Kompass-newsletter No. 123 - 04/2024

26-28 April in Frankfurt: We`ll Come United conference +++ 10 April in Brussels: No to the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum +++ 13 April in Valetta: Human Rights Defenders Award for El Hiblu 3 +++ 19 April in Trapani: Decision in the Iuventa proceedings +++ Italy: Tighter detention of rescue ships +++ Echoes no. 11- No Borders, no Problem +++ Info on the Egypt deal +++ On the situation in the English Channel +++ Outlook: 8 June and 25 August: Demonstrations against the right; 21.8. to 25.8.: We`ll Come United-Summercamp in Thuringia

DEAR FRIENDS.

We`ll Come United - now more than ever! The preparations for the conference in Frankfurt at the end of April are in full swing and the provisional programme has been published. The opening event will be dedicated to current struggles against the EU border regime. This will be followed by over 30 working groups on a variety of anti-racist campaigns and fields of resistance as well as developments in several main countries of origin. A second panel will address the background to flight and migration and a final plenary session will summarise what has been discussed and developed in the previous days. If you are interested in taking part in a „many-voiced and transnational space for exchange and empowerment in everyday struggles and for concrete strategies and mobilisations in 2024", please register!

From Frankfurt to Cairo: "The EU has signed another deal with a North African country to stem illegal migration; this time with Egypt. The economically hard-hit country is to receive around 7.4 billion euros from the European Union...In addition to von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis were received in Cairo by Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi..." These were the headlines in mid-March about the „EU cabinet of horrors" joint visit to the North African country, which is considered to be an "increased danger zone" in view of higher refugee and transit migration figures in 2023. After Libya and Tunisia, this is the next dictator deal to complete the increasingly aggressive EU externalisation policy.

From Cairo to the central Mediterranean: the consequences of the Piantedosi Decree, named after the Italian Minister of the Interior, are becoming increasingly aggressive and "crazy". Several civilian rescue ships have now been openly arrested on the brazen accusation that they "did not follow the instructions of the so-called Libyan coastguard". While even Italy's highest court of appeal once again confirmed in a judgement in February 2024 that push-backs to Libya are illegal under international law, the Meloni government is trying to block sea rescues with all administrative means at its disposal. Quoting the new issue of Echoes: "They (the government officials) know that they will lose on a legal level. But they are trying to buy time, or to put it more clearly: to weaponise time. A policy of deterrence that is causing more people to drown or be pushed back while fleeing. It is therefore all the more important that solidarity with and between those involved in the civil fleet remains strong!"

With this in mind, with solidarity greetings,

the Kompass Crew