public/images/2018/09/airport.jpg?itok=ue48nOwP#.jpg https://media.pri.org/s3fs-public/styles/original_image/public/images/2018/09/airportreunion.jpg?itok=BR3uyFk_#.jpg

Etiopia: firmato ad Asmara accordo di pace fra governo e Fronte nazionale di liberazione dell’#Ogaden

Asmara, 22 ott 09:51 - (Agenzia Nova) - Il governo dell’Etiopia e i ribelli del Fronte nazionale di liberazione dell’Ogaden (#Onlf) hanno firmato un accordo di pace nella capitale eritrea Asmara per porre fine ad una delle più antiche lotte armate in Etiopia. L’accordo, si legge in una nota del ministero degli Esteri di Addis Abeba ripresa dall’emittente “Fana”, è stato firmato da una delegazione del governo etiope guidata dal ministro degli Esteri Workneh Gebeyehu e dal presidente dell’Onlf, Mohamed Umer Usman, i quali hanno tenuto un colloquio definito “costruttivo” e hanno raggiunto un “accordo storico” che sancisce “l’inizio di un nuovo capitolo di pace e stabilità in Etiopia”. L’Onlf, gruppo separatista fondato nel 1984, è stato etichettato come organizzazione terrorista dal governo etiope fino al luglio scorso, quando il parlamento di Addis Abeba ha ratificato la decisione del governo di rimuovere i partiti in esilio – tra cui appunto l’Onlf – dalla lista delle organizzazioni terroristiche. La decisione rientra nella serie di provvedimenti annunciati dal premier Abiy Ahmed per avviare il percorso di riforme nel paese, iniziato con il rilascio di migliaia di prigionieri politici, la distensione delle relazioni con l’Eritrea e la parziale liberalizzazione dell’economia etiope.

▻https://www.agenzianova.com/a/5bcd9c24083997.87051681/2142476/2018-10-22/etiopia-firmato-ad-asmara-accordo-di-pace-fra-governo-e-fronte-nazional

Hier Etat paria, l’Erythrée en passe de devenir un acteur central de la Corne de l’Afrique

Avec la levée des sanctions des Nations unies, le pays d’Isaias Afwerki pourra exploiter son potentiel économique et géostratégique.

▻https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2018/11/14/hier-etat-paria-l-erythree-en-passe-de-devenir-un-acteur-central-de-la-corne

UN: No Rights Progress in Eritrea After Peace Deal With Ethiopia

U.N. experts say Eritrea’s human rights record has not changed for the better since the government signed a peace agreement with Ethiopia last year, formally ending a two decades-long border conflict. The U.N. Human Rights Council held an interactive dialogue on the current situation in Eritrea this week.

After a 20-year military stalemate with Ethiopia, hopes were high that the peace accord would change Eritrea’s human rights landscape for the better.

U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore said that has not happened. She said Eritrea has missed a historic opportunity because the government has not implemented urgently needed judicial, constitutional and economic reforms.

She said the continued use of indefinite national service remains a major human rights concern.

“Conscripts continue to confront open-ended duration of service, far beyond the 18 months stipulated in law and often under abusive conditions, which may include the use of torture, sexual violence and forced labor,” she said.

Gilmore urged Eritrea to bring its national service in line with the country’s international human rights obligations.

“The peace agreement signed with Ethiopia should provide the security that the government of Eritrea has argued it needs to discontinue this national service and help shift its focus from security to development…. In the absence of promising signs of tangible human rights progress, that flow of asylum-seekers is not expected to drop,” Gilmore said.

https://gdb.voanews.com/E6BE025B-CE31-4088-A5E5-CAE5D403D668_w650_r0_s.jpg

Human rights groups say unlimited national service forces thousands of young men to flee Eritrea every month to seek asylum in Europe. They say many lose their lives making the perilous journey across the Sahara Desert or while crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

The head of the Eritrean delegation to the Council, Tesfamicael Gerahtu, said his country has had to adopt certain measures to counter the negative effect of the last 20 years on peace, security and development. He insists there is no human rights crisis in his country.

He accused the Human Rights Council of exerting undue pressure on Eritrea by monitoring his country’s human rights situation and adopting detrimental resolutions. He called the actions counterproductive.

“The honorable and productive way forward is to terminate the confrontational approach on Eritrea that has been perpetrated in the last seven years and that has not created any dividend in the promotion of human rights. And, there is no crisis that warrants a Human Rights Council agenda or special mandate on Eritrea,” Gerahtu said.

Daniel Eyasu , head of Cooperation and International Relations of the National Youth Union and Eritrean Students, agrees there is no human rights crisis in Eritrea. He offered a positive spin on the country’s controversial national service, calling it critical for nation building.

Unfortunately, he said, the reports of the council’s special procedures characterizing national service as modern slavery is unwarranted, unjustified and unacceptable.

The Founder of One Day Seyoum, Vanessa Tsehaye, said the government has not changed its stripes. She said it is as repressive today as it was before the peace accord with Ethiopia was signed.

Tsehaye’s organization works for the release of her uncle, a journalist who has been imprisoned without a trial in Eritrea since 2001 and for all people unjustly imprisoned. She said they continue to languish in prison.

“The standoff at the border cannot justify the fact that all capable Eritreans are enlisted into the national service indefinitely. It cannot justify the fact that the country’s constitution still has not been implemented and that the parliament still has not convened since 2002. It does not justify the fact that the only university in the country has been shut down, that the free press has still not been opened and that tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned without a trial simply for expressing their opinions, practicing their religion or attempting to leave their country,” Tsehaye said.

But delegates at the council welcomed the peace process and expressed hope it will result in better protection for the Eritrean people. But they noted the prevailing abusive conditions are not promising.

They urged the government to reform its military service, release all political prisoners, stop the practice of arbitrary arrests, and end torture and inhumane detention conditions.

