Oh My God ! Facebook (et tous ses amis) est planté !
Et on se tourne d’urgence ( :-D :-D :-D ) vers les sites où on a publié un jour... pour voir si les zombies n’ont pas encore tout dévoré...
Roger Mason - Le blues chez Bouvard
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh7VcJVu80Y&ab_channel=RogerMason
#art #humour #facebook #crash #vangauguin #age_des_cavernes_numériques
Instagram and Facebook users checking out Twitter while they’re down
▻https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1166160308529848320/pu/vid/360x640/g8w6sqojQGtrs1H6.mp4?tag=10
▻https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1445058116765327364?s=19
Les réfugié.e.s afghan.e.s bloqué.e.s à la frontière turque ont besoin de la protection de l’UE
Alors que les ministres de l’intérieur de l’UE se réunissent aujourd’hui pour discuter de la situation en Afghanistan et des personnes afghanes déplacées, il est urgent de fournir aux Afghan.e.s une protection et une aide immédiates dans les pays de transit et au sein de l’UE. Au lieu de cela, ils.elles sont coincé.e.s dans les limbes à la frontière turque.
Depuis juin 2021, des centaines de réfugié.e.s – dont des Afghan.e.s – qui tentaient de passer dans la région turque de #Van, à la frontière avec l’#Iran, ont été détenu.e.s par les forces de sécurité turques. Des itinéraires dangereux utilisés par les passeurs ont été réactivés entre la région de Van et Istanbul, à travers le lac de Van et l’autoroute Tatvan, entraînant des incidents mortels, des noyades et des risques accrus de violences sexuelles. La Turquie a accéléré la construction d’un #mur destiné à couvrir l’ensemble des 295 km de sa frontière avec l’Iran. Le mur sera équipé de mesures de sécurité, telles que des tours de guet, des caméras thermiques, des radars et des capteurs. De plus, le ministre turc de l’Intérieur a envoyé 35 équipes chargées des opérations spéciales et 50 véhicules armés en renfort aux soldats qui patrouillent le long de la frontière et empêchent les réfugié.e.s d’accéder au territoire. En une seule opération, en juillet 2021, plus de 1.400 Afghan.e.s ont été refoulé.e.s vers l’Iran par les gardes-frontières et la police militaire turcs. Le 19 août 2021, le Président turc Tayyip Erdogan déclarait que la Turquie ne deviendrait pas « l’unité de stockage des migrants de l’Europe ».
Les réfugié.e.s afghan.e.s sont victimes de graves défaillances en matière de de protection en Turquie : ils.elles n’ont droit ni à une protection au titre de la Convention de Genève de 1951, ni à aucune « protection temporaire » comme les Syrien.ne.s. Selon des rapports internationaux, entre 2018 et 2019, au moins 53.000 ressortissant.e.s afghan.e.s auraient été expulsé.e.s de Turquie. Par ailleurs, les tensions au sein des communautés d’accueil, les attaques racistes et crimes de haine contre les réfugié.e.s se sont intensifiées. La récente déclaration du ministre grec des migrations, Notis Mitarachi, visant à considérer la Turquie comme un pays « sûr » pour les demandeurs.ses d’asile originaires de Syrie, d’Afghanistan, du Pakistan, du Bangladesh et de Somalie, est extrêmement inquiétante. Cela entraînera l’accélération des retours forcés d’Afghan.e.s ayant besoin de protection, des îles grecques vers la Turquie.
#Grèce et #Bulgarie renforcent aussi le contrôle aux frontières
La Grèce, elle aussi, a récemment achevé la construction d’un mur de 40 km à sa frontière avec la Turquie et mis en place un nouveau système de surveillance pour dissuader les demandeurs.ses d’asile potentiel.le.s de tenter de rejoindre l’Europe. La Grèce a adopté des politiques migratoires et d’asile abjectes, se traduisant par des détentions massives, des retours, des conditions d’accueil déplorables sur les îles grecques et la criminalisation d’ONG travaillant avec les migrant.e.s et les réfugié.e.s. À l’autre frontière de l’UE avec la Turquie, la Bulgarie renforce également les contrôles pour empêcher les migrant.e.s d’entrer sur son territoire, en envoyant 400 soldats aux frontières avec la Turquie et la Grèce. Résultat : depuis le début de l’année 2021, 14.000 migrant.e.s ont été arrêté.e.s.
D’autres États membres et l’UE elle-même développent un discours qui soutient cette approche. Le Président français, Emmanuel Macron, affirme que « nous devons nous protéger contre les grands flux migratoires irréguliers », tandis que le Président du Conseil européen, Charles Michel, insiste sur la détermination de l’UE à maintenir « les frontières de l’UE protégées ».
Dans ce contexte, l’Union européenne et ses États membres devraient plutôt déclencher d’urgence la Directive sur la protection temporaire – comme mentionné par le Haut Représentant Josep Borrell – afin d’offrir une protection immédiate aux réfugié.e.s afghan.e.s et d’harmoniser le degré de protection reconnu à ces derniers. Les taux de reconnaissance varient considérablement en Europe. Les États membres de l’UE devraient aussi tenir leurs promesses de réinstallation, faciliter les procédures de regroupement familial et intensifier les voies légales pour offrir à tou.te.s les réfugié.e.s, y compris celles et ceux qui sont le plus en danger comme les femmes et les personnes LGBTIQ+, un accueil adéquat, un accès à l’asile et aux droits fondamentaux.
▻https://euromedrights.org/fr/publication/les-refugie-e-s-afghan-e-s-bloque-e-s-a-la-frontiere-turque-ont-besoi
#Turquie #réfugiés #réfugiés_afghans #Afghanistan #asile #migrations #réfugiés #frontières #frontières_fermées #fermeture_des_frontières #murs #barrières_frontalières #militarisation_des_frontières #contrôles_frontaliers
Turkey builds a border wall to stop refugees from Afghanistan
Fearing a new refugee crisis, Turkey is reinforcing its border with Iran to stop a potential influx of Afghans fleeing Taliban rule.
Some refugees who fled weeks and months ago have already started to show up at the rugged border area.
Now, three-metre-high concrete slabs are being installed to stop them.
According to Turkish authorities, security forces have prevented the passage of over 69 thousand irregular migrants and arrested 904 suspects accused of being human traffickers.
Local media report a 155-kilometre stretch of a planned 241-kilometre wall has already been erected at the border.
Turkey has been a key transit point for asylum seekers heading to Europe to flee war and persecution.
We won’t become Europe’s ’refugee warehouse’, says Erdogan
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government had brushed off warnings and criticism from opposition parties about an increase in the number of migrants from Afghanistan.
This week, he admitted that Turkey faces a new refugee wave from Afghanistan and said his cabinet would work with Pakistan to try and bring stability to the war-ravaged country.
Erdogan also called on European nations on Thursday to shoulder the responsibility for Afghans fleeing the Taliban and warned that his country won’t become Europe’s “refugee warehouse.”
▻https://www.euronews.com/2021/08/20/turkey-builds-a-border-wall-to-stop-refugees-from-afghanistan
#murs #barrières_frontalières #Iran #asile #migrations #réfugiés #réfugiés_afghans #Turquie
Turkey’ eastern Iran border to be safer with modular wall system
To ensure the safety and security of the Turkish-Iranian border, a 295-kilometer (183-mile) long wall will be constructed along the entire shared border, Emin Bilmez, the governor of the eastern province of #Van, said Tuesday. It is hoped that the wall will help to prevent illegal crossings and the trafficking of contraband and that it will also hinder terrorists from infiltrating.
“Due to the increasing waves of migration, our land forces have dispatched two reconnaissance and two commando companies along with armed vehicles to the region. The Ministry of the Interior has allocated 35 special operations teams and 50 armed vehicles to the zone to assist the troops guarding the border,” Bilmez said.
“We have been digging ditches for the past two years at a width of 4 meters (13 feet) and a depth of 4 meters. Barbed wire will enclose the entrance of these ditches,” Bilmez added.
“Along the whole 295-kilometer long border, we will put up a wall. We foresee that a section of 64 kilometers will be readied by the end of the year. A tender is being prepared for an additional 63 kilometers of wall. We expect the process to be finalized within this year. The remaining sections will be finished in the upcoming years. In addition to the wall construction, there will be 58 watchtowers and 45 communication towers. Towers will be equipped with thermal cameras, radars, sensors and fire control systems,” Bilmez said.
300 organizers arrested
Both armed and unarmed UAVs have been deployed on the border, conducting reconnaissance missions 24/7. Gathered images are being transferred to relevant departments. 105,000 irregular migrants have been either prevented from crossing the border or apprehended on Turkish soil over the last year, Bilmez added.
“This year alone, we have captured and processed over 55,000 irregular migrants on our borders. 783 organizers (traffickers who make arrangements for migrants to cross illegally) have been processed and around 300 of them have been arrested, from January 2021 until July 2021. The sum of all organizers processed last year was 599."
▻https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/turkey-eastern-iran-border-to-be-safer-with-modular-wall-system/news
#modules #mur_modulaire
Tweet de Mariano Giustino (22.07.2021):
La Turquie construit un mur pour bloquer les réfugiés afghans à la frontière iranienne
Dans la région de Van située à l’Est de la Turquie, les autorités ont érigé un mur en béton de 150 kilomètres le long de la frontière avec l’Iran. Le retour au pouvoir des Taliban suscite l’inquiétude des dirigeants et de la population turque. Ces derniers craignent une nouvelle crise migratoire, dans un pays qui accueille déjà 3,7 millions de Syriens ayant fui la guerre.
Un mur en béton haut de quatre mètres s’élève désormais entre la Turquie et l’Iran, dans la région de Van, pour empêcher les migrants de passer. Quelque 500 km de frontières séparent les deux États traversés par des milliers de migrants, principalement afghans, en route vers l’Europe.
Depuis la chute de Kaboul tombée aux mains des Taliban, le 15 août, les autorités turques craignent une augmentation des arrivées. Le pays accueille déjà 3,7 millions de Syriens ayant fui la guerre.
Les patrouilles se multiplient pour protéger une frontière poreuse qui s’étend à flan de montagnes. Le nouveau mur se dresse sur 150 km et Ankara affirme que d’ici la fin de l’année, 50 km supplémentaires seront construits. Une équipe de journalistes de France 24 s’est rendue sur place.
▻https://www.france24.com/fr/moyen-orient/20210906-la-turquie-construit-un-mur-pour-bloquer-les-r%C3%A9fugi%C3%A9s-a
L’écran de la Samaritaine Didier Rykner
▻https://www.latribunedelart.com/l-ecran-de-la-samaritaine
La Tribune de l’Art avait combattu le projet de la Samaritaine, mené par LVMH avec le soutien de la Ville de Paris et du Ministère de la Culture ( ▻https://www.latribunedelart.com/paris-samaritaine ). Détruire un ensemble de maisons anciennes des XVIIe, XVIIIe et XIXe siècles au cœur de Paris nous faisait revenir au vandalisme des années 1960. La décision du Conseil d’État validant cette opération en désavouant le tribunal administratif était un parfait scandale. Mais on ne lutte pas contre Bernard Arnault, surtout quand celui-ci bénéficie de tous les soutiens politiques, de la droite à la gauche, en passant par une grande partie de la presse ( ▻https://www.latribunedelart.com/la-samaritaine-lvmh-et-la-presse-l-eternel-retour ).
Le bâtiment construit par SANAA, nous avons déjà eu l’occasion de l’écrire ( ►https://www.latribunedelart.com/samaritaine-la-victoire-de-bernard-arnault-la-defaite-du-patrimoine ), est d’une grande médiocrité, et en rupture totale avec son environnement. Contrairement au procès d’intention que nous font certains, nous ne sommes évidemment pas hostile à l’architecture contemporaine. Il y a d’excellents architectes comme Tadao Andō ou Rudy Ricciotti [1], des architectes capables du meilleur comme du pire, tel Jean Nouvel. Mais il y a aussi des architectes que nous préférons ne pas qualifier, comme Yves Lion, Dominique Perrault ou encore Bruno Gaudin.
Il paraît que SANAA est un grand cabinet d’architectes. Le Louvre Lens n’en témoigne pas vraiment, même si l’on peut trouver pire. L’édifice qu’ils viennent de construire pour la Samaritaine n’est pas seulement médiocre extérieurement (ill. 1), il l’est aussi à l’intérieur (ill. 2 et 3). Ce n’est même pas médiocre, ce n’est rien. On pourrait se trouver dans un centre commercial de Tokyo ou de Dubaï, il n’y aurait aucune différence. Voilà pourquoi on a détruit un îlot du Paris historique !
La restauration elle-même des bâtiments Art nouveau et Art déco de la Samaritaine nous semble plutôt réussie (ill. 4 à 6), même s’il faudrait sans doute l’étudier plus soigneusement. L’architecte qui en est le maître d’œuvre est un de nos bons architectes en chef, Jean-François Lagneau. Nous l’avons contacté sur un point qui nous inquiétait : à l’origine, le bâtiment d’Henri Sauvage était construit avec des dalles Saint-Gobain en verre qui faisaient office de planchers à tous les niveaux, et qui donnaient à l’ensemble une luminosité et une transparence exceptionnelles. Cet aspect a complètement disparu et Jean-François Lagneau nous a indiqué que ce n’était pas faute d’avoir cherché une solution qui puisse correspondre aux normes de sécurité actuelles. Or, il semble impossible d’installer des planchers en verre qui ne s’écrouleraient pas au moindre incendie. Dont acte, même si cela est bien triste.
Nous nous interrogions sur deux autres points. D’abord, les lettres formant le mot « Samaritaine », qui datent de l’origine et font partie de la façade classée, n’ont pas encore été remplacées (ill. 6 et 7) et l’on pouvait s’inquiéter d’y voir à la place apparaître les mots « Cheval Blanc », nom de la chaîne d’hôtels de luxe qui s’y est installée. C’était en tout cas le souhait de LVMH. Heureusement, la DRAC Île-de-France nous a confirmé qu’elle tient à sa repose après restauration. Espérons que ce sera le cas.
Le second point concernait des appliques Art déco de part et d’autre de la porte d’entrée du magasin, qui n’existent plus. Il s’avère qu’il s’agissait en réalité d’œuvres récentes, datant des années 1980, d’un designer américain, Hilton McConnico. Celui-ci avait créé deux pastiches fort réussis, qui furent vendus chez Lucien à Paris ▻https://www.lucienparis.com/lot/6580/1482598?offset=170& le 14 juin 2010. Si l’on peut regretter que ces deux éléments, qui d’une certaine façon faisaient partie de l’histoire du bâtiment, aient été supprimés, on ne peut décemment crier au scandale. La commande était celle de l’ancien restaurant Toupary qui occupait la terrasse au dernier étage.
Rappelons qu’Anne Hidalgo célébrait ce projet ▻https://twitter.com/Anne_Hidalgo/status/2518629569 en soulignant qu’il « servait au mieux la mixité sociale » sous prétexte qu’une crèche de 80 places devait être créée. Pas de chance : pour l’instant, aucune place de crèche n’existe encore ( ▻https://www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/paris-la-creche-de-la-samaritaine-n-a-aucun-enfant-pour-ses-80-berceaux-0 ), et cela n’en prend pas le chemin, le Ier arrondissement n’étant pas « une zone prioritaire » . Mieux encore : désormais, seuls les clients de l’hôtel de luxe qui s’est installé derrière la façade sur la Seine pourront jouir de la vue magnifique qui autrefois était accessible à tous. Les simples parisiens pourront monter à l’étage sous les toits et s’asseoir pour regarder un écran géant montrant en direct la Seine qu’ils ne peuvent plus admirer de la terrasse (ill. 8). La mixité sociale, pour Anne Hidalgo, c’est mettre ses administrés devant un écran filmant la Seine. Peut-on imaginer un tel mépris ?
#anne_hidalgo #bourgeoisie #mépris #Grand_Paris #urbanisme #métropole #métropolisation #france #logement #hidalgo #ps #ville_de_paris #mixité_sociale #ségrégation #luxe #vandalisme #Art_nouveau #Art_déco #ecrans
Living in a Car on $800 a Month - YouTube
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0EoyTzcFOI
Today we meet Dee, who is living in her car on $800 a month. She tried renting an apartment but found it impossible. After paying rent, she had so little money left over her quality of life was tragically low. But, by living in her car, all that money is available for her to live and thrive on so she isn’t just surviving and enduring life. She’s done a brilliant job of making the car livable by taking out some seats, let’s see how...
#Nomadisme #crise #habitat #cheap #nomadland #retraite #loyer #récession #camping #lifestyle
la chaîne YT :
▻https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAj7O3LCDbkIR54hAn6Zz7A
Welcome to the CheapRVliving YouTube Channel, we’re very glad you’re here!! We’re people who are tired of living the rat race and a life filled with hyper-consumerism—always buying things looking for contentment, but never finding it. Instead, we are returning to our original, truly human roots of tribal nomadism. We’ve adopted lives of travel and adventure by living in a vehicle like a car, van, RV or tiny house and living lives of simplicity and even minimalism.
If what you see in the videos on this channel intrigue and inspire you, then perhaps you should consider joining us part-time—or even full-time—by following your dreams and taking steps to join our nomadic tribe!
ce qui est cool avec la fin du monde, c’est qu’#Amazon fourni le matos.
Dianna
il y a 1 an
Just so mad the system makes it so hard for people to survive and just live
#Rhum arrangé aux vanilles du monde
▻https://www.cuisine-libre.org/rhum-arrange-aux-vanilles-du-monde
Intégrez les gousses de #Vanille dans la bouteille de rhum agricole. Intégrez 50 grammes de sucre de canne. Laissez macérer le mélange pendant un mois. Vanille, Rhum, #Rhums_arrangés, #Cuisine_des îles / #Sans viande, #Végétarien, Végétalien (vegan), #Sans gluten, #Sans œuf, #Sans lactose
Straßen nach im Dienst getöteten Polizisten benannt: Unbekannte überkleben Straßenschilder mit Namen von Anschlagsopfern - Berlin - Tagesspiegel Mobil
▻https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/strassen-nach-im-dienst-getoeteten-polizisten-benannt-unbekannte-ueberkleben-strassenschilder-mit-namen-von-anschlagsopfern-/26743274.html
Da waren ein paar Anwohner nicht mit dem Heldengedenken für Polizisten einverstanden. Manche im Kiez kennen die Polizei nicht als „Freund und Helfer“ sondern als Feind und Unterdrücker. Die Heldensträßchen wurden ihnen genau vor die Nase gesetzt und erinnern sie jeden Tag daran, wo der Feind steht. Straßenschnipsel laden ein, auf die zu speien, die keine Gnade verdienten. Deeskalation sieht anders aus.
Wäre es den Straßenumbenennern ausschließlich um eine angemessene Würdigung der im Dienst verstorbenen Beamten gegangen, hätten ihre Namen einen Platz auf einer Gedenktafel in einem Polizeigebäude gefunden. Hier wurde statt dessen einem Kiez der Krieg erklärt.
22.12.2020 von Madlen Haarbach - Erst im Februar wurden zwei Straßen in Neukölln nach im Dienst getöteten Polizisten umbenannt. Nun haben Unbekannte die Namen überklebt – mit jenen der Anschlagsopfer aus Halle.
Am Montagmittag überklebten Unbekannte Straßenschilder in Berlin-Neukölln, die die Namen von zwei im Bezirk im Dienst getöteten Polizisten tragen.
Sowohl die Schilder der Roland-Krüger-Straße als auch der Uwe-Lieschied-Straße wurden beidseitig mit einem neuen Namen überdeckt. Alarmierte Einsatzkräfte entfernten die Überklebungen.
Die Schilder seien mit den Namen der beiden bei dem Anschlag in Halle getöteten Menschen verdeckt worden, sagte eine Polizeisprecherin am Dienstag der Deutschen Presse-Agentur. Auf zwei Schildern wurde außerdem eine Seite mit dem Schriftzug „say their names“ (Deutsch: Sagt ihre Namen) versehen.
Bei dem Anschlag in Halle am 9. Oktober 2019 wurden Jana L. und Kevin S. getötet, nachdem ein Terrorist versucht hatte, in die Synagoge in Halle einzudringen und dort die Gläubigen umzubringen.
Das Oberlandesgericht Naumburg verurteilte den rechtsextremen Attentäter am Montag zu lebenslanger Haft mit anschließender Sicherungsverwahrung.
Die überklebten Straßenschilder stehen vermutlich in Zusammenhang mit dem Prozess. Zu den genauen Hintergründen machte die Polizei zunächst keine Angaben.
Die Straßen wurden erst im Februar nach den beiden Polizisten benannt, die 2003 und 2006 im Dienst getötet wurden. In der Vergangenheit waren ihre Gräber und auch Gedenktafeln wiederholt Ziel von Farbanschlägen und Vandalismus.
Im April wurden die beiden Gräber verwüstet, Grabsteine umgeschmissen und mit Hakenkreuzen beschmiert.
Lasst die Toten ruhen, heisst es. Das funktioniert nicht nicht mit Helden, auch nicht mit verbeamteten.
OSM Roland-Krüger-Straße: ▻https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/32133489
OSM Uwe-Lieschied-Straße / Uwe-Liedschied-Straße: ▻https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/32118083
Roland-Krüger-Straße in Berlin - KAUPERTS
▻https://berlin.kauperts.de/Strassen/Roland-Krueger-Strasse-Berlin
Ehemaliger Bezirk Neukölln
Vorheriger Name Kopfstraße (zwischen Morusstraße und Lessinghöhe)
Name seit 27.02.2020
Der Kommissar Roland Krüger stürmte 2003 an der Spitze eines Spezialeinsatzkommandos eine Wohnung in Neukölln, um einen gesuchten Täter festzunehmen. Der gesuchte Mann schoss mehrfach auf die Polizisten. Roland Krüger wurde am Kopf getroffen und starb wenige Tage später.
Uwe-Liedschied-Straße in Berlin - KAUPERTS
▻https://berlin.kauperts.de/Strassen/Uwe-Liedschied-Strasse-12053-Berlin
Ehemaliger Bezirk Neukölln
Vorheriger Name Morusstraße (zwischen Rollbergstraße und Werbellinstraße)
Name seit 27.02.2020
Uwe Lieschied wurde im März 2006 erschossen, als er auf Zivilstreife am Volkspark Hasenheide unterwegs war. Als er zwei Handtaschenräuber festnehmen wollte, schoss einer der beiden Männer um sich und traf die linke Schläfe des Polizisten. Er verstarb vier Tage später.
Der Autor dieser Zeilen fühlt sich nicht so getroffen von den Polizeistraßenumbenennungen wie manche in Neukölln. Ihn stört die Zerstückelung über Jahrhunderte gewachsener städtischer Zusammenhänge, die sich als Straßennamen äußern und täglich in das Unterbewusstsein der Städter einbrennen.
Die Morusstraße teilweise umzubenennen zerstört, was vom städtischen Kontext nach Krieg, brutaler Kiez-Modernisierung und scheibchenweiser Umnutzung der ehemaligen Schultheiss-Brauerei noch übrig ist. Eine alte Lessingstraße 1950 in Morusstraße umzubenennen wäre besser in Tiergarten erfolgt, wo bereits zuvor viele andere christliche Rebellen mit Straßennamen geeehrt wurden. Immerhin blieb die Neuköllner Lessing- und nunmehr Morusstraße ein Ganzes mit einheitlichem Namen. Das 2020 umbenannte Zipfelchen zwischen Rollber- und Werbellinstraße überschreibt den historischen Straßenverlauf und bedeutet einen weiteren Identitätsverlust für Berlin und seine Bewohner.
Das gilt auch für die ebenso halbherzig teilweise umbenannte Kopfstraße.
Im Zeitalter der Mini-Bildschirme von Navigationsgeräten ist dieser Umgang mit Straßen und ihren Namen zugleich Folge und Verstärker der grassierenden Unfähigkeit, Zusammenhänge wahrzunehmen. Sogar der patentgefaltete Falk-Plan vermittelte immer einen größeren Zusammenhang. Im Digitalzeitalter gibt es für Menschen nur noch winzige Kartenausschnitte, zusammengesetzt aus unendlich kleinen Punkten im Raum, symbolisiert und lokalisiert von ausschließlich durch EDV-Systeme verarbeitbare Koordinaten.
