By Thomas MacGowan
who attended as a representative of Committee to
Defend Asylum Seekers and Barbed Wire Britain.
The No Borders Camp held last week in Strasbourg was an opportunity for campaigning groups from across Europe to meet, demonstrate and to share ideas, and some two thousand five hundred activists took part.
The camp was held in Strasbourg to oppose the Schengen Information System - a computer system that establishes the building of Fortress Europe. It is the gathering of a massive database through which governments and security services can share information about people passing through 'Schengen territory' which until now Britain was not a part of.
'Schengenland' stretches from the eastern borders of the EU, the Polish and Czech Borders to the East and to Morocco in the South. The premise for the system is to fight terrorism but actually 90% of the information on the database relates to refugees hoping to find a safe haven from persecution and war or people we call 'economic migrants' who come in order to be able to feed their families at home. The Schengen information system is at the centre of the war on refugees and asylum seekers.
Britain relies on information on this database in order to abnegate itself from responsibility for refugees who cross Europe overland to get to England. The 'third country' rule of the Dublin Convention is invoked to send people back to countries through which they have passed. This means that politicians and most of the media are willing to call perfectly genuine refugees 'bogus'. Few people for example know that the rate of rejection for asylum seekers is as high as 95% in France, that state support is almost non-existent or that they have been sending Afghans back into the war for the last month which indicates the fate of Afghan refugees in Sangatte (54% of the total).
The camp in Strasbourg aimed to educate campaigners to the true cost that the strict immigration policies being adopted throughout Europe have on the lives of the refugees. From the residenzfleich in Germany where refugees are restricted to an area no further than 30kms from wherever they are placed; if they are found outside that area they have to pay for the cost of being deported back, it also affects their claim to asylum and they are imprisoned if they cannot pay.
All asylum seekers are forbidden to work and have to survive on a pittance, often they are prey to racist attacks and are placed in remote areas. The emphasis of the Monday demonstration was to raise the issue of Freedom of Movement for all - as a Human Right.
Twelve hundred people marched on the European Court of Human rights. A delegation to the court was turned back and this caused some resentment, especially as it had been formally arranged. The Police kept a low profile at this demonstration. Several actions took place including a theatre group 'wiping borders' away, which entailed bravely wiping the guns and boots and barricades of the bemused Policemen standing guard.
The camp included the presentation of the situation in Seville University where three hundred sacked migrant workers have been barricaded in for two months demanding papers and to be regularised. It showed the similarities of the struggles of migrant workers and 'marginal' and 'casualised' workers whose rights are being eroded by legislation across Europe and showed the scope for the recognition that all our struggles are the same.
There was a presentation of the struggles against detention. Two activists from Woomera who had assisted with the breakout there presented a video that was made which shows how the breakout happened as well as the shocking conditions of the caging of refugees in the Australian desert. The video of the breakout is a must-see for anyone who wants to know about the conditions that refugees are held in Australia. (available from The Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers).
Nearer home, another video showed activists dismantling a new, un-opened deportation prison (removals centre) in Bologna. It shows the courage of activists in the face of massive repression by the Italian police which successfully delayed the opening of the centre.
A protest against the Detention Centre in Strasbourg was scheduled for Wednesday. The Detention Centre itself was evacuated because of the camp so the demo was redirected against the Strasbourg Palais de Justice, which sentences so many refugees to deportation. The Police presence was very high that day and as the demo turned to make its way home the Police made an assault on its rear, firing tear gas. Some demonstrators responded by throwing stones. The Police then managed to split the demo. Some found themselves trapped as Police attacked with a baton charge and began firing baton rounds into the crowd leaving at least one person seriously injured. The following day the news came that Chirac had banned any further demonstrations coming from the camp, and vindicated the Police's right to use plastic bullets for the first time since the 60's.
This stifled the possibility of further major demonstrations, but there were a lot more smaller actions including a mock 'slave auction' and a tourist boat on the central canal was 'taken over' by demonstrators. Police repression served to stimulate the collective imagination of the protesters!
The protest camp served as an opportunity for campaigners and activists to build solidarity and support for one another's campaigns in the future. For the Committee to Defend asylum seekers and Barbed Wire Britain it was a chance to promote the work being done in Britain and to build international support for the defence of the people attempting to cross borders in Europe in order to find safe havens.
The defence of refugees in Sangatte Red Cross camp, which is facing closure by British and French governments, was promoted as an important component of this struggle. A spokesperson for the CDAS said "you do not solve the problem of homelessness by closing the shelter, refugees will continue to come as they are driven by the human instinct to survive and they will go where there is work to enable that."
A large demo and actions against the deportation and detention of refugees are planned outside the Dover Removal Centre on Saturday October 19. There will be a delegation to Sangatte to oppose its closure and to oppose the expansion of the deportation prison next to it, at La Coquelles.
October 14th-19th will see a week of demonstrations across Europe which commemorate the anniversary of the Tampere Summit which legislated the beginning of the building of Fortress Europe and the Schengen Information System. We aim to make the defence of the refugees who are trapped on the north coast of France the focus of this week.