▻https://www.voanews.com/a/eritrea-human-rights/4834072.html
#processus_de_paix #droits_humains

#répression violente coordonnée dans les #universités en #France ? Liste ici :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/679256

Message reçu via email concernant l’évacuation à Amsterdam, j’anonymise le message :

After the video images and my own experience of Saturday’s protests and comments by Geert ten Dam have sinked in, I would like to give my personal impression of what all of this means.

Unfortunately there is now a pattern indicating that the CvB has a conscious policy of criminalizing any student protest that enters the terrain of civil disobedience and that trespasses any “normal” rule of conduct for the sake of protest.

1) There was Ten Dam’s statement, after De Decentralen and Humanities Rally had ended their commitment to the student councils.
They had written in their letter about their disappointment with the given power structures and indicated their assessment that another occupation could become possible in the future. Ten Dam’s then said in an interview for AT5 that the students had “called for violence” ("oproep tot geweld"). This was an astonishing radicalization of language based on two falsehoods: 1. an occupation in itself cannot be labelled violence, 2. the students did not actually “call for” any occupation in their letter.

2) After a demonstration organized by the students in order to bring to the streets a number of demands backed by the CvB, they intended to playfully extend their protest for a night by installing a small number of little tents on the Roeterseilandcampus. They were asked to leave by the dean of the Social Sciences, but did not want to. Then the riot police came and did what they unfortunately do (remember Bungehuis and especially Maagdenhuis “eviction”), they used physical force to not only evict the students but even people sitting on the terrace of CREA, because they appeared as sympathizing with the protest (according to Folia’s photographer’s Daniël Rommens blog (▻http://www.danielrommens.nl/2018/06/10/studentenprotest-en-hardhandige-ontruiming-op-uva-campus ) This amounts to a tactic of “purging” the campus of anybody who looked critical.

The two reasons why it was so urgent that the students had to leave are both not convincing.
It was said it was too loud while the clients on the terrace café Crea were arguably generating more noise than the student.
It was said that the terrain was needed the next day to install an alumni-day program for kids. The students had already promised to leave 9h the next day. Yet, the next day at 11.30 h the place was still completely empty, at around 12 h a very small part of the place was prepared for a play.

3) On Saturday, two policement were on campus. I am not quite sure what they were supposed to do, but at the very least, they sent one student away at the entrance of the campus. The student then found another way in at the back of CREA (I will not comment further on the fact that this was a Dutch student of colour).

4) Apparently there had been discussions to not let any assumed “protesters” in the “Room of Discussion” venue. During the event, I couldn’t help but think that we were meant to be grateful for this apparent tolerance.

Personally, the two policement who “welcomed” me on the Roeterseiland campus on Saturday were the most shocking experience. Is THIS going to be the new normal? And what happens next? What kind of message is this for critical students? What kind of message for critical academics?

Ten Dam said in the discussion that the University of Amsterdam was “the most democratic university in the Netherlands”.
If this is true, I really fear not only for the future of Dutch universities, but also for the future of democracy in this country.

Errata corrige :

It was not the dean of the Social Sciences who asked the students to leave, but Hans Brug, the dean of the economy faculty. (This information gives a certain neoliberal securatization flavour to the whole situation.)

Voir un article publié dans Streetpress et signalé sur seenthis en octobre 2017, où il était question d’expulsion de réfugiés soudanais :
Comment la France a livré des opposants politiques à la dictature soudanaise

▻https://seenthis.net/messages/634346

Et ici l’article du New York Times, repris par Lejdd :

By Stifling Migration, Sudan’s Feared Secret Police Aid Europe

At Sudan’s eastern border, Lt. Samih Omar led two patrol cars slowly over the rutted desert, past a cow’s carcass, before halting on the unmarked 2,000-mile route that thousands of East Africans follow each year in trying to reach the Mediterranean, and then onward to Europe.

His patrols along this border with Eritrea are helping Sudan crack down on one of the busiest passages on the European migration trail. Yet Lieutenant Omar is no simple border agent. He works for Sudan’s feared secret police, whose leaders are accused of war crimes — and, more recently, whose officers have been accused of torturing migrants.

Indirectly, he is also working for the interests of the European Union.

“Sometimes,” Lieutenant Omar said, “I feel this is Europe’s southern border.”

Three years ago, when a historic tide of migrants poured into Europe, many leaders there reacted with open arms and high-minded idealism. But with the migration crisis having fueled angry populism and political upheaval across the Continent, the European Union is quietly getting its hands dirty, stanching the human flow, in part, by outsourcing border management to countries with dubious human rights records.

In practical terms, the approach is working: The number of migrants arriving in Europe has more than halved since 2016. But many migration advocates say the moral cost is high.
To shut off the sea route to Greece, the European Union is paying billions of euros to a Turkish government that is dismantling its democracy. In Libya, Italy is accused of bribing some of the same militiamen who have long profited from the European smuggling trade — many of whom are also accused of war crimes.

In Sudan, crossed by migrants trying to reach Libya, the relationship is more opaque but rooted in mutual need: The Europeans want closed borders and the Sudanese want to end years of isolation from the West. Europe continues to enforce an arms embargo against Sudan, and many Sudanese leaders are international pariahs, accused of committing war crimes during a civil war in Darfur, a region in western Sudan

But the relationship is unmistakably deepening. A recent dialogue, named the Khartoum Process (in honor of Sudan’s capital) has become a platform for at least 20 international migration conferences between European Union officials and their counterparts from several African countries, including Sudan. The European Union has also agreed that Khartoum will act as a nerve center for countersmuggling collaboration.

While no European money has been given directly to any Sudanese government body, the bloc has funneled 106 million euros — or about $131 million — into the country through independent charities and aid agencies, mainly for food, health and sanitation programs for migrants, and for training programs for local officials.

“While we engage on some areas for the sake of the Sudanese people, we still have a sanction regime in place,” said Catherine Ray, a spokeswoman for the European Union, referring to an embargo on arms and related material.

“We are not encouraging Sudan to curb migration, but to manage migration in a safe and dignified way,” Ms. Ray added.

Ahmed Salim, the director of one of the nongovernmental groups that receives European funding, said the bloc was motivated by both self-interest and a desire to improve the situation in Sudan.