Dank der Nachlässigkeit des Kaupert-Verlags erstreckt sich die Morusstraße zumindest in ihrem Datenbankeintrag weiter bis zur Rollbergstraße.
Morusstraße 1-32 in Berlin - KAUPERTS
▻https://berlin.kauperts.de/Strassen/Morusstrasse-12053-Berlin
Straßenverlauf von Rollbergstraße bis Mittelweg
Falk‑Stadtplan Planquadrat P 19
Geschichte von Morusstraße
Ehemaliger Bezirk Neukölln
Alte Namen Lessingstraße (vor 1882-1950)
Name seit 14.2.1950
More (Morus, Moore), Thomas, * 7.2.1478? London, + 6.7.1535 London, englischer Politiker, Philosoph.
Auch die Kopfstraße ist und bleibt wahrscheinlich unangetastet im nach und nach verlotternden Kaupert.
Kopfstraße 14-65 in Berlin - KAUPERTS
▻https://berlin.kauperts.de/Strassen/Kopfstrasse-12053-Berlin
Straßenverlauf von Hermannstraße über Morusstraße rechts Nr 14-26, links 38-65
Falk‑Stadtplan Planquadrat P 18-19
Geschichte von Kopfstraße
Ehemaliger Bezirk Neukölln
Name seit vor 1877
Sie soll nach den Kopfschmerzen, die die Suche nach einem Straßennamen verursacht haben, benannt sein.
Wie schön, wenn es ein wenig menschelt. Das läßt auf Zusammenhänge hoffen.
#Berlin #Neukölln #Straßenumbenennung #Roland-Krüger-Straße #Uwe-Lieschied-Straße #Uwe-Liedschied-Straße #Morusstraße #Kopfstraße #Lessingstraße #Polizei #Widerstand #Vandalismus #Revierkämpfe #Heldenverehrung #ACAB
Ce qui me rend fou | PrototypeKblog
▻https://prototypekblog.wordpress.com/2021/02/17/ce-qui-me-rend-fou
Comme des millions de gens, je subis la « situation sanitaire », et la manière dont elle est gérée par les connards qui nous gouvernent. Je subis. Qu’est-ce que je peux faire d’autre ?
Tout ça était pourtant tellement prévisible ! Ils ont fait croire que c’était fini avec le printemps, tous ceux qui pouvaient partir en vacances voulaient ne plus penser qu’à leurs vacances, le petit président voulait son triomphe jupitérien le 14 Juillet, le Medef voulait ses milliards déguisés en plan de relance pour son université d’été, le virus a circulé tout l’été, il a continué de circuler tout l’automne, plus il circule, plus il mute, mais c’est pas grave, le petit président « prend son risque », il est plus intelligent que tout le monde, il est content de lui, tout va bien.
Et on sera meme pas du bon composte avec tous les plastiques et conservateurs qu’on bouffe.
Nantes Révoltée - #INTERVIEW : L’ART DE PEINDRE LES #BANQUES
►https://www.nantes-revoltee.com/interview-lart-de-peindre-les-banques
#art #rue #peinture #vandal #graff #seday #tag #pollock #harcor
" Parle moi de ton parcours.
– Je viens du graff. Du vandal pur et dur. J’ai pendant longtemps tagué des métros, des trains, de la street, avec différents pseudos. Un jour, je me suis rendu compte que ça n’était pas l’ego trip qui m’importait mais le cri de révolte. J’ai toujours aimé l’art de Jackson Pollok, la gestuelle, le corps, les trips, et les cris. Mon parcours est un cri de couleur. C’est mon langage contestataire.
– Parle-moi de la première banque que tu as « attaquée »
– C’était un Crédit lyonnais. Au début, je ne cassais que des banques Crédit lyonnais. Avec un tag qui disait : « Give me my money back. » C’était il y a environ douze ans, lorsque le Crédit lyonnais était à deux doigts de faire faillite. Le gouvernement avait alors obligé chaque citoyen inscrit à la banque à payer 250 euros – c’était directement prélevé de notre compte pour « sauver la banque », prétendu pilier de notre économie. Est-ce que, maintenant qu’ils font à nouveau des milliards de bénéfices, ils nous ont rendu nos 250 euros ? Non, bien sûr. Ils ont juste changé de nom. Ils s’appellent désormais le LCL. Je sais bien que l’on n’arrêtera pas le capitalisme en cassant des banques – il s’agit d’un symbole.
– Depuis, il me semble que tu t’es diversifié. Tu attaques d’autres enseignes que le LCL
–En effet. Aujourd’hui, je m’attaque à toutes les banques, avec une petite préférence pour la Société Générale, surtout depuis la fuite des Panama Papers.
– Depuis les manifestations des Gilets Jaunes, on a vu de nombreux casseurs de banques agir. Dirais-tu que chaque casseur a un style particulier ?
– Oui, il y en a que l’on reconnaît tout de suite. Quand je vois tel ou tel slogan, je sais direct qui est l’auteur. C’est un peu comme dans le graffiti, chacun a sa patte. Il y a aussi celui qui peint toutes « ses » banques systématiquement en jaune. Pour moi, c’est comme du Land Art, en version hardcore. Sinon, je crois en effet avoir influencé des plus jeunes avec des bank paintings, pourvu que le mouvement continue à prendre de l’ampleur … »"
The two sides of TUI : crisis-hit holiday giant turned deportation specialist
2020 was a rough year for the tourism industry, with businesses worldwide cancelling holidays and laying off staff. Yet one company has been weathering the storm with particular ruthlessness: the Anglo-German giant TUI.
TUI (Touristik Union International) has been called the world’s biggest holiday company. While its core business is selling full-package holidays to British and German families, 2020 saw it taking on a new sideline: running deportation charter flights for the UK Home Office. In this report we look at how:
- TUI has become the main airline carrying out charter deportation flights for the UK Home Office. In November 2020 alone it conducted nine mass deportations to 19 destinations as part of Operation Sillath, and its deportation flights continue in 2021.
- TUI lost over €3 billion last year. But the money was made up in bailouts from the German government, totalling over €4 billion.
– TUI’s top owner is oligarch Alexey Mordashov, Russia’s fourth richest billionaire who made his fortune in the “Katastroika” of post-Soviet asset sell-offs. His family holding company made over €100 million in dividends from TUI in 2019.
– In 2020, TUI cut 23,000 jobs, or 32% of its global workforce. But it carried on paying out fat salaries to its bosses – the executive board waived just 5% of their basic pay, with CEO Fritz Joussen pocketing €1.7 million.
– Other cost-cutting measures included delaying payments of over €50m owed to hotels in Greece and Spain.
- TUI is accused of using its tourist industry muscle to pressure the Greek government into dropping COVID quarantine requirements last Summer, just before the tourist influx contributed to a “second wave” of infections.
– It is also accused of pressuring hotels in the Canary Islands to stop hosting migrants arriving on wooden boats, fearing it would damage the islands’ image in the eyes of TUI customers.
TUI: from heavy industry to holiday giant
Calling itself the ‘world’s leading tourism group’, TUI has 277 direct and indirect subsidiaries. The parent company is TUI AG, listed on the London Stock Exchange and based in Hannover and Berlin.
TUI describes itself as a ‘vertically-integrated’ tourism business. That means it covers all aspects of a holiday: it can take care of bookings, provide the planes to get there, accommodate guests in hotels and cruises, and connect them with ‘experiences’ such as museum vists, performances and excursions. Recent company strategy buzz highlights the use of digitalisation – ‘driving customers’ into buying more services via its apps and online platforms. Where it can’t do everything in-house, TUI also uses other airlines and works extensively with independent hotels.
TUI’s major assets are:
- Hotels. By September 2020 the company ran over 400 hotels, the most profitable of which is the RIU chain, a company jointly owned by the Mallorca-based RIU family.
- Cruises. TUI owns three cruise companies – TUI Cruises, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises and Marella Cruises – which between them operate 17 vessels.
- Airlines. TUI has five airlines with a total fleet of 137 aircraft. 56 of these are operated by its biggest airline, the British company TUI Airways. Collectively, the airlines under the group are the seventh largest in Europe.
TUI also runs the TUI Care Foundation, its vehicle for green PR, based in the Hague.
The company has a long history dating back to 1923 – though it is barely recognisable from its earlier embodiment as the energy, mining and metalworking group Preussag, originally set up by the German state of Prussia. Described by some as the “heavy industrial arm” of the Nazi economy, Preussag was just one of many German industrial firms which benefited from forced labour under the Third Reich. It transformed itself into a tourism business only in 1997, and completed a long string of acquisitions to become the behemoth it is today – including acquiring leading British travel agents Thomson in 2000 and First Choice Holidays in 2007.
TUI holidaymakers are mostly families from the UK and Germany, with an average ticket for a family of four costing €3,500 . The top five destinations as of Easter 2019 were, in order: Spain, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, and Cape Verde.
The UK branch – including TUI Airways, which is responsible for the deportations – is run out of Wigmore House, next to Luton Airport in Bedfordshire. The UK managing director is Andrew “Andy” Flintham. Flintham has been with TUI for over 15 years, and previously worked for British Airways and Ford.
Dawn Wilson is the managing director of TUI Airways. and head of airline operations on the TUI aviation board, overseeing all five of TUI’s airlines. Wilson is also a director of TUI UK. Originally from Cleethorpes, Wilson’s career in the industry began as cabin crew in the 80s, before rising up the ranks of Britannia Airways. Britannia’s parent company Thomson was acquired by TUI in 2000.
TUI’s crisis measures: mass job losses, deportations, and more
Before the pandemic TUI was a success story, drawing 23 million people a year to sun, sea, snow or sights. In 2019, TUI was riding high following the collapse of its key UK competitor, Thomas Cook. It branched out by adding 21 more aircraft to its fleet and picking up a number of its rival’s former contracts, notably in Turkey. TUI’s extensive work in Turkey has recently made it a target of the Boycott Turkey campaign in solidarity with the Kurdish people. The one bum note had been the grounding of its Boeing 737 MAX airliners, after two crashes involving the aircraft forced the worldwide withdrawal of these planes. Despite that, the company made close to €19 billion in revenues in 2019, and a profit of over €500 million. Most of that profit was handed straight to shareholders, with over €400 million in dividends. (See: Annual Report 2019). And the future looked good, with record bookings for 2020.
Then came COVID-19. By the end of the 2020 financial year, travel closures had resulted in losses of €3 billion for TUI, and a net debt of €4.2bn. To stay afloat, the company has managed to pull in handouts from the German state, as well as backing from its largest shareholder, the Russian oligarch Alexei Mordashov. It has also turned to a number of controversial business practices: from mass job losses to becoming Brexit Britain’s main deportation profiteer.
Here we look at some of what TUI got up to in the last year.
Government bailouts
Had it been left to the free market, TUI might well have gone bust. Fortunately for TUI’s investors, the German government rode to the rescue. In total, the state – working together with some banks and private investors – has provided TUI with €4.8bn in bailout funds to see it through COVID-19.
The vast bulk of this money, €4.3 billion to date, has come from German taxpayers. TUI received a €1.8 rescue loan from state development bank KsF in April 2020, followed by another €1.2 billion package in August. The third bailout, agreed in December 2020, totalled €1.8 billion. €1.3 billion of this was more government money – from the German Economic Support Fund (WSF) as well as KsF.
While some was a straight loan, portions came as a “silent participation” convertible into shares in the company – that is, the state has the option to become a major TUI shareholder. The deal also involved the government having two seats on TUI’s supervisory board. The German state is now intimately involved in TUI’s business.
The other €500m was raised by issuing new shares to private investors. TUI’s largest owner, Alexey Mordashov, agreed to take any of these not bought by others – potentially increasing his stake in the company from 25% to as much as 36% (see below).
Slashing jobs
Alongside bail-outs, another key part of TUI’s response to the COVID crisis has been to hit the staff. Back in May 2020 there was widespread media coverage when TUI announced it would make 8,000 job cuts globally. Then in July 2020, the company announced it would close 166 of its 516 travel agencies in the UK and Ireland at a cost of 900 jobs.
But these announcements turned out to be just the beginning. In the 2020 Annual Report, published in December 2020, TUI quietly announced that it had in fact cut 23,143 jobs – that is 32% of its total staff.
Particularly hard hit were hotel staff, whose numbers fell by over 13,000, 46% of the total. The workforce of TUI’s excursions and activities division, TUI Musement, was cut in half with almost 5,000 job losses (Annual Report, p88). And these figures do not include staff for TUI Cruises (JV), a joint venture company whose employees are mainly hired through agencies on temporary contracts.
Home Office deportation airline of choice
TUI is not known to have been previously involved in deportations from the UK, Germany or any other country. But since August 2020, its UK subsidiary TUI Airways has suddenly become the UK’s top deportation airline. It carried out the vast majority of mass deportation charter flights from the UK between August and December 2020, and continues to do so in January 2021.
This included many of the rush of pre-Brexit “Operation Sillath” deportations to European countries before the New Year – where the Home Office pushed to expel as many refugees as possible under the Dublin Regulation before it crashed out of this EU agreement. But it also works further afield: TUI carried out all charter deportations from the UK in November, including one to Ghana and Nigeria.
Because of this, TUI looked a likely candidate to be operating the so-called ‘Jamaica 50’ flight on 2 December, and was one of a number of possible airlines targeted by a social media campaign. However, the company eventually clarified it would not be doing the flight – Privilege Style, whom Corporate Watch recently reported on, turned out to be the operator. It is unclear whether or not TUI had originally been booked and pulled out after succumbing to public pressure.
No hospitality in the Canary Islands
The company’s disregard for the lives of refugees is not limited to deportation deals. In the Canary Islands, a local mayor revealed that TUI (along with British airline Jet2) had warned hotels not to provide emergency shelter to migrants, threatening it would not ‘send tourists’ if they did.
Record numbers of African migrants arrived on wooden boats to the islands in 2020, and some have been accomodated in the hotels at the state’s expense. Nearly 2,170 migrants died trying to reach Spain that year, the majority en-route to the Canaries. The islands had seen a dramatic fall in holidaymakers due to the pandemic, and many hotel rooms would have sat empty, making TUI’s threats all the more callous.
Pushing back against Greek COVID-19 measures
TUI has been pressing destination countries to reopen to tourists following the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic. This has become a particular issue in Greece, now the company‘s number one destination where TUI has been accused of exerting pressure on the government to relax anti-COVID measures last Summer.
According to a report in German newspaper BILD (see also report in English here), TUI threatened to cancel all its trips to the country unless the government dropped quarantine regulations for tourists. The threat was reportedly made in negotiations with the Greek tourism minister, who then rushed to call the Prime Minister, who backed down and rewrote the Government’s COVID-19 plans.
Greece had been viewed as a rare success story of the pandemic, with the virus having largely been contained for months – until early August, a few weeks after it welcomed back tourists. Some have blamed the country’s “second wave” of COVID-19 infections on the government’s “gamble of opening up to tourists”.
Leaving hotels in the lurch
Despite having pushed destination countries to increase their COVID-19 exposure risks by encouraging tourism, the company then refused to pay hoteliers in Greece and Spain millions of euros owed to them for the summer season. Contractual changes introduced by TUI forced hotels to wait until March 2021 for three-quarters of the money owed. In Greece, where the company works with over 2,000 hotels, the sum owed is said to be around €50m, with individual hotels reportedly owed hundreds of thousands of euros. This money is essential to many businesses’ survival through the low season.
TUI’s actions are perhaps all the more galling in light of the enormous government bailouts the company received. In the company’s 2020 Annual Report, amid sweeping redundancies and failure to pay hoteliers, CEO Fritz Joussen had the arrogance to claim that “TUI plays a stabilising role in Southern Europe, and in Northern Africa too, with investment, infrastructure and jobs.”
Rolling in it: who gains
The supposed rationale for government COVID bail-outs, in Germany as elsewhere, is to keep the economy turning and secure jobs. But that can’t mean much to the third of its work force TUI has sacked. If not the workers, who does benefit from Germany funneling cash into the holiday giant?
TUI’s bailout deals with the German government forbade it from paying a dividend to shareholders in 2020. Although in previous years the company operated a very high dividend policy indeed: in 2018 it handed over €381 million, or 47% of its total profit, to its shareholders. They did even better in 2019, pocketing €423 million – or no less than 80% of company profits. They will no doubt be hoping that the money will roll in again once COVID-19 travel restrictions are lifted.
Meanwhile, it appears that the crisis barely touched TUI’s executives and directors. According to the 2020 Annual Report (page 130), the company’s executives agreed to a “voluntary waiver of 30% of their fixed remuneration for the months of April and May 2020”. That is: just a portion of their salary, for just two months. This added up to a drop of just 5% in executive salaries over the year compared with 2019.
Again: this was during a year where 32% of TUI staff were laid off, and the company lost over €3 billion.
In a further great show of sacrifice, the Annual Report explains that “none of the members of the Executive Board has made use of their right to reimbursement of holiday trips which they are entitled to according to their service agreements.” TUI is infamous for granting its executives paid holidays “without any limitation as to type of holiday, category or price” as an executive perk (page 126).
After his 5% pay cut, CEO Fritz Joussen still made €1,709,600 last year: a basic salary of €1.08 million, plus another €628,000 in “pension contributions and service costs” including a chauffeur driven car allowance.
The next highest paid was none other than “labour director” Dr Elke Eller with €1.04 million. The other four members of the executive board all received over €800,000.
The top dogs
Who are these handsomely paid titans of the holiday industry? TUI’s CEO is Friedrich “Fritz” Joussen, based in Germany. Originally hired by TUI as a consultant, Joussen has a background in the German mobile phone industry and was head of Vodafone Germany. The slick CEO can regularly be found giving presentations about the TUI ‘ecosystem’ and the importance of digitisation. Besides his salary, Joussen also benefits from a considerable shareholding accrued through annual bonuses.
Overseeing Joussen’s executive team is the Supervisory Board, chaired by the Walrus-moustachioed Dr. Dieter Zetsche, or ‘Dr. Z’, who made his fortune in the management of Daimler AG (the car giant that also owns Mercedes–Benz, and formerly, Chrysler ). Since leaving that company in 2019, Zetsche has reportedly been enjoying a Daimler pension package of at least €4,250 a day. TUI topped him up with a small fee of €389,500 for his board duties in 2020 (Annual Report p140).
With his notable moustache, Dr. Z is a stand-out character in the mostly drab world of German corporate executives, known for fronting one of Daimler’s US ad campaigns in a “buffoon tycoon” character. At the height of the Refugee Summer of 2015, Dr. Dieter Zetsche abruptly interrupted his Frankfurt Motor Show speech on the future of the car industry to discuss the desperate situation facing Syrian refugees.
He said at the time: “Anybody who knows the past isn’t allowed to turn refugees away. Anybody who sees the present can’t turn them away. Anybody who thinks about the future will not turn them away.” Five years later, with TUI the UK’s top deportation profiteer, this sentiment seems to have been forgotten.
Another key figure on the Supervisory Board is Deputy Chair Peter Long. Long is a veteran of the travel industry, having been CEO of First Choice, which subsequently merged with TUI. He is credited with pioneering Turkey as an industry destination.
Long is a controversial figure who has previously been accused of ‘overboarding’, i.e. sitting on the directors’ boards of too many companies. Described as a “serial part timer”, he was executive chairman of Countrywide PLC, the UK’s largest estate agency group, but stepped down in late November 2020 after apparently ruffling shareholders’ feathers over a move that would have given control of the company to a private equity firm. In 2018, Countrywide was forced to abandon attempts to give bosses – including himself – shares worth more than £20m. Long also previously stepped down as chairman of Royal Mail after similarly losing shareholder support over enormous executive pay packages. In his former role as as head of TUI Travel, he was among the UK’s top five highest earning CEOs, with a salary of £13.3 million for the year 2014 -15.
The man with the money: Alexey Mordashov
But all the above are paupers compared to TUI’s most powerful board member and top shareholder: Alexey Mordashov, a Russian oligarch who is reportedly the country’s fourth richest billionaire, with a fortune of over $23 billion. His family holding company is TUI’s main owner with up to 36% of company shares.
Mordashov’s stake in TUI is held through a Cyprus-registered holding company called Unifirm.
In 2019, Mordashov transferred 65% of his shares in Unifirm to KN-Holding, a Russian company owned jointly by his two sons, Kirill and Nikita, then aged 18 and 19. However, Russian media report that after the younger son Nikita was kicked out of university in 2020, he was sent to the army, and his shares transferred to Kirill.
It may not be massive money to Mordashov, but his family company have certainly done well out of TUI. In 2019 TUI paid out €423 million in dividends to its shareholders, no less than 80% of total profits. At the time Unifirm owned one quarter (24.95%) of TUI. That means the Mordashovs will have received over €100 million on their investment in TUI just in that one year.
“Steel king” Alexey Mordashov’s rise to the height of the global mega-rich began with a typical post-Soviet privatisation story. Born in 1965, the son of steel workers, he studied economics and accountancy and by 1992 was finance director of a steel plant in his hometown of Cherepovets. In the early and mid-1990s, the great Russian “Katastroika” sell-off of state assets saw steel mill and other workers handed shares in the former collective enterprises. In the midst of an economic collapse, workers sold on their shares to pay food and heating bills, while the likes of Mordashov built up massive asset portfolios quick and cheap. In the next privatisation phase, the budding oligarchs were handed whole industries through rigged auctions.
Mordashov turned his steel plant holdings into a company called Severstal, now among the world’s largest steel firms. He then expanded Severstal into Severgroup, a conglomerate with holdings in everything from airports to goldmines (Nordgold) to supermarkets (Lenta), to mobile phone networks (Tele2 Russia), as well as the local hockey team Severstal Cherepovets. Vladimir Lukin, Mordashov’s legal adviser at Severgroup, is also a member of the TUI Supervisory Board.
Business media paint Mordashov as less flamboyant than your average oligarch. His new megayacht Nord, built in Germany and registered in the Cayman Islands, is only 142 metres long – 20 metres shorter than Roman Abramovitch’s Eclipse.
In December 2020, TUI declared that Unifirm owned 25% of its shares. But the number will have increased in TUI’s third bail-out deal in January: as well as more money from the German government and its banks, Unifirm agreed to inject more cash into the company in return for boosting its ownership, buying up new shares to a maximum of 36%. The exact current holding has not yet been announced.
TUI’s increasing control by Mordashov was approved by the German financial regulator Bafin, which stepped in to exempt him from a rule that would have required Unifirm to bid for a full majority of the shares once it held more than 30%.
Other shareholders
Unifirm is the only shareholder with over 10% of TUI shares. Some way behind, Egyptian hotel-owning businessman called Hamed El Chiaty has a stake of just over 5%, via the Cyprus-based DH Deutsche Holdings. But most of TUI’s shares are owned in smaller chunks by the usual suspects: the global investment funds and banks that own the majority of the world’s assets.
In December 2020 these funds each had over 1%: UK investor Standard Life Aberdeen; giant US-based fund Vanguard; Canada’s state pension system; and Norges Bank, which manages the oil-rich national wealth fund of Norway. Two other major investment funds, Pioneer and BlackRock, had around 0.5% each. (NB: these numbers may have changed after the new January share sale.)
TUI can’t take its reputation for granted
A company of TUI’s size backed by the German government and a Russian billionaire may seem impervious to criticism. On the other hand, unlike more specialist charter airlines, it is very much a public facing business, relying above all on the custom of North European families. The endless stream of negative reviews left by disgruntled customers following cancelled TUI holidays in 2020 have already tarnished its image.
In a sign of just how worried the company may be about its reputation, it put out a tender in the autumn for a new PR agency to take care of “relaunching the brand into the post-Covid world”. This was ultimately awarded to the US firm Leo Burnett. If outrage at the UK’s deportation push keeps up, TUI might well need to pay attention to online campaigns or demonstrations at its travel agents.