“They don’t want migrants to cross the Mediterranean to Europe,” said Mr. Salim, who heads the European and African Center for Research, Training and Development.

But, he said, the money his organization receives means better services for asylum seekers in Sudan. “You have to admit that the European countries want to do something to protect migrants here,” he said.

Critics argue the evolving relationship means that European leaders are implicitly reliant on — and complicit in the reputational rehabilitation of — a Sudanese security apparatus whose leaders have been accused by the United Nations of committing war crimes in Darfur.

“There is no direct money exchanging hands,” said Suliman Baldo, the author of a research paper about Europe’s migration partnership with Sudan. “But the E.U. basically legitimizes an abusive force.”

On the border near Abu Jamal, Lieutenant Omar and several members of his patrol are from the wing of the Sudanese security forces headed by Salah Abdallah Gosh, one of several Sudanese officials accused of orchestrating attacks on civilians in Darfur.

Elsewhere, the border is protected by the Rapid Support Forces, a division of the Sudanese military that was formed from the janjaweed militias who led attacks on civilians in the Darfur conflict. The focus of the group, known as R.S.F., is not counter-smuggling — but roughly a quarter of the people-smugglers caught in January and February this year on the Eritrean border were apprehended by the R.S.F., Lieutenant Omar said.

European officials have direct contact only with the Sudanese immigration police, and not with the R.S.F., or the security forces that Lieutenant Omar works for, known as N.I.S.S. But their operations are not that far removed.

The planned countertrafficking coordination center in Khartoum — staffed jointly by police officers from Sudan and several European countries, including Britain, France and Italy — will partly rely on information sourced by N.I.S.S., according to the head of the immigration police department, Gen. Awad Elneil Dhia. The regular police also get occasional support from the R.S.F. on countertrafficking operations in border areas, General Dhia said.

“They have their presence there and they can help,” General Dhia said. “The police is not everywhere, and we cannot cover everywhere.”

Yet the Sudanese police are operating in one unexpected place: Europe.

In a bid to deter future migrants, at least three European countries — Belgium, France and Italy — have allowed in Sudanese police officers to hasten the deportation of Sudanese asylum seekers, General Dhia said.

Nominally, their official role is simply to identify their citizens. But the officers have been allowed to interrogate some deportation candidates without being monitored by European officials with the language skills to understand what was being said.

More than 50 Sudanese seeking asylum in Europe have been deported in the past 18 months from Belgium, France and Italy; The New York Times interviewed seven of them on a recent visit to Sudan.

Four said they had been tortured on their return to Sudan — allegations denied by General Dhia. One man was a Darfuri political dissident deported in late 2017 from France to Khartoum, where he said he was detained on arrival by N.I.S.S. agents.

Over the next 10 days, he said he was given electric shocks, punched and beaten with metal pipes. At one point the dissident, who asked that his name be withheld for his safety, lost consciousness and had to be taken to the hospital. He was later released on a form of parole.
The dissident said that, before his deportation from France, Sudanese police officers had threatened him as French officers stood nearby. “I said to the French police: ‘They are going to kill us,’” he said. “But they didn’t understand.”

European officials argue that establishing Khartoum as a base for collaboration on fighting human smuggling can only improve the Sudanese security forces. The Regional Operational Center in Khartoum, set to open this year, will enable delegates from several European and African countries to share intelligence and coordinate operations against smugglers across North Africa.

But potential pitfalls are evident from past collaborations. In 2016, the British and Italian police, crediting a joint operation with their Sudanese counterparts, announced the arrest of “one of the world’s most wanted people smugglers.” They said he was an Eritrean called Medhanie Yehdego Mered, who had been captured in Sudan and extradited to Italy.

The case is now privately acknowledged by Western diplomats to have been one of mistaken identity. The prisoner turned out to be Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, an Eritrean refugee with the same first name as the actual smuggler. Mr. Mered remains at large.

Even General Dhia now admits that Sudan extradited the wrong man — albeit one who, he says, admitted while in Sudanese custody to involvement in smuggling.

“There were two people, actually — two people with the same name,” General Dhia said.

Mr. Berhe nevertheless remains on trial in Italy, accused of being Mr. Mered — and of being a smuggler.

Beyond that, the Sudanese security services have long been accused of profiting from the smuggling trade. Following European pressure, the Sudanese Parliament adopted a raft of anti-smuggling legislation in 2014, and the rules have since led to the prosecution of some officials over alleged involvement in the smuggling business.

But according to four smugglers whom I interviewed clandestinely during my trip to Sudan, the security services remain closely involved in the trade, with both N.I.S.S and R.S.F. officials receiving part of the smuggling profits on most trips to southern Libya.

The head of the R.S.F., Brig. Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, has claimed in the past that his forces play a major role in impeding the route to Libya. But each smuggler — interviewed separately — said that the R.S.F. was often the main organizer of the trips, often supplying camouflaged vehicles to ferry migrants through the desert.

After being handed over to Libyan militias in Kufra and Sabha, in southern Libya, many migrants are then systematically tortured and held for ransom — money that is later shared with the R.S.F., each smuggler said.

Rights activists have previously accused Sudanese officials of complicity in trafficking. In a 2014 report, Human Rights Watch said that senior Sudanese police officials had colluded in the smuggling of Eritreans.

A British journalist captured by the R.S.F. in Darfur in 2016 said that he had been told by his captors that they were involved in smuggling people to Libya. “I asked specifically about how it works,” said the journalist, Phil Cox, a freelance filmmaker for Channel 4. “And they said we make sure the routes are open, and we talk with whoever’s commanding the next area.”

General Dhia said that the problem did not extend beyond a few bad apples. Sudan, he said, remains an effective partner for Europe in the battle against irregular migration.

“We are not,” he said, “very far from your standards.”

▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/22/world/africa/migration-european-union-sudan.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSo
#externalisation

Concernant les expulsions de ressortissants soudanais par l’Italie, voir notamment :
"Italia deporta illegalmente migranti in Sudan"
►https://seenthis.net/messages/518543

Et concernant les expulsions depuis la Belgique :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/651075

Et concernant la #Suisse:
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/689183

Soudan : des demandeurs d’asile torturés après avoir été expulsés par la France

Un dissident politique du #Darfour, expulsé par la France fin 2017, affirme notamment avoir été électrocuté, battu et frappé avec des tuyaux en métal pendant dix jours.
En Belgique, c’est un scandale. En France, le silence est... assourdissant. Dans une grande enquête, publiée dimanche 22 avril, le « New York Times » révèle que des demandeurs d’asile soudanais renvoyés par la France, l’Italie et la Belgique, ont été torturés à leur retour dans leur pays.

Une enquête de Streetpress, publiée en octobre dernier, révélait déjà que la police française collaborait étroitement, et depuis 2014, avec la dictature soudanaise, et favorisait « le renvoi à Khartoum d’opposants politiques réfugiés en France ». Le titre de Streetpress parlait de lui-même : « Comment la France a livré des opposants politiques à la dictature soudanaise ».
Le quotidien américain a de son côté retrouvé des demandeurs d’asile et a publié les témoignages de quatre d’entre eux. Ils ont été arrêtés dès leur retour puis torturés par le régime soudanais. Un dissident politique du Darfour expulsé par la France fin 2017, affirme ainsi avoir été électrocuté, battu et frappé avec des tuyaux en métal pendant dix jours. Il affirme qu’avant son expulsion, des officiers de police soudanais l’ont menacé en présence d’officiers français :
""Je leur ai dit : ’Ils vont nous tuer’, mais ils n’ont pas compris.""
Des policiers soudanais dans des centres de rétention

Interrogé par le « New York Times », le régime du général Omar el-Béchir dément. Le dictateur, qui dirige depuis 28 ans le Soudan, est visé par un mandat d’arrêt en 2008 de la Cour pénale internationale pour génocide, crimes contre l’humanité et crimes de guerre, comme le rappelle « le Journal du dimanche ».

Comme l’écrit le quotidien américain, la Belgique, la France et l’Italie ont autorisé des « officiels soudanais » à pénétrer dans leurs centres de rétention et à interroger des demandeurs d’asile soudanais. Ces « officiels » étaient en réalité des policiers soudanais. Selon le « New York Times », les entretiens dans les centres de rétention entre les « officiels » soudanais et les demandeurs d’asile se seraient faits « en l’absence de fonctionnaire capable de traduire les propos échangés ».

En Belgique, les révélations sur les expulsions de demandeurs d’asile soudanais ont provoqué de vives tensions. En septembre dernier, le Premier ministre belge Charles Michel a reconnu devant une commission d’enquête de son Parlement que les polices de plusieurs pays européens collaboraient étroitement avec la dictature soudanaise d’Omar el-Béchir.

►https://www.nouvelobs.com/monde/20180424.OBS5650/soudan-des-demandeurs-d-asile-tortures-apres-avoir-ete-expulses-par-la-fr

Et, signalé par @isskein sur FB, un communiqué de Migreurop qui date d’il y a une année. Rappel :

L’Europe collabore avec un dictateur pour mieux expulser vers le Soudan

Migreurop demande l’arrêt immédiat de toutes les collaborations initiées par l’Union européenne et ses Etats membres avec la dictature d’Omar El-Béchir et avec tout Etat qui bafoue les droits fondamentaux.

►http://www.migreurop.org/article2837.html

Soudan : des demandeurs d’asile torturés après avoir été expulsés par la France

Un dissident politique du Darfour, expulsé par la France fin 2017, affirme notamment avoir été électrocuté, battu et frappé avec des tuyaux en métal pendant dix jours.

▻https://actus.nouvelobs.com/monde/20180424.OBS5650/soudan-des-demandeurs-d-asile-tortures-apres-avoir-ete-expulses-par

Des soudanais expulsés par la France affirment avoir été torturés à leur retour au pays

Le quotidien américain The New York Times a rencontré plusieurs anciens demandeurs d’asile soudanais, renvoyés dans leur pays par la France. Ils affirment avoir été torturés par les autorités soudanaises à leur retour.

▻http://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/8852/des-soudanais-expulses-par-la-france-affirment-avoir-ete-tortures-a-le

Une ONG présentée dans le film, au Ghana :
#Food_sovereignty_ghana

Food Sovereignty Ghana is a grass-roots movement of Ghanaians, home and abroad, dedicated to the promotion of food sovereignty in Ghana. Our group believes in the collective control over our collective resources, rather than the control of our resources by multinational corporations and other foreign entities. This movement is a product of Special Brainstorming Session meeting on the 21st of March, 2013, at the Accra Freedom Centre. The meeting was in response to several calls by individuals who have been discussing, writing, or tweeting, about the increasing phenomenon of land grabs, the right to water and sanitation as a fundamental human right, water privatization issues, deforestation, climate change, carbon trading and Africa’s atmospheric space, and in particular, the urgent issue of the introduction of GM food technology into our agriculture, particularly, its implications on food sovereignty, sustainable development, biodiversity, and the integrity of our food and water resources, human and animal health, and our very existence as a politically independent people. These calls insisted that these issues need to be comprehensively addressed in a systematic and an organized manner.

Foremost in these calls was the need for a comprehensive agricultural policy that respects the multi-functional roles played by agriculture in our daily lives, and resists the avaricious calculations behind the proposition that food is just another commodity or component for international agribusiness. The trade in futures or speculation involving food have pushed food prices beyond the reach of almost a billion of people in the world who go to bed, each day, hungry. Even though we have have doubled the amount of food to feed everybody in the world today, people still don’t have access to food. The primary cause of this is the neo-liberal agenda of the imperialists, such as the SAP, EPA, AGOA, TRIPS, AoA, AFSNA, AGRA, which have the focus on marginalising the small family farm agriculture that continues to feed over 80% of Africa and replacing them with governance structures, agreements and practices that depend on and promote unsustainable and inequitable international trade and give power to remote and unaccountable corporations.