Another vulnerability the company has itself identified is political instability in destination countries, as evidenced by TUI’s nervousness over migrant arrivals in the Canary Islands. Here too, its image is being harmed by actions such as exerting pressure on the Greek government to relax COVID measures, and its treatment of independent hotels. TUI cannot take public support for granted in top destinations such as Greece and Spain, where campaigning at its resorts could play a role in shifting company policy.
▻https://corporatewatch.org/the-two-sides-of-tui-crisis-hit-holiday-giant-turned-deportation-spe
#renvois #expulsions #tourisme #TUI #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Allemagne #privatisation #complexe_militaro-industriel #business #UK #Angleterre #Touristik_Union_International #compagnie_aérienne #avions #Operation_Sillath #Alexey_Mordashov #Fritz_Joussen #Canaries #îles_Canaries #Preussag #Wigmore_House #Flintham #Andrew_Flintham #Andy_Flintham #Dawn_Wilson #pandémie #coronavirus #covid-19 #KsF #German_Economic_Support_Fund (#WSF) #chômage #licenciements #TUI_Musement #charter #Dublin #renvois_Dublin #Ghana #Nigeria #Jamaica_50 #Jet2 #hôtels #Elke_Eller #Dieter_Zetsche #Peter_Long #Severstal #Severgroup #Nordgold #Lenta #Tele2_Russia #Unifirm #Hamed_El_Chiaty #DH_Deutsche_Holdings #multinationales #Standard_Life_Aberdeen #Vanguard #Norges_Bank #Pioneer #BlackRock #Leo_Burnett
Dutch exhibition offers new insight into Berbice slave uprising
National archives showcases unique letters sent by the leader of first organised slave revolt.
The Dutch national archives are showcasing a unique set of letters sent by the leader of the first organised slave revolt on the American continent to a colonial governor, in which the newly free man proposed to share the land.
The offer from the man known as #Cuffy, from #Kofi – meaning “born on Friday” – is said to provide a new insight into attempts to resist the brutal regimes of the colonial period, often overlooked in histories of enslaved people.
“We will give Your Excellency half of #Berbice, and all the negroes will retreat high up the rivers, but don’t think they will remain slaves. The negroes that Your Excellency has on his ships – they can remain slaves,” the rebel leader wrote to the local governor, #Wolfert_Simon_van_Hoogenheim.
Berbice, now part of #Guyana, was a Dutch colony for two centuries, and in 1763 approximately 350 white Europeans were keeping an estimated 4,000 slaves on coffee, cotton and sugar plantations in increasingly barbaric conditions, even by the cruel standards of the time.
Cuffy had probably been brought there by traffickers after being bought as a child in west Africa. On the morning of 23 February 1763, a group of around 70 men and women on one colonial plantation overpowered their captors and encouraged the neighbouring slaves to join them, leading to a rebellion of about 3,000 people.
The colonialists fled as the revolt grew but around 40 men and 20 women and children found themselves surrounded by 500 formerly enslaved people after taking refuge in a house on one of the plantations. The roof was set on fire and escapers were shot, according to the writer and historian #Karin_Amatmoekrim.
#Van_Hoogenheim burned down the colony’s #Fort_Nassau to avoid it being taken into rebel hands, leading Cuffy, who had taken leadership of the rebellion, to appoint himself as the new governor of Berbice.
But Cuffy informed Van Hoogenheim that he wanted to end the violence, which he said had been provoked by the cruelty of a particular group of plantation owners. It is this correspondence that now features in the Rebellion and Freedom exhibition, albeit only online for now owing to coronavirus regulations.
“Cuffy, Governor of the Negroes of Berbice, and Captain Akara send greetings and inform Your Excellency that they are not seeking war. But if Your Excellency wants war, the Negroes are willing to do so,” Cuffy wrote. “The Governor of Berbice asks Your Excellency to come and speak to him; Do not be afraid. But if you don’t come, we’ll fight on until there is no Christian left in Berbice.”
According to Amatmoekrim, there was scepticism among the other newly freed people at this attempt to find terms with the colonialists, apparently in part born out of the distrust felt by some about Cuffy, who was one of the few “house slaves”, working often in close proximity to the plantation owners.
Van Hoogenheim waited it out as Cuffy was challenged by a new leader, Atta, leading to a showdown between the two camps of supporters. Cuffy lost out and subsequently killed himself.
A few months later 600 Dutch soldiers docked at Berbice port, leading to the colony’s recapture by the summer of 1764 and savage repercussions. Around 1,800 rebels died, with 24 burned alive, according to Amatmoekrim.
“The history of the Berbice uprising is important as it shows that our colonial past is laced with histories of revolt and resistance,” she said. Cuffy’s story, among others, she said, highlighted “the kind of heroism that has not easily penetrated the history books: black, enslaved, and fighting to the bitter end for their own freedom.”
▻https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/22/dutch-exhibition-offers-new-insight-into-berbice-slave-uprising?__t
#Pays-Bas #archives #colonialisme #esclavage #colonisation
ping @cede
Editions Textuel - Livre - La société de vigilance
►https://www.editionstextuel.com/livre/la_-societe_dvigilance
La société de vigilance
Auto-surveillance, délation et haines sécuritaires
Vanessa Codaccioni
Injonctions sécuritaires et obéissance citoyenne
Partout dans le monde, les populations sont incitées à se mobiliser pour assurer leur propre sécurité et celle de leur pays. Partout, les appels à la vigilance et à la responsabilité individuelle se multiplient, tandis que les États s’appuient de plus en plus sur les citoyennes et les citoyens pour surveiller, réprimer et punir. Au travail, sur internet, dans la rue, à l’école, au sein de la famille.
Prolongeant ses travaux sur la #répression, #VanessaCodaccioni retrace l’avènement de ce phénomène. Elle montre comment de nombreux dispositifs tendent à utiliser les populations à des fins sécuritaires, à impulser des comportements policiers, espions ou guerriers en leur sein et à institutionnaliser la #surveillance mutuelle et la #délation. Ces injonctions sécuritaires visent à obtenir l’ #obéissance citoyenne et à légitimer la répression.
Sommes-nous entrés dans une société de vigilance ?
►https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/la-grande-table-idees/sommes-nous-entres-dans-une-societe-de-vigilance
Vanessa Codaccioni dans Reporterre
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/896512
BeesBuzz Social Networking Community
▻https://beesbuzz.com
Assange gagne. Le coût : la #liberté de la #presse est écrasée, et la #dissidence qualifiée de #maladie_mentale
La décision inattendue de la juge #Vanessa_Baraitser de rejeter la demande américaine d’extradition de #Julian_Assange, déjouant ainsi les efforts visant à l’envoyer dans une prison américaine pour le reste de sa vie, est une victoire juridique bienvenue, mais elle est submergée par des leçons plus importantes qui devraient nous troubler profondément.
Ceux qui ont fait campagne avec tant de vigueur pour que le cas d’Assange reste sous les feux de la rampe, alors même que les médias commerciaux américains et britanniques ont travaillé si dur pour le maintenir dans l’obscurité, sont les héros du jour. Ils ont rendu le prix trop élevé pour que Baraitser ou l’establishment britannique acceptent d’enfermer Assange indéfiniment aux États-Unis pour avoir exposé ses crimes de guerre et ses crimes contre l’humanité en Irak et en Afghanistan.
Mais nous ne devons pas minimiser le prix qui nous est demandé pour cette victoire.
Un moment de célébration
Nous avons contribué collectivement, par nos diverses petites actions, à redonner à Assange un certain degré de liberté et, espérons-le, un sursis à ce qui pourrait être une condamnation à mort, alors que sa santé continue de se détériorer dans une prison de haute sécurité surpeuplée de Belmarsh, à Londres, qui est devenue un terrain propice au Covid-19.
Pour cela, nous devrions nous permettre un moment de célébration. Mais Assange n’est pas encore sorti de l’auberge. Les États-Unis ont déclaré qu’ils feraient appel de la décision. Et il n’est pas encore clair si Assange restera emprisonné au Royaume-Uni - peut-être à Belmarsh - alors que de nombreux mois d’arguments juridiques supplémentaires sur son avenir se déroulent.
Les élites américaines et britanniques ne se soucient pas de savoir où Assange est emprisonné - que ce soit en Suède, au Royaume-Uni ou aux États-Unis. Le plus important pour eux est qu’il continue d’être enfermé à l’abri des regards dans une cellule quelque part, où sa force physique et mentale peut être détruite et où il est effectivement réduit au silence, ce qui encourage les autres à tirer la leçon qu’il y a un prix trop élevé à payer pour la dissidence.
La bataille personnelle pour Assange ne sera pas terminée tant qu’il ne sera pas libéré. Et même alors, il aura de la chance si la dernière décennie de diverses formes d’incarcération et de torture qu’il a subies ne le laisse pas traumatisé de façon permanente, avec des dommages émotionnels et mentaux, l’ombre pâle du champion de la transparence, vigoureux et sans reproche, qu’il était avant le début de son épreuve.
Ce sera une victoire pour les élites britanniques et américaines qui étaient si embarrassées et effrayées par les révélations de Wikileaks sur leurs crimes.
Rejetée sur un point de détail
Mais à part ce qui est une victoire personnelle potentielle pour Assange, en supposant qu’il ne perde pas en appel, nous devrions être profondément inquiets des arguments juridiques avancés par Baraitser pour refuser l’extradition.
La demande d’extradition des États-Unis a été rejetée pour ce qui était en fait un détail technique. Le système américain d’incarcération de masse est si manifestement barbare et corrompu que, comme l’ont montré de façon concluante les experts lors des audiences en septembre dernier, Assange courrait un risque sérieux de se suicider s’il devenait une autre victime de ses prisons super-max.
Il ne faut pas non plus écarter une autre considération probable de la classe dirigeante britannique : dans quelques jours, Donald Trump aura quitté la Maison Blanche et une nouvelle administration américaine prendra sa place.
Il n’y a aucune raison d’être sentimental à l’égard du président élu Joe Biden. Il est aussi un grand fan des incarcérations de masse et il ne sera pas plus l’ami des médias dissidents, des dénonciateurs et du journalisme qui remet en cause l’État de sécurité nationale que ne l’était son prédécesseur démocrate, Barack Obama. Ce qui est tout sauf un ami.
Mais Biden n’a probablement pas besoin d’une affaire Assange suspendue au-dessus de sa tête, qui deviendrait un cri de ralliement contre lui, un résidu inconfortable des instincts autoritaires de l’administration Trump que ses propres fonctionnaires seraient obligés de défendre.
Il serait agréable d’imaginer que les institutions juridiques, judiciaires et politiques britanniques ont eu le courage de se prononcer contre l’extradition. La vérité, bien plus probable, est qu’ils ont sondé l’équipe de Biden et ont reçu la permission de renoncer à une décision immédiate en faveur de l’extradition - sur un point de détail technique.
Gardez un œil sur la décision de la nouvelle administration Biden d’abandonner l’affaire en appel. Il est plus probable que ses fonctionnaires la laisseront mijoter, en grande partie sous le radar des médias, pendant encore de nombreux mois.
Le journalisme en tant qu’espionnage
Il est significatif que le juge Baraitser ait soutenu tous les principaux arguments juridiques de l’administration Trump en faveur de l’extradition, même s’ils ont été complètement démolis par les avocats d’Assange.
Baraitser a accepté la nouvelle définition dangereuse du gouvernement américain du journalisme d’investigation comme « espionnage », et a laissé entendre qu’Assange avait également enfreint la draconienne loi britannique sur les secrets officiels en exposant les crimes de guerre du gouvernement.
Elle a convenu que le traité d’extradition de 2007 s’applique dans le cas d’Assange, ignorant les termes mêmes du traité qui exemptent les cas politiques comme le sien. Elle a ainsi ouvert la porte à la détention d’autres journalistes dans leur pays d’origine et à leur remise aux États-Unis pour avoir mis Washington dans l’embarras.
Baraitser a reconnu que la protection des sources à l’ère numérique - comme l’a fait Assange pour la dénonciatrice Chelsea Manning, une obligation essentielle des journalistes dans une société libre - équivaut désormais à du « piratage » criminel. Elle a dénigré les droits à la liberté d’expression et de la presse, affirmant qu’ils n’offraient pas « une discrétion sans entrave à M. Assange pour décider de ce qu’il va publier ».
Elle semble approuver les nombreuses preuves montrant que les Etats-Unis ont espionné M. Assange à l’intérieur de l’ambassade équatorienne, en violation du droit international et de son privilège de client avocat - une violation de ses droits juridiques les plus fondamentaux qui aurait dû à elle seule stopper les poursuites.
Baraitser a fait valoir qu’Assange bénéficierait d’un procès équitable aux États-Unis, même s’il était presque certain qu’il se déroulerait dans le district oriental de Virginie, où sont basés les principaux services de sécurité et de renseignement américains. Tout jury là-bas serait dominé par le personnel de sécurité américain et leurs familles, qui n’auraient aucune sympathie pour Assange.
Alors que nous célébrons ce jugement pour Assange, nous devons aussi le dénoncer haut et fort comme une attaque contre la liberté de la presse, une attaque contre nos libertés collectives durement gagnées, et une attaque contre nos efforts pour tenir les élites américaines et britanniques responsables d’avoir bafoué les valeurs, les principes et les lois qu’elles prétendent défendre.
Alors même qu’on nous offre d’une main un petit prix dans la victoire juridique actuelle d’Assange, l’autre main nous prend beaucoup plus.
La diffamation continue
Il y a une dernière leçon à tirer de l’arrêt Assange. La dernière décennie a été marquée par le discrédit, la disgrâce et la diabolisation d’Assange. Cette décision doit être considérée comme la continuation de ce processus.
Baraitser a refusé l’extradition uniquement en raison de la santé mentale d’Assange et de son autisme, et du fait qu’il présente un risque de suicide. En d’autres termes, les arguments de principe en faveur de la libération d’Assange ont été rejetés de manière décisive.
S’il retrouve sa liberté, ce sera uniquement parce qu’il a été qualifié de mentalement faible. Cela servira à discréditer non seulement Assange, mais aussi la cause pour laquelle il s’est battu, l’organisation Wikileaks qu’il a contribué à fonder et toute dissidence plus large par rapport aux discours de l’élite. Cette idée s’installera dans le discours public populaire, à moins que nous ne contestions une telle présentation à chaque fois.
Le combat d’Assange pour défendre nos libertés, pour défendre ceux qui, dans des pays lointains, sont bombardés à volonté pour promouvoir les intérêts égoïstes d’une élite occidentale, n’était pas autiste ni une preuve de maladie mentale. Sa lutte pour rendre nos sociétés plus justes, pour obliger les puissants à rendre compte de leurs actes, n’était pas une preuve de dysfonctionnement. C’est un devoir que nous partageons tous de rendre notre politique moins corrompue, nos systèmes juridiques plus transparents, nos médias moins malhonnêtes.
Si nous ne sommes pas beaucoup plus nombreux à nous battre pour ces valeurs - pour un véritable bon sens, et non pour les intérêts pervers, invivables et suicidaires de nos dirigeants - nous sommes condamnés. Assange nous a montré comment nous pouvons nous libérer et libérer nos sociétés. Il incombe au reste d’entre nous de poursuivre son combat.
Traduction "En résumé : « Si nous n’avions pas détruit Julian Assange, si sa santé l’avait permis, nous l’aurions volontiers extradé vers les US. En attendant, nous entérinons la criminalisation du journalisme authentique. Gare aux autres » par Viktor Dedaj avec probablement toutes les fautes et coquilles habituelles
▻https://www.legrandsoir.info/assange-gagne-le-cout-la-liberte-de-la-presse-est-ecrasee-et-la-dissid
Malgré l’affaire Matzneff, le milieu littéraire reste muré dans l’entre-soi
►https://www.nytimes.com/fr/2020/11/28/world/europe/Renaudot-prix-litteraires-matzneff.html
Pourtant, le petit monde qui domine la vie littéraire française demeure largement indemne, démontrant à quel point il est enraciné et inflexible.
Ces anglo-saxons ne comprennent rien à la subtilité de la culture française ;-)
ah merde ça commence mal. Comme on dis, dans cette phrase, rien ne va :
après qu’une femme a révélé, dans un livre dévastateur, leur relation sexuelle lorsqu’elle était mineure.
#vanessa_springora déjà et pas #une_femme . Le livre est tout sauf « dévastateur », au contraire c’est très mesuré, très intelligent, elle réussi même l’exploit de trouver une juste distance, la seule autobio du genre (récit de violences et d’abus) que j’ai lu qui arrive à faire ça. Je ne sais que dire pour exprimer le malaise que me donne cette utilisation de « leur relation sexuelle »... Bon je vais lire la suite.
il faudra quand même qu’on discute un jour du choix de matznef de poser en imper pour le NYT...
▻https://www.linternaute.com/lifestyle/mode/1019956-question-de-style-comment-eviter-les-faux-pas/1019960-comment-porter-l-imper
Le jury qui choisira lundi le lauréat du Prix Renaudot de cette année est, à une personne près, celui-là même qui louait Gabriel Matzneff en 2013.
Les membres des jurys littéraires français sont d’habitude nommés à vie, et sélectionnent eux-mêmes leurs nouveaux membres. Ils attribuent leurs prix au mépris de conflits d’intérêts rarement pointés du doigt. Il arrive que les jurés choisissent des lauréats parmi leurs amis, se fassent les champions du travail d’un collègue, ou même soutiennent celui d’un partenaire amoureux.
Jamais de telles situations ne seraient tolérées pour des prix tels que le Booker Prize en Grande-Bretagne ou le Pulitzer en Amérique, dont la composition des jurys est renouvelée chaque année et où les jurés se récusent en cas de potentiel conflit d’intérêts.
c’est le genre de photo qui me fait douter de Despentes
Vanuatu records first COVID-19 case in man who returned from US | Vanuatu | Al Jazeera
▻https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/11/vanuatu-records-first-covid-19-case-in-man-who-returned-from-us
Vanuatu has officially recorded its first case of COVID-19, health officials announced on Wednesday, ending the Pacific nation’s status as one of the few countries in the world to remain virus-free.Len Tarivonda, the director of Vanuatu Public Health, said the 23-year-old man had recently returned from the United States and was confirmed to have the virus on Tuesday after being tested on the fifth day of his quarantine.
“A case detected in quarantine is considered a border case and not an outbreak,” the department said in a statement, adding that health protocols were in place to contain the virus. It added that the asymptomatic man, had been isolated from other passengers during his flight to Vanuatu because he had been in a high-risk location. He had transited in Auckland, New Zealand.The statement said the patient had adhered to all social-distancing rules on arrival and that contract-tracing of all the people who had been near to him was under way.“I want to assure all citizens and the public that the situation is under control and the government through the COVID-19 task force is prepared and ready to address this case,” Prime Minister Bob Loughman said at a press conference, according to Radio New Zealand.
Vanuatu closed its borders in March as part its efforts to keep the pandemic at bay, only recently allowing in strictly controlled repatriation flights.
Many Pacific island nations were concerned their poor health infrastructure made them particularly vulnerable to the pandemic. The remote island nations and territories of Kiribati, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu are all believed still to be free of the virus.
The Solomon Islands and Marshall Islands confirmed cases among returnees last month, although they have not reported community transmission.
#Covid-19#migrant#migration#vanuatu#casimporte#frontiere#nouvellezelande#australie#etatsunis#test#quarantaine#insularite#pacifique
Être écoféministe | Jeanne Burgart Goutal
Les Éditions L’échappée
►https://www.lechappee.org/collections/versus/etre-ecofeministe
Je souhaitais en savoir plus sur l’#écoféminisme, Aude (#merci) m’a recommandé ce #livre. En plus de l’avoir trouvé très intéressant, j’ai appris des choses, l’approche et les arguments avancés résonnent bien avec mes propres ressentis.
#Oppression des #femmes et #destruction de la #nature seraient deux facettes indissociables d’un modèle de #civilisation qu’il faudrait dépasser : telle est la perspective centrale de l’écoféminisme. Mais derrière ce terme se déploie une grande variété de #pensées et de #pratiques_militantes.
Rompant avec une approche chic et apolitique aujourd’hui en vogue, ce livre restitue la richesse et la diversité des théories développées par cette mouvance née il y a plus de 40 ans : critique radicale du #capitalisme et de la #technoscience, redécouverte des sagesses et #savoir-faire traditionnels, réappropriation par les femmes de leur #corps, #apprentissage d’un rapport intime au #cosmos…
Dans ce road trip philosophique alternant reportage et analyse, l’auteure nous emmène sur les pas des écoféministes, depuis les Cévennes où certaines tentent l’aventure de la vie en autonomie, jusqu’au nord de l’Inde, chez la star du mouvement #Vandana_Shiva. Elle révèle aussi les ambiguïtés de ce courant, où se croisent Occidentaux en quête d’alternatives sociales et de transformations personnelles, ONG poursuivant leurs propres stratégies commerciales et #politiques, et #luttes concrètes de femmes et de communautés indigènes dans les pays du Sud.
Salut @odilon ,
je ne sais pas pourquoi ton post d’il y a 6 mois, commenté il y a 2, ressort pile la semaine dernière mais ça tombe bien !
Je l’ai donc offert à une personne qui se posait des questions sur le sujet et ça semble être une bonne porte d’entrée.
Merci pour le partage :)
Hello @jeanmarie , oui, c’est une très bonne entrée en matière. Bonne lecture :)
Et donc merci à toutes les personnes de la « team Seenthis » qui gèrent les #algorithmes. Mais cela dépend aussi des paramètres de nos alertes dans le menu préférences .
Palestinian volunteers help olive harvesters in ways the Palestinian Authority can’t
Amira Hass | Oct. 23, 2020 | 10:49 AM | Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-palestinian-volunteers-help-olive-harvesters-in-ways-the-palestini
In dozens of villages, the harvest has become life-threatening, and Israel prevents Palestinian security forces from protecting farmers. Volunteers have fill the vacuum – but settler violence isn’t limited to three weeks a year
Volunteers with the Palestinian group Faz3a, whose members accompany olive harvesters to protect them from attacks by settlers, fill a vacuum. It’s a vacuum that the Palestinian Authority’s security forces never could fill in the West Bank’s areas B and C, where the Oslo Accords bar them from operating.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian youths train in martial arts and the use of weapons for recruitment to the Palestinian security forces, including the police. Under the agreements with Israel, they must help the Shin Bet security service and the army monitor Palestinians, arrest and interrogate them.
They’re expected to avert any harm to Israeli citizens. But they’re barred from protecting Palestinian civilians against attacks by thugs who are Israeli citizens.
All the PA can do is “condemn” the violence. Its security agencies may pass the complaints of the assaulted Palestinians to the Israeli police (before coordination was halted in May), and write down the details of the assaults.
At the beginning of the month, Palestinian media outlets reported on the establishment of the group Faz3a for the 2020 olive harvest. They quoted one of its founders, Mohammed al-Khatib of Bil’in, as saying that faza’a – Arabic for a response or a call for help during a war – is a Palestinian tradition of coming to the rescue of the masses in times of trouble.
Faza’a operations in 1948 are etched in the Palestinian collective memory, when residents of Palestinian villages gathered their guns from their hideouts and went out to help the organized Palestinian fighters in the fighting against the armed members of the Jewish community.
Olive harvesting isn’t just any seasonal farming or source of income. It’s a cultural, multigenerational and festive family event that everyone eagerly awaits. Entire families take part, young and old alike, and the process is a skill taught by the grandparents.
But in dozens of villages in the West Bank, the olive harvest, and agriculture in general, have become dangerous activities, even life-threatening, due to the proximity of the ever-spreading outposts and the settlements that spawn these outposts. Settler violence and the Israeli authorities’ refusal to stop it have had a chilling effect: Not everyone dares to take the risk, not everyone wants to bring the women and children along, for fear of putting them in harm’s way.
Year-round violence
Unlike the faza’a of 1948, the volunteers today have no weapons, only determination, courage and political awareness. They know that an abandonment of the farmers and villages contributes to social disintegration.