We came together in order to help turn a new leaf. We see a concerted effort, over the years, to distort our agriculture to such an extent that today, our very survival as a free and independent people crucially depend on how fast we are able to apply the breaks, and to rather urgently promote policies that focus on food for people, and value our local food providers, the arduous role of the resilient small family farm for thousands of years. We need to resist imperialist policies such as the Structural Adjustment Programmes of the World Bank and the IMF which rolled away 30 years of gains towards food sovereignty in the 1970s and 80s. Those African countries that graduated from the SAP were subsequently slammed with HIPIC. In all these years, the imperialist countries fortified their agricultural production with heavy government subsidies, as Africa saw the imposition of stringent conditionality removing all government subsidies on our own agriculture. The effect has been a destruction of our local food production capacity and a dependence on corporations for our daily food needs. This has had a devastating effect on Africa’s agriculture, and our ability to feed ourselves.

We believe that a proper analysis of the food crisis is a matter that cannot be left with trade negotiators, investment experts, or agricultural engineers. It is essentially a matter of political economy. As Jean Ziegler succinctly puts it, “Every child who dies of hunger in today’s world has been murdered.” Our Food Under Our Control! is determined to make sure that such a crime becomes impossible in Ghana. Our number one mission is to switch the language from food security to food sovereignty as the goal, to repeat the words food sovereignty at every opportunity and say we don’t want food security, that can still be dependence, we want food sovereignty, we need food sovereignty. This is not the same as “food security”. A country can have food security through food imports. Dependence on food imports is precarious and prone to multiple risks — from price risks, to supply risks, to conditionality risks (policy conditions that come with food imports). Food sovereignty, on the other hand, implies ensuring domestic production and supply of food. It means that the nationals of the country (or at the very least nationals within the region) must primarily be responsible for ensuring that the nation and the region are first and foremost dependent on their own efforts and resources to grow their basic foods.

Aims and objectives:

1. To help promote the people’s right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and to generally ensure the priority of domestic food crops produced by small farms over export crops.

2. To help create mass awareness about the political, economic, health and environmental impacts of genetically modified food technology and defend the right of the people to define their own food and agricultural systems.

3. To help ensure small farms are sustained by state provision and facilitation of necessary infrastructure: Security of land tenure, Water, Financial credit, Energy, Fertilizers, Transport, Storage, Extension service, Marketing, Technology and Equipment for production, harvesting, storage and transport, and Insurance against crop failures due to climate changes, or other unforeseen circumstances.

4. To help resist the theft, destruction, and loss of the Commons, our natural and indigenous resources, by means of laws, commercial contracts and intellectual property rights regimes, and to generally serve as the watch-dog over all aspects of agricultural sustainability in Ghana.

5. To help protect and preserve public access to and ownership of the Commons: Water, Land, Air, Seeds, Energy, Plants, Animals, and work closely with like-minded local, national, and international organisations in the realization of the foregoing objectives.

http://foodsovereigntyghana.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/head21.jpg

Un chercheur, #Damián_Verzeñassi de l’#université_de_Rosario, mentionné il y a une année dans un article de Mediapart :

Argentine : soja transgénique voisine avec maladies

Avia Terai, ville de 10 000 habitants, est exposée aux pulvérisations incessantes sur ses champs de soja et de coton de glyphosate, le composant de base de l’herbicide de Monsanto. Un pesticide que l’Organisation mondiale pour la santé a étiqueté cancérogène en 2015. Ici, des enfants naissent avec des malformations, des troubles neurologiques sévères et le taux de cancer est trois fois plus élevé que la moyenne nationale, selon l’étude du docteur argentin Damián Verzeñassi de l’université de Rosario. De son côté, Monsanto nie catégoriquement l’authenticité de ces études et considère que la #toxicité de son produit phare Roundup n’a pas encore été prouvée.

▻https://www.mediapart.fr/studio/portfolios/argentine-soja-transgenique-voisine-avec-maladies

Le chercheur a fait une étude dans laquelle il montrait un lien entre le glyphosate et le développement de cancer :
“Hay una incidencia del glifosato en los nuevos casos de cáncer”

Desde 2010 se hicieron relevamientos en 32 localidades de la región pampeana y se relevaron más de 110 mil personas. Según Verzeñassi, si se encontró en estas localidades, donde se aplicó el modelo productivo con transgénicos a base de agrotóxicos, un pico muy importante de casos de cáncer, hipotiroidismo y abortos espontáneos.

https://rosarionuestro.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/damina-versenazi2.jpg

#Red_de_Médicos_de_Pueblos_Fumigados (Argentine)

La Red Universitaria de Ambiente y Salud (REDUAS) es una coordinación entre profesionales universitarios, académicos, científicos, miembros de equipos de salud humana en sus distintos niveles y demás estudiosos, preocupados por los efectos deletéreos de la salud humana que genera el ambiente degradado a consecuencias de la actividad productiva humana, especialmente cuando esta se da a gran escala y sustentada en una visión extractivista.

La REDUAS surge como una de las decisiones tomadas en el 1º Encuentro de Médicos de Pueblos Fumigados, realizado en la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba y organizado por el Modulo de Determinantes Sociales de la Salud de la Cátedra de Pediatría y por la Cátedra de Medicina I de dicha Facultad; concretado el 26 y 27 de agosto de 2010

La REDUAS se construye para unir, coordinar y potenciar el trabajo de investigación científica, asistencia sanitaria, análisis epidemiológico y divulgación ,difusión y defensa del derecho a la salud colectiva, que realizan equipos que desarrollan este tipo de actividades en 10 provincias distintas de la Republica Argentina y que se encuentran activados por el problema del daño a la salud que ocasiona la fumigación o aspersión, sistemática de más de 300 millones de litros de plaguicidas sobre casi 12 millones de personas que conviven con los sembradíos de cultivos agroindustriales.

Para avanzar en ese sentido se propone aportar al debate público por la necesidad de construir prácticas productivas que permitan una supervivencia feliz de la especie humana en la superficie terrestre y de la responsabilidad publica, privada, colectiva e individual en el resguardo de esas condiciones ecológicas.