Khatib was among the founders of the coordinating committee of popular resistance against Israel’s separation barrier in the early 2000s and was arrested for this, stood trial and went to prison. If we wish to draw any conclusions from his past, the volunteers take into account the possibility that the army will arrest them. When it comes to Palestinians, even self-defense can be considered a crime in Israel and reason for arrest.
Faz3a says about 200 volunteers have joined so far, and they are expecting to work for around three weeks until the harvest is over. But the violence isn’t seasonal. It’s a problem year-round, and the Palestinian farmers stand alone in the battle, as if it were a personal problem, not one of Israel’s direct and indirect methods of shrinking the Palestinian space.
The violence during the olive harvest is only one of many Israeli measures that have had a chilling effect or killed the joy of farming. In some regions the army routinely denies Palestinians access to their land “to prevent any friction” with violent settlers, except for three times a year, a few days each time: to plant, plow and harvest grain crops, and for the trees, to harvest, trim and plow.
These farmers have had to give up on the custom of growing vegetables among the trees for private consumption or small-scale marketing. Ten or even 20 days of access a year aren’t enough, though some owners of land beyond the separation barrier have turned, against their will, into 10-day-per-year farmers.
An example of this can be seen in villages like Biddu and Beit Ijza, whose orchards are surrounded and cordoned off by the large Israeli-only expanse that the settlements of Givat Ze’ev and Givon have created.
“At one time the orchards were a place for the entire family to relax on Fridays,” a resident of Biddu said while waiting for soldiers to open a gate for the villagers to get to their land. “We would come to work here a few times a week. Now accessing the area is like visiting a prisoner in jail.”
Fewer permits allotted
Thousands of Palestinian families own tens of thousands of dunams of fertile agricultural land that has been imprisoned beyond the Israeli separation barrier. The barrier has 74 gates that allow farmers to pass through to reach their land. Forty-six of them are defined as “seasonal” and are opened only a few days a year. Twenty-eight are supposed to open every day or at least three times a week.
The soldiers arrive, open and shut the gates a short time later, three times a day. Since the barrier was built, Israel has gradually stiffened its terms for obtaining a permit to access farmland. The number of permits has decreased, and thus, so has the number of family members reaching the orchards. Young people in particular show less and less interest in enduring the hassle.
Each permit is issued only after a run-around from one Israeli Civil Administration office to another. The shortage of working hands is noticeable in the number of thornbushes among the trees, as well as in the decayed leaves and unpicked fruit. Sometimes farmers must go through a gate quite a distance away and then get to their plots on foot, because not everyone receives a permit to enter with a tractor or a donkey and wagon.
Beyond the fixed opening time of the gates, the farmers have no control over what happens on their land. Harvested crops and equipment are stolen. Garbage gets dumped there. There are fires, whether due to negligence or a stun grenade or tear gas canister shot by a soldier; the Palestinian farmers depend on the Israeli firefighters’ goodwill to put out these blazes.
Here the Faz3a volunteers can’t be helpful. Though it’s public and private Palestinian land, part of the West Bank, they are barred from reaching it. Only Israelis and foreign tourists may freely access this Palestinian land.
The attitude of Palestinians to this situation falls somewhere between feeling a bit sorry for the Palestinian Authority to being angry and mocking it. “What can it do?” the farmers wonder when access to their land is blocked by settler violence or Civil Administration rules.
Some people conclude from this state of helplessness that “they don’t even care there in the PA.” This is how Israel widens the gap and sense of alienation and distrust between the Palestinian citizen and a disabled Palestinian self-rule.
Settlers hurled rocks at the Palestinian farmer’s head. His age didn’t deter them
Gideon Levy, Alex Levac | Oct. 22, 2020 | Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.highlight.MAGAZINE-settlers-hurled-rocks-at-the-palestinian-farmer
Settlers stoned and injured a 73-year-old Palestinian in his grove, others vandalized another farmer’s 200 trees. A journey during the season of harvest – which is also clearly the season of settler violence
At home on the outskirts of the West Bank village of Na’alin, an elderly farmer, Khalil Amira, is nursing a head wound he suffered when settlers stoned him while he harvested olives in his grove – in front of his daughter and grandchildren. About an hour’s drive south, in the village of Jab’a, two other aged farmers are lamenting the damage wrought to their olive trees by other thugs. And these are only three recent examples of the dozens of Palestinian harvesters who are being assaulted on their lands on an almost daily basis.
It’s autumn, with its clouds and its howling wind, as the old Israeli song goes, and it’s also the season of the olive harvest – and with it settlers who go on a rampage every year at this time, across the West Bank. It’s not autumn if there’s no olive harvest, and there’s no olive harvest without settler rampages. And the start of this season bodes ill.
Several weeks into the harvest, which began this year on October 5, the Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human Rights NGO has already documented 25 violent incidents, and no one apparently intends to put a stop to them. The police accept complaints and take down testimonies, but that seems to be the extent of their activity.
According to Yesh Din, between 2005 and 2019, only 9 percent of the complaints filed by Palestinians over Israelis’ violence against them ended with the alleged perpetrators being brought to trial. Fully 82 percent of the cases were closed, including nearly all of the complaints about the destruction of olive trees.
Amira is surrounded by family in his fine house in Na’alin, west of Ramallah. His head is bandaged, concealing 15 stitches; his family envelops him with concern and warmth. Since being wounded last week by a stone thrown at him by settlers, he’s returned to the hospital twice, because of possible intracranial bleeding. A working man of 73, Amira was employed for 20 years as a welder in the predominantly ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, in Israel; he also worked for years at Elco, an industrial conglomerate. His father left him, his two sisters and his six brothers 100 dunams (25 acres) of olive trees, which he has been cultivating since his retirement, after becoming ill with a heart ailment. He speaks Hebrew fluently, and he and his family are gracious hosts.
Amira’s access to his land was cut off in 2008 by the construction of the West Bank separation barrier – a fate that befell many Palestinian farmers. Part of his property was also expropriated for the establishment of a settlement called Hashmona’im, which is on the other side of the barrier, yet another annexation-type stunt. Recently, settlers ruined the two wells that were his on land adjacent to Hashmona’im. They would descend into one of the wells with a ladder and wash themselves in it, contaminating the water. The settlers also made a breach in the fence that encircles Hashmona’im and dumped garbage and construction debris on another part of his land – the evidence is still there. Amira filed a complaint with the Binyamin District police, and the dumping stopped for a time, but it resumed last February. It was clear that the perpetrators of the recent assault on him also set out from Hashmona’im, even if they were not necessarily residents of the settlement.
For 11 years, the farmer was unable to visit the land he owns, adjacent to the fence surrounding Hashmona’im – others were able to work it for him – until last fall, when he was able to harvest his olives with no interference. He wanted to do the same this year. The Israel Defense Forces allow him four days to pick olives – with advance coordination. Amira was supposed to start picking Monday last week, but because of a doctor’s appointment, he didn’t arrive until the following day.
They set out early in the morning: Amira, his son Raad, 47, his daughter Halda, 35, and three young grandchildren. The IDF does not permit them to arrive at their lands by vehicle, so they had to walk about a kilometer from the gate in the separation fence. By about midday they had collected enough olives to fill a large sack. Raad hoisted a bag with half of the olives onto his shoulder and carried it to the gate, and then returned for the other half. Seeing that Raad was tired, his father told him he didn’t have to come back again.
At 2:30 P.M., Amira hid the tools he had used in the grove, before his departure. When he returned from the hiding place, he saw that his daughter and grandchildren had already left. On his way to the gate he saw his grandson’s knapsack on the ground. He picked it up and continued to walk, when suddenly he heard shouts.
In a nearby grove, he saw four masked young people throwing rocks at his nephew, Abd al-Haq, and his son, Yusuf, who were working there separately. Spotting Amira, the masked men began hurling rocks at him as well. The fact that he was elderly apparently made no impression on them. According to Amira, they had large rocks that they had brought with them. Otherwise, they were not armed and did not wield clubs. He tried to evade the onslaught but could not escape. At one point, he was struck on the left side of his head, and he collapsed to the ground. He doesn’t know how long he lay there, nor does he remember any more about the person who threw the rock that hit looked like.
“They didn’t look like people to me, but devils,” he tells us now.
Soldiers appeared out of nowhere and administered first aid. His wife and the three grandchildren, also arrived, and were distraught. Blood streamed from his head, and an army paramedic stanched the wound. The soldiers summoned an Israeli ambulance to meet them at Hashmona’im. Amira managed to walk with the aid of the soldiers, but the Druze guard at the settlement’s gate refused to allow any of them to enter.
“Your dogs attacked me and you guard them and don’t let me in?” Amira said to him angrily, in Arabic.
An IDF jeep arrived and took him to the Nili checkpoint, where he was transferred to a Palestinian ambulance and taken to the Ramallah Governmental Hospital. There Amira was stitched up and held for three days to check for possible intracranial bleeding. After he was released at the end of the week, however, he started to suffer from headaches and vomiting. He returned to the hospital this past Sunday, was checked and released again. He was still experiencing headaches and continuing to throw up this week when we visited.
Amira tells us that he feels even more determined than he did before the incident. Of course he will return to his land, there’s no question, he asserts. It’s his property, no one is going to stop him. He has already filed a complaint with the police, and handed over an Israeli ID card that his nephew found at the site of the attack. It belongs to a Y.C., born in 2003, resident of Ganei Modi’in, a neighborhood in the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Modi’in Ilit.
•••
Mohammed Abu Subheiya, 63, a father of eight, is waiting next to his house in Jaba, north of Hebron. For 24 years he worked in Ashdod for Ashtrom, an Israeli construction company. Lately he’s been working in construction in Israel with other employers.
In 1990, Abu Subheiya’s father planted 22 dunams of olive trees, which Abu Subheiya tends in his spare time.
We walk with him down a precipitous, rock-strewn trail to his plot of land, which lies in the valley that runs between Jaba and the settlement of Bat Ayin, which gained notoriety in 2002 when a terrorist underground was uncovered there. Some of the settlers there are newly religious, including some from the Bratslav Hasidic sect. Bat Ayin is where the assailants of the Jaba groves come from.
Abu Subheiya hadn’t visited his grove since early March, because of the coronavirus crisis, which forced him to remain in Israel and not go back and forth to the West Bank. At the beginning of October, the International Red Cross informed him that days had been set for him to harvest the trees in his grove, which lies in a danger zone because of the Bat Ayin settlers. Arriving there on October 4, he was stunned to see that only about half of the 48 trees he has here were still intact. The assailants had gone from tree to tree and sawed off the branches or uprooted the trunks completely. It will take five years for the damaged trees to recover and bear fruit again, he tells us.
We walk from one tree to the next, examining their battered branches, and reflect on the malice of people who are capable of wreaking such destruction upon the fruit of the earth and upon those who work the land. An aroma of sage wafts from bushes along the edges of the grove. Across the way, the mobile homes of Bat Ayin are perched on the slope of a hill. Abu Subheiya says that when the settlers approach his land he flees in fear. After the incident early this month, he too filed a complaint with the police, at the station in the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Betar Ilit; some officers even came to see his grove, but since then he has heard nothing from them. Nor will he. Five years ago, settlers spread a chemical substance on the ground that poisoned 13 of his oldest trees, whose jagged trunks still stand as a silent monument in the grove.
“They work very slowly,” he says of his attackers. “That’s their politics. To destroy slowly, every time somewhere else, so we will remain without olives.”
We descend the hill on the other side of the village, opposite Betar Ilit. The road leading to the olive groves was demolished by the Israeli Civil Administration six years ago, because this is Area C (under full Israeli control). Access now is possible only in a 4x4 vehicle.
“Why does a road bother anyone,” asks Abu Subheiya. “You want to take our land – take it. But why does a road bother anyone? We paved an asphalt road. They came and smashed it to bits.”
We are now making our way on foot to the grove belonging to Khaled Mashalla, 69, on the lower slope of the steep valley. The remains of the ruined road are still evident under the dirt. Only the section near the village was demolished, the rest was left paved as it was.
Last week, assailants came here, too, and uprooted dozens of trees; trunks and broken branches are strewn along the way. Mashalla estimates that he lost 220 trees. He’s an amiable, colorful man who works in the improvised parking lot at the Gevaot checkpoint for Palestinian laborers who cross into Israel, Together with his business partner, he takes 7 shekels ($2) protection money per car per day to guard it against theft. Plump and gleeful, he wears a tattered felt hat that he removes in a theatrical gesture to reveal his bald head. He and his brothers own 400 dunams of olive trees in the area.
The vandalism occurred on the night between Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. The Bedouin who live on the edge of the village called Mashalla to say that they saw headlights in his grove that night. The next afternoon, when he got there after working at the checkpoint, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Dozens of branches had been sawed off. When we visit, we see that the younger trees were spared. They had been wrapped in plastic tubing, to protect them from the gazelles.
Van Morrison blasts Covid gig limits as ’pseudoscience’ | Music | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/25/van-morrison-blasts-covid-gig-limits-pseudoscience
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f6a94550ab59405f41a33c9ab43a3a504c48fd54/0_0_5859_3906/master/5859.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=ac7c343d90687909d8f1de
Restricted numbers … social distancing measures for a Sam Fender concert in Newcastle earlier this month.
Van Morrison has denounced the supposed “pseudoscience” around coronavirus and is attempting to rally musicians in a campaign to restore live music concerts with full capacity audiences.
The 74-year-old Northern Irish singer launched a campaign to “save live music” on his website, saying socially distanced gigs were not economically viable. “I call on my fellow singers, musicians, writers, producers, promoters and others in the industry to fight with me on this. Come forward, stand up, fight the pseudo-science and speak up,” he said.
Morrison is due to play socially distanced gigs in England next month, but he said this did not signify agreement with restrictions to curb the Covid-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than 800,000 lives worldwide.
Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfmkgQRmmeE
Incendie dans le hotspot de Lesbos (septembre 2020)
12.500 demandeurs d’asile fuient les flammes et errent dans la nuit tandis que le feu pourrait réduire le camp entier en cendres, voir les vidéos sur le site d’efsyn :
Πύρινη κόλαση στο ΚΥΤ της Μόριας - Εκκενώθηκε ο καταυλισμός
Στις φλόγες για ακόμα μια φορά ο προσφυγικός καταυλισμός. Επεισόδια μετά την ανακοίνωση των 35 θετικών κρουσμάτων κορονοϊού. Χιλιάδες πρόσφυγες και μετανάστες σε αναζήτηση στέγης.
Μεγάλες φωτιές καίνε από τα μεσάνυχτα όλο τον προσφυγικό καταυλισμό της Μόριας. Χιλιάδες πρόσφυγες και μετανάστες βρίσκονται αυτή την ώρα άστεγοι, κυριολεκτικά μέσα στους δρόμους.
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc-mFZTobB0&feature=emb_logo
Περίπου 12.500 κόσμος που διέμεναν στη Μόρια εγκατέλειψαν τη δομή και αρχικά κινήθηκαν προς τον οικισμό της Παναγιούδας, ενώ μέρος τους κινήθηκε και προς άλλες κατευθύνσεις. Την ίδια ώρα διμοιρίες ΜΑΤ με κλούβες δημιούργησαν φραγμό στο ύψος του Καρά Τεπέ αποτρέποντας τους από το να μπουν στην πόλη.
Η Πυροσβεστική Υπηρεσία προς ώρας επιβεβαιώνει ότι δεν υπάρχουν αναφορές για θύματα.
Πώς ξεκίνησε η φωτιά
Σύμφωνα με τις πρώτες πληροφορίες, της φωτιάς προηγήθηκαν επεισόδια που ξεκίνησαν γύρω στις έντεκα το βράδυ. Η ένταση προκλήθηκε μετά την ανακοίνωση των 35 θετικών κρουσμάτων κορονοϊού στον καταυλισμό και την άρνηση κάποιων εξ αυτών να μπουν σε καραντίνα.
▻https://twitter.com/Eva_Cosse/status/1303471253802582024Γρήγορα οι αρνητές της καραντίνας ήρθαν σε σύγκρουση με άλλους που επεσήμαναν το κίνδυνο για όλο το καμπ ενώ ομάδες προσφύγων προσπάθησαν να διαφύγουν μέσα από το ΚΥΤ φοβούμενοι την μετάδοση του ιού.
Γύρω στις 11.00 έκαναν την εμφάνιση τους οι πρώτες φλόγες περιμετρικά του ΚΥΤ και προς τη πλευρά του Ελαιώνα.
Γρήγορα η φωτιά πέρασε μέσα στο ΚΥΤ και εκεί ομάδα αιτούντων παρεμπόδισε την Πυροσβεστική Υπηρεσία να εισέλθει. Τότε επενέβησαν τα ΜΑΤ που με τη χρήση δακρυγόνων και κρότου-λάμψης διέλυσαν το συγκεντρωμένο πλήθος, αλλά η φωτιά είχε αρχίσει να καίει όλες τις κρίσιμες εγκαταστάσεις όπως τα γραφεία της Ευρωπαϊκής Υπηρεσίας Ασύλου κ.α
Φόβοι εκφράζονται και για την νέα δομή υγείας που δώρισε η Ολλανδική κυβέρνηση μιας και οι φλόγες βγήκαν έξω από το ΚΥΤ και κινήθηκαν προς όλες τις κατευθύνσεις.
Αξίζει να σημειωθεί ότι την ώρα που ξέσπασε η πυρκαγιά, όλες οι πυροσβεστικές δυνάμεις της Λέσβου ήταν σε απόσταση 70 χιλιομέτρων προσπαθώντας να ελέγξουν το διπλό πύρινο μέτωπο που είχε ξεσπάσει νωρίτερα στην Άντισσα και την Βατούσσα αφήνοντας περί τα δέκα οχήματα στο ΚΥΤ που ήταν αδύνατον να ανταπεξέλθουν.
▻https://www.efsyn.gr/ellada/koinonia/258965_pyrini-kolasi-sto-kyt-tis-morias-ekkenothike-o-kataylismos
#Moria #feu #incendie #hotspot #asile #migrations #réfugiés #camps_de_réfugiés #Lesbos #Grèce
(incendie qui a eu lieu le 9 septembre 2020, je suis en retard sur cet événement, j’essaie de mettre les nouvelles arrivées ensuite, notamment sur la mailing-list Migreurop, dans les prochains jours sur ce fil de discussion)
–—
Ajouté à la métaliste sur les incendies qui ont eu lieu en Grèce dans des camps de réfugiés :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/851143
Moria 09/09/20
OFFICIEL : Lesbos est en état d’urgence depuis 4 mois
09/09/2020 12:24:00 Société, Lesbos, Immigrants, Incendie, EKTAKTO
Par arrêté du vice-ministre de la Protection civile et de la gestion des crises, Nikos Hardalia et décision du secrétaire général de la protection civile, Vassilios Papageorgiou, l’unité régionale de Lesbos est déclarée en état d’urgence de la protection civile, pour des raisons de santé publique.
Cette déclaration est valable à partir d’aujourd’hui 09-09-2020 et pendant quatre (4) mois.
Les ministres de l’Intérieur T. Theodorikakos, de l’Immigration et de l’Asile N. Mitarakis et le président d’EODY Pan. Arkoumaneas se rend à Lesbos, afin d’être informé de la situation à Moria, comme l’a déclaré le porte-parole du gouvernement St. Petsas, après la fin de la réunion gouvernementale au Palais Maximos.
Pendant ce temps, des renforts d’Athènes ont été envoyés par la police à Lesbos, afin de faire face au problème qui s’est créé depuis la nuit après les incendies qui se sont déclarés à Moria et ont détruit une très grande partie du KYT. En particulier, trois escouades MAT ont quitté Elefsina à 7 heures du matin sur un avion militaire C-130 et devraient arriver sur l’île à 9 heures.
Comme il est devenu connu du siège de EL.AS. Il y a déjà des forces fortes sur l’île, cependant tous les étrangers qui étaient dans le KYT après les incendies sont concentrés à l’extérieur de la structure, où ils sont gardés et cherchent des solutions pour leur logement.
La lumière du jour montre l’ampleur de la destruction du camp - « ville » de 13 000 réfugiés et migrants à Moria. La totalité de la partie extérieure du KYT a été complètement détruite, tandis qu’une grande partie à l’intérieur du camp KYT qui continue de brûler a également été détruite. Les informations indiquent que les infrastructures d’administration et d’identification n’ont pas été incendiées, mais que le service d’asile et son équipement ont été complètement incendiés. En outre, des dommages ont été causés dans la zone de l’unité de soins intensifs et de l’unité de soins intensifs et dans la climatisation de l’unité de santé qui a été faite grâce à un don du gouvernement néerlandais.
Une grande partie de la population de Moria a fui vers les domaines environnants, tandis qu’une autre partie s’est déplacée vers la ville de Mytilène où à la hauteur de Kara Tepe, juste avant l’usine PPC, une force de police forte a été alignée qui ne leur permet pas d’entrer dans la ville.
L’incendie s’est déclaré vers minuit, lorsque les réfugiés et les migrants qui avaient été testés positifs pour le coronavirus ou avaient été détectés comme cas de contact ont refusé d’être isolés. Des affrontements se sont ensuivis avec d’autres réfugiés et migrants qui les ont poussés hors du camp. Ce conflit a pris à un moment donné un caractère tribal avec le résultat que des incendies ont éclaté, qui bientôt, en raison du vent fort, ont pris des dimensions.
Il est à noter que, comme indiqué, les forces des pompiers, arrivées au camp pour tenter, ont été attaquées par des groupes de demandeurs d’asile qui ont entravé leur travail. En ce moment, les pompiers opèrent dans le camp avec le renforcement des moyens aériens, afin d’éteindre complètement le feu puis de contrôler la zone.
Source : skai.gr
▻https://www.lesvospost.com/2020/09/blog-post_50.html
On craint une propagation du coronavirus dans tout Mytilène si les quelque 12000 réfugiés et immigrants ne sont pas expulsés immédiatement et dans une zone éloignée du tissu urbain après l’incendie qui s’est déclaré peu avant minuit mardi à Moria, exprime le maire de Mytilene S.
« Les quelque 12 000 réfugiés ne peuvent pas rester un deuxième jour à ce moment-là. Dix ans nous ont laissés seuls sur la question des réfugiés. Les immigrants doivent être expulsés ici et maintenant. "Sinon, il y aura une propagation du virus dans toute la région", a déclaré le maire de Mytilène, Stratis Kytelis, à ethnos.gr.
12000 réfugiés et migrants restent sur la route nationale
Les réfugiés et les migrants restent sur la route nationale à la hauteur de Panagouda et se trouve à seulement six kilomètres de Mytilène tandis que les forces de police ont créé un barrage pour les empêcher de s’y déplacer. Trois escouades MAT avec une force totale de 60 personnes sont déjà parties du Pirée à Lesbos les forces de l’île. Il est à noter qu’à partir du contrôle des échantillons de liquide pharyngien reçus les trois jours de jeudi, vendredi et samedi par les équipes d’EODY parmi 1900 résidents de l’hôpital de Moria et 100 employés, un total de 35 cas positifs pour le virus ont été trouvés, au total des réfugiés et autres demandeurs d’asile. . Il est à noter qu’en plus des 35 réfugiés en quarantaine, 100 autres personnes étaient entrées en contact avec eux.
Reçu via la mailing-list Migreurop, le 09.09.2020
Construction d’un nouveau camp de réfugiés pour « accueillir » les personnes à la rue suite à l’incendie :
Moria : “Time bomb” exploded, burned down Hotspot & “European values”
It was short before Tuesday midnight when fires broke out in several parts in- and outside the Moria camp. The powerful winds quickly spread the flames around, through containers and tents. Total destruction. 13,000 people on the streets. The island of Lesvos has declared in “state of emergency.” Authorities investigate arson. Alarm for the 35 confirmed coronavirus cases that authorities do not know their whereabouts. No reports of fatalities or injuries.▻https://twitter.com/f_grillmeier/status/1303478067348803584
The worst scenario happened – and while there was a scenario, plans to deal with it equaled to zero.