Considerando al derecho a la salud, como uno de los valores sociales que debemos tratar de privilegiar en el análisis de las decisiones políticas y económicas que se toman en nuestra sociedad, creemos necesario ampliar la difusión del conocimiento de los datos científicos que se dispone, y que muchas veces se invisibilizan; aportar a la generación de nuevos datos e informaciones experimentales y observacionales – poblacionales; y potenciar la voz de los equipos de salud, investigadores y pobladores en general afectados en sus derechos por agresiones ambiéntales generadas por practicas productivas ecológicamente agresivas.

http://reduas.com.ar/wp-content/themes/twentyten/images/headers/header-v1.jpg

#Madres_de_Ituzaingo_Anexo-Cordoba
▻http://madresdeituzaingoanexo.blogspot.fr

Madres de #Ituzaingó: 15 años de pelea por el ambiente

En marzo de 2002 salieron a la calle por primera vez para reclamar atención sanitaria ante la cantidad de enfermos en el barrio.Lograron mejorar la zona y alejar las fumigaciones, nuevas normas ambientales y un juicio inédito. Dicen que la lucha continúa. Un juicio histórico

http://wpc.72c72.betacdn.net/8072C72/lvi-images/sites/default/files/styles/landscape_1020_560/public/nota_periodistica/madres_ituzaingo_1.jpg

#Manu_Chao: Te lo digo, te lo canto: FUERA MONSANTO!!
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHGt7z-br5g

Transgenic DNA introgressed into traditional maize landraces in #Oaxaca, Mexico

Concerns have been raised about the potential effects of transgenic introductions on the genetic diversity of crop landraces and wild relatives in areas of crop origin and diversification, as this diversity is considered essential for global food security. Direct effects on non-target species1,2, and the possibility of unintentionally transferring traits of ecological relevance onto landraces and wild relatives have also been sources of concern3,4. The degree of genetic connectivity between industrial crops and their progenitors in landraces and wild relatives is a principal determinant of the evolutionary history of crops and agroecosystems throughout the world5,6. Recent introductions of transgenic DNA constructs into agricultural fields provide unique markers to measure such connectivity. For these reasons, the detection of transgenic DNA in crop landraces is of critical importance. Here we report the presence of introgressed transgenic DNA constructs in native maize landraces grown in remote mountains in Oaxaca, Mexico, part of the Mesoamerican centre of origin and diversification of this crop7,8,9.

▻https://www.nature.com/articles/35107068

#Gilles-Éric_Séralini

Gilles-Éric Séralini, né le 23 août 1960 à Bône en Algérie1, est un biologiste français, professeur de biologie moléculaire à l’université de Caen2. Il est cofondateur, administrateur et membre du conseil scientifique du CRIIGEN3, parrain de l’association Générations Cobayes4 et lanceur d’alerte5. Il est aussi membre du conseil scientifique de The Organic Center6, une association dépendant de l’Organic Trade Association (en)7, « le principal porte-parole du business bio aux États-Unis »8, et parrain de la Fondation d’entreprise Ekibio9.

Il s’est fait notamment connaître du grand public pour ses études sur les OGM et les pesticides, et en particulier en septembre 2012 pour une étude toxicologique portée par le CRIIGEN mettant en doute l’innocuité du maïs génétiquement modifié NK 603 et du Roundup sur la santé de rats10,11. Cette étude, ainsi que les méthodes utilisées pour la médiatiser, ont été l’objet d’importantes controverses, les auteurs étant accusés d’instrumentaliser de la science, ou même suspectés de fraude scientifique12,13. En réalité, les agences de santé européennes et américaines réagissent sur le tard, indiquant les lacunes et faiblesses méthodologiques rédhibitoires de la publication (notamment un groupe de contrôle comportant un nombre d’individus ridiculement bas). Certains dénoncent aussi un manque de déontologie pour s’assurer d’un « coup de communication ». La revue Food and Chemical Toxicology retire l’étude en novembre 2013.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Pr_seralini_sept2013.jpg/440px-Pr_seralini_sept2013.jpg

Dans le documentaire on parle notamment d’un article qu’il a publié dans la revue « Food and chemical toxicology », que j’ai cherché sur internet... et... suprise suprise... je l’ai trouvé, mais le site de Elsevier dit... « RETRACTED »
Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize
▻https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637

Il est par contre dispo sur sci-hub !
▻http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2012.08.005

voici la conclusion :

In conclusion, it was previously known that glyphosate con- sumption in water above authorized limits may provoke hepatic and kidney failures ( EPA ). The results of the study presented here clearly demonstrate that lower levels of complete agricultural gly- phosate herbicide formulations, at concentrations well below offi- cially set safety limits, induce severe hormone-dependent mammary, hepatic and kidney disturbances. Similarly, disruption of biosynthetic pathways that may result from overexpression of the EPSPS transgene in the GM NK603 maize can give rise to com- parable pathologies that may be linked to abnormal or unbalanced phenolic acids metabolites, or related compounds. Other muta- genic and metabolic effects of the edible GMO cannot be excluded. This will be the subject of future studies, including transgene and glyphosate presence in rat tissues. Reproductive and multigenera- tional studies will also provide novel insights into these problems. This study represents the first detailed documentation of long- term deleterious effects arising from the consumption of a GM R- tolerant maize and of R, the most used herbicide worldwide. Altogether, the significant biochemical disturbances and physi- ological failures documented in this work confirm the pathological effects of these GMO and R treatments in both sexes, with different amplitudes. We propose that agricultural edible GMOs and formu- lated pesticides must be evaluated very carefully by long term studies to measure their potential toxic effects.

#RiskOGM

RiskOGM constitue depuis 2010 l’action de recherche du ministère en charge de l’Écologie, du Développement durable et de l’Énergie pour soutenir la structuration d’une communauté scientifique et le développement de connaissances, de méthodes et de pratiques scientifiques utiles à la définition et à la mise en œuvre des politiques publiques sur les OGM.