▻https://twitter.com/th1an1/status/1303452650663370752
A large part of the refugees and asylum seekers fled to the surrounding areas, while another part has moved to the city of Mytilene. However, strong police forces have been lined up in the area of Kara Tepe and do not allow them to enter the city.
▻https://twitter.com/veramagalik/status/1303571532992712704
Others entered the camp in the morning apparently seeking to save some of their belongings.
▻https://twitter.com/KallergisK/status/1303554698083995650
The entire camp outside the camp including thousands of olive trees have been destroyed, also a large part inside the hotspot.
According to information the administration and identification infrastructures were not burned, but the Asylum Service and its equipment were completely burned.
Damaged are also the area of the Intensive Care Unit as wells as the new health Care unit recently donated by the Dutch Government.
According to local media stonisi, that speaks of “uprising and fire“, clashes erupted in the camp after 35 people were confirmed positive to coronavirus on Tuesday. They, their families and their contacts refused to go in isolation in a warehouse just outside the camp. Others started to leave out of fear to contract the virus.
The clashes “soon led to fires initially around the camp that burned all the tents outside and around the KYT and containers inside,” notes the local news website.
▻https://twitter.com/SEENOTRETTUNG/status/1303445925524910086
Three squads of riot police have been reportedly deployed from Athens to Moria.
Authorities seek accommodation solutions for the thousands of people.
Residents of overcrowded Moria camp have been in lockdown for several months due to the coronavirus.
https://i0.wp.com/www.keeptalkinggreece.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/moriafiresept1.jpg?resize=768%2C432&ssl=1#.jpg 
https://i1.wp.com/www.keeptalkinggreece.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/moriafiresept3.jpg?resize=768%2C576&ssl=1#.jpg Chief of Fire Service, Konstantinos Theofilopoulos, told state broadcaster ERT on Wednesday morning, that several fires started around 10:30 at night and that they were initially hindered with thrown stones.
He added that the fire has been largely extinguished except from the containers that are still burning inside.
Citing sources of the National Intelligence Service, ERT reported that initially the tents outside the camp were set on fire.
Quick are the far-right conspiracy theorists who see in the blaze “act of asymmetric warfare” against Greece and blame “Erdogan’s soldiers” for the fire.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakisis currently chair an emergency meeting with the ministers of Citizen Protection, Migration Policy and Asylum and Interior, the chiefs of National Intelligence and the General Staff of Armed Forces, and the head of the Civil Protection.
The vice president of the European Commission and Commissioner for the Promotion of the European way of Life, Margaritis Schinas, expressed the Commission’s intention to assist Greece at all levels.
EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, said that she had agreed to fund the immediate transfer and accommodation on the Greek mainland of the 400 unaccompanied migrant children and teenagers.
PS The fire in Moria burned down not only the camp but also the “European values”…
▻https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2020/09/09/moria-fire-camp-burned-down-pictures-videos
Grèce : un important incendie ravage le camp de Moria, des milliers de personnes à évacuer
Un énorme incendie a ravagé dans la nuit de mardi à mercredi le camp de Moria sur l’île grecque de Lesbos. Le site, qui héberge plus de 12 000 personnes, a été « détruit à 99% » selon les pompiers. La tension est à son comble sur l’île : des migrants ont empêché les pompiers de rentrer dans le camp et des membres de l’extrême droite ont « attaqué » les ONG qui tentaient de venir en aide aux exilés.
Le camp de Moria où s’entassent plus de 12 000 migrants a pris feu dans la nuit du mardi 8 au mercredi 9 septembre. Selon les pompiers, le site a été presque entièrement détruit. « La quasi-totalité du camp est en feu, aussi bien à l’intérieur que les tentes qui se trouvent à l’extérieur dans l’oliveraie », a observé un photographe de l’AFP présent sur place. « Tout brûle », a déclaré sur Twitter une association d’aide aux migrants, Stand by me Lesvos.
Plusieurs heures après le début de l’incendie, une fumée noire continuait à s’élever au dessus du camp. Le président du syndicat des pompiers de Lesbos, Yorgos Ntinos, a indiqué mercredi matin que le camp « a brûlé à 99% et le feu continue ».
▻https://twitter.com/iwatnew/status/1303488090716205056
Des centaines de demandeurs d’asile fuyaient à pied dans la nuit vers le port de Mytilène mais ont été bloqués par les véhicules des forces de l’ordre, raconte à InfoMigrants Alpha*, un migrant vivant dans un conteneur du camp de Moria. « On n’a pas dormi de la nuit et personne ne nous a donné à manger ou à boire. Il y a beaucoup de femmes et d’enfants », précise-t-il.
https://scd.infomigrants.net/media/resize/my_image_big/d8481bec306e3200b3cf3be0ba4fc6e508461699.jpeg D’autres personnes se sont abritées dans les collines environnant le camp. « Certains témoignages rapportent que des locaux bloquent le passage (des migrants) dans le village voisin », rapporte encore Stand by me Lesvos.
Le site d’information locale Lesvospost explique que plus de 3 000 tentes, des milliers de conteneurs, des bureaux de l’administration et une clinique au sein du camp ont également été brûlés.
▻https://twitter.com/dfherman/status/1303491672685318149
Pour l’heure, les pompiers précisent qu’"il n’y a pas de victimes, mais quelques blessés légers avec des problèmes respiratoires dus à la fumée". Des rumeurs annonçaient mercredi matin le décès d’au moins cinq personnes - une information que n’a pas pu vérifier InfoMigrants."Je pense que d’autres morts seront à déplorer car Moria est à terre", souffle Alpha.
État d’urgence déclaré
La tension est à son comble sur l’île. Les pompiers affirment dans leur communiqué avoir « été empêchés d’entrer dans le camp pour intervenir » par certains groupes de réfugiés, et avoir fait appel aux forces de l’ordre pour pouvoir poursuivre l’opération de secours. Plusieurs associations racontent avoir été « attaquées » par des membres de l’extrême droite alors qu’elles tentaient de venir en aide aux migrants.
« L’île de Lesbos est déclarée en état d’urgence » a affirmé sur la chaîne de télévision publique ERT, le porte-parole du gouvernement grec, Stelios Petsas. Une réunion gouvernementale, avec le Premier ministre et le chef de l’état-major, doit se tenir mercredi matin « pour examiner la situation à Moria et les mesures qui vont être prises ».
▻https://twitter.com/f_grillmeier/status/1303446446734274565
D’après l’agence de presse grecque ANA, les feux auraient été déclenchés à la suite de la révolte de certains demandeurs d’asile qui devaient être placés en isolement, ayant été testés positifs au coronavirus ou proches d’une personne détectée positive. « Il y a 35 cas positifs et ils doivent être isolés (...) pour empêcher la propagation » du virus, a déclaré Selios Petsas à la chaîne publique TV ERT. Tous les réfugiés du camp ont l’interdiction de quitter l’île, a-t-il ajouté.
Selon Alpha, « des Afghans ont refusé que des agents procèdent à des tests de coronavirus ». La situation a rapidement dégénéré et « les forces de l’ordre ont lancé des gaz lacrymogènes ». « J’étais dans mon conteneur quand j’ai entendu du bruit à l’extérieur. Je n’ai pas voulu sortir. Mais des flammes ont commencé à entrer dans mon habitation alors je me suis enfui en courant. Le feu était juste à côté de moi, j’ai eu très peur », continue le jeune homme.
https://scd.infomigrants.net/media/resize/my_image_big/5ee1d03bc3e6b4c9e59dee2ed39bfefd76f423ca.jpeg « La zone paie le prix de l’indifférence et de l’abandon », estime sur Facebook Facebook l’association des habitants de Moria et des autres villages environnants qui appelle les autorités à agir rapidement pour trouver une solution pour les demandeurs d’asile qui se retrouvent sans abri.
La semaine dernière, les autorités ont détecté un premier cas de coronavirus à Moria et ont mis le camp en quarantaine pour quinze jours. Après la réalisation de 2 000 tests de dépistage, 35 personnes ont été détectées positives au Covid-19 à Moria et mises à l’isolement.
De strictes mesures de circulation ont été imposées dans les camps de migrants depuis la mi-mars. Le gouvernement n’a jamais levé ces restrictions malgré les critiques des ONG de droits de l’homme jugeant ces mesures « discriminatoires » alors que la décision a été prise de déconfiner le pays début mai. « Depuis des mois, on est bloqués à l’intérieur du camp, on ne peut pas en sortir. Cela fait un moment que la tension est palpable, les gens ont en marre d’être privés de leur liberté », dit encore Alpha.
*Le prénom a été modifié
▻https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/27131/grece-un-important-incendie-ravage-le-camp-de-moria-des-milliers-de-pe
Après l’incendie de Moria, la Commissaire appelle les autorités grecques à venir en aide à tous les sinistrés
« Dans la nuit de mardi à mercredi, le feu a détruit en grande partie le centre d’enregistrement et d’identification de Moria et les campements informels qui l’entourent, sur l’île grecque de Lesbos. Cet incendie a considérablement dégradé les conditions de vie des plus de 12 000 demandeurs d’asile et migrants, dont plus de 4 000 enfants, qui sont retenus dans un centre d’une capacité inférieure à 2 800 places », a déclaré la Commissaire.
« L’intervention rapide des autorités locales et des pompiers a permis d’éviter une tragédie. Toutefois, la situation reste tendue, en ce qui concerne à la fois les migrants et la population locale qui vit à proximité du camp.
J’appelle les autorités grecques à fournir d’urgence un hébergement à toutes les personnes privées d’#abri à la suite de l’incendie, en veillant à ce qu’elles aient accès à des soins, à des installations sanitaires, à un soutien psychologique et à de la nourriture. Il faudrait accorder une attention particulière aux personnes contaminées par le coronavirus et leur dispenser les soins nécessaires.
Il importe également que les autorités grecques de tous niveaux protègent les demandeurs d’asile et les migrants contre les agressions et s’abstiennent de tenir des propos qui pourraient attiser les tensions.
La situation sur les autres îles grecques où sont hébergés des réfugiés, des demandeurs d’asile et des migrants n’est guère différente de celle qui prévaut à Lesbos ; sur ces autres îles aussi, les difficultés pourraient s’aggraver. Comme beaucoup, je ne cesse de répéter qu’une aggravation de la situation semble inévitable si la Grèce et les autres États membres du Conseil de l’Europe ne changent pas de stratégie. Certes, la priorité est actuellement de répondre aux besoins humanitaires des sinistrés, mais l’incendie de Moria montre l’urgence de repenser entièrement la stratégie appliquée ces dernières années, qui a conduit à la création de camps surpeuplés, caractérisés par des conditions de vie inhumaines et intenables, à Moria et sur d’autres îles de la mer Égée. Il n’est tout simplement pas possible d’héberger les demandeurs d’asile et les migrants sur des bateaux, ou de recourir à d’autres formes d’hébergement d’urgence, en attendant que le camp de Moria soit remis en état, puis de continuer comme avant.
Les autorités grecques n’ont toujours pas réglé une série de problèmes majeurs, comme le cantonnement des demandeurs d’asile et des migrants sur les îles de la mer Égée, le manque de structures d’accueil, sur les îles et sur le continent, et les insuffisances des politiques d’intégration et d’asile. La situation catastrophique dénoncée depuis des années par de nombreuses instances nationales et internationales est cependant aussi imputable à l’attitude des autres États membres, qui n’aident guère la Grèce en matière de relocalisation, et plus largement au manque de solidarité européenne. Ce n’est pas seulement un problème grec, c’est aussi un problème européen.
Il n’y a plus de temps à perdre. La Grèce a besoin d’une aide concrète et de grande ampleur de la part des autres États membres du Conseil de l’Europe. Si de nombreuses collectivités locales se sont déclarées prêtes à apporter leur contribution, les autorités nationales, en revanche, se montrent trop frileuses. Je me réjouis que certains États membres semblent vouloir intensifier leurs efforts de relocalisation, mais il est urgent qu’ils agissent et que d’autres gouvernements européens suivent cette voie.
La Grèce et ses partenaires doivent enfin se décider à régler les problèmes structurels d’une politique migratoire qui a déjà causé tant de souffrances inutiles. Attendre encore, c’est prendre le risque que d’autres drames se produisent. »
▻https://www.coe.int/fr/web/commissioner/-/commissioner-calls-on-the-greek-authorities-to-provide-adequate-support-to-all-
’Catastrophe’ warning as thousands left homeless by Lesbos refugee camp fire
NGOs accuse police of blocking access to hospital for families and vulnerable migrants injured in Moria blaze.
NGOs in Lesbos have warned that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding on the roads around the still burning Moria camp, where thousands of migrants are allegedly being held by police without shelter or adequate medical help.
Annie Petros, head coordinator of of the charity Becky’s Bathhouse, said she was blocked by police from taking injured people to hospital as she drove them away from the fire.
“When we saw there was a fire we drove as fast as we could with water to the camp, intending to take sick people to hospital. I can’t describe properly the scene we saw. There were streams of people, thousands of them, walking away from the camp. They were totally silent, terrified and traumatised, walking through thick smoke and the awful smell of burning plastic,” she said.
“We picked up some pregnant women who needed urgent help and a teenage boy with a broken leg. When we neared the town of Mytilene there were riot police blocking the way to stop anyone reaching the town. I begged the police but their commander wouldn’t let us through. We called an ambulance and it refused to come to the roadblock.”
Petros said she was sent along back roads, that brought them into contact with a group of anti-migrant protesters.
She learned later that some people were attacked.
She said the people she took to the hospital were the only ones who managed to make it through. “There are many people who need help with burns, with smoke inhalation.”
Other aid organisations in the area said urgent work was needed to get people shelter before night fell.
Omar Alshakal, a former refugee and founder of Refugees4Refugees, said: “The situation is out of control. We were looking after minors here and the safe place for them was lost in the fire. We lost 30 children. We are looking for them now.”
Alshakal said the Greek government was making some effort, but the situation was severe. “We now have 12,000 people with no shelter, homeless on the main road. I have been called just now by the army, they want to get food to people and masks, sanitisation.”
He said he was concerned that the isolation unit for Covid-19 patients was now abandoned. “We had 19 positive cases all in isolation, now they have left the camp. We have the fear they will spread the virus further.”
The cause of the fire is unclear. Alshakal believes it was started by refugees in protest at conditions.
The overcrowded camp is known to be a dangerous space, with small fires being lit to cook and no safe distancing between ramshackle tarpaulins used as tents.
Moira was opened at the height of the refugee crisis in 2015. It was originally intended to hold 3,000 people. The charity MSF has been pushing the Greek authorities to improve conditions at the camp for years.
Amir, a 19-year-old migrant from Afghanistan who teaches English in the School of Peace in the camp, said: “At about 11 last night I saw people starting fires deliberately. It was refugees who were very, very angry about the situation in this camp. We have been a long time in quarantine, you know we are under a lockdown while there are no such rules or laws for Greek people. It is racist, they are treating people like we are animals. We have needs, but we can’t leave this camp to get medicine or food.”
He added: “The situation will now be worse for refugees. Our school is completely burned down. We had started to have hope that we could continue our learning but all that is gone now.”
Aid groups are meeting on Wednesday evening to discuss an urgent response. They want people moved from the roadside immediately.
Philippa Kempson of the Hope Project, said a government-ordered 3.5-mile (6km) cordon around the camp meant she couldn’t get to her supplies.
“We have a building full of aid, nappies, water, very near Moria,” she said. “People can’t reach the city, they are out on an exposed road in 32C with children and babies. These people left the camp with what they had. We are 10km away and I had an asthma attack this morning due to the toxic smoke. Everything in there is plastic: the tents, the temporary housing blocks. And fires are still breaking out, the fire helicopter is still overhead.”
She said the only light in the dark situation was that in two months the camp was due to be completely locked down. “Can you imagine if the fire had started in a couple of months when they had fenced it in with razor wire as they were planning to do? You would have had 12,000 people trapped in an inferno.”
The UNHCR is working with the authorities to move people to safety. The agency said the authorities have blocked the road to stop uncontrolled movement but that vulnerable groups were being prioritised for shelter across the island and in accommodation in Mytilene, the island’s capital.
Ylva Johansson, EU commissioner for home affairs, tweeted she had “agreed to finance the immediate transfer and accommodation on the mainland of the remaining 400 unaccompanied children and teenagers. The safety and shelter of all people in Moria is the priority.”
The police have been approached for comment.
FIRE DESTROYS MUCH OF MORIA CAMP, FOLLOWING FOUR YEARS’ EUROPEAN TOLERANCE OF FATAL RISKS TO MIGRANTS
In the early hours of this morning, a large fire broke out in Moria Refugee Camp, which has left much of the camp destroyed, and many of the approximately 13, 000 residents displaced.
This comes a week after the first person tested positive for COVID-19 in the camp, which was immediately followed by the government’s official initiation of works to transform Moria refugee camp to a closed controlled centre. In the days that followed, at least 30 other people have tested positive for COVID-19 – in a camp that is currently at four times’ its stated capacity, where basic preventative measures are a practical impossibility and where there was no functioning COVID-19 isolation clinic.
The dehumanisation of migrants at the European border and apparent indifference to the impact of this protracted, unsustainable situation on the local population have had repeatedly devastating consequences. Migrants have been consistently confined to overcrowded, insecure and fundamentally inhuman conditions, where fires – often fatal – are a regular occurrence. This was not the first fire in Moria camp; it was not even the first fire in the camp this year. Such fatal risks to – and loss of – migrant lives are instead tolerated as part of the European border regime.
Following the near destruction of Moria Camp, this morning the Greek government placed the island of Lesvos under a four month state of emergency. The police and army have been on the streets around Moria camp since the fire broke out, and three riot police squads (known as the Units for the Reinstatement of Order) were flown in from Athens this morning. As far as we know, no additional medical capacity or humanitarian aid has been mobilised or provided. The government’s immediate dispatch of security forces, before or without humanitarian assistance, continues their policy of framing migrants as a question of public order – and prioritising their securitisation as opposed to the provision of urgent assistance.
The Greek authorities’ main priority so far seems to be the prevention of migrants’ access to Mytiline: a police blockade was established next to Kara Tepe camp in the early hours of this morning, to prevent migrants who had fled the fire from reaching the city, and it remains there to this point. Police units have also blocked the main access road to Moria camp. People who had been living in the camp are spread out on the roads around Moria camp, in the surrounding forests, and in the car park of a nearby supermarket. From what migrants have told us, there have been no state provisions – whether of essentials such as food or water, or other necessities such as hygiene facilities – in those locations.
There has never been an evacuation plan for Moria Camp residents, and when the fire broke out last night, people were left to flee on their own – including those who had been held in the pre-removal detention centre inside Moria Camp (PRO.KE.KA.). Some of those living in the sections for vulnerable people (including unaccompanied children and single women) were woken up by police, but given no instruction of where they could or should go. At present, there remains a profound lack of information regarding the safeguarding or protection response for such groups. When we spoke with vulnerable individuals supported by Legal Centre Lesvos in the early hours of this morning, they were scattered in the forests and roads surrounding the camp, without any state support.
There is still no official confirmation of casualties, or even hospitalisations.
Those who have returned to Moria camp this morning have sent photos of the destroyed camp, including the remains of their tents and shelters. Residents have emphasised that the many of the facilities – including toilets and sanitation spaces – have been burnt. The already-inadequate provisions to prevent or slow the spread of COVID-19 among the camp’s population have now been destroyed, and given that over thirty residents of the camp have tested positive for the virus in recent days, a failure to implement a rapid and health-oriented response for displaced residents will no doubt increase the number of cases – and will likely overwhelm the stretched public healthcare system.
“This fire is a visceral manifestation of European policies, which have for years tolerated the containment of migrants in dangerous, overcrowded and insecure conditions,” said Amelia Cooper, of the Legal Centre Lesvos. “Repeated fatal incidents – including the death of a seven-year-old child in a fire in Moria camp, just six months ago – have not been enough to prompt the evacuation of Moria refugee camp; neither has been the outbreak of a global pandemic, nor the detection of positive cases, nor the Greek government’s instrumentalisation of these facts to impose mass detention on camp residents. Residents of Moria camp, and migrants in hotspots across Europe, are in situations of manufactured and state-sanctioned vulnerability. This fire was not an accident, it was an inevitability.”
▻https://legalcentrelesvos.org/2020/09/09/fire-destroys-much-of-moria-camp-following-four-years-european-to
Joint statement of 31 NGOs regarding the fire at the Registration and Identification Centre at Moria
Greece: Transfer Refugees and Asylum seekers to Safety on Mainland
Respect for Human Rights should Prevail over Use of Force
Following yesterday’s fire in Moria, on Lesvos, which destroyed the Reception and Identification Centre, 31 civil society organizations call on the Greek Government to immediately provide assistance to people who lost their shelter. Those affected, among them many children and at-risk groups, must be carefully transferred to safety on the mainland.
The transfer of at-risk groups, including unaccompanied children, pregnant women, people with disabilities, people with medical and mental health conditions, and older people should be prioritized. People who tested positive for Covid-19 should be given safe housing for the quarantine period, healthcare, and hospitalization if necessary.
Moving people from Lesvos to mainland Greece requires finding urgent solutions to address the fact that many current housing facilities for refugees and asylum seekers are at full capacity. We urge the Greek authorities to work on a coherent plan that maximises all available resources including those from the EU and we renew our call to European leaders to share the responsibility for the reception and support of asylum seekers now more than ever.
In these difficult times, it is of outmost importance that respect for human rights is at the centre of the response to the fire at Moria, and that authorities do not resort to use of force or inflammatory language, but take appropriate steps to de-escalate any risk of violence.
ActionAid Hellas
Amnesty International
Boat Refugee Foundation
CRWI Diotima
ECHO100PLUS
ELIX
Equal Rights Beyond Borders
Fenix - Humanitarian Legal Aid
Greek Council for Refugees (GCR)
Hellenic League for Human Rights
Hellenic Platform for Development (Ελληνική Πλατφόρμα για την Ανάπτυξη)
Help Refugees
Hias Greece
HumanRights360
Humanitarian Legal Aid
Human Rights Watch
International Rescue Committee (IRC)
INTERSOS Hellas
Legal Centre Lesvos
Médecins Sans Frontières
Melissa
Network for Children’s Rights
Omnes
Refugee Legal Support (RLS)
Refugee Rights Europe (RRE)
Refugee Support Aegean (RSA)
Refugee Trauma Initiative
Solidarity Now
Symbiosis-School of Political Studies in Greece
Terre des hommes Hellas
The HOME Project
▻https://www.gcr.gr/en/news/press-releases-announcements/item/1499-joint-statement-of-31-ngos-regarding-moria-refugee-camp-fire
New fire breaks out in Moria camp on Wed evening
A new large fire broke out at the Reception and Identification Center in Moria early Wednesday evening, just hours after the overcrowded hotspot on the island of Lesvos was largely destroyed by the fire the previous night.
The fire is reportedly burning in the area of Eleonas, the olive grove, outside the camp, where thousands of people of who do fit in live in tents.
▻https://twitter.com/g_christides/status/1303744178053165056
Media report that the fire started in some of the 200 tents that were not burned down on Tuesday night. Explosion sounds were heard, and they probably came form the cooking devices the refugees used.
▻https://twitter.com/th_voulgarakis/status/1303738169729441795
Hundreds of people among them many families with children, were leaving the area.
▻https://twitter.com/g_christides/status/1303737094704070657
Firefighters have rushed to the scene but the blaze went out of control due to the strong winds.
▻https://twitter.com/News247gr/status/1303739366179835906
STAR TV reported from the spot that the firefighters are now trying to protect the nearby forest.
Thousands left the camp that hosted 12,800 people.
It remains unclear whether it is a new fire or a resurgence of the one that already destroyed much of the Moria hotspot the other night.
▻https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2020/09/09/moria-new-fire-wednesday-evening
All people in Moria camp must be evacuated to safety in wake of destructive fire
Nearly 12,000 men, women and children have been forced to evacuate Moria refugee camp, on the island of Lesbos, Greece, after a fire tore through the camp during the night of 8 September. While the fire is not believed to have caused any deaths, the camp was almost completely burned down, and people are now on the streets, with nowhere to stay. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) urges Greek and EU authorities to immediately evacuate people off the island to safety.