Le programme s’appuie sur un Conseil Scientifique et sur un Comité d’Orientation qui réunit des parties prenantes.

Les axes de recherche prioritaires identifiés portent sur les plans de surveillance générale des OGM, la coexistence des cultures, la gouvernance, les aspects économiques, éthiques et sociaux ou encore la démarche globale d’analyse de la sécurité des aliments contenant des produits transgéniques,

3 projets en cours ont été soutenus après un 1er appel à proposition fin 2010. Fin 2013, suite à un deuxième appel, le projet (#PGM / #GMO90plus) a été sélectionné et soutenu à hauteur de 2,5 M€. Il vise à une meilleure connaissance des effets potentiels sur la santé de la consommation sur une longue durée de produits issus des plantes génétiquement modifiées.

▻http://recherche-riskogm.fr/fr
#programme_de_recherche

Un projet dont fait partie #Bernard_Salles, rattaché à l’INRA, interviewé dans le documentaire.
Lui, semble clean, contrairement au personnage que je vais un peu après, Pablo Steinberg

Projet #G-Twyst :

G-TwYST is the acronym for Genetically modified plants Two Year Safety Testing. The project duration is from 21 April 2014 – 20 April 2018.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has developed guidance for the risk assessment of food and feed containing, consisting or produced from genetically modified (GM) plants as well as guidance on conducting repeated-dose 90-day oral toxicity study in rodents on whole food/feed. Nonetheless, the long-term safety assessment of genetically modified (GM) food/feed is a long-standing controversial topic in the European Union. At the present time there are no standardized protocols to study the potential short-, medium- and/or long-term toxicity of GM plants and derived products. Against this backdrop the main objective of the G-TwYST project is to provide guidance on long-term animal feeding studies for GMO risk assessment while at the same time responding to uncertainties raised through the outcomes and reports from recent (long-term) rodent feeding studies with whole GM food/feed.

In order to achieve this, G-TwYST:

Performs rat feeding studies for up to two years with GM maize NK603. This includes 90 day studies for subchronic toxicity, 1 year studies for chronic toxicity as well as 2 year studies for carcinogenicity. The studies will be based on OECD Test Guidelines and executed according to EFSA considerations
Reviews recent and ongoing research relevant to the scope of G-TwYST
Engages with related research projects such as GRACE and GMO90plus
Develops criteria to evaluate the scientific quality of long-term feeding studies
Develops recommendations on the added value of long-term feeding trials in the context of the GMO risk assessment process.
As a complementary activity - investigates into the broader societal issues linked to the controversy on animal studies in GMO risk assessment.
Allows for stakeholder engagement in all key steps of the project in an inclusive and responsive manner.
Provides for utmost transparency of what is done and by whom it is done.

G-TwYST is a Collaborative Project of the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities. The proposal for G-TwYST was established in reponse to a call for proposals on a two-year carcinogenicity rat feeding study with maize NK603 that was launched by he European Commission in June 2013 (KBBE.2013.3.5-03).

▻https://www.g-twyst.eu

Attention : ce projet semble être sous forte influence des lobbys de l’OGM...

Fait partie de ce projet #Pablo_Steinberg, interviewé dans le documentaire.

Pablo Steinberg est d’origine argentine, il est également le toxicologue du projet « #GRACE : GMO Risk Assessment and communication evidence », financé par l’UE :

GRACE was a project funded under the EU Framework 7 programme and undertaken by a consortium of EU research institutes from June 2012 - November 2015. The project had two key objectives:

I) To provide systematic reviews of the evidence on the health, environmental and socio-economic impacts of GM plants – considering both risks and possible benefits. The results are accessible to the public via an open access database and other channels.

II) GRACE also reconsidered the design, execution and interpretation of results from various types of animal feeding trials and alternative in vitro methods for assessing the safety of GM food and feed.

The Biosafety Group was involved in the construction of the central portal and database (CADIMA; Central Access Database for Impact Assessment of Crop Genetic Improvement Technologies) that managed the information gathered in the pursuit of the two objectives and in the dissemination of information.

▻http://biosafety.icgeb.org/projects/grace

La conférence finale de présentation du projet GRACE a été organisée à Potsdam... un 9 novembre... date-anniversaire de la chute du mur...
Voici ce que #Joachim_Schiemann, coordinateur du projet, dit à cette occasion (je transcris les mots prononcés par Schiemann dans le reportage) :

« Nous aussi, avec nos activités, nous essayons d’abattre certains murs et de faire bouger certaines positions qui sont bloquées. Je trouve que c’est très symbolique d’avoir organisé cette conférence à Potsdam, à proximité de Berlin et des vestiges du mur »

Prof. Potrykus on #Golden_Rice

#Ingo_Potrykus, Professor emeritus at the Institute of Plant Sciences, ETH Zurich, is one of the world’s most renowned personalities in the fields of agricultural, environmental, and industrial biotechnology, and invented Golden Rice with Peter Beyer. In contrast to usual rice, this one has an increased nutritional value by providing provitamin A. According to WHO, 127 millions of pre-school children worldwide suffer from vitamine A deficiency, causing some 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness every year. This deficiency is responsible for 600,000 deaths among children under the age of 5.

▻https://blog.psiram.com/2013/09/prof-potrykus-on-golden-rice
Ce riz, enrichi de #bêtacarotène pour pallier aux carences de #provitamine_A, a valu, à Monsieur #Potrykus, la couverture du Time, une première pour un botaniste :

https://blog.psiram.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/who_ingo-TIME.jpg

Golden Illusion. The broken promise of GE ’Golden’ rice

GE ’Golden’ rice is a genetically engineered (GE, also called genetically modified, GM) rice variety developed by the biotech industry to produce pro-vitamin A (beta-carotene). Proponents portray GE ’Golden’ rice as a technical, quick-fix solution to Vitamin A deficiency (VAD), a health problem in many developing countries. However, not only is GE ’Golden’ rice an ineffective tool to combat VAD it is also environmentally irresponsible, poses risks to human health, and compromises food security.