“Our teams saw the fire spread across Moria and rage all night long. The whole place was engulfed in flames, we saw an exodus of people from a burning hell with no direction,” says Marco Sandrone, MSF field coordinator in Lesbos. “Children were scared, and parents are in shock. We are relieved that there seem to be no victims and we are working now to address the immediate needs of the people.”
All medical services available for the refugees and asylum seekers have been interrupted, including services at the MSF paediatric clinic.
Almost five years of trapping people in dire conditions has led to tensions and despair. This has only increased over the last five months due to restricted movements in the camp, hastily justified as a public health measure amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the recent confirmation of positive cases of COVID-19 among the camp’s residents, the increasing restrictions on people have made the situation unbearable.
MSF has been pushing the Greek health and migration authorities to set up an adequate COVID-19 response plan for Moria, that counts on people’s collaboration and which offers dignity to the sick and to those who are infectious.
“The Greek authorities have failed to put such a response in place, and the EU and other EU member states have disclaimed responsibility and have done close to nothing to resolve this situation,” says Aurelie Ponthieu, MSF Humanitarian Advisor on Displacement. “The years-long orchestration of human suffering and violence produced by European and Greek migration policies are to blame for the fire, and we can only hope that the same system of inhumane containment will not be reborn from the ashes in Moria.”
MSF calls on the Greek authorities to immediately adopt an emergency response plan and to evacuate all these people to a safe place on the mainland or to other European countries. We are ready to provide the support that is needed during the emergency response.
▻https://www.msf.org/refugees-moria-must-be-evacuated-wake-destructive-fire
#MSF
Incendie à Moria - Evacuer MAINTENANT !
Incendie à Moria - Evacuer MAINTENANT !
La nuit dernière, un incendie a détruit le camp de réfugié.e.s surpeuplé de Moria. Près de 13 000 personnes vivaient dans le camp dont la capacité officielle n’est que de 2 757 personnes. Suite à ces incendies, aucune évacuation n’a été organisée. Par ailleurs, il n’y a jamais eu de plan d’évacuation pour l’ensemble du camp malgré les dangers et les conditions inhumaines. Au printemps 2020, l’Europe et la Suisse n’ont pas réussi à réaliser l’évacuation des camps et la redistribution des personnes entre les différents États européens, alors que la situation l’exigeait et malgré les mobilisations.
Le 2 septembre, une première personne a été testée positive au Covid-19 à Moria. Au lieu d’identifier de manière systématique les possibilités d’infection, le camp entier a été mis en quarantaine. Toutes les personnes ont donc été fortement exposées au risque d’infection. La seule réponse a été leur enfermement aux frontières de l’Europe.
Le 23 juin 2020, plus de 50 000 personnes ont demandé au Conseil fédéral de participer à des opérations d’accueil humanitaire pour évacuer les camps des îles grecques. Le 16 juin 2020, le Conseil national a approuvé la motion visant à accepter des réfugiés de Grèce et les huit plus grandes villes de Suisse ont accepté d’accueillir des réfugié.e.s directement de Grèce. Nous demandons une nouvelle fois au Conseil fédéral, à Karin Keller-Sutter en tant que cheffe du département du DFJP et au SEM d’accueillir les réfugié.e.s de Grèce et de fournir une aide d’urgence immédiate sur le terrain.
▻https://www.sosf.ch/fr/sujets/schengen-europe/informations-articles/incendie-a-moria.html?zur=41
Thousands Moria refugees on the streets, locals set blockades, new fires
The situation on the island of Lesvos remain tense on Thursday, with thousands of refugees and asylum-seekers to have spent the night on roadsides, fields and even cemeteries, waiting for aid and a provisional shelter. Led by the Mayor of Mytilene, locals have set blockades to hinder the government from repairing fire damages in the Moria camp or embark the vulnerable among the homeless on a ferry.
“People that lost their shelters in #MoriaCamp due to the fires are finding shade and temporary resting ground between graves in a Greek orthodox cemetery.” via @daphnetolis.
At the same time, new fires broke out in the camp also early Thursday afternoon to burn down what was not damage din the last two days.
While signs hind to an “arson plan,” so far, no perpetrators have been captured, no report by the Fire Service has been issued.
The government desperate tries to find solutions to the crisis that has emerged on the island but it is extremely difficult without the support by the local authorities and the people.
Refugees and locals seem to agree on one point: This is “hell on earth” for both sides.
The island has been declared a state of emergency for four months.
New fires show “arson plan”
Fires broke out again inside the camp early Thursday afternoon. According to state news agency amna, the fire broke οut simultaneously in three different points of the hotspot.
The fires broke in a camp section that was not damaged by the fires on Tuesday and Wednesday, and where refugees were still living.
The latest fire shows that despite the fact that the government has deployed several squads of police there, there is not policing in the area, which is an arson crime scene, after all, as the government says.
According to local media stonisi, “the new fires today now prove the existence of an organized arson plan by unknown centers and for reasons currently unknown. A plan that the Police seems to not be able to deal with.”
Refugees for a second time
Over 12,000 people spend the second night on the streets, slept next to garbage bins and police buses. Some found no other place to spend the night other than between graves of a cemetery.
https://i1.wp.com/www.keeptalkinggreece.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/refugeesmoria3.jpg?resize=768%2C431&ssl=1#.jpg 
https://i1.wp.com/www.keeptalkinggreece.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/refugeesmoria4.jpg?resize=768%2C430&ssl=1#.jpg Helpless without shelter and food, after the fire damage, they grabbed their children, helped their elderly, packed whatever they could save and left again for the Unknown and a new nightmare.
Tear gas against children
Riot police does not allow the refugees to reach the island capital Mytiline and set blockades at the road to Kara Tepe, where another camp operates.
In the early morning hours of Thursday, the crowd threw stones at the police forces that responded with tear gas.
Among the tear gas target are also children that scream in fear.
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYUwNV-0oJw&feature=emb_logo
Locals set up blockades
At the same time, residents and members of local authorities are opposing the government’s attempt to repair the damage in the camp and make it available again for the refugees and asylum seekers.
Local authorities of East Lesvos had repeatedly called for de-congestion of the camp. They belive that the new situation that emerged after the fire will have them relocate to the mainland.
They reject any government proposals to have the refugees accommodated in two military camps or in the area surrounding the Moria camp.
Trucks and other machinery deployed by the municipality hinders the cleaning of Moria by the Armed forces, while the mayor reportedly keeps calling on locals to strengthen the blockades.
Mayor of Mytilene, Stratis Kytelis has been reiterating that he does not accept the reopening of Moria, the establishment creation of any other accommodation structure, even a temporary one.
He demands “the immediate refugees’ and migrants’ departure from the island in any way.”
“We have been insisting for a long time that there should be an immediate and massive de-congestion of the camp. It is not possible for a structure designed for 2,800 people to accommodate 12,000 people,” he repeated.
406 minors relocated to northern Greece
With three separate flights, 406 unaccompanied refugee children were transferred from the destroyed Moria center to Thessaloniki over night.
The children are temporary accommodated in hotels. Some of them will be transferred to other structures and some will be relocated to European countries in accordance with the relevant program.
Before their departure form Lesvos, all minors were tested for Covid-19. For precautionary reasons, they ill stay in quarantine for 10 days. facilities in which they will be housed will be quarantined for 10 days.
The flights were organized by the International Organization for Migration, funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the Special Secretariat for Unaccompanied Minors at the Ministry of Migration.
Gov’t housing plan about to fail
The ferry donated by the shipping company Blue Star Ferries for the accommodation of some 1,000 vulnerable groups docked at the port of Sigri and not at the port of Mytilene on Thursday morning. Immediately locals called for a blockade of the road.
The two Navy landing ships for the temporary accommodation of another 1,000 vulnerable people may never come. The Defense ministry has allegedly refused to deploy them amid a Greek standoff with Turkey.
The government is in an extreme difficult situation and is looking for other solutions.
The Migration Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that “all the necessary actions for the immediate housing of vulnerable people and families of the Moria hotspot in specially designed areas will be carried out within the day.”, a migration and asylum ministry announcement said on Thursday.
“The primary concern of the government is the safety of all concerned,” the announcement added, and concluded that “Behavior aiming to blackmail will not be tolerated.”
▻https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2020/09/10/moria-greece-refugees-locals-new-fires-housing
Incendies à Lesbos : « Nous créons une zone de guerre au milieu de l’Europe »
#Efi_Latsoudi s’insurge contre le gouvernement grec, la situation dans le camp de Moria étant prévisible selon elle. L’humanitaire appelle à une réaction de la communauté internationale.
Le camp de Moria, à Lesbos, a été en grande partie détruit par un incendie dans la nuit de mardi à mercredi. Efi Latsoudi, figure de proue de l’aide humanitaire sur l’île et lauréate du prix humanitaire Nansen Refugee Award 2016 du Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés (HCR), craint que la situation des 13 000 candidats à l’asile qui y vivaient se dégrade.
L’incendie qui ravage Moria était-il prévisible ?
Il fallait s’y attendre. Politiquement, on se dirigeait vers ça. On opérait sans plan d’action depuis des mois. Le gouvernement grec présente la situation migratoire dans les camps comme une réussite depuis que les chiffres d’arrivées sur les îles sont en baisse. Mais les conditions de vie des migrants sont toujours aussi désastreuses. Elles ne sont que les conséquences des politiques mises en place par Athènes.
Vous êtes actuellement à Lesbos. Que s’est-il passé hier soir ?
C’était la guerre. Il y a eu des manifestations de migrants dans le camp en réaction au confinement total, la police a usé de gaz lacrymogène. On s’attendait à de tels mouvements de contestation : voilà six mois que les forces de l’ordre ont enfermé ces gens dans ce camp. C’est de la discrimination ! Pour essayer de protéger les mineurs face aux manifestations, ils ont été placés dans une partie isolée du camp. Et quand le feu s’est déclaré [les causes de l’incendie ne sont pas encore clairement connues, ndlr], personne n’arrivait à les sortir de là. La porte a dû être défoncée pour les évacuer.
Comment se présente la situation au lendemain du drame ?
Les migrants sont encerclés par les policiers sur la route qui va de Moria à la ville. Ils sont dehors, sans rien. Les autorités sont en train d’acheminer trois troupes de policiers antiémeutes d’Athènes en bateau. Le ministre a parlé des émeutes, on craint que ces événements le poussent à créer des camps totalement fermés. Il y a aussi beaucoup de réactions de la part des groupes fascistes, qui pensent que Moria est une « bombe sanitaire » [35 cas de Covid-19 ont officiellement été déclarés à Moria, ndlr] alors qu’il y a plus de contaminations au sein de la population locale que chez les migrants. Certains médias enveniment la situation. Nous sommes en train de créer une zone de guerre au milieu de l’Europe.
Comment imaginez-vous les prochains jours ?
Tout le monde va envoyer de l’argent et des ressources sans aucune organisation. La situation ne va pas s’améliorer et tout cela ira alimenter la rhétorique des fascistes. Nous ferons au mieux pour aider les migrants. S’il n’y a pas de réaction de la part de la communauté internationale, la population locale et les groupes xénophobes vont nous tomber dessus.
A lire aussiLesbos, le confinement sans fin
Le gouvernement ne considère à aucun instant que la situation puisse être le résultat de sa politique. Il a pointé du doigt les ONG internationales : c’est hypocrite. Toute l’organisation des camps comme celui de Moria ne tient que grâce aux humanitaires. Les vrais victimes de ces drames à répétition, ce sont les migrants psychologiquement traumatisés et qui ne se sentent plus humains.
▻https://www.liberation.fr/planete/2020/09/09/incendies-a-lesbos-nous-creons-une-zone-de-guerre-au-milieu-de-l-europe_1
Four face criminal charges over Moria blaze, two minors to return to Lesvos
Four Afghan migrants linked to the catastrophic fires that razed the Moria reception center on Lesvos last week were charged on Wednesday with arson and membership of a criminal organization and given until Saturday to prepare their defense before an investigating magistrate.
Another two Afghans implicated in the same incident, both unaccompanied minors who were transferred to the mainland the day after the first blaze, are to return to Lesvos where they are to face a magistrate on Monday.
The six suspects were identified on video footage of the fires that circulated on social media.
Meanwhile most of the 13 suspects detained in connection with a fire that broke out late on Tuesday near a migrant reception center on Samos have been released due to a lack of evidence linking them to the blaze, which was extinguished before it could affect the camp.
On Wednesday, 20 officers who are to form part of a special police service on Lesvos for a temporary camp that has been set up there arrived on the island. Although the new camp has the capacity to host up to 8,000 people, only around 1,200 had moved in by Wednesday night.
Thousands of former Moria residents continued to sleep on the streets and in olive groves on Wednesday.
▻https://www.ekathimerini.com/257058/article/ekathimerini/news/four-face-criminal-charges-over-moria-blaze-two-minors-to-return-to-le
Communique from the Working Group mobilisation on 45th Session of the PPT
MORIA burns, again. This documented horror in the heart of Europe, has been denounced from its beginning (2015) by dozens of reports from human rights, humanitarian and other non-governmental organisations. Almost 20,000 (at peak last February) and at the time of the fire, 13,000 human beings were parked in a prison of mud, rubbish and violence, behind barbed wire. MORIA is a planned limbo, where refugees are being denied their right to asylum, freedom and dignity, unable to perform even the most basic daily activities, such as sleeping, eating or communicating. It was a place where health care and education were denied to 4,000 children – left without dreams; adolescents whom the abnormal rates of suicide attempts should have been an alert of the level of despair in the camp (MSF); women terrorized by daily rapes, lack of hygiene and rampant violence. Hundreds of testimonies revealing the levels of unbearable “non-life” in MORIA, were kept unheard for years.
Now the fenced camp, which was about to be closed, has burned to the ground. But how could this construction – the abandonment of human beings reduced to “numbers and bodies” – re-emerge as an island-lager in the heart of 20th Century Europe? How has this apartheid andsuffering as planned management of the “other”, of the “migrant” been accepted and tolerated in the long silence of 5 years? This inhumane “containment” had been erected as a model for migration policies by the European Commission and the EU Member States. MORIA has been the essence of the deterrence model aimed at discouraging the flight of potential asylum seekers from countries at war and to push them back to the ruins, sealed by the EU-Turkey agreement in 2016. It is documented that on Greek islands, the Geneva Convention was being constantly violated on a daily basis. Has it been buried in Lesbos?
The most disturbing reality of all is that MORIA is not exceptional – but part of a chain of Camps and Hotspots across Europe constructed as sites “without rights” and a systematic planned annihilation of the “other”, psychically destroyed in camps, where they could have even burned alive. The EU borders, as well as the maritime routes have also become sites of death where thousands have drowned. This situation is indicative of the overall policy of necropolitics practiced by the European Union and its member states towards migrant and refugee peoples and is combined with the policy of militarised externalisation of borders. And inside the Fortress Europe – as is graphically shown in this time of COVID-19 – the migrant workers who make up a big part of the “essential workers’ in agriculture, care and domestic work – are also denied fundamental rights, subjected to daily racism and deprived of the conditions to live a decent human life.
As part of that Europe that still recognizes itself first of all as “human”, and joining all the movements that in these hours are making their voice heard, we, the signatories, who have been witnessing for years the tragic fate of the migrant and refugee peoples, denounce even more the fire of MORIA as a symbolic and highly visible expression of the silent, permanent, planned crime against humanity for which the European Commission the European States are responsible, as highlighted by the Permanent People’s Tribunal sentence (Hearings 2017-2019). The humanitarian interventions of these hours – already minimal in itself – can only appear as a saving face operation. Once again these pronouncements refer to a time without deadlines, and therefore confirm the existing genocidal policy – as the European Commission, and the EU governments, opt for an identity that declares itself exempt from the obligations of the civilization of law. These obligations were meant to be consistent with the ‘never again’ commitment against the extermination camps and had made Europe a place of welcome and an indicator of its own development project.
We therefore call on the EC and all the European States:
To urgently evacuate the island and re-locate to safety and dignity the MORIA migrant and refugee peoples.
To end the criminalisation of migrants and refugees and the criminalisation of solidarity.
It is Not a Crime to Migrate or to seek Asylum! It is a Human Right!
September 14, 2020
The movements & oganisations convening the 45th PPT Migrant & Refugee Session
▻https://transnationalmigrantplatform.net/campaigns-advocacy
Questions arise as Greece vows to “empty Lesvos of all refugees by Easter”
Questions arise as Greece’s Citizens Protection Minister has vowed to empty the island of Lesvos of all refugees by Easter.One main question is, of course, that if all 12,000 refugees leave in the next 6 months, why does Greece build a permanent camp on the island, expected to be in operation until 2025 and it looks as if it is going to be “the largest in Greece” if not in the whole European Union? Where will these 12,000 people stay when they leave Lesvos? How about the refugees and asylum-seekers in overcrowded camps on other islands? At the same time, it looks as if the hastily set up temporary camp in Kara Tepe, hastily due to the Moria fires, is violating rules of constructions and other issues.
In an exclusive interview with UK’s daily The Guardian, Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis said following the fires that destroyed the overcrowded Moria camp last week, that plans would be accelerated to decongest the outpost.
Minister: Lesvos will be empty of all refugees by Easter”
“They will all leave,” Citizens protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis told UK’s daily the Guardian on Tuesday. “Of the roughly 12,000 refugees here currently, I foresee 6,000 being transferred to the mainland by Christmas and the rest by Easter. The people of this island have gone through a lot. They’ve been very patient.”
About 70% of asylum seekers on the island were Afghans who would be awarded refugee status and given travel papers, he said. Recognised refugees can move to another EU member state for up to three months using the documents.
Chrysochoidis, who flew into Lesbos to help oversee relief efforts, welcomed reports that Germany was prepared to take in as many as 1,500 people from Moria.
“It’s very generous, very brave,” Chrysochoidis said of the goodwill gesture. “All over Europe, countries have their own internal political problems around this issue but I also think they [EU states] can see we are protecting the bloc’s borders, we have greatly minimised flows.”
On the problem that stranded refugees and asylum-seekers refuse to settle in the new temporary tents camp in Kara Tepe, Chrysochoidis blamed Afghan asylum-seekers and even some NGOs.
“There are groups of Afghans and I am afraid even some human rights organisations who are encouraging thousands of people not to go in,” said Chrysochoidis.
“It’s non-negotiable. They will leave the island but they have to go through this new facility and get the requisite legal documents first,” the minister stressed speaking to the Guardian.
If refugees go, why a permanent refugee camp?
Of course, in order to have 6,000 refugees relocated to the mainland by Christmas, that is in 3 months, you have to have structures to host them. Where are they? Where are the government plans for them? And where will the remaining 6,000 people go “by Easter”? Most likely, they will also found themselves on the mainland – because so far, the famous “EU solidarity” was never strong enough to take some burden from Greece’s shoulders – and neither will it be, I’m afraid.
And how about the refugees and asylum-seekers in the overcrowded camps on the islands like Samos and Chios and Kos? Will they be transferred to the new camp on the island where “the people have gone through a lot and have be very patient,” as the Minister said?
Minister Chrysochoidis and the government is general is proud to have minimized the refugees flows – even though often with questionable means such as “pushbacks” that are illegal.
So the question that arises is near: If the plan is to have all 12,000 refugees relocated away from Lesvos within the next six months, then why does Greece build a new permanent camp –the largest in the EU! – on the island of Lesvos and thus with the assistance of the European Commission?
Will the new camp host refugees currently on the other islands and also display Greece’s readiness should an influx turn into a problem again?
President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday during her speech at the European Palriament speech that “the Commission is now working on a plan, for a joint plan with the Greek authorities for a new camp in Lesvos. We can help with asylum and return procedures and significantly improve conditions for refugees.”
Permanent camp until 2025
With two decisions on September 14, the Ministry for Migration and Asylum has secured the amount for the lease of land plots on Lesvos for the permanent camp until 2025.
According to an exclusive report by local media stonisi, the Ministry uploaded on state website for public expenditures Diavgeia, the amounts needed to be paid for the lease from September 2020 until 31. December 2025. The total price to be paid is 2.9 million euros.
€142,051 for the lease of the land plots for the operation of the temporary camp in Kara Tepe until 31. December 2020.
€2,750,000 (550,000 euros per year) for the lease of the same land plots in Kara Tepe from 2021 until 2025.
According to the exclusive story, the size of the whole area, extending over several hundreds of acres and including the area of the Ministry of National Defense [the firing range where the temporary camp is], shows the new refugee center will be much larger than that of Moria, the largest in Greece and in the whole European Union.”
The camp will be in direct contact with residential areas and many dozens of businesses, a few hundred meters from the village of Panagiouda, the news website notes.
Camp set up without necessary approvals
At he same time, regarding the temporary camp, the Technical Chamber of Northern Aegean region (TEE) denounces “massive arbitrariness” and violations of construction and others laws.
The Mavrovouni Firing Range (Kara Tepe) for the temporary settlement of refugees and immigrants belong to the Ministry of Defense but not the coastline and the shore lines, the TEE says among others..
In an announcement, the TEE says that the concession of the area for a camp needed approval by Environmental services, by the Marine Antiquities Authority, the Forest Service and General Staff of the Navy as well as some other departments of the state.
The TEE raises the issue of the “highest National Security” and of the “defense of the island” that is closed to the Turkish coast.
▻https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2020/09/16/greece-refugees-lesvos-permanent-camp
Greece vows to empty Lesbos of all refugees by Easter after fire
Exclusive: minister says island ‘has been through a lot’ as he welcomes new German offer.
The island of Lesbos will be emptied of refugees by next Easter, the Greek government has vowed, as it welcomed Germany’s offer to take in 1,500 people left without shelter.
Following the devastating fires that destroyed the notoriously overcrowded Moria facility last week, Greece’s top public order official said plans would be accelerated to decongest the outpost.
“They will all leave,” the civil protection minister, Michalis Chrysochoidis, told the Guardian. “Of the roughly 12,000 refugees here currently, I foresee 6,000 being transferred to the mainland by Christmas and the rest by Easter. The people of this island have gone through a lot. They’ve been very patient.”
About 70% of asylum seekers on Lesbos were Afghans who would be awarded refugee status and given travel papers, he said. Recognised refugees can move to another EU member state for up to three months using the documents.
Greek police detained five people on Tuesday in connection with the blazes at the camp, and are searching for one other. No more details were given but from the outset officials have attributed the fires to camp residents pressuring authorities to leave.
Chrysochoidis, who flew into Lesbos to help oversee relief efforts, welcomed reports that Germany was prepared to take in as many as 1,500 people from Moria.
The German coalition government on Tuesday agreed to take in a total of 1,553 people from 408 families whose protected status has been confirmed by Greek authorities, Angela Merkel’s spokesperson said.
Last Friday, Germany said it would take up to 150 out of approximately 400 unaccompanied minors from the camp, where more than 12,000 people were left homeless by the fire in the early hours of 9 September.
“It’s very generous, very brave,” Chrysochoidis said of the goodwill gesture. “All over Europe, countries have their own internal political problems around this issue but I also think they [EU states] can see we are protecting the bloc’s borders, we have greatly minimised flows.”
Merkel insisted on Monday any transfer of migrants to Germany would need to go hand-in-hand with a broader European initiative, emphasising her support for Greek plans for a new reception centre on Lesbos.
Apart from Luxembourg, no other country has so far showed a willingness to partake in a pan-European solution to the crisis in Moria.
Some countries, such as Austria, have categorically rejected taking in people from the destroyed camp. “If we give in to this pressure now, then we risk making the same mistake we made in 2015,” said chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, referring to Merkel’s decision to take in large numbers of refugees five years ago.
Germany’s leader faces domestic pressure from two sides on the issue. Members of her own party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), have warned that any resettlement programme must be carried out in a way as to avoid chaotic scenes akin to those at the height of the 2015 refugee crisis. “We must not go alone,” said CDU delegate Mathias Middelberg.