▻https://www.greenpeace.org/archive-international/en/publications/Campaign-reports/Genetic-engineering/Golden-Illusion
#rapport

#MASIPAG (#Philippines)

MASIPAG a constaté que les paysans qui pratiquent la production agricole biologique gagnent en moyenne environ 100 euros par an de plus que les autres paysans, parce qu’ils ne dépensent pas d’argent dans des fertilisants et pesticides chimiques. Dans le contexte local, cela représente une économie importante. En plus, l’agriculture biologique contribue à un milieu plus sain et à une réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Malgré cela, le gouvernement philippin poursuit une politique ambiguë. En 2010, il a adopté une loi sur la promotion de l’agriculture biologique, mais en même temps il continue à promouvoir les cultures génétiquement modifiées et hybrides nécessitant le recours aux intrants chimiques. La loi actuelle insiste également sur une certification couteuse des produits bio par les tiers, ce qui empêche les #petits_paysans de certifier leurs produits.

▻http://astm.lu/projets-de-solidarite/asie/philipinnes/masipag
#paysannerie #agriculture_biologique

#AquAdvantage

Le saumon AquAdvantage (#AquAdvantage_salmon® pour les anglophones, parfois résumé en « #AA_Salmon » ou « #AAS ») est le nom commercial d’un saumon transgénique et triploïde1.

Il s’agit d’un saumon atlantique modifié, créé par l’entreprise AquaBounty Technologies (en)2 qui est devenu en mai 2016 le premier poisson génétiquement modifié par transgenèse commercialisé pour des fins alimentaires. Il a obtenu à cette date une autorisation de commercialisation (après son évaluation3) au Canada. En juillet 2017, l’entreprise a annoncé avoir vendu 4,5 tonnes de saumon AquAdvantage à des clients Canadiens qui ont à ce jour gardés leur anonymat4. L’entreprise prévoit de demander des autorisations pour des truites5, des tilapias 5 et de l’omble arctique génétiquement modifiés6.

Selon les dossiers produits par AquaBounty à la FDA, deux gènes de saumons Chinook et deux séquences provenant d’une autre espèce (loquette d’Amérique) ont été introduits7, (information reprise par un article du New-York Times8 et un article scientifique évoquent aussi un gène provenant d’un autre poisson (loquette d’Amérique9). En 2010, AquaBounty, produirait déjà au Canada sur l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard les œufs de poissons destinés à des élevages en bassins enclavés à terre au Panama10 pour des poissons à exporter (alors que l’étiquetage n’est toujours pas obligatoire aux États-Unis)10.

Ce poisson est controversé. Des préoccupations scientifiques et environnementalistes portent sur les risques d’impacts environnementaux à moyen et long terme, plus que sur le risque alimentaire. La FDA a considéré que la modification était équivalente à l’utilisation d’un médicament vétérinaire (hormone de croissance et modification transgénique)11 et a donc utilisé son processus (dit « NADA12 ») d’évaluation vétérinaire. Dans ce cadre, la FDA a conclu que ce poisson ne présentait a priori pas de risques pour la santé, et pouvait être cultivé de manière sûre. Mais en 2013, l’opportunité d’élever un tel poisson reste très contestée13 notamment depuis au moins 1986 concernant les risques qu’il pourrait poser à l’égard de l’environnement14, l’autorisation de mise sur le marché pourrait être à nouveau repoussée15.

https://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/images/alimentation/minis/Saumon-Frankenfish.jpg

Aussi appelé...
#FrankenFish

En Amérique du Nord, l’enjeu premier est celui de l’#étiquettage concernant la présence ou non d’OGM...

A ce sujet, le #documentaire Modifié, de #Aube_Giroux (Canada, 1h27, 2017)
►https://www.modifiedthefilm.com

https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2017/10/fullsizeoutput_1d74.jpeg.860x0_q70_crop-scale.jpg

Forensic Oceanography – visibleproject
▻http://www.visibleproject.org/blog/project/forensic-oceanography-various-locations-in-europe-and-northern-afric

http://www.visibleproject.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/va2_liquid-traces.jpg

Forensic Oceanography (FO) is a project that critically investigates the militarised border regime in the Mediterranean Sea, analysing the spatial and aesthetic conditions that have caused over 16,500 registered deaths at the maritime borders of Europe over the last 20 years. Together with a wide network of NGOs, scientists, journalists and activist groups, FO has produced, since 2011, several maps, video animations (e.g. Liquid Traces), visualisations, human rights reports (e.g. the report on the ‘Left-to-Die Boat’ case) and websites (e.g. www.watchthemed.net) that attempt to document the violence perpetrated against migrants at sea and challenge the regime of visibility imposed by surveillance means on this contested area.

By combining testimonies of human rights violations with digital technologies such as satellite imagery, vessel tracking data, geo-spatial mapping and drift modelling, FO has exercised a critical right to look at sea with a two-fold purpose. On the one hand, using surveillance means ‘against the grain’, it has produced spatial analysis that has been used within existing legal and political forums, supporting the quest for justice of migrants and their families in legal proceedings, parliamentary auditions, human rights and journalistic investigations. At the same time, through a series of installations and articles, FO has attempted to spur a debate on the politics of image production in the age of surveillance and on what it means to produce images, videos and sounds that become evidence and documentation of human rights violations.

Bonjour @unagi !
Super de mettre en avant le travail de Lorenzo Pezzani e Charles Heller...
Toutefois, je voulais te rendre attentif du fait que les vidéos que tu as postés relèvent de différentes enquêtes faites par les deux chercheurs...

Celle-ci :
►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CQaj2KNIZw

Pour les autres, il y a pas mal de documentation sur seenthis.

Non, sorry @unagi c’est moi qui me suis trompée...

En fait ils ont utilisé le site blamingtherescuers (ton premier lien) aussi pour y mettre leur dernière analyse, celle de la #Iuventa.
Je me suis trompée car « Blaming the rescuers » a été aussi le titre d’un de leurs rapports...
#sorry

Don’t be sorry.