From the other side, Merkel faces calls from her coalition partner, the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD), and a number of federal states and city mayors across Germany for Europe’s largest economy to step up its humanitarian efforts.
The leadership of the SPD, which will need to approve Merkel and Seehofer’s decision, has pressured its senior coalition to take in more than 5,000 people to alleviate the situation in Greece.
German calls for resettlement schemes have until now also faced resistance from Greece, where prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, accused some residents of Moria for trying to blackmail his government by deliberately setting the fires that destroyed their camp.
Chrysochoidis insisted it was crucial Moria’s erstwhile occupants move into a temporary camp, close to Mytilene, the island’s port capital, that the government, with the aid of the army had rushed to build. Opposition is such that seven days after the first blaze, only 1,000 had so far agreed to enter the new facility.
Athens’ centre-right government has enlisted NGOs and distributed multi-lingual notices in a bid to encourage relocation, saying the new site provides a safe place for asylum seekers to complete applications. Many have denounced the facility as “a new Moria, another prison.”
As tensions mounted, the Greek migration minister Notis Mitarachi alluded to the possible use of force if the displaced migrants refused to go voluntarily.
Nine riot police units and water cannon have been dispatched to the island. “If this is not possible through discussion, then the police will have to be used,” he told Mega TV. “It is their obligation to move to the new site,” he said acknowledging for the first time that families would likely spend the winter in tents.
The Greek government has pledged to build a new structure on the island that will be co-managed by EU agencies but says construction of the camp in a place that has yet to be decided will require at least six months.
Concerns over Covid-19 – more than 21 asylum seekers since the fires have tested positive for the virus in addition to 35 who were diagnosed with it before – have made resettlement even more pressing.
Close to 12,500 men, women and children have been living out in the open, often in makeshift tents of tarps and bamboo reeds. Some 406 lone migrant children, also in the camp, were flown to the mainland immediately before continuing on to European states that have agreed to accept them.
“There are groups of Afghans and I am afraid even some human rights organisations who are encouraging thousands of people not to go in,” said Chrysochoidis, who is seen as the face of the centre-right government’s tough public order policies. “It’s non-negotiable. They will leave the island but they have to go through this new facility and get the requisite legal documents first.”
Efforts will be launched in the coming days to clear the charred remains of what had once been Europe’s largest refugee camp. Designed to host no more than 3,000, Moria accommodated almost 10 times that number at its height and was regularly condemned by aid groups for its deplorable conditions.
“It was a camp of shame,” the politician admitted, denying that the government was also forcibly pushing back other refugees who were trying to get to Greece . “Now it belongs to history. It will be cleared up and replaced by olive groves.”
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/15/after-fire-greece-vows-to-empty-lesbos-of-all-refugees-by-easter
Six arrested over Lesvos camp blaze
Greek police have detained six migrants over a fire that razed the Moria refugee camp to the ground, the government said on Tuesday, as thousands of displaced people refused to move to a new facility and demanded to leave Lesbos island.
More than 12,000 people, mostly refugees from Afghanistan, Africa and Syria, were left without shelter, proper sanitation or access to food and water after a fire tore through the overcrowded Moria migrant camp last Wednesday.
Greek authorities believe the fire was deliberately lit by camp occupants after quarantine measures were imposed following the discovery of COVID cases on the site, but the incident has put the migrant issue firmly back on the European agenda.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis repeated a call for more help from the European Union, which has struggled to find a unified approach to the migrant crisis at its borders, saying it was time for “tangible solidarity” from Europe.
European Council President Charles Michel who visited Lesbos said the challenge was European not just Greek and urged for more commitment by EU members for a new migration policy to be effective.
“This is difficult, a very complex situation, but on behalf of the European Union, I would want to say that I refuse to paper over this migration challenge. This is a common European challenge,” Michel said.
Government officials in Berlin said Germany could take in up to 1,500 people stranded by the fire, in addition to 100-150 Berlin has already agreed to take in. But a wider solution has remained elusive.
Mitsotakis said a permanent new reception facility would be built on Lesbos with EU support and that the notoriously overcrowded and squalid Moria camp “belongs to the past”.
On the ground in Lesbos, however, thousands, including children, were still sleeping rough a week after the blaze.
Officials were struggling to overcome resistance from migrants hoping to be allowed to leave the island who fear that life in temporary shelters being erected would be no better than the conditions they endured in Moria.
Migrants wearing masks as a precaution against the coronavirus queued outside the camp gates to receive water, food and blankets from aid workers. The task was complicated by the need for COVID-19 tests, with at least 25 positive cases found among the displaced.
“The big concern is that even though many thousands of places are available and will continue to be expanded, there are still less than 1,000 that have been occupied,” said Luciano Calestini, head of the Greece office of the United Nations childrens organisation UNICEF.
Only a few hundred migrants, mainly unaccompanied minors, have been moved off Lesbos. Greek officials have said there will be no mass transfers and all asylum seekers will have to go into the new shelter.
▻https://www.ekathimerini.com/257005/article/ekathimerini/news/six-arrested-over-lesvos-camp-blaze
Reportage : une semaine après l’incendie de Moria, les migrants vivent toujours dans l’enfer de la rue
Depuis une semaine, les quelque 13 000 personnes qui ont fui les incendies du camp de Moria, sur l’île de Lesbos, dorment à la rue. Au bord de la route de Mytilène, elles n’ont ni eau, ni nourriture, ni couverture.
Il est environ 15h, le soleil écrase de toutes ses forces le camp qui s’est formé le long de la route qui mène de Moria à Mytilène, sur l’île grecque de Lesbos. Soudainement, des centaines de personnes cessent leurs activités, quittent leur abri et forment, en l’espace de quelques secondes, une queue qui s’étend à perte de vue. Au bout de la file, des bénévoles d’un collectif d’ONG débutent une distribution de nourriture.
Treize mille repas vont être servis. Il risque de ne pas y en avoir pour tout le monde. « Les distributions n’ont lieu qu’une fois par jour et pour avoir à manger, il faut être costaud. Il y a un problème d’organisation », déplore Michaël, originaire de République démocratique du Congo (RDC).
https://scd.infomigrants.net/media/resize/my_image_big/03ae0a90f13b267d4bc64f79a7e32e20a81cd10d.jpeg Lundi 14 septembre, sur la route de Mytilène, les migrants ont faim depuis près d’une semaine. Lorsque les résidents de Moria ont fui les flammes qui ont dévoré le camp dans la nuit du 8 au 9 septembre et qu’ils ont été bloqués par la police sur cette route, certains ont pu acheter de quoi manger au grand magasin Lidl, en bord de mer.
Mais les policiers ont rapidement exigé du gérant qu’il tire le rideau. Les stations services ont fermé, elles aussi, ainsi que tous les autres commerces le long de cette route qui mène au centre-ville de Mytilène.
Pour se nourrir, certains rescapés de Moria demandent à d’autres migrants qui vivent dans Mytilène de leur acheter de la nourriture et de la leur apporter au camp informel qui a vu le jour. D’autres ont réussi à sauver des flammes quelques aliments qu’ils avaient achetés à Moria, souvent des paquets de pâtes.
Gertrude et Naomi préparent un plat de légumes dans une grande marmite posée sur un feu. Ces deux Congolaises ont tenté quelques fois de récupérer de la nourriture lors des distributions mais être servi relève du combat. « Pour avoir de la nourriture, il faut se bagarrer », affirme Naomi.
« Aidez-nous ! »
Assises sur une grande couverture grise flanquée du logo du HCR, deux jeunes Afghanes qui s’appellent toutes les deux Zahra donnent le biberon à leurs bébés de 5 et 7 mois. « On a ramené le lait de Moria », explique l’une d’elles, en brandissant un petit sac en plastique à moitié rempli de lait en poudre.
https://scd.infomigrants.net/media/resize/my_image_big/e71506ac110e3293a1453e8b1bb9e783867e9b81.jpeg Les deux jeunes mères manquent de nourriture et d’eau ainsi que de vêtements pour leurs enfants. C’est ce que dit aussi une autre jeune Afghane en montrant le foulard dans lequel elle a dû emmailloter sa fille de quelques mois. « Aidez-nous ! », supplie-t-elle.
Le seul point d’eau du camp improvisé se trouve à quelques dizaines de mètres de là et n’a rien d’officiel. Dans une rue qui remonte vers les oliveraies, les tuyaux destinés à l’irrigation ont été percés. Autour de chaque trou, plusieurs personnes se pressent pour remplir des bouteilles vides, laver un vêtement ou se rincer le visage. L’eau ruisselle en permanence dans la petite rue en pente et charrie des ordures.
https://scd.infomigrants.net/media/resize/my_image_big/d3457b97f7d0d9659d141ef8ea627bb06f0b8e40.jpeg Couvertures et sacs de couchage sont également très recherchés sur le camp car les nuits sont déjà fraîches. Michaël n’a que son sweat-shirt bleu pour dormir. Le Congolais guette la route car il a entendu dire que des bénévoles distribuaient quelques sacs de couchage dans le camp. Mais tellement de personnes en manquent qu’il n’y en a sûrement déjà plus. Cependant, « ce qui nous préoccupe le plus c’est de ne pas pouvoir se doucher et aller aux toilettes », explique Michaël.
Le seul moyen de se laver, c’est d’aller dans la mer. La plage n’est qu’à quelques minutes de marche du parking Lidl. Michaël aimerait aller se laver mais il n’a pas de savon.
Un tiers d’enfants
Cet après-midi, des dizaines d’enfants jouent dans la mer. La chaleur étouffante a aussi poussé quelques adultes à se mettre à l’eau.
Azim shampouine énergiquement la tête de son fils Moustapha, 3 ans, pendant que sa fille Rokhoya rayonne de bonheur en barbotant autour de lui. Après cinq mois de confinement dans le camp de Moria, c’est la première fois qu’ils peuvent approcher la mer.
https://scd.infomigrants.net/media/resize/my_image_big/53a2e528f1916eb123eacd842f6d379f678dd9d1.jpeg Le camp compte plus de 4 000 enfants, selon l’Unicef, soit un tiers des migrants de Lesbos. À la nuit tombée, quand les bruits des machines de chantier qui construisent le camp provisoire sur un terrain militaire en bord de mer se taisent, on n’entend plus que les cris des enfants qui jouent. Le parking du Lidl prend des airs de cour de récréation.
Les parents s’inquiètent de voir leurs enfants ne pas aller à l’école. La vie dans les conditions indignes du camp de Moria, puis au bord de cette route, pourrait aussi avoir des conséquences psychologiques à long terme sur ces enfants, met en garde Dimitra Chasioti, psychologue pour Médecins sans frontières (MSF).
L’environnement dans lequel ils ont grandi pourrait affecter « la manière dont ils gèrent les difficultés mais aussi leurs interactions avec les autres », décrit-elle devant la clinique mobile installée par l’ONG à deux pas des tentes.
Parmi les adultes, c’est l’angoisse de ne pas avoir d’information sur leur avenir – et notamment sur le nouveau camp provisoire en construction - qui est le plus difficile à gérer.
https://scd.infomigrants.net/media/resize/my_image_big/282fd2b327e479aa5c3c24dcc6b4c447c7523cba.jpeg Dimanche matin, Notis Mitarachi, le ministre grec de la Migration a déclaré que « tous les demandeurs d’asile y seraient transférés ». Selon son ministère, quelque 800 exilés sont désormais logés dans ce camp temporaire, fermé à la presse. L’AFP a recueilli des témoignages de personnes à l’intérieur qui ont affirmé n’avoir ni douche, ni matelas.
Naomi semble aussi terrifiée à l’idée d’aller dans ce nouveau camp que de rester à la rue. Cette mère d’une fille de 5 ans et d’un garçon de 7 mois interroge : « Comment est le camp là-bas ? Est-ce que nous devrions y aller ? »
▻https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/27269/reportage-une-semaine-apres-l-incendie-de-moria-les-migrants-vivent-to
Une intervention intéressante sur Lesbos de la présidente de la Commission européenne ainsi que de la chancelière allemande en réponse aux journalistes lors d’une conférence de presse portant initialement sur un sommet UE-Chine...il faut vraiment faire du suivi sur tout pour avoir les informations ! 😉
La chancelière a eu une parole que je trouve politiquement extrêmement forte en disant la chose suivante : « la #concentration des nombres n’est pas la bonne approche ». Ce qui est remarquable c’est qu’elle a parlé en allemand, et qu’elle a utilisé le mot « #Konzentration » ("Ich glaube, dass die Konzentration auf einer Zahl der falsche Ansatz ist"). Cette phrase porte en elle quelque chose de très fort que Migreurop dénonce depuis sa fondation, l’#encampement, la stratégie des #nasses. Ce genre de #terminologie reste, en allemand, évidemment très délicat vu l’usage du terme par le régime nazi, et je doute fort que l’on puisse imaginer la chancelière d’avoir omis cet élément l’espace d’un instant. Je pencherais plutôt pour une remarque volontaire, appelant les choses par leur nom. Nos ami.es allemand.es sur cette liste auront peut-être une autre lecture, je serais heureuse de les lire à ce sujet.
Cela n’empêchera, en suite de cette intervention, ni la chancelière, ni la présidente de la Commission européenne, de justifier de la création à venir d’un « #centre_d'accueil_européen » géré par les agences européennes et les autorités grecques en lieu et place des #hotspots actuels en Grèce (un « projet pilote » selon Van der Layen)...Ce qui finalement correspondait au plan initial comme le dénonce Migreurop depuis le départ.
Vidéo à partir de la minute 25 et 50 secondes (question du journaliste) : prise de parole #Merkel puis #Van_der_Layen. tout est doublé en anglais
▻https://www.euronews.com/2020/09/14/watch-live-eu-chiefs-update-on-summit-with-china
Message de Marie Martin reçu via la mailing-list Migreurop, le 15.09.2020
For many migrants, the dream of freedom ends in Lesbos
After the devastating fires in the Moria migrant camp on Lesbos, Muhammad spent days on a sealed-off section of road with thousands of others. His most fervent wish is to leave the island, as DW’s Max Zander reports.
“We had some hope, but we have lost it. We thought the government would take us to Athens now,” says Muhammad Sator Massi. Muhammad, who is 19, is sitting alone on a curb in the blazing sun, looking down at the ground in resignation.
Near him, Greek garbage collectors are at work, loading one blue garbage bag after the other onto their truck with a crane. Today, they have started getting rid of the traces left by the past week. The road leading from Lesbos’ capital, Mytilene, past the Moria migrant camp is littered with plastic bottles, packaging and the remnants of temporary shelters. The bushes at the side are full of rubbish. Even though the sea is just a few steps away, there is a terrible stench.
Muhammad has fled from Afghanistan with his aunt and uncle and their six children. They have already been on Lesbos for nine months. He says that it has been a terrible time that has left deep marks on him. After the fires last week, he set off for the capital with the other camp residents. Police stopped them and sealed off the section of road they were on. Muhammad and his family were among those forced to sleep in the open air, some on cardboard cartons on the bare ground.
They spent more than a week under these conditions, then the police began clearing the improvised camp bit by bit. This morning, they arrived at Muhammad’s tent. The family was eating at the time, he says. A police officer threw their belongings all over the place and yelled at them, then began demolishing their shelter, Muhammad says.
Doubtful about conditions in the new camp
Now there is a new camp, called Kara Tepe. “They are forcing us to go there. We don’t have a choice. I don’t think it will be better than Moria; it will just be a repeat,” says Muhammad.
Like most people here, he is afraid that the conditions there will be just as unbearable or even more so than in Moria: thousands of people in a confined space without enough toilets and showers, too little to eat, barely any medical care and violence every night.
A spokesman for the Greek Migration Ministry insists that the conditions in the new camp are good, with toilets, running water and electricity. And he says its capacities are being expanded.
But people who are already in the camp have reported the opposite, saying that there are far too few toilets, meals just once a day and no mattresses or blankets in the big white tents provided by the UNHCR and the Red Cross. Many are also worried because the camp, set up in haste on a former army drill ground, is likely to be situated on soil full of toxic substances and munitions. While it was being constructed, soldiers with metal detectors could be seen searching the area around the tents. But the Migration Ministry spokesman declares that “everything is safe.”
For refugees like Muhammad, the biggest problem is the uncertainty about whether they will be allowed to leave the camp later. Greek officials have announced that it is initially to be put under quarantine, after more than 200 cases of coronavirus infection were recorded in the past few days. After two weeks, residents will be allowed to leave the camp during the day, they say. But that is not certain, and Muhammad and others are worried.
“We came here looking for protection. We aren’t prisoners. I have been on Lesbos, in Moria, for a year. I can’t bear it any longer,” he says.
Lost time
Muhammad slowly gets up, because he wants to go down the road to his aunt’s family and register in the new camp with them. He seems tired and worn out. The road around him is almost deserted. Apart from the Greek garbage collectors, only a few people occasionally come by: a family from Afghanistan laden with plastic bags, a young man from Congo carrying an old, dirty tent. Muhammad sets off in the same direction and walks slowly toward the new camp.
He is smoking a cigarette. “I never used to do that; I was sporty and kept away from people who smoke. But now it calms me down,” he says.
He says he has changed a lot in the time here and that he is mentally exhausted. “We are losing a part of our lives here. It doesn’t feel as if we are alive,” he says while going past a police bus.
In Afghanistan, he was well-off financially, he says. His father is a member of the provincial council in Wardak province and owns a water company. His family had money but no security. One day, Muhammad recounts, he was on his way home from school when he was stopped by some men in a car. They said they were friends of his father and asked him to get in. When he refused, they tried to drag him into the car, but he was able to pull free and run away. “When you go to school, you don’t know if you will come home alive,” he says.
He decided to flee to Europe with his aunt. But he has given up hopes of starting a new life here, perhaps in Germany. He wanted to learn the language, study medicine and play football, his great passion.
Rather be deported than be a prisoner
By now, Muhammad has arrived at the new camp. Next to the road, there are groups, mostly of men, sitting and waiting in the shade of low bushes. For the moment, only families are being allowed to join the queue before the entrance. They are standing tightly packed. The police, equipped with protective clothing and masks, keep at a distance. Each person is registered and given a coronavirus test.
Muhammad said earlier on that he would rather be deported back to Afghanistan and die there than go to this prison. But now he has no choice. He sees his aunt standing at the front of the queue. Slowly, his head bowed, Muhammad pushes his way past the other families and disappears in the crowd.
▻https://www.dw.com/en/for-many-migrants-the-dream-of-freedom-ends-in-lesbos/a-54989158?maca=en-rss_top_news-13961-xml-mrss
Lesbos: Who started the fire at Europe’s largest refugee camp?
On 8 September 2020, the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos went up in flames. In an extended report, BBC Newsnight investigates the events surrounding the blaze.
#Sacco e #Vanzetti. Assassinati innocenti
Esattamente un secolo fa, negli USA, avvennero due rapine di cui furono imputati i due immigrati italiani, anarchici. Fu l’inizio di un calvario giudiziario e di una mobilitazione internazionale la cui eco non si è ancora spenta. Uno dei più grossi casi di criminalità del potere e di spettacolarizzazione di una montatura giudiziaria. Al più importante studioso attuale, non solo in Italia, di quella vicenda abbiamo chiesto di focalizzare l’attenzione su quelle due rapine e sull’estraneità dei nostri due compagni. Cioè sulle basi concrete della loro innocenza
ping @albertocampiphoto @wizo
Sur ce sujet, le bel article de @bricabraque :
Joan Baez: „Here’s to you.”
L’Histgeobox, le 21 octobre 2008
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/624115
Surge in passport sales delivers Vanuatu a record budget surplus | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/21/surge-in-passport-sales-delivers-vanuatu-a-record-budget-surplus
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0f86c78d91778c03fbef1a35917f9a36c5d79b99/0_62_6283_3770/master/6283.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali
Surging demand for Vanuatu passports has driven an unexpected record surplus, funding Covid-19 bailout packages and cyclone recovery. With nearly every other sector of its fragile economy reeling from the twin crises of pandemic lockdowns and April’s category five Cyclone Harold, Vanuatu nonetheless managed to turn a 3.8bn Vanuatu Vatu (US$33.3m) surplus in the first half of 2020.Its controversial citizenship-for-sale programmes account for nearly all of that. The government’s half-year economic and fiscal update cites a 32% year-on-year increase in citizenship-related revenues. To the end of June, the government had collected US$62.6m, nearly 80% of the programme’s projected income for the entire year.
And passport sales are still accelerating. Citizenship commission chairman Ronald Warsal told the Vanuatu Daily Post revenues had climbed above US$84.6m by mid-August, exceeding, already, the annual projection.
Vanuatu citizenship costs US$130,000. About $80,000 goes directly to the government: the remainder stays with the agent, who must be a born or naturalised Vanuatu citizen, and who pays a 15% tax on their revenues.
The figures suggest at least 650 people have received Vanuatu citizenship under the programme since the beginning of the year. Vanuatu passports are sought-after because they allow visa-free access to the EU, the UK, Russia, Hong Kong, and other states that are otherwise hard to visit for some nationalities.
#Covid-19migration#migrant#vanuatu#frontiere#passeport#circulation#sante#economie
Dans l’est de la #Turquie, le trajet tragique des migrants afghans
Fuyant les talibans, de nombreuses familles partent trouver refuge en Europe. En chemin, elles sont souvent bloquées dans les #montagnes kurdes, où elles sont à la merci des #trafiquants d’êtres humains et de la #police.
Le dos voûté sous leurs lourds sacs à dos, la peau brûlée par le soleil et les lèvres craquelées par la soif, Nizamuddin et Zabihulah sont à bout de forces. Se traînant pesamment en bord de route, près de la petite ville de #Çaldiran dans l’extrême est de la Turquie, ils cherchent désespérément un moyen d’abréger leur trajet. « Nous marchons presque sans arrêt depuis deux jours et deux nuits. Nous avons franchi sept ou huit montagnes pour arriver ici depuis l’Iran », raconte le premier. Affamés, les pieds enflés, et dépités par le refus généralisé de les conduire vers la grande ville de #Van à une centaine de kilomètres de là, ils finissent par se laisser tomber au sol, sous un arbre.
« J’ai quitté l’#Afghanistan il y a huit mois parce que les talibans voulaient me recruter. C’était une question de temps avant qu’ils m’emmènent de force », explique Zabihulah. Originaire de la province de Jozjan, dans le nord de l’Afghanistan, où vivent sa femme et son très jeune fils, son quotidien était rythmé par les menaces de la rébellion afghane et la misère économique dans laquelle est plongé le pays en guerre depuis plus de quarante ans. « Je suis d’abord allé en Iran pour travailler. C’était épuisant et le patron ne m’a pas payé », relate-t-il. Ereinté par les conditions de vie, le jeune homme au visage fin mais marqué par le dur labeur a décidé de tenter sa chance en Turquie. « C’est ma deuxième tentative, précise-t-il. L’an dernier, la police iranienne m’a attrapé, m’a tabassé et tout volé. J’ai été renvoyé en Afghanistan. Cette fois, je vais rester en Turquie travailler un peu, puis j’irai en Grèce. »
Pierres tombales
Comme Nizamuddin et Zabihulah, des dizaines de milliers de réfugiés afghans (mais aussi iraniens, pakistanais et bangladais) pénètrent en Turquie illégalement chaque année, en quête d’un emploi, d’une vie plus stable et surtout de sécurité. En 2019, les autorités turques disent avoir appréhendé 201 437 Afghans en situation irrégulière. Deux fois plus que l’année précédente et quatre fois plus qu’en 2017. Pour la majorité d’entre eux, la province de Van est la porte d’entrée vers l’Anatolie et ensuite la Grèce. Cette région reculée est aussi la première muraille de la « forteresse Europe ».
Si le désastre humanitaire en mer Méditerranée est largement documenté, la tragédie qui se déroule dans les montagnes kurdes des confins de la Turquie et de l’#Iran est plus méconnue mais tout aussi inhumaine. Régulièrement, des corps sont retrouvés congelés, à moitié dévorés par les animaux sauvages, écrasés aux bas de falaises, criblés de balles voire noyés dans des cours d’eau. Dans un des cimetières municipaux de Van, un carré comptant plus d’une centaine de tombes est réservé aux dépouilles des migrants que les autorités n’ont pas pu identifier. Sur les pierres tombales, quelques chiffres, lettres et parfois une nationalité. Ce sont les seuls éléments, avec des prélèvements d’ADN, qui permettront peut-être un jour d’identifier les défunts. Un large espace est prévu pour les futures tombes, dont certaines sont déjà creusées en attente de cercueils.
Pour beaucoup de réfugiés, la gare routière de Van est le terminus du voyage. « Le passeur nous a abandonnés ici, nous ne savons pas où aller ni quoi faire », raconte Nejibulah, le téléphone vissé à la main dans l’espoir de pouvoir trouver une porte de sortie à ses mésaventures. A 34 ans, il a quitté Hérat, dans l’ouest de l’Afghanistan, avec douze membres de sa famille dont ses trois enfants. Après quinze jours passés dans des conditions déplorables dans les montagnes, la famille a finalement atteint le premier village turc pour tomber entre les mains de bandits locaux. « Ils nous ont battus et nous ont menacés de nous prendre nos organes si nous ne leur donnions pas d’argent », raconte Nejibulah. Son beau-frère exhibe deux profondes blessures ouvertes sur sa jambe. Leurs proches ont pu rassembler un peu d’argent pour payer leur libération : 13 000 lires turques (1 660 euros) en plus des milliers de dollars déjà payés aux passeurs. Ces derniers sont venus les récupérer pour les abandonner sans argent à la gare routière.
Impasse
La police vient régulièrement à la gare arrêter les nouveaux arrivants pour les emmener dans l’un des deux camps de rétention pour migrants de la province. Là-bas, les autorités évaluent leurs demandes de protection internationale. « Sur le papier, la Turquie est au niveau des standards internationaux dans la gestion des migrants. Le problème, c’est le manque de sensibilité aux droits de l’homme des officiers de protection », explique Mahmut Kaçan, avocat et membre de la commission sur les migrations du barreau de Van. Le résultat, selon lui, c’est une politique de déportation quasi systématique. Si les familles obtiennent en général facilement l’asile, les hommes seuls n’auraient presque aucune chance, voire ne pourraient même pas plaider leur cas.
Pour ceux qui obtiennent le droit de rester, les conditions de vie n’en restent pas moins très difficiles. Le gouvernement qui doit gérer plus de 4 millions de réfugiés, dont 3,6 millions de Syriens, leur interdit l’accès aux grandes villes de l’ouest du pays telles Istanbul, Ankara et Izmir. Il faut parfois des mois pour obtenir un permis de séjour. L’obtention du permis de travail est quasiment impossible. En attendant, ils sont condamnés à la débrouille, au travail au noir et sous-payé et aux logements insalubres.
La famille Amiri, originaire de la province de Takhar dans le nord de l’Afghanistan, est arrivée à Van en 2018. « J’étais cuisinier dans un commissariat. Les talibans ont menacé de me tuer. Nous avons dû tout abandonner du jour au lendemain », raconte Shah Vali, le père, quadragénaire. Sa femme était enceinte de sept mois à leur arrivée en Turquie. Ils ont dormi dans la rue, puis sur des cartons pendant des semaines dans un logement vétuste qu’ils occupent toujours. La petite dernière est née prématurément. Elle est muette et partiellement paralysée. « L’hôpital nous dit qu’il faudrait faire des analyses de sang pour trouver un traitement, sans quoi elle restera comme ça toute sa vie », explique son père. Coût : 800 lires. La moitié seulement est remboursée par la sécurité sociale turque. « Nous n’avons pas les moyens », souffle sa mère Sabira. Les adultes, souffrant aussi d’afflictions, n’ont pas accès à la moindre couverture de santé. Shah Vali est pourtant d’humeur heureuse. Après deux ans de présence en Turquie, il a enfin trouvé un emploi. Au noir, bien sûr. Il travaille dans une usine d’œufs. Salaire : 1 200 lires. Le seuil de faim était estimé en janvier à 2 219 lires pour un foyer de quatre personnes. « Nous avons dû demander de l’argent à des voisins, de jeunes Afghans, eux-mêmes réfugiés », informe Shah Vali. Pour lui et sa famille, le voyage est terminé. « Nous voulions aller en Grèce, mais nous n’avons pas assez d’argent. »
Lointaines, économiquement peu dynamiques, les provinces frontalières de l’Iran sont une impasse pour les réfugiés. Et ce d’autant que, depuis 2013, aucun réfugié afghan n’a pu bénéficier d’une réinstallation dans un pays tiers. « Sans espoir légal de pouvoir aller en Europe ou dans l’ouest du pays, les migrants prennent toujours plus de risques », souligne Mahmut Kaçan. Pour contourner les check-points routiers qui quadrillent cette région très militarisée, les traversées du lac de Van - un vaste lac de montagne aux humeurs très changeantes - se multiplient. Fin juin, un bateau a sombré corps et biens avec des dizaines de personnes à bord. A l’heure de l’écriture de cet article, 60 corps avaient été retrouvés. L’un des passeurs était apparemment un simple pêcheur.
Climat d’#impunité
Face à cette tragédie, le ministre de l’Intérieur turc, Suleyman Soylu, a fait le déplacement, annonçant des moyens renforcés pour lutter contre le phénomène. Mahmut Kaçan dénonce cependant des effets d’annonce et l’incurie des autorités. « Combien de temps un passeur res te-t-il en prison généralement ? Quelques mois au plus, s’agace-t-il. Les autorités sont focalisées sur la lutte contre les trafics liés au PKK [la guérilla kurde active depuis les années 80] et ferment les yeux sur le reste. » Selon lui, les réseaux de trafiquants se structureraient rapidement. Publicités et contacts de passeurs sont aisément trouvables sur les réseaux sociaux, notamment sur Instagram. Dans un climat d’impunité, les #passeurs corrompent des #gardes-frontières, qui eux-mêmes ne sont pas poursuivis en cas de bavures. « Le #trafic_d’être_humain est une industrie sans risque, par comparaison avec la drogue, et très profitable », explique l’avocat. Pendant ce temps, les exilés qui traversent les montagnes sont à la merci de toutes les #violences. Avec la guerre qui s’intensifie à nouveau en Afghanistan, le flot de réfugiés ne va pas se tarir. Les Afghans représentent le tiers des 11 500 migrants interceptés par l’agence européenne Frontex aux frontières sud-est de l’UE, entre janvier et mai.
▻https://www.liberation.fr/planete/2020/07/20/dans-l-est-de-la-turquie-le-trajet-tragique-des-migrants-afghans_1794793
#réfugiés #asile #migrations #parcours_migratoires #itinéraires_migratoires #réfugiés_afghans #Caldiran #Kurdistan #Kurdistan_turc #morts #décès #Iran #frontières #violence
Sur ce passage frontalier entre l’Iran et la Turquie, voir aussi le film #My_Escape :
Lake Van: An overlooked and deadly migration route to Turkey and Europe
On the night of 27 June, at least 61 people died in a shipwreck on a lake in Van, a Turkish province bordering Iran. The victims were asylum seekers, mostly from Afghanistan, and the wreck shed light on a dangerous and often overlooked migration route used by people trying to move west from the border to major cities, such as Ankara and Istanbul, or further beyond to Europe.
Turkey hosts the largest refugee population in the world, around four million people. A significant majority – 3.6 million – are Syrians. Afghans are the second largest group, but since 2018 they have been arriving irregularly in Turkey and then departing for Greece in larger numbers than any other nationality.
Driven by worsening conflict in their country and an economic crisis in Iran, the number of Afghans apprehended for irregularly entering Turkey increased from 45,000 in 2017 to more than 200,000 in 2019. At the same time, the number of Afghans arriving in Greece by sea from Turkey increased from just over 3,400 to nearly 24,000.
During that time, Turkey’s policies towards people fleeing conflict, especially Afghans, have hardened. As the number of Afghans crossing the border from Iran increased, Turkey cut back on protections and accelerated efforts to apprehend and deport those entering irregularly. In 2019, the Turkish government deported nearly 23,000 Afghans from the country, according to the UN’s emergency aid coordination body, OCHA.
Early on, travel restrictions put in place due to the coronavirus appeared to reduce the number of people entering Turkey irregularly. But seven months on, the pandemic is worsening the problems that push people to migrate. The economic crisis in Iran has only intensified, and the head of the UN’s migration agency, IOM, in Afghanistan has warned that COVID-19-induced lockdowns have “amplified the effects of the conflict”.
Like the victims of the wreck, most people travelling on the clandestine route through Van are from Afghanistan – others are mainly from Iran, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The lake, 50 kilometres from the border, straddles two provinces – Van and Bitlis – and offers a way for asylum seekers and migrants to avoid police and gendarmerie checkpoints set up along roads heading west.
Due to its 200-kilometre border with Iran, Van has long been a hub for smuggling sugar, tea, and petrol, according to Mahmut Kaçan, a lawyer with the Migration and Asylum Commission at the Van Bar Association. In recent years, a people smuggling industry has also grown up to cater to the needs of people crossing the border and trying to move deeper into Turkey. Lake Van – so large that locals simply call it ‘the sea’ – plays an important role.
“There have been a lot of refugees on ‘the sea’ in the last 10 years,” Mustafa Abalı, the elected leader of Çitören, a village close to where many of the boats set out across the lake, told The New Humanitarian, adding that the numbers have increased in the past two to three years.
‘Policy of impunity’
When the shipwreck happened, on 27 June, the picture that initially emerged was murky: Rumours circulated, but the local gendarmerie blocked lawyers and journalists from reaching the lake’s shore.
After two days, the Van governorship announced that security forces had found a missing boat captain alive and launched a search mission. It took weeks, but search teams eventually recovered 56 bodies from the wreck, which had come to rest more than 100 metres below the lake’s surface.
Abalı described the scene on the beach where the rescue teams were working. “I was crying; everyone was crying; even the soldiers were crying… We were all asking, ‘how could this happen?’” he said.
The testimony the boat captain provided to police after he was detained on smuggling charges gave a few clues. On board with his cousin and 70 to 80 asylum seekers, he recalled how they left that night at around 9pm from Van city to cross the lake. He said he pushed out into the open water, with the lights off to avoid attention, but the waves were large and the boat capsized. The captain, the lone known survivor, said he managed to swim ashore.
The shipwreck was the deadliest on Lake Van, but not the first. In December 2019, seven asylum seekers died in a wreck on the lake. After that incident, authorities only issued one arrest warrant, which expired after 27 days, and the suspected smuggler was released.
Kaçan, from the Van Bar Association, said the handling of that case pointed to a “policy of impunity” that allows the smuggling industry to flourish in Van. “It’s not a risky job,” he said, referring to the chances of getting caught and the lack of punishment for those who are.
That said, the case against the captain from the 27 June shipwreck is ongoing, and at least eight other people have now been detained in connection with the incident, according to Kaçan.
A report from the Van Bar Association alleges that this impunity extends to the Iran-Turkey border, but according to Kaçan it‘s unlikely smugglers bringing people into Turkey – sometimes in groups of up to 100 or 200 people – would pass the frontier entirely undetected. Turkey is building a wall along much of it, and there’s a heavy military and surveillance presence in the area. “Maybe not all of them, but some of the officers are cooperating with the smugglers,” Kaçan said. “Maybe [the smugglers] bribe them. That’s a possibility.”
After a lull during the initial round of pandemic-related travel restrictions in March and April, migration across the Iran-Turkey border began to pick up again in May, according to people TNH spoke to in Van. Smugglers are even advertising their services on Instagram – a sign of the relative freedom with which they operate.
TNH contacted a Turkish-speaking Iranian smuggler through the social media platform. The smuggler said he was based in the western Iranian city of Urmia, about 40 kilometres from the Turkish border, and gave his name as Haji Qudrat. On a video call, Haji Qudrat counted money as he spoke. “Everyone knows us,” he said. “There’s no problem with the police.” He turned the phone to show a room full of 20 to 30 people. “They’re all Afghans. Tonight they’re all going to Van,” he added.
TNH asked both the Turkish interior ministry and the Van governorship for comment on the allegations of official cooperation with people smugglers and possible bribery, but neither had responded by the time of publication.
A cemetery on a hill
While crossing into Turkey from Iran doesn’t seem too problematic, the situation for asylum seekers in Van is not so relaxed.
The region is the second poorest of Turkey’s 81 provinces – many people who enter irregularly want to head west to Turkey’s comparatively wealthier cities to search for informal employment, reunite with family members, or try to cross into Greece and seek protection in Europe, according to a recent report by the Mixed Migration Centre.
Under Turkey’s system for international protection, non-Europeans fleeing war or persecution are supposed to get a temporary residency permit and access to certain services, such as medical care. But they are also registered to a particular city or town and are required to check in at the immigration office once a week. If they want to travel outside the province where they are registered, people with international protection have to first apply for permission from authorities. Even if it is granted, they are required to return within 30 days.
Since the uptick in border crossings in 2018, it has become more difficult for Afghans to access international protection in Turkey, and Turkish authorities have occasionally apprehended and deported large numbers of Afghans – especially single men – without allowing them to apply for protection in the first place.
As a result, many prefer to avoid contact with Turkish authorities altogether, using smugglers to carry on their journeys. In September, news channels aired footage of a minibus that had been stopped in the province. It had the capacity to hold 14 passengers, but there were 65 people inside, trying to head west.
Buses carrying asylum seekers on Van’s windy, mountainous roads frequently crash, and every spring, when the snow melts, villagers find the corpses of those who tried to walk the mountain pass in the winter. Their bodies are buried in a cemetery with the scores who have drowned in Lake Van.
The cemetery is on a hill in Van, the city, and it is full of the graves of asylum seekers who died somewhere along the way. The graves are marked by slabs, and most of the people are unidentified. Some of the slabs simply read “Afghan” or “Pakistan”. Others are only marked with the date the person died or their body was found. The cemetery currently has around 200 graves, but it has space for many more.
▻https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2020/10/20/turkey-afghanistan-migrants-refugees-asylum
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Turkish border province has created the country’s largest potter’s field to bury refugees - Al Monitor
Harrowing photos seen by Al-Monitor show decomposing bodies lying on mountain slopes, almost all of them naked or with only some thin clothes on. Some lie in the fetal position like an unborn baby in a mother’s womb. Worse, many are dismembered. These are the remains of nameless refugees who froze to death in the mountains of Turkey’s eastern province of Van after crossing clandestinely from neighboring Iran, their fates unbeknownst to their loved ones and, until recently, to Turkish authorities themselves.
Local villagers incidentally discovered the bodies after snow in the mountains began to melt in spring, revealing the fate of the most unfortunate among tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers who try to cross from Iran to Turkey each year in the hope of reaching Europe. The photos were taken by lawyer Mahmut Kacan, executive board member of the Van Bar Association in charge of migration and asylum issues, whom the villagers alerted about the bodies.
#Covid-19#Turquie#Réfugiés-iraniens#Iran#Passeur#Van#migrant#migration
▻https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/07/turkey-iran-syria-human-trafficking-deadly-incidents-in-van.html
Destructions à Marseille : quelle différence avec l’ancienne municipalité ?
▻https://www.latribunedelart.com/destructions-a-marseille-quelle-difference-avec-l-ancienne-municipa
Il y a trois semaines, nous nous sommes rendu à Marseille afin d’enquêter sur l’effondrement de la rue d’Aubagne et les destructions prévues. Nous avons alors découvert, ce que nous ignorions, l’ampleur du problème qui ne se limite pas à la rue d’Aubagne, mais concerne plusieurs quartiers faisant pourtant partie de sites patrimoniaux remarquables, le nouveau nom des secteurs sauvegardés.
Finalement, ce changement de nom avait un sens. S’ils sont remarquables, ils ne sont plus sauvegardés. Car entre temps, la loi Elan, voulue par Emmanuel Macron et Édouard Philippe, a été votée et promulguée. Et celle-ci a eu les effets qu’on pouvait redouter : il suffit de décréter en péril des immeubles se trouvant en secteur sauvegardé pour que l’on puisse les détruire, quel que soit l’avis de l’architecte des bâtiments de France. Un exemple saisissant est donné actuellement à Marseille, un exemple que nous avions prévu de citer dans un article plus développé mais qui devenait urgent à écrire puisque la destruction définitive est prévue demain, le 9 juillet 2020.
Si le maire et la couleur politique ont changé, les pratiques demeurent hélas. La nouvelle municipalité - nous avons contacté en urgence le premier adjoint, Benoît Payan, qui ne nous a pas répondu - est bien dans la ligne marseillaise : de Gaston Defferre à Jean-Claude Gaudin, ses maires n’ont jamais considéré le patrimoine comme une priorité (c’est un euphémisme de le dire).
Les maisons en question se trouvent à proximité immédiate de la porte d’Aix (ill. 1), ce qui aurait dû les protéger à un double titre. Remarquons que pour nous, qui avons connu ce quartier il y a de nombreuses années, la mairie avait pourtant fait beaucoup pour restaurer, nettoyer et embellir l’endroit qui n’était alors qu’un no man’s land absolument infréquentable (il était pratiquement impossible de s’approcher de l’arc sous lequel était un véritable cloaque). Pourquoi, dans ces conditions, détruire ces immeubles anciens qui ont un véritable intérêt, reconnu comme tel par le Plan de Sauvegarde et de Mise en Valeur ? On se perd en conjecture. Car contrairement à ce que prétend la ville, ces immeubles, fragilisés par des démolitions d’édifices qui les entouraient (et qui n’avaient pas d’intérêt patrimonial), menés dans le cadre du projet Euroméditerranée, sont parfaitement restaurables. Si l’on trouve toujours des experts complaisants pour justifier l’injustifiable, d’autres expertises, notamment celles demandées par la copropriété du n° 6 (le jaune, qui se trouve entre les deux autres) le démontrent. L’une d’entre elle conclut sans ambiguïté : « Nous engageons notre responsabilité à dire que ce bâtiment ne présente aucun risque d’effondrement à ce jour. Tous les éléments analysés ne peuvent démontrer un défaut grave de la structure extérieur. Les façades fissurées ont suscité une présomption de dégradation structurelle qui est malgré tout minime grâce au travaux de renforcement de plancher réaliser les années précédentes. » Il explique ensuite ce qu’il faut faire pour consolider l’immeuble.
D’ailleurs, le soi-disant risque « imminent » d’effondrement n’était pas si imminent, puisqu’il était constaté il y a presque un an. Les bâtiments étant évacués, et leurs abords sécurisés, rien ne justifie donc leur démolition plutôt que leur restauration. On apprend d’ailleurs, en lisant l’arrêté de « déconstruction », que l’on trouve en ligne (toujours ce terme ridicule employé par des mairies car cela fait sans doute plus joli que « destruction » ou « démolition »), que l’architecte des bâtiments de France s’est opposé à ce vandalisme en préconisant : « la préservation des façades des immeubles sis 4, 6 et 8 rue de la Butte et la conservation et réemplois de tout élément de pierre taille ou de second œuvre récupérable (porte d’entrée par exemple). » Un avis simple désormais, pour lequel la Ville peut passer outre, ce qu’elle ne s’est pas privée de faire. Cela démontre parfaitement qu’une autre solution que la destruction est possible, et que celle-ci n’est rien d’autre qu’un vandalisme municipal, sur une zone d’intérêt patrimonial majeur, qui ne peut être mené que grâce à cette loi Elan. Emmanuel Macron et son ancien Premier ministre Édouard Philippe sont bien les premiers responsables.
Même si la destruction était prévue avant les élections municipales, rien n’interdisait la mairie récemment élue de poser un moratoire sur ce chantier afin d’y substituer une réhabilitation. Rien, d’ailleurs, ne s’y oppose encore, à l’heure où nous écrivons cet article, l’irrémédiable n’étant pas encore accompli (ill. 3). Nous ne sommes d’ailleurs pas seul dans ce combat. L’association Sites & Monuments nous a prévenu (voir son article), et Stéphane Bern, que nous avons joint, est également scandalisé par ces démolitions en cours : « c’est le cœur historique de Marseille qu’on détruit avec ces maisons du XVIIIe siècle. Maintenant, quand on veut détruire, on n’entretient plus et on dit qu’elles vont tomber. » Ceci est d’autant plus vrai que d’autres démolitions sont prévues dans les prochaines semaines ou les prochains mois, ailleurs dans Marseille, mais tout autant dans des secteurs sauvegardés. Aux 76-80 rue Bernard du Bois, pas très loin non plus de la porte d’Aix, mais plus à l’est, plusieurs maisons, des propriétés municipales et à l’abandon depuis plusieurs années, sont également gravement menacées, sans doute de manière « imminente », l’état de péril datant de 2014 (ill. 4 et 5). Comme le dit Stéphane Bern : on n’entretient plus, on décrète un péril, et on démolit. Tout cela est bien pratique.
Et il y a bien sûr aussi la rue d’Aubagne (ill. 6) où, après avoir laissé s’écrouler deux immeubles avec les conséquences humaines que l’on connaît (huit morts), on s’apprête encore à en détruire deux autres, les numéros 69 et 71. Or, une consultation du plan de sauvegarde (ill. 7) et une comparaison avec Google Map pour y situer les numéros montre quelque chose de très curieux [1] : l’arrêté de déconstruction des n° 69 et 71 ne cite à aucun moment l’avis de l’architecte des bâtiments de France, alors que le numéro 71 est à conserver [2]. Or, si celui-ci, en cas de péril, est désormais un avis simple, il reste qu’il doit être demandé. Tel qu’il est rédigé, cet arrêté est donc irrégulier. Mais qu’importe après tout : on est à Marseille, et le maire est Jean-Claude Gaudin. Ah non ? C’est désormais Michèle Rubirola. Aucune différence semble-t’il.
Didier Rykner
Notes
[1] Note parue après la mise en ligne de notre article : nous avions dans un premier temps confondu le 69 avec le 67. Or, le 67 a été détruit juste après l’effondrement.
[2] Remarquons par parenthèse que la pertinence de certains Plans de sauvegarde n’est pas évidente : pourquoi indiquer comme à conserver le n° 71 et pas le 69 qui est comparable ?
#Marseille #patrimoine #destruction #sauvegarde #immobilier #vandalisme #benoît_payan #Euroméditerranée #destruction #démolition #loi_elan #Michèle_Rubirola #secteurs_patrimoniaux_remarquables #Patrimoine_remarquable #Ville
Les situationnistes et l’économie cannibale
François Bott
▻https://lavoiedujaguar.net/Les-situationnistes-et-l-economie-cannibale
Au début de l’année 1968, un critique, traitant de la théorie situationniste, évoquait, en se moquant, une « petite lueur qui se promène vaguement de Copenhague à New York ». Hélas, la petite lueur est devenue, la même année, un incendie, qui a surgi dans toutes les citadelles du vieux monde. À Paris, à Prague, à Rome, à Mexico et ailleurs, la flambée a ressuscité la poésie, la passion de la vie dans un monde de fantômes. Et beaucoup de ceux qui, alors, ont refusé le sort qui leur était fait, la mort sournoise qui leur était infligée tous les matins de la vie, beaucoup de ceux-là — jeunes ouvriers, jeunes délinquants, étudiants, intellectuels — étaient situationnistes sans le savoir ou le sachant à peine.
Une fois le feu apparemment éteint, les sociologues et autres futurologues d’État se sont efforcés, comme on exorcise une grande peur, de rechercher les origines du printemps 1968. Ils n’ont récolté que des miettes de vérité, autrement dit des parcelles de mensonge. N’importe quel blouson noir rebelle en savait beaucoup plus sur la révolution de mai. Les distingués penseurs n’ont pas songé à se référer aux écrits de l’Internationale situationniste, que ce soit la revue ainsi intitulée — dont le premier numéro date de 1958 — ou les essais de Debord et Vaneigem. (...)
#situationnistes #économie #Mai68 #Debord #Vaneigem #spectacle #réification #capitalisme #urbanisme #Lautréamont #Fourier #Marx #poésie
